Saturday, January 05, 2008

Hillary takes no time to study crime…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:42 PM Permalink

From The Huffington Post comes this tidbit that proves Hillary knows nothing about crime in America, has any idea what should be done about it, and exhibits the Establishment-ingrained, indoctrinated, brainwashed and flawed thinking that is helping to slowly eat America alive and hasten its destruction as a free nation. Titled, "Hillary Hits Obama For Opposing Harsher Prison Sentences":
[…]Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing" intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination.

Along the same lines, ABC reported that Clinton aides gave the network various examples, of Obama's controversial stands. The aides cited Obama's past assertion that he would support ending mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, pointing to a 2004 statement at an NAACP-sponsored debate: "Mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges."
This officially ends the Clinton candidacy as far as I'm concerned, and I would not vote for her now if she was the only candidate on the ballot for this simple reason: With over 2.5 MILLION of our citizens already in a prison system that, demonstrably, has been an utter failure, she wishes for stiffer prison sentences?

2.5 million in prison certainly shows me sentences are plenty tough already and that our time and treasure would be better spent learning to rehabilitate prisoners during shorter sentences. Here we send people away for thirty years to life for a few rocks of crack. Contrast that with other countries, France, England, and Germany come to mind, that send convicted TERRORISTS away for five to twelve years or less, have less crime, and way fewer of their people in prison.

America has only 5% of the world's population, it has 25% of the world's prison population. Looked at as a percentage of the population, the U.S. is by far the largest incarcerator. In numbers of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants: U.S.-756, England-148, France-85, Germany-95. ( all statistics taken from Wikipedia)

Governor Scwa…Swert…Schwart…aw, you know, Arnold, made one of the most intelligent statements on the prison issue I ever heard when he said (paraphrasing), "If you removed drugs as a reason for sending people to prison, and released all non-violent drug offenders, you would instantly reduce the prison population by 80%." Remarkably clear thinking and, while I can't vouchsafe his statistics, the numbers of people released would obviously be hugh.

So the LAST thing we need in America is stiffer sentences and to perpetuate this desire to put more and more people in prison for longer periods of time, especially while our crime rates are growing and in the countries listed above, the crime rates are all going down.

Privatizing prisons to make them corporate profit earners has also made a big difference. Everyone beholden to Big Corporations has a vested interest in maintaining and increasing the prison population, and it appears Hillary has thrown her hat into the ring with the Big Boys who are financing her failing campaign.

Longer and more vicious sentences, particularly for non-violent drug offenses, obviously do not work. Barrack Obama is right. Period.

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