Posted on 05/20/2016 10:58:35 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Sen. Tom Cotton on Thursday slammed his colleagues' efforts to pass sweeping criminal justice reforms, saying the United States is actually suffering from an "under-incarceration problem."
Cotton, who has been an outspoken critic of the bill in Congress that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences, smacked down what he called "baseless" arguments that there are too many offenders locked up for relatively small crimes, that incarceration is too costly, or that "we should show more empathy toward those caught up in the criminal-justice system."
"Take a look at the facts. First, the claim that too many criminals are being jailed, that there is over-incarceration, ignores an unfortunate fact: for the vast majority of crimes, a perpetrator is never identified or arrested, let alone prosecuted, convicted, and jailed," Cotton said during a speech at The Hudson Institute, according to his prepared remarks. "Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes. If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem." Expanding upon his remarks during a question-and-answer session, Cotton said releasing felons under reduced sentences serves only to destabilize the communities in which they are released.
“I saw this in Baghdad. We’ve seen it again in Afghanistan," recalled Cotton, who served in the Army during both wars. "Security has to come first, whether you’re in a war zone or whether you’re in the United States of America.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Good!
Yeah, an under incarceration of guilty people.
The system lets career criminals slip away and just grinds up any decent sap who got sucked into the Justice system.
and yet they want to put us away for thought and speech violations and speaking the truth about global warming.
Tom Cotton is correct. We also have an under execution problem.
Something about that just doesn't sound right.
All violent criminals, murderers, gang members, robbers, burglars, pedophiles, rapists etc should be head-shot, thrown in a dumpster and then a landfill. That would open-up a lot of cells for the other felons. The herd needs serious thinning/culling.
It’s time to reduce sentences for the petty drug crap and put violent people behind bars longer, or actually execute them.
You don’t end up in prison in this country by accident. You really have to work hard at it...be a repeat offender/career criminal with zero intention of ever being a productive member of society. Stuff gets pled down like crazy, prison time is converted into probation, early parole...etc.
Its hard to get into prison. If somebody puts in the effort, why spring them out early?
I agree. Liberty comes first.
Tom Cotton is the one senator out of that whole gang that voted against the Corker bill. However he did vote for fast track.
If not for that I think he would get a serious look from Trump for VP.
I’ve often said, if you’re convicted of three separate felonies (with at least one violent felony), you’ve proven you have no worth to society, and should be executed. What’s the point of incarcerating them for the rest of their lives?
Oh yes we do!
And a severe under-deportation problem.
It isn’t right. Liberty has to come first here. Tom Cotton has been a real disappointment.
Attention! This is your warden. As a special treat, today we are serving a tasty cocktail for all. Goodbye.
This discussion brought to you by the Democrats who were looking for votes during the Clinton era, and voted in new stringent laws, and more prisons to pander to the law, and order crowd of the day.
NOW that the prisons are full of Black people whom commit most of the crimes the Democrats want to empty the prisons they filled up to pander to the black lives matter, and leftist crowd.
Democrats chasing votes wherever they can create them.
Well, yes... I have a list of 98 people who should be tried for treason.
Agreed. No more fines for white collar criminals. It doesn’t work, they just see it as a cost of doing business. Toss them in prison.
He is certainly right in one aspect.
Not nearly enough elected officials and bureaucrats are in prison.
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