Date: Sun, 5 Dec 93 21:41:11 MST
From: [t j p] at [as.arizona.edu] (Ted Parvu)
To: [net tank] at [cica.cica.indiana.edu]
Subject: Crime: America Public Mislead

As far as a stance on crime the public wants tough.  Even though the stats
show that crime has decreased over the past decade the public perception, thanks
to politicians and the media, is that crime is worse than ever.  

I agree with Aldis that comparing repeat offenders of violent crime with simple
pot smokers is a good idea.  Exspecially with cases like this current little
girl that was snatched from her home.  The guy had been convicted twice before
of kidnapping.  I can't see how anyone would want this guy on the streets just
because some poor pot smoking dead head was taking up his bed space in prison.

I have included some articles that show crime is decreasing.  I haven't figured
out how to make Joe Public see this in a 30 second spot.  If anyone has them
I would like to see the stats on how much of violent crime is repeat offenders.

-- Ted


AP Online

AP 12/05 18:00 EST V0403


Copyright 1993. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even as public fear of crime pushed Congress to vote for
harsher criminal penalties and more police, the number of serious crimes
declined slightly, the FBI reported Sunday.
   Violent crime during the first six months of 1993 decreased 3 percent from
the same period in 1992, while the number of property crimes dropped by 5
percent, according to preliminary finding of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting
program.
   "The small reported declines may be positive, but I doubt most Americans will
draw much comfort from them because the levels of violent crime and drug
trafficking remain so staggering," FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said in a
statement.
   The number of murders remained stable while all other reported violent crimes
went down: Robberies by 5 percent, forcible rapes, 4 percent, and aggravated
assaults, 1 percent.
   Reported property crimes, meanwhile, were down across the board, with
burglary declining 8 percent, motor vehicle theft, 5 percent, and larceny-theft,
4 percent. Arsons, which decreased by 15 percent, are not included in the FBI's
determination of the overall crime index.
   In Cincinnati, spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Johns said police have noticed crimes
are more severe despite the fewer incidents.
   "Victims tend to be subject to more violence," she said. "What used to be
hitting someone on the head and taking their wallet now has become taking their
wallet and shooting them in the leg. It's still a felonious assault, but the
level of violence is ever increasing."
   The FBI calculates only those crimes reported to police, and some
criminologists have said people have stopped reporting some property crimes
knowing that police don't have the time or resources to deal with them. Rapes
are also largely unreported, studies have shown.
   The largest cities, those with more than 1 million people, saw the greatest
declines in all reported crimes, down 7 percent, while suburban law enforcement
agencies saw 5 percent declines and rural agencies experienced 4 percent
decreases.
   Regionally, reported crimes in the Northeast declined 8 percent; in the
Midwest, 7 percent; in the South, 4 percent; and in the West, 2 percent.

******

The following is an article I sent to my mail group sometime in late October.
Please forgive my radical comments, I try to rile my group into discussions
in any manner I can.  I had also just read about Janet wanting to put the
national guard on D.C. streets and had just seen a news piece on the national
guard storming housing projects in Peurto Rico to win the WOD.  I also saw the
impending passage of the Brady Bill, I was a little pissed. :-/

Ted

-------------


Now this article brought up some points that I find VERY disturbing.  I just
read another article in the Sunday paper as well.

     "Overall, in 1981, the U.S. Bureau of Justic Statistics counted
      41.2 million crimes.  In 1991, that figure was down to 34.4
      million, third-lowest in the past two decades."

     James Lynch, an American University demographer and crime
     specialist states, "it always amazes me that people think
     there is a crime wave.  There just isn't."

Well I have been duped.  Suddenly it all makes sense. I kept wondering why
politicians were coming up with crime measures that would not solve the
advancing crime wave.  Reason, there is no crime wave to fix.  Thus it is
simply a hidden agenda that they are attempting to fulfill.  That agenda is
to disarm the populace and place the military in the streets to uphold
strict totalitarian rule.  Don't let those bastards get away with it.  Show
them that you are not sheep to be led.  You are the master of your own
destiny and they better damn well get out of your life.

******

AP Online

AP 10/26 14:27 EDT V0547


Copyright 1993. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
By The Associated Press



   With Americans everywhere worried about crime, ballot measures in Washington
and Texas suggest that locking up more criminals is the answer. Curiously, crime
rates in both states are flat or falling.
   "This is bad policy but good politics," said Larry Fehr, executive director
of the Washington Council on Crime and Delinquency, who noted violent crime in
his state has been fairly constant over the past decade.
   "It is bad policy because it will not deliver what it promises to deliver --
greater public safety," he said.
   Washington Initiative 593, commonly known as "Three strikes, you're out,"
proposes life sentences -- and no parole -- for anyone who racks up three
convictions for felonies the authors of the initiative rated the worst. Among
the more than 40 are child molesting, murder, violent theft, sexual assault,
assault with a vehicle, extortion, procuring sex, drug dealing and arson.
   In Texas, a prison building boom is enlarging a penal system already among
the nation's largest. Voters will be asked to approve $1 billion in bonds to
make it bigger yet.
   The overall rate of crime in the United States has been flat for decades,
said criminologist Alfred Blumstein, dean of the Heinz School of Public Policy
and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
   Crime rates, while high, "have not been growing dramatically, as most people
seem to have the impression," he said.
   Still, crime is a concern. Lacking useful solutions, Blumstein said, the
political system responds with longer and tougher sentences. People go for this.
"The public is soothed, the politicians are applauded," he said.
   Washington's no-parole initiative was promoted by victims groups with
generous backing from the National Rifle Association, which gave $90,000.
   "There is a general sense that we have to start somewhere," said Dave
LaCourse of Bellevue, Wash., a beating victim and the measure's principal
author.
   Opponents say I-593 goes overboard in a state where the crime rate in 1980
was 4.6 per hundred people, and barely higher last year, at 4.7 per hundred.
   Taking in an estimated 70 lifers a year -- the current state inmate
population is 10,000 -- state prisons in 20 years would be caring for 750 aging
inmates, a state Sentencing Guidelines Commission study estimated.
   Since 1987, Texas voters have approved three bond issues totaling $2 billion
to more than double prison capacity to 128,000 beds by 1997. If voters approve
next week's bond issue, the state is ready to break ground on 22,000 jail beds.
Another 42,000 more could be built later.
   One estimate says that at the current clip, by the end of the century one in
every 21 adult Texans -- about 700,000 people -- will be behind bars, on
probation or on parole.