The hole in the fence

The federal government has decided to go all Ronald Reagan on us by announcing that they’re getting tough on crime.   They’re apparently betting on the tightening of bail laws and beefing up sentencing laws to be the next great weapon.  Of main concern seems to be repeat and violent offenders.  

All around, it makes it tougher to get bail and more likely to get concurrent sentences, for those who commit various crimes before getting caught.  People all for it, others, not so much.  After all, isn’t it just more of the same?  I’m pretty sure that just about everyone knows that the American-styled, heavy-handed punishments do more for the pockets of the privately-run prisons than they do to deter criminals.  It’s blatantly obvious that stiffer sentences don’t bring down the numbers, but there are a lot of people out there that still believe that tougher stances against criminals work well to deter them.  But look at the States, the highest number of incarcerated people on the entire planet, yet they continue to use the same line of thinking.  

No government is going to make it easier on criminals and expect to get elected, except if you’re Donald Trump.  Generally, a ‘tough on crime’ approach never costs you votes.  So Carney is now diverting attention to crime, while other issues that speak more to the cause of crime than the new reforms, sit on the desk, (and I wonder if this isn’t to appease the southern king). There seem to be issues of letting violent criminals walk the street while they await trial, and sex offenders that shouldn’t be walking around at all, but these issues have been in the public domain for decades, and no other ‘fixes’ seem to have worked because here we are today.  It’s like the farmer whose orchard keeps getting invaded by the neighbour’s goats.  

The goats come in through a hole in the farmer’s fence.  When he sees the goats in his orchard, he grabs a stick to shoo them away.  When they come back again, he gets a bigger stick, and then a bigger one, and the cycle continues.  No government ever takes the time to fix the damn fence!  Ok, we’re not talking about problems as simple as mending an enclosure, but the fact remains that a problem can only be resolved by going to the root.  This is what you do when you are working for the wellbeing of everyone.  Heavier sentences ignore the root of the problem.  The system we live in doesn’t have safeguards ‘in case’ of certain societal problems; it can predict them, because they are a product of the system itself.  What the system does well is convince most of us that the causes of all these problems lie within our ranks.  The real crooks are up there telling us how great they are and how much of a benefit they are to all of us.  They tighten the screws daily while simultaneously telling us they are making it better for everyone.  They tell us they are taking great strides, while they sit in a comfy chair.

Fiquem bem,

Raul Freitas/MS