A distinguished panel of state legislators, law officers and advocates of better mental health for troubled convicts has now produced still another complicated, expensive and in the end probably futile plan to deal with Arkansas' ever growing population of parolees and probationers. Our panel of experts recommends more parole officers, and more training for them and for the parolees. In short, more of everything that's been tried and failed before, this time at a cost of multiple millions a year--at least.
If all this sounds familiar, it should. For this is the same old approach to the same old problem. It's been tried again and again with the same old unsatisfactory result: More crimes committed by more criminals on parole.
Why not try something different this time? Like the approach used in the federal penitentiaries: no paroles at all. If a prisoner doesn't get into trouble while in prison, he can have his sentence reduced. But that's it. No paroles, no parolees. And therefore no more crimes against the innocent committed by not so innocent parolees.
Instead of being obsessed by how to decrease the prison population, why not concentrate instead on how to decrease the number of crimes they commit while out on parole? Nobody will object except the criminals. Many of them will claim they're being punished for only "technical" violations of the law, as if they were free to choose which laws to obey. That attitude is what got them into trouble in the first place.
Sure, locking up all these miscreants would come with a price tag. It might even be necessary--horrors!--to raise taxes to keep them locked up. But how much is your safety, and your family's, worth? That safety is priceless, of course. Why not protect it? And sleep better o' night, too.
Editorial on 06/28/2016