LI Newsday OpEd: Criminal Justice System

["Deranged Mutant" <WlkngOwl@UNiX.asb.com>]

Found a really good op-ed piece in LI Newsday, Thurs. Feb 8, pA53
by Robert Reno, "If Jails Are Full, How Much Tougher Can Judges Get?"

Some highlights:

  American Jails are more packed with criminals than ever in history.
  We know this for sure because every time we count them, it keeps 
showing the percentage of the population that is in jail has 
quadrupled in 25 years, is higher than any other civilized nation...

[...]

  It is something of a mystery how so many people got in jail because 
we have it on the testimony of some leading politicians that knavish 
judges are freeing criminals in record numbers. Pat Buchanan babbles 
to anybody who'll listen that federal judges are "an unelected 
elite," solititous of "criminals, atheists, homosexuals, flag 
burners, illegal aliens, convicts and pornographers." I don't know 
why he left out gun molls, blood suckers, snake charmers, pig 
rustlers, serial blackguards, pyromaniacs, and mailbox vandals...

[...]

...There is something more to the point, though, than the disposition 
of politicians to bay moronically at the moon.  If we want a more 
predictable system in which judicial descisions never surprise us, 
then we have perfectly good functioning models from which to choose 
from. Take your pick: China, Cuba, North Korea, Iraq. Any one will 
do.

--- "Mutant" Rob <wlkngowl@unix.asb.com>

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