To the Editor:
Illinois’ latest criminal justice and cash bail reform law is a crime in and of itself. It seems Jabba the Pritzker is determined to keep Illinois’ felons on the streets, at any cost:
The Democrats tell us that cash bail is racist and punishes poverty. Most people know better. Has grinding poverty forced Illinois’ poor into a life of crime simply to survive? Our poor are not the same as the ragpickers of Mumbai, India.
The U.S Department of Energy’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey says “over 99 percent [of those classified below the poverty level] have a refrigerator, television, and stove or oven. Eighty-one percent have a microwave; 75 percent have air conditioning; 67 percent have a second TV; 64 percent have a clothes washer; 38 percent have a personal computer.” And, most of the poor (80+ percent) have cell phones provided to them. But economic opportunity can’t exist in the face of lawlessness.
It’s a widely known fact that fatherless homes “breed behavioral problems, truancy and poor academic performance, delinquency, and youth crime, including violent crime, promiscuity, and teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, exploitation and abuse, physical health problems, [and] mental health disorders…” In Illinois, the rate of absentee fathers in Black families was an incredible 73% in 2018. And rising.
Ending cash bail is easily the dumbest idea by Democrats in recent years. The anti-family values of far-Left Democrats virtually assure the continued decay of Democrat-controlled cities, adding to the deprivation of the people already trapped there.
Gary Hetherington
Springfield, Illinois
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