Posted on 10/22/2006 4:57:09 PM PDT by ozoneliar
Mandatory minimum sentencing schemes do not work, at least not if the goal is to reduce violent crime and improve public safety. In the United States we know that, because we have tried them all. Canadians may therefore be surprised to learn that their government is mimicking this failed U.S. penal model, in the name of getting tough on violent crime.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
Crime rates dropped in this country in the 1990's as state and local governments (Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others) cracked down on crime. (3 strikes your out)
As the prisons filled, crime went down. With attacks on the death penalty and "racial profiling" being raised up this trend is threatened in the United States.
This is the memo Canada needs to read.
The social scientists who come out with statements like this are plain nuts. You cannot assess the effects of a policy by simply looking at before and after.
Locking up criminals for longer sentences DOES cut crime by those convicted perps. All sorts of studies show that the longer a criminal is in jail, the fewer crimes he commits, even when he gets out! That is probably because he is an old man by the time he emerges, and old criminals are less violent and less dangerous that young ones.
The Canadian public is fed up with empty punishments for serious crimes. Judges have been coddling criminals there for years. Canada is not a safe country as a result. Their crime rates are very comparable with ours, particularly if one adjusts for ethnicity factors.
The U.S. experience has shown that mandatory sentencing dramatically increases the rates of incarceration without deterring crime.
WHAT?
Even when crime rates in the U.S. have dropped, blanket sentencing policies were not the reason.
Nonsense!
For example, between 1991 and 2001, mandatory minimum sentences alone caused incarceration rates to increase by 139 per cent in Texas and 11 per cent in New York. During that same period, the crime rate dropped by 34 per cent in Texas and 53 per cent in New York. Thus, despite its greater reliance on mandatory sentencing schemes, Texas was much less effective at reducing crime than New York.
Maybe because New York had a bigger crime problem to start with!
Idiot - Texas is right next to Mexico, and we are just jailing the Mexicans doing the crimes Americans don't want to do!
When a Judge gives a traitor and terrorist enabler 28 Months instead of execution,its no wopnder crime goes up. mandatory sentences work if we can get Judges to use them instead of doing what they like. The death penalty would work too if it was carried out in a year instead of 14 or never. If it is stopped because too many are aiting or it seems too many are being executed it doesnt work. Right now over 600 people are waiting on death row in california alone, The chances of more than 10% of them ever being executed is slim.
"Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates"
--my favorite New York Times headline...heck, one of my favorite news headlines, anywhere, any time
Solving prison overcrowding is easy, cost-effective, and generally better for all concerned.
First build tent city prisons out in the boondocks, using surplus army tents, kitchens, etc., with inmate-dug latrines and wooden barracks for the guards. Put the majority of the prisoners there who do not need to be near urban areas, in "brick" prisons, for health reasons, pending court hearing, family problems, etc.
Once they are out there, living no worse than soldiers, have them contracted to work on Indian Reservations doing labor intensive work to improve the quality of life there, which often seriously needs it, being some of the poorest lands in the country.
If there is no Reservation around, then have them perform labor intensive environmental projects of all varieties, maybe do a top to bottom makeover of an area, turning it from wasteland to healthy forest.
The idea is first, to eliminate overcrowding so that judges won't fret about adding new prisoners. Second thing is to put them to work doing something productive, but not in competition with free enterprise. Third is to have something they can actually accomplish to improve their State and the country.
This last part is important. In WWII, prisoners across the US were often involved in production for the war effort, and there was virtually *zero* prison problems during that time. The prisoners felt that they were contributing something worthwhile, and it really mattered to them.
I think we both prefer mandatory maximum sentences.
Advice to Canada-Do not listen to U.S. moonbats.
Mandatory minimums work simply because they keep criminals from following their careers for longetr times. Saying Mandatory Minimums don't reduce crime is absurd. Perhaps the author means that mandatory minimums do not turn criminals into model citizens any better than wristslaps do. One can argue that point but it is not patently absurd.It is, however,beside the point.
Burglars specialize in burglary and commit many more crimes than they are charged with. Rapists specialize in rape, and also commit many more crimes than they are charged with. The bottom line is that longer prison sentences reduce crime, NOT because criminals are reformed in prison, but because they cannot commit their particular crimes behind bars.
The clueless New York Times periodically publishes articles with the headline, "Crime Down, Prisons are More Full." They miss the point, as does this article, that the surest way to prevent a career criminal from committing his, say, two dozen burglaries a year, is to keep him in jail.
Sheesh.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article: "Recess at Salisbury State"
Please see my most recent statement on running for Congress, here.
Eliminating parole also keeps Richmond's criminal class in prison where they belong.
Back to my point, the Canadian writer obviously doesn't care to reduce the threat of crime to African-Americans.
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