LETTERS: CRIME BILL DECEIVES AMERICANS ABOUT WHAT CONGRESS IS DOING

To the editor:

Every congressman who voted for the recently enacted crime bill should be voted out of office as soon as possible. This bill is one of the biggest bits of deceit ever pulled over on the American people.

It was designed to deceive the people into believing that Congress was doing something for us. In reality it will do very little toward decreasing crime, because it doesn't address the cause. The $30 billion price tag will just add to our national debt and encourage more graft and corruption in spending the money.

Our so-called justice system is a gold mine for the lawyers, and since most of our congressmen are lawyers it's obvious who benefits most from this bill.

If they really wanted to do something to help control crime, they could crack down on the federal judges who ignore the laws and turn these dangerous criminals loose on the public.

However, most of the law enforcement falls to the states. If any of our state governments were the least bit interested in reducing crime, they could abolish the parole and probation systems. They are unnecessary and work in direct opposition to our courts. In other words, they nullify what little good our courts do.

Another thing that needs to be abolished is the public defender law. This law is mainly responsible for all the needless appeals that take place in nearly every case. If a lower court is not qualified to render a just verdict, why even have it? We may as well abolish them and save a lot of time and energy.

Another thing about the public defender law is that the taxpayers are paying for the prosecution and also the defense of most of our criminals. This is practically the same as subsidizing crime.

Also, it would help a lot if we took away the governor's right to commute death sentences to life in prison. When this happens, the governor is working directly against our courts and our taxpayers and especially against the victims of crime.

There are a lot of sensible ways to reduce crime without spending a lot of money to do it, if we could just get our congressmen interested.

RAYMOND UMHDENSTOCK

Arcadia