On July 6, two days after Independence Day, the children of
Meriden store owner Ibraham Ghazal were featured in the Meriden Record Journal.
Very likely they would have preferred to remain in obscurity, but the murder of
their father had thrust notoriety upon them.
A little more than a week earlier, the father of Tamer and
Tharwat Ghazal had been shot and killed in the store he owned with a partner by
a gunman who, it later was determined, had been a candidate for a Risk
Reduction Credit Program passed into law by the General Assembly at the end of
its hectic session.
Tamer Ghazal, an attorney from Jordan, was reluctant to
talk about the murder. But when he was told by the paper’s reporter that the
likely gunman who had killed his father had been released from prison without
having served his full sentence for an earlier robbery, he asked, “How did he
get out early?”
A bewildered store clerk working the cash register at the EZ
Mart during the crime – Mr. Ghazal surrendered the cash on demand but was
murdered anyway – observed, “He should not be walking the streets. How can they
leave him this way? He is a dangerous man.”
Sentenced for first degree robbery in January 2007 to
thirteen years in prison -- suspended after six and a quarter years -- and
three years probation, Frankie Resto, later arrested as the gunman, had been
released from prison on April 12, seven months before his term was due to
expire.
A candidate for the state’s new Risk Reduction Earned Credit
Program, Mr. Resto, was given a reduction in his sentence. The legislation that
created the program was made retroactive by the Democratic dominated
legislature, which means its provision applied to prisoners serving time before
the bill’s enactment.
The answer to Mr. Tharwat’s question very likely will not
please him. Mr. Resto was let free seven months before his due date for release
because the General Assembly – some say to reduce prison costs at a time when
the state’s budget is once again in arrears – wrote into law a program that
permits violent criminals to shave time off their sentences for good behavior
while in prison.
Undersecretary for criminal justice policy at the state
Office of Policy and Management Michael Lawlor has said that the new Risk
Reduction Earned Credit Program simply moves the date of parole, and he pointed
out that not everyone is offered parole, news that is not likely to comfort the
children of Mr. Ghazal.
Mr. Resto, said Mr. Lawlor, was flagged as a high-risk
inmate and served 91 percent of his sentence. Under the old dispensation, he
would have been released earlier: “If we went back to the way it was a year
ago, he would have gotten out earlier. We prefer a system where we identify who
is a higher risk and they serve a larger portion of their sentence. Had he
gotten no credits he would have served three or four months longer. But under
the old system, he would have been paroled earlier.” One of the purposes of the
new bill, Mr. Lawlor said, was to reduce recidivism, a purpose wasted upon Mr.
Resto.
Any connection between recidivism and the state’s new Risk
Reduction Earned Credit Program may not be obvious to the children of Mr.
Ghazal – or, indeed, anyone else. Is Mr. Lawlor seriously suggesting that a
program designed to reduce risks to prison officials posed by the unacceptable
behavior of those in prison will also reduce the possibility of repetitive
criminal activity when released prisoners are no longer under the jurisdiction
of prison administrators? Do the names Hayes and Komisarjevsky ring a bell? Is
it possible that Mr. Lawlor and Mr. Malloy, a former prosecutor, do not
understand that prisoners are called “cons” for good reason?
Len Suzio, a state Senator whose district includes Meriden,
said that the crime “underscores a problem with this new law. How could he have
gotten out early? He earned those credits. How could a guy with such a violent
record get those credits?”
Mr. Suzio’s view that violent criminals should not be
eligible for the program struck a responsive chord with his Democratic opponent
in the 13th District Senate race, Dante Bartolomeo, who agreed that “It
shouldn’t be used for violent offenders. Clearly this gentleman should not have
been released early.”
Perhaps on behalf of the children of the murdered Mr.
Ghazal, Ms. Bartolomeo might have a word with Mr. Lawlor, who might just want
to plant a word in Governor Dannel Malloy’s ear. The most partisan governor in
two decades, Mr. Malloy has not been receptive to suggestions made by
Republicans.
A governor intent on giving prison administrators tools he
hopes may create a more manageable prison environment never-the-less is
constitutionally obligated to protect the public from murderers, rapists and
other violent criminals bent on mayhem. The FIRST and most important duty of a
government is to protect its citizens from violent predators whose sentences
should never have been reduced to accommodate prison officials.
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