Letters to the Editor

Habitual offender bill reconsidered

This is an issue of crime and how much crime that the State House is willing to put up with. If the bill is not drafted in a way that would send nonviolent offenders to prison for life then I feel that it should be passed.

We need to take a stance against crime in our communities. We have activists asking for serious penalties for crimes and asking for safer neighborhoods. How can we have safer neighborhoods if we are begging for loopholes so that these criminals can walk the streets again?

Perhaps if that law was in effect a criminal might think twice before committing felonies because the sentence would not be a few years, it would be life.

Our communities had an outcry when parolees committed murders and we asked that our governor respond. He did respond. He created a special committee that would carefully examine each case for parole. Only 11 people (according to my memory) were released on parole this year, which was reduced by at least 30 people in prior years. Still there was a tense reaction to these people being released. Now there is a bill on the table to create a three strikes law here in Massachusetts.

When did it become an issue for our legislators to be tough on crime, to try to secure our neighborhoods better, to make sure that violent offenders are not allowed back out to harm more people?

This is not a black or Latino issue. It is an issue of safety for the entire state of Massachusetts. No one can force anyone to commit a felony. Every black or Latino person in our community is NOT required to commit three felonies. So why are people acting like that is the case? After reading more about the reductions in crime rates for violent offenders in states where three strikes laws were in effect, I believe that we should have a similar law in Massachusetts.

Pharaoh
Via e-mail

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Feb 24 14:02pm by Darren Rustin [75.68.176.237]

I just read a letter to your newspaper regarding issue of "separate but equal" that was addressed by decision of "Brown vs Board of Education." Desegregation was the remedy back then but overall the underlying issue of "sense of inferiority" wasnt sufficently addressed in my opinion. Being a person who was raised in Dorchester and attended METCO the stigma was still there that Blacks needed the assistance of Whites because based on decision by Brown vs Board of ED and I quote "Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children...." Operative words segregation has more of detrimental effect upon colored, not Black children in public schools. Based on language and the context in which it was addressed the easy and convenient way was taken and not the "high road" of sufficiently funded schools despite the neighborhood from which a person comes. I know this sounds too idealistic, but it is not because it is more about common sense than anything else in regards to this issue. Unfortunately, we have allowed the "sense of inferiority" to imposed upon us and instead of doing the right thing we settled for this alternative for the sake of political expediency. And now we wonder why there is a education gap! Lets get serious about this issue because from the outset the game was rigged economically, psychologically, culturally and now we are crying "foul." Bottom line this is not a race issue because this is a "power" issue and the sooner we recognize and address the true root cause there will be no true resolution of this matter. Briefly, look at our neighborhood as a whole, abolished rent control instead of having mixed income rental units, dismantled elevated train line and moved it to southwest corridor to accommodate recent transplants to our city, destabilized housing prices to move "poor people" out in order to suburbanize our areas look at south boston, dorchester etc. We need to wake up and stay informed and stop doing things based on political expediency and get facts and vote with our conscience.