We just received this piece from BOE Member Michelle Steel…
Willie Horton, Maurice Clemmons and Now…
By Michelle Park Steel, BOE Member
Kevin Peterson was arrested – for attempted rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment, and violating the terms of his parole – early Tuesday morning, 12 hours after his early release; part of the Governor’s effort to reduce the state’s prison population. He was one of the many released under the Governor’s new release plan. Of course, this plan was to involve only the release of prisoners who were jailed for non-violent offenses.
His chosen victim? A female counselor at the Catholic charity, Loaves and Fishes, helping the poor and destitute in our state’s Capital, on a route frequently taken by the very legislators who passed the bill, and the Governor who signed it.
Peterson was released after serving two months of a four month jail sentence for violating his parole. Violating your parole is considered non violent by our Legislature that passed the law and our Governor who signed the law. But, what was he on parole for? Felony assault with a deadly weapon.
Of course, for non-politicians, this isn’t what we average citizens think of when we say “non-violent”.
Asked by the Sacramento Bee why a felon – convicted of a violent crime – was released as part of a program for non-violent criminals, Kevin Mickelson, president of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s association, said “the state legislature has duped the citizens of California into believing they’ve released only non-violent offenders…. That’s simply not true.”
Willie Horton escaped from prison while on weekend furlough in 1986 and brutally raped and murdered a woman. Maurice Clemmons, after a decade in and out of prison murdered four police officers in Lakewood Washington after posting bail related to a rape arrest.
How many more prisoners have to be released, how many more innocent citizens must be victimized before we realize that putting criminals back on the streets is the wrong way to balance the budget.
Kevin Eugene Peterson is no doubt the first among many that will quickly reenter the state correctional system following their early release.
The Governor proposes releasing at least another 25,000 convicted “non-violent” felons.
Sadly, a trail of victims will be left in their wake as testament to budget gimmickry.
Willie Horton will forever dog the memory of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Maurice Clemmons is now former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s albatross. Are 25,000 “non-violent” Kevin Eugene Petersons the lasting memory that Californians will have of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger?