Get your own Free Home Page"What we have here is a failure to communicate," or at least to communicate to the voting public exactly what was really done within the Criminal-Justice System. The smoke screens, often spoken of by officials, have given you, Joe Public, little insight into what has actually been done. The promises of the past lay forgotten, and Accountability for those promises lies with them.
What would be nice, for a change, is to see the public hold these officials accountable to the promises they made to get elected in the first place. How about it, Mr. Governor, exactly what have you done to keep your promise to harness the god-like powers of the Ohio Parole Authority?
What really ended up being passed was not what you, the Public, were led to believe. We still have a Parole Board, we still have Parolees, and they now call it Community Release and Judicial Release; however, no significant change, other than renaming, was actuallly put into law. So exactly what was all the fuss over Senate Bill 2? Good question! It did not abolish the discretionary power of the Parole Board, and it is still very much business as usual.
The Parole Board would not be under scrutiny again in the media had the changes promised been, in fact, implemented. Someone needs to ask exactly what did this State spend ONE BILLION DOLLARS implementing. It sure was not the abolishment of the Parole Board's Discretionary Powers, or the financial liability that goes along with that power.
"Mandatory guidelines" proposal for the APA is not only a good idea, it is also a valid gripe by voters who were promised this very thing -- prior to the last election. It should no longer be an issue of what to do about it, as there was supposedly already a plan to get this done and make it law. However, for some reason -- it was not done and politicians have led you to believe that it was. This must become an issue, because the exact same politicians will, no doubt, use this as an issue once again. "Why?" you ask. Because you, the voter, do not hold them accountable to their word. You seem to forget that this problem was supposedly already dealt with, yet here we are again demanding the exact same thing -- that the Parole Board's god-like powers get taken away and replaced by the guidelines we supposedly already have.
Politicians have once again misled you into believing that all which was promised was fulfilled when this is just not true. The Crime Bill, now so popular due to being only partially implemented, is causing an uproar, and smart politicians would do well to heed the outcry. Or, perhaps the voters are so used to being lied to that they no longer hold these politicians accountable to what it was that they said to get elected in the first place?
The only real questions at this point are: Do these politicians, who ran for election on these issues, plan on running again? And will you, the voting public, accept being lied to on issues which you obviously are deeply concerned about? The BIG question is: "Are you, the voter, going to hold these politicians accountable for the promises they have already made to you in the past elections before you let them make more?"
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