Monday, May 9, 2011

Too much crime, not enough punishment

Editorial from the Daily News:

New York City is overrun by habitual criminals who are degrading the quality of life without fear of punishment, according to astounding new data.

The state Division of Criminal Justice Services reports that a whopping 8,824 mopes had been convicted of five or more misdemeanors within the three years that ended Dec. 31. Some 1,600 of them had 10 or more convictions in the same time frame and 169 had 20 or more.

These people must be stopped. They are stealing, dealing drugs, vandalizing property and cycling through the Criminal Court revolving door largely unpunished. New Yorkers are lucky if they are off the street for more than a couple of days.

Commissioner Sean Byrne started collecting the numbers to get prosecutors and judges to come down harder on repeat misdemeanor offenders. Good luck with that. It has never worked before and the max they would face in any case is a year in jail.

Only a get-tough law will do the trick.

The Legislature - including the soft-on-crime Democratic-controlled Assembly - must finally deem repeat misdemeanants eligible for treatment as felons.

Ideally, the law would bump a fourth misdemeanor conviction up to a felony with hard time. But this is too much for the Assembly to bear. Mayor Bloomberg has called for setting the standard at a seventh conviction and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance says he would happily settle for pegging it at eight or more serious misdemeanors in five years.

Enough is enough. Too many people are being victimized.

12 comments:

Cherokeesista said...

Sanctuary City ;-(

Anonymous said...

4th or 8th misdemeanor? By the 2nd an individual loses much opportunity to work in many professions etc and is well on his her way to the 8th.

Educating children in school as to what this all means may help. But for now getting tough is doling out punishment deserved on the first, second etc.

Jerry Rotondi said...

I agree.

New York City has been overrun by habitual criminals who have degraded our quality of life.

Some have even made a political career of it.

Now, who do you think these crooked pols might be?

Anonymous said...

New York City has been overrun by habitual criminals who have degraded our quality of life.

Some have even made a political career of it.

WITHOUT A DOUBT!

Some bum guy selling nickel bags of marijuana isn't some hardcore criminal, he's a nuisance if anything but hardly a criminal.

You want to talk about criminals? How about your boy Alan Heves, Hiram Monserrate or John Liu. Those are the hard-body criminals.

Anonymous said...

Sorry - I don't want to pay big $$$ to keeep a graffiti artist in jail - where he (yeah, gender-specific) can learn how to be a big-time criminal. How about a combination of required community service, education and restitution?

Tubby Stashitsky said...

Now, who do you think these crooked pols might be?

ME! ME! Put me on the list!

Claire Shillman said...

Tubby Stashitsky said...
Now, who do you think these crooked pols might be?

ME! ME! Put me on the list!

--------------------------------------------------
What am I? Chopped liver?

Anonymous said...

Have you looked at John Liu lately?

I'd hardly say he's a hard body in any way.

Flab has taken its toll on him.

The loose jowl badge of corruption has filled out his once boyish face.

But, now he has a son, a beard and is NYC's Comptroller, so he can turn in his men's bath house pass and go solo-sexual in his old age.

Anonymous said...

We need a repeat misdemeanant statute, like we have a repeat felony offender statute. more than one misdemeanor in 5 years gets you twice the time.

Joe said...

Need tents, ankle shackles, pink underwear, shovels and baloney sandwiches.
Az Sheriff Joe Arpaio criminals cost .50 cents a day to jail (Not $260). You can see them in striped uniforms along side the roadways picking up garbage and pulling weeds.
No TV, Basketball just shortwave preachers and warn out Linda Ronstadt and Partridge family records on the speakers.

Life for criminals in Joe Arpaio jails is such a hell people leave his state or hop back over the Mexican wall as soon as they get out.

Why cant this be done here ?
Aren't there some 1400+ seat ferry's with good hulls sitting in a Staten Island boat graveyard ?

Anonymous said...

I think making a person a felon for being convicted of minor crimes/misdemeanors is sending a bad message. Once a person has a record where any crime he commits is a felony he may just go out and commit serious felonies because he has nothing to lose. Enforce the laws on the books which is a person can get a maximum of one year in jail for a petty crime or misdemeanor. That is more than enough punishment for crimes like petty shoplifters, marijuana smokers, prostitution, fare beating nd illegal gambling. It sounds like they are looking to send petty offenders to state prisons that are getting closed because crime has been on the decline for years. So this would be great for police and correction officer unions and the rural towns in upstate NY which make a living off of the prison system. But it would be bad for the taxpayers and citizens. Just enforce the laws on the books for misdemeanors it is tough enough.

Anonymous said...

Hey let's have a all around 3 strikes law. The 3rd misdemeanor becomes a felony and 3 felonies is an automatic life without parole sentence. This way we can put people in prison for the rest of their lives for their 6th misdemeanor instead of what would normally be a fine, probation or 30-90 days. Even better make 3 violations or infractions a misdemeanor this way a chronic jay walker or person who litters can be jailed for life on the 9th offense. Let's build concentration camps and have slave labor or better yet build more private corporate jails. Walmart and Exxon might want to open some to put all those dangerous small time criminals in their prisons to be slaves for them. They could pay them $8 a week instead of paying people in the free world $8 an hour. Great idea lock everyone up and throw away the key. Make the USA the UPA United Prisons of America.