A 'career criminal court' would benefit Mahoning Co.

To hear Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains tell it, the reason 650 criminals from Lorain County were sent to state prison last year compared with 236 from Mahoning is that Lorain has "different judges." It is incumbent upon Gains to explain what he means since he insists that he runs "an aggressive prosecutor's office."
Is he saying that the judges in Mahoning County aren't as committed to incarcerating career criminals?
The police chiefs have said as much, but they have also publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the prosecution of such criminals.
The chiefs are pushing for full-time prosecutors, full-time judges at the county court level, tax reforms to ensure adequate law enforcement and the imprisonment of repeat offenders.
To accomplish that last goal, Beaver Police Chief Carl N. Frost, chairman of the Mahoning Valley Chiefs of Police Association, and Boardman Township Police Chief Jeff Patterson advocate using one judge to handle repeat offenders' cases.
The benefits of such a system are obvious: The judge and the prosecutor who would be assigned to the court would have the histories of the defendants at their fingertips; cases would be processed in a timely fashion; sentencing would be consistent; and, most important, serial criminals would be put on notice that their days of freedom are numbered.
Frost and Patterson say the "career criminal court" would be similar to the drug court and defendants would be assigned to it after a third conviction on any nontraffic offense.
System's cracks
Such a creative approach to dealing with the shortcomings in the criminal justice system in Mahoning County is welcome and timely. As The Vindicator has shown in a series of stories comparing crime and incarceration statistics for Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties -- Lorain County could serve as the standard -- there are major cracks in the system in Mahoning County.
The police chiefs are right in stressing that this is not about assigning blame. Indeed, they have called for a conference that would bring all parties together to talk about what needs to be done to ensure that more career criminals end up where they belong -- in state prison.
But Gains seems inclined to turn the spotlight on the judges, which is why we urge him to be more specific when he says, "All I can tell you is we're doing what we can. They [Lorain County] have different judges up there. As far as I'm concerned, we are an aggressive prosecutor's office."
However, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court says it is unfair to talk about judges as if they belonged to a single entity. Judges are elected individually and run their courts as they see fit.
Gains needs to identify the judges he believes are the weak links in the system.
A summit would be an ideal setting for a no-holds-barred discussion about crime and punishment.