[quote name='BigT']The biggest political issue is how the police and justice system failed in its job to protect society from a sex offender...
http://www.examiner.com/x-833-San-Diego-News-Examiner~y2010m3d2-Psychiatrist-Gardner-would-be-a-continued-danger-to-underage-girls-in-the-community
*He was previously convicted for a lewd act on a child.
*He was evaluated by a psychiatrist at that time who stated "that Gardner 'takes no responsibility whatsoever for his actions' and recommended he 'be given the maximum sentence allowed by law.'
*Nevertheless, he was given a plea bargain that allowed him to serve only 5 years (when the maximum penalty was 30 years).[/quote]
You neglect that his 2000 offense was his first offense. That's an important consideration, and one that is required in the context. It's easy to play armchair quarterback now, but in 2000 when you have a 19-year-old with a totally clean record, locking them up for 30 years doesn't sound like quite the no-brainer you're portraying it as.
Not to mention that folks are, thanks to plea bargaining, much more likely to be overloaded with charges so as to encourage the plea bargain itself - in other words, the structure of the court system and desire to reduce backlog have made it such that folks are charged with things we don't intend on prosecuting them with. Should that be fixed? I'd say it's an issue, and it has its upsides and downsides. I'm not enough of an expert to say it should go or not - I'd certainly like it to be used more diplomatically (e.g., overcharge in cases where the guilt of the person is crystal clear - far beyond the 'reasonable doubt' burden of proof standard.
*Come on! We should take guys like this out back and shoot them. I seriously doubt that they are amenable to rehab...
1) This is not how our justice system operates. This is not permissible, it is a violation of the US Constitution. You know that. We can't fault the court system for operating within the constraints of the law; we should applaud them for it, for better or worse.
2) There are plenty of opportunities to "correct" them in the law. California's budget is too strained as is, though, so individually-sculpted cognitive-behaviorial treatment isn't as widespread as it should be. But Chemical Castration is perfectly legal as a sentencing option in CA - has been for around a decade and a half.
Race shouldn't be an issue here... the guy who did this was white and, frankly, looks like a psychopathic thug.
Race is an issue because the media misrepresents cases of hot young white girls who are the subjects of abductions/kidnappings. It's the racial profiling the media uses where young black girls - the ones most likely to be kidnapped - are not given coverage, are not given hype, are not given screaming heads like Nancy Grace who have no idea what "justice" is. It's not something you get to decide is relevant when you want to (your prior racist screeds about your disdain for Mexicans/Latinos in SoCal) and then wave off as moot because you decide you don't *want* it to be relevant.
How many abductions get police helicopters searching for them? As many as make the headlines of CNN, that's how many - so you end up with differential police attention that's the fault of the media barrage and not the police.
With the statistics on black abduction, I'd think that if you control for the crime rate of the surrounding community, the difference would disappear (i.e., I would expect a white child living in the same neighborhood as a black child to have a similar probability to have a violent act perpetuated against him or her).
This falsely assumes all crimes are concentrated in the same spatial locations - that's not really the case w/ kidnappings. Kids are taken from all kinds of places; parks, their homes, just outside their homes. Since the folks who *do* abduct are not the same kind of criminal you'll find dealing in the inner city, it necessarily follows that you can't think of crime as all clustered in the same areas. Unless you want to fall prey to the racist fallacy that crime is a "black problem." And, since you're equating black neighborhoods with high-crime neighborhoods and dragging that to assume it makes abductions more likely *in those neighborhoods* (in short, being around crime exposes black children to greater abduction vicitimization opportunities), it's safe to say that you do indeed fall prey to that fallacy.
As another example, I'm sure that my chance of getting robbed or assaulted while strolling through Compton is equal to or greater than that of a random black guy walking through Compton.
You make the mistake of thinking that everyone in a given neighborhood stands an equal chance of getting shot. Which isn't true.
People who get shot:
1) clumsy buyers
2) buyers who try to rip off dealers
3) gang members (lots of contingencies here)
4) people who talk shit
5) those people who get hit with strays because #1-4 is happening nearby
Your probability of being shot in Compton, or any neighborhood save for a *select* few, is equal to any neighborhood, really. Unless you're trying to scam your dopeman.
Unfortunately, the police and justice system around here is more focused on enforcing traffic and parking violations, while constantly raising fines (low hanging fruit). Catching real criminals actually takes effort...
Hmm. I always wondered if people studied this aspect of broken windows (i.e., if policing to 'maintain order' led to a backlash that police were focusing on minor offenses and not *ahem* "real crime"). Dr. H, you got somethin' to add here?
On the flip side, I'm about 6'0" 200 lbs and I'm a bit wary about going for runs/hikes alone in somewhat uninhabited locations... we've got to be careful... if I were a 100 lbs woman, I'd never jog alone! It's a sad reality, but a true one.
Not at all - being cautious/protective is important (though, say, not to the point that you wouldn't want to leave your house). For all I say, I'm not so naive as to think folks don't stand a chance of being victimized, right? I just think folks overestimate their chances in some place and not others. Anecdotally (I know, I know), I lived in a very impoverished neighborhood for two years. Dug it, dug my neighbors; we moved away after the second murder on our block (and I was reluctant to do so even then). The idea was this: those who were shot were not simply random victims of a shooting, they tried to
with the dealers on the block. We? We were safe, and had been for two years. On the other hand, the only two times in my life I've had guns jammed in my face we were not just in the 'Burbs, but the upper-middle-class-near-the-private-Catholic-school-white-folks 'Burbs.
