Our politicians both parties play at getting tough on crime. And we the citizens never seem to hold their feet to the fire over their inactions or 'feel good' laws that are supposed to "fix" the problem.
The inmates run the prisons and the injustice system. Recidivisim rate is 68%
My child's killer will probably be released this Nov, as he has "maxed" out his 20 year plea bargain. We have fought 5 parole hearings. The most we can gain by fighting a 6th is an additional 6 months. Weighing the odds even if we did fight the parole hearing the probability of them refusing to grant him parole are slim with so little time left. They wanted VERY, VERY badly to parole him 2 years ago. Dennis and I have assessed the emotional, physical and financial toll it would take to fight what is in all a high probability a losing battle and have decided we will not oppose his parole. It will buy him a year of parole supervision versus no supervision at all. We do not see it as giving up on keeping Jeremy's killer locked up for as long as possible. The odds are very much against us. We fought and won 5 parole hearings. The very first was 10 months after our Jeremy's killer was sentenced.
It takes a lot of work to fight these hearings, it takes a lot of public involvement, which we get very little of BTW. A simple letter to a parole board goes a long way into keeping these killers in prison.
See my web site: THROW AWAY THE KEYS