Wanna Do Something About Urban Crime? Change The System!!!
In Philadelphia yesterday, a judge praised 2 robbery suspects for NOT using a gun while attempting to rob a convenience store. In a city where the last 3 police officers killed in cold blood were all during robberies, this supposed jurist praises robbers because they didn't use guns? Whoa!
I'm not always in agreement with the Gestapo-like big-city police forces of our great country, but in this case the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, as well as the Department, were right-on in their repudiation of such actions by this judge. Philadelphia's crime rate, the danger of its streets these days, is not just because of the knuckleheads running amok with guns. It's to an equal degree the fault of judges who fail to administer punishment for crimes (albeit at a staggering penal system cost nationwide) that should be prosecuted. Too many of these criminals are being let back on the street waaaay too easy by lenient judges. Not that hard-nose judges help either - they are heavily responsible for the repeat offenders out there too - but just giving a pass to robbers is not the way to go just because they didn't use a piece.
We have a system that has strains at many ends. Not enough jails, but too many jails with people incarcerated within without rehabilitation for better citizenship when released. Not enough police, but too many Nazis on our police force using excessive force where it is not needed. A court system that is backlogged with cases, but judges who are assholes and too high on their own almighty sense of power, often as politically motivated as personally gratified, to do what is really right instead of what they feel like doing on any given day. That is, when they are not taking bribes and fixing cases. And of course in between their 3-hour lunches and their shopping sprees (I know - I used to clerk for one).
Sure the criminals are bad. But only as bad as the system lets them be.
