Mark Potter recently wrote about rising robbery rates in the United States. I include an excerpt:
A boom in bank robberies, many of them fueled by criminals in search of money for drugs, is alarming law-enforcement officials across the nation.
After declining a couple of years ago, robberies in the U.S. are on the rise again, according to the FBI, and two recent violent cases prove just how dangerous those crimes can be.
[…]
FBI statistics show bank robberies rose nearly 4 percent in 2006 to 6,985, the equivalent of one heist every hour and 15 minutes. That compares with 6,748 in 2005. Authorities said this year’s numbers appear to be climbing even higher, with some areas hit particularly hard.
“There’s been pockets; there’s certain cities like Detroit, Chicago, Dallas and Boston,” says FBI Assistant Director Kenneth Kaiser.
Unlike theft in general, robbery specifically refers to using violence or the threat of violence to obtain the victim’s property or money. For that reason, I find myself especially disappointed by these numbers. I wonder how many of these robbers have previously been convicted and jailed for similar crimes, and then released.
When we convict someone, we have to restrain them to protect everyone else. We put robbers in jail so they can no longer rob anyone. We need to keep them in jail so long as they still may rob or otherwise victimze anyone.
I realize that mainstreaming someone may help get them back on track. In other words, a person needs to get back out in society to learn how to live peacefully in society. However, if the state wants to help get these people back on track, they need to keep on eye on them by using a conditional release. Deny these people the ability to do anything that may enable them to recommit. For example, if the robber committed robbery to get money for drugs, then make it a condition of the robber’s release that he cannot use drugs, and give the robber regular drug tests. Additionally, we need to make sure previously-convicted robbers do not have access to guns, knives, or other such weapons.
What do you think?
