WOMEN AND GUNS:

FROM THE EDITOR





	Here is a good example of a bad bumper sticker: "Fight 

Crime--Bake Cookies."  but that's exactly what I did one sweltering 

August night in aid of something called National Night out, a project

in major cities around the country that aims to bring communities 

together to fight crime.  It started out a few years back as a 

suggestion that on a given day (now the second Tuesday in August)

residents put their porch lights on and sit on the porch, enjoying

the summer evening, but also signaling a certain vigilance about 

crime.



	At least in Buffalo, it has become a little more elaborate now 

the block clubs and the likes organizing events on the designated 

evening, providing a little more interaction between neighbors.  At

the same time, recognizing a good thing when they see it, the police 

department sends around various "liaisons" with the community who do 

things like run the siren on the motorcycle for the kids, sample the 

cookies (mine were fresh-from-the-garden: spearmint/butter icebox 

cookies), make polite conversation and leave.  It is also a time for 

politicians to turn out--sometimes you get the mayor, other times 

councilpersons or state representatives.



	This isn't such a terrible idea: I met several new neighbors, 

including one who was struggling to move in without being able to park 

his car on the street that night, did some in-depth chatting with 

people  I usually just wave at, admired some new babies, scored some

Angelica seeds for next year's garden, etc.  Everybody seemed to have

a good time; the kids especially loved the fact that the street is 

blocked off and they can run, skip, skateboard, bike and bounce up 

and down with nary a "heads up."  On the whole, I would much rather

live in a community where one can connect with fellow humans that the

type where you don't know neighbors well enought to even smile at 

them, let alone remind them that the annual big trash pick-up is next

Monday.



	But the most interesting thing about Night Out this year was

that no one really talked abut crime.  Yes, crime in major cities is

down, even, to everyone's surprise, juvenile crime.  But in major 

cities across the country, there is still an uneasiness that didn't

exist before, reflected often in the number of houses for sale, in

the growth of car alarms an locking devices visible, etc.  When 

average folks do get around to talking about crime, it is never a

happy discussion.  A stolen bike, for example, is not grand theft if

taken from a porch or side alley, but it's also not a mere 

"statistic" either--it effects everyone from kid to parent to

neighbor, contributing to that sense of unease. 



	When the nice policemen on their motor scooters stopped by, no 

one that I saw really asked them about crime prevention, or some 

recent car thefts in the area, or even--this is a big one on my 

street-- complained about the lack of parking enforcement.  by some

tacit agreement, the "community helpers" were guests of the street,

so politeness dictated that they get some cookies in return for their 

coloring books for the kids, like some kind of long-ago tribal

exchange of trinkets.  Perhaps we did not ask these helpers for help,

in the same way that one isn't supposed to ask a doctor at a party 

what to do for an earache.



	When our state assemblyman stopped by (with two aides in tow), 

there was a query or two--politely phrased--as to why we get so much 

mail from him around election time, but that was about it.  I, for

example, didn't ask him to define "assault weapon," a ban on which he

would have voted last session.  No one asked him where "our " share 

of the vaunted 100,000 new policemen were.  There was no inquiry that

I heard on our neighborhood's most pressing governmental conundrum: 

when is a parking lot not a parking lot?  I did tease one of his 

aides about the cool "crime" shirts many of us were given, asking if

he thought they would help.  But, like the rest of my neighbors, I

waited until afterwards to make snide remarks.



	Several days later, wandering through the paper, I wondered

if we should have been so polite, so generous with the baked goods,

if we had lived in a community where the reality of crime did a 

little more than make people uneasy.  If I lived in Florida, for

example, in Melbourne, or Orlando, would my neighborhood's National

Night Out soiree have been not so festive, in light of the news that

a man who had "earned" the NICKNAME, "The Vampire Rapist," was being

released on a 50-year probation?



	James Crutchley was convicted in 1985 of the abduction, rape

and attempted murder of hitchhiker, whom he repeatedly raped, after

which, he drained more than half the blood from his victim so he

could drink it. 



	Eleven years later, because he was the proverbial "model" 

prisoner, Crutchley was set to be released and had planned to relocate

to  West Virginia community refused to accept him, as did Melbourne,

where he once worked.



	Crutchley was then according to the newspaper accounts, moved

to a  "temporary" probation facility in Orlando (located in a 

residential neighborhood) until a permanent place could be found for

him.  Because Florida, like 33 other states, requires community 

notification when sex offenders are released (a similar federal law

goes into effect next year) some communities were able to block the

arrival of Crutchley into their lives; but, as is always the case is

this kind of ghoulish musical chairs, somewhere was left to take him

in.



	As it happens, this particular story has a "happy" ending.

Two days into his 50-year parole, Crutchley was arrested for 

possession of marijuana, and returned to prison.



	It is, I suppose, comforting to know that many criminals, in 

addition to being evil, are also stupid.  But "many" is not all, so

the careful reader is left to wonder about all the other felons, with

or without nicknames, guilty of crimes for which the law does not

provide notification to the community, who are dumped back into

neighborhoods where people are only uneasy.  There are several

ghastly known cases where this sort of thing has led to disaster,

notably the Polly Klass case.



	I am not a criminologist or a penologist and I believe in 

redemption and forgiveness and even rehabilitation, but I do not 

believe that anyone who requires a 50-year parole--half a century in

which the state is to monitor his behavior in open society--requires

any kind of a parole at all.  Logic would seem to dictate that this

kind of arrangement, where authorities acknowledge that a felon is

capable of committing another heinous offense for the rest of his

life, but grant him access--even limited access--to the rest of us,

is begging the questions of "good behavior" and "parole" in the

first place.



	So why is a James Crutchley allowed back into society at all?

Someone to whom I related this grisly story said it happened because

prison overcrowding requires model prisoners like Crutchley to be

released to make room for all the other incoming felons, and I am sure

that is part of the reason.  But because we haven't fully wrestled 

with all the questions involved in our criminal justice system, 

because we haven't drawn clear lines that state: "cross this line and

you go no further," the people whom we elected and hired to protect

us from criminals are left as uneasy and helpless as the rest of us.

I do not, for example, think that in the Crutchley case, prison 

officials were happy to be releasing him in the first place, and I

hope those who provided for his parole at least had the fig leaf of

being able to say, "we had to."



	Until we are willing to do more than bake cookies to fight

crime and let our ingrained politeness allow politicians to fairly

claim we don't care about an issue like this, we are all going to be

a lot more uneasy in the future.







Peggy Tartaro

Executive Editor