Our Current Judicial Situation (Finally answering the question!)

Finally, after doing a bit of research into the subject (just a drop in the bucket of what I should’ve done though but didn’t have the time), I’m finally ready to address the topic of our current judicial system that was posed by Dan and Andrew weeks ago…

I’ve been concerned about what we hear as far as sentences go. Why does someone who does a heinous crime get a lighter sentence than someone who is caught with marijuana? Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying those who have drugs should be set free, but what I am saying is that the punishment needs to more aptly fit the crime.

We have a system in place that is not perfect, but is probably the best there is. That being trial by a jury of our peers. I haven’t heard any real issues with the results of these trials. What I have issues with is when a sentence is handed down by a judge unfairly. And I’m not talking about Paris Hilton either… she was handed a sentence that I think was more than fair, nevermind the fact that others get away with the same exact crime with less or no jail time. I say good for this judge and shame on the others that let crimes go.

I’m talking about putting people who do minor crimes in jail for more time than they should be in for. Why do they do it? Maybe the following excerpt from the article found at http://social.jrank.org/pages/1348/Prisons-Prison-Industries-Excellent-Idea-or-Exploitation.html has something to do with it…

Federal and state prisons put inmates to work producing goods for sale to government and on the open market. Private companies ... contract with prisons to use convict labor, and private prisons employ their own inmates for private profit, either for themselves or for outside companies. Prisoners who work may have time subtracted from their sentences. Prisoners who refuse get longer sentences and lose privileges (Erlich).

It is a smart move by the companies to hire such cheap labor and probably not need to pay for healthcare, but it’s too easy for it all to be corrupted by money from the big companies. Let’s think about this… You are a major company who is employing prisoners for less than a dollar an hour instead of, at the very least, minimum wage. Wouldn’t it be worth the cost of kickback to a judge to ensure that the people thrown in jail are of a higher quality to perform the necessary work than the dredges who should by all accounts get harder punishments? Of course it would. Think about that when asking why the punishments seem to be unfair these days.

Well-Known Companies That Use Convict Labor

3Com

Microsoft

AT&T

Motorola

Boeing

Nordstrom

Compaq

Nortel

Dell

Prison Blues® ("Made to Do Hard Time")

Eddie Bauer

Pierre Cardin

Honeywell

Revlon

IBM

TWA

Jostens

Texas Instruments

Kaiser Steel

Toys R Us

MCI

UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries)

McDonald's

Victoria's Secret


Of course, there’s the easy solution to this from a citizen’s point of view… don’t do anything wrong. But is that even possible anymore? Our local, state and federal governments have made so many laws, that it is near impossible to not break the law. And add to that the requirement of some police departments to hand out tickets as seen on this site (the responses to the simple statement are very good reading material) … http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Police_In_Colorado_Must_Hand_out_2_tickets_Per_Hour

So we are currently damned if we do and damned if we don’t. What are we to do? I mean it is not just on the local and state levels. Look at our Attorney General, for goodness sakes. What ever happened with his trial? What was the outcome? Do any of us know? Do any of us care? He was on all the news channels as a “bad guy” and the day his hearing was supposed to begin, we had the VA Tech “massacre”. That took up all the news time for how long? I’ll tell you it was long enough for us to forget about the “bad guy”. Our general public was not force-fed news about him, so we didn’t care anymore. I mean if Fox News or CNN don’t cover it, it must not be important, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the solution (and amazingly enough, it is very similar in nature to most of my other solutions)… it comes in two parts...

1. Get involved. 2. Vote me in as President

That's all there is to it to start making a change. Okay, the second one doesn't necessarily need to happen, but the first one absolutely does. I have some questions for you all...

Does anyone go to court to see what is going on anymore?
Does anyone know who their judges are?
Or what their salaries are?
Or what their records of judgement are?
Does anyone know the status of the prison in their town?
Who is in there?
For how long are they in there?
Why are they there?
What are they doing while in there?

These are questions that we all should know the answers to as active members of our community. If I were President, I know I’d appoint only the ones with the best records, the ones with the good of our Nation in mind instead of their personal gain. If we start at the top, good and right can funnel its way down to ensure a safe and secure nation once again.

Other sites that talk about prisoners working…

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_n12_v43/ai_21283789

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950311/03110298.htm

http://www.celcee.edu/publications/digest/Dig06-06.html

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/05/587.asp

http://www.pe.com/localnews/transportation/stories/PE_News_Local_D_traffic18.38d1adc.html

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=police+quotas+tickets

Now, about our over-crowding situation in prison.

Why do we even have over-crowding? Why has our society fallen so far as to have so many criminals? Of course, it's a combination of things that make up the answer, but it's not too late to turn the tide. Some things of note...

The number of dual-income families has risen since the 1960's.
Prayer was outlawed from public schools in the 1960's, taking away the choice from the local communities.
The value of our dollar has depreciated greatly since the 1960's.
And somewhere along the way, it became the norm to simply be observers while our society has gone downhill right in front of our eyes.

What do we have to offer these latch-key kids? Television, which is full of sex and violence. Computer games, which are full of gore and violence. The internet, which is full of sex, gore, and violence. And no supervision, which leads to all kinds of trouble.

Why do we need dual-income families? To keep up with the Jones'? To maintain our lifestyles of having anything we want when we want it (Just look at how many people bought the iPhone in the first weekend)? To keep up with the credit card bills that we ran up and now the government has raised the minimum amounts due? Or is it to keep up with the ever-increasing taxes they throw upon us? We can stop that if I'm elected. The President does not have the power to change things alone (actually this one does, but that's another story and a power that i will give back when I'm in), but I can promise the American people that I will lead them to make change in this country. You can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink, right? I can lead you all to learn how to get your public servants to do your will, but I can't make you actually do it.

Why have I stated all this? Does it answer the topic? Of course it does. If we care more about raising our children than what our car looks like, or where we live, then our children grow up feeling loved, knowing people care about what they do, and are a lot less likely to become criminals. That would be a step towards reducing the prison poulation in the future. As for the here and now, I have a plan for that...

The plan starts off with the sentence "There is no such thing as over-crowding in prison". The more criminals, the less space for each one is all. Federal prisons should have a certain amount of money for each facility. The more people that are in there, the more guards you need and the more food you need. Therefore there's less money for quality of life issues. If the prison can't afford cable TV or weight sets, then that's just too bad. IT'S PRISON!!!! You broke the law, now pay the damn price. It's not fair to us law-abiding citizens that we can't afford cable ourselves yet our taxes go to you all living it up. And forget the different levels of prisons, white collar versus blue collar. A criminal is a criminal. And the State and local prisons can be run however the States and local communities want, with the Federal government keeping their nose out of it altogether. Now before those out there say that miserable conditions just breed more crime, hear this. A) There weren't any issues with over-crowding when conditions were worse because people actually wanted to stay out of prison, B) we can create a charity to supplement prison funding thereby requiring everyone to pay a small amount through taxes, but those who want better conditions can offer more on their own, and C) I would make it mandatory that school be taught to the inmates. We're talking high school level courses and such to educate them. And if they're gonna work, I can guarantee you it won't be for any company. They can do local government work, such as mowing the sides of highways and picking up trash. It worked in the past, and the present way is not working. Maybe we need to step back, analyze, and go back to the chain gangs for prisoners.

That’s about it for now on the subject. Once again, very wordy, I know. But I hope I answered both Dan and Andrew’s questions to their satisfaction. If not, please let me know and be more specific with what I missed.

Thanks, and God bless.

Rich