Bad Decision on Jail Fee
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There is moral obligation to keep thieves, burglars, sex offenders, drug users and other criminals off the streets that the Ventura County supervisors seem to be missing.
In voting to charge individual cities $121 for each prisoner booked into County Jail, they are putting a dollar value on the safety (or lack of) of the citizens of the county by allowing thousands of criminals to roam free.
Because of the expensive cost of booking prisoners into County Jail, city police departments will be forced to liberalize their guidelines on whom they release on a written promise to appear. Realistically, even those arrested with prior failures to appear on court proceedings will be released so that they can fail to appear again.
The county supervisors are naive to think these individuals are not out committing more crimes while awaiting trial.
If the county is having financial problems, they shouldn’t place the burden on cities whose police departments are actively trying to make their communities safer.
STEVEN N. BLANCHARD
Oxnard
Blanchard is vice president of the Oxnard Police Officers Assn.
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