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Steinman for Governor:
Part 007, More on Crime:
By William E. Steinman:
Post Date:
Last time, I discussed crime and pointed out some of the
cost of having a large criminal population. I also suggested that we need more
effective laws and enforcement for dealing with crime. When I think of necessary laws, I find nothing in the world more
important that protecting our children. Now, in truth, we should not need
special separate laws for this, but it seems we do. That necessity comes out of
our rather bizarre cultural mindset. There is a common misconception in our
culture that children are less than or other than full citizens. They are seen
as something akin to savages who must be forcibly civilized. Thus, the laws
that protect adults can be ignored for children. That is for sure what we do.
We routinely ignore the rights of children.
Ofttimes, criminals in jail get better treatment than children in schools do.
Some of the most blatant violations of civil rights possible are perpetrated
against children. We routinely do things to kids that no adult would tolerate.
In the home and in the schools children are routinely deprived of due process.
Children are also routinely exploited in the advertising industry and in the
entertainment industry. I believe we need laws to specifically protect children
against those kinds of personal outrages. The exploitation of children is becoming
the most widespread and damaging crime of our time.
I want to make clear that I do not support
criminal activity simply because the criminal is a child. For example calling in
a bomb threat is a crime. Whether a student does it as a so-called prank or a
criminal does it as a diversion, it is a crime. It should be punished with a
penalty proportional to the cost of recovery. In this case, mere suspension
from school is not enough. There should be criminal penalties. The cost of
recovery must include the diversion of the community’s resources. It
costs a great deal of money to send a fire department and police bomb squad out
to say nothing of shutting down a public facility for a day. There is also an
additional threat to the community because resources are tied up when they may
be needed elsewhere. So, crimes are crimes regardless of who the perpetrator
is. They must be punished.
Now I can get to effective law enforcement. In the
Gaffer’s Philosophy I outlined a national police academy with
a very tough four year program. When I look at the current political situation,
I am convinced that academy will not happen in my lifetime. However, I see no
reason that
What we really need in
I currently visualize this school as having a two
part educational program. The first two years of training would be dedicated to
producing very competent cops. Any person who successfully completed this first
two-year program would be certified by the State of
In this program, the recruits would be trained in
all phases of police work, the physical as well as the ethical and mental.
Weaklings, dummies, and con men would not make the cut. For sure, the school
would have tough, nondiscriminatory entrance requirements. In the following
paragraphs, I will offer some of the details of my ideas on the nature of this
academy.
Most important is the quality of people we would
want to attend this school. We would need to weed out the unqualified people
right from the beginning. This school will be expensive enough without the high
dropout rate of a regular university. Once people enter this program, we will
want them to complete it. Hence, the academy must have very high entrance
requirements. For this, a good high school GPA and SAT score would be
necessary, but not sufficient. There must be a true intelligence test and an
aptitude entrance exam. Of course, there must also be physical requirements.
Since we will be graduating true professionals,
we can and must maintain stiff entrance requirements.
Graduates of the school would be tough, disciplined, and proud. They
will be sought after by many communities. There are sure to be more people
wanting to get in than we can accommodate. Many will not be qualified. The unqualified
ones must not get in. I feel we should think of this school as equivalent to
Aptitude and attitude are the most important
qualifications for a law officer. How the applicants feel about people must be
determined. This is not what they say, but what is revealed through a
psychological profile test or screening. We must know these people are really
suited to be law officers. We already have too many sadists, thugs, bullies,
and deadbeats in police work. We don’t need to compound that problem.
Preventing it is a key purpose of the academy.
If all of our current police officers took these
entrance tests, a great many of them would fail to make the cut. Here is a fact
our culture has never fully faced. Many of the people who are in law
enforcement are not and never were psychologically qualified. We know the
penalty for this failure. We see it on the news regularly. Recently in Flint,
one officer was charged with indecent behavior, two prisoners were allowed to
escape through negligence, and a local prosecutor, former policeman, is under
investigation by the state’s Attorney General. That is just one month in
one city. Multiply that in your mind. It is not enough that cops be good and
honest people. They must also be qualified.
One area where the TV shows about cops are
particularly misleading about normal police work is in crime scene
investigation. Most of us have seen the shows. We know it’s bull, but it
is entertaining. The sad thing is it does not have to be bull. All of the
techniques we see on those shows are possible. Fingerprinting, DNA analysis,
body fluid analysis, and all of the other things a medical examiner might do
are possible.
Unfortunately,
the reality does not measure up. We have seen examples of that in the Simpson
investigation and in the FBI’s handling of the Atlanta bombing case. Our
academy graduates must be properly trained in crime scene investigation
procedures. Of course, this includes protecting the crime scene from contamination.
Just stringing yellow tape around the scene does not do that. The protection
must be proactive, not passive. I will continue this discussion net week.
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