This is from a Star Ledger editorial Sunday April 29. The italics and boldface are mine.
"Without a job, a former (first) offender will be pushed to go back to selling or using drugs, shoplifting and other crimes.
Which means all the public money spent rehabilitating someone gets flushed down the drain.
That Is why Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Union) and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) say they’re introducing a bill that would automatically expunge the criminal records of first-time, nonviolent offenders. To qualify, drug offenders must undergo intense treatment.
It’s only for people who have paid their debts to society and don’t present a threat. Some, as we’ve discovered, have served on school boards. Thanks to a law enacted last year, people such as Rasheed Abdul-Haqq, an Army veteran arrested with a small bag of heroin in 1968, got kicked off one of these boards.
Green sponsored that law based on the argument that if every other district employee must undergo a background check, so should school board members. But it meant people, including Abdul-Haqq, were disqualified by old convictions — even though the Plainfield resident went on to become a community activist, county corrections officer and business owner.
Green says he now realizes how hard it is to get a record expunged. By the time this bill comes up for a vote, we hope other lawmakers can see that, too."
I have written recently why I feel the prayer prior to the business of a government meeting is not only meaningless but a superfluous exercise in righteousness. I intend to follow up on that thought sometime in the next week or so.
It is obviously that if the Assembly meetings start with an invocation it did not prevent Assemblyman Green from pursuing a despicable course. In fact he has been accused of indulging in a vendetta.
Be it as it may, the longest serving state Assemblyman should have been aware of the difficulties which prevented Rasheed Abdul-Haqq from serving as a voice of reason on the BOE.
If the proposed bill becomes law will Abdul-Haqq be eligible for reinstatement on the BOE? If so what would happen to the person selected to fill his seat?
Prayer and pledge don't mean much to people who will take care of themselves and their friends and the citizens they represent be damned. Can I say that word here? Look at Jerry and Sharon. Sharon brags about being a Christian, but does the exact opposite so often, we know she's lying. We need real ethics, and a person's background doesn't make them unethical. Let's see what they are doing now and have done recently and their behavior will tell us about them. If people looked at recent behavior then Sharon and Jerry would never have gotten another term.
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