Catching up on the new issue of Criminal Life

Lou Marzeles
News Editor     

     So I was reading a recent issue of Criminal Life magazine the other day. It's a great publication, filled with heartwarming stories of criminals eluding law enforcement officers and beating the system at its own game. The current holiday issue has tips on casing homes at this special time of year. The pages are filled with ads for things like guides to the best locations in the country for those of derring-do drawn to the law-breaking lifestyle.
     One of those locations might well be right around here, though you will have correctly surmised at this point that I'm being facetious about such a magazine. (It couldn't work anyway-no criminals would buy it. They'd just shoplift it off the stands.) Now, I don't mean to suggest that this region is unusually conducive to criminal activity; this is not a reflection on the people around here. I do mean to suggest that there's something significantly misfiring in the legal system here when criminals can act with such routine impunity.
     We were told at Java Talk last week that the police are on a first-name basis with that wayward 10 percent of the population with whom they rub elbows 90 percent of the time. The police know their kids' names and can chat with them like lifelong acquaintances. And they are thoughtful enough to wave at the officers as they hit the streets almost as quickly as they were taken off them. When the law is convenient for criminality, it's seriously time for the law to change. Law-breakers need to go through more hassle than do law enforcement officers.