This morning, Chad Taylor, of the District Attorney's Office in Topeka, issued a letter to everyone about the fact that he does not prosecute most crime anymore. It is kind of wordy, so I will link you to it here, and I will just quote part of it. I don't think he really says anything of value to his constituents in the letter, anyway. We all know that he is just making a choice which he says is based on budget cuts, and most of us feel that it is a bad choice. The people who don't feel that it is okay to judicially ignore misdemeanors are petty criminals and domestic violence thugs. What's happening with them is this: the police arrest them and put them in jail, and within a certain amount of time, they get released, because the district attorney in Topeka never charges them with a crime, because there is not enough money in the budget to prosecute petty crimes any more.
Here's a tidbit from the letter that explains Chad Taylor's intentions the best:
In preparation for this policy change, my office discontinued the filing of any new city misdemeanors. Ethical and practical considerations required that we stop filing new criminal cases that we knew would have to be dismissed shortly once budget cuts were instituted and we no longer had the necessary personnel to prosecute these newly filed cases. Our office has continued prosecuting all previously filed city misdemeanors as well as any new misdemeanors that occur outside the city limits, but within Shawnee County.
There are several things that I find disturbing about this, among them is the idea that if I ran a business in Topeka, my insurance would probably go up, since the DA has very publicly stated that is it almost legal to steal there. A myriad of other crimes no longer have consequences, either. But what I find most disturbing is this..........domestic violence and child abuse are both usually misdemeanors. The victim has to present with fatal or near-fatal injuries for these crimes to become felonies. Guess what's happening with domestic violence thugs in Topeka now, friends.........Yes indeed......these creeps are getting arrested initially by cops who don't want to find corpses at the same addresses later on, after they stop the violence; but since Chad Taylor knows that it is a lot more cost effective, from a strictly fiscal point of view, to bury a domestic violence victim that to help her, or to bury or sell a child abuse victim than to help a family find other options, these offenders are getting released almost as quickly as they get arrested. How long will it take for someone in power to give the police a directive to stop intervening in domestic violence situations at all?
I asked this a couple of weeks ago on this blog, and I will ask it again. Wouldn't it have been a better idea, for the safety of the general public, if Chad Taylor had decided to stop prosecuting victimless crimes, instead? As a citizen, I am completely uninterested in sending someone to prison for years on end and limiting his or her opportunities forever with a permanant criminal record just because he or she took a bong hit somewhere, at the wrong place or time. As a taxpayor, I am completely uninterested in paying for the indefinate room and board for that type of "criminal", too. In fact, the biggest impact prohibition laws have had on our entire population is the criminalizing of people who would not otherwise have had encounters with our judicial system. Think of all the money Topeka could save it it didn't focus on bong hits. Nationwide, if we just loosened our grip on prohibition laws concerning marijuana (don't get me wrong, folks, I am NOT condoning drunk driving, opium dens, dirty needles, or bathtub gin!) we could effect the pleasant result of forcing the drug cartels to look for income elsewhere and lots of drug dealers would have to find gainful employment. Did Chad Taylor give this any thought?
Here, we have a "hit" that is usaully a felony, after our judicial system has gotton through with it, using your tax dollars and mine.
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