Broken ‘Justice’ System Leads To Fear, Anger

A murderer was executed here in Texas the other day. But just before he got the needle, he rather petulantly declared, “I just hope (his victim’s mother) is happy now.”

If she is happy with the justice system, she’s one of the few who are.

The system is broken, and we all know it. Americans seem to be going through a time best described as “The New Dark Ages,” and a big part of the problem is the collapse of the system that is supposed to protect public safety.

Like the old Dark Ages, the new version is so dangerous, so depressing, so frustrating that the most notable emotions are fear and anger.

Today, many law-abiding people are so fed up that they literally are taking arms against the situation in ways that only begin with demanding, getting and using the right to carry concealed weapons.

They also are using their arms to pull voting levers to demand drastic changes in the politics of the country, as they did last fall. If the politicians who have benefited from this fury at the polls do not come through, measures such as the restoration of chain gangs and personal handguns will be just the beginning.

Opinion surveys keep confirming this: Ordinary folks believe the real world they live in is an angrier, more violent place than it was in the past.

This isn’t just the nostalgic glow for “the good old days” - it really is a meaner, more explosive climate out there now. Eight out of 10 Americans can expect to be the victim of a violent crime during their lifetimes, according to the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Much of the anger we see or feel ourselves springs from the fact that nearly every aspect of our society today is permeated by fear - and has been for a decade or more. Today, it wears euphemistic new labels; we call it “stress,” “anxiety,” “insecurity,” you name it.

But the line between paranoia and practical precaution is blurring. Rich old folks move to gated and guarded fortress suburbs, get rent-a-cops and high-tech intruder alarms; poor young folks carry switchblades and cheap pistols and join street gangs. All are looking in their various ways for some sort of personal security which they feel the system no longer provides its citizens.

Fear does a pretty good job of supercharging the human body in the fleeting minute when it becomes necessary to fight or flee. But when it drags on and on, not for minutes but for decades, look out.

If the mother of the victim of that petulant murderer erupted in fury at the justice system, she has excellent reasons for doing so. As news reports pointed out, the killer of her daughter had murdered before, had been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced by our great big expensive justice system.

And let off.

For his first murder, he got five years but was given clemency and paroled two years later. But that didn’t end the system’s generosity to this murderer; a few years later, it caught, tried and convicted him of robbery and sentenced him to two years in prison. And once again, it gave him clemency, paroling him after less than six months.

Some system! If ordinary people go armed to carry their garbage out to the alley or to walk in their own neighborhood, it’s a vote of no confidence in the system’s effectiveness.

The story of the petulant murderer is typical. Ten percent of criminals commit two-thirds of crimes, but the system doesn’t keep even that 10 percent penned up. Every day, we read in the newspapers and see on television the horrors perpetrated by predators who have killed, robbed, raped or beaten up others and then have been waved back onto the streets by the “justice” system.

Supposedly, justice not only must be done but also must be seen to be done. But as both predators and prey now know, our system flunks both tests. If thugs think they literally can get away with murder, it’s because so many of them have done so.

Fewer than one in 10 serious crimes in the United States results in prison time. The great majority of convicted criminals are not behind bars; in 1990, nearly two out of three persons considered in “correctional custody” were, in fact, out on probation and 12 percent were on parole.

In 1992, the median prison sentence for murder was about 15 years, but the average time served was only about five years.

And even that overstates the “expected punishment” for serious crimes. As Bill Bennett notes in his book, “The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,” this index is based on the probabilities of, first, being arrested; second, being prosecuted by the system if arrested; third, being sentenced if convicted; and fourth, actually serving time if incarcerated. In 1990, expected punishment for murder was only 1.8 years in the pen; for rape, 60 days; for robbery, 23 days; and for aggravated assault, 6.4 days.

Now, with the credibility of the justice system already in shreds, society has before it the televised circus of the O.J. Simpson trial.

It provides daily proof that with enough millionaire lawyers to drag it out, a sunset could last five centuries. We have seen the families of the two victims driven to choking rage as the system seems bent on trying everybody in sight but the man accused of their loved ones’ murders. It is not hard to see reasons for their rage.

And there’s an awful lot of that going around.

xxxx