Oregon has a problem: It has too many people in prison and it’s costing a bundle. It also has problems with traffic, parking, crime and ever-more expensive services. A sensible person would conclude that all these problems can be traced to a growing population. An educated person would know that our population is growing almost entirely because of immigration. Put an end to immigration, send the illegals back and most of those problems will be vastly diminished.
But Governor Kitzhaber sees things differently. In his view, a good way to save money is to stabilize the prison population. A good idea if executed properly, but remember, we’re talking about a politician here. According to the Portland Mercury (famous for it’s murky reasoning):
The budget also names reducing the overrepresentation of people of color in prison—non-whites make up 11.4 percent of Oregon’s population, but 27 percent of our inmates.
One needn’t be a genius to realize that any stated goal of reducing the numbers of “people of color” in prison must necessarily involve unleashing criminals onto the streets to prey upon the innocent. When prison authorities are given guidelines to reduce the number of non-white prisoners, and they have a choice of releasing a white pothead or a black burglar, what decision would make the most sense to them if they want to keep their jobs?
The Mercury has a sidebar:
FACES OF MATH Oregon Incarceration by the NumbersPrison population in 1982: 3,120
Prison population in 2012: 14,232
Two-year state public safety budget: $5.1 billion
Inmates reporting mental health needs: 70%
Inmates dealing with substance abuse issues: 72%
Oregonians who identify as African American: 2%
Oregon inmates who identify as African American: 9.3%
In Portland, blacks make up 6.3% of the population and every time I go downtown I see how they behave. The women seem to be okay but a large proportion of the men come across as thuggish. They dress ghetto, they listen to rap, they walk with a simian gait and they speak ebonics. I suppose it’s possible that a person who never leaves his home, or has any interaction with the real world, might believe that such a group is no more crime-prone than the general population. Does this describe Kitzhaber or the editors/writers of the Mercury? From my observations, it’s not at all far-fetched that blacks commit almost 5 times their share of the crime in Oregon.
When somebody is victimized by one of those released black criminals, will he (or his family) be able to hold Kitzhaber responsible? Apparently Sarah Mirk, who wrote the Mercury story in question, thinks Kitzhaber’s plan is a good one. I wonder if she’d ever make the connection when, some day, she or somebody she loves pays the price for this policy. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Fancy you said that, because Nicholas Stix kinda dealt with this in one of his blog posts today. The comment I made there is perfectly applicable here, with a few changes:
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I think I know what’s going on in a general sense here.
State budgets are so tight that you might as well have down-to-the-penny budgeting decisions. Meanwhile, the Feds can quantitatively ease to its heart’s content.
Also, crimes that have human victims, which are almost always state crimes, are harder to prosecute because they involve human victims that are either dead, scared to testify, or don’t want to testify out of racial solidarity with their accused assailant, or you have the media hot potato of black perp white vic. OTOH, process crimes relating to drugs and guns are generally Federal, and involve almost a summary and perfunctory disposition process.
Put the two together, and what you are already seeing, and what you will see more and more going forward, is that states get the spaghetti headed ghetto thugs convicted of a felony crime involving a human victim, give them ridiculously light sentences to save money. Then when they are inevitably caught with drugs or guns, they can be offloaded on the Feds and Federal prison system for 5-10 years at a time (“doing life on the installment plan”).
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I predict what Kitzcommie will do is very much along those lines. In doing so, he’ll be able to get away with the legerdemain of “reducing the prison population of color…” then behind our backs offloading it onto the Feds.
I know how Oregon will solve the problem. They will blame a Californian, just like King Putt blames GW Bush for everything. (H’mm. Kitzhaber is from Washington. Imagine that.)
What does “overrepresentation of people of color” mean?
Overrepresented on what basis? According to criminality? Some idea about racial quotas on punishment? Or what?
If it’s not just a complaint about racism in the administration of justice, the only sane solution is to reduced criminality among people of color, which would surely not be difficult.
We know that crime is most common among male youths. We know that unemployment and crime are correlated. We know that black youth unemployment is huge and probably in excess of 50%. So the solution to overrepresentation of people of color in jail is pretty simple. Create jobs for black youth — and while you’re about it, create jobs for white, red and yellow youth too.
Creating jobs is not difficult. The difficulty is paying a living wage to someone who’s labor is not worth minimum wage, which is the case for millions of Americans forced to compete with billions of Third Worlders working for pennies an hour. The solution is a government-funded wage subsidy program. Subsidies could be efficiently distributed in an e-Bay style auction, in which employers compete for subsidies by bidding down their cost (to government).
Some might object to this proposal on grounds of cost. But it is cheaper to subsidize a job than put someone in jail, or support them through a bureaucratic welfare system. Moreover, by increasing the availability of cheap labor there would be a huge stimulus to business investment and domestic production of such things as shoes and shirts, computers and car parts that are now imported from Asian sweatshops.
There is a correlation between unemployment and crime. Crime causes unemployment, not the other way around.
There is a correlation between poverty and crime. Crime causes poverty, not the other way around.
Black yutes aren’t in the hoosegow for committing crime because they never had jobs, they never had jobs because they’re criminally inclined.
Geezo, some people really need to work on that whole correlation-causation thing.
There’s no doubt something in what you say, but the fact is that most unemployed youths could not get a job if they tried because their labor is not worth the minimum wage. You have to give these people a chance to go straight. Otherwise they will turn to crime or a life on welfare with a clear conscience. In fact with the conviction that their anti-social lifestyle has been forced upon them.
Why are we trying to figure out ways in which we can coexist with millions of third worlder’s? Shouldn’t the real plan just be to export as many back home as possible? That would be much more simple.
Also a part of the reason why Blacks turn to crime is because of their low IQs. We have created a society where it requires at least a 90-95 IQ to operate and that is probably pushing it. They know they’ll never be able to have a good job and they are more aggressive anyway so they just start robbing people.
They don’t belong in a civilized society. They would do much better in the jungle hunting tigers with a spear.
ahahahahahahahaha
I hope they do it. And I hope Kitzhaber is personally affected by the predictable crime wave.
And I hope that some day we can talk honestly about the issue. But until we can talk honestly about it, maybe we need more crime waves to force the issue. I would be fine with liberalism if there was some way to ensure that only liberals have to deal with the effects of their ideology.
Tigers! In Africa!
very pythonesque.