The assumption with Prop. 83, “Jessica’s Law,” was that it simply perpetuated the “Tough on Crime” myth that reactionaries have always rode to popularity. It turns out that Jessica’s Law also made a small group of contract psychologists rich for no discernible reason.
A 2006 law intended to crack down on sex offenders has proved a bonanza for a small group of private psychologists and psychiatrists, 14 of whom billed California taxpayers last year for a half a million dollars or more each, a Times investigation found.
Among the 79 contractors hired by the state to evaluate sex offenders, the top earner was Robert Owen, a Central Coast psychologist who pulled in more than $1.5 million in 2007, according to state records reviewed by The Times.
At issue is a provision in the law that mandated government-funded psychiatric evaluations for sex offenders, to determine whether or not they required hospitalization or instutionalization after their prison terms have been served. If this resulted in actual hospital commitments, perhaps there’d be a return on investment. But the $24 million state taxpayers have sunk into this just in 2007 has yielded nothing:
It’s unclear, however, what benefit the investment has yielded. There’s been a nearly ninefold increase in evaluations and a threefold increase in recommendations for hospital commitment. But the actual number of commitments has remained essentially the same — 41 in the 18 months before the law was passed, 42 in the 18 months afterward.
As the state confronts a budget shortfall of $15.2 billion, legislation to fund contractors to evaluate offenders through 2010 is expected to be voted on in the Assembly as soon as this week. Costs from Jessica’s Law are expected to rise to several hundred million dollars annually over the next eight years, with further increases thereafter, according to projections by California’s legislative analyst.
What a horrible boondoggle this thing has turned out to be, doing nothing to keep anyone safe, costing the state hundreds of millions, and violating all kinds of civil rights leading to ex-offenders sleeping under bridges (which makes them far more difficult to track). Prop. 83 is the poster child for why initiative campaigns have strayed far from their initial purpose as exercises in direct democracy, and why serious reform of the process is needed desperately.