Lara, in painting her story in "broad strokes" speaks of the horrible black man doing something heinous to the pretty white woman. When do you protect the black community? When do you acknowledge that most of the crimes will be in minority neighborhoods? This is why more people of color will be voting for candidates with R's behind their names in a few days.
Ms. Bazleon argues, in lockstep with fuzzy liberal beliefs "But with treatment, intervention, education, vocational training, mental health services, and yes, mercy, they turn their lives around." Yet, as Mr. Mangual notes "A recent meta-analysis of the literature on the “Effectiveness of psychological interventions in prison to reduce recidivism,” published in The Lancet, found little evidence in the form of rigorous, high-quality studies to support the suggestion that a solution to the recidivism problem is within reach. " As usual, good intentions, rather than facts, informs the fanciful policies of the Left.
With or without all these ministrations, the harsh reality is that we are releasing violent people into society to prey upon the innocent because there are individuals who remain violent, predatory sociopaths who have no business ever being loose among us. Then Bazleon predictably plays the race card. What difference does the color of a criminal's skin make to a victim? We are not incarcerating people because of their race. We are locking them up because they are a menace to the innocent people who are trying to live their lives.
The cold fact is that cashless bail and emptying the prisons was a knee-jerk reaction to the Floyd incident and the BLM sophistry that followed. It has created a disaster that will grow worse, aided and abetted by the Soros prosecutors who were installed to further the chaos. Criminals are criminals, irrespective of race. Sociopathic criminals are repeat offenders and a clear menace. Mr. Mangual muses "It seems to me that a “three-strikes”-type approach to repeat offending is a start. Maybe the right number of strikes isn’t three. Perhaps it’s five. " Five? Five what - murders? Violent assaults? Rapes? How about one?
Society has rules and, when they are ignored and mocked, the fabric of society frays and tears apart and people take matters into their own hands. We are fast approaching that point.
There are really two different styles and tones, aren't there? The first uses logic and facts. The second chooses to focus on emotionally evocative language and fringe examples.
Here is the thing: young black kids, specifically, are being failed by society. Far too many of them, by the time they hit the age where they are eligible for adult prisons, are functional psychopaths. They have been traumatized too many times, by too many things, and in my personal view a very high percentage of them, being the children of what can only be called girls, have insecure or disordered attachments, that they then bring into an objectively unsafe world.
Moral order begins in earliest childhood. It begins in the sense that the world makes sense, is in general fair, and that somebody cares for you and will work to keep you safe. Far too many black kids in urban areas never feel any of these things. They react in predictable ways. In the ways any of us would have reacted, had we been born in the same way, in the same place, to the same single mother.
All of this is tragic. But to pretend that the damage can be undone or that most of these kids can ever be rehabilitated is insane. That incarcerating people who will NEVER STOP being criminals reduces the crime rate is obvious.
And we are unique in the world in the peculiarly codependent way in which we have failed the black community. Democrats have been claiming to be their saviors for many decades now, but the problem is that if the problems ever get fixed, then they won't need Democrats any more. So on the one hand they publicly claim to be friends, and on the other they sabotage everything. They incent single parenthood, oppose effective improvements in schooling, and do their best to prevent anyone from ever saying "this is my responsibility" by pushing it off on white people, Republicans, and anyone else who sounds at the given moment plausible.
All of these problems have solutions, but they require SPEAKING THE TRUTH. The single worst crime Democrats commit is making honest discussion impossible by personalizing everything, deflecting, denying, and lying. This is my honest opinion. I cannot see how embracing the Democrats has been anything but an unmitigated catastrophe for the black community.
Both seem to oppose lengthy overly punitive punishment for minor first offenses, or even second. Neither support railroading minorities. The issue is at what point have you exhausted your chances given either increasing severity of criminal activity or how many felonies are too many?
The DA’s should not over charge, plea agreements cant be so one sided in that the risk of trial to a defendant is so onerous so as to cause the Govt never to have to prove its case.
But clearly incorrigible anti social criminals should live in a different society from the norm.
Its where to draw the line and how to hold the police/ prosecution accountable when charging first or second offenders?
I kept reading Ms. Bazelon's part of the article looking for answers. She cites other nations with low crime rates and low incarceration but never explains how they do it. I'd like to know. She targets the horrific crimes but, sadly, the increase in crime is mostly within minority communities. The abduction, rape, and murder of a woman off the streets is rare. The accidental shooting of kids through windows in minority communities, less so. When she suggests fixes, instead of woe is criminals, then she might sway me.
Yeah, Lara lost me when she injected the “coded” racism line instead of just arguing on the merits. And then to see that she is employing her skills in the festering criminal hellscape of San Fransicko I had to snicker. I’m willing to bet that she was a Chesa Boudin cheerleader. I cleave to the simple mantra of “make crime illegal again”. Then enforce the laws fairly and consistently. Who among us doesn’t believe that Paul Pelosi’s assailant, had he assaulted a commoner like us, wouldn’t have walked free later that same night of the assault with a cash free bail?
I saw an interview with Lara Bazelon on Professor Glen Loury's YouTube show. She's a nice person. They had a touching exchange at the end, about Professor Loury writing his autobiography.
Sorry, but prior to that, M. Bazelon was the stereotypical bleeding-heart, delusional progressive regarding the issues discussed. She's guilty of wishful thinking, is the main problem. Yeah, she's got her statistics, but that's about it. Funny she should be here. "Common Sense?"
Blacks make up 12.8% of the population but commit the majority of violent crime in the country — mostly against other blacks, mostly in inner cities and mostly with illegal guns.
I was surprised in this discussion that one highly effective means of reducing this violence was not discussed: stop and frisk — a small inconvenience to a community versus innocent people being shot and killed.
In the 1990s, NYC was overwhelmed by gang killings and stop-and-frisk got guns and their carriers off the streets. New York became the nation’s safest large city. But in 2013, after a campaign claiming it was biased against black people (even though it was aimed at protecting black people in dangerous black neighborhoods), a federal judge declared stop-and-frisk “unconstitutional”.
Then came BLM villianizing police and police becoming less proactive in inner cities, and shootings and killings have surged. The people most hurt: innocent black people.
So with all the talk about changing gun laws (which I support), the reality is that these laws will do little to stop the majority of shootings with illegal guns. But one thing will work: stop and frisk.
Ms. Bazelon’s script is not a debate, It’s a sermon. Its also one day too early for me to be preached to about it somehow being the fault of decent law-abiding people that some folks are hell-bent on being miserable fuck-ups. I mean, what kind of sheltered privileged scum don’t want people freely burglarizing, robbing, slinging dope, raping, and murdering people in their neighborhoods? The audacity! When someone like Ms. Bazelon tries to tell you that you have no empathy or foresight when you want bad people incarcerated, you need to look them right in the eye and tell them they are full of shit, because they are.
Just enforce the damn law. Second chances? Perhaps if there is some significant remorse and willingness on the part of the guilty to change, then sure. That is common sense. Third, fourth, fifteenth chance? No. Full stop. You know what people in prison aren’t doing. They’re not taking advantage of good natured folks who are trying to do the right thing and live their lives honestly and peacefully. That’s the point.
Also, since the author included her own little sob story, here’s one of mine (chosen from a fairly long canon).
There was a domestic violence case I was involved in where the offender had been arrested multiple times for (wait for it), domestic violence against his wife. His penultimate arrest was for aggravated assault, specifically strangulation. He plead guilty to that charge and was on probation (yes, you read that correctly) when he entered his wife’s apartment and shot her point blank in the chest with a .410 shotgun in front of their three young children. He then fled.
I was the first officer to arrive. One of those lady’s little girls came flying up as my patrol car squealed to a stop. She screamed “please help, my mom’s been shot!” I’ll never forget it. Her mom was also one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. While I was trying to apply a chest seal to her wound, she calmly told me who shot her, what he was probably driving, and where he was probably going. Then she asked me if she was going to die. I told her she wasn’t. At thee time, I figured that was a lie. We said the Lord’s Prayer.
As it turns out, by the grace of God, she did not. The human pile of dog shit who tried to end her life is now doing 50 years, a small consolation to be sure for that little family. No laws were named after the victim or her children. The existing laws were just finally enforced. Had justice been done the first time(s), he would have been locked up long before he pulled the trigger that night. He was quite simply a bad person who was given more than one chance to do the right thing. He chose otherwise, and while in this case he did not kill anyone, he surely scarred his own family forever.
There are definitely more good people out there than bad, and there a lot of very intelligent people on this forum. Trust in your own ability to know right from wrong, and expect others (especially those in positions of power and influence) to do the same. This concludes my own sermon.
Despite what the sociology professors will have you believe, it is not a mystery how to solve this problem . NYC did it in the 1990’s , you strictly enforce the law. Now we’re witnessing a crime wave as a result of the undoing of all those policies. Remember when they released like half the prison population during Covid and told us it would have no effect on crime?
Bazaleons essay is filled with logical errors. she states other industrialized countries have lower rates of incarceration and yet have lower rates of crime without considering maybe that’s true BECAUSE they have lower rates of violent crime. The proportion of the population that is incarcerated is irrelevant without considering the proportion that commits crimes. She laments the cost of keeping people locked up but does not consider the costs of having a society ravaged by crime. Most of all she has very little empathy or compassion for the real people victimized as a result of her policies and instead treats them as a statistical anomaly.
My local police department publishes a blotter every two weeks. Each time when they talk about an arrest made, they also note how many arrests the perpetrator has in his/her past. Nearly every one (especially those involved in non-violent robberies) has has 20+ arrests in the local area. But NYS had bail reform pass, so nearly all nonviolent offenders get appearance tickets. And so they repeatedly commit these sorts of crimes, because they have no consequences.
The #1 job of government is security, both domestically and internationally. We have failed in the former and are failing in the latter. Clearly. Yes, there are plenty of examples where the innocent have been convicted or the guilty over-incarcerated (but she ignores those many many cases where the guilty are never brought to justice at all), and we can do our best to minimize and hopefully eliminate those, but Ms. Bazelon has zero solutions for that and the fact that she falls back on "racism" is evidence that she has no solutions other than opening the jails.
Lara Bazelon has a screw loose. It’s clear as day that repeat violent offenders must be given lengthy prison terms. This new crime wave in America is due to the early release of thousands of criminals due to COVID-19. Progressive prosecutors are playing Russian roulette with innocent people's safety and lives. One can only hope it’s these sick Soros Funded progressives who are the ones that become victims first so they can learn firsthand how reckless and dangerous their bad ideas are.
Shellenberger wrote about the drugged out criminals roaming free in SF downtown, while the cops look on and DAs hand out no cash bail.
So now apparently one has found his way to a mansion in Pacific Heights, smashed in a glass door and done something, the facts of which are still very much in question and so far don’t add up.
But the story is already about MAGA republicans and their far right violence. And gee, just before a disastrous election for democrats.
All a bit too “on the nose”?
Why did Paul go to the bathroom and call 911, and then come out of the bathroom? Why not hide there until the cops arrived?
Are we to believe the Pelosis don’t have an elaborate security system that would alert the cops to an intruder? Why did Paul even have to dial 911?
Why would an 82 yr old guy struggle with a 42 yr old guy, just as the cops arrive to see it?
How did someone traveling with Nancy in DC know the assailant was trying to tie Paul up? Was a rope recovered from the scene?
And the claims the assailant asked, Where’s Nancy. Just heresay? How convenient.
The story ought to be about the hellish condition of SF enabled by dems for decades.
But when it happens to SF’s royal family, they are the victims of Trump’s MAGA radicals.
Ms. Bazelton's argument is weak and contains almost no data to back up her claims. More needs to be done to rehab offenders and help prevent people from choosing crime. However, this should not come at the expense of law abiding citizens.
Lara, in painting her story in "broad strokes" speaks of the horrible black man doing something heinous to the pretty white woman. When do you protect the black community? When do you acknowledge that most of the crimes will be in minority neighborhoods? This is why more people of color will be voting for candidates with R's behind their names in a few days.
Ms. Bazleon argues, in lockstep with fuzzy liberal beliefs "But with treatment, intervention, education, vocational training, mental health services, and yes, mercy, they turn their lives around." Yet, as Mr. Mangual notes "A recent meta-analysis of the literature on the “Effectiveness of psychological interventions in prison to reduce recidivism,” published in The Lancet, found little evidence in the form of rigorous, high-quality studies to support the suggestion that a solution to the recidivism problem is within reach. " As usual, good intentions, rather than facts, informs the fanciful policies of the Left.
With or without all these ministrations, the harsh reality is that we are releasing violent people into society to prey upon the innocent because there are individuals who remain violent, predatory sociopaths who have no business ever being loose among us. Then Bazleon predictably plays the race card. What difference does the color of a criminal's skin make to a victim? We are not incarcerating people because of their race. We are locking them up because they are a menace to the innocent people who are trying to live their lives.
The cold fact is that cashless bail and emptying the prisons was a knee-jerk reaction to the Floyd incident and the BLM sophistry that followed. It has created a disaster that will grow worse, aided and abetted by the Soros prosecutors who were installed to further the chaos. Criminals are criminals, irrespective of race. Sociopathic criminals are repeat offenders and a clear menace. Mr. Mangual muses "It seems to me that a “three-strikes”-type approach to repeat offending is a start. Maybe the right number of strikes isn’t three. Perhaps it’s five. " Five? Five what - murders? Violent assaults? Rapes? How about one?
Society has rules and, when they are ignored and mocked, the fabric of society frays and tears apart and people take matters into their own hands. We are fast approaching that point.
There are really two different styles and tones, aren't there? The first uses logic and facts. The second chooses to focus on emotionally evocative language and fringe examples.
Here is the thing: young black kids, specifically, are being failed by society. Far too many of them, by the time they hit the age where they are eligible for adult prisons, are functional psychopaths. They have been traumatized too many times, by too many things, and in my personal view a very high percentage of them, being the children of what can only be called girls, have insecure or disordered attachments, that they then bring into an objectively unsafe world.
Moral order begins in earliest childhood. It begins in the sense that the world makes sense, is in general fair, and that somebody cares for you and will work to keep you safe. Far too many black kids in urban areas never feel any of these things. They react in predictable ways. In the ways any of us would have reacted, had we been born in the same way, in the same place, to the same single mother.
All of this is tragic. But to pretend that the damage can be undone or that most of these kids can ever be rehabilitated is insane. That incarcerating people who will NEVER STOP being criminals reduces the crime rate is obvious.
And we are unique in the world in the peculiarly codependent way in which we have failed the black community. Democrats have been claiming to be their saviors for many decades now, but the problem is that if the problems ever get fixed, then they won't need Democrats any more. So on the one hand they publicly claim to be friends, and on the other they sabotage everything. They incent single parenthood, oppose effective improvements in schooling, and do their best to prevent anyone from ever saying "this is my responsibility" by pushing it off on white people, Republicans, and anyone else who sounds at the given moment plausible.
All of these problems have solutions, but they require SPEAKING THE TRUTH. The single worst crime Democrats commit is making honest discussion impossible by personalizing everything, deflecting, denying, and lying. This is my honest opinion. I cannot see how embracing the Democrats has been anything but an unmitigated catastrophe for the black community.
The authors talk across instead to each other.
Both seem to oppose lengthy overly punitive punishment for minor first offenses, or even second. Neither support railroading minorities. The issue is at what point have you exhausted your chances given either increasing severity of criminal activity or how many felonies are too many?
The DA’s should not over charge, plea agreements cant be so one sided in that the risk of trial to a defendant is so onerous so as to cause the Govt never to have to prove its case.
But clearly incorrigible anti social criminals should live in a different society from the norm.
Its where to draw the line and how to hold the police/ prosecution accountable when charging first or second offenders?
Its not lock em all up vs let them all go.
I kept reading Ms. Bazelon's part of the article looking for answers. She cites other nations with low crime rates and low incarceration but never explains how they do it. I'd like to know. She targets the horrific crimes but, sadly, the increase in crime is mostly within minority communities. The abduction, rape, and murder of a woman off the streets is rare. The accidental shooting of kids through windows in minority communities, less so. When she suggests fixes, instead of woe is criminals, then she might sway me.
Yeah, Lara lost me when she injected the “coded” racism line instead of just arguing on the merits. And then to see that she is employing her skills in the festering criminal hellscape of San Fransicko I had to snicker. I’m willing to bet that she was a Chesa Boudin cheerleader. I cleave to the simple mantra of “make crime illegal again”. Then enforce the laws fairly and consistently. Who among us doesn’t believe that Paul Pelosi’s assailant, had he assaulted a commoner like us, wouldn’t have walked free later that same night of the assault with a cash free bail?
I saw an interview with Lara Bazelon on Professor Glen Loury's YouTube show. She's a nice person. They had a touching exchange at the end, about Professor Loury writing his autobiography.
Sorry, but prior to that, M. Bazelon was the stereotypical bleeding-heart, delusional progressive regarding the issues discussed. She's guilty of wishful thinking, is the main problem. Yeah, she's got her statistics, but that's about it. Funny she should be here. "Common Sense?"
Uhhh criminal justice reform has been a disaster. It’s not a debate.
Blacks make up 12.8% of the population but commit the majority of violent crime in the country — mostly against other blacks, mostly in inner cities and mostly with illegal guns.
I was surprised in this discussion that one highly effective means of reducing this violence was not discussed: stop and frisk — a small inconvenience to a community versus innocent people being shot and killed.
In the 1990s, NYC was overwhelmed by gang killings and stop-and-frisk got guns and their carriers off the streets. New York became the nation’s safest large city. But in 2013, after a campaign claiming it was biased against black people (even though it was aimed at protecting black people in dangerous black neighborhoods), a federal judge declared stop-and-frisk “unconstitutional”.
Then came BLM villianizing police and police becoming less proactive in inner cities, and shootings and killings have surged. The people most hurt: innocent black people.
So with all the talk about changing gun laws (which I support), the reality is that these laws will do little to stop the majority of shootings with illegal guns. But one thing will work: stop and frisk.
Ms. Bazelon’s script is not a debate, It’s a sermon. Its also one day too early for me to be preached to about it somehow being the fault of decent law-abiding people that some folks are hell-bent on being miserable fuck-ups. I mean, what kind of sheltered privileged scum don’t want people freely burglarizing, robbing, slinging dope, raping, and murdering people in their neighborhoods? The audacity! When someone like Ms. Bazelon tries to tell you that you have no empathy or foresight when you want bad people incarcerated, you need to look them right in the eye and tell them they are full of shit, because they are.
Just enforce the damn law. Second chances? Perhaps if there is some significant remorse and willingness on the part of the guilty to change, then sure. That is common sense. Third, fourth, fifteenth chance? No. Full stop. You know what people in prison aren’t doing. They’re not taking advantage of good natured folks who are trying to do the right thing and live their lives honestly and peacefully. That’s the point.
Also, since the author included her own little sob story, here’s one of mine (chosen from a fairly long canon).
There was a domestic violence case I was involved in where the offender had been arrested multiple times for (wait for it), domestic violence against his wife. His penultimate arrest was for aggravated assault, specifically strangulation. He plead guilty to that charge and was on probation (yes, you read that correctly) when he entered his wife’s apartment and shot her point blank in the chest with a .410 shotgun in front of their three young children. He then fled.
I was the first officer to arrive. One of those lady’s little girls came flying up as my patrol car squealed to a stop. She screamed “please help, my mom’s been shot!” I’ll never forget it. Her mom was also one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. While I was trying to apply a chest seal to her wound, she calmly told me who shot her, what he was probably driving, and where he was probably going. Then she asked me if she was going to die. I told her she wasn’t. At thee time, I figured that was a lie. We said the Lord’s Prayer.
As it turns out, by the grace of God, she did not. The human pile of dog shit who tried to end her life is now doing 50 years, a small consolation to be sure for that little family. No laws were named after the victim or her children. The existing laws were just finally enforced. Had justice been done the first time(s), he would have been locked up long before he pulled the trigger that night. He was quite simply a bad person who was given more than one chance to do the right thing. He chose otherwise, and while in this case he did not kill anyone, he surely scarred his own family forever.
There are definitely more good people out there than bad, and there a lot of very intelligent people on this forum. Trust in your own ability to know right from wrong, and expect others (especially those in positions of power and influence) to do the same. This concludes my own sermon.
Despite what the sociology professors will have you believe, it is not a mystery how to solve this problem . NYC did it in the 1990’s , you strictly enforce the law. Now we’re witnessing a crime wave as a result of the undoing of all those policies. Remember when they released like half the prison population during Covid and told us it would have no effect on crime?
Bazaleons essay is filled with logical errors. she states other industrialized countries have lower rates of incarceration and yet have lower rates of crime without considering maybe that’s true BECAUSE they have lower rates of violent crime. The proportion of the population that is incarcerated is irrelevant without considering the proportion that commits crimes. She laments the cost of keeping people locked up but does not consider the costs of having a society ravaged by crime. Most of all she has very little empathy or compassion for the real people victimized as a result of her policies and instead treats them as a statistical anomaly.
My local police department publishes a blotter every two weeks. Each time when they talk about an arrest made, they also note how many arrests the perpetrator has in his/her past. Nearly every one (especially those involved in non-violent robberies) has has 20+ arrests in the local area. But NYS had bail reform pass, so nearly all nonviolent offenders get appearance tickets. And so they repeatedly commit these sorts of crimes, because they have no consequences.
The #1 job of government is security, both domestically and internationally. We have failed in the former and are failing in the latter. Clearly. Yes, there are plenty of examples where the innocent have been convicted or the guilty over-incarcerated (but she ignores those many many cases where the guilty are never brought to justice at all), and we can do our best to minimize and hopefully eliminate those, but Ms. Bazelon has zero solutions for that and the fact that she falls back on "racism" is evidence that she has no solutions other than opening the jails.
Lara Bazelon has a screw loose. It’s clear as day that repeat violent offenders must be given lengthy prison terms. This new crime wave in America is due to the early release of thousands of criminals due to COVID-19. Progressive prosecutors are playing Russian roulette with innocent people's safety and lives. One can only hope it’s these sick Soros Funded progressives who are the ones that become victims first so they can learn firsthand how reckless and dangerous their bad ideas are.
Shellenberger wrote about the drugged out criminals roaming free in SF downtown, while the cops look on and DAs hand out no cash bail.
So now apparently one has found his way to a mansion in Pacific Heights, smashed in a glass door and done something, the facts of which are still very much in question and so far don’t add up.
But the story is already about MAGA republicans and their far right violence. And gee, just before a disastrous election for democrats.
All a bit too “on the nose”?
Why did Paul go to the bathroom and call 911, and then come out of the bathroom? Why not hide there until the cops arrived?
Are we to believe the Pelosis don’t have an elaborate security system that would alert the cops to an intruder? Why did Paul even have to dial 911?
Why would an 82 yr old guy struggle with a 42 yr old guy, just as the cops arrive to see it?
How did someone traveling with Nancy in DC know the assailant was trying to tie Paul up? Was a rope recovered from the scene?
And the claims the assailant asked, Where’s Nancy. Just heresay? How convenient.
The story ought to be about the hellish condition of SF enabled by dems for decades.
But when it happens to SF’s royal family, they are the victims of Trump’s MAGA radicals.
This all feels so staged.
Ms. Bazelton's argument is weak and contains almost no data to back up her claims. More needs to be done to rehab offenders and help prevent people from choosing crime. However, this should not come at the expense of law abiding citizens.