If anyone is following the Connecticut Home Invasion Story where two parolees were released from prison [probably to open a bed for a first time marijuana charged offender] and both committed a heinous triple murder.
If I were the man [husband] whose entire family was wiped out; daughters raped, wife killed, I’d probably make it my life mission to see these two human paraquats suffer until the end of their days.
This story is so disturbing on so many fronts.
A) It’s about 45 minutes from where I live.
B) That they were even parolled after so many prior burglaries.
C) That it was the system I pay lawmakers to run that failed these people.
D) Prison over crowding - who knows who has their beds now.
E) That we don’t live in an ‘eye for an eye’ society.
Ok maybe the last one is a stretch, but seriously folks. These guys were let out of prison early, parolled, to make room for someone else.
Sometimes I think prison systems intentionally parole crazy people, sort of in “protest” to have a basis for the “we need more prison funding!” argument.
Philophr, when the story first broke I read that neither of the men involved had any prior convictions for violent felonies. Is that no longer the case, or is my admittedly fallible memory on the fritz again?
I’m not going to pretend that parole isn’t in serious need of a fix or three, but we’ve got an electorate that keeps wanting harsher and harsher sentences for people doing criminal acts, that criminalizes more and more behavior every year it seems, but refuses to pay for increased prison beds. Something has to give, and like-it-or-not non-violent offenders who’ve not committed the crime of the week (cell phone while driving, identity theft, etc.) are getting paroled.
I think what’s happened is tragic. I just don’t think it’s fair to blame those people who have to choose which felons to release for a decision that looks bad based on acts that happened after the decision was made, when there was no reason to expect such an escalation.
They both had many serious prior convictions. I don’t want to blame those who are responsible for their release. I’d just like to see a better justice served…
It would not surprise me to find out that the prison from which they were paroled was a for profit institution. Many similar things happened in Ohio not too long ago. There are millions of things wrong with the American system of justice, not the least being that it turns petty criminals into hardened criminals. But the worst aspect is that there is no justice (at least no sense of fairplay.) The problem is that anyone who ever suggests prison reform or ending the war on drugs which is costing taxpayers billions in incarceration costs, trial costs, parole and probation costs and worst of all social costs related to the inability of convicted felons to find work on release and the crimes they commit in order to obtain their drug of choice - has exactly zero chance of getting elected. As long as the attitude of John Q. Public is "lock 'em up and throw away the key these tragedies will continue.
Remember reforming criminals so they wouldn’t do bad things any more? What a silly liberal fantasy! We’ve obviously got to keep arresting evil bad criminals and releasing them to commit new crimes and then arresting them again and then releasing them to commit new crimes until SOMEBODY learns! And it won’t be us, nosirreebob!
I understand the pain & horror If we had perfect system of predicting future violence, we’d use it. Simply put, we cannot afford to incarcerate every person who has broken the law for the rest of their life.
I’ve worked w/offenders in the community fo 30+ years. Many did some horrific things before I met them. More of them did a bunch of idiotically stupidly illegal things before I met them. I can only think of one guy who did a horrifically violent thing after I knew him who did something violent before, vs. many, many who were not (on paper) violent who did something violent later on.
again, if we had a perfect method of predicting future violence, it’d be used. In the meantime, we all do the very best that we can to minimize future violence. I am sorry for those who have been victimized. and I work hard, every day to attempt to minimize future victimization.