SURJ kicks off in Kent County with a rally at DSU

“Today, we the people of Delaware are guilty of tolerating a criminal justice system and a deprivation of the poor that perpetuates crime,” former Governor Russell W. Peterson declared last week. Community involvement, Peterson said, is the only way to solve these problems.

Kicking off his Stand Up for What’s Right and Just (SURJ) program with a rally held last Wednesday at the Delaware State University Student Center, Peterson said Delawareans need to take immediate action to help stop crime in their communities.

Peterson is the honorary chairman of SURJ, a statewide, grassroots effort committed to reforming the criminal justice system and attacking the root causes of crime.

In his welcoming remarks to an audience of about 130, Dr. William DeLauder, president of Delaware State University, said the prison system is one of the fastest growing industries in the nation.

"It tears your heart apart,” he said, to see the increasing number of people in prison. DeLauder added that what SURJ wants to do is to try to prevent Delaware’s children from falling into a repeating cycle of crime and poverty.

In his speech, Peterson called on Delaware’s citizens to reject the notion that building bigger prisons and incarcerating more people will stop crime. Allowing the system to go on as it is, Peterson argued, is a serious and immoral offense.

Calling Delaware’s jails expensive “colleges of crime,” Peterson said prisons only serve to teach youngsters the tricks of the criminal trade, which they put to use once they’re released.

Lack of educational opportunities and ineffective drug treatment programs put prisoners back on the street no better off then they were when first confined, Peterson said. This is an intolerable situation, he said.

STANDING UP FOR WHAT’S RIGHT AND JUST: Former Gov. Russell W. Peterson addresses a crowd of supporters last Wednesday as his Stand Up for What’s Right and Just (SURJ) campaign started its Kent County recruitment drive.  Peterson said SURJ is working to reduce crime in Delaware by attacking its causes: poor education, drug abuse and prison overcrowding. Peterson also said laws setting up mandatory sentences for certain crimes need to be changed. The former governor’s remarks were made at the Delaware State University Student Center.
Photo by Jeff Brown

SURJ has three goals for 2002: cut down the number of repeat offenders going through the criminal justice system, reduce the number of crime victims while improving safety in the community and stopping the increase in the number of people sent to prison.

The latter goal, said Thomas P. Eichler, SURJ’s executive coordinator, can be done by promoting prison-to-work programs, supporting drug abuse treatment in prisons and communities and improving compliance with state guidelines intended to provide speedy trials.

Eichler said another part of SURJ’s program is to reexamine Delaware’s laws, which dictate mandatory sentences handed down to convicted criminals. These laws allow judges little discretion, and don’t allow them to tailor sentences to meet the circumstances of the crime.

The result, he said, is a system bursting at the seams with prisoners, and with little money available for programs to make sure those prisoners don’t end up back behind bars.

But changes in minimum sentencing laws will require action by the General Assembly, and according to Eichler, the SURJ executive committee is already working on that problem.

“We are drafting some legislation now, and will be looking forward to talking to legislators,” Eichler said, “A number of legislators are members of SURJ and we’ll start with them.”

As a non-partisan group, SURJ will be looking for help from legislators of both parties. Eichler is optimistic SURJ’s ideas will get the support they need to make it through the legislative maze.

It’s important that changes get made, Eichler said.

Nationwide, he notes, Delaware ranks ninth in its incarceration rate, and 34th in the well being of its children.

“Wouldn’t it be a nice thing that, sometime in the future, those numbers could be reversed?”

INTERNET NOTE: For more to learn more about SURJ and for information on how to join, check their website at www.surg.org.