The Trump phenomenon continues apace, immune to the boorishness and ignorance of its avatar. It does not seem to matter what Donald Trump says or does--he continues to lead the Republican field by a wide margin.Often overlooked when scrutinizing Trump's dominance are the rules of the Republican nomination process. These are not a sufficient condition for Trump's ascent, but they are certainly a necessary factor. The GOP's rules used to work well for the party because its voters and leaders trusted and respected one another. But this mutual geniality has been replaced with condescension and suspicion, which has created a massive power vacuum for a demagogue like Trump to fill....
[T]he Republican party used to be quite homogenous. State and local leaders, Beltway elites, and average GOP voters all had a pretty similar view of who should lead the party. Thus, shifting the balance of power among these groups did not really influence the ultimate choice.
But the GOP's homogeneity is breaking down, in important respects. There is now a yawning credibility gap separating Republican voters from the party establishment. Average conservatives do not trust their leaders in Washington to make good on their campaign promises. They increasingly sound like New Left liberals in their complaints about the ability of money to corrupt the electoral process. And they have grown cynical...
As I've noted before, not a single one of the Republican establishment leaders I mentioned campaigned on a platform of going easier on heroin dealers, in order to reduce prison costs or for any other reason. And not a single one of the nine new Republican senators who displaced Democrats in last year's election (thus giving Republicans a Senate majority) ran on that platform, either.
Is it any wonder Republican voters are cynical?
This is a huge problem for the party establishment, because its power to guide the electorate was informal and based upon mutual trust, respect, and ideological similitude. These bonds are breaking down, and the establishment is panicking. If the voters are rejecting the elites, then the elites have lost their hold over the nomination.
If the Republican establishment wants to regain the trust of ordinary voters, it can start by repudiating the windfall for criminals masquerading under the (intentionally) opaque name "sentencing reform."
The sentencing "reform" bills are prime examples of why distrust now prevails: They were negotiated behind closed doors. No public input was sought or accepted. There has been a (somewhat frustrated) effort to rush them through. The Senate held a perfunctory, Friday afternoon hearing where exactly two opposition witnesses were allowed. The bills were (and are) backed by flush inside-the-Beltway interest groups (listed, with a supplement provided by Prof. Doug Berman, here). They are designed to get, and they have succeeded in getting, their backers puff pieces in the liberal-dominated media. Putting entirely to one side any suggestion of being "bought off," politicians cannot be expected just to ignore the policy preferences of billionaires -- and Republicans in particular cannot ignore the preferences of the (often Republican-contributing) Koch brothers.
In short, the Congressional sentencing "reform" movement is a model of why the Republican establishment is in big trouble. It's insider politics at its worst. Fortunately, the legislative process is deliberative, and there is yet time for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do his party, not to mention the country and any degree of seriousness in fighting hard drug traffickers, a good turn. Sometimes the best leader is the one who saves his followers from themselves.
The 77 percent recidivism rate you cite is for state prisoners, not federal inmates, so it's not relevant for the bill you denounce, which deals only with the federal prison system. The recidivism rate for federal drug offenders is more like 30 percent. It would therefore be a much more relevant statistic to use, even if it doesn't serve your rhetorical purposes as well.
-Jim
1. Out of this entire post, the best you can do is take issue with the 77% figure???
2. Where are you getting your "more like 30 percent"? You don't give a source and I'm not aware of one.
I am, however, aware of the USSC's 2014 recidivism report for those released under the FSA : (http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-projects-and-surveys/miscellaneous/20140527_Recidivism_2007_Crack_Cocaine_Amendment.pdf).
That report shows a recidivism rate of 43.3%, which is (1) a disaster under any normal standard, (2) markedly more than the 30% you put forward, and (3) certain to be an understatement in any event, since drug transactions are consensual and therefore even more grossly underreported than other kinds of crime.
3. If you look at the USSC report, on the graph on Page 6, you will see that the recidivism line, which stops after five years at 43.3%, IS STILL ASCENDING, meaning that there is more recidivism yet to come.
4. Although the present Congressional sentencing "reform" bill would apply by its terms only to the feds, the states are likely to copy it or a variant of it, just as they did for the original federal sentencing reform bill, the FSRA of 1984.
1. I'd take issue with lots of things in your original post but wanted to focus on the recidivism rate figure since it's pretty misleading.
2. The source for the 30 percent figure is the annual data that BJS produces on federal supervision outcomes. (Since virtually every federal offender gets placed on supervised release, it's a good measure of how they perform once they're out.) You can access this info by looking at Table 7.5 in the latest edition of Federal Justice Statistics: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs12st.pdf. A little less than 30 percent of federal drug offenders didn't make it through their supervision periods because of either a technical violation or a new crime.
If you want a more basic metric of recidivism -- say, return to federal prison -- you can look at Table 15 here, which shows that about 11 percent of federal drug offenders go back: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs1112.pdf.
The FSA report you cite is limited to federal crack cocaine offenders, so it can't be used to make a blanket statement about all federal drug offenders.
3. See above. The FSA report is an inappropriate measure of all federal drug offender recidivism.
4. I'm not sure that's true. In the area of drug sentencing, the states have been moving much more quickly than the feds over the past few years.
-Jim
1. I'd take issue with lots of things in your original post but wanted to focus on the recidivism rate figure since it's pretty misleading.
2. The source for the 30 percent figure is the annual data that BJS produces on federal supervision outcomes. (Since virtually every federal offender gets placed on supervised release, it's a good measure of how they perform once they're out.) You can access this info by looking at Table 7.5 in the latest edition of Federal Justice Statistics: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs12st.pdf. A little less than 30 percent of federal drug offenders didn't make it through their supervision periods because of either a technical violation or a new crime.
If you want a more basic metric of recidivism -- say, return to federal prison -- you can look at Table 15 here, which shows that about 11 percent of federal drug offenders go back: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs1112.pdf.
The FSA report you cite is limited to federal crack cocaine offenders, so it can't be used to make a blanket statement about all federal drug offenders.
3. See above. The FSA report is an inappropriate measure of all federal drug offender recidivism.
4. I'm not sure that's true. In the area of drug sentencing, the states have been moving much more quickly than the feds over the past few years.
-Jim
You may regard the 77% recidivism figure as "misleading," but I do not agree. It is the exact figure, and I gave and linked its source in order to allow anyone who cared to to see how it was derived. That is an odd way to go about being "misleading."
In a sense, though, I can partially agree with you. Because the actual incidence of crime (certainly including recidivist crime) is significantly under-reported, and because consensual crime like drug deals and prostitution are even more under-reported, the recidivism figure for drug offenders given by the Justice Department may well be misleadingly SMALL.
If I were scheduled to be in a debate and the finest argument I could come up with is, "only 3 out of 10 released criminals will go back to crime," I would make sure my car broke down on the way there.
Bill: I agree that the DOJ figure showing an 11 percent rate of return for released federal drug offenders almost definitely underestimates the reality. For starters, it only measures returns to federal prison and says nothing about released federal offenders who return to state prisons. That's why I prefer to use the supervision failure rate (~30 percent), which I initially cited. Either one, though, is more relevant to the federal system than the 77 percent figure you cite for state prisoners, which is a re-arrest rate -- not a prosecution rate or a conviction rate or a return to prison rate.
TarlsQtr: I think there's a meaningful difference between a 77-percent recidivism rate and a 30-percent recidivism rate. Call me crazy.
Nice work, Jim, trying to keep Bill honest with important facts. Like many forceful advocates, Bill is effective at emphasizing the data points that best serve his advocacy efforts.
I have pointed out in various places that the 77% rearrest number for state prisoners released in 2005 is a very poor proxy for offenders likely to benefit from the (ultimately modest) sentencing reform of 2015 now being considered on Capitol Hill. Similarly, as you rightly note, Bill really only knows the story of federal sentencing reform because very few states have actually followed the lead of the FSRA of 1984. In fact, most states wisely used the complicated federal guideline system of the 1980s as a model for what not to do with guidelines. In addition, the main reason many states (foolishly, in my view) followed the feds in eliminating parole for many offenders is because the Crime Bill of 1994 bribed the states to do so through huge incentive grants to build many more prisons.
That all said, it is a shame recidivism rates are so high upon release from prison, and it provides more support for the growing evidence that use of prison for certain offenders may make them MORE likely to commit more crimes than if they were diverted to alternative sanctions or than if more money was invested on evidence-based correction reform that appears in the Senate version of the leading reform bill.
"Nice work, Jim, trying to keep Bill honest with important facts."
Unlike the Brennan Center and its cooked numbers purporting to show that increased imprisonment has next to nothing to do with the massive drop-off in crime, there is no problem with my honesty.
"I have pointed out in various places that the 77% rearrest number for state prisoners released in 2005 is a very poor proxy for offenders likely to benefit from the (ultimately modest) sentencing reform of 2015 now being considered on Capitol Hill."
I see that you, like "Jim," want to pooh-pooh the fact that persons convicted of crime are vastly more likely than the average person to do it again, creating more crime victims and more suffering. But a fact it is nonetheless.
"In fact, most states wisely used the complicated federal guideline system of the 1980s as a model for what not to do with guidelines."
Not that I ever said the states cloned the federal guidelines. That they adopted guideline sentencing in any form -- which for the most part they did -- was a big victory for the landmark CONCEPT of determinate sentencing. That concept, very fortunately, replaced the temperament-driven, not to mention disastrous, do-your-own-thing sentencing paradigm of the crime-happy Sixties and Seventies.
"... the Crime Bill of 1994 bribed the states to do so through huge incentive grants to build many more prisons."
Which was followed by the steepest decline in crime over the shortest time span in American history. This of course was sheer coincidence, since incapacitating the people who commit crime has nothing to do with the amount of crime that gets committed!!!
I can't even imagine the ridicule that would erupt if conservatives tried to pull an argument like that.
"That all said, it is a shame recidivism rates are so high upon release from prison..."
But high they are, meaning that if we release criminals earlier, we're going to get more crime faster. That's the way it works, and it has nothing to do with my advocacy.
"... and it provides more support for the growing evidence that use of prison for certain offenders may make them MORE likely to commit more crimes than if they were diverted to alternative sanctions..."
If prison produces crime, then we should have experienced vastly MORE crime over the last 20 years, having used vastly MORE prison.
So where, exactly, is the increased crime produced by "criminogenic" prisons? Is it hiding somewhere? The moon? Mars? Really, where is it? I'm an old man; my ability to find things must be slipping.
"...or than if more money was invested on evidence-based correction reform that appears in the Senate version of the leading reform bill."
If by "evidence-based correction reform" you mean rehab, I'm all for it, as I've said many times. But I lack the (atypical, for you) faith in Big Government "we-can-change-you" rehab programs. The evidence, as in E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E, is that they mostly don't work. The reason for this is unfortunate but simple: The key to change lies in the convict's heart and mind, not in a government program. But for however that may be, rehab and incarceration can be supplements to, not alternatives for, each other.
Bill, the high recidivism rates for persons released from prison that you keep citing is part of the evidence that prisons can be criminogenic. Also, as you know, imprisonment rates started rising significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, but index crimes kept going up significantly into the mid 1990s. But you know all this and yet continue to mine the data as serves your advocacy message (and, speaking of this data, I notice your pals at Powerline and elsewhere are now eager to highlight that increases in private gun ownership correlates with decreases in violent crime over the past two decades).
We have gone through all this before and my main point was just to compliment Joe for being willing to push back here on numbers that serve you use to serve your advocacy but that do not always tell the story as accurately as possible. The Brennan Center and other advocates may often do the same, but I assume you are not inclined to assert that all advocates should feel free to do whatever their opponents do.
"... the Crime Bill of 1994 bribed the states to do so through huge incentive grants to build many more prisons."
Which was followed by the steepest decline in crime over the shortest time span in American history. This of course was sheer coincidence, since incapacitating the people who commit crime has nothing to do with the amount of crime that gets committed!!!
--
The crime bill became law in 1994. The crime decline began in 1992.
-Jim
"Bill, the high recidivism rates for persons released from prison that you keep citing is part of the evidence that prisons can be criminogenic."
But your claim is not that they "can be" criminogenic. Your claim is that part of the reason we must reduce the prison population is that prisons ARE criminogenic.
It is that claim which prompts my still-unanswered question: Where, exactly, is the increased crime produced by the increase in our "criminogenic" prisons?
"The crime bill became law in 1994. The crime decline began in 1992."
Yup. But:
1. Mandatory federal guidelines and the end of parole became effective Nov. 1, 1987, (the effective date of the SRA) and their (substantial) benefits started to be felt in roughly 1990.
2. State and federal efforts, by both the executive branch and a (somewhat reluctant) judicial branch, to stem the crack wars of the 1980's, and the associated crime spike, also started to show up in a sharply increased prison populations beginning in roughly 1990 (all depending, of course, on how one defines "sharply," a topic that will further advance the goal of deflecting attention from the main point of this post if I allow heading to the hills with it, which I won't).
3. In discussing the incidence of recidivist crime, both you and Doug Berman whistle past the mammoth in the room, to wit, that such crime, and especially drug crime, is grossly under-reported, meaning that the ACTUAL recidivism figures are higher, and probably much higher, than the REPORTED recidivism figures.
4. The exact measure of recidivism rates, and other forms of what have become diversionary nit-picking, have now gone as far as they are going to on this thread.
I will welcome, however, comments on the thread's main point, to wit, that the current sentencing bills are a product of exactly the kind of insider, Big Money, special interest-driven, elitist, Beltway politics that ignore the desires of the public ( http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2015/11/do-americans-want-more-jail-or.html) and thus fuel people like Donald Trump.
Bill:
1. I would love to engage your main point, and I am especially eager (1) to see the details of the poll you keep referencing (which I have been seeking for weeks now), and (2) to understand whether and why it is obviously a more valid marker of "the desires of the public" than these recent FAMM polls on a similar topic in three states:
-- Pennsylvania Voters Oppose Mandatory Minimum Sentences, According to New Poll: http://famm.org/pennsylvania-voters-oppose-mandatory-minimum-sentences-according-to-new-poll/
-- New Poll Shows Broad Support for Repealing Massachusetts Drug Mandatory Minimums
Pennsylvania Voters
--- New Poll Reveals Overwhelming Support in Maryland for Repealing State’s Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Nonviolent Drug Offenses; http://famm.org/new-poll-reveals-overwhelming-support-in-maryland-for-repealing-states-mandatory-minimum-sentences-for-nonviolent-drug-offenses/
2. I would like your understanding of what we know about "the desires of the public" based on recent elections on these kinds of issues -- particular with respect to, e.g., (1) Vitter losing big in LA Gov race despite running soft on drug dealer ads against his opponent, (2) voters in four states legalizing drug dealing in the form of recreational marijuana in 2012 and 2014, (3) California voters enacting 3 strikes reform and Prop 47, and (4) nobody at the federal level seemingly getting any political heat/pressure for (a) cutting federal sentences for crack dealers in the FSA of 2010, of (b) for allowing the USSC to move forward with cutting federal sentences for all drug defendants.
3. I believe you generally support mens rea reform, which the Koch foundations support and which is getting criticism from folks on the left primarily for this reason. I wonder if you consider the push for mens rea reform to be an example of "insider politics at its worst" in which "establishment Republicans have been bought off [as a result of the] Koch brothers money pouring into" this effort.
4. In light of what you are seeing here, do you now have more respect for liberal criticisms of the amount of money in politics and the repeated assertion by the likes of Senators Reid and Sanders that corporate/monied interests have too much influence in Washington? Do you think this has gotten much worse in recent years, perhaps in part as a result of Citizens United?
Douglas stated: "Bill, the high recidivism rates for persons released from prison that you keep citing is part of the evidence that prisons can be criminogenic."
At best, it is incredibly weak evidence.
That criminals went in and criminals came out says nothing about whether the prisons made people criminals. You would need non-criminals going in to show that.
All the recidivism rate does is tell us that the rehabilitation programs are not very effective. Someone who specializes in research should not need to be told this.
All of that said, you make Bill's point. Even if we buy your "prisons are criminogenic" theory, what is the alternative? Until we find a method of controlling criminal behavior that is as effective as prison has proven to be and that is not criminogenic, more prison is the logical choice.
One man's "use of actual data" is another man's "diversionary nit-picking," I suppose.
-Jim
I agree 100%, Tarls, that the evidence for prison being criminogenic is relatively weak. Moreover, it may not be prison per se, but the disconnect from friends, family and civil society that comes with prison that is criminogenic. And if this disconnect is what drives problem, then even the value of effective rehab programs are diminished. And that, in turn, highlights why keeping folks out of prison, especially for lower level drug crimes, might be important for avoiding more mayhem from the crime-prone.
More broadly, you raise a fair point about limited alternatives, though this overlooks (1) that even in prison criminal commit lots of crimes (it is just we've banished them in a way that leads us to feel safer), and (2) the sentencing reform movement is not saying eliminate prison, just use it much less. I put it simply by asserting that prison should always be a last resort, not a first resort, especially for nonviolent drug offenders.
Relatedly, an important alternative (which I support but you seemingly oppose) is to reduce greatly what is considered a crime. We made a lot fewer criminals and crimes by ending alcohol prohibition, and I hope we might do the same by reforming marijuana laws.
In the end, I suspect all of us who care about these issues agree at the ends of the spectrum: to keep society safe, repeat violent criminals should be imprisoned to incapacitate, mere pot smokers or speeders should not. In between, I want to rely as little as possible on prison because it is costly and I fear it can be counterproductive and always increases government growth/powers; I surmise you and Bill would rather rely more on prison because you believe it will usually (always?) do more harm than good to lock people who have done a bad enough act away for some period of time.
"One man's 'use of actual data' is another man's 'diversionary nit-picking,' I suppose."
Data are used about 10,000 times a day for diversionary nit-picking.
You don't know this?
Sure you do. And you're using data to minimize recidivism, because it serves your purpose to build complacency about crime. The more complacent the country becomes, the more likely it is to be fooled by "sentencing reform."
"I agree 100%, Tarls, that the evidence for prison being criminogenic is relatively weak."
Thank you!
"Moreover, it may not be prison per se, but the disconnect from friends, family and civil society that comes with prison that is criminogenic."
You and I were in the audience recently at an academic conference (Toledo?) at which one of the speakers was a long-serving probation officer. He asked the assembled why they thought there is so much recidivism.
There were a number of raised hands. One person said it was because of lousy reintegration programs. One said that it's because employers "discriminate" against ex-cons. Another said it's because of lack of job skills.
My response was this: It's because the released inmates never changed the criminal ways of thinking that brought them into prison to begin with.
The probation officer said that mine was the correct answer.
Was he wrong?
Douglas,
Be honest.
1) We know that "low level non-violent drug offenders" does not mean "low level non-violent drug offenders." We are talking about people who used violence and plea bargained down, people who sell smack to kids, and people who robbed grandma, the local liquor store, and stole your car for their habit even if they were arrested only for "possession".
2) Even those from number 1 will not be enough for you. It will include those who forcefully stole a car but did so under the influence, so they deserve the typical liberal false compassion.
3) Money is a charade. We all know that if we released only criminals who were "non-violent" and whose only crime was personal drug use, the prison population drop would be negligible, if not imperceptible.
If you cannot admit those things, the debate is not even worth having.
Bill stated: "It's because the released inmates never changed the criminal ways of thinking that brought them into prison to begin with."
Bingo.
My inmates would tell me when they were getting out. I would ask their plans and would almost invariably get the same answers.
1) Go back to the same neighborhood.
2) Hang out with the same people.
3) Do the same things.
Bill: Is there any basis to think or evidence to suggest that restricting liberty through incarceration is effective at "chang[ing] the criminal ways of thinking"? My sense/fear is that prison, generally speaking, is more likely to harden "criminal ways of thinking" because in prison individuals create a community with other persons with a history of "criminal ways of thinking" AND because prison rules/environments are repressive and degrading in ways that seem likely to enhance disrespect for authority.
In the end, I think there are lots of different reasons and settings that lead people to commit crimes, but I fear that prison experiences seem generally unlikely to diminish (and even likely to enhance) those reasons/settings that lead to crime. That is why I fear prison iis criminogenic, and empirical evidence suggests as much. You might well say that we get various benefits from prison that outwiegh its criminogenic impact, but my only point here is to highlight that prison itself may well be a contributing factor for historically high rates of recidivism.
Tarls: I always aspire to be honest. And, on your points...
1. I agree that many illegal drug offenders commit a range of crimes in conjunction with their illegal drug activities. Same was true for alcohol offenders during Prohibition. If you turn someone into a criminal for using drugs, they will be much more inclined to break other laws in conjunction with using drugs. But statistics also suggest lots and lots of (disproportionately wealthier/whiter) folks use illegal drugs all the time and never get arrested or in real trouble for this illegality. Will you "be honest" and admit that the criminal enforcement of our drug laws are skewed by lots of class-based and other social realities?
2. I do have compassion for persons who commit crimes in conjunction with a drug addiction, but I am not sure why that compassion is either liberal or false. Are you asserting we as a society should have no compassion for people who have addictions? Are you saying only liberals have compassion for such people? Are you saying such compassion is always false? I really do not understand if you are against compassion or against a certain type of compassion that you consider distasteful.
3. I consider Weldon Angelos a non-violent drug offender for selling marijuana 3 times while twice (allegedly) having a gun on his person. He is serving 55 years for these crimes. I would like to see him released ASAP. Bill has indicated he thinks Angelos ought to get less time. Do you agree. Once we get Weldon out with your help, I will give you another example, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another. Maybe we will only find a few hundred of these folks now in prison for doing less than what is being done now by stores on a daily basis in Colorado, but how about you help me get these folks I know about some justice/liberty before we worry about how many of these folks there are.
I will ask again: If prison is indeed criminogenic, where is the additional crime we should have been getting with so much additional imprisonment?
I'll say this too: It is not up to the government, through incarceration or rehab or anything else, to change the criminal's way of thinking. He is responsible for changing his own thinking. If he refuses and continues to live by his own rules, he has earned and should get punishment.
It's not always someone else's fault, Doug. Crime is the fault of the person who commits it.
"In the end, I think there are lots of different reasons and settings that lead people to commit crimes..."
I decline to head off into Murkyland. Having been a federal prosecutor for many years, I can tell you that there a few, quite well-defined reasons people commit crime. Greed and wanting to make a fast buck lead the list. Thinking that you're too good to get an ordinary job, lack of empathy for others, believing that rules are for suckers, bad temper, and lack of restraint and discipline are the others.
Douglas stated: "1. I agree that many illegal drug offenders commit a range of crimes in conjunction with their illegal drug activities. Same was true for alcohol offenders during Prohibition. If you turn someone into a criminal for using drugs, they will be much more inclined to break other laws in conjunction with using drugs. But statistics also suggest lots and lots of (disproportionately wealthier/whiter) folks use illegal drugs all the time and never get arrested or in real trouble for this illegality. Will you "be honest" and admit that the criminal enforcement of our drug laws are skewed by lots of class-based and other social realities?"
A red herring but I will bite.
Yes, I admit as much. The question then becomes, "What do we do about it?" Of course, that does not mean the logical solution is that we should stop incarcerating anyone for illegal drug use. That others are breaking the law and getting away with it is no excuse.
You stated: "2. I do have compassion for persons who commit crimes in conjunction with a drug addiction, but I am not sure why that compassion is either liberal or false. Are you asserting we as a society should have no compassion for people who have addictions? Are you saying only liberals have compassion for such people? Are you saying such compassion is always false? I really do not understand if you are against compassion or against a certain type of compassion that you consider distasteful."
The "false compassion" is that the first (and in most cases, only) compassion shown is to the criminal. In the world you inhabit, ivory tower academia, the criminal is the "victim" and the victim an afterthought.
You probably will not watch this, but a great piece on "false compassion" from the greatest theological mind of the 20th century. He addresses this directly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sog1oZtt-Q4
Ypu stated: "3. I consider Weldon Angelos a non-violent drug offender for selling marijuana 3 times while twice (allegedly) having a gun on his person. He is serving 55 years for these crimes. I would like to see him released ASAP. Bill has indicated he thinks Angelos ought to get less time. Do you agree. Once we get Weldon out with your help, I will give you another example, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another. Maybe we will only find a few hundred of these folks now in prison for doing less than what is being done now by stores on a daily basis in Colorado, but how about you help me get these folks I know about some justice/liberty before we worry about how many of these folks there are."
So, you are only looking to get a "few hundred" released? Again, back to honesty. You are not looking to get just these "few hundred" out. That is the problem. You quote cases like Angelos as if they are a majority or even a significant number of those that will be released.