With TV cameras in tow, he filed the legislation. His Wikipedia page is dedicated to the crusade.

"We're basically going to make it illegal to possess or sell. Period," he told KSL-TV two years ago.

Twice, he has failed. But perhaps a third time . . .

No politician can resist making two campaign promises: cutting taxes and cracking down on crime. And Utah lawmakers - Democrats and Republicans - have no more willpower than the rest, enhancing penalties for existing crimes and creating new ones from thin air or, more likely, media reports.

Some enhancements are perfectly reasonable - ratcheting up punishments for child abusers, rapists, pet torturers. Others are marginal, at best - making it a crime to refuse to tell a police officer your name, wear unearned military medals or burglarize a railroad car.

In all, 17 crime and punishment bills passed this year, with an estimated annual cost of $2.2 million. Half of that price tag is dedicated to legislation that makes transporting, harboring or sheltering an undocumented worker for commercial gain a class A misdemeanor.

It seems lawmakers' efforts to burnish their marshal badges might have contributed to Salt Lake County's jail-and-bail crisis.

A Salt Lake Tribune report found the crunch at the jail has made petty criminals "frequent fliers." More than 10,000 have been arrested, taken to jail and released without spending any time behind bars, many repeatedly. And late last month, Sheriff Jim Winder essentially shortened the sentences of 14 inmates to relieve overcrowding.

"Harsher penalties, more penalties, enhanced penalties all are putting additional pressure on state and local governments to deal with those convicted," says Steve Erickson, with the Citizens Education Project, an advocacy group for social and economic justice. With more than one in 100 American adults behind bars, "We can't jail ourselves out of the problem."

Caught between their own conflicting conservative values - limited government spending and law and order - Republican County Council members finally scraped together $640,000 last week to reopen a 184-bed wing at the Oxbow Jail for drug treatment and vocational training.

Former judge Paul Cassell acknowledges enhanced penalties could lead to overcrowding. But punishment, he says, should not be dictated by space.

"We really shouldn't be letting an artificial constraint like the number of jail beds end up ultimately determining sentence by forcing early releases," Cassell says.

While hearing a drug case in 2004, Cassell lamented that his hands were tied by federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines that required a 55-year sentence. Still, the victim's rights advocate and University of Utah Law School professor says most enhancements deal with serious, prison-worthy crimes. And most sentences eventually are bartered down through plea bargaining. Cassell says enhancements don't automatically lead to longer sentences.

But at least one Republican County Councilman wonders if we're locking up the wrong people. David Wilde notes that some of those released early from the county jail were convicted of intoxication, driving on suspended licenses and failing to pay child support.

"I want a jail that is holding people who are dangerous people," Wilde says.

Dangerous, apparently, is in the eye of the lawmaker.

walsh@sltrib.com