Crime and Punishment

 There is an election for District Attorney that seems hotly contested in the county next to mine so I get to see the ads for the two candidates.  The Democrat is the incumbent and his ads respond to attacks by his opponent and talk about his record.  His Republican opponent spends his time talking about how his opponent is letting criminals out and fails to prosecute dangerous individuals.  His examples are sort of convoluted, following a particular criminals history until he ended up murdering someone.

The initial crimes were obviously not as serious and I'm not sure of the exact circumstances, but this seems an attempt to use the Willie Horton strategy.  Find a murderer who was arrested previously and show how he wouldn't have murdered if he was kept locked up.  The logic is correct but we don't decide whether to incarcerate people based on what they might do.

I don't get to vote in that election but if I did I would probably shun the Republican candidate.  He is running on the principle that the more people we lock up, the safer we will be.  That could be true if we were locking up the right people.  However with all the incarceration we have, not sure it did much except line the pockets of people who run for profit prisons and increase our taxes.

Its very hard to identify who will commit a violent crime.  We had a likeable young lady who was killed while traveling with her fiancé.  There was no indication that I am aware of that he was going to go violent and he has avoided apprehension so far, if he is still alive.

These type of violent crimes are unpredictable.

More crime is related to income inequality.  People growing up in our society who see others with a lot more get tempted to take some.  Throw in the somewhat arbitrary war on drugs and we end up with what we have.

We haven't descended into Robo Cop crime levels yet although some parts of our cities are clearly dangerous.  That's not new and goes back to the 1800s when some of our first gangs formed.  It actually goes back to antiquity since all the ancient laws refer to punishing crime.

We keep doing the same things that haven't worked hoping they will this time.

That's just crazy.