Apr 12 2009
Drug Dealer Gets Longer Sentence Than Most Murderers
I was reading my local newspaper. The biggest meth dealer in Perry County received a 60-year prison sentence Tuesday. This is a good thing. It’s not going to stop the flow of meth, it’ll just give his competitor a larger income until someone else starts cooking. This guy was caught in 2006. Since then there haven’t been noticeable rolling meth labs going down my road, but i’m sure they’ll start cooking again when then police back off because they are certain they have stopped it.
Well, I read the comments at the end of the article and found this anonymous comment:
“He could have committed murder and got less than 60 years. Where is the equality in our justice system? Murders, Rapist, and Child Molesters would get less than this! Why isn’t that they being treated in the same manner? Of course I know that some of them get life sentences, but there are several that can get out in 10-15 years. “
I’m not sure whether the person that said this was implying that his sentence was too long or that murderers, rapists, and child molesters have it easy. Anyway, it got me to thinking. If someone kills another person and gets a life sentence, in Indiana most of the time they get out in 20 years. If a 19-year-old man convinces your 14-year-old daughter to have sex with him, it’s now called child molesting. Then, if the same guy makes it to court without being killed first, he’ll most likely get house arrest and probation. In this area a rape (if reported at all) is normally plea bargained down to aggravated assault or simple battery, and the attacker gets probation. Yet this guy that cooks and deals meth to people who are looking for it anyway gets 60 years. On good behavior he will still serve more time than the guy that committed murder. Think about that.
I’m glad this guy got 60 years. He deserves more, meth is dangerous stuff. I have watched someone close to me struggle with a meth addiction. When he couldn’t find it he turned violent.
The justice system is messed up, though. Murderers, rapists, and child molesters should serve more time than this drug dealer. A life sentence should mean that the guy stays in prison for the rest of his life. As far as sexual crimes go, they deserve life sentences too. If they’ve done it more than once, they need to be castrated.
Be Careful Himler
Castration or involuntary sterilization is not a new idea. It has its roots in the early 20th century eugenics movement. Our own great state of Indiana was the first state to enact an involuntary sterilization law in 1907. The law allowed for the involuntary sterilization of criminals as well as the mentally ill, deaf, blind, orphans, and homeless. The eugenics movement in the U.S. was only the beginning that saw its final conclusion in Hitlers gas chambers. Many people don’t know that only about half those killed in Nazi death camps were Jews. The first killed were the mentally insane. The justification for doing so was “well after all they are better off. It just cruel to make someone continue living like that.” I know this is not what you are trying to say in your article, but once you start going down this road it is not a great leap of logic to end up there. I wish the eugenics movement was relegated to the ash heap of history, but sadly it is alive and well in the “Right to Die” and abortion movements of today.
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html
i like your blog. i’m taking the same approach and just started mine. mind if i add you to my blogroll?
I agree that the weight of sentencing for drug offenses versus murder offenses is completely ridiculous. I actually believe that our society is far too soft on people who commit murder, rape, and pedophilia. I am a drastic person and I would agree that child molester, repeat rapists and the like should be castrated/killed, but I understand Joe’s comment as well. It’s a slippery slope once you start deciding who doesn’t deserve to live or reproduce. It wouldn’t take much to get some as drastic as me in a place of power who has prejudices against certain people and take that process too far.
Very insightful piece!
www.walkinglikesnoopy.today.com
I love how you are so dogmatic and apprently brain-washed by our society that you don’t care about ruining people lives who harm no one.
If someone is selling drugs to someone who wants them, that in itself should not be a crime punishable with even a year un prison. If I want drugs, and I buy drugs from someone, they are not guilty of doing anything to me.
And arresting him only makes me pay more for drugs somewhere else, and probablly have to commit more crim to afford my habbit then I would have otherwise. The DEA even measures their success by how much they raise to price of goods for addicts. The DEA actually creates more real crime by arresting people who simply give people what they want.
And if junkies are locked up, or dealers, you make getting a real job even more unlikely for these folks, and you hurt worsen life that they themselves are already making bad.
But no, arres the dealers, god knows your helping other drugs dealers make more money. They are the sole benefactors of arresting Drug Dealers.
So when you say that they deserve more time then rapists and murderers, you disgust me and are insult to humanity.
Raping a child will not get you sixty years in prison. Neither will actually killing someone usually, and never will for manslaughter.
How dare you. You are a disgrace to man kind. Sending away people simply because you don’t like drugs. Since you know this has no positive affect on society other than helping other Dealers, and politicians whom make campaigns against evil drugs.
WHen someone rapes your daughter are sprays his man fluids all over her innocent face, you should be disgusted that you said Drug dealers deserve jail sentences longer than the man forced his penis into your daughters bleeding vagina.
In your mind the dealer must have committed the worse crime.
You are the reason so many people lives are stolen from them by the government. If you think that dealers are the reason their are addicts, then you must also think that G are guilty of the murder when someone uses their guns. Do you understand your contradictory logic?
I hope someone rapes or murders someone close to you so that you can understand the injustice of this. Or I hope someone you love is arrested for having drugs, because you know people deserve to be locked up for choosing unhealthy things to consume.
A drug dealer is no more guilty of overdoses or addiction then McDonalds is for heart attacks or obesity.
The founding fathers would be outraged at the drug laws in this nation.
You are insult to our nation.
@ Joe on August 01 - Did you even read the story?? I was actually complaining that child molester, rapists, and murderer DON’T get as much time as this particular drug dealer gets… pay attention before you comment!!
I have read this story and i completely understand your agruement. I am 17 years old from Goshen Indiana, in experience i have a father that has been put in Westville prison for meth. I believe it is true that a murder, rapest and others get less time then a person that is charged for dealing or just in habit of themselves. I believe the whole Justice system is really messed up, because how are these sentencings rightful.
Just because the people are sentenced and off the streets doesnt mean they wont get out and make the same mistakes over. The law enforcers say they want to get the crimes off the streets but if they have all these people that get busted and run their mouths to the cops to get other people busted just to receive a slap on the back and released back out. How is that right i mean arent they doing the same thing other drug abusers are put in prison for?
Ashley, I see your point… if someone gets caught selling drugs all they have to do is point their finger at someone else and they’ll be back on the street before anyone knew they were arrested… I don’t agree with this either…
There are a lot of things I don’t agree with in today’s judicial system… rapists need to spend the rest of their lives in a cell thinking about what they’ve done… murderers need to be on death row…
in this story a drug dealer got 60 years… I’ve known of a few rapists to get probation… to me that’s completely backwards