SOME OFFENDERS DESERVE TO BE IMPRISONED

They Often Prey On The Poor WHO Have Right To Protection

I hope the critics of incarcerating violent and repeat offenders aren't
suggesting that it is too expensive to try to protect everyone's safety.
Residents of neighborhoods which are plagued by high crime rates are just
as entitled to protection from crime as anyone else.

As it is, far too much crime is committed by these violent and repeat
offenders in less affluent neighborhoods.

Furthermore, studies both in America and abroad have confirmed that a small
percentage of criminal offenders are responsible for committing a large
percentage of the crimes.

James Q. Wilson, a nationally recognized criminologist and professor of
management and public policy at the University of California at Los
Angeles, has written that about 6 percent of the criminal population will
commit half or more of the crime in our country.

And that's not all. Over 90 percent of prison inmates are violent or repeat
offenders, according to John J. Dilulio, Jr., of Harvard's Kennedy School
of Government, and professor of political science and public affairs at
Princeton University.

In his article published in the Washington Post, "The Numbers Don't Lie:
It's the Hard Core Doing Hard Time," Dilulio reported that the U.S. Bureau
of Justice Statistics showed conclusively that "fully 94 percent of state
prisoners had either committed one or more violent crimes (62 percent) or
been convicted more than once in the past for nonviolent crimes (32 percent).

"Comparable national data stretching back to the 1970's make plain that
over 90 percent of the prisoners are violent or repeat offenders . The
state-by-state data tell the same tale. For example, in 1990, Harvard
economist Anne Morrison Piehl and I studied a large sample of the Wisconsin
prison population. We found that in the year before they were imprisoned
these prisoners committed a median of 12 crimes, excluding all drug crimes."

Obviously, when these violent and prolific criminals are on the streets
they are preying on our citizens. When they are in prison or jail they are
not committing crimes.

Common sense dictates that incarceration of these violent and repeat
offenders would reduce the amount of crime on our streets, and allow us to
work toward our goal of improving public safety and security.

Moreover, it makes great sense to target scarce law enforcement and
prosecution resources on these high-rate offenders -- those offenders who
not only commit a large number of crimes, but serious and violent crimes as
well.

The safety and security of our citizens is the primary purpose of our
government, be it federal, state or local. Police and prosecutors are part
of government and serve as the front line in trying to reach our goal. We
have discovered that focusing on the prosecution, conviction and
incarceration of criminals who choose to commit crime after crime after
crime is a smart strategy. We have done it, and the falling crime rate is
evidence that it works.

Efforts to ensure the incarceration of these violent and repeat offenders
have been the subject of intense criticism by those who seem to oppose
enforcement of our Persistent Felony Offender laws.

They cite the cost of incarceration. Perhaps those critics are fortunate
enough or wealthy enough to live in neighborhoods where gunfire, corner
drug dealers and fear are not daily and nightly occurrences.

That one-sided analysis ignores the reality of the lives of many of our
citizens and the criminal records of repeat offenders. Too many of our
citizens are afraid for their own personal safety and that of their
families. Unfortunately, they will be the ones victimized and forced to pay
the high personal price, if these career criminals are allowed to remain on
the streets of our community to prey on new victims.

To ignore the personal and property costs of additional crime to our
law-abiding citizens and consider only the price of prison beds needed to
protect the public by incarcerating these hardened violent and repeat
offenders, is to place the welfare of the criminals above the safety and
security of ALL of our citizens.

Unfortunately, many of our citizens do not have the luxury of a thoughtful
analysis of crime and punishment. They are too busy just trying to survive
in dangerous neighborhoods. They pay taxes.

Their opinions should count too. They simply want our government to protect
them from these predators.