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Some Thoughts about getting Tough...

by Terry Dashner

I spent the decade of the 1990s in law enforcement. I was a police officer in Tulsa, OK until 2003 when I retired. As a police officer, I spent the 1990s learning the pros and cons of Community Policing. The term essentially defines policing by a proactive means, getting to the root cause of the crime problem and solving it by enlisting the help of all community resources�neighborhoods, schools, community service agencies, churches, politicians, and media.

Policing is still undergoing transformation from reactive policing�running from call to call without getting to the heart of the crime problem�to a proactive, community policing. To this day policing philosophies weigh in heavily toward one or the other. On the one hand it's community policing and on the other it's old fashion policing�catch them, lock �em up, and get back on the streets. Both philosophies have strong and weak points, but usually Community Policing generates the most heated discussion. Why? Because it gives the appearance that law enforcement personnel are soft on crime and cops don't want to be perceived as being soft, but tough.

Does toughness in law enforcement work to reduce crime? Let's look at some of the current research. Again I quote heavily from Mona Charen's book, Do-Gooders (Sentinel 2004). She has done her home work and is to be commended for her fine read. Says Mona, "Thanks to self-described do-gooders, America went on a compassion binge in the 1960s. The compassion was extended toward the poor and minorities; unfortunately, among the prime beneficiaries of this tenderness were violent criminals who would go on to terrorize the very poor neighborhoods whose well-being liberals supposedly sought.

"An early signal of the sixties' laxity could be found in the statistics on punishment. In 1950, the expected punishment for murder and negligent manslaughter was 2.3 years in prison. By 1970, this had dropped to 1.7 years. Liberal academics and public intellectuals persuaded the nation that we needed to address the "root causes" of crime such as poverty and injustice."

Mona Charen continues, "In 1949, the Court declared that retribution was no longer the dominant objective of the criminal law. With na�ve optimism, it declared that the goal of incarceration would henceforth be reformation and rehabilitation."

In 1961 in Mapp v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained without a warrant could not be used in state criminal trials�the birth of the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule has done more to damage the innocent and reward the criminally charged than any other court ruling in the past 40 years. Mona points out, and I agree whole heartedly�why not just punish the rogue police officer for abusing the system instead of punishing society by enacting an exclusionary rule? Why do good people have to suffer at the hands of a few rogue police tactics, and "knee-jerk" Court rulings while rewarding the criminal by releasing him on technicalities�the fruit of the poisoned tree? Such is the way of "over reacting."

Charen writes, "There is no question that a liberal approach to crime�leniency in sentencing, greater procedural protections for the accused, rationalizations (poverty, rage, or frustration) for criminal conduct, and a tendency to blame society rather than the perpetrator for criminal acts�created a climate in the 1960s and 1970s that helped to boost the crime rate. Other liberal initiatives and ideas further weakened restraints on lawlessness: the decline of the family, welfare dependency, and the overall withdrawal of respect for authority." It's true that the middle class can move out of the bad neighborhoods but the very poor are stuck to bear the burden of criminal victimization. The poor have to rely on the police (who are held subject to search and seizure restrictions of the Fourth Amendment) and court systems to rescue them and keep them safe. Have you ever had to rely on the overly burdened court system for justice?

About the Author

Terry Dashner
Faith Fellowship Church
PO Box 1586
Broken Arrow, OK 74013

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