So Ali/Steele keeps a strict Muslim household, with wife in a black veil, but robs and kills two older men?

This type is not mentally ill. This is a genuine sociopath who can't imagine that other humans are as important and worthy as himself.

Such a person will get clean, sober, work programs, find religion, but the sociopathic tendancy to reoffend is there.

Certain offenders have to serve their full sentence.

And Rendell wants to reintroduce early release? Here's one example of early release -- should have served 149 years, served only seven.

Why was this guy not first placed in a locked outpatient community bed with day time release or just at least a halfway house? Why was this probation/parole only seven years? As soon as that seven years was up (got out in 1999), bang, he's back to old tricks.

Obviously the power of the threat to return to prison was more immediate in his mind while on probation. Why not have probation for up until the age when most chronic felons are too old to reoffend?

Mustafa Ali is a poster boy for the three strikes rationale. If the system won't work, then we have to draw a clear line.

We can't just throw up our hands and say "oh, the tragedy." We owe these good men more than that.

Seems like even though the national prison population in the US exceeds any nation in the world's ratio, the ratio of those who are eligible for prison to those serving is too low in Philly.

We just can't ignore the need to increase prison, probation, parole, and judicial capacity in the county of Philadelphia.

We're going to get a new police commissioner, and that person is going to start a spike in arrests for gun violations at the least from a stop and frisk policy in high crime areas.

If Mustafa Ali can steal $25K at gunpoint and get out in seven years, without the courts understanding that someone who uses a firearm to commit a crime is a high risk offender who should be last in line for parole, then we have all lost our minds.

This is going to be a death penalty case. Anyone ready for the next Mumia?

I appreciate both the editorial and letter from two Philly police dept. members in today's paper.

Both use plenty of facts and figures, something not so much the case lately in the local press, on how long people who commit felony crimes really serve, and how often they reoffend.

While some at the DN are quick to cry at the prison rate, they are also taking bikini shots of themselves in Malibu during the hottest, most dangerous parts of the year, and not working a regular job on the streets of Philly day in, day out. And the other predictably lefties in the paper are not researching why Philly crime is spiking, but printing the photos of writers in bikinis. Meanwhile, the research on what experts in criminal justice are telling us are unheeded unless is fits the already cemented mindset.

A true crime writer might feel a little stale at this paper, because as soon as the analysis starts, it has to conform to a notion of an ideal humanity that isn't really seeing what is there.

It's easy to stroke the ego of your ideals, but in practice, the brazenness of a felony is predictive.

The criminals are telling us what they can do. Will we listen to them?

Not only Rendell wants early release.

Check this out from Corzine in an article by Maria Panitaris:

"Another disturbing trend, Corzine noted, was that New Jersey's prisons have become jammed with nonviolent drug offenders over the last three decades as a result of sentencing laws that require jail time whenever someone deals drugs within 1,000 feet of a school.

In what will likely amount to one of the most politically controversial elements of his crime-fighting package, Corzine said this well-meaning law had limited efforts to send truly violent criminals to jail.

Corzine said one of his goals is to work with the Legislature to "recraft" the state law on school zones while also revising other laws so that they mandate jail time for illegal-gun crimes.

"The murder rate's up 10 percent over the last five years in New Jersey," Corzine said. "That's unacceptable. But it's also unacceptable that we've seen our prison population go from 7,000 in 1979 to 27,000 today."

Two-thirds of state inmates are African American, and two-thirds of released prisoners go back to jail within five years, Corzine said.

"Something's wrong here, and we need to attack it," Corzine said."

So if you deal drugs within 1000 feet of a school, we should let you out because we don't have room in the prisons, outpatient, treatment, halfway houses, or CEC facilities for ya.

Something is wrong here alright.

We can't keep pretending that letting gun and drug offenders out of prison altogether is the right way to go. The Havers' can vouch for that.

If the feds have decided to cut deals that result in someone serving even less than a small fraction of their possible 147 years maximum, cut to a mere 7 years including time served for a serious gun crime, this is a problem.

Ali wasn't just an accomplice in the crimes he committed in the early 90s. He was a participant.

Why not have him live in a day program where he works and returns to a supportive check in environment at night? Alternative sentencing arrangements where the inmate works but comes back to a facility at night to keep their minds in the right place would have been a much better choice.

Sure thing, maybe Ali can work in your neighborhood. You seem to be an "enlightened" person, I'm sure you would support the halfway house on your block. Maybe he could bunk in with Ira Einhorn and Mumia.
A better choice? How about we let him choose between the gas chamber, lethal injection or the electric chair?

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