Crime Reduction

I’ve read somewhere that the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior but expecting a different result. I think that perfectly describes where we have been with our efforts to reduce crime over the decades. A new, radically different approach is needed. Criminals are no longer are afraid of going to jail. The system is broke! It’s costing us a ton of money and misery to be both the victims of crime and financially responsible for the court and jail costs of the criminals. I’ve read years ago that we spend an average of a million dollars to execute one prisoner (court costs and appeals, jail time for years or decades, etc.). What follows are some ideas to fix the problem:

1. Three strikes and you’re dead.
It is unbelievable that there are so many criminals with 10-20 crimes or more and they are still released and out on the streets. Does anyone believe these people will ever be re-habilitated? Does anyone think they are afraid of going back to jail? Why must law abiding citizens be afraid of crime and criminals have no fear? That truly is insane. We need to put the fear back into the criminals who commit crime or think of committing crime. Somehow, that fear has been lost. Why should we forever suffer the consequences and expense of crime? ….In the hopes that maybe one out of a hundred criminals will eventually rehabilitate? Even 10 out of 100. After the third serious crime, execute them and figure out a way to stop the endless appeal system available to death penalty criminals. I’m all for putting in more safeguards for avoiding the conviction of the innocent as long as there are effective means of eliminating the career criminals.

2. If you are old enough to commit the crime, you are old enough to suffer the full adult punishment for the crime. Kids kill adults or other kids and by 21 or 18, many are set free. Gangs especially use that loophole (more about gangs next) over and over again to keep their leaders out of jail. If you are old enough to commit a crime, then to have executed it you’ve proven that you are old enough to know what it is you are doing and to know that it is wrong.

3. Declare war on gangs (similar to the war on terror), get the resources needed to do it, plus the laws necessary to make it work, then execute the plan. The plan must include very severe punishments that can be tied to many gang members (I believe this is called ‘conspiracy’). Just as we do with gangster mobs with our racketeering laws that target all mob assets, apply the same principles to gangs. Make it illegal to recruit children under 18 into gangs. Before the smart lawyers try to get around that by challenging the legal definition of a gang, have laws that require any organization for which children under 18 are allowed to get a parental consent form (consider one that is notarized). This is not radical. Every legitimate organization involving children does this. Require liability insurance. Again, legitimate organizations do this. Penalties for not doing this or for forgeries must be severe. Prosecute adults who knowingly give consent to organizations involved in criminal activities. Do not allow gang colors to be worn (some towns have done this with great success).

4. Protect the children.
Do everything reasonable to make then safe from gang pressure or fear that only the gang can love and protect them. Stop putting welfare families in public housing. Give them subsidies for rent across the entire apartment geography of the town or city instead so that the families and especially their children will live in an environment where most people are not on welfare. Let them see another, better way of life as the ‘norm’. Prosecute landlords who discriminate against honest welfare families. Let schools offer free meals for breakfast and lunch plus a going home healthy snack and/or take home meal to all who want it. Hungry children or people are desperate and it isn’t fair to contend with that when you are a child. In the end, it’s a lot cheaper than dealing with crime and/or drop outs. In fact, do not allow a child under 18 to drop out of school. Just making a decision like that is absolute proof that the person is too immature to make the decision. Send the trouble makers to special schools if you must to avoid disrupting the learning of those who want to get an education. Children of parents who do not take care of them (e.g. alcoholics, drug users, criminals, etc.) need to have their parental rights terminated and the children placed in another home permanently. Parents should also have real fear of the consequences if they do not take care of their kids (I’m talking about criminal negligence of children, not people struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table who work or actively seek work if able).

5. Criminal Prosecution and Incarceration
Pleading to a lesser crime or reduced sentence is not a bad idea if it doesn’t become a ‘joke’. Some leeway is needed, but the range should be reasonable and narrowly defined by law (e.g. no trading 5 years for 25 years in jail). Saving court costs and appeals has a monetary value to society. Changing your plea from innocent to guilty can (but not necessarily) have a moral value to the criminal if it is taken seriously. Precautions must be taken at the same time to protect the truly innocent who cop a plea because they do not think their innocence can be proven. Those that are the real experts on that issue need to figure how to do that at reasonable cost. Parole is also not a bad idea for good behavior for some crimes, but it too should be defined by law and be reasonably restrictive. In other words, if you get 30 years, you should not be parolled after three years. At most, a 25 –33% reduction. It should be more than good behavior involved. Education while in prison is a form of rehabilitation and employment. Those who get the best parole deals should not only have good behavior but show that they worked to gain the knowledge and skills to support themselves without crime. Likewise, if they are released and commit crimes again, their punishments need to be more severe for having taken advantage of the parole system without giving society the benefit of their projected rehabilitation.

6. Murder someone and you die.
Whether or not a murder was pre-meditated, the effect on the victim is still the same. The victim is not any less dead because the murder was not pre-meditated. The victim’s family isn’t any better off because the murder was not pre-meditated.

7. Public Executions
The death penalty is anestecized today. Hardly anyone sees it or more importantly learns to fear it. The impact upon daily lives and the criminal fear factor from execution is negligible. Execute criminals publicly, preferably at the scene of their crimes. Those who do not want to watch can elect not to. Make it available to TV stations and the Internet. In that way, the youngsters and adults thinking about crime or already into petty crime might have second thoughts. At least they might gain some fear.

8. Attempted Murderers do not get a second chance at murder.
Penalty should be lifetime in jail without the possibility of parole. This penalty should also encompass all who commit crimes with the usage or threat of usage of a lethal weapon (gun, knife, bomb, pitchfork, baseball bat, etc.). A person who uses such weapons in the commission of a crime implies that they will murder the victim if the victim doesn’t do what the criminal wants. That threat is an obvious attempted murder.

9. Politicians may not grant pardons.
It is absolutely ridiculous that criminals who have been tried and found guilty of a crime through our court systems can be pardoned by a state Governor or the President. Especially in the case of a murderer, the upcoming penalty can become a political event/circus in the U.S. and around the world as opponents of our current laws try to subvert the legal results of our justice system. If you are a citizen who disagrees with current laws, then that’s what voting booths are for in a democracy like ours. Punishment of crimes should not be subject to political whims or pressure.

10. Minor mistakes in criminal trial procedures that have no impact on the actual (not legal) guilt or innocence of the accused should not be accepted as a basis for a new trial. Decisions on the procedural questions should be made by the original judge whenever possible since no other judge has the intimate knowledge of the facts presented in the trial.

11. Jails must be transformed into safe havens for rehabilitation.
Today, jails are a dangerous place of rape, violence, intimidation, gangs, code of silence on crimes committed, etc.. Rehabilitation cannot be facilitated well under such circumstances. Criminals in jail can even utilize the phones or the internet to commit fraud, identity theft, and other crimes. All of this has to be stopped. Goes back to putting fear back into the minds of criminals. Criminals need to have a healthy fear of incarceration when they get out of jail. Crimes committed in jail must be prosecuted as crimes and must count against the three strikes and you’re dead rule. Every inch of the place, including bathrooms and showers must be under surveillance cameras including cameras that can ‘see’ in the dark. Precautions must be taken to ensure the film is not misused in a criminal manner. Over time, jails need to progress to single occupant rooms (to minimize rape potential). The ‘rights’ of criminals in jail need to be clearly defined. TV, phone, and internet privileges are not, for instance, criminal rights. Neither is throwing feces on walls or at officers (that’s a crime). What is a crime in society is also a crime in prison and needs to be handled in a similar manner. Zero tolerance. Rioting in jails should be punishable by death plus it is okay for police to shoot to kill to quell a riot (a riot is nothing more than attempted murder). Starting a fire in jail is also attempted murder. Tattoos, often a symbol of gang loyalty and violence, is not a right in jail and therefore tattoos added while incarcerated should be treated as a crime. It is a form of intimidation.

12. The assets of convicted criminals must be forfeited to government to help compensate victims and pay for incarceration costs. When criminals have families, reasonable rules need to be established so as not to throw them into poverty for crimes they did not commit.

War and Peace – Ideas, Thoughts, Analysis

1. Whether or not you are for or against a particular war, you share one view – peace. Neither the combatants of war, nor the nations that send their people to war want a war without end. The end of war, by any logical definition, is peace. However, how you arrive at that peace will usually have a significant impact on whether there will be another war and how long that ‘next’ war will last. If the end of war brings long term humiliation and/or injustice to the country in which the war was fought and lost, the war really hasn’t ended permanently. There will be at some future time another war fought unless the humiliation and injustice ends. World War I was a perfect example of this. Germany lost and was made to pay huge reparations over time that humiliated its people and caused them to suffer. It is not surprising that the German people followed the evil tyrant, Adolph Hitler, because he appealed to their sense of pride and restored it. He also started World War II. Germany lost again. This time, the U.S. through the Marshal Plan, rebuilt the economies of both our World War II allies and our combatants, including Germany and Japan. Now both are American allies and the likelihood of war with them is extremely unlikely. Iraq was another example of winning a war but establishing a peace that could not last. After winning the first war, we left the evil dictator Saddam Hussein in charge. The Iraq people suffered immensely and another war ensued. You can believe that there would have been no war if not for the U.S., but the only difference would have been the timing and the combatants. Sooner or later, there would have been another war.

2. Since the Vietnam War, wars have emerged as a two prong fight. One is military; the other is political. After the Tet Offensive of 1968 occurred, two important events followed. The North Vietnam military was handed a stunning, costly, and terrible military defeat. It was so bad, North Vietnam seriously considered suing for peace. The second thing that occurred was that Americans were stunned that the North Vietnamese could militarily penetrate so much of South Vietnam. Many Americans and particularly the news media saw this as a watershed event that meant that eventually, in their belief, the war would end in defeat. Therefore, better to cut and run, then stay the course. North Vietnam was quick to pick up on this. For the first time, they realized that their war goals could be attained “politically” by feeding the image many Americans had of the war as hopeless. Their political ploy worked. America withdrew and the North was then able to conquer South Vietnam.

3. What does this mean for the current Iraq war and future wars?
Unfortunately for America, this political strategy for winning a war that could not be won by military means was observed by our enemies and potential enemies. It was reinforced when Russia fought a war in Afghanistan for 10 years and withdrew without a victory. The overwhelming liberal news media in America, intentionally or not, supports the political strategy of our enemies through its coverage and especially playing up the ‘body counts’. Now, don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here. I am a Vietnam veteran and abhor every American war death and wounded casualty. However, wars cannot be fought without blood shed. The current war in Iraq is being won militarily despite the horrors of the terrorists there. It is being lost politically. Partly, this is because of the lessons about the American politics of the Vietnam war that was observed and learned by the terrorists. If they prolong it long enough, they believe we will leave. Given the coverage of the news media and those Americans that disapprove or protest the war, they may be right. 4000 Americans dead is painful, but what did you expect? It took 5 years for that many to die. We lost that many in one day several times in WW II. We lost 3,000 civilians in one day, when the terrorists flew planes into buildings on 9/11. We did not lose our nerve in WWII. Why are we losing it now? Guaranteed that the cut and run strategy of Vietnam has caused more to die in this war. If we cut and run again, you can guarantee more dead if there is a next American war. Bottom line, if you want less American deaths in a war, we have to prove that we will never cut and run from a war again. Otherwise, we have laid the foundation for all future enemies of America to defeat us over and over again. We simply cannot afford nor tolerate that!

4. Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Destruction
It is the dream of Al Queda to procure and deploy nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the United States. In the Cold War, there was an implied but unofficial understanding between the U.S., Russia, and China that any attempt to use nuclear weapons by either side would be met with overwhelming nuclear force in return. In essence, everyone would be destroyed. The policy was labeled Mutually Assure Destruction or MAD. It was literally insane for one nation to attack another with weapons of mass destruction. It worked marvelously well to prevent nuclear war and World War. We need to publicly remind the world, but especially the terrorists that the policy of MAD still exists and will be carried out by the U.S. if so attacked. Furthermore, though we may not be able to prevent such an attack, we would know who perpetrated the attack, the location of the attackers whether government or terrorist, the nations who helped either through their government’s financial, logistical, or weapons aid, or through their people through their ‘charitable’ donations to terrorist groups either directly or through organizations known to funnel such money to these groups. Announce that if the U.S. or its allies are attacked, MAD will apply to them so that all of these groups and nations will be immediately and completely annihilated from the face of the Earth. To these groups and nations, tell them that we feel it is important that they know the consequences of such aggression against us so that they can decide in perfect clarity the future actions they take or don’t take against us. Let them hate us if they are so inclined. More importantly let them understand our ‘response’ policy toward nuclear or biological warfare waged against us or our allies. The whole world would ultimately benefit by this knowledge.