The Alliance for Safety and Justice have released “the first ever survey of Illinois’ victims views on safety and justice.” The headine stats . . .

“Six in 10 victims prefer alternatives to prison such as rehabilitation, mental health treatment and drug treatment to putting people in prison” and “seven out of ten victims prefer shorter prison sentences and spending more on prevention and rehabilitation programs to prison sentences that keep people in prison for as long as possible.”

The first thing to keep in mind: the results dovetail exactly with the ASJ’s agenda. According to their website, the “Alliance for Safety and Justice [was] launched in 2016 to grow state capacity to replace prison waste with new safety priorities.” So there is that.

The report claims that “these findings . . . hold true across all demographic groups, including race, gender, age, income and political party affiliation.” Yes but — it fails to reveal the survey’s sample size or the respondents’ demographic info. Delving deeper . . .

The research methodology was designed to ensure the inclusion of harder-to-reach demographic groups, such as young people and people with less housing stability . . . David Binder Research oversampled people who identify as black or Latino to ensure that their voices would be adequately represented in the survey . . .

The Alliance for Safety and Justice and David Binder Research also conducted focus groups with crime survivors from Chicago and Peoria. Five total focus groups were conducted with victims from diverse backgrounds including downstate crimes survivors of domestic violence and victims of gun violence and other violent crimes in Chicago.

What questions were asked? Lacking this critical information, given the Alliance’s bias, it’s difficult to take this survey seriously.

Besides, at this point, what difference does it make? Clearly, Illinois’ revolving door justice system and plea bargaining bonanza has failed to stem the tide of firearms-related crime in The Land of Lincoln, especially but not exclusively in Chicago.

And what of law-abiding Illinois residents who aren’t victims of domestic abuse or “gun violence”? People who want criminals to be locked up so they don’t become a victim? Don’t they get a say? Not in this survey they don’t.

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39 COMMENTS

  1. Hilarious…”oversampled” black and Spanglish?. ‘Cause you wouldn’t want yo’ cuzin,nephew,brother,uncle or pop to be in the joint. EVERYONE knows who commits the crimes. And votes D. Bring back chain gangs,capit al punishment and hard labor. Problems solved…

    • Mass incarceration is a failed policy. if it weren’t government funded, i.e. run privately, it would have been shit canned long ago as a failed product. So is all the other stuff you advocate. Until we demand science-based criminal justice, our criminal justice system will be a failure.

      Now, all you hang-em high guys call me “soft on crime” – while you do that, I’ll call you plan a failure.

      • Right. What exactly is “science based CJ”, and, more importantly, where in the hell do you think that kinda money is going to come from? And if you want to be a hugathug, that’s fine, that’s your right. But, let me suggest, that if your so opposed to incarceration, we can just send them all to live at your house. Since they’re all such great people and all.

        • if we’d stop wasting money on a failed program – mass incarceration – we’d have money to use on programs that actually work.

          How would you feel if your doctor didn’t rely on science, and treated you based on “hunches” and “feelings”?

          I’m not against incarceration, I’m against wasting money on programs that don’t work. I’m against making decisions based on “feelings”. I’m against supporting programs that make the problem worse. I’m against programs whose supporters have no accountability for their failure.

          Emotion based decision making should have no place in government, and especially in the criminal justice system.

    • they don’t want them in jail so they can resolve the beef at a later time, so having them back on the street is desirable.

  2. Well, they didn’t ask me. As a victim of a burglary or two over the years I count myself lucky in that this is all I’ve had to deal with. However, I have close friends who have been robbed at gunpoint, pistol whipped, and assaulted. We all favor hard line, longer prison sentences for violent offenders.

    And we’re not all old white guys; Asian, black, Latino, and me, the ofwg. But they didn’t ask any of us.

    • But it’s to ensure oppressed voices are heard!!

      Man, when you tell readers that you sought out certain demographics, you can’t sell your “study” as representative of the population as a whole. That’s just bad sciencing.

      • “We discriminated in order to no discriminate.”

        “Equal” apparently means different things to different people these days

  5. “David Binder Research oversampled people who identify as black or Latino…”

    What is this identify as black or Latino crap? You either are or you aren’t, and you can’t choose to be. Remember how everyone got all pissed off at the white lady who was head of the Seattle NAACP? Once outed she started using the line, “I identify as black.” Now that actually does make sense…if you are not a member of said race but “identify” as it, because you aren’t physically/biologically, you must “identify” as it. But if you are actually black or brown, you can’t identify as black or brown. Your parents already made sure of that for you. Unless the research center just polled a bunch of white folks who “identify” as black or Latino.

    My point is, just call black people black people, and Latinos Latinos.

    • They want us to get accustomed to the concept.

      Next election, County Clerks will be required to register anyone who “identifies” as a citizen of the U.S.

    • The interviews/surveys were almost certainly not done in person. If someone checks a box, they identify as. It doesn’t mean they are.

  7. “David Binder Research oversampled people who identify as black or Latino…”

    I’m wondering how that’s even possible, since they get “oversampled” by the thugs to begin with. Blacks and Hispanics comprise the majority of criminals and the majority of victims.

    Let’s remember, these are the people who live in the “no-snitch” neighborhoods where witnesses refuse to give up information to catch perpetrators. I’m quickly running out of sympathy.

  8. “Six in 10 victims prefer alternatives to prison such as rehabilitation, mental health treatment and drug treatment to putting people in prison”

    I find this hard to believe, at least as a blanket statement. I’m sure many people prefer alternatives to prison if warranted, but the quote makes it sound as if 60% of crime victims would prefer jails be abolished altogether, which I strongly doubt. Of course, without actually seeing the questions asked, it’s impossible to tell whether this was the result of taking the responses out of context, people misinterpreting the questions, or people simply being idiots.

  10. And what fraction of victims said they wanted the worst of them put down, and the rest remanded to traditional punishments like the stocks and public floggings?

  11. And in a related survey, 106 out of every 10 people voted for Hillary, who was just elected President by the Electoral College.

  12. “Six in 10 victims prefer alternatives to prison such as rehabilitation, mental health treatment and drug treatment to putting people in prison” and “seven out of ten victims prefer shorter prison sentences and spending more on prevention and rehabilitation programs to prison sentences that keep people in prison for as long as possible.”

    Because 8 out of 10 victims are criminals themselves.

  13. I agree…. wholeheartedly. HAve had a couple run ins with some bad people in my life. A friend and I were held up at gun point in Chicago. Near Clark and Belmont on the north side. Fortunately they got empty wallets cause we are not dumb enough to keep Id or money there when we are in that shit hole.
    Second time was when I lived in Tampa. Guy followed my girl home from her job and broke into our apartment with intentions to rape her. Fortunately I was home and in bed. It went no further… cops were called and he was arrested. Found out later he had numerous arrest and conditions for Drug use, assault with a deadly weapon, and sexual assault.
    He was stopped by the mere sight of a .357 magnum pointed at him.

    Less prison terms…. more removal from the gene pool.

  15. “A project of the Tides Foundation”…

    Running that through the universal translator: It’s junk science, created by activist Leftists.

    When I first read the first paragraph, I saw this “Alliance of blah blah blah” and went, “Who’s That?”

    Then I see they created their website domain not even two years ago. Another fly-by-night.

    JOhn

  17. I agree with RF’s take, absolutely. This entire article is total nonsense until we see the *QUESTIONS* which were asked. Because these results are plainly bogus, but I can imagine several different ploys which would allow “interpretation” into such nonsense.

  18. According to the 2014 Chicago Police crime report, of identified shooters, approximately 75% were alumni of the criminal justice system through previous arrests. About 80% of the shootees were in the same category.

    Given that most of Chicago violence is dirtbag-on-dirtbag, most of the “victims” are dirtbags, so I’m not surprised that dirtbags are looking out for themselves and other dirtbags by not asking for longer prison terms.

  19. I’m sure their methodology was as straightforward and transparent as a “Doctor Who” script…

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