On February 9 the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, which had already informally decided against LD 1707, the bill that would have created severe penalties for people associated with criminal street gangs, killed a substitute proposal for a study to be done on how to define gangs and how to have police share information on them. (See "Anti-gang Bill Dumped," by Lance Tapley, February 3.)
John Rogers, Maine Criminal Justice Academy director, told legislators at a work session he hadn't noticed "rampant" gang activity, he had a personal problem with "what a definition of a gang is," and he didn't know where proponents got their information citing a high rate of crimes caused by gangs. He said the academy, which was to be mandated to do the study, already provided training on gangs to law-enforcement officers. After sponsor Amy Volk, a Scarborough Republican, apologized for bringing the bill to the committee, its members unanimously killed it and the substitute study.
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When Joseph Ponte was told that Maine's longtime corrections commissioner Martin Magnusson had once informed the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, after a dramatic hostage-taking, that there were "probably 300 inmates right now with a weapon in their hand" — and that nobody at the committee meeting seemed disturbed by this information — Ponte's reaction was "I would be extremely perturbed by that."
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- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, Law, John Rogers, gangs, More
, Law, John Rogers, gangs, Criminal Justice Committee, legislature, lawyers, LD 1707, Amy Volk, Less
