A stabbing at Penn Station shows the design failure at the core of our criminal justice system.
On Sunday, police charged Hector Deleon, an “emotionally disturbed” and homeless 51-year-old, with slashing six fellow New Yorkers in an unprovoked attack at New York’s bustling Penn Station. Deleon, the New York Post subsequently reported, has a vibrant criminal history: another slashing committed in Newark four years ago and six other prior arrests, including “aggravated assault, unlawful possession of a weapon, use or possession of drugs, assault, domestic assault and criminal mischief.”
Deleon’s crimes have provoked a now-familiar outcry: Why was a violent criminal, with a string of priors and a history of deranged behavior, on the streets? Why wasn’t he locked up, either in prison or a mental facility? And why do such people seem to cause so much of our crime problem?
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.