This was previously covered in several American outlets. An Arizona State Representative, Pamela Powers Hannley, opposes mandatory life sentences for child sex offences. She claims it would disproportionately lock up people of colour. She focuses on INCARCERATION RATE as a metric, while ignoring the CRIME RATE, the only metric that matters.
She also leaves out that the life sentences would apply to REPEAT offenders. A huge omission.
1. Trafficking, Smuggling, Child Exploitation
Serious issues like smuggling or trafficking are routinely avoided in public discourse. Also important are the links between open borders and human smuggling; between ideology and exploitation; between tolerance and exploitation; between abortion and organ trafficking; or between censorship and complicity. Mainstream media will also never get into the organizations who are pushing these agendas, nor the complicit politicians. These topics don’t exist in isolation, and are interconnected.
2. Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley, Her Own Words
Let’s lock up the chronic abusers. I’m tired of reading stories about priests, church elders, coaches, Boy Scout leaders, and other adults who have spent their lives preying on children. Boyer’s 2019 bill would have given victims a voice. HB2889 doesn’t do that.
Mandatory sentencing feeds the prison industrial complex because it dictates a (often overly harsh) minimum sentence that judges must stick to. Why is mandatory sentencing a big deal? Because we know that justice in the United States is not colorblind. If our justice system were fair, the prison population would reflect the country’s population in terms of race and ethnicity. We all know that people of color are disproportionately imprisoned in this country. Once they have been prisoners, they lose their right to vote, and it is harder for them to get jobs and housing.
I voted against this bill because I stand against mandatory sentencing, for prison reform, and with the American Civil Liberties Union, Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and the American Friends Service Committee.
Let’s lengthen the time for adults who were abused as children to come forward and identify their abusers. That would go farther to stop child abuse than Biasiuuci’s bill.
This is actually an elected Representative in the Arizona State Legislature. Pamela Powers Hannley opposes a Bill to give child sexual offenders a mandatory life sentences. Although she does raise a few interesting issues about flaws in criminal justice, she loses the argument with another point. She opposes it since “people of colour” are the vast majority in prison. She believes that the prison population is supposed to reflect the nation’s general makeup, and not the makeup of people who commit crimes.
Strange that these types never seem to mind the fact that men comprise the bulk of the prison population. It seems equity has its limitations.
3. FBI Crime Statistics For Year 2019
51.2% – Murder and non-negligent manslaughter
26.7% – Rape
52.7% – Robbery
33.2% – Aggravated Assault
41.8% – Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.
42.2% – Prostitution and commercialized vice
20.6% – Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)
28.3% – Offenses against the family and children
That is from Table 43A of the FBI Crime Statistics for the year 2019. The numbers apply to blacks, who make up roughly 13% of the overall U.S. population. Are they disproportionately represented in American prisons? Yes, and for good reason. They commit a disproportionate amount of violent and sexual crimes.
However, a flaw in the reporting lumps whites and hispanics together, which makes the white crime rate seem much higher than it really is.
The idea that a prison population must reflect the population as a whole is ridiculous. It should reflect the makeup of people who actually commit serious crimes.
Perhaps Representative Hannley would support Gladue Rights, where we have different sets of laws based on race, in order to address these “disparities”. Or maybe she would support something like Bill C-75, which waters down the penalties for child sex offences. What does she think of California Senator Scott Wiener?
4. Text Of Arizona House Bill 2889
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:
Section 1. Section 13-705, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:
13-705. Dangerous crimes against children; sentences; definitions
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A. A person who is at least eighteen years of age and who is convicted of a dangerous crime against children in the first degree involving commercial sexual exploitation of a minor or child sex trafficking or involving molestation of a child and the person has previously been convicted of a dangerous crime against children in the first degree involving molestation of a child shall be sentenced to imprisonment in the custody of the state department of corrections for natural life. A person who is sentenced to natural life is not eligible for commutation, parole, work furlough, work release or release from confinement on any basis for the remainder of the person’s natural life.
Q. S. For the purposes of this section:
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1. “Dangerous crime against children” means any of the following that is committed against a minor who is under fifteen years of age:
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(a) Second degree murder.
(b) Aggravated assault resulting in serious physical injury or involving the discharge, use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.
(c) Sexual assault.
(d) Molestation of a child.
(e) Sexual conduct with a minor.
(f) Commercial sexual exploitation of a minor.
(g) Sexual exploitation of a minor.
(h) Child abuse as prescribed in section 13-3623, subsection A, paragraph 1.
(i) Kidnapping.
(j) Sexual abuse.
(k) Taking a child for the purpose of prostitution as prescribed in section 13-3206.
(l) Child sex trafficking as prescribed in section 13-3212.
(m) Involving or using minors in drug offenses.
(n) Continuous sexual abuse of a child.
(o) Attempted first degree murder.
(p) Sex trafficking.
(q) Manufacturing methamphetamine under circumstances that cause physical injury to a minor.
(r) Bestiality as prescribed in section 13-1411, subsection A, paragraph 2.
(s) Luring a minor for sexual exploitation.
(t) Aggravated luring a minor for sexual exploitation.
(u) Unlawful age misrepresentation.
(v) Unlawful mutilation.
(w) Sexual extortion as prescribed in section 13-1428.
If she is going to oppose this Bill, HB2889, let’s be honest about what’s in it. It applies to people PREVIOUSLY CONVICTED OF certain serious offences, who commit them again. This concerns repeat offenders.
Moreover, the list of “dangerous crimes against children” includes extremely serious charges. These are not something that can be brushed off as youthful immaturity.
But sure, let’s not impose life sentences on repeat, child sexual predators, because white people aren’t committing enough crimes.
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