Felons released from prison have to earn money to feed, clothe and house themselves, just like you and me. I happen to believe that once a man or woman has paid society with prison time for whatever transgression got them into graybar, they ought to be treated like any other citizen. Which means total restoration of their civil liberties. Otherwise, the whole damned vicious cycle is repeated endlessly.

In the long historic scale of things, our society or any other should be judged by what we have produced, how we have learned to live with one another, and whether or not as individuals we have each of us learned to live with our own selves. Not by how many people we have locked up.

So give these people a break until they give you direct evidence that they don't deserve it.

I'm not a christian, or any kind of believer, for that matter. But most of all the rest of you are both. So start practicing what Jesus preached to you 2000 years ago, or shut up about him altogether.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

It's not much of an exaggeration, if one at all.

The problem is that ACT claims to not hire any felon that is currently on parole - and states like Florida don't parole their former prisoners. So they've been (probably accidently) hiring people right out of prison.

And you can quote religion, sociology, or whatever you want to use to make a point, but, when you come right down to it, I don't want convicted felons coming to my house at all - let alone when I'm not home and my wife and son are there to answer the door. Or to get any personal information...

Hey Arnold- maybe it's ok with you if a convicted rapist or child molester knocks on your door and gathers a little personal info from your wife or your kid while you're not at home, but it's NOT ok with me. It's not about whether they've "paid society" for their transgression, as you put it. It's about whether they're still a risk to hurt someone, and recidivism statistics tell us they probably are.

Dean my man, your entry is a bit misleading. It's not Kerry's campaign that's doing this, but the ACT. While voters may not see a difference in principle (and if it's true, I agree it's a REALLY bad idea), from a factual standpoint, it's not like Kerry himself is specifically telling people to do this.

Clarification - I meant probation instead of parole - Florida doesn't have probation.

And as to Kerry, if you read the whole article, Kerry does not endorse or claim any affiliation to the group.

However, many ex-Kerry advisors/staffers are leading the group - quote below:

Yet ACT is stocked with veteran Democratic political operatives, many with past ties to Kerry and his advisers.

Allison Dobson, a spokeswoman with the Kerry campaign, said there is no coordination with ACT, and of the policy: "We're unaware of it and have nothing to do with it."

That's the white-out they put on this...

There should be a law against all door-to-door peddlers, money moochers, and other such hawkers
except for the occasional kid down the street
selling cookies or for a school project.

I picked up on that story this morning, too. Imagine, ladies, a convicted rapist knocking on your door, asking for your phone number.

Catch 22--As much as they annoy me, door-to-door solicitors generally enjoy First Amendment protection...I think.

ACT claims they hire some felons and not others. My wife and kids are at home all day--in Ohio--and I have to say I'm concerned. Especially as my wife plans to vote for Kerry (I am now the official black sheep of both our families), and so might be inclined to talk to someone from ACT who came to the door.

There is no First Amendment right to solicit. Where did you get that? That's considered "commercial speech" and the protection threshold is much lower than for "political speech."

But private property rights (No Soliciting, No Trespassing) trump that anyway. While I don't think anyone is saying felons don't have a "right" to canvass for votes, I think it's dangerous and dumb and fraught with lawsuit-potential.

We have a small red sign with white letters above our door bell that says "No soliciting." We also have a shotgun. Never had to use it though. Did have to ask one realtor if he was out of his mind when he came to our door. He never came back. I reported him to his office for trespassing and don't feel bad about calling the police.

It's my home, my door and if I warn you not to knock on it to sell me things and you do it, tsk, tsk, tsk...

Okay, okay. Old man Harris has sense enough to know when he's licked.

So we don't want convicted felons coming around to our house. And for sure, we all have the right to put up [NO SOLICITORS; THAT MEANS YOU, OR I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SHOOT YOU] signs. Shotgun and all.

And when someone comes to my door, and I don't want to talk with them, I have the right to look them straight in the eye and say "Hit the road."

I've done just that when they got pushy with me. And I've got a lot more stuff to defend myself, my family and my home than most people do.

But I hope you all got the point I raised about getting these ex-convicts back into civil society. I would much rather have them staying on the straight and narrow, working for a living, and paying taxes like the rest of us, than being treated perpetually as though they were cornered animals. That makes sense to me as a conservative kind of guy who thinks that if we keep jailing and re-jailing a continuously growing percentage of our population, our society will be bankrupted by the costs of supporting them all at public expense.

But the other part of it is this. I think there has to be some sort of defined limit as to what these men and women are called upon to do for society at large if they have gotten themselves into trouble for anything less than a serious capital offense. And there has to be some way for them to earn back their civil liberties after they worked out their sentences. That to me seems like nothing more than elementary justice.

I have no experience with the criminal justice system, having stayed out of trouble for a lifetime. But I was impressed some time back by what David Mercer, a frequent commenter on Dean's World, has told us all about his experiences in a jail cell over a narcotics conviction. It seemed to me that David made some sound and reasonable points. Not necessarily about narcotics use, but certainly about the rights we withhold from ex-prisoners. So I decided to rethink some of the hard attitudes that people like me pick up from childhood onward, about dealing with ex-convicts.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Wouldn't ACT's solicitation fall under the heading of political speech?

In addition, I'd heard (years and years and years ago, perhaps inaccurately) that a "No Solicitors" sign lacks the force of law. That's why I never bothered posting one; I just run 'em off if I don't want to talk to them.

Guys, seriously? I don't have a problem with convicted felons who've served their time and paid back their debt to society and just need a job.

Still, you have to admit, hiring a bunch of people with violenet and extreme felonies on their record and handing them all name, address, phone#, social security#, and etc. and giving them a valid excuse to go door-to-door through neighborhoods looking for people who are (or mightn not be) home alone just doesn't seem like a good recipe. Even if 9 out of 10 of them are reformed, decent people.

I dunno, like I say, we may be exaggerating this thing.

"But I hope you all got the point I raised about getting these ex-convicts back into civil society." (Arnold Harris)

"...But the other part of it is this. I think there has to be some sort of defined limit as to what these men and women are called upon to do for society at large if they have gotten themselves into trouble for anything less than a serious capital offense..." (Arnold Harris)

"And there has to be some way for them to earn back their civil liberties after they worked out their sentences. That to me seems like nothing more than elementary justice." (Arnold Harris)

Polly Klaas was not afforded the right to even answer the doorbell before she was kidnapped, abducted, assaulted, then murdered by Richard Allen Davis, a convicted felon let out on parole after a crime spree of nearly 30 years.

Prior to that Richard Allen Davis HAD no serious 'capital' offenses. He was just another repeat felon.

We don't know if Polly was able to tell Richard to "hit the road". We do know, that Mr. Davis is on death row and his art work is on the internet
supported by an anti-death penalty group.

So tell us which civil liberties of elementary justice was Richard Allen Davis deprived ?

Exaggeration ?

Wait till the doorbell rings.

Point to you, Catch. Note that I'm not part of the anti-death penalty group. But you can't strap prisoners onto a gurney and give them a green hotshot just on the basis of what they might do if you let them live and if you ever release them.

And maybe, just maybe, the Richard Allen Davis types form a small minority of the general prison populations. Maybe, just maybe, many of the rest of them just want to be able to get a job, make a family (or rejoin the one they had before), fall into the peaceful anonymity of life as an ordinary free American citizen, and -- above all -- stay out of stir.

Is there recidivism? You bet your ass there is. Would it be good public policy to turn all this around so that most former convicts can get back to productive and peaceful citizenhood? You can bet your ass on that as well.

So maybe the time has come for us to begin rethinking the vindictiveness that underlies our sentencing policies, the American way of "corrections", and even the legal basis that underpins denying most of these men and women major chunks of their civil liberties long after they have served their sentences and have lived subsequently blameless lives.

Don't you think this is a package we ought at least to consider, in this day and age of shrinking budgets for all kinds of social services? I say again. Treat these people like cornered animals, and they will act that way. But everybody deserves a chance to turn his or her life around.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold.

Too much abstraction leads to intelligible but sometimes really thoughtless or uncaring statements.

The point of this post is whether it is acceptable in general society to have hired workers that are convicted felons ringing the doorbells of people who live under the premise they have the right to the security of their own homes without jeopardizing children,parents, grandparents, aging aunts or uncles or others.

The post isn’t about shotguns, prison reform, non-capital offenses, or prisoners deserving another chance, recidivism, citizenhood , vindictiveness, sentencing policies, the American way of "corrections", or shrinking budgets, Jesus, christians, or giving people a break.

The point is: I do not want felons ringing my doorbell, as I said above:

“There should be a law against all door-to-door peddlers, money moochers, and other such hawkers except for the occasional kid down the street selling cookies or for a school project. “

I would have posted this earlier except I had to answer the doorbell. It was a realtor telling me if I referred a buyer or a seller to him he would give two hundred dollars for the referral.

Okay Catch, at last a simple solution for a simple problem. If you don't want any felons ringing your doorbell, then in all fairness, just spell it out for them with a sign on your lawn, to wit:

IF YOU ARE A FELON, PEDDLER, MONEY-MOOCHER OR OTHER HAWKER, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF KIDS SELLING COOKIES, DO NOT RING MY DOORBELL. OTHER VISITORS WELCOME, DEPENDING ON MY MOOD.

CATCH-22

(I suspect the visitors you will then get will be reporters from the local TV station, making you temporarily famous.)

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

I don't want convicted rapists going out with name, addresses and phone numbers ringing doors. Sorry guys...but some crimes are "Scarlet Letters" for life. Rape definitely falls under that category, as does child molestation, and other such crimes.

Arnold Harris: that's not fair (in your response to Catch 22). While I disagree with Catch 22's proposed law against door to door peddlers, I wholeheartedly agree with him not wanting convicted rapists ringing on his door (sent out by a political group along with his name, phone number, and Social "Security" number no less). It's just common sense.

Arnold,

I am more compassionate. I was thinkimg along these lines:

If you pass beyond this point you are on private property,

Take notice that the occupier of this property given the nature, character and activities of these premises, excludes the duty of care towards visitors. Unauthorized entry is hereby prohibited.
Do not ring doorbell, just go away.

That should keep the TV guys away.

Okay, likwidshoe, it's your turn.

So you object to convicted rapists ringing your doorbell. But Catch-22 here, in another post, told me that the percentage of child molesters in the general population is about 3-4%. That means 96-97% of the ex-convicts walking up your drive to ring your doorbell are not child molesters.

Therefore, what if the guy at the door was a convicted stock swindler who got sent to graybar because he picked the wrong defense lawyer? Presumably he couldn't care less about raping your wife, daughter, or you (just in case he's homosexual as well). What his kind are concerned about is a fast buck, not a fast piece of ass with a female who wants no such thing. Well, I guess you wouldn't want him to solicit you either.

But of course, in the end, you are right and so is Catch. If want even selective privacy, that is what you deserve. Otherwise all our lives get turned into an undignified shambles.

But assuming that most of these ex-cons are not and never were child molesters, and that most of them are not practitioners of physical violence, give some thought to how you might want to rehabilitate them back into the general society. Or do you want to keep them locked up in some invisible cage even after they get out of prison? And if so, then for how long? When is enough enough?

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold,

You're getting all twisty. I made my point in my first comment:

"There should be a law against all door-to-door peddlers, money moochers, and other such hawkers
except for the occasional kid down the street
selling cookies or for a school project."

My concern is that the person that opens the door is safe from physical and psychological harm be they: mother, child, daughter, son, aunt, uncle, grandpa, grandma, whomever.

This topic isn't an issue of ex-cons, selective privacy or "what if the guy at the door was a convicted stock swindler".

It's not about strangers knocking on your door or their presumed rights of commercial or political interest.

Its about privacy and commonsense.

Alright. Just so you are not advocating discrimination specifically targeted at former convicts. And I take it from your comments that you are not.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Here in our great (snark) state of California, we had some 'peddlers' that would case homes to see who was home and who was not by 'selling' things.

These people were rapists. Door to door salespeople, while some may be credible, can look inside your home, decide what they like and want to remove later, as well as pose a risk to persons--male and female, young and old.

It is very easy for someone to push their way through into your home once you have the door open, even if you have that handy dandy latch on.

The 'no solicitors' sign has helped, and in our state, if someone, other than a postal or delivery, gas-power-water employee enters your property, they are trespassing. If they enter your home, that is unlawful entry.

I just don't open the door. They can peddle elsewhere. It's not safe. I object to the list as well.

I am more or less on Arnold Harris' side of this issue. Felons who have repaid their debt to society should have opportunities to redeem themselves and become functioning members of society.

Nevertheless I must confess that it is disturbing to think that a large contingent of ex-cons will have private information on a lot of people and opportunity to wander neighborhoods looking to see if people are home so they can talk to them. If 5% of such a population of ex-cons is still dangerous, and you employ several hundred such people.... well, do the math.

Hence, as I say, my ambivalence.

But then, I have a friend who is a "registered sex offender" due to one thing he did 24 years ago, in which his intended victim was not hurt, merely scared. Seems to me there needs to be a point where we let people move on, for a man in his 40s is not the same person he was in his late teens. We also need to give those who are convicted of felonies a path by which they can become functioning members of society again, rather than branding them for life as perpetually dangerous.

By the way, who ever would have thought that Arnold Harris and I would both be allied on the liberal side of an argument?

All well and good, but unfortunately, I do not believe in equal opportunity doorbells on private residences. And I do not believe it has a thing to do with the rehabilitation of ex-convicts.

"Trust but verify." Ronald Reagan

Unfortunately, the liberal side suggests trust but forget the verify.

Gigantic missed point here - but, then again, perhaps you all are unaware of another salient fact:

In western Pennsylvania, the Bush Campaign as 6,000 volunteers, the Kerry campaign has 500. This is how its going all across the nation - there is a veritible army of enthusiastic volunteers for the GOP/Bush campaigns, and slim pickings for Kerry/DNC efforts...ACT, of course, is not directly connected with either Kerry or the DNC, but given the number of Democratic bigwigs who are involved, it must be understood that its intention is to boost Kerry/DNC prospects...

The Point: If they have to hire anyone to do their work for them, felons or not, it shows they've got problems...money spent paying people to do grunt work is money which cannot be used on other things. The fact that the liberal/left side of the aisle cannot get sufficient voluntary help speaks volumes about what the real political state of the nation is.

Mark Noonan:

Good point about the weakness of the Left and of the Democratic party. I myself just don't see how Kerry can win. What's his appeal to anybody?

Anyway.... ....Arnold Harris, a rock-ribbed man of the Right, gun expert, hard-line, hard-headed, tough-minded, more so than anyone else on this blog -- the diametrical opposite of a "bleeding heart" -- comes down on the side, not of mercy, but of justice, i.e., against what G. K. Chesterton called "the perpetuation of punishment".

I've long been for "Truth In Sentencing". Whatever a convicted criminal is sentenced to by a judge, that is what the sentence should be, IN FACT. If you're sentenced for a month, you stay there for a month. If you're sentenced for a year, you stay there for a year. If you're sentenced to 10 years, you serve 10 years. If you're sentenced for life, then it's for life that you stay locked up. If death, then... ...if, after careful investigation, you are _proved_ to be guilty of the capital crime you were charged with, then... ...bye-bye. Period. No ifs, and, or buts. No parole. No probation. No furloughs. No "twinkie" defense. No nonsense about psychotherapy or "rehabilition" ("the con's biggest con" as a Jewish Negro police chief once said). No nothing of that kind. No nonsense. Period. It's not how deprived you were in your childhood but how depraved you are as an adult that determines how stringent your punishment will be. You do the crime, you do the time. Period.

But then, when it's over, IT'S OVER. You've done your time, served your sentence, paid your debt to society. DONE. FIN. KAPUT. That's it. You're a free man (or woman) again. Your slate is clean. Time to start over, turn over a new leaf as they say. You were sentenced to 10 years. You served 10 years. No less. No more. Period.

So -- stop punishing somebody for life if they weren't _sentenced_ for life! "Truth In Sentencing" cuts both ways. You were sentenced to 10 years. You served 10 years. No less. No more. Period.

As far as rapists and child molesters, I don't think they should ever be released in the first place, or at least not for a very long time. Actually, I myself wouldn't be at all averse to the electric chair for convicted rapists. _If_ it's necessary to keep them away from potential victims for the rest of their lives, but OK to release them otherwise after their prison term is over but under carefully controlled conditions, OK, -- _but_ then _that_ arrangement should be _part of the sentence_ handed down by the judge. Explicitly.

As it is now, though, "a felon" could be just about anything. Could be somebody who smoked some marijuana. Could be a man who was convicted under a "sodomy" law for having oral sex with his girlfriend. (Yes, that was an actual case. Yes, those laws WERE enforced, they DID have victims, and not only "those evil homos" but "Joe Hetero" as well. Could be me. Could be you.) Could be a gun owner like me or Arnold Harris if he is convicted of possessing the "wrong kind" of gun, e.g., one of those "scary-looking" "assault weapons". Could be anybody. Could be me. Could be you.

Arnold,

I can agree with you to some extent with some conditions. One, it depends for what a felon was convicted. Two, I believe repeat offenders are a different category than first-time offenders.

I can forgive a person for one mistake. After that, I see a repeated pattern.

Respectfully,

KevinB

I wish I were as good and noble and stalwart as Steven Malcolm Anderson et al describes me. Truth is, I'm just an average guy who's been around the block and around the world, has thought about what he's seen, heard and experienced, and who can pound out comments on the internet. But thamks anyway, SMA; I'm sometimes like our cat, who likes to be stroked now and then.

About this criminal justice stuff. I certainly believe that people who commit crimes should be penalized sufficiently to reinforce their certain knowledge that they can't get away with it then or ever. For people who prove dangerous to the point where they can be expected to physically harm innocent victims, prison is the answer.

But as SMA points out, 'truth in sentencing' has to mean fixed terms with a clean slate after the convict has done the time. Otherwise the criminal justice system itself winds up perpetuating a massive miscarriage of justice.

Rapists and child molesters? No, I wouldn't take anyone's life except in the most extreme circumstances, and neither rape nor molestation rank with murder.

As for victimless crimes such as people mistakenly mis-registering firearms, narcotics users and the like, I would treat these as no more than misdemeanors; they are not worth half destroying someone's life by sending him or her to prison. And yes, SMA, every active gun owner knows about many of the truly unjust cases in which otherwise law-abiding gun owners have been sent to jail, and sometimes to federal prisons.

Would I personally give a break to an ex-con and hire one if he or she applied for a job, and if I had the kind of business in which I employed people outside my immediate family?

Sure. I learned early in life to trust people who did nothing specific to abuse that trust. Otherwise, we are all reduced to a pack of wild prehistoric homosapiens, crouching with spears in our hands, glowering at one another from the entrances to our separate caves. And as long as I live, I will treat others exactly the way I want them to treat me. Nothing liberal about any of that. Just common sense reciprocity.

Can people who made trivial or even serious mistakes that got them into trouble with the public authorities turn their lives around and live straight again or even for the first time? I know they can, and when you stop to think about it, you'll find a lot of good examples. As for the ones who slide back into crime, there's always a jail cell, or death if things get too ugly. But give them a chance to get back into the boat before you let them drown.

Some of what I've been saying here goes against the grain of what a lot of you think. But I've been doing some thinking about all this. You all know by now that I'm neither a christian or any other kind of believer in any of the deity stuff. But we're all living in a culture derived from and strongly based on the teaching of a single man who got himself crucified 2000 years ago for questioning the authority of a great empire. I never thought he was divine, but he preached a message of love, compassion and ultimate forgiveness that merits listening to. At least that's what I think he was all about. Tell me if I'm wrong. And if not, ask yourselves how he would have dealt with people coming out of the prisons of the world.

Anyway, enough of this preaching for one day.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

"Tell me if I'm wrong. And if not, ask yourselves how he would have dealt with people coming out of the prisons of the world."

Well, I sure cannot speak for Jesus, but he did kick the money changers out of the temple and called them thieves and charlatans which suggests he didn't treat everyone like any other citizen. We cannot speculate how he would treat convicted felons, but it does suggest caution would be in order for those answering their doorbells rung by total strangers.

And Jesus wasn't part of the anti-death penalty group as well since there is no mention of it in the gospels at the time of his death.

So Jesus kicked the money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem 2000 years. And now the new temple that took over the remains of the Roman Empire and that purports to speak and rule in his name fills its ranks and its power structure with sexual pervert priests who stalk the small children of the parents who bring them to these same priests for their blessings and sacrements.

I don't wonder if Jesus would kick these pervert priests out of today's Roman ruled temples; having lost his temper with the money-changers and other charlatans, I think he would try to strangle these dogs. And I think he would take action a lot quicker than the modern Roman sanhedrin that rules the new temple; a sanhedrin that seems more interested in hushing scandal than in cleaning out their Augean stable.

Acton knew what he was talking about when he said that all power corrupts and that absolute power corrups absolutely.

(I'm still waiting to see if Mel Gibson ever makes a film about the new Roman sanhedrin. In vulgate Latin and the Boston dialect of the American Irish, of course.

And as you can tell, I'm more disgusted by people who systematically poison the minds of innocent children while they hide behind their priestly cloaks, than I am by ordinary convicted felons ringing my doorbell.

But don't any of you consider this a put-down of your faith, whatever it might be. I intended it only as the saddest of all commentaries on the misplaced trust of humankind.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

"But don't any of you consider this a put-down of your faith, whatever it might be."

Yes, that is the good question, the hard question and your best question.

And you are right, there has to be an answer.

Its too late this evening to answer.

"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
-Jesus, Matthew 18:6

See also Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2

Ditto and amen to that, brother.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

I hereby declare this string a success in that no one overly castigated the other commenter and all are left intact with plenty of spears and arrows of outrageous fortune and ready for the next encounter.

The choir will now sing a "brilliant" rendition of:

"I feel Good," by James Brown,