POLICE PREFERENCE

Four Norman, Okla., police officers have been fired for allegedly
distributing a controlled and dangerous substance.

To date, only one has been charged, and the other three have filed
grievances to get their jobs back or some other settlement. What's up
with this, like the ex-chief of police in Galena, Kan., Cameron
Arthur, who was paid $120,000 because he was fired and told go to away
quietly? Why? When the supposed good are bad, they are by far the
worst, aren't they? Why is it so hard to get rid of bad cops, and why
the big payoffs and special treatment? Is it some kind of hush money,
you know the old get-out-and-write-tickets meetings that we are not
supposed to know about? We know all about that, but for those like
Arthur it must be something else. A $120,000 payment is a lot of money
to go away, isn't it? Newly released data from the U.S. Justice
Department show the number of women in state and federal prisons has
topped 100,000 for the first time. The new figures show the
incarceration rate is growing much faster for women than men.
Meanwhile the overall prison population is continuing to increase,
despite a drop or leveling off in the crime rate in the past few
years. Longer sentences - especially for drug crimes - and fewer
prisoners granted parole or probation are main reasons for the
expanding U.S. prison population.

After reading this, I see a double standard for police, and I also
know why the private prison industry is one of the hottest stocks on
the New York Stock Exchange, now that the Home of the Brave and the
Land of the Free locks up more of its own population per capita than
any other country in the world. Plus the stink about outsourcing jobs
for cheap labor - can this be the new insourcing?

Jim Keener

Joplin