Coddled Criminal Soft on Crime Sob Story of the Week
Meet Mario D. Cherry, AKA Mario D. Bump, Bump Cherry, Cherry Milton, Mario Cherry, Bunk Cherry, and Bumploc, a career criminal who loves soft on crime legislators and liberal voters that think being soft on criminals does anything other than dumping the criminals back out on the street faster so they can break into your home again.
Cherry shows up on the record when he was nineteen years old in 1991 , on charges of keeping a place to sell drugs, earning a one year sentence, then again in 1993 on multiple charges of using a firearm in a crime, drug possession, possession with intent to distribute. He earned around 27 years of sentencing, various four year terms, a six year term, and a seven year term. He was in and out quickly but went right back into prison probably for parole violations, coming out in 1997, out again in 2000, back in in 2003, hop scotching around between the street and prison.
When he was 26 years old he was convicted again on a couple of drug charge near a school, receiving a nine year sentence that he didn't begin serving till 2005 and was released in 2015. He was also convicted in a 2006 drug charge that resulted in a 15 year term, going into prison in 2007 and getting out in 2012, serving one third of the fifteen year sentence which is normal for this soft on crime state. The 1999 conviction also covered bail jumping, forged checks, a felon in possession of a firearm, all of which carried ten year sentences each. A 2000 conviction for a felon carrying a firearm also earned a ten year sentence served concurrently of course.
Once a criminal has crossed the line from misdemeanors to felonies there is nothing holding them back from committing crime after crime after crime because if they get caught they serve only one third of the longest sentence; all the other crimes have zero prison time and frankly the criminals laugh at the additional charges.
What is needed are two simple things. First, truth in sentencing. If you commit a felony that carries a two year sentence, you serve two years for that crime and not concurrently. This criminal had probably a hundred years of prison time earned according to the law. Knowing that all could be discharged with a five year prison stay means there is zero additional penalty from his view point.
Second need, cheap prisons that actually make the state money through prison labor. You need
medical care for inmates? Start a prison medical degree program and put some lifers through that education. Same thing with nurses and other medical staff needs. Use that to cut prison terms and you send a convict out of prison with some skills and a real purpose to their life. Developed across the state you could have local prison medical centers handling some medicaid cases and emergency room indigent cases as well as avoiding major tax expenditures for indigents. It might just teach some empathy to these inmates as well.
