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Google Engineer bails out student in jail

neil.fraser.name

41–50 of 202 posts

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#41
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot (c) law enforcement gone mad in the US.

I didn't forget it, I don't think that that can be a 50x effect.

Yeah, but you seem to be under the impression that the other countries have fewer inmates because they are poor? Really?

How about Germany which has 95 inmates out of 100.000 people? [1]

[1] http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/worl...

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#42
post #15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$155,000, according to the linked story. Fraser paid $50,000, which he'll get back when the kid makes his court dates. The alternative was paying 10% and not getting it back, which I didn't know was standard policy. (Most of what I know about bail bonds comes from Jackie Brown.)

It's the policy of the bondsman, not the court. You basically pay the bondsman 10% of the bond in exchange for them posting the rest of it. Some people skip the hearing, and then the bondsman is out the money, so they keep the 10% to cover their risk. I don't know how the $50,000 number works - it seems the bond company is paying the rest of it, but I don't know what they get in return.

>>so they keep the 10% to cover their risk.

The bondsman doesn't simply absorb the 90% loss if you skip, that's where Boba Fett comes in. I believe if the bondsman's bounty hunters catch up to you before the police do, he gets back the money that was put up.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that the US is a very distributed system. You can have a local District Attorney who decides to pursue cases like this, but in the next jurisdiction over, you could very well have a DA who is an entirely reasonable person and would never allow something like this to happen. Eventually these things usually get sorted out in some higher court, but that can take years and can really mess up a person's life…

Well, as long as some people aren't being abused, the system is fine and in no need of repair.

Not the point he was trying to make.

There are plenty of flaws, but there are different avenues available other than what the GP mentioned.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way that Bradley Manning is being treated doesn't surprise me too much. He is suspected of "leaking classified information," so it would make sense to keep him in solitary confinement from a government/military bureaucrat's point of view. If they don't segregate him, he might leak more secrets to other people. The other stuff (no mattress or pillow) just seems like pettiness on the part of the people in power tha…

Anyone can be suspected of anything. Let's have a trial, a real trial, and then worry about punishment after he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (And by real trial, I mean a jury of Americans, not some bullshit military tribunal. Yeah, yeah, he signed some papers that said he can't have a real trial. Fuck that. This is America, not Saudi Arabia.)

Manning is a soldier charged with violating the UCMJ, and should be court-martialed like any other soldier charged with violation of military law. (This is distinct from the "military tribunals" established for "enemy combatants" during the Bush administration.) The duties and obligations of a soldier don't change just because he's become a cause celebre on the internet in the course of allegedly violating his duties.

Interestingly, nearly every service member I've heard discuss the subject would prefer to be tried by a court-martial than by a civilian court.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#45
post #24

25% of the world population in jail is American. 737 out of 100.000 Americans are in jail, that's almost one out of a hundred. As a comparison Denmark has 59 out of 100.000 people in jail. And the number of Americans in jail has been rising steadily for the last 20 years. This is a pretty serious problem.

And yet, somehow, over the last 20 years the crime rate in the US has dropped tremendously. Every single one of those prisoners was convicted of some crime or another by a comparatively just court system.

The underlying problem--criminality in some American cultures--is difficult and rather unique to the United States. Other rich countries are more culturally homogenous and hence suffer less criminality, though that's changing if you look, for instance, at Scandinavia, where the rate of rapes has risen dramatically as more and more Muslims immigrate there.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#46
post #24

25% of the world population in jail is American. 737 out of 100.000 Americans are in jail, that's almost one out of a hundred. As a comparison Denmark has 59 out of 100.000 people in jail. And the number of Americans in jail has been rising steadily for the last 20 years. This is a pretty serious problem.

And yet, somehow, over the last 20 years the crime rate in the US has dropped tremendously. Every single one of those prisoners was convicted of some crime or another by a comparatively just court system. The underlying problem--criminality in some American cultures--is difficult and rather unique to the United States. Other rich countries are more culturally homogenous and hence suffer less criminality, though that'…

[deleted]

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#47
I love this quote, why he did this: "One of the things I learned was that bad things can only happen if good people do nothing. I consider myself to be a good person, so I had no choice but to act when I saw something like this happening."

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#48
post #24

25% of the world population in jail is American. 737 out of 100.000 Americans are in jail, that's almost one out of a hundred. As a comparison Denmark has 59 out of 100.000 people in jail. And the number of Americans in jail has been rising steadily for the last 20 years. This is a pretty serious problem.

Stupid war on drugs :(

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#49
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, somehow, over the last 20 years the crime rate in the US has dropped tremendously. Every single one of those prisoners was convicted of some crime or another by a comparatively just court system. The underlying problem--criminality in some American cultures--is difficult and rather unique to the United States. Other rich countries are more culturally homogenous and hence suffer less criminality, though that'…

[deleted]

You're not telling the whole story though--of course incarceration rates are going to go up when crime goes up (though it's a lagging indicator), but the crime rate has been declining since the 1990's--or "over the last 20 years", as I put it. (2010-1990=20). Simply pointing out that crime rates haven't declined below 1965 levels yet misframes the entire issue.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#50
post #24

25% of the world population in jail is American. 737 out of 100.000 Americans are in jail, that's almost one out of a hundred. As a comparison Denmark has 59 out of 100.000 people in jail. And the number of Americans in jail has been rising steadily for the last 20 years. This is a pretty serious problem.

And yet, somehow, over the last 20 years the crime rate in the US has dropped tremendously. Every single one of those prisoners was convicted of some crime or another by a comparatively just court system. The underlying problem--criminality in some American cultures--is difficult and rather unique to the United States. Other rich countries are more culturally homogenous and hence suffer less criminality, though that'…

>Every single one of those prisoners was convicted of some crime or another by a comparatively just court system.

Like this one?

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