If it came as good news that Spokane police will beef up downtown patrol levels to deal with what Chief Anne Kirkpatrick calls “quality of life crimes,” be prepared to curb your enthusiasm.

Law enforcement officers, after all, are only one component of the criminal justice system, and any gains they make in the fight against crime are only as enduring as the courts and corrections agencies and the Legislature allow them to be. That was demonstrated vividly this month when sheriff’s deputies charged a Spokane County woman with the same kind of identity theft activities that sent her to prison two years ago, supposedly until about 2010.

Stacey Lee Fetch, whose victimization of dozens of identify-theft victims earned her a prison sentence of almost six years, is now accused of more of the same. In a Nov. 2 raid at her home, police found computer and printing equipment that could have been used in making the bogus checks she is accused of cashing. They said they also found drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine – common companions of identify theft.

Fetch is only a suspect at this point, but she wouldn’t be if she had remained in prison. Instead, her prison sentence was cut short by two-thirds, thanks to state law that required it. The purpose of such enforced leniency? State lawmakers want to reduce prison overcrowding.

Any attempt at legislative frugality is welcome, of course, but citizens are entitled to wonder why public entities don’t coordinate their efforts better.

Prison capacity is a serious issue. The Department of Corrections maintains 15 facilities across the state, and 13 of them have inmate populations above their operational capacities. Systemwide, the population of more than 15,300 is 7.1 percent over capacity – and that doesn’t account for some 1,800 other inmates being housed in rented space in and out of the state.

Building new prisons costs hundreds of millions of dollars and touches off community conflicts over siting issues. Lawmakers clearly have an incentive to keep the numbers down.

But the taxpayers whose dollars such policies are designed to save also want to be secure from criminal conduct and see that lawbreakers are punished sufficiently. Moreover, they don’t want to save state tax dollars only to have to pay more to local governments to cover the costs of apprehending, jailing and prosecuting the same people over and over. Especially when so-called “property crimes” – included in Kirkpatrick’s quality-of-life category – often pose collateral consequences for public safety. In other words, meth – because of the harm it does to users and the risks its manufacture poses to anyone in the vicinity.

The safety-vs.-savings dilemma involved here is hardly the only example of public concerns being in conflict with each other. But in a democratic form of government, the people need to be participants in the search for a solution that is consistent and sensible. The public has a hard time playing that role when law enforcement, courts, corrections and lawmakers sing from different song sheets.