Posted by Scott on September 20th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Today, I read an article by Roger Roots that points out many of the flaws of government-run police, and even speculates that government-run police may be unconstitutional. I recommend giving the well-written and well-cited article a read.
Although the government supposedly creates police with the intention of protecting people, the police have failed at protecting us from victimization–shown by rape rates, murder rates, etcetera. Then, those same police victimize us by using victimless crimes as an excuse.
Angry police on a power trip often attack non-violent people. Psychological studies have frequently shown that power corrupts people and that it makes them sadistic and aggressive. Take for example Dr. Phil Zimbardo’s famous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which they had to end the experiment early because students playing mock-guards became too sadistic and violent.
This reminds me of the following video which contains a few clips of police brutality. Before watching it, I warn you that it contains excessive profanity, in addition to real violence:
Not only do the police fail to protect us, but they also attack us. Now we not only need protection from criminal thugs, but also from badged thugs.
What do you think?
4 Comments »
Posted by Scott on September 18th, 2007 — Posted in Martial Arts
Today I want to tell you about www.thenewwarrior.com. It’s a great website about martial arts techniques and it has many self defense videos.
The website is great for any martial artists who want to improve their skills and learn new ones. The website features many different types of martial arts. Users can upload and share their own videos. Plus, the website has an RSS feed.
The site works well, it’s easy to navigate, and it has nice fresh look to it. Check it out.
3 Comments »
Posted by Scott on September 16th, 2007 — Posted in Recidivism
In a recent article, Patty Wetterling suggested that some strict sex-offender laws may do more harm than good, namely by making it difficult for ex-offenders to reintegrate into society.
This week it published a 143-page report, “No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the United States.” The researchers examined whether we are building safer communities with these laws, and what issues policy-makers should consider. HRW found that many laws may not prevent sexual attacks on children, but do lead to harassment, ostracism and even violence against former offenders. That makes it nearly impossible to rehabilitate those people and reintegrate them safely into their communities — and that may actually increase the risk that they’ll repeat their crime.
As a mother who lost her son and helped incite some sex-offender laws, Patty Wetterling makes some great points in the article.
I think most sex-offender laws and policies fail because they take to generic of an approach.
Teenagers who engage in consensual sex get classified as “sex offenders” and have to register as such. Classifying non-violent teenagers who have sex the same as forcible rapists undermines the whole system.
Additionally, some sex offenders may never get rehabilitated, while others may. The incarceration system needs to have a way to study and monitor these offenders to determine whether or not they can and have been rehabilitated. Namely, I suggest that the release of sex offenders depends on extensive psychological evaluations.
Finally, most correction facilities do quite the opposite. They can even make matters worse by further perverting offenders of all types. In jails and prisons, inmates often become more violent and criminal as a result of living with other criminals in a harsh, violent, and often inhumane environment. The correctional facility needs to focus on actually rehabilitating offenders. This includes psychiatric and psychological treatment, education and job-training. The inmates need to learn how to live peacefully, and the system needs to prepare them to live as a non-criminal, contributing member of society who can function healthily in society and take care of themselves.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on September 14th, 2007 — Posted in Uncategorized
Feel Safer Now has a blog which you can see at the following address:
http://www.feelsafernow.com/champsSecurityBlog.htm
The interesting thing about the blog is that it claims to be written by a dog.
5 Comments »
Posted by Scott on September 13th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Joshua Pantesco about the ruling of a Federal sex offender commitment law as unconstitutional. I include an excerpt:
A federal law allowing prison officials to indefinitely commit sex offenders to a mental hospital following their prison term is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, effectively freeing five convicted sex offenders pending the government’s filing of a motion to stay the order. Senior US District Court Judge Earl Britt [official profile] of the US Eastern District of North Carolina [official website] struck down the section of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 [text] allowing prosecutors to request that a sex offender be committed to a mental hospital upon “clear and convincing evidence” that the person is “sexually dangerous” and thus likely to commit the crime in the future. Britt ruled that Congress does not have the power to influence outcomes of criminal proceedings that fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of state courts.
I believe that this means states can still enact their own laws that enable local courts to commit sex offenders who pose a risk to society.
Personally, I suggest just doing away with maximum sentences all-together. It does not make sense to release anyone until they have been rehabilitated, and if they cannot be rehabilitated then I suggest they never get released.
We lock victimizers in jail to stop them from hurting more people. It defeats the whole purpose if they get released from the correctional facility before being fully corrected.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on September 12th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I think many local governments and communities fail to focus enough on crime prevention. They put most of their resources into catching perpetrators after the crime or during the crime.
Obviously, it makes more sense to take action before crimes happen than it does to wait until they happen.
I suggest that local governments work on pre-crime prevention. For one, they can educate the community about crime and how to prevent it. Self-defense classes also help. Additionally, reducing poverty can in turn reduce crime. Lastly, I suggest ensuring that children and teenagers have positive places to go in the community, and this entails helping ensure the children and teenagers can make longterm goals for a plausible positive future. Children and teenagers who have nowhere positive to go and feel hopeless will often turn to crime.
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on September 11th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Six years ago, a horrible event occurred. Terrorists murdered 3,000 people.
Six years later, the people of the United States are in more danger, in my opinion.
The Bush Administration has duped the American public into the needless invasion and occupation of Iraq, which most of the world views as unjustified. Indeed, 41% of American still believe that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11. Talk about a lie of Orwellian proportions!
The so-called “war in Iraq” increases anti-Americanism and thus increases anti-American terrorism. By tricking Americans into believing that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and by using the weapons of mass destruction lie, the Bush Administration has tricked America into getting into an expensive “war” that will cost more than $1 trillion and that has reduced the safety of Americans.
Imagine if that money had been used to actually protect Americans and increase their safety. Imagine how many police that money could have hired. Imagine how many rapists and murderers it could have caught.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on September 9th, 2007 — Posted in Gang Violence
I remember something that surprised me when reading about gangs: Contrary to popular belief, most gangs do not recruit young children, but rather young children seek out gangs.
I remember the two main reasons cited for why these children want to join gangs. For one, children do it to emulate family and friends. Secondly, children do it for safety. They believe their gang will protect them from the violence that plagues their neighborhoods.
I also bet that children join gangs to fulfill a natural human desire for social acceptance. Humans naturally have a desire to join groups of other humans.
To reduce unhealthy gang activity, we have to get rid of the incentives for children to join gangs.
First, we have to make sure children have a way to escape violent neighborhoods and otherwise avoid violence. Secondly, we need to create other ways for children to fulfill their social needs and join groups. This includes boys and girls clubs, sporting teams, and other healthy groups and clubs for children who may otherwise turn to gangs. These clubs can give children somewhere to go to escape the violence, but they cannot do it all.
We have to find a way to get rid of the violence that surrounds these gang-prone children. Increasing police presence can help–assuming the police focus on violence and not on victimless crimes. Also, legalizing drugs will eliminate a major funding source for organized crime and career criminals, and it will free up much of the state’s resources to focus on violent criminals and other victimizers.
What do you think?
7 Comments »
Posted by Scott on September 8th, 2007 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
The occupation of Iraq has cost well over $400 billion so far, and estimates of its total cost exceed $1 trillion. More Americans have died in Iraq than on 9/11, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died.
Unfortunately, this expensive occupation reduces the safety of United States citizens and increases the threat of terrorism, namely by angering much of the world and increasing anti-US sentiments which spawns and emboldens anti-US terrorists.
Michael Scheuer, who served in the CIA for 22 years as chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center, says that the war in Iraq has hurt the fight against terrorism:
4. Has the war in Iraq helped or hurt in the fight against terrorism?
It broke the back of our counterterrorism program. Iraq was the perfect execution of a war that demanded jihad to oppose it. You had an infidel power invading and occupying a Muslim country and it was perceived to be unprovoked. Many senior Western officials said that bin Laden was not a scholar and couldn’t declare a jihad but other Muslim clerics did. So that religious question was erased.
Secondly, Iraq is in the Arab heartland and, far more than Afghanistan, is a magnet for mujahideen. You can see this in the large number of people crossing the border to fight us. It wasn’t a lot at the start, but there’s been a steady growth as the war continues. The war has validated everything bin Laden said: that the United States will destroy any strong government in the Arab world, that it will seek to destroy Israel’s enemies, that it will occupy Muslim holy places, that it will seize Arab oil, and that it will replace God’s law with man’s law. We see Iraq as a honey pot that attracts jihadists whom we can kill there instead of fighting them here. We are ignoring that Iraq is not just a place to kill Americans; Al Qaeda has always said that it requires safe havens. It has said it couldn’t get involved with large numbers in the Balkans war because it had no safe haven in the region. Now they have a safe haven in Iraq, which is so big and is going to be so unsettled for so long. For the first time, it gives Al Qaeda contiguous access to the Arabian Peninsula, to Turkey, and to the Levant. We may have written the death warrant for Jordan. If we pull out of Iraq, we have a problem in that we may have to leave a large contingent of troops in Jordan. All of this is a tremendous advantage for Al Qaeda. We’ve moved the center of jihad a thousand miles west from Afghanistan to the Middle East.
I agree with Michael Scheuer.
Why did the U.S. people let their government go to Iraq and cause so many problems? Why do they still let the occupation of Iraq continue? Unfortunately, 41% of Americans still believe the myth that Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11. 90% of US troops believe that myth!
I imagine that most of the pro-war people in the United States believe that myth. Unfortunately, their ignorance has endangered the rest of the United States by getting the country involved in a dangerous and unpopular invasion that has increased the threat of terrorism, stretched U.S. defenses, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been used to actually protect the people of the United States.
If Iraq committed 9/11, then the so-called war might make sense. However, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
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Posted by Scott on September 7th, 2007 — Posted in News
I just read a disturbing article about an osteopath caught fondling patients. After two complaints about the 49-year-old osteopath named Owen Bull, an undercover policewoman posed as a patient and caught him in the act. Bull went so far as to try and orally rape one of his patients.
Unfortunately, I imagine incidents like this happen often. I highlight it today to stress the importance of doing background checks on doctors or other professionals before hiring them. More importantly, report any misconduct so that the offender will get caught and cannot continue to assault patients or clients.
Luckily, the judge sentenced Bull to seven and a half years in jail.
What do you think?
4 Comments »
Posted by Scott on September 6th, 2007 — Posted in Child Protection
RealTruth.org recently published an article about the rising rate of child sexual solicitations on the internet. I include an expert:
Approximately one in seven youth ages 10-17 have received a sexual solicitation on the Internet, according to research published by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Youth.
The study, which compared the online victimization of more than 1,500 young people across the United States from 2000 to 2006, showed an increase in the amount of children’s exposure to sexual material through the Internet in addition to an increased level of online harassment.
“While we strongly believe in the power of the Internet to provide valuable information for those of all ages, we also believe children need extra attention and guidance as they venture online, because they, more than any other group of the population, are most vulnerable to risks found on the Internet,” the report stated.
Generally, I believe the internet gets overrated as a threat to children. Parents need to watch their children, and take responsibility for their children. Blaming the internet for negligent parents who do not monitor their children is like blaming parks for child abductions. Children face threats to their safety everywhere. Parents need to protect children from these threats by monitoring the children and by teaching the children about threats and how to avoid them.
Don’t leave children unsupervised on the internet. If you plan to let children–including teens–go on the internet, make sure you understand it as well as they do. We need to communicate with children and make sure they know how to protect themselves on the internet.
Most children know how to get around filters and parental spyware. The best way to know what your children do on the internet is by having a trusting relationship with them and asking them what they do on the internet.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on September 5th, 2007 — Posted in Recidivism
Jim Hines recently wrote an article about the need for revision in sex offender laws. I include an excerpt:
“Jessica’s Law,” while not perfect, assigns a much greater mandatory prison sentence (25 years) to those who rape or molest the youngest (under 12) and most vulnerable (disabled and seniors). It also mandates GPS monitoring for life for perpetrators released from prison. It makes no distinction between rapists who may be grandfathers, teachers, clergy or perfect strangers. It is desperately needed in Washington. We should also consider a penalty and danger “multiplier” or modifier. The larger the age gap between the perpetrator and the victim, the greater the punishment and scrutiny.
We must also discontinue labeling as a sex offender someone who makes a very bad mistake, but who represents very little future threat. A Hoquiam wrestling coach was sentenced for having sex with an 18-year-old female student whom he coached. While this crime deserves punishment, it seems an overreach to label this man a sex offender and classify his danger and risk the same as when Adhahn left treatment after his conviction for a violent rape.
We need to overhaul how we track and monitor offenders upon release. The most dangerous must be on a very short leash once released. There is a smarter and more effective approach available to our state’s leaders. Recent cases and this study should move lawmakers to immediate action.
I agree with Jim Hines that sex offender laws need revision. I also agree that age makes a major different. I find it absurd to classify someone who enters a sexual relationship with a high-school teenager the same as someone who forcibly rapes a girl under 12 years old.
Using the term “sex offender” too loosely weakens it. Making less dangerous people register as sex offenders the same as the most dangerous rapists undermines the sex offender registration system.
However, once a sex offender spends years in jail, the presence rehabilitation matters more than their original. The current system lets unrehabilitated sex offenders out–often with insufficient supervision and restrictions.
First of all, I suggest we get rid of maximum sentences for violent criminals. I suggest we keep them locked up until a professional certifies their rehabilitation. An offender has already shown a lack of responsibility, so the incarceration system has to become accountable for their actions. If the jail or prison releases an offender who then goes on to hurt more people or otherwise cause damages, we have to hold the jail or prison responsible for releasing the dangerous offender.
If the sex offender has not been rehabilitated, do not release the offender. If the sex offender cannot be rehabilitated, then keep the offender locked up for life.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
