Editor’s note: these are the candidate’s responses to questions provided by RIPR. The views expressed are the candidate’s alone, edited only in cases of inappropriate or libelous language. No changes have been made to correct errors of fact, spelling or grammar.
Does the candidate support criminal justice reform – if so, in what ways?
Our State’s courts are clogged, mostly with the victims of opiate addiction, domestic violence, or both. The State has to maintain a tough balancing act when a suspect comes onto the radar, to prevent future assaults, burglaries, fentanyl dealing, overdoses and other behavior that endangers human life and limb. We badly need repair.
I support a 2-pronged reform of Rhode Island’s criminal justice system, incorporating the demonstrably-best principles of 2 normally-opposing criminological schools of thought, Left and Right Realism.
Left Realism says that addressing crime’s root causes is more effective for prevention than endless arrest-and-jailings, and that means asking some hard questions about domestic violence and opiate addict property and/or dealing criminals, two main categories clogging our courts and plaguing our streets. To stop men from beating their partners, we have to create opportunities for men to feel a sense of purpose, and enough above-board income to raise a family. To give people a life worth living sober from opiates, we have to have affordable accessible pain management, and a role in society worth getting out of bed for, plain and simple. To achieve this, Compassion Party Gubernatorial candidate Anne Armstrong‘s “Regenerative Braking” economic recovery plan uses the US tax code to generate goods, services and employment for any in need. Aggressive application of cannabis is highly likely to lower domestic abuse and opiate incidents, and so it is a no-brainer as a test product for free Regenerative distribution.
Right Realism has demonstrated that the presence of petty crime and disarray stimulates more serious crime (“The Broken Window Theory”). While opponents decry the theory, The Compassion Party Regenerative economic recovery plan generates enough abundance that everyone’s windows can be fixed, everyone’s building renovated and repaired, and everyone can have work.
Both criminological theories also predict benefit from the public seeing greater honesty and transparency in government, and so my corruption clean-up plan (below) will go a long way. When politicians are crooks, then the average working Joe starts to cut corners. When politicians are just honest, hard-working and helpful, so are our neighbors. Politicians should lead by example.
Does the candidate prioritize rehabilitation or prosecution in drug crimes?
As Attorney General, I will join the growing list of States seeking damages from the manufacturers of Oxycontin, fentanyl, and other poisons by which our loved ones have been taken from us. Using deceptive marketing, illegal kickbacks, and money laundering, these companies and individuals dishonesty profited from human misery, and need to be prosecuted, where their rehabilitation can consist of serving addict communities and survivors of the disease’s misery and death toll.
As for addicts and how they are dealt with, I invite anyone curious to go to watch hearings sessions in any District Criminal Court and Rhode Island, or to speak with any Rhode Island Corrections Officer, to see how absolutely flooded with opiate-addicted suspects the Court is, and how well the State does at getting these people to the relative safety of prescribed substitute drugs, overdose kits, and disease management, however far from perfect it may be.
As Attorney General, I will be aggressively applying cannabis therapy on the pain management and opiate-using communities, as an aid to sobriety from opiates, and I will propose legislation allowing the State jail opiate program to broaden, to allow cannabis substitutes as well.
If elected, what will be the candidate’s top three priorities?
1. LIMITING THE POWER OF MY OWN OFFICE
As soon as I unseal/release documents currently held against Court Order by the current Attorney General, I will propose legislation limiting the power of the State Attorney General, who is currently immune to criminal and civil proceedings, and is subject to no oversight. A position that powerful should be subject to checks and balances, and the legislature should be able to appoint independent counsel and other oversight without retroactively imposing legal liability.
2. ROOTING OUT KNOWN SERIOUS CORRUPTION
I will initiate civil and or criminal proceedings against known bad-apple law enforcement officers.
3. ROOTING OUT MUNICIPAL ECONOMIC CORRUPTION
Investigation into the narrowly-averted tragedy of the 2018 Wickford Arts Festival. At this annual street vendor arts festival this year for the first time, children were placed at tremendous risk of death or grave bodily injury, because the streets were left open to traffic, with the artisans’ booths, inexplicably and for no good reason, for the first time spun round to face the sidewalk rather than the street, which was filled with rapidly moving automobiles among the thick crowds. The gaps between the booths, and childrens’ past memories of running in the foot-traffic-only streets created a risk of tragedy.
