Great Expectations

I suggest that he not take the same old page from the old book that we don't dare put any more troubled youths or men in prison because of their race.

An editorial in the Ink today suggests that this is the way to go:

"Since the early 1970s the prison and jail population in the United States has increased at an unprecedented rate," according to a recent report on incarceration rates by the Sentencing Project. "The more than 500 percent rise in the number of people incarcerated in the nation's prisons and jails has resulted in a total of 2.2 million people behind bars."

[Does that mean we have enough prison space here to deal with the need? Need is defined by sentences, not by space].

"Most of that growth has been fueled by drug arrests, which have tripled in the last 25 years; in 2005, there were 1.8 million drug arrests. Nearly 6 in 10 persons in state prisons for drug offenses have no history of violence or high-level drug-selling activity, the Sentencing Project reports."

[Uh, OK. But these are also the knuckleheads carrying guns, slinging drugs "at a medium level or low level"n in my neighborhood and are not Frank Lucas].

"People of color are disproportionately represented in prison. African Americans, for example, make up 14 percent of all drug users, but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 56 percent of persons in state prison for drug offenses."

[Not in Philly. The proportion of drug users in Philly more closely mirrors the population's ethnicity. In other words, about half the Philly population is black, so it's not unexpected to see drug arrests in black neighborhoods reflect that population].

"Additionally, a black person serves nearly as much time in federal prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as a white does for a violent offense (61.7 months), largely because of a 100-to-1 disparity for crack versus powder-cocaine sentencing, according to the Sentencing Project."

[Folks, crack destroyed whole swaths of Philly. It's more potent, and if you've had some organic chemistry, you have surmised already that it's called crack because the HCl molecule is "cracked" off the cocaine, causing a pure, cheap smokable drug with a steeper addiction curve. The sentences would be harsher if only to try to save urban settings. If you refine any drug, and change the chemical composition to a more pure dangerous form, if it was legal, you have to resubmit it to the FDA for approval for safety and efficacy. Drug laws reflect the reality of the difference of two drugs, Co-HCl, and free Co-].

"Today, the United States imprisons the largest proportion of its citizens - 737 per 100,000 - than any other nation in the world, including Russia. By comparison, England/Wales has a rate of 148 per 100,000; Australia, 126; Canada, 107; France 85; and Japan, 62."

The US has the largest crime problem, and Britain is in the process of toughening up on crime, as is France. Russia is too poor yet to afford to have a criminal justice system as humane as ours. The other countries have steep sentencing for drug crimes, such as Australia and Japan. Canada is very strict on racketeering, under which drug offenses fall. The mores of the countries with a lower incarceration rate also stigmatize drug use, while we glamorize it.

And other countries with lower incarceration rates have a large, state funded institutional mental health system. There is no community treatment model in lieu of an inpatient forensic psych hospital that has locks. In the UK, you can expect to be "treated" for your mental state for life if your crime is severe enough, and your mental state intractable.

If you count those in hospital by order of the court, you get a much more accurate comparison of what we call "incarceration."

And no, it's not bad to put people in prison when they are getting medical, dental, optometric, reproductive, and mental health care, as is the case in Philly. The PPS health contractors don't require insurance or an appointment 30 days in advance.

I'm just saying that Philly has cause to be proud of what our tax dollars are doing for inmates, from AA/NA, to courses, to anger management, to social services.

To try to argue, if this new Commissioner takes the old page from Sylvester and Street, that "incarceration is a tragedy" for black men and boys doesn't take into consideration how much better shape the recent cop shooters would have been if they were in contact with this. Lewis would have had detox. Ali would have had counseling. Whitaker would have continued to have full time monitoring, which he needed since he shot and killed a little girl in a drug hit when he was only 15.

I hope this new Commissioner brings a pragmatism that Street's micromanaged Commish lacked -- an ability to understand that we can't continue to allow Philly to be an open air prison where every 5th person has a bench warrant as they continue to commit crimes while they wait for their next court date.

Ya know who else "had no history of violence or high level drug selling? John Lewis. Dontae Taylor was trying to work up to the high level, but he was at best still a street level dealer with a high volume.

These are guys who are giving us every indication that they are in trouble, multiple recent arrests, hard drug use, families that can't control them or cope with them, essentially writing them off and hoping for the best.

We need the new Youth Study Center, which is Juvey to outsiders. It's a max security, high quality center for minors, but it's been stalled for years by Blackwell. Let's build this somewhere else, pronto. Forget Blackwell.

It's not good enough for the liberals to say we don't need to imprison "nonviolent" drug offenders. Not only do we need to do a better job with that, we need to imprison the violent prior offenders who get let out and shoot cops -- Jerome Whitaker and Mustafa Ali.

Ali had what would be three felony strikes, but pled it down, got out, and point black killed two retired cops filling an ATM.

Whitaker killed a 6 year old child in a drug hit on a known heavy drug corner in front of a known crack house. How is that not life, even if he was 15? He got out, and promptly got frustrated with being legit, and went back into drug hitman status, shooting the cop that tailed him after he shot at a suspected dealer, then committing suicide during the chase.

Courts are looking for any reason to lower the load on the prisons. How about let's just increase the space available? We're not talking about ACLU cases here. We're talking about saving what could be your life next.

Philly needs about 30,000 to 50,000 more spaces, period. We can't pretend that we can rehabilitate everyone as fast as the need.

Oh boy, here we go again.
I guess John Timoney wasn't good enough for Nutter, that he needed to bring in a brother from the outside.

We have 10,000 outstanding warrants as a city, which is why the tips about John Lewis identified several times by an eyewitness, never made it to warrant issued status before Lewis killed Officer Cassidy?

There is no way a city of this size can live day to day with 10,000 warrants waiting to be served. Where will we put them, since the PPS is already 9,000+ full including every prison right now.

We need to duplicate the county prison capacity we have now, and get these losers off the streets so they don't think that crime has no punishment.

10,000 outstanding warrants is more than all the legal beds we have in the city for inmates.

The new Commish doesn't seem like Sylvester, who gave the impression that he was OK with the excuse making to get by, combined with a carefully placed insinuation that he was not above using the race card. Johnson just followed Street's lead there, and Street's admin., until one by one they went to prison or bailed.

If Street wants to free up space in prison, he should instruct his comrades to stop taking kick backs and putting in the fix in the old Pheelay quid pro quo known to Street as "Old School" Philly politics.

Seriously, Nutter is not a crook that got tipped off by Johnson that the FBI was on to him. Unlike some people that even the Ink columnists want to try to call "stunted" not because of graft or municipal corruption, or having to completely throw out the wholly tainted decades long process of reworking the waterfront.

Are we serious? Did we miss the whole Probe thing? Did we not peruse our own archives in the paper while trying to somehow kid ourselves editorially that it's objective to call Street a victim? If Street is a victim, it's of his own "see no evil" and get Connie Little to take the drug money from Ali on the QT except WHOA there's a bug in my office.

The new commish -- he really seems like he earned his way, not that he ever expected his money men to "get down or lay down." The new guy seems like he is the diametric opposite of Street, Sylvester, and Harold Jackson.

There is no "miasma" that infects his mindset of "negative attitudes." Ramsey seems like "the buck stops here."

Street is "go cry to Harrisburg to do something because I'm writing my syllabus."

Street is all "stick a fork in me you ingrates! How dare you question my thesis that there are no black criminals, only a racist conspiracy to put black men in prison. Of course the other races belong there, but the black men need to be let free to be good dads, noble sons, great pillars of the million man get out the vote movement."

This guy was on the happy Uhuru KoolAid. He and Sylvester were dead serious that they had to use affirmative action in arresting, even if criminals were not going to cooperate. Arresting by quotas isn't going to do the trick. You have to arrest by the law. Street and Johnson wanted to turn law inside out to suit the need for enough parolees on election day.

Are we really shocked that there are 10,000 pending warrants in Philly? That's plenty good to swing an election if you keep campaigning for the crack house vote. Street never met a drug dealer who wasn't a victimized entrepreneur.

Like Eugene Hearn, I guess.