(disclaimer: the website is logging me in under the wrong account/name. I am ZealotX, not the white rasta)
First off,
Please be careful about categorizing someone's speech as "ranting and raving". You are insulting a lot of people who disagree with you about Trump. If you're a republican that's cool but this isn't a republican web site so we need to respect differences.
Secondly,
Assuming this bill is a first step is just that. It's an assumption. I'm sure the Clinton bill assumed it was also a step in the right direction. Usually people who support stronger penalties are doing so in an effort to protect the public. However, the law is not enforced by the same people who create, pass, and sign legislation. I don't like what Hilary said about "super predators" and didn't vote for her, largely because of criminal justice, but an intellectual discussion deserves fairness on both sides. Clinton did not specify who to target. The police do that according to which segments of the population are easiest to arrest and prosecute without getting sued.
So when it comes to reform, the "front end", to me, is what needs to be addressed. This bill barely helps anyone according to what I've read so far. I'm an American tax payer too. The cost of housing inmates in prison is absurd because of profiteering. If you aren't looking at the profit motive behind the system you're doing a disservice to the subject matter. At the end of the day it's about money. This bill doesn't propose to take money out of prisons. It seeks to put more economic stress on minority families.
That's odd. Why would I say that?
One of the "pros" in the link provided talks about releasing prisoners to house arrest. I've been on house arrest before, thanks to a judge who likes this form of punishment. Except it wasn't punishment. I wasn't even tried yet which means I was supposedly innocent. Due to incompetence in the system I had a FTA (failure to appear) which, if you've ever been to jail, is a common story of many who get locked up. No matter the goal, the effect of the justice system is to tax those who are targeted. If you can't afford to pay your way out of trouble (like many white people are able to do) you get locked up and the taxpayers pay for that because republicans honestly don't care about saving money. They just don't want to spend theirs. Fortunately, I'm a web developer at a 3rd generation family business and the owner cares about his employees. I didn't lose my job and I was able to do some work from home while I was on "home detention" which was over on my court date. I was detained for about a week between jail (thursday arrest) and home and am I a violent criminal? No, I was driving under a suspended license. Same jail with rapists and murderers. Fortunately, I can afford to pay. Many of my brothas cannot. And the system keeps coming after us because it makes money.
Letting people out to serve more time at home means they negate some of the cost of housing but that person still can't financially support themselves. Unless they can get work privileges, someone has to feed and shelter them. And then they want to institute some kind of "risk assessment system". While it may sound good to some this could easily be used by racists as a smokescreen to cover racism in the criminal justice system. Many racists cite statistics to assert that they are smarter than us or less violent or less prone to criminal activity. Numbers can be made to look in ways that benefit the people who control the tests. What they will do is say "its not because you're black but because you scored badly on the test." But social economics will always affect education and crime as people struggle to survive and so it will become an excuse to free whites with drug convictions while using token black people to endear the public. Keep in mind that whites almost as a whole did not care about criminal justice until the opioid epidemic plagued their own families. Now they want treatment instead of incarceration. So if you think the orange haired guy in the white house is just looking out for us... I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken. He was and is a racist according to his own people.
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