Comments on: Sheriff’s Office ‘Clean Sweep’ Celebrates One Year; Century Is Next

By: 429SCJ

429SCJ — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:57:05 +0000

I think this is a good effort on the part of Sheriff Morgan and the Department. I do not know if we can accurately measure the effectiveness vs cost. What other solutions are there, exile, a .50BMG, bulldozers, you tell me? I know the predecessor and shooter all seem like a fading nightmare. Keep up the good work Sheriff Morgan, you have my vote.

By: DAGB

DAGB — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 01:21:15 +0000

Thom gunn ask why drug users are being sent to prison? I would guess because drugs are illegal, and if they are sent to prison for it I would also guess too that it wasn’t their first time breaking the law with illegal drugs. Just a guess!

By: thom gunn

thom gunn — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:42:11 +0000

@interested A better question would be why are drug users being sent to prison? They are non violent criminals and incarcerating them is just making out county go broke. Now i know that drug use can lead to vandalism and another of assorted crimes, but people who dont use drugs do them aswell, and those crimes should be punished the way they are, but drug users are not bad people and using drugs doesn’t mean your going to go and destroy things. Perhaps if we weren’t so focused on sending users to jail we could stop all of the murders and the like from happening. Our police force is underfunded but we spend 20k a year housing harmless pot head while people are out robbing banks.

By: Interested

Interested — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:47:41 +0000

The problem is not how much it costs us to prevent crime from escalating,
the problem is just how effective it really was then and now.
First all the Drug users were not picked up even in those areas that were
already cleaned, (some but not all).

Are the police and the sheriffs hands tied by the druggies who vandalize you
if you do anything to them. Why are known drug addicts still on the streets
everywhere? Why is drug use up in all our plants around here? Why is
anyone exempt from our laws, and why do our police turn a blinds eye?

By: Skeptical of Lasting Resuts

Skeptical of Lasting Resuts — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:21:02 +0000

How about a follow up on those communities those were first in this “Operation Clean Sweep” of a year ago with interviews of residents and photos of the before, during and now, so we can see if this is really making a difference. I’m a bit skeptical that this is nothing more than another nearing election dog and pony show being performed at taxpayer expense much like Operation Brownsville was.

How much does each one of these “operations” cost in the ripple effect among all of the agencies in additional man hours, equipment use and maintenance, fuel and other not so obvious expenditures like court and housing inmates for minor charges? Has anyone put a total price tag on what one of these operations really costs yet? Come fourth with the public records requests and dig into the true costs verses benefits of clean sweeps. If they prove to be an effective expenditure of funds, then keep them going. But I think you’ll find is nothing more than an expensive street cleaning operation where after a short time one couldn’t tell if it ever took place to begin with.

Here’s one example of costs: to dispose 364 tons of trash at $22. per ton would have cost the taxpayers more than $8,000. That’s a bit more than the $1,600 collected in fines.