Early Release Keeps the Morgue Busy

“Sentencing reform” is the intentionally opaque phrase given to abbreviated sentences and early release handed out to felons, often repeat drug pushers.  The mantra is that “sentencing reform” restores families and returns renewed and productive men to the community.

That might be right every now and again.  Certainly it’s all the reformers are willing to talk about.  But a steadfast refusal to look at the costs of early release is as dishonest as it is dangerous.  Hence this story from the New York Daily News:  “Three men — longtime partners in crime — charged with gunning down dad in front of his young daughter in Bronx drive-by.”

Here are some of the grisly if revealing details:

They were partners in crime, and when a 24-hour wave of murder and violence gripped the city earlier this month, they were involved in bloodshed that touched the life of a seven-year-old girl who saw her dad mortally wounded on a Bronx street.

Three Bronx gang-bangers were busted Thursday in the daylight drive-by shooting of Anthony Robinson, who was gunned down as he walked hand-in-hand with his daughter.

Just hours after Robinson’s slaying, a fourth suspect in the case became a murder victim himself, authorities said.

Davon Delks, 21, Devon Vines, 27, and Laquan Heyward, 25 — members of the violent “Sev-O” gang, an offshoot of the Bloods — were charged with murdering Robinson, who was one of nine men shot dead in the city on July 5.

The fourth suspect — Joel Baba, 22 — ended up dead two hours after Robinson was killed when he was slain in a double-homicide in a Bronx apartment building.

And now the interesting part for “sentencing reform” purposes:

Delks, Vines, Heyward and Baba were all arrested in a gang take-down in 2016 that ended with all of them doing prison time.

But they were all back on the street by the middle of 2020.  How did that happen?

Hayward was convicted of assault in 2018 and sentenced to three years behind bars, and was paroled last August. Vines got three years for attempted criminal weapon possession in 2018, and was paroled in September.

Delks was sentenced to one to three years for conspiracy in 2017. He was released from prison in October 2018 and finished his parole in December.

So here’s how it happened.  All of them had recently committed dangerous and/or violent crimes; all were given paltry sentences to start with; and all were put back on the street when legally they could  —  and in any society that gave a hoot about future victims, they would  —  have remained incarcerated.  Instead, because of the delusional and impenetrable mantra behind the “reform” movement, a little girl saw her father blown away.

We hear endlessly from the reformers about how compassionate they are.  Where was the compassion for this child?  For her father?

Gang bangers/drug pushers have a sky-high recidivism rate.  We know to a certainty that episodes like this are going to happen, and they’re not going to be rare.  When will “reform” advocates tell us how many orphaned children  —  disproportionately black children  —  they are willing to see put to their misery lest circumspection, and still less sobriety, creep near leniency’s sacred cow.