Our Program on April 4th was retired Judge Frank Racek speaking on Judicial Service. Judge Racek now lives in the area but was a lawyer, county and then a district judge for 32 years on the bench in North Dakota and retired in 2020. From the outset the judge cautioned us that a lot of what he would be talking about was on the negative side. The judge said that there needs to be reform in the criminal justice system and some depressing parts of the system. Frank said, “I’m going to approach thi
s from my part, the judger part.” One of the reasons is that judges are given very little latitude with limited choices and tools to deal with the various types of convicted felons being probation, imprisonment and sentencing. Judges can only operate within the legislative confines of the law. So various trends of being tough or soft on crime will both fail because both ways do not work well with all types of criminals. Effective treatment is a huge issue.
s from my part, the judger part.” One of the reasons is that judges are given very little latitude with limited choices and tools to deal with the various types of convicted felons being probation, imprisonment and sentencing. Judges can only operate within the legislative confines of the law. So various trends of being tough or soft on crime will both fail because both ways do not work well with all types of criminals. Effective treatment is a huge issue.“Law makers and public officials want to do something about crime but money is not the answer” said Judge Racek. However, there is more hope with recent sociological research about the various types of criminal minds and behavior. Public officials just don’t understand criminals and the general assumption is that given a chance normal people will change their behavior. To help us understand Judge Racek three basic types on criminals using another judge’s description of their behaviors. The first was called the NORP’s (Normal Ordinary Responsible People. These are people who will make a conscious choice to change and reform their lives. Generally they are people that were in trying times and are truly regretfull and work to improve their lives. One of the problems is that the legal system put to many rules and them an that causes them to spiral out of control. The Secon type is the SLIP’s who are serious criminals with no conscience, no empathy for others and make their own rules in life and not caring that they injure, hurt and/or kill others. These criminals are smart and hard to catch thus avoid getting caught. Minimum sentences do not deter them and thy need to be incarcerated to isolate them from the public. The third type is the SLUGS. These are people that had no system around them that taught them to understand the consequences of the actions with very little ability to think ahead. Many act impulsively and give no thought to what this will lead to or who they hurt. Many just feel that they had bad luck! Also many of the SLUG’s have experienced a life of abuse and often very easy to catch. The recidivism rate for these people is high and they keep recycling into the system.
Judge Racek gave us some hope in saying that modern technology and better understanding of the 47 syndromes of criminal minds can help us but we can no longer just try to buy our was out of the problem. He smiled and said, "How we get our selves out of this as a society in for another time!" Members enjoyed his presentation and ask that we have him back to explore this in an upcoming meeting.