Most citizens are shocked to find out that violent criminals serve only 5.5 years for murder or 3 years for rape.
But those are the sobering statistics wrought from lenient early-release practices.
Government statistics (for 36 states and the District of Columbia) show that although violent offenders received an average sentence of seven years and eleven months imprisonment, they actually served an average of only two years and eleven months in prison–or only 37 percent of their imposed sentences. The statistics also show that, typically, 51 percent of violent criminals were discharged from prison in two years or less, and 76 percent were back on the streets in four years or less.
We need to revise our current parole and probation procedures. Criminals who knowhow to work the system can be set free on bond, on their own recognizance, for re-habilitation, or for supervision. Three out of four people serving a criminal sentence are currently on probation or parole. In other words, they are out on the streets ready to commit another crime!
Many states are enacting “truth in sentencing” laws that require violent criminals to serve at least 85 percent of their prison sentence before becoming eligible for parole or other early release possibilities. Other states and the federal government are considering “three strikes and you’re out.” These laws mandate that those convicted of three violent crimes be put in jail for life.
Incarceration incapacitates violent criminals and keeps them off the streets, but it also deters would-be criminals. Criminologists have shown that an increase in arrest rates reduces the crime rate, and they have also demonstrated that an increase in sentence length also decreases crime rates. Catching more criminals, convicting more criminals, and keeping more criminals behind bars will reduce the crime rate.
References
1. U.S. Crime Statistics for 1990.
2. “Cost of Crime: $674 Billion,” U.S. News and World Report, 17 January 1994, pp. 40-41.
3. “Killer Teens,” U.S. News and World Report, 17 January 1994, p. 26.
4. James Wooten, “Lessons of Pop Jordan’s Death,” Newsweek, 13 September 1993, p. 12.
5. Morgan Reynolds, “Why Does Crime Pay?” National Center for Policy Analysis Backgrounder, No. 110 (1990).
6. Mortimer Zuckerman, “War on Crime, By the Numbers,” U.S. News and World Report, 17 January 1994, pp. 67-68.
7. Ben Wattenburg, “Crime Solution– Lock ’em Up,” Wall Street Journal, 17 December 1993.
8. Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Corrections Reporting Program, 1988.
9. Zuckerman, “War on Crime.”
10. William Rusher, “Liberal `Solutions’ Leave America Crime- Ridden,” Human Events, 14 January 1994, p. 15.
2nd Amendment, Shooting & Firearms Blog 
Winston, Are you making up that crap about 5.5 years for murder? Is that an attempt to take the focus off the fact that we have such shabby gun control laws that any criminal or mental defective can easily get a gun?
Violent people need to stay in jail longer, no question. But your ideas about gun rights have to be curtailed in order to make it harder for them to get guns. Take responsibility for you part of it, man. You condone laws or the lack thereof that feed the gun flow. That’s a problem with an easy solution.
Mike,
I don’t make stuff up….look at the references, everything on this site is referenced. My ideas about Gun control don’t have to be curtailed, because the 2nd Amendment doesn’t restrict firearms in any way. That has been done my ill-informed, non-constitutional supporting politicians and people like you. You are expressing your 1st amendment rights….with no restrictions!! I don’t condone any laws excepts those that allow law abiding citizens to own guns and those that keep guns away from felons, mentally unstable people, illegals aliens and criminals that should incarcerated, but are not because of a lenient judicial system. You are condoning a broken judicial system that allows these folks to walk on our streets and subject law abiding citizens to their Wrath!