#2 Peter, as a law-enforcement officer I can tell you that the biggest problem with prosecution and conviction is the ridiculously inflated expectations that juries have regarding evidence. They see on TV that evidence can be collected from any concievable surface and processed in the time it takes to run a couple of ads. They are also given the impression that Detectives have no other cases and unlimited resources to expend. Shows like CSI also train the criminal in what evidence looks like and ways to avoid leaving it behind.
Twenty years ago when I became an officer having the gun in hand, the appropriate slug in the victim and a confession would gaurantee a conviction. Now that is almost enough to get a warrant, before trial we would need a complete ballistics workup, DNA on everybody, gun-shot residue test results and an army of forensic technicians. All that so the courts can use the “Bass Masters” program (catch and release)and put this thug back on the street.
Every trial is a classroom, teaching the police, lawyers and criminals new aspects of their chosen careers. The problem with early release and parole systems is that each time the criminal is convicted he learns things that make him harder to catch and even harder to convict. A couple of generations of this and we have built up a large body of “institutional knowledge” in our criminal classes, often to the point where the criminal has a better grasp of his issues at trial than the Prosecutor or Defense Counsel.
In the old days you went to prison and stayed there, now you jusr check in and get free health care for a little while.
