Diverting criminals does public no good

The editorial “More than one way for justice to be served” (Oct. 17) should not

go unchallenged. Nor should Kaua’i’s Criminal Diversion Project go

unchallenged.

Stated plainly, the problem is that government bureaucrats

believe that settling property crime through successful mediation between

criminal and victim is all that is at stake. However, far more urgent than the

interests of victim and the criminal are the interests of the public.

Criminals, in fact, do not violate victims per se. Criminals violate state and

county laws. These laws should not be trivialized or ignored simply because the

looter has returned the stolen booty and the shopkeeper or homeowner is

grateful.

There is a public interest here that is vital. The burglar that

is free from serving lockup time may now be checking out your home for a

break-in, dear gentle reader.

The taxpayer money that went to the policing

and prosecuting departments for catching and trying criminals could be

recklessly wasted. The taxpayers are shelling out bucks for policemen to

apprehend criminals only to have lazy out-to-lunch prosecutors release the

culprits who are successful at mediation.

The Democrat Legislature on O’ahu

is ideologically opposed to building a desperately-needed prison. The ACLU and

the federal judiciary are pressuring state government to resolve the inhuman

overcrowding at obsolete centers of incarceration. The logical fix would be to

build a new prison. But the government of Hawai’i is a logic-free zone.

Consequently, the fun and games of the Criminal Diversion Project are put

into play. By diverting hoodlums, there is less overcrowding in jailhouses and

there is less pressure for building a new prison. In short, the Criminal

Diversion Project is a public-be-damned project. It is the public that will be

exposed to the many diverted hoods who should have been jailed.

Crime

abatement pro bono publico is a concept of no value to what TGI calls “the

forward-thinking legal authorities.” If one goes to the Honolulu Zoo, one can

see a mimicry of Hawaii’s “forwarding-thinking legal authorities.” The primates

there are busy catching fleas in the folds of their anatomies. These monkeys

alone benefit from this concentrated activity.

DOUGLAS E.

RAPOZO

Kapa’a