As they walked along the busy, yellow-lit tiers of offices, Anderton said: “You’re acquainted with the theory of precrime, of course.  I presume we can take that for granted.”

“I have the information publicly available,” Witwer replied. “With the aid of your precog mutants, you’ve boldly and successfully abolished the postcrime punitive system of jails and fines.  As we all realize, punishment was never much of a deterrent, and could scarcely have afforded comfort to a victim already dead.” (Philip K. Dick, The Minority Report (1956).)

The story continues:

They had come to the descent lift.  As it carried them swiftly downward, Anderton said: “You’ve probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback to precrime methodology.  We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law.”

“But they surely will,” Witwer affirmed with conviction.

“Happily, they don’t —because we get them first, before they can commit an act of violence.  So the commission of the crime itself is absolute metaphysics.  We claim they’re culpable.  They, on the other hand, eternally claim they’re innocent.  And, in a sense, they are innocent.”

The lift let them out, and they again paced down a yellow corridor.  “In our society we have no major crimes,” Anderton went on, “but we do have a detention camp full of would-be criminals.”  (Dick, supra.)

The major front page story in Wednesday’s edition of the Fresno Bee, was titled “Revolving door: Inmates released early are committing new crimes.”  As the online version’s title of this completely non-sensationalistic anti-example of yellow journalism notes, one  in five Fresno Co. inmates freed early are jailed again for committing “new crimes.”  The story’s first sentence trumpets a contemporary meme by noting that these new crimes include “murder and assault.”

Fear doesn’t just sell war; it’s good for newspapers, too.

With Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer to succinctly state the theme, the Bee article joins a growing chorus of those warning us of the dangers of thinking clearly:

There’s no doubt in my mind that as more people are released early, more people are going to commit crime, and the crime rate is going to go up, not just in Fresno but throughout Fresno County. (Brad Branan, “Revolving door: Inmates released early are committing new crimes” (September 9, 2009) A1, A11, col. 3.)

As I said, fear sells newspapers.  And nobody knows fear like the yellow-journalism writers of The Fresno Bee The Fresno Police-Gazette.

But buried within the story pushing this meme is a minority report.  One in five released will commit “new crimes.” In other words, four in five will not commit “new crimes.”  Additionally, in an absolutely stunning statement (coming, as it did, from Fresno County’s top law enforcement official), Sheriff Mims stated that there were among this group people “who sometimes are innocent.”  (Branan, supra, at A11, col.4.)

Moreover, a significant number — almost half — of re-arrests are for probation violations.

Typically, a probation violation occurs when the individual released from jail returns home, where he naturally ends up standing on his lawn, or on the street, talking to some friends, or playing basketball.  Often, those friends have been “identified” by the police as gang members.  Even when they aren’t gang members. Hanging around with “known” gang members is a probation violation.

Or maybe the individual probationer misses the bus and is late for or doesn’t make it to an appointment with his probation officer, or commits some other heinous crime like failing to complete community service as ordered, or failing to pay a fine.

So, okay.  Let’s go ahead and spend the extra money and send the probation violators back to jail.  After all, they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, right?

But what about those four out five?  That other eighty percent of people who “have broken no (new) law”?  You can’t, like Witwer, affirm with conviction, “But they surely will.”  Keeping one-hundred percent of people in jails and prisons for a longer period of time just because some of them will commit “new crimes” — according to the Bee story one out of every five people — costs a lot of money.

Not that Fresno County, or the State of California, is short on money or anything.

“But wait!,” the fear-mongers cry.  “The public safety is just too vital an interest to take that chance!  Sure, it’s going to cost money, but we simply can’t risk the chance that once-in-a-while one of these people might commit a murder!  We have to keep them all locked up!”

Like Dick’s short story, yesterday’s edition of The Fresno Bee actually contained two minority reports.  Turn to page A3.  Read the story you didn’t know was connected to the money spent locking up people who likely will break no new law: “Domestic-violence centers set to close.”

What was that you were saying about safety?

Isn’t it time we got smart about crime?

Sadly, that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon.  Thanks to the fear-mongers, like Jerry Dyer (and police and correctional officer union lobbyists), whose primary aim is to sell law enforcement, and people whose primary aim is to sell paper, like The Fresno Bee, our society may have a few less actual criminals on the street, but we’re paying through the nose to ensure we do have jails and prisons full of would-be criminals.

If worms carried shotguns, robins wouldn’t eat them.

Not infrequently, as a child engaged in excessive contingency planning, I found this response nothing short of irritating.  As a rational adult attorney, I have found myself quoting this maxim with some regularity.

A bold headline on page B1 of the Fresno Bee today states that a 10-year-old boy is being held in the shooting death of his father.  As a criminal defense attorney increasingly practicing juvenile defense in the Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties of central California, the story naturally caught my attention.

The story itself is — I’m quite sad to say — mundane, bordering even on the banal.  American culture these days virtually requires that children, from at least the frequently stressed and overworked middle-class on down, raise themselves with little to no parental guidance.  Our young are no longer inculcated with whatever values naturally-individualistic Americans might have that would encourage respect for others, even parents.  The sort of internal controls necessary for society building are increasingly absent.

Not surprisingly, it has become normal for children — who lack the maturity to make rational decisions when it comes to restrictions on their behaviors anyway — to shoot people, including their parents, who get in the way of their perceived unbridled right to do as they want, when they want, how they want.  Hell, it’s become normal for adult Americans to behave this way.  Just last week, another driver, irritated because he had to speed up to merge in front of me (in other words, irritated because I followed the traffic laws of the State of California and expected him to either speed up or slow down as necessary to safely merge), expressed his irritation by throwing what appeared to be a large beer bottle at me on the freeway.

But I digress.

Another story in today’s Fresno Bee discusses a case that is currently riling the “we’re too soft on crime” crowd.  Forget that California’s prisons are grossly overcrowded, requiring federal judges to order the release large numbers of prisoners to leave enough breathing room for those who remain.  Forget that our laws are already among the most draconian in the nation and that therefore California leads the pack — competing even with other countries for the lead — in locking up its citizens.  Forget that most of the laws do not and cannot actually achieve their desired goal.  Forget that all this is the primary reason California is going broke and unable to fund important social programs (like schools).  A “parolee” and registered sex offender is in the news accused of kidnapping an 11-year-old girl and holding her hostage for 18 years.

This is a hard case.  Unsurprisingly, it appears set to help create bad law — or at least prevent the passage of good law.  Comes the cry from Repugnicans, this case is proof that our laws are too lenient.  We need tougher laws than those already bankrupting California.  We should not be letting prisoners out early.  We need to lock people up longer.  Hell, if you commit a crime — Repugnicans don’t seem to care how trivial — you should never get out of prison.  Ever. As in “E-V-E-R” for the rest of your natural life.  The Taliban got nothin’ on California Repugnicans.

If we let someone out early, and that man commits a crime, the Assembly members are worried that will come back to haunt them like the old famous Willie Horton ads.  (Quote from “a prominent state politician” in Carol Pogash and Solomon Moore, “Prisoners may be affected” (August 31, 2009) The Fresno Bee, p. A8, col. 1.)

Yet anecdotal evidence that some few criminals may commit such heinous crimes derails the debate on the humane treatment of prisoners in California through the early release of low-risk offenders.  As Scott Kernan, a deputy secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation notes,

a man who had committed crimes like those that sent [Phillip] Garrido to prison initially would never have been released early from prison under the proposed law.

“The bill doesn’t reduce supervision on sex offenders,” Kernan said.  “It would affect nonviolent, low-risk, nonsex offenders.”  (Pogash and Moore, supra.)

But Californians, and Americans generally, are increasingly incapable of the level of sophisticated thinking — the level required to function effectively in life beyond the third grade — to process this information.  The Repugnicans considering laws that would safely reduce the inmate population in California are too much like the woman living next door to the 10-year-old, mentioned above, who shot his father:

Next-door neighbor Elaine Sanchez said they were “just regular neighbors that we used to say hi and bye to.”

Sanchez said her daughter played with the 6-year-old girl.

“We live just a few feet from them.  My little daughter likes to go out and ride her bike and now I keep thinking, ‘What if she had been hit, too?’”  (“10-year-old boy held in shooting death of his father” (August 31, 2009) The Fresno Bee, p. B1, cols 4-5.)

What if worms did carry shotguns?