St. Louis CofCC Blog

In Switzerland, and the news there looks to be better than what transpired in Louisiana.  The “far-right” (i.e. conservative) SVP looks again to be the plurality party in the Swiss Parliament, gaining a little bit of ground compared to the 2003 elections.

So it’s time for my familiar score.

AP:

Polling has shown that the public increasingly believes that life in prison without parole will keep the worst offenders off the streets. A recent Associated Presss-Ipsos poll that asked what method of punishment people prefer for murderers found only a slight preference for the death penalty over life in prison - 52 percent to 46 percent.

Until they break out of prison, and kill someone else.  If they’re not confined in a Pelican Bay or a Potosi, then they’re in gen-pop and an incessant threat to guards, inmates in prison for a less serious conviction, and (shudder the thought) wrongly convicted and incarcerated people.

At the same time, there have been several studies, challenged by the anti-death penalty camp, that have shown a deterrent effect in the use of capital punishment. Also, public support for executions remains high. More than two-thirds of those polled favor the death penalty for murderers when the question does not include other possible punishments.

And those studies demonstrate that somewhere between 3 and 18 lives are saved with each execution.

In the News UK:

More black people must be searched to stop gun crime, according to the head of the Black Police Association.

Keith Jarrett, outgoing president of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), is expected to press for police to use a stop and search approach with people from black communities in a speech at the NBPA’s annual conference in Bristol this Wednesday.

Though Mr Jarrett’s remarks are opposed to the NBPA’s official stance, he said: “The black community is telling me we have to… look at this”, reports the Observer.

He says these things during his last days as someone important.  It wasn’t that long ago when he was singing a different tune –  In April, he criticized Tony Blair for not citing “social deprivation” as a root cause of black crime.  If Mr. Jarrett really believed that, then he should be saying today that “social deprivation” should be stopped and searched.

And if “guns” are the problem, then why stop and search any human beings?  Just stop and search the guns.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Authorities were searching late Saturday night for seven juveniles who escaped from the Hogan Street Regional Youth Center, 1839 Hogan Street.

Nine youths ages 14 to 16 escaped Saturday afternoon from the medium-security facility.

A St. Louis police spokeswoman said the nine juveniles escaped at 2:53 p.m. after pushing a counselor down a flight of stairs and stealing her keys. The spokeswoman did not know whether the counselor had suffered injuries.

“Her” keys — meaning these nine juvenile prisoners overran a woman guard. I guess that there are still some people around here who still think that “juvenile crime” means that a wirey 10-year old white boy stole a pack of bubble gum from a confectionery, and that women “counselors” will scare them into behaving while they are living at the “youth center.”

Police said they had captured two of the escaped youths by 11:15 p.m.

Authorities were unsure whether the youths were armed. The spokeswoman declined to disclose the crimes that had landed them in the correctional facility.

Does this mean that they are unsure whether these “yoots” were armed inside the “center,” or that those still on the loose might have gotten their hands on guns?

UPDATE 5:35 PM: The Hogan Street facility is supposedly the most secure juvenile detention center in the state.  The nine escapees are robbery and stealing suspects.

Two minutes are better than 200 pages.