This link will bring you to a terribly sad video but I suggest that you watch it nonetheless.
It is a tribute to the many children who were abducted and murdered in the United states in past several years. It is obviously heartbreaking, but also extremely sobering -to be faced with one beautiful little face after the next, each one sharing a terrible fate; Their innocent lives were all snuffed out by violent predators, many of whom had prior criminal histories but were given light sentences which in turn placed them squarely in the path of our children.
After watching this video I suggest that you take the inevitable heartbreak that you'll feel and put it to good use; Make a commitment to all children as well as yourself to take positive action this year towards the abolition of crimes against children.
You can start with your own home-state, by working toward any and all criminal /Judicial reforms that are necessary in insuring that all crimes against children are prosecuted responsibly and severely.
Many of you will say to yourselves 'of course I want to protect our kids... but how would I even begin such an endeavour-I know nothing about our courts and prison system.?'
You will need to first do some investigating into your states current laws and sentencing practices regarding both violent crime in general, and all crimes against children This means finding out what is actually being carried out in your states courts, not simply what laws are on the books. Many times, special sentencing laws exist in states which allow prosecutors to impose stricter prison terms for potentially dangerous or repeat predators, but they are rarely if ever.
This needs to stop, and the first step towards this end would be acquainting oneself with your state's particular weaknesses and strengths re violent crime and crimes against children; This includes sentencing guidelines and actual procedure, minimum sentencing and very importantly, parole procedure both formal and actual, bail policies, IE do minimums exist and what are average bail amounts imposed for violent crime and crimes involving children, and remember These two groups of crimes are usually handled in a like fashion.
Be certain to include statistics for so called "lesser" crimes that have historically been treated in some courts as " nuisance "crimes, despite reams of profiling research that clearly proves that these "lesser" crimes are very often criminal precursors to later abductions, sexual assaults, and murder. In effect they are red flags for our courts for marking potential predators.
Crimes such as exposing oneself to a minor, sexual molestation without "actual rape" or penetration, or molestation not accompanied by violence, These types of crimes until very recently have been treated as lower level classes of crime by many many courts, often leading to tragic consequences for children who are then unnecessarily exposed to repeat offenders who have been already caught and thus within the grasp of our system through out varying stages of their criminal evolution.
Joseph Duncan was one such predator; He was in fact bailed out and on the lam for one such "annoyance" type crime when he decided to go on his now infamous murderous rampage in Coure de lene Idaho, where he eventually killed an entire family ;Brenda Groene, mother if 3, her fiance Mark McKenzie and their 13 year old son were all bludgeoned to death with a framing hammer in their own home in order to kidnap the two youngest children for sadistic pedophilia.
he ultimately killed one of the two children, sweet faced Dylan Greene, then was caught by police with 8 year old Shasta still alive, tho the lone survivor of what turned out to be the most horrific set of crimes against children ever within this century.
Duncan's bail amount for his latest run- in with the law was set at a ridiculous 15,000 dollars by an inept or lazy- prosecutor, despite multiple felony convictions on his record all committed when he was only 17 years of age for what turned out to be the kidnap, rape and torture of a much younger boy at gunpoint!
Thankfully Duncan served the full sentence possible for that crime, as once in custody, the state of Washington recognized his potential for further violence and responsibly did their absolute best to keep him institutionalized for as long as the law would allow: This turned out to be a 20 year prison sentence, during which time he admitted to psychologists that he'd actually raped a total of 16 boys by the time he was 14, although he was never caught for 15 of the rapes.
The subsequent crime that Duncan was bailed out over involved him pulling down pants of two little boys at a school playground, and videotaping the incident. Fortunately, A nearby adult saw the commotion and intervened. Duncan fled but was later recognized in a mugshot by witnesses- He was a registered sex offender due to his very first RAPE conviction. Bear in mind too that the entire sex offender registry was the work of a group of tenacious child crime activists, all led by the parents of a murdered child. This system saves hundreds of lives every year and would not be in existence if not for the hard work of some regular citizens like you and I, who cared enough to go the extra mile-for our innocent children...
The judge who took all of the flak for releasing Joseph Duncan on such a low bail amount has stated that he was never made aware of Duncan's criminal past. Knowing how most courts daily dockets run, I would say that this was a failure on the part of the prosecutor, for the judge typically defers to him at all pre-trial hearings, such as Duncan's standard arraignment and bail hearing.
bottom line is that had that court done its job properly, Joseph Duncan would have been immediately recognized as a dangerous repeat offender that was acting out criminally once again on defenseless children And thus, what at first glance could appear to be "just" some park pervert child molester, was in fact a level 3 dangerous SEX offender with a criminal history of kidnapping and rape. Thus it would have been surmised that he was likely attempting to do the same with the little boys that he had tried to molest and film that day.
. Tragically, his past was not known to the court, either because a multi-state criminal record check was not conducted prior to the bail hearing, or worse, it was known to the prosecutor ,and he didn't pass this crucial information to the judge, nor consider it himself when recommending a bail amount.
Note ; a 15,000 bail equates to a 1500 dollar bond via the use of the standard bail bondsman. which is made available at every courthouse to any person charged with a crime. 10 percent of the total bail amount is all that a bondsman asks for up front by the defendant.
The type of crime that Joseph Duncan was arrested for one month before the kidnapping and murders of the Groene family needs to be recognized and treated as the serious "bridge" type crime that it in fact actually is. It is at this point in a child predators criminal career that we need to end that "career" via a zero tolerance policy. This must include bail constraints, rigorous sentencing and complete probation and parole limits for any crimes against children.
We have long known that child predators have extremely high recidivism rates It is high time to apply all of our hard -won knowledge to the practical end of our criminal justice systems, as this is where we are clearly weakest. Please get involved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_umEiaHZDg
No comments:
Post a Comment