79-08-B6

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Crime

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.		Details Batch Number 79-08-B6 Production Date 05/29/1979 Book/Page RPtV-451 Audio Youtube? No
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