Arizona compensates crime victims — but not nearly enough
As an advocate for abolishing the death penalty, I endorse a justice system focused on healing and support.
Arizona is a leader nationally in victims’ rights, but we must demand more for victims’ families and survivors.
The current $25,000 cap on the state’s victim compensation program falls short of addressing lasting costs of recovery after crime.
Arizona’s compensation program covers expenses related to physical harm, mental distress, crime scene clean-up, and economic loss directly resulting from victimization. This money supports victims across our state and those who may not always have a defendant responsible for restitution.
Comprehensive financial aid for victims is essential to healing. Families and victims of crime need financial resources to access long-term support.
Increased funding for victims’ compensation alleviates the financial strain victims of crime encounter and underscores our state’s commitment to effective justice.
Enhancing financial aid for victims can advance their ability to heal from violence. This framework cultivates a safer, fairer community, and a shift from a focus on ineffective and costly retributive policies.
Kat Jutras, Phoenix
Jim Larkin did much for Phoenix
Phoenix has lost Jim Larkin, our friend of more than 40 years. Jim’s contributions to Phoenix were real.
With Michael Lacey, Jim operated Phoenix New Times for nearly 50 years.
New Times was at the forefront of a successful 1982 citizen initiative campaign that ended “at large” representation in Phoenix. City council candidates would no longer be chosen by elites who promised that they were more enlightened than the rest of us.
It was New Times that first exposed the racism and cruelty of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. New Times raised the first red flags about the pretextual traffic stops where U.S. citizens of Mexican heritage were being dragged from their cars by deputies demanding to see proof of citizenship.
Another view: Why Larkin's death makes me angry
And when Arpaio’s special enforcement squad conducted illegal retaliatory nighttime arrests of Lacey and Larkin, they sued Arpaio and won a settlement of nearly $4 million. The settlement money was given to Latino rights organizations.
The accomplishment closest to Jim’s heart was the restoration of Booker T. Washington High School. The building at 12th Street and Jefferson preserves the memory of racial segregation in Phoenix.
Anyone who knew Jim Larkin would describe a giant man with a gentle elegance.
He was principled. He was passionate. And no one hated pretense more than Jim.
Our tribute is that God never made a more selfless and loving father, or a better human being, than Jim Larkin.
Pat Cantelme, former president of United Phoenix Firefighters
Phil Gordon, former Phoenix mayor
Alfredo Gutierrez, former state Senate majority leader
The real risk to kids in school
Notice to Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne:
Children stand a much higher risk of sexual assault in a church or scout troop than in a public school restroom.
Children are more likely to be gunned down in a public school than being faced with sexual assault.
It’s high time you face the truth and stop scapegoating the LGBTQ+ students trying to just be students.
Ralph Atchue, Eloy
Others have Rusty Bowers' courage
In Phil Boas’ column that asks who will be the Democrats’ Rusty Bowers — suggesting no Democrat has shown like courage — he must have forgotten people like the Georgia poll workers who were viciously attacked by the right.
They told the truth even as their lives were threatened.
Or how about the Democratic governor of Michigan who stood her ground even in the face of kidnapping plots from radical right-wing terrorists?
I think there’s plenty of Rusty Bowers to go around — Democrats and Republicans. We are extremely fortunate to have many honest government servants who choose the more difficult right.
It’s unfortunate that Mr. Boas can’t seem to get past partisan politics.
John Beasley, Mesa
Biden and Trump? No comparison
Columnist Phil Boas’ attempt to draw an equivalence between the financial dealings of Joe Biden and his “money-hoarding family” with the Trump family’s decades-long corruption, tax evasion, real-estate fraud, theft, massive grifting scam and collusion with Putin and Saudi murderers would be laughable if it weren’t so damaging.
Epic fail.
Mark Bryson, Phoenix
Vote for Trump, break your oath
How many times have these Trump-at-any-cost supporters stood, with hand over heart or saluting, and repeated the oath of allegiance “to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands”?
How many of them are veterans who swore under oath allegiance not to any individual but to our country, and to defend her against enemies foreign and domestic?
Mr. Trump has no claim of loyalty from any citizen. That privilege belongs solely to the United States.
To vote for him as a show of loyalty, our country being in great peril within and abroad, would be to break that oath I took 65 years ago and have never recanted.
Jim Barber, Mesa
We need another Bobby Kennedy
On June 6, 1968, the light of democracy dimmed in America as an assassin’s bullet took Bobby Kennedy from us.
His journey across America showed him the aspirations and hopes of a nation. People were drawn to him because in 1968 — a year filled with turmoil — he had a positive plan for the future.
The United States is again caught in a maelstrom of division, political crime and gun violence.
A past president faces multiple indictments and uses his social media megaphone to incite his followers.
His words are not meant to bring us together. His vitriolic pronouncements urge his followers to condemn any who would question his actions.
His view of the future makes his own needs a priority.
We could use another Bobby Kennedy. And his son doesn’t come close.
Bob Ellis, Phoenix
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona compensates crime victims, but not nearly enough
