Thoughts on a Crime Spree
This is not a crime spree or a crime wave, but a crime tide that shows little sign of receding. I watched the Greenspan interviews. Did you? He’s the last rat off of that ship – everyone else aboard the Bush Titanic will be dragged down in the undertow. That includes local politicians too. Do you know when the price of gas will come down? Never, the dollar has devalued too significantly relative to other world currencies. Result? Inflation on all basic goods. Ready yourself for it. I still hear the politician spouting no-tax pledges. And this passes for prudent social guardianship? Unfortunately friend, the piece of paper in your pocket with George Washington on it isn’t the same today as it was yesterday.
Wisconsinites are guilty of an unmistakable insensate passivity. That’s why we are in it so deep. Example – we faced the largest layoff of manufacturing jobs in history and what antidote is offered for the poison? Do we support the laid-off workers with retraining? No, we pulled investment out of higher education. Tuitions rose and financial aid declined. The effect has been predictable - GDP tanked and unemployment along with it poverty are climbing.
And you wonder why there is palpable fear in Wausau? Just a noontide ago you left your door open? But today, you fasten the deadbolt. More cops? No, this will exacerbate the harm already present. This is not an issue that can be solved with Orwellian force. Emerson’s words from his essay on Compensation seem relevant:
All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by Fear…All the old abuses in society, the great and universal and the petty and particular, all unjust accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. One thing he always teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he hovers for, there is death somewhere… He indicates great wrongs, which must be revised.
Yes, grave inequality. As a community, we have abrogated our right to safety and it is rightfully so. It could not be otherwise. That malodorous stench is none other than the homegrown rot resulting from an inability to love self and other. Your townsfolk go without enough to eat, sleep without shelter, and your sick are daily refused healing for want of coin. I see carrion circling even now.
Tom Neal said:
Well written, Barry … I know it gives you no joy to present so dark a message. It’s hard for people (or a nation) to accept their own complicity in their own state of decline or disrepair. It’s easier and common to lash out at “them” … the poor, the different, the foreign, the interlopers, etc. We as a nation, a state and a town, have had countless opportunities to make choices that can help push back the dark. But, we’ve all seen the nearsighted, status quo, self-serving, ill-informed and exploitative choice made time and again. From energy to industry to trade to health care to the poor to foreign relations to social security to terrorism, opportunities have become liabilities. In the ’50s, the world was handed to us on a platter and we blew it. At the end of the Soviet Union, a new platter, equally wasted. And on 9/11/01, our opportunity to engage and align with a sympathetic world was squandered. But, I gather from your article, a more immediate community-based set of concerns … that our own homegrown failings and indifference are coming home to roost, embodied in masked and hooded midnight ramblers, neighborhood stalkers and brazen daylight desperadoes. I agree, this is no spree or wave … it’s the new quality of life we will have to either get used to, or find a way to diminish and neutralize its contributing factors. But where to start? Feed and clothe the poor, tend to the sick and needy or run the rascals out of town? I’d venture to suggest that the poor single mother or the uninsured sick person aren’t heading up the rise in crime. Instead, it’s their progeny, the younger, aimless, disenfranchised fringe dwellers whose own sense of powerlessness and victimization (real or imagined) makes them see the world as their own pool of potential victims. How do we connect with and reverse that mindset? Is it too late? My family moved here nearly nine years ago to escape urban peril, but it was not lagging far behind it seems. Disappointing, disheartening, discouraging and maybe most to the point: disillusioning.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:16 am #
Dino Corvino said:
Barry, Thanks. I, like Tom, know that was not all that much fun to write.
I think it is fun to see our overreaction to crime. Our community seems based in that sort of amazing over reaction.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:26 pm #
Barry Liss said:
I had a great time writing it, because it was cathartic. Honest assessments purge the bad.
I wish I would have caught that typo at the end (to love of self - mars the piece) - can we edit that?
I would say this Tom: you have insight bro and you should keep writing.
The heroic is born out of the courage to face adversity head-on and overcome. Authenticity based in love is the key. Our money problems will sort themselves out only after our integrity is restored. If there were no dragons, what would a knight do? In other words, despair not friend - rejoice at the heroic struggle we face together.
cheers, Barry
October 11th, 2007 at 11:22 am #
timothyp said:
This may come off as a bit off topic but a part of the solution to some of these crime problems has to come from a court system that seems a tad bit out of whack also. I shall share an example that I heard about last night and didn’t have a chance to research until today…..
A certain court case here in Marathon County had a person with ….now get this….. THREE C FELONY COUNTS OF SECOND DEGREE SEXUAL ASSAULT ON A MINOR …. his own daughter! His court records show that he has been charged with in the past:
OWI- three times
Bail Jumping
Issue of Worhtless checks over $2,500
Theft
Marijuana Possesion and paraphenalia with intent to sell
His sentence for ALL of these charges accumulated?
a. 1 Year with Huber with credit for time served
b. Restitution for case which was dismissed and read-in
c. Costs
d. Any assessment, treatment and counseling deemed by agent
e. DNA sample
f. No Contact order
g. Register as a sex offender and follow all laws and rules of the program
h. 10 years probation … 10 years probation….what a joke
This is not fair to the public! There should be outrage over what I call an unfair sentence. I knew the person in question and I am sure that some of these charges were dismissed for the simple fact that he was a Confidential Informer and he was snitching out anyone he possibly could, especially for marajuana possesion.
Good job Court System! You took those dangerous stoners off the street and gave them harsher penalties than you did for a multiple sex offender! We as the public, have absolutely no recourse in this matter unfortunately; we have to take the word of the system that it was a fair assessment of the particulars of this person’s case and I for one will have to pray you didn’t make a huge mistake. I pretty sure that you did….and you should be ashamed for this miscarriage of justice.
“…it’s the new quality of life we will have to either get used to, or find a way to diminish and neutralize its contributing factors.” Where does your utopian view help in this particular instance? Where is the cause and effect? Where is the justice for this poor young girl that will have to carry around these mental and emotional scars for the rest of her life? Where is that “heroic struggle”?
October 14th, 2007 at 11:52 am #
Barry Liss said:
Hey Timothy P,
I think we share your frustration with the court system. The drug laws are absurd on many levels. In my humble opinion, the most fetid aspect of the entire judicial system is the linking of a drug conviction with federal student financial aid. No good has come out of it - only decay - and much to boot.
But justice itself is a meta-virtue. It just so happens that if the guardians in the legislature and courts betray their authentic responsibilities to the body politic, juries will no longer convict - we are witnessing this trend now.
The Furies are tasked with maintaining accountability and the righting of wrongs. In the defense of justice, they will not be mocked and have the power to even force the sun back into orbit, lest he think he can betray virtue!
Barry
October 14th, 2007 at 1:29 pm #
Connecting News, Commentaries and Blogs at NineReports.com - said:
[…] Maine Man Craved Killing …Blogged about at Thoughts on a Crime Spree - citizen wausau, PARIS, Maine (AP) — A former cook who pleaded guilty to killing four people in western Maine’s […]
October 18th, 2007 at 7:05 pm #
hello said:
Wisconsin is nothing but a bunch of pu$$ies when it comes to prosecution.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:30 am #
Barry Liss said:
What do you mean ‘hello’ - do you think we should have tougher penalties since that’s worked so well?
October 19th, 2007 at 9:00 am #
dixiela said:
It appears that Wausau is having a great problem with robberies, and mischief through-out the city. Thou several of the persons have been caught, there seems to be a great deal more of the low lifes still out there. WHY ? Wausau in the past several years has really grown, and more and more persons comming in, from Chicago, Milwaukee, and larger cities around. Perhaps it’s do to the central location, or maybe persons reading that crimes happen here and persons are never caught.Now mainly it appears that money and drugs are the chief items wanted by these thiefs. We never had this problem in ‘82 when I returned to Wausau, nor in the 90’s, now all of a sudden it’s like everyday. Banks, Drug Stores, places which carry alot of money on hand. It would seem that these such places would put in more security, lock money in a safe or drop box when not being used, install silent alarms, and more camera’s. There’s a great deal of ways to deal with thiefs, espically those with knifes. Mase does a real good job, and so does paint ball guns. Proof, a person is more lible to run then catch a bunch of mase in the face, or paint balls hitting him all over the body and making an easy target for the police to find. Load alarms that go off frighten would be thiefs, and give them the feeling of others comming and getting caught. Down home we have a saying, Don’t come to a gun fight with a knife. More signs thought-out, such as YOU ARE BEING TAPED WHILE IN THIS BUILDING, and having a recorder to record the thiefs voice. The police have there hands full, and need the help and imput of every citizen. Keep your eyes open, report strange persons watching or stacking out places, and get there appearance and remember it, also licence numbers are a great thing to write down also. Wausau was once a nice law abiding city, which has turned into a mass crime spree. We all can stop it, and clean this city back up, so it will become what it once was, Beautiful Wausau.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:33 am #
Barry Liss said:
The payday loans in Weston was robbed yesterday (for the 2nd time in recent days) - hooded sweatshirts or masks prevent identification:
http://www.waow.com/News/index.php?ID=17063
hard times,
Barry
October 19th, 2007 at 10:38 am #
hello said:
I think that the courts should let the public decide the penalties of crimes. You should be able to sign up for such a thing. Then you would be eligible to review all the facts of the case, come up with a penalty, and then the courts could take your and others’ penalties into consideration when presenting it to the defendant.
But…… then again, that’s called a jury.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:32 pm #