Editing 79-08-B6 (section)

=== Transcript ===
I know that I've given reports on these commentaries of studies linking
crime directly to the lack of punishment. The studies have been sound. Reverse
studies indicating that crime rates fall when punishment is swift and severe
confirm the other studies.

Why then can't we act on this research? Columnist Pat Buchanan has collected
several recent incidents that make one wonder if anyone weeps for the victims
of crime. Plea bargaining which reduces the sentence in order to avoid a costly
trial, judges granting probation, mental hospitals releasing the criminally
insane -- possibly to free up a bed, all of these things add up to more victims.

Picture this scene as if it were on television. A man holds a knife to
a woman's throat while he robs her. Then he throws her off the subway platform
on to the tracks below, breaking both her legs. Still she manages to pull
herself back on to the platform. He kicks her in the face sending her reeling
back on the tracks where she is almost crushed by an onrushing train.

He is arrested and allowed to plead guilty to robbery instead of attempted
murder. He can be out on another subway platform in four years. He had
done the same thing to a ninety-year old man but was released because of
inadequate identification.

In California a man was sentenced in 1975 - 15 years to life for a two
hour horror scene in which he raped a young lady twice, pressed a carving knife
to her throat and sexually abused her in a depraved and brutal manner.

Last year the State Supreme Court decided he had not inflicted great bodily
harm on her - he'll be back on the streets next year. Incidentally, a year
before the crime I just described he had pleaded guilty to a sexual assault
on an eight year old girl. He was given probation - that's why he was free to
commit the crime in 1975.

Another Californian was convicted in 1974 of two separate assaults on
children for which he spent sixteen months in a mental hospital. Six months
after they let him out he committed a sexual assault and this time went to
prison -- for 22 months. He was paroled and now stands accused of twenty
counts of kidnaping, rape and assault in connection with two child molestation
incidents just last winter.

In Washington, D.C. a man is charged with stabbing and strangling an
eighteen year old girl. At the time of his arrest for this crime he was on
parole from a federal prison in Florida and also free on his "personal
recognizance" from the District of Columbia jail, having been arrested for larceny.

I have just reported the crimes of four individuals. The total number
of victims is twelve. Had these four law breakers been in prison for their
first convictions eight of the twelve victims would not have been harmed.
It's almost as if we're opening the cages at the zoo and turning the wild
animals loose. That isn't fair though -- the animals would probably leave us
alone if we didn't bother them. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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