Family and friends of slain Penn Hills police Officer Michael Crawshaw have sent a letter to 100 state lawmakers, judges and other officials urging them to strictly enforce and tighten guidelines for criminal sentencing, parole and parole violations.

Ronald Robinson, 32, of Homewood, who is charged with the slayings of Officer Crawshaw and another man Dec. 6, has a long criminal history and a record of repeatedly violating terms of his parole.

"The system has failed Michael and changes must be made," the letter reads. "We are asking you to enforce the laws in place the way they were intended and hold people accountable for their actions.

"The guidelines for who gets released need to be re-examined and consideration for release should not be given to those who have shown a general disregard for human life."

The three-page letter, in which the officer's family and friends refer to Mr. Robinson by name and contend he should have been in prison, concludes: "Please do your part to prevent more senseless tragedies and to keep another family from suffering a loss such as ours."

Mr. Robinson is awaiting trial, accused of killing Danyal Morton, 40, in a home in the 200 block of Johnston Road in Penn Hills over a $500 drug debt. He also is charged with fatally shooting Officer Crawshaw, 32, who responded to the shooting call and was in his cruiser waiting for backup when he was slain.

The letter -- 60 copies were sent Friday and the remaining 40 yesterday -- is intended to produce changes that will be a legacy to Officer Crawshaw and others whose deaths may have been prevented by stricter enforcement of criminal laws and sentencing and parole guidelines, said his cousin, Sarah Kielar of the North Side.

"It definitely would help to think he did not die in vain, that something good will come of his death," she said yesterday. "We just hope for change so another family doesn't have to go through what we're going through right now."

The letter urges lawmakers, prosecutors and judges to be stricter in dealing with career criminals. It decries such actions as making plea bargains in cases involving gun charges, early release of prison inmates and imposing minor punishments for parole violations.

The letter notes that in the last four years, 11 law enforcement officers were killed in Pennsylvania, including five in Allegheny County in 13 months. Suspects in some of those cases were parolees who should have remained in jail instead of being free to commit homicides, the letter states.

The letter urges the officials "to create a system that will not only protect the citizens but also the brave men and women who make a career of protecting us.

"The laws you have already enacted need to be enforced in the way they were intended and people must be held accountable for their actions. Mandatory sentencing guidelines should be followed, and maximum prison sentences imposed. Once incarcerated, these offenders should not be granted early release on parole or probation, as they generally do not become functioning members of society."

Moreover, the letter says, "Plea agreements in exchange for short periods of probation for repeat or violent offenders are not acceptable. Returning repeat or violent offenders to the streets only results in continued criminal activity which escalates to the point where we are now. ... Prosecutors should be discouraged from withdrawing firearms-related offenses in exchange for plea agreements."

Ms. Kielar said the idea for pressing for such changes emerged while the officer's family mourned.

"We were all sitting around talking about what needs to happen so this wouldn't happen again," she said.

From 1998 to 2003, Mr. Robinson was repeatedly accused of wielding firearms on the streets of Pittsburgh and surrounding communities. In a January 1998 criminal complaint, police said Mr. Robinson choked and punched a woman and then pointed a semi-automatic gun at her. In 2001, he was accused of shooting a man in the leg.

Two years later, according to court records, a pair of witnesses told police that Mr. Robinson fired a gun in the air at Hawkins Village in Rankin. In each case, many charges were withdrawn.

At the time of the Dec. 6 homicides, he was on parole following convictions in the 2001 and 2003 cases. He had been released from prison in 2007 after serving a minimum sentence; the maximum sentence would have kept him in jail until February of next year.

Mr. Robinson repeatedly was caught violating the conditions of his 2007 parole, according to court records. As punishment, he was jailed for two weeks in July and then released to a halfway house for felons. He was wearing an electronic monitoring device on his ankle at the time of the shootings.

A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole said it is uncommon for the board to revoke parole immediately after a violation. Instead, agents use a sliding scale of sanctions, depending on the severity of a felon's actions. Parolees are sanctioned an average of five times before being sent back to prison, she said.