The concept of justice

The United States locked up over 2 million people last year. Great, we're number one. My point was there are many people thrown into jail that don't deserve it and defeats the purpose of justice. Our society grows ever more violent or maybe we just hear about it more because of cable news. But it seems like the real criminals get away and people who do stupid things but don't hurt anyone get fucked.


When I get such a thoughtful comment it deserves the front page. From my friend David Yonki:

I don't think Gort's a bleeding heart. In this economy with the way the business community treats its workers, you can easily run into a slide if you are living paycheck to paycheck. And isn't it interesting how the poor saps get put in jail but the George Banks live on and on, our tax dollars go to public defenders to represent scum bags like henry stubbs who killed an innocent woman and gutted her little girl like a deer, and the out of town druggies wind up in public housing as guests of people renting there? The problem my friends is not the jail space, the law or the criminals. It is how we as a society in NEPA deal with what's handed to us. We accept a Mary Leo being killed above Abe's, we celebrate a Hugo Salinski because we've long given up on moral outrage on the small stuff. It's Mayor Guiliani's broken street light theory, if you see it broke in your neighborhood, you fix it, don't let it go downhill. It's how we respond to the people intruding on our moral lives, that's the key to beating crime. This may or may not be related: but the first New Year's Baby was born in the area and they put her picture in the paper with the mom. No father, just the mom. The father never owned up to the moral issue by marrying the mom. No outrage anymore, it's just the way kids do things today. And we accept it. It's the small things we need to work on. You prosecute and punish the people sucking the life out of us, you give the cabbie with the kids a break, you try to even it out. It's a thing called Justice. You and I recognize it but most of our county lawyers and judges don't care about justice, "they just want to get theirs." And that's the sad part. You can build all the prisons in the world but it won't help unless you have people running the system who understand the concept of justice.