This is an odd spot to start the conversation on “national domestic violence”. Domestic is defined as internal, affecting a country or a home.
The circumstances of what I am describing to you actually took place and started in 2019 in a Borough of New York City called Queens.
I'm using this as an example because it is very important to understand that a United States senator is one of 100 people that is responsible for running the country, making laws, approving foreign treaties, and confirming the people that run the country and assist the president. Therefore, a United States senator is as responsible for understanding what goes on in Montana, as in California, as in Texas, or any of the other states.
The New York Police Department took four years to investigate and build a case against two gangs that openly projected violence and control over the community known as south Jamaica. Thirty gang members were involved in this investigation. Now I want you to understand these predators that victimize our society are not bricklayers by day and gang members at night, their profession is crime.
Now let us make a leap to what people rarely associate with crime, the financial cost. Their business model is to prey on people like you and me. They kill, maim, and steal from their neighbors. How much did it cost the taxpayers of New York City to investigate this? How much will it cost to try them in a court of law? How much will it cost to house them in prison for 20 or more years? It is not difficult to estimate what New York taxpayers will pay each year. Approximately 1.5 million for a max security prison to protect themselves from these predators. Thirty career predators will cost 20 to 50 million dollars over their lifetime.
How many more predators live among the good citizens of New York City? Where did these predators come from? Why did they become predators? How do we change the decay of our society? How cruel do we need to become? What price must we, as a society, extract from the predator before the cost to commit the crime becomes too high for the predator to pay?
Now I want you to imagine what will happen when there's too much competition for crime in the cities and these predators discover how much easier it is, and safer for them, to move to rural towns that do not have a properly equipped police force to handle this type of crime. I do not want to mislead you into believing there are not career criminals working their trade in the state of Montana. What I am saying to you is this level of crime has no regard for human life.
Just south of our southern border organized crime is referred to as “cartels” and the police do not run the local towns. I cannot imagine anyone in the state of Montana, or anywhere in our country, that would want to raise a family living next to a career predator. How many of our children need to be corrupted by this criminal element? How many unsolved murders? How many innocent people will we tolerate being killed before we act? I say look across our country, the time to act is now.
I prioritize safety and security for Montana's families above all else. There are a few things that's worth going into debt for as a nation, this is one of them. If this rot is allowed to exist it will destroy us. A cultural shift is needed. Teaching our children a code of ethics, honesty, integrity, and most importantly teach them to detect people of low moral character so they are not being taken advantage of.
We should all be able to agree that criminals should not be allowed to infect our society. We need to examine our laws and make our population aware of them using public service announcements. We need to cultivate a culture of “if you see something say something”. And furthermore, we need a culture that punishes the people who bear false witness against their neighbor for their own gain. We need laws that lock up career criminals for life.
Bill Clinton signed into law in the early 90’s “three strikes and you are out”. That referred to committing three felonies, and you spend the rest of your life in prison. He also put another hundred thousand cops on the streets. This caused the crime rate to drop. If you have compassion for criminals, they will exploit that weakness.
-We need to reinvent our prison system so some of these people can be rehabilitated. People that plot to commit crimes against their neighbors should be harshly dealt with. The person with a family who unintentionally harmed another should not be dealt with so harshly the first time.
-We need public service announcements that tell people how to act when they come in contact with law-enforcement.
-We need new laws that protect our police from undue punishment for actions taken during the course of their duties. Mobs should never dictate policy!
Good Samaritans should be protected even when things go wrong. No one should have their life destroyed because they tried to help their fellow citizens. Civil penalties should be capped and elected representatives should be required to justify their decision for settling out of court.
These are things I have thought about. I do not have the answers for everything, this is just a start. This will take decades to fix but it is worth fixing. It is the fabric of our society.
Join me and send a message to the rest of the country. Donate a dollar or more, show them we are uniting.
Thank You,
- MICHAEL HUMMERT