Anthony Abbate: not the only bad guy who's not locked up

I saw a lot of outrage reading the comments following this article:

Cop gets probation for beating bartender

While I understand that as police we are (and should be) held to a higher standard, I just couldn't work up a head of steam over Abbate's sentence.  I've already made my argument that Abbate's sentence was not out of line with what normally goes on in Cook County courtrooms. 

There was one comment though, in the form of a question, that I'd really like to address:

Doesn't ANYONE serve time for their crime anymore?

The short answer is, in Cook County, not really.  No.

There are a few possible reasons for that.  I'll toss a couple out for you to consider.

A high percentage of violent crime involves "victims" who are themselves involved in some type of criminal activity.  Obviously, cops have never expected much cooperation from criminals, and we're pretty good at working around that.  The real tragedy is when an innocent person is killed or hurt by violence directed at one criminal by another.  This appears to be the case with the murder of 9-year-old Chastity Turner.  Her father, who was also wounded in the shooting, is not cooperating with investigators.

In wide swaths of the city, and in significant parts of the suburbs, there is a fundamental lack of respect for, and cooperation with, the police.  If a fraction of the outrage that some communities direct at "police brutality" was instead directed at addressing pathologies in their own neighborhoods, we'd see a significant drop in crime.  In areas where drug and gang crime have taken hold, law abiding citizens have either been demoralized or intimidated into remaining silent. 

CPD Detective Robert Soto and Kathryn Romberg were murdered in August 2008, and police were able to make an arrest within a week.  The suspect, Jason Austin, was released when someone provided an alibi for the whereabouts of his car, and several witnesses suddenly recanted their statements.  A 16-year-old girl ended up pleading guilty to witness intimidation in one incident related to the case. 

The "no snitching" code is not limited to the worst inner-city neighborhoods.  I've run into first time suburban offenders lately, the kinds of kids who would have been easy to get information from 5 years ago, who act like jaibirds.  Our home invasion suspect from earlier this month turned himself in Tuesday, bearing a signed affidavit purporting to be from our victim.  The affidavit claims that we forced the victim to sign complaints, and that he no longer wants to prosecute the case.

Then we have the court system, and the Illinois Department of Corrections.  Here's a list of the suspects I've mentioned so far on this blog:

• Sheila Ferguson, shot while attempting to disarm a police officer,
• Rasaan Shannon, who disarmed a police officer who was trapped in a crashed squad car,
• Kevin Walker & Shawn Gaston, who murdered CPD Officer Alex Valadez,
• Kimberly Miniea & Kimberly Petersen, the mother-daughter brothel team, and
• Gregory Gentles, the library-loving weenie waver

These suspects all have something in common.  They all have lengthy criminal histories, and in some cases were already on probation/parole, or had active court cases pending.  A reasonable person might ask, why on earth were these people out on the street and not locked away in a jail cell?

Understand that a 3 year prison sentence is not really a 3 year prison sentence.  It's more like an 18 month prison sentence.  That's assuming that the judge sentences them to the IDOC in the first place.  Probation or parole is supposed to control a convicted criminal's behavior without having to incarcerate him--if you're given 2 year's probation, and you commit a crime or violate the probation 6 months after sentencing, in theory you can be locked up for the remaining 18 months.  If you get paroled 3 years into a 5 year sentence, and violate your parole, you face going back to the joint for the last 2 years of your sentence.  In real life, in Cook County, Illinois, it does not work that way.

I'll give you an example I'm familiar with.  Meet Christopher Wright, IDOC inmate # R30181:

Wright was recently arrested and charged with a series of convenience store robberies. 

I met Christopher Wright in the summer of 2006, after he was arrested for committing a series of convenience store robberies in the suburbs.  His M.O. was to go into a convenience store, make a small purchase, and then repeatedly punch the clerk about the head when the clerk opened the cash register.  Wright has been arrested nearly 20 times since 2001.  He pleaded guilty to three robberies in August 2006, and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.  Wright was paroled on February 10, 2009.  Figure it out: he served roughly 29 months in prison on a 6 year sentence!

It gets better.  On August 8, 2003, Wright was sentenced to a 5 year sentence for burglary, residential burglary and robbery.  That means he was already on parole for those crimes when we had him in custody in 2006.  So, even though he was already on parole when he committed our robbery in 2006, he still didn't get the maximum sentence, and it didn't prevent him from being paroled again in February 2009.  Parole didn't work?  Hmmm...let's give him...PAROLE!  The result: more victims. 

I'm going to follow this most recent case and see what happens.