Ok as everyone here should know by now... I am truly running for politics.

I will be running in 2010 on an anti-crime platform in my home region.

I am moving in July to cherry pick my adversary, but I have yet to decide who will be that adversary.

My entire platform is designed to not just be for my running, but to affect the tri-county region (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties) as well as the State as a whole.

Again the platform is crime.

Essentially it is my observation that less than 1% of the crimes in this region get prosecuted at all. Yes less than 1%. Under-reporting by police is well known in the security industry. I have many aspects of my planned campaign written down, and partially fleshed out.

I understand I need to back up my claims with testimonials, statistics, and the likes. I also expect this will be reacted to very unkindly by the current establishment.

I will also make clear to posters I do not expect to win. I expect to lose. In fact the way I plan to run I NEED to lose since I can embarrass the whole while I am not elected and if elected I must get them to cooperate with me to get change within an artificial structure they have created to prevent such changes.

Now this is where you can learn politics in reality, instead of just debating it.

This is volunteer politics, no one gets paid, no one needs to participate, but it will show other posters some savvy of yours as well as maybe start a new angle in politics.

My Goals:
  Primary:
1) Increase in prison beds in service
2) Increase in time served
3) Increase in total prosecutors
4) Higher complaint to conviction rate.
5) Put the top % of property criminals away for a good period of time.
6) Tougher laws on crimes affecting safety of others involving metal theft and property crimes
7) 100 days minimum if convicted of two or more misdemeanors.

  Secondary:
1) Increase payments State makes for uninsured mental health patients to be treated (to get more beds offered)
2) Reduce obstacles to creating mental health beds.
3) Monitor mental health services more closely for bad business practices, reduce waste
4) Reduce prohibitions against alternative therapy sources.

To obtain these changes I have made a list of FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) requests I will proffer (Cost yet unknown, a research topic in this) .

FOIA Requests:

1) Average time served for a wide variety of crimes, drug, assault, theft, etc.
2) Average cell size at each prison/jail.
3) Average bed size at each prison/jail.
4) Number of trials per year last 4 years, and types (Crime types)
5) Known amount of stolen metal in net weights or net values (Market price to sell)
6) Drug Seizures for the last 12 years, total weight and individual types.
7) House and Business Alarm statistics for last 10 years.
8) Security Licenses for last 8 years
9) Total actual criminal count for last 8 years (IE if someone committed 10 crimes over 8 years he still counts as just 1 criminal) for felonies and misdemeanors.

To get the changes I need to campaign and spread the word. In order of desired effectiveness and cost as well as possible circulation:

How I will campaign

1) Email solicitation via submittals
2) Radio Ads
3) Web Ads
4) Billboards
5) Televised interviews, debates, etc.
6) Town Hall settings
7) Grassroots
8) Political Signs
9) Networking
10) Talk Method
11) On as many radio shows as possible, both as trying to win things and as a guest
12) Bumper Stickers
13) Pins, Badges, and tie lapels.

Note this is a heavy Democrat region, they count the tri-county region as their no matter what vote so networking and grassroots are two of the harder methods. The talk method I have devised is to communicate non-stop on the issue to everyone I get any time with. 30 seconds can be a vote for me in the future and I have plenty of idle time at gas stations, restaurants, and the likes. It can also lead to grass root formation for me.

I have devised a number of themes to run concurrently and consecutively... I do not mind seeing more! I have also devised some imagery ideas to place on the ads I shall be having (But not yet designed them, or had them designed, a possible way for people to participate in this experiment)

Themes:

1) Designed to Fail
2) The Broken Door
3) Fortunes for Felons
4) Vote for Jailtime Rehab!
5) Is your bridge safe?
6) Got Metal? (Picture of a metal thief in progress)
7) 5 days in the life of a criminal (show the revolving door in progress, criminal smiling the whole time)
8) Crime does not care about political affiliation.
9) No Crime 2010
10) Stop Crime (Picture of a Criminal stealing a stop sign or broken sign due to sawed off metal?)

Pictures/photos
1) Photo/Picture of a metal thief stealing a jail cell door!
2) Picture of a metal thief stealing the gold dome from the capital building
3) Picture of a metal thief stealing major Portland metal landmarks (Portlandia for instance)
4) Picture of a cop plugging a hole in a dam that has many more holes in it... and crime is pouring out (Can crime be demonstrated in a picture? Or do we name the water in general crime?)

Some facts I know about crime in the region:

1) The police are pressured with pay raises being denied, poorer positions, and harder schedules if they bring to many crimes to the prosecutors. This has lead to many misdemeanor crimes not being arrested, cited, or reported at all. Police openly speak on this, if you get the right officer, to those in the security industry, one some officers consider a sister industry.
2) The DA frequently refuses to prosecute crimes of certain nature, and/or drops the charges to the smallest number and smallest issue in an effort to land an instant plea deal
3) Judges here cite the low jail space in decisions leading to much reduced prison and jail sentences.
4) Early release programs of all sorts of natures exist leading all sorts of criminals to get very low jail times.
5) Pressure from news agencies works, but only on extreme cases... one criminal stole more than 100 cars and was never prosecuted on any due to the DA's low worry rate if the cars are found with low damage or insignificant damage later, only with a regional papers reporting of the massive number of thefts he had committed. Another story, that of John Farrell has him serving a day per a car stolen, of a total 46 total autos... and if he had not been caught with a lot of drugs he would never have gotten the 5 year sentence which ended his spree... Oh and those are cars they know about.
6) Metal thieves are so brazen as to steal metal from bridges, from cars, from live electrical wires, from historic statues, and any other source... Street values are commonly quoted, and the costs of actual value to replace can be up to 100 times the street value... Security contracts to guard metals in the past two years has made up approximately 1/4 of my security time in that time period.
7) The meth epidemic is centered on my city... yes on my city of Portland.
8) The amount of stolen materials going into pawn shops in the area is staggering. There is also a booming business with sending items to California to be pawned after being stolen.
9) There is exactly 1 state trooper on during nights, or was at this time two years ago (They have at times debated changing this, dunno if those changes have occurred) and other manpower shortages were even noted in Fahrenheit 9-11
10) Oregon ranks in the top 5 for Federal Crimes but in State reported crimes they report us in the bottom 5 (IE lowest crime rates) per capita in the United States. This is a fallacy since every criminal out here already knows, and admits openly, that to do a Federal Crime is to do hard time.
11) Portland has a man in charge wanting to shut down 94 beds (In a location where there is plenty of room to open more, and to keep costs down) and to open 75 general usage beds in an as of yet unopened jail (so he can say he opened the jail, lol). An entire floor of the Multnomah County Detention Center, the 7th, is unused mostly and has capacity for 88 beds with ease, or 156 beds if double bunked. There is already staffing present at this location, and costs to put it into effect are much lower. However I want ALL beds opened, which would be a net gain of about 1000 beds.
12) Some criminals serve less than a day on their up to 6 month sentence.
13) In 2005 Multnomah County released a record 5,000 criminals early.

So now the challenge.

You will act as if you wish to address these issues, and make plans of your own, or such, and post them. I will of course, as all good politicians do, steal the best idea's for my campaign... but that will be my personal opinion... the best winner on this forum for tackling this issue can be recognized by the others for having actually gone into practical theory and application instead of merely crying about politics and posting drivel that is repeated endlessly. Or you can offer a lil assistance on my campaign efforts (non-monetary, I will raise the cash myself in a stubborn Flint Fireforgeish way) with graphics, advice, information gathering, etc.

So you can talk the talk, but like me can you walk the walk?