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The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

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Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#51

Post by rayiner »

ending wrote: post #50
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. Stuff like getting rid of parole preceded private prisons. Private prisons is a trailing phenomenon that appears to be more about serving the huge demand for prison beds created by retributive policies. Washington State, for example still has no private prisons. But it enacted one of the country's early "three strikes laws" back in the early 1990s. Private prison companies have been clamoring to get an…

It's also worth considering that private prisons, once established, create perverse incentives to intensify those same retributive policies. A vicious recursion.

It's a thought but I suspect it's incorrect. The harshness of prison policies peaked in the 1980s to 1990s. Private prisons really started booming in the late 1990s and the 2000s. But the trend since then in policy has been a softening (somewhat) of retributive policies. California's involvement with private prisons for example is largely in this decade, in response to court orders requiring reduction in overcrowding. But it past the country's harshest three strikes laws (where people were getting life sentences for a third non-violent felony) in the 1990s. But it softened that a bit a couple of years ago.

I think the most you can say is that private prisons (and public prison guard unions, which is probably a much bigger force) are slowing the retreat from 1980s/1990s retributive policies.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#52

Post by igor_filippov »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
igor_filippov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Isn't he innocent until proven otherwise?

He pretty much admitted it himself, what else do you want? Or do you feel that because he lies all the time we should not believe him at all, even when he incriminates himself? I'm fairly confident in declaring Trump guilty of that, this is not a court of law, it's an internet forum and the standards for both are different. In fact, the standards of proof for criminal law are different from those for civil law (see O…

I'm sorry, you're somewhere around fake news-level in your argumentation.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#53

Post by stagbeetle »

tracker1 wrote: post #2

sigh ... I'm not sure what else to say. The problem with "Zero Tollerance", minimum sentencing and lifetime registries, is there's no accounting for edge cases or practical exceptions. I'm hoping that over the next decade or two, a lot of this can be rolled back into sensible laws, and justifiable actions.

It seems to be a prevalent mindset:

False positives are better than letting one slip through (see: MicroSoft hiring).

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#54

Post by gigatexal »

lb1lf wrote: post #26
gigatexal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is hell-bent on not being like Europe even given the good there is to learn from.

-Oh, there's no such thing as a perfect society, IMHO - but when it comes to crime and punishment, I do think the US could benefit from taking a leaf or two from our books. However, there are a couple of key differences (still IMHO!) which makes it difficult to compare the two. Most notably, perhaps - we do not elect judges. Nor do we elect police chiefs. The latter are positions you apply for as you would any other;…

I didn't mean to insinuate that Europe was perfect just that there are things we could learn that would help us one of which is the rehab vs throw-away-the-key approach to prisoners.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#56

Post by stagbeetle »

sgift wrote: post #19
lb1lf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. In Norway (heck, in Scandinavia, and, is my impression, in most of North/Central Europe, too), there's strong focus on rehabilitation. Inmates are encouraged to pursue education while incarcerated. If you want to enter a trade, there are workshops &c in the prisons where you can do your apprenticeship. Also, in all but the (rare) cases where you are deemed to be a lasting danger to society, you are automaticall…

> That being said, liberal me still feel somewhat less lenient towards paedophiles; I guess any parent does. It's a sickness. And we have (mental) hospitals for sick people. Problem solved, no leniency required.

There was a short documentary about pedophilia showing the opposite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-Fx6P7d21o

It's a sensitive subject, but treating pedophilia as something that can be cured with medical intervention is rash.

This mindset is akin to treating homosexuality with shock therapy.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#58

Post by parenthephobia »

buro9 wrote: post #10

From everything I've ever read, there is no concept of rehabilitation in the USA. If you have ever been convicted, or even accused, of a felony or sexual crime in the USA then life as you knew it was over. The concept of being able to pay a debt to society and for that to settle the books, and to then allow those people to return to society and contribute value again... is alien to America. The problem starts with th…

> The concept of being able to pay a debt to society and for that to settle the books, and to then allow those people to return to society and contribute value again... is alien to America.

Subjectively, thinking about films and TV involving prisoners, all the American ones I can think of (I'm certain there are exceptions, naturally) involve protagonists who are either out-right shown to be innocent or are very heavily implied to be.

OTOH, there are many British ones where the protagonist is definitely guilty, but nonetheless portrayed in a sympathetic or even positive light.

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#59

Post by bluedevil2k »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
igor_filippov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Isn't he innocent until proven otherwise?

He pretty much admitted it himself, what else do you want? Or do you feel that because he lies all the time we should not believe him at all, even when he incriminates himself? I'm fairly confident in declaring Trump guilty of that, this is not a court of law, it's an internet forum and the standards for both are different. In fact, the standards of proof for criminal law are different from those for civil law (see O…

"Admitted it" is not the same thing as braggadocio

Re: The sex-offender registry can be a life sentence

#60

Post by imroot »

As a society, we have no way to differentiate who we're mad at, and who we're truly afraid of. Rehabilitation options are nonexistent, as most prisons and jails removed them in the 90's. Offenders go to Prison and come out Convicts -- with better training, some more street smarts, complete with access to more drugs, guns, and tools of the trade.

America is not a country of second chances. Look at sites like beenverified and mugshots -- their sole purpose in life is to shame those who have been arrested/convicted and allow employers/landlords to discriminate in ways that really skirts the FDCPA (beenverified isn't a CRA, so, there are no repercussions of reporting inaccurate information, nor are there ways of getting that information changed).

Hell, even AirBnB performs silent background checks on people who are renting homes -- even after presenting them the official copy of my clean (aside from a few speeding tickets and an accident from 1999) FBI background report, they still say that there are 'public records' that they are using and for the 'safety of the AirBnB platform,' they don't want my money.

We have a long way to go until this country can truly start to fix the 'prison' problem, but, it won't start until the country, as a whole, starts taking a different view of rehabilitation, corrections, and punishment.

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