This final part of my CRIME series is largely excerpted from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.
The Simple Solution to Crime
According to a 2005 report of the National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, crime costs Americans somewhere in the range of $500 billion annually. However, in 1999, David Anderson published in the Journal of Law and Economics a paper outlining that the net burden of crime in the U.S. was $1.7 trillion per year, or $5667 for each person in the country. This did not include the physical pain, long-term mental anguish and general fear anyone has about stepping out at night and such. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just eliminate this compromise in our daily life forever? The savings of $1.7 trillion/year would be wonderful, but just the lifestyle enhancement alone would be huge.
Let me be candid by saying that this not my idea, but, if society is willing to stomach some morality issues to prevent crime, what about a real three strikes law. This one is called Three Strikes and You’re Dead (TSAYD)! To repeat, THREE STRIKES AND YOU’RE DEAD.
First conviction: Someone commits a crime. Do everything possible to reform the culprit. Of course, even before the first crime, it is in the upbringing and educational process where people begin to go bad. It would make eminent good sense to spend more tax dollars at this early stage. Reinforcement is provided in Chapter 3. But, regarding the lawbreaker, there are shelves of books with ideas on how to remediate an individual.
One option is restorative justice, promoting repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships. The process attempts to build partnerships, seeking balanced approaches for victim, wrongdoer and community. There will be a lot of counseling and, as necessary and possible, some restitution. New Zealand legislated in 1989 restorative justice for juvenile crime. Then, there were 64 violations per 1,000 in the population. Today, this figure has dropped to 16.
The concept is hardly new, as the Pentateuch, the so-called books of Moses, advocated compensation for property crimes, as did the Code of Hammurabi (1700 BC). The Code of Ur-Nammu (2000 BC) required amends for violence.
Spend the bigger bucks on shoring up the early life, but be generous, too, on reclaiming this individual after a tolerable first offense. Some crimes aren't. The primary objective will be to prevent those potential second and third crimes. Half of all inmates are back in jail only two years later. A simple way to reduce this rate is to strike fear into the offender so that he abandons all thought of committing another crime. Thus, the penalty for entering stage two should be terrible, if not horrendous.
Crime #2 is committed and the defendant is judged guilty. Standard prison? Nope. Save that money to build better schools. Find some hellacious environment where the prisoner will need to support himself, and where the cost to society will be minimal. A mild form—I was thinking more in terms of dungeons or caves—of this concept is represented by Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa Arizona County:
○ jail meals, such as bologna sandwich, cost 40 cents/serving, and he charges inmates for them;
○ no smoking, no coffee and no porno magazines;
○ chain gangs to do free work on county projects;
○ took away cable TV, but was forced to put them back because a federal court required that for jails, so he played only the Disney and weather channels, and added Newt Gingrich lectures;
When inmates complained, he told them don’t come back. Two thousand prisoners in tents with no air conditioning, even when the temperature is more than 116 degrees F. Sheriff Joe says that our soldiers in Iraq are in tents where the temperature exceeds 120, in full battle gear.
News flash! Hawaii announced in 2008 that seven prison tents will be built with federal funds. No, they are not following the Arpaio strategy. These will be for minimum custody inmates. But get ready to relocate them to more secure cites if TSAYD is instituted.
The question is, will those who survive be more apt not to return? The answer is, heck, yes, but mostly because of the consequences of a third conviction! Anyway, why waste good money on the hopeless, which is defined as anyone who is stupid enough to commit a second crime knowing that the punishment will be hell. The prison of Sheriff Joe is a reasonable simple solution for strike two. There are harsher, and probably more effective (but illegal and immoral) options, but for now, let us leave them for future consideration.
Third conviction: termination! Yes, death. The U.S. has now had more than 1000 executions since the Supreme Court ended a moratorium three decades ago. Under the TSAYD formula, this number could seriously increase in the first few years, but should decline with time. The odds are astronomically high that crime rates will significantly drop within the decade. Where are the supporting statistics? Probably none. I just feel this way.
Oh yes, there are millions of questions and issues. First, some particularly odious crimes will immediately go to step three, as is the case today. But what about a white collar criminal or traffic violator? Can you execute someone for stealing a chocolate chip cookie or a magazine? You’ve no doubt read of a car thief, who is convicted, convicted mind you, a hundred times (well, I’m not sure what the record is, and I can’t imagine our court system being so efficient as to actually convict the same person this many times), and still somehow runs loose and is arrested for stealing yet another car. Maybe enough should be three convictions for anything. The odds are high that this will all stop after the first arrest. But what about those on drugs who cannot control themselves or the few so idiotic as to absent mindedly commit that third crime? Answering this question will only irritate churches, social workers and mothers.
What about those with mental illnesses? A Bureau of Justice Statistics study reported in 2006 that half of those in jail suffered from mental health problems:
o 73% of females and 55% of males in State prisons,
o 61% female / 44% male in Federal prisons and
o 75% female / 63% male were certifiably sub-normal.
Sounds menacingly Hitleresque, but perhaps an argument can be made that the elimination of this drag on society can only improve the quality of life for the innocent. Former Education Secretary William Bennett, on his radio show, is quoted to have said:
To reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose—you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down…That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.
He said his statement was taken out of context, and many of my simple solutions definitely fall in this framework of being “taken out of context.” Could a “Three Strikes and You’re Dead” law ever be enacted anywhere in the world today? Of course not! But it should be debated and considered, for, perhaps, a compromising intermediary first step might well be universal application of the Sheriff Joe penal system.
Thus, the nature of a human society could well be the primary impediment to ending crime forever. That might well be just and good. Well, let us now go on to something simpler, mega-crimes, or wars. How to prevent them? The solution is surprisingly simple, and not as draconian as TSAYD. Next I begin Part 1 on WARS.
The Dow Jones Industrials today opened at 8409, but immediately dropped to 8234, then slowly climbed to about 8550, declined to below 8300, then, in the final two hours, increased nearly 300, ending at 8592, +173 (+2%). Except for Canada, the world markets all increased. Is this a good time to buy stocks? CNNMoney.com says YES.
Crude oil settled further, down to $46.84/barrel. The Dated Brent Spot is at $44.70/barrel. According to Bloomberg, oil traders are betting that crude oil will drop below $30/barrel in the first quarter of 2009. Gold dropped $2/toz to $772.
The Simple Solution to Crime
According to a 2005 report of the National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, crime costs Americans somewhere in the range of $500 billion annually. However, in 1999, David Anderson published in the Journal of Law and Economics a paper outlining that the net burden of crime in the U.S. was $1.7 trillion per year, or $5667 for each person in the country. This did not include the physical pain, long-term mental anguish and general fear anyone has about stepping out at night and such. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just eliminate this compromise in our daily life forever? The savings of $1.7 trillion/year would be wonderful, but just the lifestyle enhancement alone would be huge.
Let me be candid by saying that this not my idea, but, if society is willing to stomach some morality issues to prevent crime, what about a real three strikes law. This one is called Three Strikes and You’re Dead (TSAYD)! To repeat, THREE STRIKES AND YOU’RE DEAD.
First conviction: Someone commits a crime. Do everything possible to reform the culprit. Of course, even before the first crime, it is in the upbringing and educational process where people begin to go bad. It would make eminent good sense to spend more tax dollars at this early stage. Reinforcement is provided in Chapter 3. But, regarding the lawbreaker, there are shelves of books with ideas on how to remediate an individual.
One option is restorative justice, promoting repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships. The process attempts to build partnerships, seeking balanced approaches for victim, wrongdoer and community. There will be a lot of counseling and, as necessary and possible, some restitution. New Zealand legislated in 1989 restorative justice for juvenile crime. Then, there were 64 violations per 1,000 in the population. Today, this figure has dropped to 16.
The concept is hardly new, as the Pentateuch, the so-called books of Moses, advocated compensation for property crimes, as did the Code of Hammurabi (1700 BC). The Code of Ur-Nammu (2000 BC) required amends for violence.
Spend the bigger bucks on shoring up the early life, but be generous, too, on reclaiming this individual after a tolerable first offense. Some crimes aren't. The primary objective will be to prevent those potential second and third crimes. Half of all inmates are back in jail only two years later. A simple way to reduce this rate is to strike fear into the offender so that he abandons all thought of committing another crime. Thus, the penalty for entering stage two should be terrible, if not horrendous.
Crime #2 is committed and the defendant is judged guilty. Standard prison? Nope. Save that money to build better schools. Find some hellacious environment where the prisoner will need to support himself, and where the cost to society will be minimal. A mild form—I was thinking more in terms of dungeons or caves—of this concept is represented by Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa Arizona County:
○ jail meals, such as bologna sandwich, cost 40 cents/serving, and he charges inmates for them;
○ no smoking, no coffee and no porno magazines;
○ chain gangs to do free work on county projects;
○ took away cable TV, but was forced to put them back because a federal court required that for jails, so he played only the Disney and weather channels, and added Newt Gingrich lectures;
When inmates complained, he told them don’t come back. Two thousand prisoners in tents with no air conditioning, even when the temperature is more than 116 degrees F. Sheriff Joe says that our soldiers in Iraq are in tents where the temperature exceeds 120, in full battle gear.
News flash! Hawaii announced in 2008 that seven prison tents will be built with federal funds. No, they are not following the Arpaio strategy. These will be for minimum custody inmates. But get ready to relocate them to more secure cites if TSAYD is instituted.
The question is, will those who survive be more apt not to return? The answer is, heck, yes, but mostly because of the consequences of a third conviction! Anyway, why waste good money on the hopeless, which is defined as anyone who is stupid enough to commit a second crime knowing that the punishment will be hell. The prison of Sheriff Joe is a reasonable simple solution for strike two. There are harsher, and probably more effective (but illegal and immoral) options, but for now, let us leave them for future consideration.
Third conviction: termination! Yes, death. The U.S. has now had more than 1000 executions since the Supreme Court ended a moratorium three decades ago. Under the TSAYD formula, this number could seriously increase in the first few years, but should decline with time. The odds are astronomically high that crime rates will significantly drop within the decade. Where are the supporting statistics? Probably none. I just feel this way.
Oh yes, there are millions of questions and issues. First, some particularly odious crimes will immediately go to step three, as is the case today. But what about a white collar criminal or traffic violator? Can you execute someone for stealing a chocolate chip cookie or a magazine? You’ve no doubt read of a car thief, who is convicted, convicted mind you, a hundred times (well, I’m not sure what the record is, and I can’t imagine our court system being so efficient as to actually convict the same person this many times), and still somehow runs loose and is arrested for stealing yet another car. Maybe enough should be three convictions for anything. The odds are high that this will all stop after the first arrest. But what about those on drugs who cannot control themselves or the few so idiotic as to absent mindedly commit that third crime? Answering this question will only irritate churches, social workers and mothers.
What about those with mental illnesses? A Bureau of Justice Statistics study reported in 2006 that half of those in jail suffered from mental health problems:
o 73% of females and 55% of males in State prisons,
o 61% female / 44% male in Federal prisons and
o 75% female / 63% male were certifiably sub-normal.
Sounds menacingly Hitleresque, but perhaps an argument can be made that the elimination of this drag on society can only improve the quality of life for the innocent. Former Education Secretary William Bennett, on his radio show, is quoted to have said:
To reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose—you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down…That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.
He said his statement was taken out of context, and many of my simple solutions definitely fall in this framework of being “taken out of context.” Could a “Three Strikes and You’re Dead” law ever be enacted anywhere in the world today? Of course not! But it should be debated and considered, for, perhaps, a compromising intermediary first step might well be universal application of the Sheriff Joe penal system.
Thus, the nature of a human society could well be the primary impediment to ending crime forever. That might well be just and good. Well, let us now go on to something simpler, mega-crimes, or wars. How to prevent them? The solution is surprisingly simple, and not as draconian as TSAYD. Next I begin Part 1 on WARS.
The Dow Jones Industrials today opened at 8409, but immediately dropped to 8234, then slowly climbed to about 8550, declined to below 8300, then, in the final two hours, increased nearly 300, ending at 8592, +173 (+2%). Except for Canada, the world markets all increased. Is this a good time to buy stocks? CNNMoney.com says YES.
Crude oil settled further, down to $46.84/barrel. The Dated Brent Spot is at $44.70/barrel. According to Bloomberg, oil traders are betting that crude oil will drop below $30/barrel in the first quarter of 2009. Gold dropped $2/toz to $772.
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