Kentucky Is One Of  8 States Looking At Early Release Of Prisoners To Save Money

Several state legislatures are trying to save money with what the Associated Press is calling "a drastic and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing thousands of convicts from prison including thieves, drug dealers and worse."

In Kentucky, lawmakers approved legislation to grant early release to some prisoners.  The estimates are that the release plan could affect as many as 2,000 inmates and save nearly $50 million.  Apparently the legislature shifted the decision about who will be released to the Corrections Department, and quickly added that violent convicts and sex offenders would not be eligible.

Editor's comment:  Let's see if I understand this.  It costs too much for the state to keep convicted criminals incarcerated.  Under their new plan, the costs of new crimes committed by these released criminals will now have to be paid, not by the state, but by the new victims.  These new victims may wonder whose side the legislature is on. GREAT QUESTION!  Gosh, they probably assumed that the main purpose of our government was to do all it could to protect citizens from criminals.  How silly!

Will The Legislature Provide Additional Probation & Parole Officers To Keep Up With These Newly Released Convicts?

(Or will their caseloads just get bigger & bigger - which translates into less supervision and less citizen safety?).

Remember Eve Carlson?  She was the University of North Carolina coed who was murdered by two previously convicted criminals.  Both were on probation, but they slipped through the cracks.  Consultants were called in to study the system.  High caseloads, old equipment, officers discouraged from trying to revoke probation or parole, and high turnover were just some of the problems.

Editor's comment:  Surely our criminal justice decision-makers understand that if you increase the number of convicted felons by releasing them back onto our streets, you need to supervise them.  Surely they have planned for this!

Washington, D.C. Leads The Nation In GPS Tracking Of Criminals

More than 600 convicted offenders in Washington, D.C. are being tracked using GPS satellite technology.  The system has been used to solve several violent crimes.

GPS technology allows officers to track them wherever they go.  Each day, law enforcement agencies plug the dates, time and place of major crimes into a computer system and cross reference the movements of these offenders provided by the GPS tracking.  If one of the bracelets was at the scene of the crime . . .  .

Editor's comment:  Great idea except that type of GPS technology costs around $35 per day.  Hey!  If the criminal does get out, make him pay for it.

Illinois May Make Money At Strip-Clubs

Illinois is studying a proposal to add a $2 per-person admission charge to get into any Illinois strip-club.  Some have dubbed it the "Pole-Tax."  Sponsors claim it will raise $1.4 million, which would be used to support rape-crisis centers.

Editor's comment:  Should we pass this one along to our Legislature?

WARNING! Guns Painted To Resemble Toys

Police are concerned that more guns are being painted in fluorescent colors to resemble toy guns.  At the same time, pellet-guns are being produced to look just like the real thing. These both create a hazard for everyone, according to law enforcement officials.

Editor's comment:  Victims of an armed robbery assume anything that looks like a gun is a gun, not a toy.  It is a scary situation to look at the business end of a gun, no matter what color it is.

Mexican Drug Cartels Training Assassins

Mexican drug cartels have conducted military-style training camps to train recruits to carry out killings on both sides of the border. It's part of a strategy by the cartels to intimidate their enemies. The result has been unprecedented violence. Over 5,000 people have been killed in Mexico in two years.

Editor's comment:  These people are responsible for bringing massive amounts of drugs into the United States. Obviously they are willing to kill to protect their business.

San Francisco Finally Trying To Make Criminals Pay

It seems that for years San Francisco simply chose not to collect the debts that criminals owed the court system through fines, court-fees and victim restitution payments. The city made little or no attempt to collect from the criminals.

As a result, the cost of compensating crime victims in San Francisco was being paid by criminals from other jurisdictions where they were collected and by a pool of federal matching money.

Editor's comment:  That means that other California cities and the nation's taxpayers had been subsidizing the crooks of San Francisco, I guess because S.F. court officials were too lazy to impose on the thugs.  Why are we surprised at anything they do there?