Crime
Return to Common Sense
February 26, 2016
Section:
Domestic – Crime
“Swift, sure, and
blind justice has increased prison populations and consequently lowered crime
rates.”
“There's a simple
way to solve the crime problem: obey the law; punish those who do not.”
Rush Limbaugh.
Philosophy
(Background, Issues, Objectives):
There are four justifications for criminal sanctions
(punishment):
- Deterrence - seeks to make crime
more costly; deter from committing crime and criminals from recidivism.
- Incapacitation - removes the offender
from society; reducing crime is most important.
- Rehabilitation - assumes crime is
determined by social forces and not the decisions of criminals; criminals
must be retrained, not punished.
- Retribution (Just
deserts) - asserts
that punishments should be commensurate with the moral gravity of
offenses; level of punishment determined by seriousness of crime.
Restitution is associated with the civil
courts.
- Restitution is
based on restoring lost compensation.
Laws are selectively enforced.
- Speed limits are
perfect example of selective enforcement.
- Punishment is
inconsistent, geographically and economically.
- Higher class and
politicians are frequently given a pass on first criminal offense.
- Hate
Crime Law (HCL) recognize crimes against a specific gender, race,
nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender
identity, or disability.
o
All crimes are motivated by hate,
thus HCL gives extra attention to minority groups.
o
In 46 states, the homeless are not included in
the protected victim list.
o
“Thought police” seeks to
criminalize thought and non politically correct thinking.
o
Hate crimes establish unfair, two tiered justice
system, favoring one type of victim over others.
o
“Mental” (ex: hate) crimes increase
punishment, but not effective (hard to prove mental motivation).
o
Ironically, statistics show that penalty
enhancement is not a significant deterrent.
Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) allows judges to order highly
symptomatic and problematic individuals with serious mental illness to accept treatment
as a condition of living in the community.
- Even
more important, it allows judges to order the mental-health system to do
what it won’t do voluntarily: accept the most seriously ill into
their programs.
- AOT is
only for those who have a past history of needless arrests,
incarcerations, and hospitalizations.
- New
York made a marked impact on street crime among those enrolled:
o
Reduced
homelessness by 74%
o
Reduced
suicide attempts by 55%
o
Reduced
substance abuse by 48%
o
Reduced
hospitalizations by 77%
o
Reduced
arrests by 83%
o
Reduced
physical harm to others by 47%
o
Reduced
destruction of property by 46%
o
Reduced
incarcerations by 87%
- Similar
results occurred in California.
Capital punishment is criminal justice,
not revenge.
·
A society that honors the sanctity of life by
putting to death those who are destroyers of life is not murderous but Godly.
·
Number of executions has decreased since 1999.
·
Gallup poll found 69% of Americans favor the death
penalty.
·
States that reinstituted death penalty after 1976
collectively saw a significantly bigger drop in murder rates by 1998.
o
Studies found that each execution saved the lives
of about 15 to 18 potential murder victims.
o
75% studies by economists find that executions
reduce murder, accounting for 12% to 14% drop in murders.
Department of Justice statistics document
crime is skewed by race.
·
Between 1976 and 2005 blacks have been killing
other people 6-9 times higher than comparable homicide rates for whites and
Hispanics combined.
o
From 1976 to 2005 blacks committed more than 52% of
all murders in America.
·
Blacks constituted 39.3% of all violent crime
arrests, including 56.3% of all robberies.
·
In New York violent crime is 13 times more likely
to be perpetrated by a black than be a white.
·
In studies that consider all relevant variables, such as the
defendant’s prior criminal record, the severity of the crime in question,
the offender’s demeanor with police, whether a weapon was used, and
whether the crime in question was victim-precipitated, no differences have been
found in sentencing patterns, either in relation to the victim’s race or
the offender’s race.
o
In
1983, the liberal-leaning National Academy of Sciences found “no evidence
of a widespread systematic pattern of discrimination in sentencing.”
o
In
1985, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology concluded that a
disproportionate number of blacks were in prison not because of a double
standard of justice, but because of the disproportionate number of crimes they
committed.
o
In
1985, federal government statistician Patrick Langan
conducted an exhaustive study of black and white incarceration rates and found
that “even if racism [in sentencing] exists, it might help explain only a
small part of the gap between the 11 percent black representation in the United
States adult population and the now nearly 50 percent black representation
among persons entering state prisons each year in the United States.”
o
In
a 1987 review essay of the three most comprehensive books examining the role of
race in the American criminal-justice system, the journal Criminology
concluded that there was little evidence of anti-black discrimination.
o
A
1991 Rand Corporation study found that a defendant’s racial or ethnic
group affiliation bore little or no relationship to conviction rates; far more
important than race were such factors as the amount of evidence against the
defendant, and whether or not a credible eyewitness testified.
o
The
1991 Rand study also found almost no relation between a defendant’s race
or ethnicity and his or her likelihood of receiving a severe sentence.
o
A
1993 study by the National Academy of Sciences agreed that race had a
negligible effect on sentencing.
o
Also
in 1993, a study of federal sentencing guidelines found no evidence of racially
disparate punishments for perpetrators of similar offenses.
o
The
seriousness of the crime, the offender’s prior criminal record, and
whether weapons were used accounted for all the observed interracial variations
of prison sentences.
o
In
1995, Patrick Langan analyzed data on 42,500
defendants in America’s 75 largest counties and found “no evidence
that in the places where blacks in the United States have most of their
contacts with the justice system, that system treats them more harshly than
whites.”
o
A
1996 analysis of 55,000 big-city felony cases found that black defendants were
convicted at a lower rate than whites in 12 of the 14 federally designated
felony categories.
o
Liberal
criminologist Michael Tonry wrote in his 1996 book Malign
Neglect: “Racial differences in patterns of offending, not racial
bias by police and other officials, are the principal reason that such greater
proportions of blacks than whites are arrested, prosecuted, convicted and
imprisoned.”
o
In 1997, the
following year, liberal criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen concurred that “large racial differences in
criminal offending,” not racism, accounted for the fact that blacks were
likelier than whites to be in prison and serving longer terms.
·
This
finding is consistent with the overwhelming consensus of other recent studies,
most of which indicate that black defendants are slightly less likely to be
convicted of criminal charges against them that white defendants.
Criminal system over protects the
criminal.
- Profiling
criminals is a valid police approach for rapid apprehension.
- Evidence rules
impede law enforcement.
- Crime rate
decreased corresponding to increased incarceration.
- The one tactic
that has worked is swarming crime “hot spots” with cops,
forcing criminals to mind their manners.
U.S. has highest adult imprisonment rate
in the world.
- The United States now
has 5% of the world’s population, yet 25% of its prisoners.
o
Nearly
one in every 33 American adults is in some form of correctional control.
o
The
prison system now costs states more than $50 billion a year.
- In 2009, according to
the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 1,524,513 prisoners in state
and federal prisons.
o
When
local jails are included, the total climbs to 2,284,913 prisoners.
o
Nonviolent
offenders make up more than 60% of the prison and jail population.
o
Nonviolent
drug offenders now account for about one-fourth of all inmates, up from less
than 10% in 1980.
o
Expanded
incarceration accounts for about 25% of the drop in violent crime that began in
the mid-1990s.
o
State
correctional spending has quadrupled in the last two decades and now totals $52
billion a year, consuming one out of 14 general fund dollars.
- Prisoners
forfeit rights, such as voting, as condition of imprisonment.
- High percentage
of black males (1 in every 6) & Hispanic males (1 in every 13); White
males (1 in every 38).
o
In 2010 one in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail
o
In 2010 one in 36 Hispanic men is in prison or jail.
o
In 2010 one in 12 African-American men is in prison or jail.
o
More young (20-34) African-American men without a high school
diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26
percent).
- Women
incarceration rates recently doubled to 1.8% (compared to overall male
likelihood of 11.3%)
- Recidivism
remains high (2/3 rearrested within 3 years) for most crimes.
o
More
than 40% of ex-convicts return to prison within three years of release.
o
In
some states, recidivism rates are closer to 60%.
- In 2008, 18.4%
of all state prison inmates are drug offenders.
o
Texas reduced recidivism using drug
courts to emphasize treatment and probation over incarceration for first time
offenders
- Prison reform
focuses on prioritizing prison space for violent and dangerous offenders,
while strengthening cost-effective alternatives that hold nonviolent
offenders accountable.
o
Texas lowered crime rate by 25%, while lowering
incarceration rate.
o
New York prison population has fallen to lowest
rate since the 60’s, thanks in part to innovative policing strategies in
New York City.
Justice statistics divide crime into four
categories:
- violent (assault, robbery),
- property (theft, vandalism),
- public-order(prostitution,
gambling), and
- drug.
- Based
on “damage to the victim” these would play out, from least to
greatest, like this: public-order, drug, property, and violent.
Recidivism rates in America have been trending
upward, from around 63% in 1983 to around 77% now.
- Recidivism,
however, does not correlate with respect to victimization.
o
Property damage yields the highest rate of
re-arrest at 82%.
o
Drug offenders are at 77%,
o
Public-order offenders are at 74%, and
o
Violent criminals are at 71%.
- Of the
prisoners that were rearrested, 57% of their arrests occurred within the
first year of their release.
- Prior
to 1996, when Megan’s Law was passed (requiring every state to
register sex offenders), sex offender recidivism was around 25%.
o
The reason we treat sex offenders with such disdain
is based on the fact that (according to a 2012 report) 26% of sex offender
victims are age 12 – 14, and 34% are under the age of 9.
States are trying a dramatic shift on crime and punishment
policy, offering alternative punishments for non-violent offenders.
- Texas began to shift nonviolent offenders
from state prison into alternatives, by strengthening probation and parole
supervision and treatment.
o
Texas
was able to avert nearly $2 billion in projected corrections spending
increases.
o
The
state said no to building eight more prisons.
o
The
state’s crime rate is declining.
o
At
the same time, the state’s parole failures have dropped by 39%.
- South Carolina
and Mississippi have passed sentencing and corrections reform steering
lower-level offenders away from prison an reinvested some of the savings
realized from reduced corrections spending into substance abuse and mental
health treatment and other programs designed to cut re-offense rates.
o
South Carolina has seen sharp declines in crime.
o
Mississippi expects to save $266 million over the
next ten years which will be directed at drug courts and re-entry programs
intended to reduce recidivism.
Prisons are being used to recruit Islamic
terrorists.
- An estimated 2
million people are imprisoned in the U.S., 6% of them are Muslims.
- An estimated
9,000 prison inmates want Islamic services.
- Radical imams in
New York have espoused violent views, and war on non-Muslims.
Legalizing the possession and sale of
marijuana has been offered as a solution to the drug crime problem, but
benefits have not achieved and problems have increased.
- Marijuana is a gateway drug, the starter
drug of choice for most criminals, and can lead users to more dangerous
drugs.
- Justification for
legalization was increased revenue for states and decreased drug-related
crime.
o
Actual results were no increase in revenue,
increased crime, and additional medical costs.
o
In
Los Angeles, police report that areas surrounding cannabis clubs have
experienced a 200% increase in robberies, a 52.2% increase in burglaries, a
57.1% increase in aggravated assault, and a 130.8% increase in burglaries from
automobiles.
- Scientific literature is clear that
marijuana is addictive, its use significantly
impairs bodily and mental functions and is associated with cancer,
strokes, heart disease, birth defects, and a host of other serious medical
conditions.
- Studies show that teens who frequently
smoke marijuana are more likely to suffer a long-term drop in IQ.
Principles:
Laws can and do legislate morality.
- Judeo Christian
morality is basis for many laws.
- Victim justice
is ultimate goal.
Recommendations:
Enforce or repeal all federal, state and
local crimes, awarding uniform sentences.
- Repeal and remove archaic criminal laws from the books.
- Enforce swift and sure capital
punishment for most heinous crimes.
- Revoke “hate crimes” provisions as unneeded,
unenforceable thought control.
- Decriminalize
socially and economically productive conduct.
Return pendulum to favor victim rights
over criminal rights.
- Endorse “criminal
profiling” as valid law enforcement approach.
- Revoke driver’s license for repeat DWI offenders.
- Increase length of punishment for repeat offenders.
- Continue trend
of keeping violent criminals incarcerated.
- Provide some
form of restitution, as part of judgment, to the victim or victim’s
family.
Privatize prisons to outsource
incarceration services.
- Ensure crime is
punished and justice is served.
- Set federal,
state, and local incarceration standards and practices.
- Ensure
corrections funding is performance based (ex: reducing recidivism,
decrease in threat to public safety, etc.)
- Encourage
prisoner paid participation in free market enterprise ventures.
Return state and local laws primacy
on:
- Abortion
application.
- Drug enforcement.
o
States should establish drug courts for drug offenses,
emphasizing treatment for offenders and incarceration as leverage to ensure
compliance.
- Juvenile
delinquency.
- Gang activity.
- Drinking and
smoking age.
End DOJ law enforcement grants that
subsidize routine local law enforcement activities.
- End ineffective
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants.
- End ineffective
Youth PROMISE grants.
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