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Reich's, you're out. Prop.184 should be locked up
Ella
Seneres Staff writer
Cabrillo Voice
A mish-mash of
anti crime bills like Prop. 184, is sweeping 30 states.
Three-strikes-and
you’re-out casts the net wide on the poor, even though the American
Correctional
Association and the Judicial Conference of the United States,
representing
federal judges, opposes it, according to Prison Legal News. $30.2
billion will
be spent to enforce laws that will scapegoat and massively accelerate
incarceration of the down-and-out who have struck out because of
illiteracy,
joblessness, drug, alcohol abuse and decaying cities. Nine hours after
the California “three strikes law” took effect on March 7, Charles
Bentely was
charged with stealing 50 cents. He faces 25 to life. Keith McHenry of
Food Not
Bombs faces 3 strikes and one of the counts is for having milk crates.
In
contrast, corrupt officials who loot funds and endanger public health
get nil.
In 1989, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Commission tried to increase
liabilities
for corporate criminals. Corporations pressured, so the amendments
died.
Chronic varieties of repeat professional criminals like Jeb Bush who
gutted the
S&L or Oliver North & Company who lied to congress go from one
criminal
deal to the next, recidivists bilking the government promising to mend
their
ways. General Electric was busted 16 times for false billing, money
laundering
and bribery. A 10 year study by a George Washington University
professor found
that two thirds of the Fortune 500 were involved in one or more
“significant
illegalities.” Since 1986, the federal government tried to use the
False Claim
Act to collect $588 million from corporations who chiseled moneys, but
corporations cried that it was unfair, so it was killed. A mugger in a
suit
gets unlimited strikes, getting richer and richer, the poor get prison.
Climbing out of
poverty looks dim, with Blacks facing poverty rates of 32.7% (or 10.2
million)
Latinos 28.7% and whites 11.3%. (Bureau of Census.) Blacks were the
only racial
group to suffer job loss during the 1990-91 economic downturn, Wall St.
Journal
reported. In May 1994, unemployment of Black teens was 40%, said the
Washington
Post. This creates an underground economy in order to survive.
States who ‘lock
‘em up and throw away the key” will go bankrupt. Prison costs for 1992
were
$24.9 billion. Prison contractors will get $79 billion worth of new
business
with $54,209 to build a one bed cell and $20-30,000 to keep an inmate,
or a $1
million if they serve 35 years. With 1.3 million in prison now, if the
trend
continues, by 2053 more people will be in jail then out, noted Warren
Cikins, a
criminal justice specialist.
Instead of
helping inmates, they are released into illiteracy, joblessness and
poverty. In
prison the endemic of violence, brutalization, overcrowding, and
idleness only
destroys humans. The few vocational and rehabilitation programs now
available
are being cut, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, manifesting more
three
strikers. As for three strikes, two previous offenses and a conviction
of a
violent federal offense gets life with no parole, with the two prior
counts of
either a violent crime, or a federal or state law violation of two
separate
convictions of possession of a small bit of crack, less then 2 pennies
weight wise,
or 2 ounces of marijuana. In 1992 it cost $6.1 billion to keep drug
users
imprisoned. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said by 1995, more than 70%
of
federal prisoners will be drug users. The majority of crack users are
Blacks;
the majority of powder cocaine users are white. 92.6% of those arrested
for
federal crack charges were Blacks, 91% were powder users, the
Department of
Justice reports.
The disparity of crack and coke sentencing is 100 to 1. Three
times as many people use coke, but crack users are prosecuted far more
often.
(United States Sentencing Commission). USA Today reported that the
majority of
drug users are white. A recent National Household Survey on drug abuse
concluded that 74% of users are white, 13% are Blacks and 10% Latinos.
As for death of
the poor, the crime bill is big on death. The Supreme Court
discontinued the
death penalty in 1972 because of discrimination in its enforcement's,
but it
returned in 1976. The General Accounting Office evaluating 28 death
penalty
studies and found “pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in
the
charges, sentences and imposition of the death penalty.” The NAACP
found in Bay
County, Florida, between 1975-1987, that 40% of those murdered were
Blacks; the
death penalty was required only when the victims were white.
The travesty of
the drug war is a farce, as documented by John Stockwell, the highest
case
officer to leave the CIA and Danny Sheehan, the chief council of the
Christic
Institute. The majority of traffickers are the US military personnel
who funnel
the drugs to cities. The drug war is a pretense to impose draconian
laws to
suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights according to Stockwell.
Clinton
commissioned the Rand Corporation to study the drug issue, but ignored
and rejected
the recommendation to divert $3 billion from law enforcement to drug
treatment.
Rand advised that treatment is seven times more cost effective that
drug
enforcement in reducing cocaine use and 15 times more cost effective in
reducing the social costs of crime and lost productivity. (USA Today.)
The Governor of
California, Mr. Wilson wants a one strike law. To nip crime,
preventative
medicine is paramount in wiping out the spawning grounds of poverty,
but
instead expect more goose stepping of 100,000 additional cops to the
tune of
$8.8 billion. Dispose with niceties; let the nets of justice snag
crooks like
Bush, North and their partners in crime. Their crimes do more damage
and
killing then all the junkies put together. Let us come together to
solve this
grave drug epidemic that affects us all.
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