Crime doesn't pay; why should law enforcement?

Dear Gov. Parnell,

We suspect you're disappointed that legislators didn't listen to you about following the budget advice you gave them. Good luck trying to make their budget square with your original ideas about the state's spending as you deliberate signing it. As we're writing this, you're still working on that. We don't envy you; it must be tough, for instance, to consider telling the children of Chinook Elementary they can't have $2,500 for new snowshoes.

Luckily for you and those kids, that budget item doesn't seem controversial. Apparently most Alaskans are OK with Anchorage teams collectively dominating the Fur Rendezvous snowshoe softball tournament for generations to come.

We're sure you know it, but one particular item in the budget is very controversial: The proposed $75.8 million to fund most of a new statewide crime lab. We're concerned that there's such controversy because, according to your administration and the crime lab's current staff, the state needs a new crime lab way more urgently than suburban Anchorage kids need snowshoes.

The manager of the current crime lab, whom we're inclined to believe, told KTVA that the cramped, backlogged facilities he and his staff work in are helping Alaska's criminals get away with murders, rapes and burglaries.

Because of the limited space and capacity, the Department of Law is being forced to prioritize which evidence gets processed first, and according to one report, it's leading to more and more "cold cases." We suspect you might feel the same, but phrases like "high-priority murder," "medium-priority rape" or "low-priority appeal" make The Concerned really, really sad.

But as at least one critic of the proposed design has recently argued, feelings don't pay the bills.

Some opponents of the proposal agree that the current lab needs at least some sort of additional capacity, which we were happy to learn. At first we just thought anyone who disagrees with building a new crime lab probably just wants to get away with a low-priority crime or two. Good thing that's probably not true.

At any rate, other critics charge that the new lab's plan is far too costly to build and maintain. They allege the design will result in an overbuilt lab, one with way more capacity than current trends indicate the state will eventually need.

We got extra concerned when we heard that because it totally reminded us of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. If the new crime lab gets built according to the current plan, it lab will have all the capacity it needs to process the Prudhoe-sized backlog of evidence it has right now and at the same time develop future sources of justice. But over time, that backlog will diminish, maybe even disappear altogether, and then the lab will be half-full and sluggish, requiring way more energy to keep evidence flowing through it.

Some critics also say that the crime lab's proposed design is full of unnecessary frills. A former crime lab director who wrote you a letter saying so told KTUU, "In my opinion, put the money into functionality rather than aesthetics." At particular issue are expensive stone construction materials, glass-enclosed staircases, landscaping and picnic tables.

All well and good, but have you seen the artist's rendition of the blueprints? We're no art historians, but that thing practically makes Bauhaus look like Late Baroque. To our eyes, it's a masterful example of Southcentral Neo-Gulag, clearly at the vanguard of the movement.