The criminal justice system is under attack, and for good reason, but when we say “attack” you have to look carefully to be able to identify an element of the media leading or even reporting that attack.
A news piece aired the other day about Hall of Fame linebacker, Lawrence Taylor, being jailed for failure to report his new address to the police, as one with his criminal record is required to do even though the police knew where he was living and why. Nonetheless, he went to jail. Not too many days preceding that jaw-dropping news, there was a report about a mob of thugs breaching the entrances of a national department store and stealing thousands of dollars of jewelry, clothes, etc. and, even though the police had videos of who entered the store and who came out with what stolen merchandise, not one arrest was or has been made. It was even reported that the police in many cities are ordered not to try to detain the people who organize and carry out these thefts.
Do you feel that there is something broken with a system that regularly treats situations so differently that it is difficult, if not impossible, to know why we have laws and hire thousands of people to enforce them but don’t authorize them to do so? Is that a constitutional democracy? Is that living by the law of the land?
Remember the attention devoted to the several cities that wanted to “defund” their police departments? We haven’t heard nearly as much noise about some of those jurisdictions now demanding larger budgets so that thousands of additional officers can be put back on the streets to curb this organized vandalism. The politicians who championed the defunding movement are now forced to hire bodyguards to protect there own well-being. What an irony!
The bottom line is that, unless and until our citizens elect officials who are the sworn enemies of those who choose to break our laws, change will be hard to come by and our country will slide further into the abyss of lawlessness. And that can happen quicker than you think. If that course reversal doesn’t come fairly soon, we will be living in a very different, and not a very comfortable, country.
A strong and vocal majority of voters needs to stand up and demand that our criminal justice system enforces the laws fairly but strictly, and not permit evil elements of our society to lead their lives with impunity and in total disregard for whether the rest of us can live, work, and play without fear.