“You can’t put a price on justice,” former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld once famously said.
But Pima County, and governments like it, have to put a price on justice every year about this time when they set budgets, and the price is huge: $267 million next year, which is roughly 24 percent of all county spending.
Arrests are made, people are prosecuted and many are sent to jail or prison — all functions vital to a civil society, but they cost taxpayers more than any other government service, and they continue to grow.
Although the overall county budget is virtually the same as it was 10 years ago, that $267 million total for all justice and law enforcement needs is 42 percent more than those same departments spent a decade ago.
For some people, however, contact with the justice system isn’t just punishment and retribution.
“They saved my life,” said Ray Kastner.
Kastner, 23, struggled with addiction, using meth and heroin, and getting arrested numerous times.
After his last arrest, Kastner spent more than four months in jail while his case played out. “I was going to prison, regardless,” he said.
But then he learned from another inmate about a program offering drug treatment instead of incarceration.
The Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison program is a grant-funded initiative of the Pima County Attorney’s Office that allows people charged with drug offenses to enter into treatment followed by intensive probation.
Participants can avoid prosecution and the possibility of doing time in prison, where treatment options are limited.
After he got out of jail, Kastner spent time in rehab learning to shake his addiction and picking up life skills.
The treatment program provided food, clothing and even a bicycle for him.
Now, two years out of the program, Kastner works a job in manufacturing and hasn’t gone back to drugs.
The treatment program has seen a lot of success, with participants having much lower recidivism rates than traditional prosecution and incarceration.
“They’re not only ceasing to be a drain on the community, but starting to contribute,” said Chief Deputy Pima County Attorney Amelia Craig Cramer.
The program has an overall cost benefit as well, Cramer said.
While the average stay in state prison costs taxpayers $36,000 per person, the treatment program averages about $15,000 per year.
“The DTAP program is actually saving the state money,” she said.
The treatment program has limited availability, however, and is able to accept just 60 participants annually.
The number of felony cases filed in Pima County Superior Court for fiscal 2014, the most recent complete year’s data available, exceeds 6,000. Of those, more than a quarter can be drug-related.
County courts offer numerous diversion programs, many through Pima County Juvenile Court.
Programs such as Domestic Violence Alternative Center, Youth Recovery Court and mediation programs have been credited with helping decrease youth crime, while the Family Drug Court helps drug-addicted parents who have had their children removed from their care stop abusing substances and reclaim their kids.
But the programs have costs, even if in the long run they can end up saving taxpayers money.
Court officials have said some of the programs face funding cuts as a result of state cost shifts.
“Without the funding for these programs as well as the mandated services the court must provide, we will lose ground and drive up costs,” Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Kathleen Quigley told County Supervisors at their May 19 board meeting.
Superior Court Presiding Judge Sarah Simmons also told supervisors that funding issues could put at risk programs known to reduce recidivism. “If we’re forced to cut pretrial services, that work could all be in vain,” she said.
Pretrial services is not a mandated court service but in allowing adult defendants to remain out of jail under supervision if they are deemed low risk, it has been credited with saving money and helping offenders.
Simmons said the daily costs of the program per defendant can be as little as $3, versus hundreds of dollars per day at the jail.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said he plans to meet with court officials to discuss their budget concerns and try to preserve as many of the programs as possible.
The biggest bite out of the criminal justice budget is at the front end of the process — law enforcement, where the crooks get caught and start ringing up costs as they work their way through the system.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has a recommended budget for fiscal 2016 of more than $143 million, an increase of more than $6 million over the current budget.
The department’s 1,500-person workforce is generally divided in thirds, with 500 sworn deputies, 500 corrections officers and 500 civilian employees.
A major portion of the sheriff’s budget goes to combined adult and juvenile detention facility functions, which cost nearly $70 million annually.
In addition to hundreds of employees working the jails on a daily basis, the facilities have enormous operational needs.
Food costs alone can reach more than $2 million annually when the adult detention center must feed more than 2,000 people three meals a day every day.
As an example of how big the food needs are, the County Supervisors recently approved a one-year contract for milk and other dairy products at the jail.
The contract totaled nearly $350,000 for the year, and included delivery of 1.5 million half-pint cartons of 1 percent milk among other dairy products for an average daily jail population of more than 2,000.
The Superior Court budget is projected to be more than $29 million in 2016. Juvenile court’s budget is $22.6 million and justice courts will run more than $7 million in fiscal 2016.
The county attorney’s budget will likely exceed $22.4 million, while indigent defense services are more than $20 million.
Whatever the costs, few people leave the criminal justice system better off than when they went in.
In that way, Kastner is a rare exception.
“I think if I went to prison it would have gotten a lot worse for me,” he said. “They did a lot for me.”
