Criminal laws should be meant to deter and punish behavior that injures others. It’s that simple.” (Emphasis in original.)
Interestingly, when “Consensual Crime,” the novel, landed on this writer’s desk, I was already reading “Let’s Get Free – A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,” by Paul Butler, currently a law professor at Georgetown. A former United States prosecutor, Professor Butler has written an indictment of the criminal justice system, particularly in regards to nonviolent crimes, such as drug possession. He writes: “The biggest threat to freedom in the United States comes not from some foreign or terrorist threat but rather from our dysfunctional criminal justice system. It is out of control. We define too many acts as crimes, punish too many people far longer than their crimes warrant, and therefore have too much incarceration. Some people deserve to be in jail, but not two million...”
Like Judge Sprecher, Professor Butler stresses the failure of the War on Drugs, but unlike the Judge, the Professor sets forth seven ways to, as he writes, “Take Back Justice.” Some only the government can tackle, some ordinary citizens can do and some are controversial, such as jury nullification (voting “not guilty” in drug cases as a form of protest). Nevertheless, it makes for interesting reading. The Butler book is a perfect companion to “Consensual Crime” supplying a factual background to a work of fiction.
Last year’s publication of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, also underlines the timeliness of the Restrepo novel. She finds fault with the War on Drugs as well. The War’s declaration caused “arrests and convictions for drug offenses to skyrocket, especially among people of color.” Generally, the ratio of blacks to whites in prison is 8 to 1. However, studies “show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates.” The Alexander book really focuses on the fact that, once their time is served, the released “prisoners enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion.” Former prisoners are discriminated against in voting, employment, housing, education, public benefits and jury service, and it is all legal. She calls it the “New Jim Crow.” Both Butler and Alexander make clear that we need to recognize, as a fact, a point
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driven home by the Restrepo novel – drug abuse is more of a public health problem than a crime.
Indeed, author Michael J. Restrepo has some familiarity with the health care field. His wife, Sharon, is a registered nurse at Allergy & Asthma Center of Wyomissing, and their daughter, Hilary, 22, is a nurse as well, employed by the Surgical Institute of Reading. They have two other daughters: Corinne, 24, a teacher in the Tredyffrin Easttown School District, and Shannon, 16, a student at Exeter Township High School
where she is All-State and All-Berks in volleyball.
Mickey has five older siblings, two of whom entered the health care field and became medical doctors: William who died twenty-two years ago and James, an ENT specialist in Wyomissing. His other siblings pursued different interests. Robert is CEO of State Auto; Ronald is a lawyer in Houston; and the lone sister, Kathryn, has been busy raising five children.
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