Punishment And Crime

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

Punishment And Crime

USA! USA! We have a reputation to uphold. Americans need to be #1 in all things, even the number of prison inmates we hold. If China ever gets close — repressive, Communist China — we can always add the hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo and Bagram. Currently, we can boast 2,300,000 prisoners in the US. We also have a reserve pool of 5 million on probation or parole. Just let them make one wrong move.

Though our prisons are officially designated as corrections institutions, they are nothing of the sort. To the contrary, a good case can be made that the prisons are schools for crime. At a 67.5% average recidivism rate (within three years), there is precious little correction going on. Moreover, assaults within prison walls are commonplace — assaults on prisoners by colleagues and by guards.

The yearly increase in the number of inmates has proceeded in lock-step with the number of elected officials (public servants) who feel a political imperative to be “tough on crime.” Many small communties have come to depend upon the nearby prison as a major employer of their area. Nationally, a prison-industrial complex has arisen with specialists in prison design, construction, and supply. An even more questionable enterprise has been privately run prisons. Do not be aghast, dear readers, there are over a hundred privately run lock-ups, mostly in the southern and a few western states. The two major players, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut), care for about 10,000 inmates. Tennessee and Texas, early adherents of free enterprise in criminal justice, were our national leaders. Wall Street aided and abetted (conspired) in this privated enterprise. Were CCA and GEO the inspiration for Blackwater?

Prison, however, is a last stage of the criminal justice system. More basic steps (basic black?) are: the police, lawyers, and the courts. Even more fundamental are the Law and the Constitution. In the US, the police see their role as protecting the public. They offer proof of their effectiveness by citing number of arrests. Lawyers say their primary duty is to their clients, within bounds of the law. District attorneys (all lawyers), representing the people, often measure their success in numbers of convictions. DAs and the police, with similar obligations, work together for public order. The police, knowing that convictions can rest comfortably on eye witness testimony, will often ask victims to identify perpetrators in a lineup or rogues gallery of photos. If such a grouping includes an innocent suspect but not the actual criminal, the witness will assume one of the shown individuals should be fingered. “That’s the one!” The Innocence Project has tracked 133 death row inmates who were belatedly declared innocent. DNA evidence, recanted witness testimony, or other new proof was sufficiently compelling in these cases.

Yet, the US (as if to justify its high jailure rate) does have a reputable murder rate — far above Great Britain and Western Europe and comparable to Eastern Europe. Ah, Belarus is not so violent after all. Where the US really excels is in murder by firearms. We’re ahead of all other developed nations combined.

It looks like we need criminal justice reform, but not just a touch here and there. A more fundamental model can be seen in Germany, a nation that is well along on the road to preventing crime and minimizing the need for jails.

In Munich, Germany (Munchen), population 1.2 million, there were three murders in year 2000. Munich, it seems, limits its murders to TV programs — over 100 that same year on the tube. How do they keep their reality murder rate so low? The first answer is community. Even with over a million people, the Munchens all feel a sense of social responsibility. No one holds a “Don’t get involved” attitude. Second, all guns must be registered and kept in locked cabinets. Germany won’t register AK-47s or surface to air missiles. The NRA never held much sway in Germany — even the Black Forest is more famous for its chocolate cake the any metaphorical connotations.

If the first two legs of the tripod are community and gun regulations, the third is the Law and the duty of lawyers. That role of lawyers goes double for district attorneys. Here in the US, district attorneys feel their first responsibility is to their clients, the people. German DAs have a primary loyalty to the Truth. Moreover, government attorneys are civil servants, never political appointees. Wouldn’t you know it — Old Europe obsessed with the truth.

The Gadfly Revelry & Research troupe (GRR), in a whirlwind of simplicity, has proposed a solution for criminal justice reform. GRR, in the interest of full disclosure, admits that they have purloined the solution from President Obama (who once promised us government accountability). President O was petitioned to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the individuals of the Bush-Cheney (BC) administration whose crimes have come to light. [Not to mention the dark secrets of Cheney’s OVP.] O’s response was that we should look forward, not back. What a way to empty our jails and clear the calendars of our criminal courts. All in one swell foop.

Love Conquers All

Salut, Salud, Gesund — As Long As You’re Healthy
by Mort Malkin

Love Conquers All

The medical profession studies how the heart, lungs, kidneys,and bone marrow move in reaction to the different endocrine glands. Sports medicine people learn how exercise increases bone strength, decreases blood pressure, sensitizes the insulin receptors of cells throughout the body, and lowers the likelihood of colon cancer and breast cancer. Several different disciplines are interested variously in consciousness, emotions, and the ways of the brain. These specialties include neurology, psychiatry, philosophy, theology, and People Magazine.

Despite the intense interest in what goes on inside the brain, no one has gotten a handle on love or even sex. Yet, the need to understand these mysteries is evident from the epidemic of infidelities among our public servants (elected officials).

The latest man of the hour is erstwhile Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Rather, we should call him the man of the extended weekend … in Argentina. Until his return, no one knew where he was. One rumor was that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, traveling light without a cell phone. Another was that he was at a retreat, doing some serious writing. It turned out he was gathering material in Buenos Aires for future memoirs, except he was using body language, not words. A couple of weeks earlier, Senator John Ensign of Nevada held a press conference to apologize for his sexual adventures with a campaign worker, for which favors her salary was doubled. The blogosphere is following the money trail further into the dark recesses of the Party faithful. That’s Nevada, the home state of Reno and Las Vegas cultures of sex and money. But what happened in Nevada didn’t stay there. Both men were rising stars in the Republican Party, but sex and or
love conquered political ambition.

Republicans are not the only guys infected by the love bug. John Edwards, after much denial, then avoidance of reporters, also announced. Maybe he figured he had little more to lose once he lost the presidential nomination. For Governor Elliot Spitzer of NY, it was pure sex — he frequented a high class “escort service.” Did he figure that keeping it professional guaranteed confidentiality?

The parade of public figures, thus far all men, is enough to require a scorecard. A few from recent history include: Senator David Vitter of LA, Congressman Mark Foley of FL, Senator Larry Craig of ID, Congressman Don Dherwood of PA, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (an ex post facto case), Governor Jim McGreevey of NJ, and President Bill Clinton right in the White House in a small study off the Oval Office.

I suppose we in the Colonies can blame it all on the English tradition. Everyone knows about Prince Charles and Princess (by marriage) Diana. But, they were just following in that tradition as per great uncle Edward VIII who gave up the throne for Wallis Simpson, the twice divorced American commoner. Edward took up with Mrs. Simpson when she was still married and he was the Prince of Wales. He, too, had a tradition to uphold. His great grancestor, Henry VIII, had six wives, among them Anne Boleyn, mother of Elizabeth I. As he worked his way through the six, Henry grew fat and uncongenial, but as Henry Kissinger I says, “Political power is the greatest aphrodesiac.”

If America needs a new attitude toward sex to free itself of burdens of guilt and the need for public apology, Continental Europe has just the model. In France, President Nicholas Sarkosy became too difficult for his second wife, Cecilia, and they separated right in the midst of an election campaign. Supermodel Carla Bruni was waiting in the wings (waiting?). Over in Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is famous for his attentions to young, pretty maidens. Recently, at age 72 he came upon 18 year old Noemi, and the pheromones flowed. Berlusconi’s activities of the realm were so outrageous he was formally reproached by the Archbishop of Genoa. The common people, however, merely shrugged their shoulders and took Silvio’s dalliances as a fact of national life. Sex work is considered an accepted genre of employment.

Here in the US, holding public officials to account seems a worthy pursuit. They deserve to be turned out of office or, at least, not reelected. If a wanderer’s wife deems a divorce in order for a dysordered marriage, it should be granted ipso facto. As well, when the TV news networks spend precious time on scandals instead of health care reform, we should tune them out. Our public air waves are too precious for such tarrytales.

The Loyal Opposition

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

The Loyal Opposition

In Congress, the less than loyal opposition found fault with President Obama’s response to the demonstrations in Iraq. He opposed violence and stood with the Iranian people, but ruled out American intervention. [Nary a word about covert CIA operations near the Zagros mountains and in Luristan where community control is the rule.]

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a state where a substantial cohort of the population is still fighting the Civil War, would have President Obama speak out forcefully against Ahmedinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who supports him. Just being opposed to a violent crackdown is not enough, said Senator Graham. Senator John McCain said “Me too” and alluded to some sample forcefulness. You will recall that presidential candidate McCain thought it was funny when he sang “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.” McCain single-handedly could unite Iranians behind Ahmedinejad. At that time in late ’08, Dick Cheney, who often smirked but never laughed, was entirely serious in organizing a scheme to goad Iran into attacking American forces so he could bomb Teheran. Dick Cheney was generally more than talk, but his Iran plan didn’t sail with George W.

Now in mid 2009, the Republicans are finally united. They’re just not united with the American people.

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

Gas Mining — No Free Lunch

Some large property owners see the discovery of “natural gas in the bedrock of Wayne County (PA) and Sullivan County (NY) as a Godsend. But, the internet tells us that gas mining sites in Hickory PA, Dimock PA, Ohio, Colorado, Texas, and Wyoming have experienced: fires, explosions, chemical pollution of aquifers, and industrialization of the rural landscape. Our God-given common sense should tell us there’s no free lunch. The goddess of unforeseen consequences is already telling us not to fracture the spine of the earth and not to inject a million gallons of water laced with polycyclic organo-hydrocarbons (chemicals of unpronounceable names) at every drill site.

The gas deposits that the Great Spirit placed in small pockets and crevices a mile deep in the bedrock were meant to be used only in the event of a dire environmental emergency. When the sun stops shining on Arizona & southern California, when the wind stops blowing over the plains of the mid-west, when the tides stop flowing in Puget Sound — only then will it be time to break up the bedrock into mini-tectonic plates to get at the gas deposits. Gasoline at $3 or $4 a gallon for our cars is not enough of an emergency to monkey around with the infrastructure of the Earth. Good planets are hard to find.

Recent issues of newspapers in the Delaware Valley have reported on community meetings where gas drilling was of more concern than global heating, more than changes in hunting regulations, and more than the recent increase in deer ticks in the countryside. Yes, environmental sequelae of gas drilling and the ethics of the great corporations involved are disquieting. At one meeting on the NY side of the River, the township supervisors were worried that the huge trucks used by the drilling companies will tear up the rural roads in a great demolition derby. At another meeting a Penn State water resource “associate” spoke to a group of landowners who had already signed leases with gas companies. Seventy percent of them said that now they were nervous that their water wells might become polluted by chemicals used in the “fracking” process. They took the money but didn’t run — they were planning to continue living on their property. The speaker advised them to test
their water before drilling started. Under further questioning, he admitted the gas companies didn’t have to reveal the proprietary mixture of chemicals they used. So, which of the hundreds of chemicals found at various drilling sites around the nation should be included in the testing? Methylnapthalene, 2-butoxyethanol, ethoxylphenol, toluene, xylene, dipropylene …? Will Halliburton provide kits for testing Halad 344 and HAI 81M?

Just in case the chemical laced fracking fluids don’t get into the aquifer through the drilling pipes or the fractured shale layer, 70% of the million gallons pumped down come up as toxic waste water which is stored in an adjacent pit lined with a plastic sheet. Even if the plastic doesn’t leak, a heavy rain will cause the pit to overflow. It’s hard to keep water (with chemicals) where it belongs.

The latest unforeseenity of the goddess has occurred around Fort Worth TX where they have been fracking the Barnett shale for a few years. Several earthquakes have been reported in an area that till now has been free of quakes for the entire history of the Lone Star state. But don’t worry. None of the rock & roll geological events was over 2.8 on the Richter Scale.

Maybe a little respect for Mother Earth would be to our benefit. What goes around comes around.