© Copyright 1994 Sovereign Services ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Introduction
The article that follows was downloaded from the Internet. Minor editorial
changes have been made. Headings have been included and a "Build Freedom
Solution" appended. The article was written before the collapse of
the Soviet Union.
First, the legal systems of America and the Soviet Union (specifically Poland) are compared. Second, the American "law enforcement growth industry" is described. Third, a common law solution is proposed.
America vs. Soviet Union
In trying to appraise this issue of law enforcement, courts, prisons, punishment,
crime, rehabilitation, the death penalty, incarceration, and cruel and
unusual punishment, much has been written and much more will be written.
One point that all seem to agree upon is that crime in America is out of
control and something must be done about it.
We call this America, the land of the free, and refer to the Soviet Union as a police state, but the facts tell us another story. The facts show that this country holds more people per capita in jails than the Soviet Union.
The Russians have one-third the number of people incarcerated than we do in America. In realty, citizens of America are living in a police state and are completely unaware of it. There is little difference between our government and the one in Poland. For example do people in Poland:
It makes no difference how these questions are answered. Citizens of any country who are so constrained are not free, but living under tyranny. It matters not whether we have it better than the Poles. Both systems are tyrannical in nature - the only difference being the degree of tyranny being applied and the understanding of the system by the citizens. The Poles understand that they live in tyranny, while Americans have been convinced that it can't happen here, even though it has already come to pass. Americans recognize tyranny in other countries, but in their own refer to it as "law and order." However, a police state is a police state, is a police state...
The Law Enforcement Growth Industry
There must be a solution that is simple; one that will free us from this
morass of crime and punishment. Any solution must conform to our Constitution,
quit punishing the innocent, and return to punishing the guilty. The current
system does nothing more than spawn a system of recidivism, homosexual
behavior, and prisons that are, in reality, schools for crime - not rehabilitation.
Currently victims lose their property; criminals never make restitution to the damaged party but are deprived of freedom; and the taxpayers who are fleeced out of their tax dollars to fund these human warehouses. The beneficiaries of this system are public defenders, lawyers, judges, jailers, prison guards, law enforcement agencies, and political administrations. They literally thrive off of this morass of crime and punishment.
Crime does pay, and it pays handsomely. What is worse is that not only does the victim lose by having his property stolen, but he loses even more through taxes to the "law enforcement growth industry" to warehouse the thief.
Solutions to the crime problem must provide restitution for the victim, punish the wrong-doer, decrease the prison population, cut out the over-crowding of those prisons that cannot be emptied, eliminate involuntary capital punishment, make the judicial system self-supporting, and make the entire taxing cost for today's criminal justice system pay for itself in productive accomplishment instead of the incredible waste of manpower currently taking place in our "human warehouses."
How many broken homes, welfare payments, divorces, fines, jail terms, and broken lives are inflicted upon the innocent, the poor, the defenseless, in the name of "law and order" for the benefit of the "law enforcement growth industry?" How many people derive their livelihood from the law enforcement growth industry? How many agencies are created by legislatures, city councils, and congress?
In the state of Idaho it would probably be conservative to estimate that over 2,500 persons are employed in the law enforcement growth industry. That sounds like a lot but consider the following:
It should become quite clear that we have no idea how many persons are employed by the law enforcement industry. Each and every one of these people are looking for lawbreakers to apprehend and punish in order to justify their employment.
It seems as though it is the purpose of government to build a system of "law and order" so big that everyone will either be employed by law enforcement agencies or warehoused in prisons. It would appear that the citizens are simply being used by government to further that end.
This law enforcement growth industry is nothing more than a business (law enforcement agencies) and customer (people of the state) relationship. Like any business, this industry needs more and more customers to continue to grow and prosper in order to justify its existence and size to the people, in order to obtain more funds to further said growth.
The Law Enforcement Growth Cycle
The growth cycle goes something like this:
If everyone in the state could obey all of the statutes passed by the legislature, over 2,500 government employees would have no reason to go to work in the morning.
In order for the sheriff or any administrator to justify their budget they must show expenses. So we see every year a steady rise in crime. We also see this industry exploit their self-generated growth problem through the media.
We constantly hear about all the crime being committed, and the answer to increasing crime is more laws, more police, more prosecutors, more judges, and more money. We never hear how they propose to eliminate crime, prisons, jails, and jailers. All we hear is that more and more money is needed to combat crime.
So we pass more laws, hire more police, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and spend more money, only to learn next year that crime has risen by 5% and what we need to combat it is more money, laws, police, prosecutors, and judges. It has been that way for years.
It could be argued that there was a year when, in one or two categories, crime declined in Boise or Pocatello or East Podunk, USA. That's either a foible in the charts or a goof up in the industry by falling down on the job and not selling enough product.
Headlines do not exist stating, "Idaho's prison population declines for the fifth consecutive year," or "Sheriff submits third successive budget with 5% reduction in requests." We've been spending more every year for law enforcement, and since we spend more on the crime industry, we get what we pay for - more crime!
For an example of the problem, let's look at city X. Lets assume City X has one hundred policemen. Today the crime rate is up 5% over last year, so the media is told that the reason one hundred policemen could not hold crime to the same level as the year before was that the police force was under-staffed, under-budgeted, and there were some defects in the existing statutes, so we need more money and some new laws.
City X gets five new policemen, 5% more money and another 7% to compensate for inflation (another government-created industry), and five plus new laws to enforce. The product this industry sells is crime, so our product line has been expanded by X number more laws and we have increased our sales staff by 5% to one hundred and five.
The operating budget has been expanded to cover the additional overhead. Our police chief, the sales manager, now has a larger sales staff and additional responsibility, and therefore needs a raise. Supervisors must have a like gain, and also obtain raises.
Now we have to prepare for the coming year's expansion. We must justify our expanded budget, size, and new products to the board of directors, the city counsel/legislators/commissioners, and our corporate chief, the mayor.
The sales staff is sent into the streets to ticket more violators, arrest more drunks, catch or entrap more prostitutes, drug pushers, etc. With proper management we increase our business by at least another 5%. Now we continue to make sure the media are aware of the growing crime rate. The media need to understand that there is more crime because we are under-staffed and under-budgeted to handle the increase in crime, and besides, there are several loopholes in the law that need filling. Yes, we need some more laws.
To illustrate the seriousness of the problem the chief of police will recount some of the more horrendous crimes of the past year. Just like insurance salesmen sell insurance by using fear of death to motivate the customer, the law enforcement growth industry uses fear of crime to sell their product.
So another year comes and goes, and now we have one hundred and ten police, more new laws, and at least a 10% increase over our budget of two years ago. The product line is up at least ten items over two years ago, making the customer subject to a larger product line (more statutes). Now our increased sales staff can get back out on the street to find and entrap more violators, and arrest them to provide an increase in business for the county sheriff, so he can likewise increase his staff and budget.
This increases the population of the jail and causes the sheriff to go to the commissioners for greater funding to care for, house, feed, and guard the increasing load of criminals. He then insures that his problem gets before the media so he can increase his empire by at least 5% per year.
A proportion of the new increase in sales (arrests and jailing) by the police, bleeds over into felonies, and these criminals must be housed in the state prison. The prison fills up with felons and the warden goes to the legislature to get his budget, staff, and salaries increased accordingly, and maybe even get authorization to build a new prison.
Of course, all of this business creates activity in numerous support areas. For example, the more crime, the more food is bought to feed them, more buildings are needed to house them, more judges are needed to handle the case loads, and more public defenders and lawyers are needed to defend the customers (citizens).
The cycle is basically complete, and now we need more lawyers from the law schools, who in turn become the legislators, who in turn pass new laws, which in turn expands the product line, which in turn raises sales (crimes), which in turn expands the budget, which increases the sales staff (police), which in turn increases sales, which in turn, which in turn, which in turn...
The customer of this industry is the average "Joe Citizen." It's the citizen who pays the bills. It's the citizen who is persecuted in the name of crime prevention. It's the citizen who is entrapped into committing violations of statutes by law enforcement personnel, who are simply justifying their existence by insuring that more crime occurs.
Sales people of the law enforcement growth industry need arrests and convictions to make their statistics look good, to make them appear productive, and to meet their sales quotas.
Who pays for all this "law and order?" The citizen, the taxpayer, the general public. We are buying all this so-called "law and order" and are being sold a lot of nothing for something.
The Real Thief
Joe is a college student, bright, extremely intelligent, and low on funds.
The following is a typical conversation between Joe and another citizen:
Citizen: What happened to cause you to be put into prison?
Joe: I stole $350.00 (he replies matter of fact).
Citizen: So you're guilty of the crime and deserve to be punished.
Joe: Yes (he replies matter of fact).
Citizen: Tell me exactly what happened.
Joe: OK, I was in the school auditorium, broke and didn't know how
to make ends meet, and I saw this lady's open purse on a chair. It had
money in it, so I took the purse. Apparently someone saw me take the purse
and called the police. They told the police who I was, and the police came
to my apartment and arrested me. That's all there was to it. The law in
Idaho is that any theft over $150.00 is grand larceny. I was convicted
of grand larceny and sentenced to indeterminate five years. That means
I can spend anywhere from eighteen months to five years in prison.
Citizen: Did you plead guilty to the charge?
Joe: No, I plead not guilty. My public defender advised me to take
it to trial. [Maybe some public defenders are motivated to do whatever
will bring them personally the most bucks!]
Citizen: How long was the trial?
Joe: One and one-half days.
Citizen: How much time have you served so far?
Joe: Eleven months.
Citizen: Did the lady get her purse and money back?
Joe: No, I spent the money to pay my bills and I threw the purse
away.
This is an actual true conversation and can be repeated in a variety of ways, hundreds of times, by judges, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and public defenders. This shows how a real crime happens. There was a real criminal and a real victim. Now let's see how much this crime actually cost the taxpayers to apprehend, try, convict, incarcerate, and then parole this man back into productive society.
It cost at least $2,000.00 to try, defend, and incarcerate Joe. Joe is going to spend a minimum of eighteen months in prison. It costs $15,000.00 per year to store Joe, so the first bill to come in to the victim in this crime is $22,500.00 plus. Assuming Joe will be paroled for the remaining three and one-half years at $13.86 per day, his parole will cost another $27,771.50. In addition, the lady didn't get her $350.00 back, making a grand total cost for Joe's crime of $67,271.50.
Who's paying this bill? Why the victim and the rest of the community of course. In the name of "law and order," the victims of this theft will pay $67,271.50. But What about Joe? Well Joe plays cards, produces nothing, consumes food, needs shoes, clothes, and shelter, and in addition provides employment for guards, police, and all the others in the law enforcement growth industry.
Multiply this example by the hundreds and we can readily see billions of dollars wasted in the name of "law and order." The lady (society) who had her purse stolen would have been $67,271.50 ahead if she had not reported the theft of her purse and Joe had never gone to jail. The victim sentenced herself to a fine by taxation of $52,271.50 for her demand for law and order. The victim is a loser as she lost both her purse and money, and on top of that was taxed to support Joe and the law enforcement growth industry for the next five years. She would have been better off to have simply bought Joe an airplane ticket to California.
Joe is also a loser. The only winner is the law enforcement growth industry. Just how Joe is the loser is a story in itself. The law in Idaho declaring $150.00 as the amount for grand larceny was passed in 1949. Because of inflation, in 1949 dollars his crime should now be a misdemeanor, but he is branded a felon for life. Joe is a first timer. He has never been in trouble before. He will never be able to put this mistake behind him. It will follow him for the rest of his life. Now he is in a school of crime and is learning from his mistakes. When he comes out of prison he will have a degree in crime. Society will reject him because of this mistake, so in order for Joe to make a living he will have to resort to crime. Crime pays because most crimes are never reported. Of the crimes reported most are not solved. Joe will be caught once in a while, so he will be a regular customer of the law enforcement growth industry for the rest of his life. He will also be institutionalized, and forced to live in an unnatural animal-like zoo environment and may become a homosexual, or at least be exposed to a homosexual environment that will have a negative effect upon his morals, character, and rehabilitation.
Whether we like it or not, Joe is going to be out on the street again, and society is faced with a another problem. At some point in time we will again have to deal with Joe. For the past forty plus years we've been dealing with all of these "Joes," and what we've been doing hasn't worked. It's about time to admit that what we've been doing has failed. We need to try something new, innovative, and different. Whatever we do, it can't be worse than what we're doing now.
The Biblical Common Law Tradition
We know there is a problem, but what do we do about it? There is another
fact to examine before the disclosure of a solution. Where did prisons
and dungeons as a form of punishment come from? The answer is lost in antiquity.
In the Bible there are numerous accounts of individuals like Joseph, Daniel,
Peter, and others being in a dungeon. The pagan nations used prisons and
dungeons to punish their criminals and political prisoners.
The only exception is found in the time of Moses. When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, they had a different kind of law - a common law (substantive law) based upon substance, land, and labor.
The common law (substantive law) and rights at law that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights guarantee to each and every one of us is based upon substance. The connection between the Ten Commandments, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and substantive law is bound up in this axiom of law, "If there is a remedy 'at law,' equity cannot prevail."
James Madison, the father of our Constitution, made reference to this when he said that the Constitution was tied to the principle that we assume every man will obey the Ten Commandments.
Our common law came from England, but its roots are from Mount Sinai. Moses brought the law down from the Mount, and it is recorded in Exodus 20. The next five chapters of Exodus contain the criminal codes. They are short and precise. There were no prisons, dungeons, or political prisoners. The Israelites borrowed the prison system from the Romans, Egyptians, and Babylonians. We have that system in use in America today, and it is unusually cruel to lock a man up like an animal.
The act of punishing a victim of a crime by taxing him to house, feed, and guard the wrongdoer is adding crime upon crime. Let's stop punishing the citizens, stop the useless waste of the criminals' life, and make him pay the cost of his wrongdoing. Let's stop the profit in the law enforced growth industry and use the manpower of the crime and the law enforcement growth industry to make our lives more fruitful.
Let's examine Joe's case. Joe stole $350 cash, but he also threw the woman's purse away. The victim has suffered a further loss of time, pictures, credit cards, etc. Let's set a value upon the crime. It's a common law crime (involves the loss of life, liberty, and/or property). The common law is designed to restore property and to remedy damages. Say Joe's crime is valued at $50,000, which is excessive, but for the sake of discussion, it's a starting point. Joe gets five years or $50,000, whichever he prefers. However, Joe is poor, which was the reason for the theft. Now we are going to enforce upon Joe the option of the prison, which no one likes because of boredom, lack of purpose, and humiliation. Since Joe has an obligation, let's have him work it off.
The forests of Idaho are a tinderbox of dry limbs, dead trees, snags, and brush, which, when ignited, burn hot on the ground. The fire then burns up the tree trunks, crowns, and kills the trees, destroying the forest. Take Joe out to Atlanta and put him to work in a productive capacity, clearing away the combustible debris. It costs less than concrete buildings. Joe is not dangerous. Let's teach Joe the dignity of work and of making restitution to the victim and the taxpayers for the cost of the crime.
Convict labor is not a new idea; it has been used before. California has used a work camp program in the past. The only problem is that it can easily be abused. The Thirteenth Amendment is not violated by the use of convict labor. Joe will volunteer to go to the Atlanta Idaho Prison Camp to work on forest projects, such as helping with forest fires, replanting trees, cutting diseased trees, and cutting firewood. Joe will be paid $5 an hour or by piece rate. The more he produces, the more he makes, earning his freedom sooner. Joe owes 10,000 hours at $5.00 an hour. If he works ten hours per day, six days per week, for three years, he earns his freedom. There is no parole or strings attached. Joe is a free man and the victim receives her loss in tax credits or direct payments from sales resulting from his labor.
Unions and the law enforcement growth industry will resist any change, as they have done so in the past. However, the State is losing more with the present system. No one is hurt by setting convicts to work in our forests, and there are other public projects that unions and other workers are not, or do not care to be, engaged in that could be accomplished. Numerous prisoners have been interviewed and have stated that they would welcome an opportunity to have a chance to work off their sentences.
Let's look at the ancient example of common law damages paid for losses
suffered.
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart
from her, and yet no mischief follow; he shall be surely punished, according
as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judge
determine." - Exodus 21:22
Here is an example of common law damages from what we would call a crime
today, and would want to imprison this man. Another example:
"If a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff to keep,
and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him
pay double." - Exodus 27:7
Here the thief pays double. There are dozens of examples of the common law usage in Exodus 21-24. There are no Biblical examples of letting the victim suffer loss of goods, and then be taxed to support the thief in prison. This constitutes punishment of the victim, which is unjust because it causes a greater loss to the victim than the thief.
If scriptural examples are repulsive to you, then leave God out of the equation. Ignore God and only rely upon your own self-interest. Simple logic tells us that it is in the best interest of all to change our prison system approach to crime and punishment. As a victim what would you prefer? Restitution for the loss, or taxation to pay for the incarceration of the thief?
The police state imposed upon the Polish people by force in 1945 is no different than the police state we Americans have imposed upon ourselves today. There is one glaring difference in the adoption of the system - we paid to have our rights subjugated to limited liability of contract. The Poles saved some money. We Americans still have our Constitution and we can reject the limited liability in perpetual debt slavery in feudal texture, whenever we want to accept responsibility for our actions and debts. The Poles cannot.
The Barristers' Inn
There are not many people who want to trade their slavery for the rigors
of the life of a freeman. But for those few men and women who want to be
free, a school is open in Boise, Idaho, called Barristers' Inn, to teach
anyone who wants to be free, how to be free. Not everyone in America registers
his car with his government. Not every man or woman in America asks for
government permission to drive or has a license to drive. Twenty-two million
Americans don't pay the income tax. There are even some freemen who don't
pay personal or real property taxes.
The flame of freedom is involved. Every person who wants to be free can free himself, but no other man can free him. Redress of grievance comes on the courtroom floor, not in a political rally, union meeting, or letter to the editor. The courtrooms are open, and are manned by knowledgeable jurists who will listen to and rule in favor of a man's natural unalienable rights if one knows how to claim them. Or slam the door on a slave in limited liability and leave him in his security. There is no security in freedom. Only boundless opportunity.
There are thousands of freemen in America, not millions. The masses like security, welfare, limited liability, dejection in their lives. To claim your rights, you must defend them on the courtroom floor. To find out how, contact Barristers' Inn, School of Common Law, PO Box 9411, Boise, ID 83707; (208) 375-3425.
The Build Freedom Solution
Our basic proposal is to replace current "legal systems" with
the Build Freedom Code. (One of its key principles is that for a crime to
occur, there must be a victim. Most prisoners are incarcerated for acts
we don't regard as crimes, such as drug dealing or disobeying silly regulations
of the law enforcement growth industry.) Now, we're not going to run around
and beg people to accept our code. And we're not particularly interested
in "fighting the system."
We attempt to live our lives, as far as possible, according to our code. We organize our personal lives in such a way that we minimize governmental and other crimes against ourselves and our property. We make it very difficult for anyone to victimize us. We withdraw support from the law enforcement growth industry, as far as practical. The Pure Contract Trust is a powerful tool in this respect.
We also create alternative institutions to replace what currently doesn't work. We may further want to learn how to defend ourselves if attacked by the law enforcement growth industry.
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