States rethinking cutoff for trying teens as adults
"Budget-crunched states push for more lenient sentencing; ‘Tough-on-crime’ policies straining prison systems" by Greg Bluestein, Associated Press / April 3, 2011
And yet they are going to try more kids as adults.
ATLANTA — As costs to house state inmates have soared, many conservatives are reconsidering a tough-on-crime era that has led to stiffer sentences, overcrowded prisons, and bloated correctional budgets....
Brent Steele, a Republican state senator in Indiana who is sponsoring a criminal justice overhaul in his state, said: “.... eventually comes the time when we run out of prison space. So what do you do? You concentrate on incarcerating those we’re afraid of and not those we’re just mad at.’’
In the freest nation on earth?
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Changing laws to send fewer low-level offenders to state prison or reduce their sentences is a more politically palatable way to save money than cutting spending for schools or health care....
Oh, I thought they were doing it for the right and moral reason.
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At least the kids will have time to study:
"It’s hard time for prison librarian; Inmate reading programs suffer amid state cuts" by Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post / April 3, 2011
CUMBERLAND, Md. — Murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug dealers have been relying on Miss Shirley, as she is always called by library visitors, for more than two decades to get them Jackie Collins novels, Westerns, biographies of Henry Ford, the latest James Patterson page-turner, poetry, Entrepreneur magazine, math textbooks, resume guides, and illustrated books about snakes.
Request The International Jew.
But with state budget shortfalls, Miss Shirley is no longer allocated money for new books....
But we do have money for interest payments to banks, well-connected corporate interests, and lavish political lifestyles.
Miss Shirley has weathered deficits during previous recessions as lawmakers diverted money away from prisoners toward law-abiding citizens — a constituency, she knows, that is prone to ask, “Why give money to murderers to read when people can’t get jobs?’’
Why give money to the fraudulent liars of Wall Street?
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Miss Shirley is not complaining. Rather, she has won plaudits from her prison librarian peers for pushing ahead despite setbacks facing the entire prison reading community.
“Her libraries have been devastated in the last few years,’’ says Diane Walden, Miss Shirley’s counterpart for Colorado prisons. “She doesn’t complain or vent or whine. She is very focused on what she can do. She’s an amazing person and advocate.’’
She just takes the pounding with a smile, huh?
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Who reads books or newspapers anymore anyway?
Yes, AmeriKa always has money to deal out death.
Also see: US, state debts reach post-WWII level
And we are losing WWIII as I type, dear Americans.
