FOXNews.com – U.S. & World – U.S. Marshals Nab Over 10,000 in Dragnet
Ah, a steaming success from Inquisitor General AbuGhraibo Quaintzalez! But let’s get Behind the Numbers, shall we?
US Marshals Operation Falcon Fact Sheet
The Marshals Service, in its first-ever national fugitive roundup, arrested 10,340 violent fugitives and cleared 13,851 warrants from April 4-10. Operation FALCON — Federal And Local Cops Organized Nationally [Ooh, they have a clever acronym!] — teamed deputy marshals with other federal, state, county and city law enforcement officers to go after some of the country’s most dangerous wanted criminals. The results were even greater than the Marshals Service expected.
- 162 murder suspects arrested
- 553 rape/sexual assault suspects arrested
- 154 documented gang members arrested
- 68 kidnapping suspects arrested
- 12 extortion suspects arrested
- 38 arson suspects arrested
- 638 armed robbery suspects arrested
- 106 unregistered sex offenders arrested
- 1,727 assault suspects arrested
- 4,291 drug cases cleared, including OCDETF cases [Organized Crime/Drug Enforcement Task Force]
- 201 drug seizures
- 243 guns seized
And I can’t find any more data than that so far. The cost of the operation? $900,000 and 3,000 officers.
Now, I’m all for locking up the truly bad guys. But then this talking head from the US Marshals Service comes on the Countdown and whines that there’s just not enough money to perform manhunts like this all the time. Well, how are you spending that money, Marshal?
Let’s see, $900,000 for 10,340 arrests is $87.04 per arrest. It therefore cost you $373,491.29 to lock up the drug offenders and $300,986.46 to arrest all the rest of the bad guys on the list and $225,522.24 to lock up the other 2,591 unaccounted for (what were they arrested for, parking tickets?). Let’s be charitable and assume the other 2,591 are all equally bad guys. You spent almost 41.5% of your money on arresting drug offenders. You arrested 31 drug offenders for every four rapists. You arrested 53 drug offenders for every two murderers. You arrested 113 drug offenders for every arsonist.
Nice work, fellas. We all feel a lot safer knowing your priorities are in line. Drugs are so much more harmful to us than murderers, rapists, and arsonists, don’t you agree? Maybe you don’t really need more money. Maybe the money you already have should be more wisely spent.
The talking head also talked about how overcrowded our prisons are and how so many offenders get released early due to overcrowding. Maybe some of those murderers, rapists, and arsonists wouldn’t be walking the streets if the jails and prisons weren’t so full of potheads, ravers, and speed freaks. 50% of our incarcerated are in for drug convictions, and here you’re spending 41.5% of your money arresting more. And after sixty years, hundreds of billions of dollars, tougher sentences, and more prisons, we now have the highest percentage of our population imprisoned of any country in the world, rampant violence, purer drugs at cheaper prices with greater availability, police corruption, judicial corruption, eroding civil liberties, and the same rates of addiction as always.
Prohibition does not work. Never has, never will. And in the meantime you waste finite law enforcement and correctional resources and taxpayer money year after year futilely trying to solve a social and medical problem with crime fighting and military tools.
Hey, isn’t there some sort of Congressional action due on keeping certain provisions of the USA unPATRIOTic ACT from expiring? I wonder how a really flashy, arrest heavy publicity stunt might be tied to that… naw, now I’m being cynical. Besides, a great PR moment would’ve been to catch that guy who mailed the anthrax to the Senate a few years ago (remember that?) Yeah, doing some federal crime fighting work to combat terrorism, that would have been flashy.
