Previous Story
Norita: Govt should get tough with recidivists
|
Posted on Mar 24 2008
The government should throw the book at recidivists or habitual offenders because these people are just wasting public resources, according to Department of Public Safety commissioner Claudio K. Norita.
Norita said he is not favor of making deals or plea agreements with recidivists as these only allow these individuals to avoid jail time.
“We should throw the book at these people because they repeat the same crimes. And we are spending a lot of resources on these same people coming into the system,” said Norita during a press briefing yesterday about the arrest of four ex-convicts allegedly involved in robbery and burglary cases over the weekend.
These people, the DPS commissioner pointed out, are not afraid of the criminal system.
“You can tell…they are graduating to a higher, more violent crimes,” he said.
Norita said the pattern is evident in both the robbery and burglary cases.
“We’ve got a lot of criminals coming out of Corrections or prison. And they are going back to doing the same thing again,” he said.
Norita said that his detectives are very concerned about the problem with habitual offenders.
“My biggest fear is that the burglar who comes out becomes a robber. And then, by the time he goes in and comes out a year later, whatever the sentence might be, he will come out and become a violent offender,” he said.
Norita said they are working with the Attorney General’s Office in trying to impose longer prison sentences on this kind of criminals.
“It is an issue that the detectives have brought up to me and it is an issue that we will bring up to the Attorney General and see what we can do about it,” he said.
