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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Francesca Hong, the most liberal candidate in the race for governor, has a vision. She imagines an ideal world where there are no prisons and no police.
Well, granted, if men were angels. We are all free to dream of utopia.
But Francesca Hong isn’t dreaming. She actually stands by her comments for the real world. She says – quote – we are talking about a vision. And vision informs policy. And a vision where everyone has economy security. A vision of accountability does not have to include armed law enforcement. A perfect world would be a world without prisons.”
She says that such a transformation may not happen in her “four, eight, or twelve years as governor.”
No, because she will not be governor.
Because thinking people know that there is evil in this world. Armed law enforcement is needed to keep people safe. Prisons are needed, not just for punishment, but to separate violent and dangerous people from the rest of society.
That’s not changing.
To say that poverty is the source of crime simply isn’t true. There are millions of poor people who live non-criminal lives. There are wealthy people who commit violent crimes.
Rehabilitation or alternatives to incarceration have a role to play, but not in every case. Tell me Candidate Hong, what does your perfect world hold for someone like Thomas Patterson of Barron County. 8 years ago be became infatuated with a 13-year-old girl who he saw getting off a school bus. He learned where she lived, broke into her family’s home, killed her mother and father, and held her for 88 days until she escaped. Is he mentally ill? Obviously. But his illness manifested into a double murder and kidnapping. He’s serving a life prison sentence, and is exactly where he should be.
What about a person who will simply not stop drinking and driving? Someone whose been caught seven, eight, nine, ten times. Do we allow them to continue until they cause a fatal accident? Or, at some point, do we say that their behavior is so reckless that they must be separated from the rest of society?
Milwaukee had 141 homicides last year. Shall none of those killers face the possibility of jail?
I have a proposal for Francesa Hong. If you become governor will you forgo your own security detail? Should there be no armed guards outside your office? Anyone who wants to could just come up and have a chat? No state troopers to drive you around the state? No need to secure the areas where you are speaking. In the perfect world you invision, none of that would be necessary.
That is indeed a utopian fantasy. Francesca Hong will never be governor.
Chris Conley
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