Crime And Punishment

[RANT]
We all heard the chants… “Lock her up!”

But is imprisonment the best alternative?

What do we want from our prison system?

Do we want revenge?

Do we want to reformed the individual from criminal or violent behavior?

What I want is to stop the crime and hate and I want to do it in the most humane way and I also realize one size doesn’t fit all. That we need a tailored approach to the justice system and we must recognize that our justice system isn’t perfect, that it makes mistakes.

One thing we also recognize is that the criminal justice system here in the United States is big business.

This past January a wrong was corrected, a woman who has been imprisoned for almost eighteen years was set free.

The judge added that it was “clear” that Ms. Jimenez would not have been convicted for the murder of 21-month-old Bryan Gutierrez, who she regularly babysat, at her original trial if false and misleading testimony had not been presented. The prosecution at her 2005 trial argued that Ms. Jimenez had forced the toddler to ingest paper towels, causing him to choke and sustain brain damage that led to his death. However, pediatric airway experts at the recent hearing before Judge Sage said that the medical evidence did not support the prosecution’s theory, and pointed to accidental choking.

The Innocence Project have freed hundreds and hundreds of falsely convicted people many of them on death row.

A Tale of Two States.

Connecticut is closing down it prisons…

Three Prison Closures Proposed
CT News Junkie
By Hugh McQuaid
February 10, 2021


State officials outlined plans to close three prisons during the coming two-year budget period Wednesday.

Prior to the release of Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget Wednesday, acting Correction Department Commissioner Angel Quiros told lawmakers his agency would likely close two correctional facilities. On Monday, Lamont announced that one of them would be the state’s only “supermax” prison, Northern Correctional in Somers.

During a budget briefing, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Melissa McCaw said the two-year budget counted on the closure of three prisons.

The state expects the closures to help focus staff and services on fewer facilities. McCaw said the savings from the agency amounted to $20 million in the first year and nearly $47 million in the second.

The budget director pointed to a historic drop in the number of people incarcerated in Connecticut. As of last month, there were 9,094 inmates in DOC custody. That’s down from more than 17,700 a decade ago.

Did you notice the last paragraph?

Connecticut also did away with the death sentence 2012 and the crime rate has been steady dropping so evidently the death penalty doesn’t deter crime.

Now lets look at Texas which has one of the highest numbers executions in the nation where is it ranked nationally in crimes.

USA Today ranked the state in violent crimes and murders…

46. Connecticut

• Violent crime rate: 207.4 per 100,000 people
• Total 2018 murders: 83 (18th lowest)
• Imprisonment rate: 338 adults per 100,000 (13th lowest)
• Poverty rate: 10.4% (10th lowest)
• Most dangerous city: Hartford

Like several other nearby states in the New England region, Connecticut ranks among the safest places in the country. There were 207.4 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 state residents in 2018, the fifth least among states. As is often the case in areas with low violent crime, other types of crime are also relatively uncommon in Connecticut. There were 1,684 property crimes, such as motor vehicle theft and burglary, in the state for every 100,000 people in 2018 – well below the national rate of 2,199.5 per 100,000.

17. Texas

• Violent crime rate: 410.9 per 100,000 people
• Total 2018 murders: 1,322 (2nd highest)
• Imprisonment rate: 746 adults per 100,000 (5th highest)
• Poverty rate: 14.9% (11th highest)
• Most dangerous city: Bellmead

Along with California, Texas is one of only two states in which there were more than 100,000 violent crimes committed in 2018. Adjusted for population, Texas's violent crime rate stands at 410.9 per 100,000 people, slightly higher than the national rate of 380.6 per 100,000.

Texas has one of the highest imprisonment rates in the country. There are 746 adults incarcerated in state and federal prisons in Texas for every 100,000 people, more than in all but four other states.

Evidently the chant “Lock them up!” doesn’t work.

Then lets look at the racial bias in the death penalty, the ACLU reported…

The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 % of total executions since 1976 and 55 % of those currently awaiting execution…
[…]
The jurisdictions with the highest percentages of minorities on its death row:

• U.S. Military (86%)
• Colorado (80%)
• U.S. Government (77%)
• Louisiana (72%)
• Pennsylvania (70%)

Not only is the death penalty racially unbalanced but it cost more that to incarcerate prisoners, the website Balance…

The Bottom Line
The debate over whether or not to abolish the death penalty often centers around morality or its effectiveness in preventing crime. But the cost is another relevant factor. Because of its severity, death row and execution costs are an economic burden on government budgets. It's more cost-effective to commute death penalties to life imprisonment sentences without parole.

Then there is Trump’s executions and why did he go on a killing spree?

In Trump’s final days, a rush of federal executions
BBC News, Washington
By Holly Honderich
January 16, 2021


As President Donald Trump's days in the White House wane, his administration has been racing through a string of federal executions.

Five people have been executed in the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden's 20 January inauguration - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.

They make Mr Trump the country's most prolific execution president in more than a century, overseeing the executions of 13 death row inmates since July of this year.

The five executions began with convicted killer 40-year-old Brandon Bernard who was put to death at a penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. They ended with the death of Dustin Higgs, 48, at the same site on 16 January.

Why?

Why did he go on a killing spree?

And the particular selection of inmates fuelled charges that the decision was politically motivated.

The first set of executions this summer - during a wave of anti-racism protests and demonstrations - were all of white men. Four of these five prisoners put to death were African American.

Ms Ndulue said she didn't think it was "coincidental" that no black prisoners were scheduled for execution during a period of "enhanced awareness of the racial disparities around the federal death penalty".

Research suggests the death penalty has been enforced differently according to race.

It is time to end this injustice where innocent people are executed, where race determines whether you live or die, and it is time to politically motivated executions.

[/RANT]