You might be a redneck if you and your rabid dog can watch a cockfight while reaching for another cold Pabst Blue Ribbon without leaving your front porch.
You may have heard of the cockfighting bust in Anderson this week, but an interesting factoid caught my attention at the end of The Anderson Independent’s Article
.…While officers were on the scene, Mr. _____ was also issued three clean-up orders for the junk cars on his land, a rabies citation and a ticket for having a refrigerator on his front porch, said Chip Sturgis, a spokesperson for Anderson County Emergency Services and Public Safety
I understand the illegality of the cockfighting and the rabies citation, but have this question. Why is he being ordered to haul off his junk cars and take the frige off the front porch? This is South Carolina for crying out loud.
Interestingly, today the Senate Judiciary Committee is debating a bill to make cockfighting a felony. Currently, the practice is a misdemeanor with minor fines assumed to be a “cost of doing business”.
full article
I’m being honest, if you visit the news article you’ll see similar comments and a link to this picture. I noticed this after writing my post. I guess we think alike in the electric city.
How does cockfighting compare to other offences nationwide?
Cockfighting does not compare with dog fighting. Every state in the US already has some form of dog fighting, animal cruelty, or cockfighting law on its books. In 2006 there were only 75 cases of illegal cockfighting compare this to the 14,062 cases of murder and homicide25,528 case of forcible rape114,616 cases of robbery449,297 of aggravated assault1,146,696 cases of theft and larceny1,371,919 cases of DUI129,128 offenses against children and family900,000 children abused or neglected (one every 35 seconds!)797,500 children reported missing Compare the cockfighting cases to the above statistics and you’ll find state laws are doing a more than adequate job. This law is not needed nor is it wanted. In 2005 there were 2,193,798 prisoners in our prison system. Our law enforcement has enough to do without chasing chicken farmers. Our farmers do not belong in prison just so our government can feel good about stroking Wayne Pacelle’s ego.
THIS INFORMATION IS FURNISHED BY THE OGBA NEWS.
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Article published Feb 29, 2008
A costly 1 percent
America has to make more judicious use of its prison
Published: Friday, February 29, 2008 | Updated: 9:33 am
ARTICLE OPTIONS
The United States locks more of its people behind bars than any other nation. About one of every 99 people is either in jail or prison, according to a study released Thursday.
The report, issued by the Pew Center on the States, notes that 2,319,258 adults were incarcerated at the start of 2008. That number is much bigger than it was just six years ago, when it first passed 2 million.
The costs of imprisoning such a large segment of the population are astronomical. The direct costs alone are huge. The study shows that the 50 states combined spent $44 billion on prisons last year. Two decades ago, that bill was only $10.6 billion. The study points out that the cost of corrections is rising six times faster than the cost of higher education.
Add to this the indirect costs of keeping people in prison. A man who is incarcerated loses his job. He goes from contributing to the economy to becoming a drain on that economy. His family goes without his income and often has to turn to public assistance for necessities.
A prison sentence is often a death sentence for a family. The resulting divorce threatens the financial, social and emotional stability in which children will be raised.
These factors multiply the direct costs of keeping more than 1 percent of our population in prison.
The nation is in this problem not because of rising crime rates but because of public policies for dealing with crime. Legislatures have created longer sentences for crimes, done away with probation for many offenses and enacted three-strike laws that result in longer prison sentences.
These measures have made lawmakers appear tough on crime for their re-election campaigns, but they have imposed a terrible cost on their states.
The solution to this problem lies in finding other ways to deal with criminals who don’t pose a threat to public safety.
Drug offenders should be sent to drug courts and other highly supervised forms of treatment. It does little good to lock up a drug offender who simply resumes his destructive path when he is released from prison.
Other nonviolent offenders can be channeled into systems that require restitution, community service, monitored house arrest and other routine supervision.
Pursuing these options would allow the justice system to reserve prisons for those who pose a threat to the rest of society. Violent offenders could be kept in prison longer. States could save some of the money spent on prisons. Nonviolent offenders could keep their careers, continue paying taxes rather than consuming them, and maintain their own families. And more of these families could be kept together.
It is costing us too much to lock up so many people. We need to use better alternatives