I’m not hopping on the bandwagon circling the Santa Clara County, California, courthouse. Don’t add my name to the million-plus names of those calling for the scalp of Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky. Far from a goat, Judge Persky is a hero. Full Op-Ed Piece
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Well stated Norm Pattis. Good commentary.
Norm Pattis said “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: We’ve fallen in love with prisons in this country. We incarcerated almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, although we are just under 5 percent of the world’s population. The sentences we impose for all sorts of crimes are far longer than sentences imposed in other republics.”
The law enforcement approach to prostitution has the Swedish model which focuses on prosecution of johns, whereas the Dutch model focuses on the side selling the sex. The Swedish model is finding it way into the US approach, that is, the prosecution of johns. But the difference is that in Sweden, where they arrest the johns and not the prostitutes, the johns get much shorter sentences than in the US and are not subjected to revolving door style parole and kept in the system. Even for more serious offenses the same is true. Not long pointless and damaging jail sentences and not the neverending registry punishment. It’s too bad when its said in the US that we should adopt the Swedish model, we don’t mean not to have long and counter-productive jail terms and like the Swedish, not require registration of ex-offenders for any crimes.
well said,