One of the narratives of the GOP and right-wing this election season is that our country is being threatened by rampant voting fraud. Their need to “protect our country” and suppress votes for Democrats has led several states run by Republicans to restrict early voting, pass strict ID laws, and to purge voting rolls. It’s ironic then that a right-wing conservative front group would actually give instructions on how to commit voting fraud. They want people to commit a federal crime in order to make a point.
On Friday a tweet showed up in my twitter feed about a post on the Ohio Watchdog website:
New podcast episode is up
A “short” rant against ignorant views about the poor and crime in Findlay. Why George Will is wrong about everything. What is the actual problem with the elected Democrats in Washington DC. TV show theme quiz is back.
Revenge driving justice system
I would be the first one to say the justice system is imperfect. After all it is a human construction and I don’t know of any humans who are perfect.
The problems stem from the need to be compassionate about the people who are criminals, the victims, and the public’s need for a perfect utopia where you can walk around naked and leave your house and car unlocked.
There seems to be a perception that we coddle criminals, that they sit on their asses in jail and watch TV all the time, while the victims of crime have their life ruined by whatever degree of the crime that happened to them. People who have that perception are the one’s who want the utopia and want revenge on the criminal.
There is a disturbing trend to make people pay for their crimes for the rest of their lives even after serving a jail sentence.
You have the “3 strikes” rule (aka habitual offender laws) where a person who is convicted of a serious criminal offense 3 or more times get mandatory long term sentences which could include life without parole.
Then you have Megan Laws that require public notifications when a sex offender is released and ends up in someone’s neighborhood. There are also local laws that now prohibit sex offenders from living a certain distance from a school or other places where children are located, and some cities are starting to enact laws preventing sex offenders from even working near them.
You also have some laws that require mentally disabled criminals to be institutionalized after serving their sentences and in some states children as young as 14 can be sentenced to life in prison without parole for violent crimes.
A recent move in the Ohio state legislature would increase the time on parole after a sentence for a violent crime from 3 years to 5.
Senate Bill 228 was written because of people such as [Bruce] Lower, said Bret Vinocur, the president of findmissingkids.com. He worked with Sen. Steve Stivers, a Columbus Republican, to draft the legislation.
Vinocur testified this week before the Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee.
“I’ve had much-less-violent offenders stay on parole five years,” he said in an interview the day before his testimony. “There is no uniformity. … If this law was in effect, he would still be on parole.”
It’s easier to return people to prison on a parole violation than to convict them of a new crime because parole offenses can include acts that are otherwise legal, such as drinking alcohol.
Lower was accused of raping, sodomizing and killing the child in a Columbus court. He pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and served 16 years in prison. Although he was accused of two parole violations, drinking alcohol and possessing pornography, parole authorities released him from supervision in August 2005 after 2 1/2 years.
Vinocur said he has found five MySpace pages and a handful of dating Web sites bearing Lower’s photo and profile.
“Why is this man out?” he asked. “Why is he out on the Internet dating?”
The article says that since Lower was released from parole he has had 2 restraining orders placed on him from two different women. That is the only bad marks he has had since 2005.
What supporters of laws such as Senate Bill 228 fail to take into consideration is that the victims aren’t the only people who suffer from the crime. The criminal and their friends and family suffer as well.
This side effect is called “collateral consequences of criminal charges”. Not only does a convicted criminal serve a court imposed sentence but they can also lose their job, experience disenfranchisement, loss of federal loans for education (for drug charges) or eviction from public housing, not to mention the effects of the “3 Strikes” and Megan’s Law. The criminal’s family also experiences social and economic punishment.
When I was young, the brother of a friend of mine was accused of rape. Even before a trial, my friend’s mother was fired from the scout troop she supervised and many family friends shunned them.
Tougher sentences coupled with these collateral consequences of criminal charges have filled the prisons and ruined many lives and for what? Why not just get to the extreme some people want? Let’s just require automatic life sentences without parole for any violent criminals – even first time offenders. Or better yet let’s just execute them and save on the money and resources needed to warehouse them. Laws like Senate Bill 228 just setup felons to fail after their sentence and comes pretty close to violating the 8th amendment that prohibits cruel and unusual punishments.
Listening to the arguments of the supporters of revenge, one would think a pedophile was lurking behind every bush. But some statistics show that most child abuse happens in the home from parents:
In 2003, 83.9% of victims were abused by a parent. 40.8% of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone and 18.8% by fathers acting alone.
Neglect made up 61% of abuse cases, physical abuse 19%, and sexual abuse 10%
People make mistakes. They should be held responsible for those mistakes, but how long should they be held responsible. It seems like many people like Ohio State Sen. Steve Stivers and Bret Vinocur want you to pay forever for your mistakes. Even though such laws won’t create the abuse free utopia they want.
Childhelp says:
Children who experience child abuse & neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit violent crime.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to treat those who abuse children and their child victims. Treat the cause of the violence and just maybe the cycle of violence would be broken and the desire for collateral consequences of criminal charges would disappear.
Our legal system is suppose to be called a system of justice – not revenge. The Rack, public stockades, and public hangings have moved into the dustbin of history, why does it seem to me we are going back to those times. What’s next – the return of the scarlet letter?
Some thoughts on the Jena 6 protests
The Jena 6 are a group of black teens who were arrested and charged in the beating of a white student at the local high school in Jena Louisiana. It was the climax of several incidents of a racial nature that started with nooses hanging from a shade tree the day after two black students had sat under it.
The white students who were responsible for what was described as a “prank” were recommended to be expelled (as they should have) but the school board overturned the decision. The students were given 3 day in-school suspensions.
Then other incidents happened:
During the Thanksgiving holiday, someone set fire to the school, reducing the main academic wing to rubble (no one has been arrested, and though a link between what was ruled an arson and the racial discord hasn’t been proved, many suspect there is one). The following day, Bailey was punched and beaten with beer bottles when he tried to enter a mostly white party in town. The white kid who threw the first punch was later charged with simple battery and given probation. The next day, Bailey ran into a young white man who was at the party. Bailey and parents of the Jena Six say that when the man pulled a gun on him, he tangled with him and stripped it away. He was later charged with theft of a firearm.
The tension culminated back at school the following Monday. Justin Barker, a white student who says he is friends with the kids who hung the nooses, reportedly taunted Bailey at lunch (Barker denies this). A while later, an African-American student allegedly punched Barker from behind, knocking him unconscious. Then, say white witnesses, a group of black students that included Bailey continued to assault Barker, kicking and stomping on him. (Jena High student Justin Purvis and other black witnesses dispute this.) Barker, who was treated for injuries at a nearby hospital, was released later that day, apparently in strong enough shape to attend a class-ring ceremony that evening.
I agree with many who are protesting the unequal justice being applied (the whites involved getting less punishment than the blacks). I just don’t agree with one of the bumper sticker slogans I saw that said “Free the Jena 6”.
The teens have been accused of a crime so just because they may not get a fair shake doesn’t mean we should look the other way in the name of good race relations. The person they are accused of beating was hurt so the event did happen.
Protest the justice system and fight to get them all a fair hearing and see what happens.