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Garner
Ted Armstrong
·
SPIAKS OUT!
Recycling Our Criminals .
l
arller tnls monlh in Sacramento, Call·
fomla. a young woman lollower of
convlcled murderer Charles Man–
son aimed a loeded gun at Presl·
dent Ford at nearly polnt·blank ranga.
Her pistol dld not flre., and lhe Presldent.
who recolted In shock at the assassina·
tlon attemp\, wes unhermed. A Secrat
Service agent grabbed lhe assallant'a
arm and wrestled he< to the ground aa
ahe screemed,
"11
dic!n't go olll"
An hour later, on schedule, the Presl–
dent addressed the Cahtornia legislatura
on the aubject ol law and order and gun
controla. He told the lawmakers there
is
a
"truly a!Mming lncrease In violen! crima
throughout the country," but he made no
dlréct retétence to'thé apparent attémpt
on his lile.
ltwu a close calllor Mr. Ford - but lor
many ot hls countrymen, the story enc!s In
tragedy, day alter day. An urban Amerl·
can boy bom in
1974
is
more likely lo die
by murder then en American soldler In
Wortd War Uwu llkely to die in combatl 1
cal that
war
in the stree'-·
Actual statlstlca calculated by three
mathematlcians at lhe Massachusetts In·
stiMe
ot
Technology prove that homicida
la lncreasing so tasi In the largar Amerl·
can clllea that 2% ol all bables bom today
wlll probably be murder.O, and thjl actual
figure may reach
5".
Far lrom suggestlng lhat current teara
over ertme are exeggerated - aa soma
people would tlke lo contend - these
resulta lmply that homlclde In urban
Ame¡i<:a
ls lar more prevalen! than most
realiza. And lhe way most murdér ratea
are reported - ao many kllllngs annually
per 100,000 people - tends to conceal
the tac1 lhat tor each Individual those
odds accumulate year alter year.
But lt isn't enough juat to say we're in
the midst
ot
a crime wave or a crtme
epidernlc, because those worda are no
longar meanlngtul to us We have heard lt
10 many times: Crime la everywnere;
criminal$ are everywhere. We hear about
rape and robbery, burglary and arson.
We hear about aensatlonal kidnappíngt
and mus murdera. And now we flnd that
even the natura ot crlme ls changlng.
Now erlmes agalnst the person, crlmes of
mindteaaness, Mnseleaa brutality, ar' on
the increase - WhQre, lnstead Of juSI 8
purse.snatcher grabbing
an
ok:f
fady't
pum ana running away
wlth
1t
now
he't
fiable· to klck the old lady whlle she'a
clown end perhaps even klfl her in the
procesa.
By
any measurement. crlme hes
14
become
a
major natlonal problem. And
yet many pebpre stlfl like to hide their
ayas from raallty. •
In the one year trom
1973
to
1974,
seri·
oua crlme jumped
17%.
That wu lhe
largest increase in
the
44 years that
r¡a~
tional statistlca have been collected. A
tew years ago, because there
V(&S
a alight
drop In lha murder rata,
everybody
began
jumplng up on the bandwagoD and
saylng: :'Hay, we're sotvlng crlme. Mur·
dera are clown thls year." But no, they
weren't clown. They were stlll rtsing. And
they were rlslng alarmingly, but they
weren't rlslng at quite the same fast pece
they hed been In juSI lhe preceding year.
~
Takl,ng_¡s
Jonoer·~'l!ll'
vlew, there ]l.no
doubt that vlotent crlme hes been aky·
rocketing. Slnce
1961,
the
rates
tor
all
ser1ous crimes have more than doubled.
In the sama
14
years the rata of robberies
has lncreased 255%, out of an proportion
to
populatlon growth. During the aame
perlod forclble rape shot up by
143%,
aggravated assault
153",
and murder
106%.
Also, sorne ot the ear11est reports
the FBI has been tabulatlng
this
year
ahow that the rata for serlous crimes
is
stiN
on the rise (an
18"
rlae during the
first three months of
1975).
There la no
way, pollcemen
say,
you can palnt the
pictura ol crime in the UnHed St,tes too
bad.
Seasoned law enforcement otficera are
bewlldered about a ayndrome whlch lhey
eall
ri>cidMsm.
lt reters to the "recycllng"
ot criminals. About hall of the robbery
suspects actuatty caught In the act for
example, are back on tha streets In a
matter of daya, f ree on probatlon.
When you look at the entire system of
justlce - the crowded courtrooms; the
months, and lncreaalngly lhe yeal'$, that
it
takea to brin¡¡ a case to court; lhe un–
believably poor rata of actual convlctlons;
and lhen even after convictlon the num·
ber ol people who actually go to jall; and
t hen !hose who go to jaU, who actuatty
stay
there tor any amount of time even
remotely cloae to what was original
!y
thelr
sentence- when
you
look at all of lt, H
is
a total sham.
Aecidivlsm has now come to the point
where
trie
rete
is
nearty 70'Xo!
That means that seven out ol ten of·
fenders who are airested, who are com–
lng up before the fudge, heve already
been arrestad (and probabfy for the sama
crlme) belore! So we're getting the 88me
crlmlnals ovar and over again. We cen't
get them oll tlle streets. We arrest t hem
again and agaJn end egain. But nolhing
seemingly happena to them. Little wonder
ltls callad " revolvlng door justlce." •
Pollea Commlaloner Joseph O'Neal of
Philadelphia hao sald: "Crlminala are not
being put lnto jall. lf the"'y are found gullty,
thay are put on probation. Aepeat ollenO.
ers are responsible tor most
ot
the major
crimes." And Daniel P. Sullivan, who ls
the executlve vlce-presJdent of the crtme
commisslon In greater Mlami, has
Said:
"1
don't thlnk we have the moral character
to requlre people to obey the law any·
more. People are now convinced they
can get away with murder. They commlt
the moat vlole'llt and vlclous climas, and
they
go
through the door and are ínter·
vlewed and a short time later lhey're back
out on the streets."
The entire plcture ls a major national
disaster; yet we don't seem to realize the
true proportions ot lt. There ls no way to
overemphasize the probl8n) that crime
hes becorne in the world's greatest
free
netlon. As we approach our blcentennlal
observation, the 200th blrthday of the
land ot the free and
1he
home ot the
brava, we have lncreaslngly become the
"land of the craven and the home ot the
criminal."
Many In the criminal justice and law
entorcement protesslons are bacomlng
We 're gettlng the same
criminals
o~er
and
o~er
llflllln.
We
can't
get
thetrr
off
the
s treets.
very, very angry. Soma policemen have
aimply begun walklng off their jobs, refus–
lng to show up tor work. When • police–
man actually arresta - as actually
occürred not long ago:... a couple of auto
thleves In the process of dismantling a
stolen car, takes them downtown to jail,
books tham, and then aees the judge not
only turn them loose but glve
the
stolen
englne
beck to
them, can
you
really
blame them tor being diacouraged?
So lt's no wonder a patrolman recenlly
resigned trom the Des Molnes. lowa, po–
llee force, stating: "l've been klcked, bit,
splt at and shoved. lt 's jusi not worth it."
Hls reslgnation came alter a judge fined a
datendant a hundred dollars on the
charge of assaulllng another pollceman.
The otflcer sald:
"As
a policeman you're
elways putling
your
lile on the llneand tor
what - a $100 fine? l've had enough."
Reartng Crtmlnals at HOIM
But what are the cauaes ol our mon·
strous crlme slluation? Attorney General
Edward Levi has said: "We muat under·
stand that an etfectlve criminal justiee
system has to emphaslze deterrenta'.
There are many causes of crtme, but
among them is the tailure of our system
to move quickfy end ellectively to detect
and punlsh ollenders."
But are there underlytng ·root causes
tor crlme peopte haven't been wllling t o
look at closely enough? Lel's clear the
air. Crlmfnals are medo, not bQm¡
c;rtmt–
nals begln on the llving room rroor In trónt
ot the automatlo babyaltter called televi–
alon; young crimlnals are being trained
by
a generation
ot
"we
don't cara" parents.
Wllh the lncredlble breakup of Ameri–
can home lite, lhe virtual
dlslntegr~tlon
and destnlctlon ot the most baslc In·
stituUon of all
soclety -
the tamily -
al–
ready rampant crlme steadlly splrals
úpwerd. Chlldren are lar more likaly to
turn to crlme if parents battle frequentfy,
or lt one or the other parent
ls
misslng,
through dlvorce, death, or abandonmenl
- or simply was nevar there In the
first
place because
ot
iflegltimacy.
Chlld abuse
ls
aleo a factor. A chlld
who ls abused. beaten.
'and
tortured
is
himaelt most
flkely
golng to become a
brutal person. People tend to treat people
the way they thamselvea have baen
troeted. ·
Now, of course. soma psychlatrist
sorne group theraplst, or soma new
thinker will come along
and
tell us thet
it
can't be proved thatviolence lslearned at
home. learned via televlslon, or leamed In
the motlon pictures. Wett,
11
you
want to
listen to that kind ot gobbledygook, that's
fine; but there is an obvlous cause and
etlect retatlonship between seelng vio–
lance and wanting to partlclpate in it.
lncrec!lbly enough, the average young
chlld In lhe United Slates vlews more tele–
vislon
by
the time he ls six years.ot ege
than the total number of hours he will
ever spend In the classroom in formal
educatlon In his lite! Thatls an FCC
Sta·
tistic.
Another atudy recently clalmed that the
average American youth wlll sea
11 ,000
TV
murders
by
the time he ls
14.
And..¡I)-"J1)ay.b,em..pQ..Iele~lg¡¡.QA!
e •
diract ellect on juvenlle vlolence. Polfce–
men by the thousanda would tell you they
know tt's true. When someone wlll ac;
tually come betore a judge and admlt that
he perpetrated a brutal crima becauae he
saw
1t
on television,
you qon't
need a
unlversity atudy to the tuna ot tena of
thousands ot dollars of taxpeyers·
money, taklng months and years, to
prove
it
to
you
orie way or lheolher.
Getting back to the cauae-and•llect
relatlonshlp: A "revolving door" criminal
justlce syatem - "recyciing" crlmlnals
back out onto the atreets lo commit the
sama crimes repeatedly - can nevar be
expecÍed to hall crlme.
11 la onfy when human beings leam the
tesson lhat they must sutler
~o~
the con–
sequences ot thelr own mlsdeeds that
trua justice is meted out. From our
eartlest i nfancy, - ahould have leerned
that hurt causes hurt, paln brings pain ,
and breaklng the law brlngs
punishm8flt.
When
we
edopt the notlon that the
leer of
punlshment
can nevar be considerad a
deterrent to cñme, we are abandonlng
one ollhe most fundamental principies ot
the word ot God, whlch shows that bro–
ken laws break those who break lhe laws.
The woman
whO
attempled to gun
down Presiden! Ford in Sacramento had
ear11er ln.the year been intervlewed by lhe
Aaaociated Press and wu plalnfy
'eOTI–
temptuous ol the Ford administration.
Stlll, desplte the aecurily precautlons
dutifulfy taken
by
federal, state, county
and city agencies precedlng any presl–
dentl!ll vlslt, thls gang member was
standing In the crowd with e gun.
11 thete
Wllre
'1
DEATH PENALTV lO
b&
meted out
SWIFTLY
ond surely for assassi–
natlon or even assusinatlon attempts
agalnst top pub/lo officiaiS. would she
have been there? O
WEEK ENDINO SEPTEMBER 20.
i91S