The Bootblack Stand
Plunkitt, George Washington
"The Bootblack Stand" Dear Dr. Plunkitt: Recently I took a break from my writing and lecturing and spent some time in a federal prison just helping the convicts learn the essentials of good manners, sound bodily...
...GWP Dr...
...They may have been taken by prison guards thirsting for knowledge...
...Obviously that would not be prudent at this time...
...Prison guards are often just as pathetic as prisoners...
...Address all correspondence to The Bootblack Stand, c/o The Alternative...
...Some of them are as fine as anyone I have worked with in years...
...Although Dr...
...Instead I suggest we decriminalize those crimes in which the perpetrator is apprehended and identified as a chronic repeater...
...GWP Dear Dr...
...One was a hard-to-get classic by Dale Carnegie and another did not even belong to me, John Dean's Simplified Version of the Bible...
...If you are really serious about changing the system this is the surest route, and from all indications several members of the Democratic Study Group are preparing the legislation even now...
...Cordially, Barbara Walters Dear Miss Walters: Your suggestion appears, at first blush, to be genuinely innovative, but I fear it is only a half measure...
...I am fetched by those who call for a radical reordering of the system...
...This would not be a blanket decriminalizing...
...is celebrating the publication of his new book, which is now available at avant-garde bookstores throughout New Jersey...
...This should put an end to the old myth that the people we enjail are just common criminals...
...What I am suggesting is that we can, in one swoop, cut down the incidence of crime in America while ridding our democracy of moral repression, by simply decriminalizing crime...
...Magruder: Hold on...
...Plunkitt: New York's current excitement about law and order has got me thinking about the whole matter of crime, criminals, and the people who are driving these gifted people into infamy—you and me...
...What this means as I understand it is that we not only decriminalize all crime but that we make illegal those actions that are today considered legal...
...Such people clearly adhere to value systems which, though different from the middle-class white system, are nonetheless valid in their own right...
...Clearly- the time has come to take extraordinary measures in dealing with crime...
...Not only has our attempt to impose our sense of the good on others proved ineffectual, but it is a kind of moral tyranny that is clearly out of touch with the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the World Food Conference...
...You see, I am an advocate of the old axiom that if one is good to oneself one will be good to others and thereby a better world will obtain...
...You're jumping the gun, so to speak...
...These are people who are thirsting for knowledge and yet we just lock them up...
...With crimes like mugging, burglary, and simple manslaughter rising despite the increased expenditure of public moneys to halt this increase, one simple factseems to elude policy makers...
...It is that many Americans commit crime because they like crime...
...For them crime is the good, and who are we to gainsay minority group values...
...Unfortunately, while I was helping others, others helped themselves to my belongings, not only the personal effects I had locked away in my locker but also several books which I had been using in my college lecture series...
...Plunkitt expects to earn ten million dollars from sales of his new book, he has agreed to continue to advise public figures through this column...
...Regards, Jeb Stuart MagruderDear Mr...
...On the college lecture circuit I intend to speak out on behalf of prison reform...
...After all, how do you know that your belongings were stolen by convicts thirsting for knowledge...
...Plunkitt 's book is about the importance of altruism in politics and it is titled What's in It for Me...
...I have long suspected that much of the virtue ascribed to prisoners by prison reformers is really the virtue of prison guards...
...Admittedly prisoners may be uncommonly admirable people whom society has misunderstood but so might prison guards...
...Plunkitt: Recently I took a break from my writing and lecturing and spent some time in a federal prison just helping the convicts learn the essentials of good manners, sound bodily hygiene, good grooming, and tennis—things essential for rehabilitation...
...George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst...
...they just dress differently...
Vol. 8 • May 1975 • No. 8
