Criminals’ Lack of Morals, Not Budgets or Bush, Cause Violent Crime

I remember watching an ABC World News Tonight Closer Look segment that featured a series called “Mean Streets,” which examined the reasons behind a 6.7 percent increase in the murder rate in the country in 2006. The murder of three promising black college students in Newark, N.J. was cited as just one of many examples of the rise in senseless killings occurring in the country. Mayor Cory Booker declared that “enough is enough,” when it came to violent crime in the city known ostensibly for violent crime. ABC conveniently forgot to mention that the oldest of the men and teenagers allegedly responsible for the murders was an illegal alien, and that he was on bail for repeatedly raping a five-year-old girl. Out on bail? Isn’t it reasonable that a violent criminal illegal alien not be eligible for bail because there is no reasonable expectation that the person will return voluntarily for trial? Apparently the violence committed by this alleged murderer-rapist wasn’t quite enough for the Newark mayor. Only two weeks after the victims were buried, he announced he would not direct his police department to turn over illegal aliens it came across to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. I guess he didn’t want to offend his criminal alien constituents. In speculating why the murder rate went up, ABC rounded up the usual suspects for why violent crime was up – gangs, guns and a lack of social programs. Of course, they managed to find an unnamed criminologist who blamed the Bush Administration for “focusing too much on terrorism, and cutting funds for law enforcement on the streets.” The reporter also cited Orange County, Florida where a record 121 murders occurred in 2006. Sheriff Kevin Beary said that two of his deputies had been shot by three suspects who had a total of 88 arrests between them. Hands down, the sheriff gave the best analysis for the murder rate going up when he revealed that the three suspects had scores of prior arrests. In police work, that’s called a clue. Sheriff Beary placed the blame squarely on the prosecutors and courts where it justifiably belongs. His point is that if prosecutors weren’t afraid to litigate instead of conducting plea bargains, and if judges had incarcerated these three individuals for significant lengths of time, maybe his deputies would not have been shot. Are people more likely to become murderers and commit other violent crimes because they have easy access to firearms, do not participate in social programs or have George W. Bush as president? Or are they more likely to commit violent crimes because they lack morals? I submit there is no correlation between criminal activity and someone’s income level or being deprived of some federally funded after-school recreation program. Having morals is like having the winning lottery numbers. Either you have them, or you don’t. No matter what excuse you offer for not having the winning ticket, the lottery officials are not going to give you the payoff because you didn’t get to play midnight basketball. Excuses should not be accepted from those who commit violent crime either. The sooner the public realizes that there is a strong correlation between assured, longer prison sentences and an overall reduction of violent crime, including murder, the better off we all will be.