|
Locking up 'bad guys with guns'
 [BALTIMORESUN] City police and prosecutors have for the last several years preached the need to get "bad guys with guns" off the streets and have announced assorted special efforts to do so, from a "war room" to the recent creation of a new joint unit pairing experienced personnel from the police department and state's attorney's office. Police report they are making far more gun arrests, yet we are poised to exceed 300 homicides for the second year in a row, a rate of killing not seen here since the 1990s.Part of the explanation for the discrepancy lies in Sun news hound Justin Fenton's investigation Sunday revealing that when people are incarcerated Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! on illegal firearm charges in Baltimore, they are less likely to be held without bail than in the past, their cases are dropped about a quarter of the time before they get to trial, and those who are convicted are given just a fraction of the jail time for which they are eligible, often with large amounts of the sentence suspended. Police Commissioner Kevin Davis has sought help from the legislature to toughen penalties for firearm violations, and it's true that some legal changes might help. State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby says she is working to bring better coordination between prosecutors and police to prevent avoidable errors that lead to cases falling apart. That's part of the solution, too. But the roots of the problem are deeper. There is a direct line between the failures of authorities to secure consistent jail time for gun crimes and the record of unconstitutional activity and civil rights violations documented by the Department of Justice in its report on the Baltimore Police Department. The statistics-driven policing DOJ Sherlocks described in Baltimore -- a legacy of the zero-tolerance strategy of a decade ago -- has led both to sloppy police work and an attitude of distrust among juries, with the result being that perpetrators are more afraid of what will happen if they don't carry a gun than they are of what will happen if they do. Posted by: Fred 2016-10-25 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=471169 |