YOU DO THE CRIME, YOU DO THE TIME, P E R I O D!

With the recent senseless killing of another Police Officer by a parolee in Pittsburgh and the four Police Officers in Seattle, my wife and I were talking the other day about people on parole. We know several parole officers and we know the pressure they are under, how they are under staffed and how they have to deal with the slim of society everyday.

My wife who is very smart and perceptive, feels that we as a society should do away with parole. While my first thought was thought it was just a knee jerk observation, the more I thought about it, the more I started to agree with her.
For years I was for the death penalty. I endured the arguments about "How can you be against abortion, but for the death penalty? If abortion is killing someone, how can you be for the government killing someone?" Fair enough. I always replied, "Render onto Cesar, the things that are Cesar's," meaning the government has a right to protect it's people. When you think about it, protecting the unborn from being killed is so much different than putting a killer to death.

But, after much retrospect and deep soul searching, I changed my thinking and I am now against the death penalty, but not for the obvious reasons.

Mine is more pragmatic. We as a society have a trial, convict the criminal, sentence them to death and because of our system, the convicted criminal has countless automatic appeals and it drags on and on. It cost us millions of dollars for these appeals and it is rare that anyone is put to death. The death penalty means nothing anymore. If you are convicted and sentenced to death, twenty years later, the odds are you'll still be alive sitting on death row. Save the money. Those sentences should be converted to LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE.

Remember Lesko & Traveglia? Their "Kill For Thrill" spree started on 12-27-79. They were both sentenced to death. Both are still alive. After countless appeals and re-trials, they have yet to be put to death.

Very rarely do I agree with Bill O"Reilly. I think he's more into "Looking out for him" than he is looking out for you, but I agree with him on this point. He's against the death penalty for religious reasons. Fine, I get that. I have struggled with the moral side of the argument. He says put them away for life with no chance of parole. O'Reilly says put them in a remote location that they will never leave. I'll go even further.

Abolish the death penalty in the United States.

Pick the most remote location in Alaska. Build the biggest prison in the world. Make it a little city. Have an air strip to bring in prisoners, supplies and workers. Have four teams of guards and prison workers. Let them live and work there for three months at a time. Pay top wages, nontaxable to attract the best. Build a fence around the facility, but you don't have to make it maximum security. If someone escapes, they are a thousand miles from civilization, dealing with the elements, the black bears and other animals and don't worry about it. When they die, they can be cremated and sent home. You check in, but you only leave in a box.

Each state could contribute x number of dollars per year and all of their "Lifers" would be sent to this federal facility. This takes your lifers out of the state system and opens up cells for the "lessor" criminals to do their time.
No more 5-10. You do the crime, you do the time. If it's worth 5-10, then you do the 10. If your are sentenced to 99 years, WELCOME TO ALASKA. No more parole. If someone knows they are going to do 20 years with NO PAROLE, I think they would think twice about committing a crime, knowing they aren't getting out anytime soon.

I read a statistic the other day that said that the "re-institutionalized" (that means those who got out of prison and then ended back in prison for those of you in McKeesport) is close to 80%. 80%! What does that tell you? It tells you that all the feel good, give them a second chance, they can be rehabilitated theories are BS!

The system is not working and it needs to be reformed. More and more it's becoming a badge of honor for many of the younger crowd to "earn their bones" by doing time. We need to break that cycle, make it UNATTRACTIVE to go to prison.

Give them all the cable TV they want. Let them see what they are missing. Let them see how THEY destroyed their own lives and the lives of others.

Maybe, just maybe, we will be able to save the life of a Police Officer and other innocent civilians.

You may think it's too drastic and too much of a knee jerk a reaction.

I don't think the parents, co-workers and friends of Officer Michel Crawshaw will think is it.