NEW YORK -- From the
available evidence, it seems some people go into politics just
before they go totally brain dead. This is the only explanation
for the announced effort in New York state to increase the penalty
for killers of children to life without parole from the current
25 years to life. ``I hope that will play a deterrent,'' said
a Brooklyn assistant district attorney, urging on the politicians.
Where do we get these people?
Let us see: Envision
an enraged parent or some other custodian of a child (the sort
of person the law has in mind) who is abusing his or her ward
and, while in the throes of a homicidal rage, pauses before delivering
the fatal blow to consider the penalty. Life without parole is
too high a price to pay, he somehow reasons. But 25 years to life,
that's a different story. With that, the blow is administered.
The proposed legislation
is already being called ``Nixzmary's Law'' after Nixzmary Brown,
the 7-year-old Brooklyn girl who was allegedly tortured and then
murdered by her stepfather. The case has transfixed New York,
retaining its power long after this impatient city usually moves
on to something else. The murder of Nixzmary produced a sorrow
as big as the city itself.
Little Nixzmary was
starved. She weighed only 36 pounds at death. She was tied to
a chair. She was repeatedly beaten. She was made to eat cat food.
She was deprived of toilet privileges and had to use kitty litter.
She was repeatedly kept out of school and when, finally, she supposedly
helped herself to some yogurt, the authorities say, her stepfather
killed her.
Over and over again
officialdom reached out to her -- often feebly, in the end futilely.
Her school noticed her condition and summoned the police. The
police came and talked to her. A doctor examined her. Social workers
went to the house, could not get in and went away. Neighbors must
have suspected something was wrong. Her relatives must have known
enough to worry or maybe just to wonder. Letters were sent, phone
calls made, files opened, notations made. Everyone must have thought
someone else was doing something. Meanwhile, Nixzmary was in the
grips of her killer.
In its essence
-- in its many near misses -- the death of Nixzmary Brown suggests
the murder, 42 years ago, of Kitty Genovese. She was stabbed to
death in her Queens neighborhood at 3:15 in the morning as some
people -- the exact number is in dispute -- saw a fragment of
the attack. The original New York Times story specified 38 witnesses
and that led to countless other articles, TV movies and the like
about big city indifference, anonymity and coldness. More likely,
some people saw something but were not sure what, and
since Genovese kept running from her attacker (who left, only
to return), a half-hour might have elapsed. It was probably difficult
for any one person to follow the action. Still, a number of people
called the police.
Winston Moseley was
eventually arrested for the murder. He killed Genovese just to
rape her after she was dead. Because of his mental state, he was
ultimately given a life sentence. In 1968, he escaped custody
while being moved to a hospital for surgery. What did he promptly
do? He took five people hostage and raped a woman in front of
her husband. Whatever he was thinking -- if thinking can possibly
be the right word -- it was not about deterrence.
It is the same with
Cesar Rodriguez, Nixzmary's stepfather. He must have known the
authorities had inquired after Nixzmary. He must have known letters
had come from the school, a doctor had seen the girl, the social
workers had been to the house, the cops had looked into the matter.
Deterrence? The abuse allegedly continued. If he is guilty, it
is precisely because he could not be deterred.
The urge to make
sense out of the senseless is one most of us have. It's why such
varied men as the Rev. Pat Robertson and New Orleans Mayor Ray
Nagin can attribute low pressure systems usually with women's
names to the wrath of God. Politicians pander to this need, adding
more deterrence to deter crimes that cannot be deterred.
But what really needs
to be done is boringly bureaucratic, achingly administrative --
a winching of the system so it is taut, closing the cracks through
which Nixzmary slipped and was lost forever. Politicians know
this, but it is easy to propose stupid laws and difficult to improve
a system. There's votes and acclaim in the former, little of either
in the latter. Some politicians cannot be deterred.
©
2006, Washington Post Writers Group
