An issue of public safety and arguably domestic security goes ignored at all levels by politicians; save rhetoric about building more prisons and raising criminal penalties that don’t end up being imposed anyway.
We desperately need to require prosecution of all de-facto accessories to repeat violent offenses. This would include judges, parole board members and ‘experts’ whose testimony results in releasing murderous psychopaths to re-offend.
It might as well occupy a seat in the living room next to the other elephant called ‘tort reform.’ Lacking tort reform results only in financial hemorrhage. Ignoring the need for reforms in the so-called justice system have resulted in a national epidemic of torture and murder.
A San Diego family is being tortured today by the most wretchedly painful event any loving parent can experience.
Losing a child to violent death is experienced by military families with knowledge that their child chose to serve family and nation knowing the ultimate sacrifice might occur; they hold a belief in common that freedom wouldn’t exist at all but for blood ransom.
Their pain is only mitigated by acceptance of at least some purpose for loss. To call it comfort is presumptuous exaggeration.
Poor judgment and sheer accidents have no consolation, other than perhaps the Biblical one that ‘time and unforeseen occurrences befall us all.’
What of the foreseen? Knowledge carries responsibility. We can, in a healthy society, also rightfully expect accountability.
One John Albert Gardner III, a convicted sex offender out on ‘early release’ was arrested and reportedly found with physical evidence linking him to a young woman who disappeared. Yesterday a body was discovered. If it turns out to be the body of 17 year old Chelsea King and Gardner is ultimately found guilty, other even more sinister individuals will remain free to aid and enable other John Albert Gardners to ruin more lives. Cases like this are happen nationally at a rate that could be called epidemic.
When a proven, dangerous, mentally deranged individual (one of many) is unleashed on society by a so-called correctional system and the decision results in murders and worse crimes, those who enabled the release are ALL ACCESSORIES IN FACT.
Whether charged or not, those who released Gardner are criminals. They are complicit in murder and mayhem. That they are not held legally and civilly accountable is arguably an even more heinous crime. Yet, it is a category of crime that goes on regularly throughout the republic.
A short-term remedy would be to enact laws holding anyone involved in approving or supporting the release of convicted violent offenders, to be legally considered accessories to all future crimes committed.
Make parole board members and ‘experts’ offering supportive testimony favoring release personally liable, civilly and criminally, for the outcomes of their actions. They should share sentences and if my way prevailed, they’d all be cell-mates!
Rest assured, that such a requirement would dramatically reduce, if not eliminate releases of violent offenders ‘before it’s time’ and would cause creation of laws to permanently exclude sociopaths and violent psychopaths from society.
Longer term remedies lie in re-evaluation of how we think about incarcerating or terminating the dangerously botched.
Comprehensive, answers are not the ‘stuff’ of short articles. What I can ante up are a couple of perspectives on which to found more innovative solutions. Both are related to terminology and thoughts about existing practices; simplified perspectives and language make ‘doing the right thing’ clearer and more defensible.
The archaic, threadbare term ‘capital punishment’ must be abandoned. It was never accurate in the first place. My suggestion would be ‘Societal Self-Defense.’ We already recognize and protect rights of individuals to fend off, and if necessary, terminate an enemy who causes fear for one’s own life or the life of another. If one may rightfully kill to defend against certain mortal jeopardy, it follows that a community, state or nation OF MANY ONES can do the same with many more times the justification.
Secondly, (for those hopelessly addicted to positive suggestions) we need to resurrect of another term, made archaic about a half century ago to be replaced by one of the most STUPID, thoughtless designations imaginable.
‘Public Enemy’ was once an exquisitely accurate name for anyone earning the title by victimizing members of the law abiding public. It was replaced by politically correct bureaucrats possessed by delusional notions with ‘most wanted.’ It has yielded a rich harvest!
If my throat is cut mastoid to mastoid, prematurely terminating this Bedlamesque visit, whether the blade is wielded by a jealous husband, an Islamic Jihadist, a desperate drug addict or a necrophilous cannibal really won’t matter! Commission of the act, would define any of them as a PUBLIC ENEMY. (I’m also aware that some readers might consider it a public service.)
When motives are neither possible nor worth correctional efforts, as in cannibal or jihadist, it’s safe logical ground, to destroy those enemies. Even a modicum of hope for salvation of an addict or enraged spouse doesn’t absolve them of having proven themselves enemies of civilized society.
In healthy, self-preserving, sometimes called primitive cultures, such destructive members are rare, but are dealt with permanently. It has taken sensitive ‘advancement and elevation of humanity’ to achieve the current state of mealy mouthed, knee rattling, impotence in the face of mortal enemies.
Learning whys and hows might eventuate in some future prophylactic benefit, but should NEVER be used for experimental attempts at correction that make guinea pigs of the public with impunity!
There are no second chances for dead, permanently crippled or emotionally shattered victims who are callously referred to as ‘survivors’ by the untouched.
What sane rationale gives second chances to manufacturers of the dead? By what maniacal process does it come to be that you and I can are held criminally and civilly liable if our dog escapes from the yard to harm someone, while psychiatric ‘experts’ and parole board bureaucrats go free for releasing the sickest of the sick on our children?
In closing, I find it one of those crazy-making, bizarre ironies of life that so many champions of ‘civil rights’ for such vermin to be cared for at public expense and jeopardy, also fill the ranks of champions for terminating lives of the yet to be born!
Can anyone yet hear the, oh so faint, ‘laughter of gods?’
The 2012 Presidential Election is fast approaching
The GOP race is now a field of 4 with only Romney, Gingrich, Paul, & Santorum still standing. Who will be the next candidate to exit the race & who will emerge as the eminent GOP nominee?
Follow us on Twitter & join our 2012 election FaceBook page for updates & new blog articles.
Contact us if you are passionate about politics & want to blog with us.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Swain,
The scope of the piece, as mentioned, is limited to a couple of suggestions and covers only violent offenders; pathologically motivated in particular.
We are in complete agreement about the sad state of what is called ‘criminal justice.’
I’m closely familiar with a case of a young woman who has been in a Nevada prison for ten years, so far, for a murder that she was not capable of commiting for several reasons; not the least of which was that she wasn’t even in town.
Crimes against property have always had heavier penalties than crimes against persons except for murder. It’s absurd. Prison isn’t the only remedy for reducing crime and maintaining public safety. Singapore comes to mind.
Once convicted, sexual predators and homicidal psychotics are certain to re-offend. There is no dependable preventative including drugs. Putting the public at risk intentionally in order to ‘respect’ civil rights of the most destructive people in our society can no longer be an option.
I didn’t, also as mentioned propose specific actions or ideas within the scope of the article except for plugging the leak by making certain that enabling officials share in the negative consequences for gambling with the lives of others and going free to continue jeopardizing public safety instead of protecting their communities.
This is in no way related to crimes against property or common petty crimes, which are a whole other area of justice system incompetence.
By the way, I’ve been looking a little closeer at Ron Paul. During the primaries, I only knew him as a maverick and actually wrote an article on helium.com comparing him to Senator Obama. The comparison was how each of them went ‘off the party boss plantation’ and caused a great deal of worry in the upper echalons of their respective parties, if I remember right. Paul had Republican party bosses wringing hands while Obama bolted from the pack, upstaging the favored nag in the race, so democrats made the legendary mistake of ‘switching horses in mid-stream.’
Next fall, the bitterness of that error will come home to roost. I even miss Hillary. The first time we threw out a George III, the nation went through a tumultuous and vulnerable thirteen years. They were tougher folk then and from the looks of things today, they were also a lot smarter.
Silverwun,
You do realize that we are the most imprisoned population in the world today and therefore all history!
I had an employee who was 29 years old and had just spent the last seven years of his life in a prison in Idaho. His offense, he stole one of his mothers checks, forged her name and bought $700.00 in furniture. His mother had him prosecuted to teach him a lesson, thinking he would get 30 days or so. The judge in the case gave him the maximum sentence for forgery and grand larceny. The mother was sentenced to 10 days (suspended) for screaming in court and running towards the judges bench in horror. On appeal it was found to be the judges right to impose the maximum as it was a second offense. Because the young man was raped several times while in prison, he defended himself at the expense of getting out early for good behavior, he did the full sentence.
A story last year on 60 minutes told of a man in chronic disabling pain and doctors in his state were terrified to prescribe enough pain medication for fear of government DEA exams for over prescribing.
When he visited multiple doctors to get enough medication, he was charged with hoarding medicine, therefore having an amount to make him a automatic dealer (although he never sold anything). Mandatory minimum 15 years in prison. He now has a morphine pump and gets enough medicine through the prison system, ironic. He has a wife and three children fending for themselves now.
Few Americans realize the number of people murdered in Chicago during 2008 was larger than the number of U.S. soldier deaths in Iraq during the same period.
Ancient Israel had no concept of jails or prisons. Regarding physical assaults, the assailant knew the rule, an eye for an eye. Regarding thefts or property crimes, repayment 3-7 times the amount involved. Regarding rape, murder or things that money could not cover, death.
As I fear for my wife or daughters to go outside at night alone or frequent certain parts of an average American city, the way of the Israelites sounds pretty acceptable.