On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reacted to the crimes in Memphis that were committed by people who were released early by stating that “you have to get away from this lenient sentencing and letting people out early on these violent crimes.”
Host Stuart Varney asked, “This man had a lengthy rap sheet, in both these cases, actually, and police knew about it. Why does this stuff keep happening?”
Blackburn responded, “It keeps happening, Stu, because you have prosecutors, you have DAs that don’t go about putting in that maximum sentence. As Mayor Strickland said, if this criminal had served his full term, he would not have been out on the street creating and committing other crimes. And it is pretty simple, if you do the crime, you do the time. And we need to get back to this truth in sentencing, keeping people who are violent criminals locked up and off the streets.”
She added that the issue is primarily a local one, but there are things that can be done on felony sentencing guidelines at the federal level, and “you have to get away from this lenient sentencing and letting people out early on these violent crimes.”
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