Di Leo: All Crime and No Punishment, from Chicago to Springfield

By John F. Di Leo - 

On Saturday, April 9, the most recent session of the Illinois State Legislature finished up its business by passing a bunch of "anti-crime" measures.

Note that the term "anti-crime" is in quotations. It has to be… because to the Democrat majority in Springfield, "anti-crime" measures exist to win votes on election day, not to make the streets safer.

Think about it: if you really wanted to reduce crime, not just show “effort,” but to actually minimize the number of people who are robbed, raped, beaten or killed, what would you do?

Well, you would do what everyone with that same goal has done throughout history:

You would try to capture, prosecute, and convict as many guilty parties as you can…

Then either lock them away for a very, very long time, or execute them (just worst offenders, of course – the murderers, the attempted murderers, the violent rapists, the big drug pushers), both to stop them from repeating their crimes as recidivists, and to deter others from choosing that path.

And you do the best you possibly can to drive the criminal element away, to generally discourage criminals from choosing your region as a target market.

By contrast, what does Illinois do?

And in particular, what do Illinois Democrat party super-majorities do, wherever they are in power, from the city of Springfield to the county of Cook?

Well, they throw money at it. They spend money on cameras, on task forces, on bureaucrats, on social programs. By calling these expensive projects “anti-crime” measures, they can win political points, list bullet points on their brochures, accrue favorable newsprint, even boast about them on their radio, television, and Internet commercials as the election season progresses.

But what else do these Democrat super-majorities do, besides spending our money?

Well, they refuse to actually sentence the criminals they convict. They refuse to put people in prison after guilt has been proven. More often than not, they let them go with time served, and probation, and sometimes a fine (one that can be paid with the money from their next robbery).

Or, if they do put them in jail, because they are forced to by mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, then the governor can always take advantage of his incredible, unrestrained powers, to set the prisoners free afterward, after they have already been safely locked away.

In recent years, Democrat governors and judges all over the country – oh yes, including those in Illinois – have used such excuses as overcrowding, fear of sickness,  or budget constraints, to throw open the prison gates and release convicted criminals back onto the streets, years before they had to. Why?

Because, as governors and judges… they can.

And the only motivator that makes sense, as horrifying as it may seem, must be that these governors and judges must feel a greater affinity for the criminal element than they do for the law-abiding citizens being terrorized by those criminals.

And, shockingly, what else do Illinois Democrat politicians do, from the governor's mansion to the general assembly, from the county buildings to the city halls? They make the cities, counties, and states a virtual magnet for the illegal alien criminals of other countries.… through the illegal designation of their lands as sanctuary communities.

"Sanctuary" doesn’t even exist in US law. It’s a well-intentioned holdover from the feudal era in Europe., where it often did make sense.   But here in the USA, the Democratic party, in recent years, has jumped on the concept, warped it beyond recognition, and made the word their own.

By all counts, Illinois has at least a half million illegal aliens in it (though many estimate the number to be far higher). While we all want to think of this community as well-intentioned poor folks from miserable third world origins, desperate for a chance to earn an honest living in the land of opportunity… we have to admit the truth: some percentage of them – maybe 5? maybe 10? maybe 20? who knows? – were already active criminals in their homelands, and came here either to either escape punishment at home, or to serve their crime gangs in a new territory, or just to individually brutalize a richer community than the ones they fled.

Democrat politicians will spend this election season boasting of the many "anti-crime" bills they passed this month, slapping each other on the back for all the progress they will claim to have made… as retailers continue to shut their doors, as residents together continue to cower in fear of the countless muggers, rapists, and gangs… and as businesses and individuals together continue to flee the state, due to the empowered criminal element that has continuously expanded its hold on the state of Illinois.

What should be done? 

At bare minimum, as individuals, we can educate ourselves, and study those who do the hard work of gathering the data, putting it out there for all the world to see.

In an excellent and fair analysis of the closing days of this session, writer Matt Rosenberg reveals all the details from Springfield in today’s report for Wirepoints. Please read it.… And thereby gain the information necessary to respond, when candidates brag about things that no honest person would boast about.

Statistics, history, the names of bills and the real purposes… It’s all there, courtesy of Wirepoints.

And then, use that information – along with your own common sense – to be that much wiser when you walk in the polls on election day, so that you don’t have to do what so many of us anticipate doing the day after election day:

Moving somewhere else.

And please do read Matt Rosenberg's piece, referenced in the article, in Wirepoints, here: