THE ‘SAFE CALIFORNIA ACT’ IS ONE GIGANTIC CON JOB

The ‘Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act’ (SAFE California Act) will be on the November ballot in California after supporters gathered more than 504,000 signatures of Kookfornians who favor abolishing the death penalty. The initiative would replace death sentences with life in prison with no chance of parole.

The death penalty abolitionists assert that enactment of the SAFE California Act will save California’s taxpayers millions of dollars every year. That assertion is patently false!

In addition to abolishing the death penalty, SAFE California would require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution into a victim's compensation fund. And the act creates the SAFE California Fund, which takes $30 million a year for three years in budget savings to be used for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

Lifers working to pay restitution? What a joke! What kind of ‘high-paying’ jobs would be available to indigent lifers within the confines of a high security prison? None that would enable them to make any meaningful payments into the victim’s compensation fund. And what about those budget savings? They will turn out to be a pipe dream.

There is no question that capital puishment is costly. The biggest cost associated with the death penalty is what it costs to fight the endless appeals that are filed while a murderer sits on death row. The death row custodial costs are somewhat higher than those for the regular prison population. But as for those sentenced to life without parole, when you add up what it costs to keep them in prison for 20 or more years, it will cost more for a lifer than for an inmate awaiting execution. We’re still talking about millions of dollars to maintain those lifers.

The costs associated with the death penalty, when figured on a yearly basis for each individual person condemned to death, are a mere drop in the bucket of an annual state budget. Citing those costs as a good reason to abolish capital punishment is nothing more than one gigantic con job! Even the initiative title is a con job in and of itself. Unfortunately, the stupid voters are likely to pass the SAFE California Act initiative.