The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/misc/legi

Text File | 1993-06-29 | 28KB | 596 lines

                 LAW ENFORCEMENT GROWTH INDUSTRY

         In trying to appraise this issue of law enforcement,
courts, prisons, punishment, crime, rehabilitation, the death
penalty, incarceration, and cruel and unusual punishment, much
has been written and much more will be written.  One point that
all seem to agree upon is that crime is out of control and
something  must be done about it.

         We call this America, the land of the free, and refer to
the Soviet Union as a police state, but the facts tell us another
story.  The facts show that this country holds more people per
capita in jails than the Soviet Union.

         The Russians have one-third the number of people
incarcerated than we do in America.  In realty, citizens of
America are living in a police state and are completely unaware
of it.  There is little difference between our government and the
one in Poland.  For example do people in Poland:

     1.  Have national identity cards?

     2.  Drive without licenses?

     3.  Work wherever they want to?

     4.  Register their guns?

     5.  Register their cars?

     6.  Build on their land without government permits and/or
      approval?

     7.  Have compulsory insurance laws?

     8.  Have to show their picture (papers) upon demand?

     9.  Have to take balloon tests without search warrants for
       alleged drunk driving?

    10.  Take a portion of a worker's pay without trial or due
      process?

    11.  Incarcerate citizens without trial in a summary
      processing?

    12.  Have ports of entry that compel them to stop, clear, and
         pay duties?

    13.  Subject to searches on their highways?

    14.  Arbitrarily arrest citizens and forcibly take
      fingerprints.

    15.  Trip permits to use their own roads?

    16.  Permits to cut wood in a national forest?

         It makes no difference how these questions are answered.
Citizens of any country who are so constrained are not free, but
living under tyranny.  It matters not whether we have it better
than the Poles.  Both systems are tyrannical in nature--the only
difference being the degree of tyranny being applied and the
understanding of the system by the citizens.  The Poles
understand that they live in tyranny, while Americans have been
convinced that it can't happen here, even though it has already
come to pass.  Americans recognize tyranny in other countries,
but in their own refer to it as "law and order."  However, a
police state is a police state, is a police state, is a police
state........

       There must be a solution that is simple; one that will
free us from this morass of crime and punishment.  Any solution
must conform to our Constitution, quit punishing the innocent,
and return to punishing the guilty.  The current system does
nothing more than spawn a system of recidivism, homo-sexual
behavior, and prisons that are, in reality, schools for
crime--not rehabilitation.

       Currently victims lose their property; criminals never
make restitution to the damaged party but are deprived of
freedom; and the taxpayers who are fleeced out of their tax
dollars to fund these human warehouses.  The beneficiaries of
this system are public defenders, lawyers, judges, jailers,
prison guards, law enforcement agencies, and political
administrations.  They literally thrive off of this morass of
crime and punishment.
       Crime does pay, and it pays handsomely.  What is worse is
that not only does the victim lose by having his property stolen,
but he loses even more through taxes to the "law enforcement
growth industry" to warehouse the thief.

        Solutions to the crime problem must provide restitution
for the victim, punish the wrong-doer, decrease the prison
population, cut out the over-crowding of those prisons that
cannot be emptied, eliminate involuntary capital punishment, make
the judicial system self-supporting, and make the entire taxing
cost for today's criminal justice system pay for itself in
productive accomplishment instead of the incredible waste of
manpower currently taking place in our "human warehouses."

         How many broken homes, welfare payments, divorces,
fines, jail terms, and broken lives are inflicted upon the
innocent, the poor, the defenseless, in the name of law and order
for the benefit of "The law enforcement growth industry?"
         How many people derive their livelihood from the law
enforcement growth industry?  How many agencies are created by
legislatures, city councils, and congress?

         In the state of Idaho it would probably be conservative
to estimate that there over 2,500 persons employed in the Law
enforcement growth industry.  That sounds like a lot but consider
the following:

     1.  There must be over 100 policemen just in the city of
Boise, Idaho.  There must be some 50+ cities in the state which
maintain a city police department and employ from 3 to 100+
persons.

     2.  There are 44 counties, all employing a sheriff,
deputies, and support personnel from 5 to 100+.

     3.  The state police employ several hundred officers and
support personnel.  In addition, the state employs many varied
special agents.  Then we must consider the administrative
agencies which bring actions against citizens, such as building,
electrical, health, fire, welfare, and plumbing, departments and
the like.

     4.  There is no way to estimate the number of federal agents
swarming over the state.  There is OSHA, EPA, FCC, BLM, etc. etc.
etc.

     5.  Then there is the jail and prison staffs and their
supporting personnel.

     6.  Then we have the judicial system at the county, state,
and federal levels, their marshals and support personnel.

     7.  Finally there is the lawyer work-force.

         It should become quite clear that we have no idea how
many persons are employed by the law enforcement industry.  Each
and every one of these people are looking for lawbreakers to
apprehend and punish in order to justify their employment.

               It seems as though it is the purpose of government to
build a system of law and order so big that everyone will either
be employed by law enforcement agencies or warehoused in prisons.
It would appear that the citizens are simply being used by
government to further that end.

               This "Law Enforcement Growth Industry" is nothing more
than a business (law enforcement agencies) and customer (people
of the state) relationship.  Like any business, this industry
needs more and more customers to continue to grow and prosper in
order to justify its existence and size to the people, in order
to obtain more funds to further said growth.

The growth cycle goes something like this:

             1.  We ought to have more laws.

             2.  The executive proposes new statutes to the
legislature.

             3.  The legislature passes said statutes and creates
a criminal act where none existed before.

             4.  The executive branch has more statutes to
enforce and therefore needs more employees to enforce said
statutes.

             5.  The executive appeals to the legislature/
commissioners/city councils for more funds due to the increasing
crime rate caused by more legislated crimes.

             6.  The funds are made available and more employees
are hired.

             7.  More employees have to justify their existence
and therefore government must find or entrap more and more
customers into committing so called crimes.

             8.  Now we need another law.

             9.  Etc.

            10.  Etc.

               If everyone in the state could obey all of the statutes
passed by the legislature, over 2,500 government employees would
have no reason to go to work in the morning.

               In order for the sheriff or any administrator to
justify their budget they must show expenses.  So we see every
year a steady rise in crime.  We also see this industry exploit
their self-generated growth problem through the media.

               We constantly hear about all the crime being committed,
and the answer to increasing crime is more laws, more police,
more prosecutors, more judges, and more money.  We never hear how
they propose to eliminate crime, prisons, jails, and jailers.
All we hear is that more and more money is needed to combat
crime.

         So we pass more laws, hire more police, investigators,
prosecutors, judges, and spend more money, only to learn next
year that crime has risen by 5% and what we need to combat it is
more money, laws, police, prosecutors, and judges.  It has been
that way for years.

         It could be argued that there was a year when, in one or
two categories, crime declined in Boise or Pocatello or east
Podunk USA.  That's either a foible in the charts or a goof up in
the industry by falling down on the job and not selling enough
product.
         Headlines do not exist stating, "Idaho's prison
population declines for the fifth consecutive year," or "Sheriff
submits third successive budget with 5% reduction in requests."
We have been spending more every year for law enforcement, and
since we spend more on the crime industry, we get what we pay
for--more crime!

         For an example of the problem, let's look at city X.
Lets assume City X has one hundred policemen.  Today the crime
rate is up 5% over last year, so the media is told that the
reason one hundred policemen could not hold crime to the same
level as the year before was that the police force was
under-staffed, under-budgeted, and there were some defects in the
existing statutes, so we need more money and some new laws.

         City X gets five new policemen, 5% more money and
another 7% to compensate for inflation (another government
created industry), and five plus new laws to enforce.  The
product this industry sells is crime, so our product line has
been expanded by X number more laws and we have increased our
sales staff by 5% to one hundred five.

         The operating budget has been expanded to cover the
additional overhead.  Our police chief, the sales manager, now
has a larger sales staff and additional responsibility, and
therefore needs a raise.  Supervisors have a like gain, and also
obtain raises.

         Now we have to prepare for the coming year's expansion.
We must justify our expanded budget, size, and new products to
the board of directors, the city
counsel/legislators/commissioners, and our corporate chief, the
mayor.

         The sales staff is sent into the streets to ticket more
violators, arrest more drunks, catch or entrap more prostitutes,
drug pushers, etc.  With proper management we increase our
business by at least another 5%.  Now we continue to make sure
the media is aware of the growing crime rate.  The media needs to
understand that there is more crime because we are under-staffed
and under-budgeted to handle the increase in crime, and besides,
there are several loopholes in the law that need filling.  Yes,
we need some more laws.

         To illustrate the seriousness of the problem the chief
of police will recount some of the more horrendous crimes of the
past year.  Just like insurance salesmen sell insurance by using
fear of death to motivate the customer, the law enforcement
growth industry uses fear of crime to sell their product.

         So another year comes and goes, and now we have one
hundred and ten police, more new laws, and at least a 10%
increase over our budget of two years ago.  The product line is
up at least ten items over two years ago, making the customer
subject to a larger product line (more statutes).  Now our
increased sales staff can get back out on the street to find and
entrap more violators, and arrest them to provide an increase in
business for the county sheriff, so he can likewise increase his
staff and budget.

         This increases the population of the jail and causes the
sheriff to go to the commissioners for greater funding to care
for, house, feed, and guard the increasing load of criminals.  He
then insures that his problem gets before the media so he can
increase his empire by at least 5% per year.

         A proportion of the new increase in sales (arrests and
jailing) by the police, bleeds over into felonies, and these
criminals must be housed in the state prison.  The prison fills
up with felons and the warden goes to the legislature to get his
budget, staff, and salaries increased accordingly, and maybe even
a new prison.

         Of course all of this business creates activity in
numerous support areas.  For example, the more crime the more
food is bought to feed them, more buildings are needed to house
them, more judges are needed to handle the case loads, and more
public defenders and lawyers are needed to defend the customers
(citizens).

         The cycle is basically complete, and now we need more
lawyers from the law schools, who in turn become the legislators,
who in turn pass new laws, which in turn expands the product
line, which in turn raises sales (crimes), which in turn expands
the budget, which increases the sales staff (police), which in
turn increases sales, which in turn, which in turn, which in
turn, which in turn........

               The customer of this industry is the average "Joe
Citizen."  It is the citizen who pays the bills.  It is the
citizen who is persecuted in the name of crime prevention.  It is
the citizen who is entrapped into committing violations of
statutes by law enforcement personnel, who are simply justifying
their existence by insuring that crime exists.

               Some sales person of the law enforcement growth
industry needed an arrest and conviction to make his statistics
look good and made him appear productive.

               Who pays for all this law and order?  The citizen, the
taxpayer, the general public.  We are buying all this law and
order and are being sold a lot of nothing for something.

                          THE REAL THIEF
               Joe is a college student, bright, extremely
intelligent, and low on funds.  The following is a typical
conversation between Joe and another citizen.
     Citizen:  What happened to cause you to be put into prison?


     Joe:  I stole $350.00 (he replies matter of fact).

     Citizen:  So you are guilty of the crime and deserve to be
punished.

     Joe:  Yes, (he replies matter of fact).

     Citizen: Tell me exactly what happened.

     Joe:  OK, I was in the school auditorium, broke and didn't
know how to make ends meet, and I saw this lady's open purse on a
chair.  It had money in it so I took the purse.  Apparently
someone saw me take the purse and called the police.  They told
the police who I was, and the police came to my apartment and
arrested me.  That is all there was to it.  The law in Idaho is
that any theft over $150.00 is grand larceny.  I was convicted of
grand larceny and sentenced to indeterminate five years.  That
means I can spend anywhere from eighteen months to five years in
prison.

     Citizen:  Did you plead guilty to the charge?

     Joe:  No, I plead not guilty.  My public defender advised me
to take it to trial.

     Citizen:  How long was the trial?

     Joe:  One and one-half days.

     Citizen:  How much time have you served so far?

     Joe:  Eleven months.

     Citizen:  Did the lady get her purse and money back?

     Joe:  No, I spent the money to pay my bills and I threw the
purse away.

               This is an actual true conversation and can be repeated
in a variety of ways, hundreds of times, by judges, police,
prosecutors, defense lawyers, and public defenders.  This shows
how a real crime happens.  There was a real criminal and a real
victim.  Now let's see how much this crime actually cost the
taxpayers to apprehend, try, convict, incarcerate, and then
parole this man back into productive society.

               It cost at least $2,000.00 to try, defend, and
incarcerate Joe.  Joe is going to spend a minimum of eighteen
months in the prison.  It costs $15,000.00 per year to store Joe,
so the first bill to come in to the victim in this crime is
$22,500.00 plus dollars.  Assuming Joe will be paroled for the
remaining three and one-half years at $13.86 per day, his parole
will cost another $27,771.50.  In addition, the lady didn't get
her $350.00 back, making a grand total cost for Joe's crime of
$67,271.50.

               Who is paying this bill?  Why the victim and the rest
of the community of course.  In the name of "law and order," the
victims of this theft will pay $67,271.50.  But What about Joe?
Well Joe plays cards, produces nothing, consumes food, needs
shoes, clothes, and shelter, and in addition provides employment
for guards, police, and all the others in the law enforcement
growth industry.

               Multiply this example by the hundreds and we can
readily see billions of dollars wasted in the name of law and
order.  The lady (society) who had her purse stolen would have
been $67,271.50 ahead if she had not reported the theft of her
purse and Joe had never gone to jail.  The victim sentenced
herself to a fine by taxation of $52,271.50 for her demand for
law and order.  The victim is a loser as she lost both her purse
and money, and on top of that was taxed to support Joe and the
Law enforcement growth industry for the next five years.  She
would have been better off
to have simply bought Joe an airplane ticket to California.

          Joe is also a loser.  The only winner is the law
enforcement growth industry.

               Just how Joe is the loser is a story in itself.  The
law in Idaho declaring $150.00 as the amount for grand larceny
was passed in 1949.  Because of inflation, in 1949 dollars his
crime should now be a misdemeanor, but he is branded a felon for
life.  Joe is a first timer.  He has never been in trouble
before.  He will never be able to put this mistake behind him.
This will follow him for the rest of his life.  Now he is in a
school of crime and is learning from his mistakes.  When he comes
out of prison he will have a degree in crime.  Society will
reject him because of this mistake, so in order for Joe to make a
living he will have to resort to crime.  Crime pays because most
crimes are never reported.  Of the crimes reported most are not
solved.  Joe will be caught once in a while, so he will be a
regular customer of the law enforcement growth industry for the
rest of his life.  He will also be institutionalized, and forced
to live in an unnatural animal-like zoo environment and may
become a homosexual, or at least be exposed to a homosexual
environment that will have a negative effect upon his morals,
character, and rehabilitation.

               Whether we like it or not, Joe is going to be out on
the street again, and Society is faced with a another problem.
At some point in time we will again have to deal with Joe.  For
the past forty plus years we have been dealing with all of these
"Joe's," and what we have been doing hasn't worked.  It is about
time to admit that what we have been doing has failed.  We need
to try something new, innovative, and different. Whatever we do,
it can't be worse than what we are doing now.

               We know there is a problem, but what do we do about it?
There is another fact to examine before the disclosure of a
solution.  Where did prisons and dungeons as a form of punishment
come from?  The answer is lost in antiquity.  In the Bible there
are numerous accounts of individuals like Joseph, Daniel, Peter,
and others being in a dungeon.  The pagan nations used prisons
and dungeons to punish their criminals and political prisoners.

               The only exception is found in the time of Moses.  When
the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, they had a different
kind of law--a common law (substantive law) based upon substance,
land, and labor.

               The common law (substantive law) and rights at law that
our Constitution and the Bill of Rights guarantee to each and
every one of us is based upon substance.  The connection between
the Ten Commandments, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,
and substantive law is bound up in this axiom of law, "If there
is a remedy 'at law,' Equity cannot prevail."

               James Madison, the father of our Constitution, made
reference to this when he said that the Constitution was tied to
the principle that we assume every man will obey the Ten
Commandments.

               Our common law came from England, but its roots are at
Mount Sinai.  Moses brought the law down from the Mount, and it
is recorded in Exodus 20.  The next five chapters of Exodus
contain the criminal codes.  They are short and precise.  There
were no prisons, dungeons, or political prisoners.  The
Israelites borrowed the prison system from the Romans, Egyptians,
and Babylonians.  We have that system in use in America today,
and it is unusually cruel to lock a man up like an animal.

               The act of punishing a victim of a crime by taxing him
to house, feed, and guard the wrong-doer is adding crime upon
crime.  Let's stop punishing the citizens, stop the useless waste
of the criminals' life, and make him pay the cost of his
wrongdoing.  Let's stop the profit in the Law enforced growth
industry and use the manpower of the crime and the law
enforcement growth industry to make our lives more fruitful.

         Let us examine Joe's case.  Joe stole $350 cash, but he
also threw the woman's purse away.  The victim has suffered a
further loss of time, pictures, credit cards, etc.  Let's set a
value upon the crime.  It's a common law crime (involves the loss
of life, liberty, and/or property).  The common law is designed
to restore property and to remedy damages.  Say Joe's crime is
valued at  $50,000, which is excessive, but for the sake of
discussion, it's a starting point.  Joe gets five years or
$50,000, whichever he prefers.  However, Joe is poor, which was
the reason for the theft.  Now we are going to enforce upon Joe
the option of the prison, which no one likes because of boredom,
lack of purpose, and humiliation.  Since Joe has an obligation
let's have him work it off.


               The forests of Idaho are a tinderbox of dry limbs, dead
trees, snags, and brush, which, when ignited, burn hot on the
ground.  The fire then burns up the tree trunks, crowns, and
kills the trees, destroying the forest.  Take Joe out to Atlanta
and put him to work in a productive capacity.  It costs less than
concrete buildings.  Joe is not dangerous.  Let's teach Joe the
dignity of work and of making restitution to the victim and the
taxpayers for the cost of the crime.

               Convict labor is not a new idea; it has been used
before.  California has used a work camp program in the past.
The only problem is that it can easily be abused.  The Thirteenth
Amendment is not violated by the use of convict labor.  Joe will
volunteer to go to the Atlanta Idaho Prison Camp to work on
forest projects, such as helping with forest fires, replanting
trees, cutting diseased trees, and cutting firewood.  Joe will be
paid $5 an hour or by piece rate.  The more he produces, the more
he makes, earning his freedom sooner.  Joe owes 10,000 hours at
$5.00 an hour.  If he works ten hours per day, six days per week,
for three years, he earns his freedom.  There is no parole or
strings attached.  Joe is a free man and the victim receives her
loss in tax credits or direct payments from sales resulting from
his labor.

               Unions and the law enforcement growth industry will
resist any change, as they have done so in the past.  However,
the State is losing more with the present system.  No one is hurt
by setting convicts to work in our forests, and there are other
public projects that unions and other workers are not, or do not
care to be, engaged in that could be accomplished.  Numerous
prisoners have been interviewed and have stated that they would
welcome an opportunity to have a chance to work off their
sentences.

               Let's look at the ancient example of common law damages
paid for losses suffered.

         "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her
     fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow; he shall
     be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will
     lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judge determine."
     Exodus 21:22



               Here is an example of common law damages from what we
would call a crime today, and would want to imprison this man.
Another example is:

         "If a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff
     to keep,  and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the
     thief be found, let him pay double."  Exodus  27:7

               Here the thief pays double.  There are dozens of
examples of the common law usage in Exodus 21-24.

          There are no Biblical examples of letting the victim
suffer loss of goods, and then be taxed to support the thief in
prison.  This constitutes punishment of the victim, which is
unjust because it causes a greater loss to the victim than the
thief.

               If scriptural examples are repulsive to you, then leave
God out of the equation. Ignore God and only rely upon our own
self-interest.  Simple logic tells us that it is in the best
interest of all to change our prison system approach to crime and
punishment.  As a victim what would you prefer?  Restitution for
the loss, or taxation to pay for the incarceration of the thief?


               The police state imposed upon the Polish people by
force in 1945 is no different than the police state we Americans
have imposed upon ourselves today. There is one glaring
difference in the adoption of the system--we paid to have our
rights subjugated to limited liability of contract.  The Poles
saved some money.  We Americans still have our Constitution and
we can reject the limited liability in perpetual debt slavery in
feudal texture, whenever we want to accept responsibility for our
actions and debts.  The Poles cannot.

               There are not many people who want to trade their
slavery for the rigors of the life of a freeman.  But for those
few men and women who want to be free, a school is open in Boise,
Idaho, called Barrister's Inn, to teach anyone who wants to be
free, how to be free.  Not everyone in America registers his car
with his government.  Not every man or woman in America asks for
government permission to drive or has a license to drive.
Twenty-two million Americans don't pay the income tax.  There are
even some freemen who don't pay personal or real property taxes.
The flame of freedom is involved.  Every person who wants to be
free can free himself, but no other man can free him.  Redress of
grievance comes on the courtroom floor, not in a political rally,
union meeting, or letter to the editor.  The courtrooms are open,
and are manned by knowledgeable jurists who will listen to and
rule in favor of a man's natural unalienable rights if one knows
how to claim  them.  Or slam the door on a slave in limited
liability and leave him in his security.  There is no security in
freedom.  Only boundless opportunity.

               There are thousands of freemen in America, not
millions.  The masses like security, welfare, limited liability,
dejection in their lives.  To claim your rights, you must be
compelled to defend your rights on the courtroom floor.