States pull back after decades of get-tough laws
April 4th, 2009 . by TexasFredStates pull back after decades of get-tough laws
For the last four decades, the laws of the land were all about dropping the hammer on crime by locking away criminals for a very long time.
Some carried scary names like “Three Strikes and You’re Out,” as in cast out of society. The harshest penalties for drug offenders, the Rockefeller laws, were named after a New York governor battling a 1970s heroin epidemic.
Nearly half the country and the federal government have adopted some kind of hardcore laws, while “get tough on crime” became the mantra of politicians running for everything from the local city council to the president of the United States.
The public, too, was enamored. The laws promised to make life safer in increasingly unsafe times by putting away bad guys and hiding the keys for years - no more slaps on the wrist, no matter if the ultimate offense was having drugs in your pocket or stealing golf clubs.
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States pull back after decades of get-tough laws
You want to know what’s wrong with America? Well I am gonna tell you what I think is wrong with America.
We are being over-run by the most politically correct, bleeding heart, criminal loving moonbat libber pukes that this nation has ever seen. Apathy abounds. The bleeding hearts believe that criminals aren’t all that bad, they just made a few mistakes. They really want to do the right thing, we’re just not doing enough to help them achieve their full potential as responsible, contributing citizens. It’s ALL OUR FAULT. We need to lighten up and let them find themselves. No one is born bad. Right?
WRONG! There are people walking the streets of this nation that have NO business drawing breath. Our prison system really is a failure when you look at the overall picture and the so-called rehabilitation that was supposed to take place. There are habitual criminals, persons who only exist to commit crimes of varying degrees of severity. A life sentence is a joke, many end up making parole and are released on the citizens of this nation and many go right back to their criminal ways.
I am going to say this as plainly as I possibly can, the DEATH PENALTY works. Once the death penalty has been administered an habitual criminal becomes a statistic. It’s is a proven fact, the death penalty stops killers from ever killing again. Mass murderers kill no more once the death penalty has been administered.
So, why shouldn’t serious criminals, habitual criminals be punished the same way? They are a drag on the tax base of this nation. They contribute nothing to society and this world would be much better off without them. I am not talking about someone that commits a minor crime, a misdemeanor, unless said misdemeanors become habitual and increase in severity, I am talking about the habitual offender that commits felonies, multiple felonies. If these people don’t learn their lesson after the 1st time or 2, then here is where the REAL *3 strikes* rule comes into play. The 3rd time a person is convicted of a serious felony, execute them, they are obviously not learning their lesson and are beyond redemption.
If a prison stay truly works, if it can bring about the turnaround and rehabilitation of an offender, great, but if there is no obvious rehabilitation, and all we see is a continuance of their criminal ways, don’t mess around with them any more, *3 Strikes* and it’s a public execution, make an example of them, one so graphic that it serves as a serious learning tool if carried out on a regular basis for these types of people.
I am fed up with criminals, they prey upon the honest, hard working people of this nation. I am fed up with the bleeding heart justice system that runs them through a revolving door. I am fed up with our tax dollars being spent to keep these cretins alive, well fed, medically cared for and living long, healthy lives. We can save untold millions of tax dollars by placing a .32 behind the ear of these people and pulling the trigger. Why a .32 you ask? At that range it’s a sufficiently effective round and they are cheap to buy.
And as previously stated, it brings an abrupt end to their criminal activities. Permanently…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht7PmXGWW5w
This is what is wrong and these people should be FIRED! Immediately
Well, Fred….oddly enough…even before I got into your commentary on the subject, my immediate thought….death! Funny how that works, eh?
Yep! Habitual criminals….dead as a door nail. Oh sure, there are a few success cases….get in trouble, do their time, get out, and stay on the straight and narrow, but they seem to be few and far between.
Economy minded,, the 22 long rifle hollow point is MUCH cheaper, and when used thru a suppressor, it is super quiet.
To ease the pain, one could use a soft “ear muff” on the barrel end, so the coldness of the steel barrel didn’t upset the convict when you touched his/her temple.
Nice.
If you where to go through the archives of the internet, I have remained constant on at least one opinion.
And it is pretty simple, and here it is…..
Right now prison if three squares, warm in the winter, cool in the summer, TV and music to entertain, more or less free to have gang affiliations, congical visits and the like.
One of the gentlemen I work with has performed some mission work in the Huntsville correctional facility and says it is not easy in there, and I am sorry I can’t believe that, if it was not so easy, why do people so readily risk going back!
If I where king, prisons would have no TV’s or anything else other than classical music. Except for the worst offenders in solitary, they would farm, cook, clean, do laundry. Their only forms of entertainment would be sleep and reading. Education would be provided as long as the prisoner honestly pursues that education. Prisoners would find it virtually impossible to go anywhere and not be on a video camera. We now have the technology to keep every prisoners life video taped and documented. As well no smoking, and a prisoner will never be in the same room as a visitor.
Any guard caught bringing in contraband, or any other corruption will be placed in general population once convicted.
I would also create hotel prisons, where teenagers in school, and working “legal residents” adults can sleep and spent days off. No probation for drink driving or drug possession offenses, period. You get caught drunk drink driving you spend 250 hours in a prison, that time must be completed within 6 months, period, end of story, we will allow you to keep your job, direct contact with your family, but you will spent time in jail. And no ipods, no TV, no smoking, no or extremely limited phone calls, etc. You are fully searched every time you check in, and you will be randomly drug tested.
One thing for sure, in states with castle and carry laws, more criminals will be shot. And as crime increases, grand juries will be more likely, than now, to no-bill anyone defending themselves. Of course, sadly, Milhous will be doing everything he can to strip us from our ability to protect ourselves.
Tom
I definitely believe in the death penalty when it is appropriate. I believe good prisons are a noble use of taxpayers money, and how we’ve let the left get away with convincing the masses that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime…that like everything else these days make no sense.
We know that the death penalty deters reoffending - “offending” - what an offensive word to the people who have been victims.
Also the left has conned America into believing that it is cheaper to keep these ghastly criminals in prison for the rest of their lives, rather than putting them to death. This country is willingly mind-numbed by liberal rhetoric.
A kinder, gentler justice system is not what we need. It only makes the violent repeat criminals laugh.
7.62 is much cheaper than keeping them in prison. A pine box, six feet of dirt. Problem solved.
Don’t worry about the cost of a .45 round. Do as the Chinese do…make the criminal’s family purchase the ammo.
We are practically the only country left in the world that still has the death penalty (except for the barbaric countries like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China, etc.) and yet we still have the highest murder rate in the world, so although the death penalty works great at stopping serial killers, serial killers are not the people contributing to our high murder rate.
The reason we have a high murder rate is because our sentences are too draconian, no one wants to spend life in prison or be executed so to be safe they kill. What in the past was a simple rape and run, now becomes a rape and murder. What in the past might have been a simple fondling of a child, now becomes a molestation/murder.
So while executions may stop one criminal they do not deter others and evidence suggests they increase the murder rate. The very thing you are trying to lessen you make worse.
Certainly if someone killed my loved ones, I would want to see their skin removed with broken glass and boiling tar poured down their throats while their intestines are twirled with an egg beater, but that would only make me happy while making the rest of the country even more dangerous for others. Recall how difficult it was to capture the Japanese in WWII because they were told Americans would torture them and then kill them.
Take for example felony check fraud. 99.999999999% of these types of criminals do not presently kill their victims. But if we passed a law that said 3 felonies and you will be executed, then you can be sure that anyone testifying against them will be killed, just as most witnesses in drug-lord trials where the penalty is death get killed; which is why it’s hard to find witnesses in those cases.
Stomping on one cockroach and then another neither gets rid of your cockroach problem nor does it deter other cockroaches. As for possible solutions that actually lower the murder rate, there is no room in this comment and I will have to blog about it.
We’ve built more and more prisons and the US is #2 behind Russia in the amount of people in prison. And still crime is a major problem.
The death penalty is a slow cumbersome process that in most cases costs more than keeping the offender for life. I support the use of the death penalty, but something in its use has to be changed.
Then there is the problem of people who have been in prison 10-20 years before being freed through DNA tests. This is a horror that should not be visited on anyone who’s innocent.
IMO, the whole American system of justice is flawed from arrest right through trial, appeals, and punishment.
I don’t know what the answer is to all this, but I’m convinced that the system we have in the US is broken and needs a complete overhaul.
Did we expect any thing else? We’ve elected in the most liberal congress in decades, and expect them to be on the side of honest, decent, God-fearing people.
It is time for a Second Civil War. One in which the liberals are removed from these shores.
Fred, you and I always have seen eye to eye when it comes to criminals (as well as MOST things) This is no exception.
What I find amazing is that NOT ONE politician in the last election ever really mentioned crime and punishment. The state politicians rarely mention it until there is a catastrophe, then it’s about “Ban the tool not the fool” Case and point. There was a big rig accident in LA, a truck lost control and went into a coffee shop killed 2 people. The first cry’s were “Ban truck traffic on that road” Not one mention of the possibility of a CAR causing the big rig to lose control. Turns out it was an illegal driver (suspended license or something) but the ban bug is alive and well everywhere…
Good post Fred as usual.