Reform of Delaware's Criminal System
Crime & Punishment - Protecting the Innocent
The time has come to reevaluate our criminal justice system. The cost of incarceration has become excessive and we as a State can no longer afford the bill. The prisons in this State and others have become little more then hotels with bars. Prisoners now have all the comforts of home including video games in their cells. They have access to healthcare and medications that law abiding citizens are unable to afford. When they get surgery at our hospitals, they get the best that money can buy. This is because we the tax payers reimburse hospitals and doctors at a rate better then insurance companies do. This is a travesty whose time has come to end. We as citizens are all tightening our belts and it is time for our correctional system to do the same. Even death row inmates are laughing at us as a society. Here is just one example of what a murderer thinks of prison life. Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. who is on death row in North Carolina, brags about his life of leisure in prison curtsey of the tax payers. http://news.yahoo.com/north-carolina-death-row-inmate-writes-letter-life-152637993--abc-news.html
We first need to change the laws. We need to make it so that once a person is convicted of a crime and incarcerated, they no longer have any civil rights. This is because they have violated the rights of someone else to put themselves into prison. This will save money because they can no longer file frivolous law suits against the prisons that need to be heard by a court. It will also help to ease the backlog of cases in our legal system. This will also help take away the unnecessary comforts that are afford the inmates at many institutions.
Prisons then need to be turned back into places where no one would ever want to be. They should only be given the minimum to keep them alive. Basic food, clothing and their cell. That is all! No TV in their cells, No free education, No high cost healthcare, No gyms so they emerge from prison as super criminals able to do greater harm to society. We need to stream line these institutions and bring costs down. If prisons weren’t so pleasant perhaps less people would be out committing crimes to get themselves inside.
All prisoners should be made to work to help pay for their incarceration. They should farm their own food, be out in chain gangs cleaning up our highways and doing other services that will benefit society. No more free rides for people who thwart the conventions of law-abiding society.
Punishment should be swift. Prisoners shouldn’t sit on death row for countless years. They should be moved quickly through the appeals process and then executed once all avenues to them are exhausted. We also need to stop the insanity that a prisoner has to be in perfect health in order to be executed. I read an article some time ago that a death row inmate received a liver transplant! Do you realize the costs involved, not only for the surgery but also the medications and follow up care? This is insanity! For another look at how flawed the system is, please read the article in this link. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90611&page=1
We have lost our way, Some states were forced to put on hold death by lethal injection, because they could not prove that the person did not suffer during the procedure. Why as a society would we care if a murderer suffered during the lethal injection? This seems like a moot point. Clearly the murderer didn’t think about how much the victim suffered when they committed their heinous crime. I think we as a Nation need to start thinking about the victims and their rights and much less about the criminals and theirs.
If a person is convicted of a violent crime and released back into society, they should be monitored for the rest of their life. This is especially true for pedophiles. It is a statistical fact that these people will do it again. I believe that protecting our children should be the number one priority of our legal system. If you are not going to keep these people in prison then they should be monitored 24/7. This will either stop them from attempting to molest, abduct or murder any child because they know they are being watched, or if the urge is so strong that they can’t control themselves we will know who was at the site of an abduction or in the immediate vicinity by pulling up the GPS records. This will save childrens lives. If you track these people you will be able to find them before they can do harm to our children. This would be much more effective then expending time and money trying to find who has committed the crime. If implementing this saves the life of one child the expense would be justified in my opinion.
We need to get back to placing our concern with the rights of those who abide the laws that govern our land and less about the rights of those who ignore our laws. If we do this, we will likely have less crime, that in turn will cost all of us less financially.
The time has come to reevaluate our criminal justice system. The cost of incarceration has become excessive and we as a State can no longer afford the bill. The prisons in this State and others have become little more then hotels with bars. Prisoners now have all the comforts of home including video games in their cells. They have access to healthcare and medications that law abiding citizens are unable to afford. When they get surgery at our hospitals, they get the best that money can buy. This is because we the tax payers reimburse hospitals and doctors at a rate better then insurance companies do. This is a travesty whose time has come to end. We as citizens are all tightening our belts and it is time for our correctional system to do the same. Even death row inmates are laughing at us as a society. Here is just one example of what a murderer thinks of prison life. Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. who is on death row in North Carolina, brags about his life of leisure in prison curtsey of the tax payers. http://news.yahoo.com/north-carolina-death-row-inmate-writes-letter-life-152637993--abc-news.html
We first need to change the laws. We need to make it so that once a person is convicted of a crime and incarcerated, they no longer have any civil rights. This is because they have violated the rights of someone else to put themselves into prison. This will save money because they can no longer file frivolous law suits against the prisons that need to be heard by a court. It will also help to ease the backlog of cases in our legal system. This will also help take away the unnecessary comforts that are afford the inmates at many institutions.
Prisons then need to be turned back into places where no one would ever want to be. They should only be given the minimum to keep them alive. Basic food, clothing and their cell. That is all! No TV in their cells, No free education, No high cost healthcare, No gyms so they emerge from prison as super criminals able to do greater harm to society. We need to stream line these institutions and bring costs down. If prisons weren’t so pleasant perhaps less people would be out committing crimes to get themselves inside.
All prisoners should be made to work to help pay for their incarceration. They should farm their own food, be out in chain gangs cleaning up our highways and doing other services that will benefit society. No more free rides for people who thwart the conventions of law-abiding society.
Punishment should be swift. Prisoners shouldn’t sit on death row for countless years. They should be moved quickly through the appeals process and then executed once all avenues to them are exhausted. We also need to stop the insanity that a prisoner has to be in perfect health in order to be executed. I read an article some time ago that a death row inmate received a liver transplant! Do you realize the costs involved, not only for the surgery but also the medications and follow up care? This is insanity! For another look at how flawed the system is, please read the article in this link. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90611&page=1
We have lost our way, Some states were forced to put on hold death by lethal injection, because they could not prove that the person did not suffer during the procedure. Why as a society would we care if a murderer suffered during the lethal injection? This seems like a moot point. Clearly the murderer didn’t think about how much the victim suffered when they committed their heinous crime. I think we as a Nation need to start thinking about the victims and their rights and much less about the criminals and theirs.
If a person is convicted of a violent crime and released back into society, they should be monitored for the rest of their life. This is especially true for pedophiles. It is a statistical fact that these people will do it again. I believe that protecting our children should be the number one priority of our legal system. If you are not going to keep these people in prison then they should be monitored 24/7. This will either stop them from attempting to molest, abduct or murder any child because they know they are being watched, or if the urge is so strong that they can’t control themselves we will know who was at the site of an abduction or in the immediate vicinity by pulling up the GPS records. This will save childrens lives. If you track these people you will be able to find them before they can do harm to our children. This would be much more effective then expending time and money trying to find who has committed the crime. If implementing this saves the life of one child the expense would be justified in my opinion.
We need to get back to placing our concern with the rights of those who abide the laws that govern our land and less about the rights of those who ignore our laws. If we do this, we will likely have less crime, that in turn will cost all of us less financially.