Great Expectations

Philly needs fully -funded witness protection or, if that is too expensive, then a rewrite of the local criminal code that takes threatened witnesses automatically out of the Common Pleas Court (local city criminal court) and puts those cases in the level where fully funded witness protection is available, such as the federal level.

Those cases need to be bumped up. Those prisoners can't be held in the local prison system unless they are held alone in single cells with COs that have special clearance and training.

It's pretty clear that being a CO is no protection against having family members in the hard core criminal element. From the Coleman arson that killed a CO and grandmom, and several kids, to the CO mom of John Lewis, who shot Officer Cassidy, it's clear that local prisons are permeable without strict controls to protect witnesses.

Good news -- this is not rocket science.

Why did Street oppose funding the DA's requested level of witness protection at a time when there was no alternative presented by the Mayor's Office? In fact, the Mayor's Office rejects bumping up charges to include the facts that make the case more witness friendly.

Why? And why does the council, press, and certain attendees of these citizen forums never seem to notice?

The city can protect itself against lawsuits better if it uses items like dash cams, and other modern technology. Also, having two cops working together is standard procedure everywhere but here.

Skerski and Cassidy would both be alive today if they responded with a partner in the car. Period. That's why other cities do it.

Why also does the city say it has no money? The city has $500 million at least in overdue property taxes that it just won't foreclose on. Some of these properties are by multiple property owners, out of city/out of state, rentals, and are in some of the worst neighborhoods.

This is a case where the worst zips' owners owe the most. If you want to renew neighborhoods and get new people in, you have to let the houses turn over to owners who are going to pay the property taxes.

Why? Schools need that cash now, not whenever people can pay it, which is never.

Isn't it time we just admit that delinquent property tax owners make bad neighbors, and cost the city the most in every way? Seniors can already freeze their property taxes, and get rebates.

The people who are not paying are not seniors.

We can't have good schools if we are not talking about paying for schools by collecting overdue property taxes.

All these forums where people fail don't include this, miss the primary mechanism by which schools in the whole state are funded.

About half of all property taxes go to pay for schools. When I say this at community meetings, many people of all races, creeds, and incomes are astounded in Philly. "Whaaaaahhhh? Property taxes go for a legit purpose -- whaaaahhhhhh?" is a typical reaction.

Too many zip codes have DOUBLE DIGIT percents of ALL owners owing the city taxes. No city, no school, and no police force can work this way.

Look:

http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent

This is city data given to a website that loads the info every month into an easy to use wysiwyg format.

Sorting by zip code, there are zips that have HALF of ALL owner that owe the city HUGE, YEARS of property taxes.

The press is irresponsible for not covering this at all, because it contributes to a general climate of total ignorance.

Wow, how does Chester Co. pay for schools and police with so many fewer owners per mile? They don't let half of all owners owe property taxes for years at a time.

It's not complicated people, but it's also going to have to be a policy of property tax collection that is BLIND to zip, to 'hood, to assumption, to race, to well meaning but ultimately bankrupting ideas that property taxes are "bad" so we "shouldn't collect" all this overdue money.

We don't need PPA to pay $40 million if we can get $100 million if we foreclose or sell this usually empty property at sheriff sale!

Duh, journalists and citizens.

We just have to fairly and efficiently foreclose. Grow up. Every owner has to pay for their fair share.

If I can, every owner can, and seniors are protected already. But not every triflin' relative will inherit a valuable asset and not pay off the unpaid taxes.

We can't let people put a deed in their name as a relative if the full amount of liens on water, gas, property taxes, fines, ETC. is NOT PAID OFF.

Time to stop the cheating system that is obvious to everyone but the papers and the members of the local democratic party. Oops! Did I give away too much?

Philly has a very good local prison system for the amount of people it was built for. The amount of people it was built for was never the amount of people in it.

For a city of our population size, we need a local prison capacity about twice to three times what we have.

We don't even have a 10,000 person prison capacity for some 1.4 million residents. The math there is enough to show that if you look around your neighborhoods where there is crime, you can see that you need more than 10,000 local prison beds per 1,400.000 people.

This really is not hard.

Street raves about, and Sylvester, states like Texas are doing -- folks, Texas is not PA. PA is not Philly. Philly doesn't have the room it needs to do the job, and the state is sick of Philly costing it's local needs into the state system. So are the feds. They have from 30% to 50% or MORE people in the state and fed system from PHILLY.

We have to either collect our taxes and pay for this space to them, or do it ourselves. My idea is that the state needs more space, Rendell needs to deal with it, and not let people out early who are not nearly ready -- hello Jerome Whitaker who killed Michele Cutner who was in the BOOK about Rendell, "A Prayer for the City."

Come on!

It's nice to say oh, someone is a certain race, isn't it tragic, sad, blah, blah, blah and so we should try new things. But notice that most people getting killed are of that race, so,.. if you want to help them, I suggest putting their tormentors and persecutors in prison or some locked placement.

But until those new things are going on, we can't just let these people run around the city.

We have 10,000 outstanding bench warrants. Meaning that the city is an open air prison. We have 10,000 people in prison, and 10,000 people who are supposed to be in prison, most likely, who aren't.

Those are the people committing the crimes!

Yeah. You can't keep fudging the simple numbers, no matter how liberal you are, or how much you want to save that money. You can't.

Philly needs at LEAST 20,000 local PPS beds. Beds. Not rooms with no toilets with 6-8 guys or gals. Berths.

Think about that as you walk home tonight.

10,000 (maxed out) local prison beds for Philly
1,400,000 total population

10/1,400 people out and about on usually serious bench warrants.

You HAVE to kill someone to get put in prison here. Or they'll spring ya. There is no room for any but the most serious, most shocking violent, violent crimes.

ONE person PER every 140 people in the WHOLE city HAS a BENCH WARRANT. That makes stop and frisk -- which police do anyway now without undue lawsuits -- a smart strategy.

What do you think we should do as a city?

Yes, fully fund head start/kindergarten etc. but yes, the bramaged guys who grew out of a crack and alcohol fetal blood stream -- some of these guys we can't fix. They're impulsive, they have judgment, no empathy, and yeah, the can smart.

WE can't fix every crack baby who is all grown up now. STOP letting them roam the city with 9mms.

Stop and frisk shuts down and relocates the open air market drug trade. What will the Shamsud-din Ali's do for extortion of that is what Ramsey does?

Who will give the Moz' that funny money?

1/140 people have outstanding bench warrants in Philly, so the concentration is even higher in high crime areas (because it is lower in low crime areas).

So what does that tell you? Stop and frisk gets hard core drugs and weapons off the street.

What we don't have is enough room to hold them while charges pend, or enough capacity in the court system to handle this volume.

Nutter has to drag the criminal justice system from cop to court to prison space into the 21st century.

After two decades of crack that inner city pregnant women were testing positive for in the double digit percentages, those kids are big now. No matter you politics, this is just the facts.

Fetal alcohol syndrome and smoking by pregnant women and moms is probably the most serious teratogen (baby deformer). Yet the city can't even face that.

Co-sleeping is nothing compared to the kids who live with the unrepairable damage. Philly needs a safe pregnancy campaign.

People in the inner city will refuse a flu shot because of risk of harm. Yet they will drink and smoke cigs and worse when pregnant. No problem!

Here's your reason for quite a bit of "racial disparity" in health outcomes -- people's nasty little habits they can't face, and whole city black and white that looks the other way to be unoffensive.

Smoking while preggers and around children in the likely cause of the spike in autism and ADD/ADHD.

But moms just can't face that. Even though science has shown that thimerosal vaccines can't be linked to birth defects or adverse outcomes after decades of high quality research.

People can't face that their dirty little secrets are the cause.

Cosby is right -- people can't face the dirty laundry.

1/140 people have outstanding bench warrants in Philly, so the concentration is even higher in high crime areas (because it is lower in low crime areas).

So what does that tell you? Stop and frisk gets hard core drugs and weapons off the street.

What we don't have is enough room to hold them while charges pend, or enough capacity in the court system to handle this volume.

Nutter has to drag the criminal justice system from cop to court to prison space into the 21st century.

After two decades of crack that inner city pregnant women were testing positive for in the double digit percentages, those kids are big now. No matter your politics, this is just the facts.

Fetal alcohol syndrome and smoking by pregnant women and moms is probably the most serious teratogen (baby deformer) in Philly and the prisons are bulging as a result, and crime is going back up as this cohort comes of age. Yet the city can't even face that.

Co-sleeping is nothing compared to the kids who live with the unrepairable damage and grow up. Philly needs a safe pregnancy campaign.

People in the inner city will refuse a flu shot because of risk of harm. Yet they will drink and smoke cigs and worse when pregnant. No problem! Ask any med professional in Philly who works with this population.

Here's your reason for quite a bit of "racial disparity" in health outcomes -- people's nasty little habits they can't face, and whole city looking the other way to be unoffensive.

Smoking while preggers and/or around children is the likely cause of the spike in autism and ADD/ADHD. Period. Where's the campaign? Where's the lawsuit? Where's the outrage against the boys on the corner selling that is akin to big pharma, say? Why is this a blind spot? Why are people thinking that jobs are going to make a dent in this dynamic?

Whitaker -- had a job -- a good job as a bricklayer. Lewis -- had a job that is good enough for immigrants, middle class kids, students, but not good enough for him. Mustafa Ali -- had a job AND a business. The opportunities are there, but these probably have a history of bad birth outcomes that they couldn't overcome. I know, because I get to see these charts.

If you are low birth weight, premie, small for gestational age, have slight microcephaly, some fetal alcohol effects without the full FA syndrome, your chance of committing a crime is exponentially higher.

But moms just can't face that. Even though science has shown that thimerosal vaccines can't be linked to birth defects or adverse outcomes after decades of high quality research. Moms will refuse a vaccine for themselves and their kids in Philly much more readily than going into rehab and/or quitting smoking when pregnant. Especially in Philly, where education levels are low, and the public safe pregnancy campaigns don't mention drugs or alcohol.

People can't face that their dirty little secrets are the cause of this re-spike in Philly crime. But the scientific evidence is right there.

Cosby is right -- people can't face the dirty laundry.

Well its great write up the key role is the parents of of the children needs parenting course and this will give great change to the upcoming children and if each individual change than the society will be very productive and it all depend on the improvement of the self.The crime rate will drop by itself.