I'm vice president of an organization that works for criminal justice reform in our county. One thing we're working against, is California's thirty-year escalation of the penalties meted out for criminal offenses - "three strikes" laws, and all that stuff. It's a tough battle, because the "victims' rights" groups are strong and well-funded.

The argument of the victims' rights people is hard to refute - no criminal penalty can possibly be adequate to compensate the outrage and injury suffered by a victim of crime, especially is that crime is a particularly outrageous crime. So, in their outrage, these groups keep demanding (and getting) stiffer and stiffer penalties for crime. The penalties don't do any good, but it's hard to convince a crime victim of that. They want vengeance, and rightly so.

I'm friendly with a woman at church who's a primary spokesperson for a well-funded, statewide victims' rights group. She got involved in her crusade twenty-five years ago, when her sister was brutally murdered. So far, I've been able to avoid direct conflict with her, but I suppose it will happen some day. I just finished writing an article for the local newspaper that may well set her off when it's published.

While I can see why people demand the death penalty and all the other still penalties that state legislatures have enacted, I can also see that stiff penalties haven't really given solace to the victims of crime; and the penalties don't seem to be able to reduce crime, either. So, we need to develop effective alternatives.

It's an uphill battle.

-Joe-