I understand that our society has huge problems related to family, but ultimately every man and woman in this society is capable of making their own decisions and if you are so far gone that rising through the ranks of a gang is so important that you are willing to kill people — even innocent people, then you probably belong in prison for much much longer than 3.5 years:
NY POST – A bleeding-heart Brooklyn judge has given a thug who shot two men a slap-on-the-wrist sentence — and justified it by saying, “We are failing as a society” because the gunman “substituted a gang for a lack of family.”
Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Michael Gary even cited Francis Benjamin’s low status in the Crips gang to explain handing him just 3¹/₂ years behind bars instead of the 22 years prosecutors sought.
“You turned to a gang for family support, for support in your life. And that is where we are failing as a society,” Gary said last week at the sentencing. “You are a nobody in terms of that gang. You are literally an instrument of somebody who has far more power than you.”
Benjamin, 21, had been charged with two counts of attempted murder after firing a .43-caliber handgun 11 times at a rival gangbanger and two other men sitting on a stoop in East Flatbush, court papers say.
He hit one man in the scrotum and leg and another in the chest, but also sent bullets flying into nearby homes where children were present.
Benjamin said afterward that he had just wanted to “put in work” so he could rise up the ranks of his gang, court papers state.
So much for personal and individual responsibility.