GO TO JAIL?

The public must be protected from violent offenders. Our police are doing a great job keeping Williamsburg a safe place to live. They are responsive and  visible – You can see them working hard all over our town. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our police department.

As to the punishment for crimes - violent offenders must be incarcerated, but for non violent offenders there has to be a better way. Too many young people, too many people, are being incarcerated.  

Three crimes that could be better handled outside of the jail house:

Drug offenses are one area I think we can do much better. Drugs are not going away. They have been with us for thousands of years. To lock someone up for personal drug consumption does not seem to be an effective response.

Another example was the recent case of the women who gave birth but claimed she found the baby. As the courts moved ever so slowly, she sat in jail. She had not harmed the baby.

Another woman was sentenced to a year in jail for putting a mouse in her soup in an attempt to extort money from a restaurant. Wouldn’t she and society be better off if this woman were required to work and pay damages instead?  

In the mean time our jails are overcrowded. There are also reports that jails breed more crime by concentrating offenders together.

There must be other alternatives, especially in this time of more effective technologies.

One solution is that, rather then putting a person in jail, have the offender work and pay a portion of their wages as a fine or in recompense for any damages done. For tracking the person we can use a simple GPS device which includes a cell phone. This I think would be preferable to lock up. We could also do a much better job concentrating on education and rehabilitation. Of course the threat of jail would still be an effective one. If you don’t show up for counseling, you spend the next two weekends in jail. But it could be used judiciously as a means to motivate, and not punish.

Perhaps the above suggestion is simplistic to many. However, the problem remains. We have too many people in jail, and we spend too much money keeping them there. I propose meeting with those who know the problem, judges, sheriffs, police officers, parole officers – and see if we can’t come up with some fresh ideas on how to enforce the law without having to lock so many people up.

There must be a better way for the non violent offender than “Go to Jail’.

We must find it.

Terence Wehle

Candidate for City Council.