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HomeCrimeCrime victims, past and future, are ignored by “compassionate” politicians

Crime victims, past and future, are ignored by “compassionate” politicians

August 19, 2024
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

OPINION

BY LEN CABRERA

The Starz series Black Sails (2014-2017) is a violent and gory prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island. It’s also a case study on human nature and the consequences (and casualties) of people zealously pursuing utopian ideals while ignoring human nature and the costs imposed on others. The recent proliferation of panhandlers and the rising crime in Gainesville and Alachua County are direct results of political elites more concerned with ideological conformity and perceived reputations for compassion than the actual consequences of their policies.

The final episode of Black Sails opens with a monologue by the previously unseen Savannah plantation owner:

“What’s to be done with the unwanted ones? The men who do not fit, whom civilization must prune from the vine to protect its sense of itself. Every culture since earliest antiquity has survived this way, defining itself by the things it excludes. So long as there is progress, there will always be human debris in its wake, on the outside looking in. And sooner or later, one must answer the question: what becomes of them?… A civilization is judged not by who it excludes but by how it treats the excluded.”

Earlier in the show, this plantation was rumored to be a place where the elites stashed their malcontent offspring rather than have them sully the family name. The implication was that it was more humane to secretly incarcerate than to “eliminate” their problem children to avoid the consequences of their misbehavior. In these cases, it wasn’t the punishment of the children that mattered but the impact on the family’s standing and reputation.

In our modern era, political elites are fixated on people who are perceived to be marginalized or excluded. Wanting to be seen as on the right side of polite society, these elites feel pressure to profess concern for the supposed plight of criminals. There’s always some excuse for their behavior and some reason why they need to be understood and given second (or even more) chances.

We have judges and prosecutors who seem to focus on maintaining their progressive bona fides to participate in Gainesville society. They release repeat offenders on their own recognizance, grant very low bail amounts, drop or reduce charges, and give light sentences or simply release offenders with a sentence of time served. We also have politicians and activists who push “criminal justice reform” policies like eliminating cash bail, deferred prosecution, diversion programs, and equity in the jail demographics. All these “compassionate” people ignore the consequences of their policies and never consider the current and future victims of the criminals they let back out on the streets.

The latest crime statistics presented to the Gainesville City Commission showed a 60% increase in homicides, a 50% increase in robberies, a 12% increase in retail thefts, and a 28% increase in the number of people shot or injured by gunfire through the first two quarters of 2024 compared to 2023. Where’s the compassion for the retail clerks who have to deal with potentially violent or unstable criminals who are let back out to re-offend?

No matter what excuses political elites want to make or how many second chances they want to grant, sometimes criminals are just criminals, and many of the people who are arrested have mental health or addiction problems that do not go away simply by giving them a second chance (or “4th, 5th, or 6th chances” as Sheriff Sadie Darnell said in 2019). It’s not compassionate to ignore their circumstances or diagnoses and release them to repeat their offenses.

Alachua Chronicle has been publishing booking logs since June 8, 2020. In just over four years (through July 31, 2024), there have been 27,607 bookings at the county jail. (Our definition of a booking involves an individual being charged with a new offense on a particular day, either while being initially booked into the jail or in-house while an inmate is at the jail. Someone charged on multiple warrants on the same day is recorded as a single booking.) In those bookings, there were 14,741 unique individuals, and 1,686 of them have been booked at least four times in those four years.

That means over one in ten (11.4%) individuals booked have been arrested about once per year. These repeat offenders are mostly not young kids making innocent mistakes; they are individuals who seem incapable of living in a civilized society. They seem to have no respect for the lives and property of others and don’t care about the destruction they leave in their wake.

Then there’s the top one percent. Not the top one percent of wage earners who are vilified as evil for “not paying their fair share,” but the top one percent in the Alachua County Jail – the 194 individuals (1.3%) who were booked eight or more times in the last four years. What will it take to get the justice system to protect the future victims of these criminals? When City Commissioners hold meetings on “police reform,” why don’t we get to hear from crime victims instead of political activists?

Many of our crime stories involve someone on probation being arrested for committing another crime, to the point where the comments on our site treat “man on probation” headlines as a running joke. These stories are all from July 2024:

There are also many examples of people with multiple convictions committing more crimes:

The victims of these crimes should be allowed to file civil lawsuits against the politicians who favor soft-on-crime policies and the judges who seem too eager to grant probation to offenders who clearly should not be out on the street. Unlike the victims, the political elite are protected from the consequences of their actions. Their utopian ideals on the perfectibility of man and their desire to seem compassionate and make excuses for criminals ignores the plight of these victims.

Another line from Black Sails is appropriate: In a Season 2, Episode 2 flashback, James McGraw (aka Captain Flint) critiques Thomas Hamilton’s plan to grant pardons for all the pirates of Nassau: “I think it worth reminding you that in most cases a man trying to change the world fails for one simple and unavoidable reason… everyone else.”

Our political elite have spent years making excuses for criminals, and then they act surprised when crime rates rise. They save their compassion for criminals who have no desire to be productive members of a civilized society and ignore the people victimized by those criminals. Until the elites recognize that their job is to protect the life, liberty, and property of all the citizens of Alachua County, not just the criminals, our crime rate will continue to increase. It’s just the price of their compassion, paid by innocent victims.

  • We need to take the courts back to the juries, but not randomly selected, more vetted. Put public attorneys and judges at the service of the people, again. Not themselves and student loan debts, or their political career aspirations.
    A state amendment wording is needed. With safeguards against vigilante or envy justice. What Dems have done is destroying the country. We wrote Japan’s Constitution after WW II, but they take law enforcement more seriously.
    Everybody is a potential victim especially of repeat offenders groomed over years by our joke justice system.
    Scummy lawyers and judges live under protection, and fail upward the worse jobs they do.
    👹👿🤡💩ACLUSPLCDNC

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    • The US has the highest incarceration rate of any developed country. Jail cells are not cheap. We also – by far – have the most guns.

      The crime rate has been declining in the US since the 1980s, including over the last 4 years.

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      • The decreasing crime rate began when people began being allowed to own self defense equipment, including guns. It keeps decreasing as more guns are sold and more people defend themselves. The problem is how politicians, prosecutors and judges are coddling career criminals.

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        • “According to police, killings in Gainesville have increased steadily since 2020, with homicide deaths rising by 75% over the last four years.

          Moya explained that the police department pays particular attention to stolen firearms. “Sadly, those firearms are often used in crimes,” Moya said.

          Moya emphasized the value the police force places on locating stolen weapons and linking them to crimes. He also highlighted the need to address firearm theft after he revealed a 27% increase in gun-related injuries and a 30% increase in gun-related killings….”

          https://www.wuft.org/public-safety/2024-02-01/gainesvilles-homicide-rate-rises-nearly-30-percent

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        • Official crime rates rise when more stolen guns are used. STOLEN guns.
          Rates also fall when victims no longer bother calling 911, for some reason… I wonder why?

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      • High incarceration because they were groomed by the system, and the culture they were raised in.
        But there’s also “bad seeds” in families. They all need NOT be groomed even more.

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  • The table at this link shows that Alachua County has a higher per capita incarceration rate for men than either Florida or the nation:

    https://trends.vera.org/state/FL/county/alachua_county

    Jail cells are expensive.

    Further, the crime rate in Ocala and the homeless rate there – “panhandlers” – are similar to Gainesville. It is certainly not true that these problems don’t exist there.

    When the word “elite” is used, are we talking about people born to wealth, like Trump and Musk, or the high earners in a given locale?

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    • I think the word “elite,” means people that are either so self absorbed, while at the same being so incredibly lazy and they point to something like “Criminal Justice Reform,” and it’s a massive stroke to their egos. So much so, they don’t care about being broke.

      This is as opposed to an actual political elite that are incredibly wealthy they are insulted from their own suicidal policies.

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    • Ok the article is not about Trump or Musk. It is not about Ocala or Marion County either. But since you want to blame the GOP don’t forget the Pelosi and Harris trains from the left coast being elites and building walls around their houses too. Let’s stick to the high violent crime increases in Alachua County. The article is very accurate about improper sentencing, repeat offenders, and BS probation orders from the Judicial system. You see that everyday in local news.

      Reply

    • Taccachale could be repurposed, there’s plenty of empty space in there. Set up a committee to decide how.

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  • Until western society comes to terms with the fact that certain segments of our populations are inherently violent and are never going to civilize themselves, the path toward the inevitable demise of America and Europe will continue. Japan, Poland, and other homogenous societies (see also Maine and New Hampshire) don’t have these issues, and they have realized that diversity is not our strength.

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    • It’s culture, not nature. But in some cases “bad seeds” happen in good families, too.
      This city is full of degreed experts who cannot speak outside their own specific expertise. That’s another problem, college towns have that fatal flaw 👺💩👿🤡👹

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  • Well said. This is an important topic that is almost never discussed from this side of debate.

    Even the best judges can misjudge a man’s true character, leading to tragedy for some unfortunate victim, but it is absolutely monstrous that those with a consistent pro-criminal bias never acknowledge and probably never even consider the rivers of bloodshed they create with their decisions.

    The soft-on-crime activist judges revel in the praise of their high-minded liberal peers, and sleep soundly at night thinking what a great person they are. Oh, how enlightened! How progressive! How modern and trendy!

    Meanwhile, over the course of their decades-long careers, dozens if not hundreds of innocents were murdered, sexually assaulted, maimed, etc. as a direct result of being turned loose by these same judges. These completely preventable crimes would have never happened if the criminals had just been sentenced properly and objectively.

    I hope that one day a public tracker can be developed showing the records of judges and district attorneys that shows how their sentencing / rate of prosecution compares to peers and statutory maximums, and also tracks how many violent crimes were committed by criminals who were given leniency.

    These activists and their supporters should be made to face their impact on the world by exposing how many dozens or hundreds of innocents had their lives destroyed just so they can feel smug and important in their progressive social circles.

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    • Alachua county is the closest metro area to the big prisons around us. That and other factors (overly tolerant college town, communist courts and politicians) make us a clusterfreak that’ll never get better. 💩🤡👺👿👹

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  • Many things to say but will try not to ramble on. As long as State Attorneys are working on having a high conviction rate, which means plea deals. And the Public Defenders continue to drag on a case over long periods of time resulting in the victims basically becoming frustrated. Victims then agree to plea deals or at times unaware that case was closed without input from them. The Criminal Justice game will continue. I understand everyone is entitled to a fair trial. But often the victim is forgotten. A County Commissioner running for re-election states, she will pivot her focus to jail reform to address to address the “inhumane” ways at jail. Having been to the jail many times, and not as an inmate. The officers are some of the most patient people I ever met. But as the above article points out there is a lack of focus on victims.

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  • This article is very mean spirited. When I is elected President there will be no cash bail, 25,000 for first time home buyers, bail funds for violent folks like the peps that burned Minneapolis in summer of 2020 while the governor,s wife smelled the burning tires. This is my America just like my ancestral home of jamaykah.

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  • Because I hold love as the only answer, I truly don’t ever see people as evil demons. A Rasta Elder mentor, JAH Irvin, taught as I paraphrase, “You must love the people, mon, or they will beat you up & down.” 🙏

    Even so the most pious deacons & beacons of faith have lesser moments, true aye? All of us are IMO without exception from JAH and capable of better degrees of loving-kindness. 🙏

    When folks choose to break bad heading down a path without heart they truly are their own worst enemies and in danger. They have no need of more adversity & adversaries for it Will boomerang home to roost. For there are clearly dear prices to be paid. In such cases I pray that it won’t reach up and bite them. Knowing full well it will, overtly or covertly… seen or unseen. 🙏

    In an incredibly simple system, what some call karma… Tithing and love made manifest by us is all ways returned many times over. OTOH Taking and other Ego centered negatives must be paid back many times over without fail. ‘Shared pain is decreased, Shared joy is increased!’ 🙏 Selah 🙏

    Thanks for Everything!
    One Love Reverend R Clark revrclark.blogspot.com

    Reply

  • Crime is a statewide and national problem, hardly limited to Gainesville or Alachua County. Laws dealing with criminal matters are predominantly set at the state level. The fact that anyone could publish this piece and not place ANY responsibility on our GOP-controlled state government demonstrates what an unserious, right-wing website this is. I agree, Len, let’s file civil suits against DeSantis, Keith Perry, Chuck Clemons, and all the other politicians who have put us in this position. They could’ve passed laws preventing local judges and prosecutors from exercising soft-on-crime discretion. You can be the lead plaintiff. Are you with me?

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    • Jed: you must be new here. The Chronicle worships Desantis and Clemons. Will not write anything negative about them or their ‘crews’, but publishes Desantis and Cammack press releases as if they are true fact, not just GOP propaganda releases.
      If you want to propose solutions that will find an ear here, first assume that Desantis is perfect, then propose away. Of course, without correcting the GOP flaws in Tallahassee the problem will never be solved. Here we are, the problem will never be solved. Thanks for being concerned.

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      • If you are implying that we are receiving press releases from Democrats and not publishing them, that is inaccurate.

        Newspapers have traditionally rewritten press releases into articles, but we don’t have the luxury of a newsroom with reporters who can do that, so we choose to run the press releases and identify them as such so readers can draw their own conclusions on any biases in the information.

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        • Based on some of the press releases I’ve seen here, Jennifer’s statement above is almost certainly true. Send it and they’ll run it.

          I am no doubt what most posters here would consider a bed wetting communist and I detect zero to maybe a rare minor speck of editorial favorability toward anyone, including the GOP.

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    • Jed, you must have gone to school in a blue county, because your reading comprehension is far, far below grade level.

      This opinion piece deals with the concept of prosecutorial and judicial discretion, not criminal statutes.

      Discretion is an important concept in our judicial system and allows judges and DAs to consider extenuating circumstances in order to administer something closer to true justice.

      The problem is that it can be (and is) abused by activist judges and DAs to let criminals off the hook regardless of circumstances.

      So instead of e.g. giving leniency in a case where an abuse victim kills her longtime abuser, a judge decides he doesn’t agree with drug laws period and uses his discretion to let drug dealers off with no bail and time served. Then those drug dealers go on to kill an innocent bystander in a drug-related shootout.

      We see these kind of stories on a daily basis in any news source that just reports the objective facts, like the AC.

      I know that you and your kind love censorship of thought and it absolutely fills you with rage when you see dissenting opinions, so why not get your news from CNN, the Gainesville Sun, etc. instead? You’ll never hear a single thought that dissents from the Democrat Party like you will here.

      The idea of a place where free people can express their opinions must be like poison to you.

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      • It’s the “Democratic Party”. We don’t call the GOP the “Republicanista Party”, but we could. Parties get to name them selves.

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        • In other words, you have nothing intelligent or interesting to contribute to the discussion, as always.

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          • I addressed the subject with facts and dropped the mic a couple of days ago. I’m not interested in the attempts at mind reading of unnamed “elites” this thread is centered on.

  • I feel like politician’s are ignoring their constituency completely, with the exception on getting as much money as that can and getting enough votes too stay in office. I am talking about all Politicians, I don’t care what “Party” you belong to, Kat Kammack is the only One that I see really out there doing all she can do.

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    • Gene: Cammack is the worst of the worst kind of hypocrite. In a recent article about opening a new medical clinic in East Gainesville, she is in the standard Plenipotentiary Photo front and center. The clinic was paid for by $4.5 million of covid relief money. Cammack voted AGAINST the bill. For her to show up at the grand opening with a “look how much Federal dollars I brought to my district” attitude is hypocrisy beyond comprehension.

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  • “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you ….. you may know that your society is doomed”
    – Ayn Rand

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    • Yes, doomed! We are through!

      We’ll maybe. Ayn has been doomed and dead for 42 years and we’re still here and the most powerful country and economy in the world.

      WTF?

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  • Focus on the article and leave your political party lines behind!

    Quit making up excuses for the repeat offenders and force your political judges, state and county level attorneys, and the county and city police departments to quit cow towing to the ACLU, NAACP, GNV City Council, AC Board of County Commissioners, and put offenders behind bars and keep them there.

    Protect the general public who deserve to live in a city where the pervs, killers, and pervs, aren’t catch and release quicker than you can say “Be a good boy this time!”

    Crime victims, past and future, are ignored by “compassionate” politicians! They are the victim who deserves protection! Not the criminals! Maybe you will consider locking the criminals up and keeping them locked up when your family is a victim!

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  • If they added a 1 cent sales tax for a new jail addition I would vote for it. I don’t like more taxes either, but if there was more room hopefully they would use it.

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