Pitt's case is among at least 3,600 under the Youth Act since 2007 [legislation centered on rehabilitation and "second chances"] that have not been scrubbed from court records, according to Post research. Of those, 1,900 were felonies, including more than 700 for violent crimes.
CSOSA [Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency] spokesman Leonard A. Sipes Jr. said the agency followed its policies and procedures in the Pitt case.
"Mr. Pitt was assessed, closely supervised, referred for appropriate services and placed on GPS," Sipes said.
So if he's a rapist, hey, look, that's how the cookie crumbles.
A more belligerent statement of government indifference to its most basic function is difficult to imagine.
And these are the same people who'll be doing "community supervision" if and when Barack Obama and George Soros, et. al, succeed in selling Congress on the SRCA.
Nooter, [the] Superior Court judge [who refused to re-incarcerate Pitt notwithstanding repeated violations of his release order], and two other Superior Court judges involved in Pitt's cases declined to comment for this story, as did two of Pitt's supervision officers, citing privacy rules. James E. Bacchus, the chief of staff for the Parole Commission, said that the agency can in some cases prioritize certain warrants.
"The criminal activity in this case didn't rise to the level that would have us redivert our work routine," Bacchus said.
I ask readers to look past the outrage they (or any normal person) would feel at a statement like that and simply take it for what it says. The people responsible for the community supervision sentencing reform will balloon are not going to "redivert our work routine" because an offender repeatedly demonstrates he's on to bigger and better crime.
They're telling us in the plainest language what we can expect.
Will we listen?
In Hill East, the rape devastated a close-knit block of neighbors on A Street SE. Hundreds of frightened residents attended a community meeting in October.
"I want to know why he was out. He has a violent background. He has clearly targeted women in the past," said Denise Krepp, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who lives half a block from the scene of the crime. "So who made the decision that he should be out on the streets?
Question: How many of the people in Congress backing lighter sentences, their staffs, or their contacts in leftist and libertarian think tanks live in Hill East or anywhere close -- as opposed, say, to Bethesda and Georgetown?
Answer: Right you are!
Next question: But it's people favoring strong mandatory minimums who are racists, right?
Answer: Sit in the corner.
At 17, Pitt left Washington to enter treatment at Devereux, a live-in facility in Cobb County, Ga., that specializes in the care of emotionally troubled young adults. Pitt told the psychologist that he moved there because his social worker thought it "was the best thing for me at the time."
The Post was unable to determine whether Pitt had a juvenile record, which would have been closed to public view. But he "had a long history of violent behavior" prior to his treatment in Georgia, according to comments from the facility's program manager in court records.
Several points there.
First, what Pitt needed was not a psychologist but a father. His own was never in his life, according to the Post. So again, the central problem is cultural rot -- the idea that stable, two-parent families are just one "life-style" among numerous equally chipper alternatives.
They are, to the contrary, what makes children, especially boys, civilized human beings. We treat them as optional at great risk, to children and, soon enough, to ourselves.
And no, I don't care if that sounds Puritanical and "intolerant." It's true.
Second, when families fail, what is needed precisely in the name of humanity is not indulgence, excuses and feckless "counseling" but determined law enforcement. Law enforcement that looks first to protect citizens, like the rape victim brutalized here, not their victimizers.
Instead, we got the opposite. We got limitless indulgence -- which, whether sentencing reformers admit it or not, is at the core of their thinking. When you start from the premise that criminals are victims, necessarily this is where you end up.
Third, note the intentional cover-up of Pitt's (very likely extensive) juvenile record. How did that work out -- for the raped woman or, for that matter, for Pitt? It's unlikely, but at least possible, that if some of those in positions of so-called responsibility had known his record, some of the numerous opportunities to correct Pitt would at least have been considered. Instead, the law chose concealment as the handmaiden of indulgence. And shortly thereafter, of rape.
Ban the box, don'tcha know.
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