Oh The Humanity! Drug Kingpins and BabyMoms

Eternal Optimist ran across an interesting article the other day about a drug kingpin (“DK”) in a major city who received a life sentence from a federal judge. It seems the DK had 5 children by at least 3 women. His oldest “baby-mom” complained to the AP reporter covering the story that the DK did not deserve life in jail. Instead, men like him should “rehabilitated.”

A baby-mom is "hoody" for a woman with whom you've had a child, but have no current relationship.

This is just too ridiculous. The problem is, not only the DK’s baby mom thinks this way. You can (almost) laugh it off when the woman who slept with the DK says it, but this nonsense gets put out there by all sorts of college professors who should and do know better. They like to say catchy things like “rehabilitation, not incarceration.”

What makes it so stupid is this: we don’t actually have the power or knowledge to rehabilitate a DK. We do a crummy job rehabilitating drug addicts, despite the billions spent since the '60s trying to deal with the problem. We have no good ideas how to rehabilitate DKs. We have never had any significant success doing it. DKs, by a process of self selection and life-long "achievement," have put themselves at the top of the "least likely to be rehabilitated" chart, along with child molesters and Enron Executives.

Since when does a DK respond to handbag design courses in a prison and become a law-abiding citizen? Is there some 12 step program for drug lords I’ve been missing?

So the baby-mom’s statement is stridently idiotic, like protesting using water hoses to put out a house fire, because we should be using our magic wands instead. Makes all the sense in the world once you make up a magic wand that puts out fires. Ditto for rehabilitation. Makes all the sense in the world once you make believe we actually know how to rehabilitate drug kingpins.

This particular DK had a criminal history with EIGHT PRIOR CONVICTIONS. Now forgive me for not being terribly sanguine about the DK doing an about face because some pasty faced 28 year old social worker talks to him about his troubled childhood. Forgive me also for suggesting that there is something screwy and broken about a society that gives anyone EIGHT CHANCES to commit felony drug and gun violations (and a dog fighting conviction mixed in there) before we can decide to put him away for life.

Just a "for instance" about how others see things. In Singapore, one conviction for dealing drugs with a gun and you are executed. Bottom line - 42 murders last year in a city of over 4 million. That's about a month's worth of carnage in Philadelphia, a city of 1.5 million souls.

Mr. DK was responsible for 3,000 kilograms of cocaine and crack being distributed in the large and morose city where he lived. That’s about 60 MILLION DOSES OF cocaine or crack. That’s a lot of apologizing he’s going to have to do in the 12 step program. Not that he's doing much apologizing, or ever did. Check out the reports from the Philadelphia Inquirer's articles. And more articles.

The feds recovered over $1,000,000 in cash from DK and pals. DK lived in a half-million dollar house. DK said at sentencing that he didn’t think it would come to this. He said he had never done more than 7-8 months in jail. He said he was a product of his environment. He said no one should go to jail for life for drugs. Noticeably absent was any statement that it was his fault, he was greedy, he did something wrong and was sorry for it. It doesn't sound like he's in the rehabilitating state of mind just yet.

So, to those who want to talk about rehabilitating DKs and not giving them life in jail, by all means, get out those Magic Rehabilitation Wands (MRWs) and start a-waving.

Meanwhile, can we keep putting DKs in jail for life plus 55 while we see how those MRWs work out? Magical thinking about sociopaths is not as dangerous when they are in a federal prison and there are armed guards with harsh attitudes around.

Here's my new catchy T-shirt slogan: "More life sentences for sociopaths." I like it. It's got a beat and you can dance to it. I give it an 85.