161–170 of 195 posts
Just legalise all drugs and let the free market decide. We could create innovative new substances which are safer and less socially damaging, compared to the plants and fermented liquids we happen to have stumbled upon millenia ago.
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Why do these people stay in the US? In Europe if you say that you were imprisoned for smoking pot, people will just laugh at the situation, because it’s so hard to believe.
If you have a criminal record bad enough to cause employment problems in the US it's going to be as hard or harder to (legally) start residing in most first world countries, especially if you don't have a party in-country who's basically importing you to do some specific work.
At the same time even with non-violent crimes I make a huge distinction between stealing and marijuana use. I wouldn't want to trust my code base to anybody who has stolen anything in his life, as the downside for stealing the whole codebase is enormous.
Regarding marijuana, who cares, it doesn't hurt anybody (except the passive smoking issues).
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Show me a "Vague 'incitement of riot'" charge being brought against anyone. And I wouldn't include the BLM protests of the summer as anti-establishment in the same vein as the Qanon/1776er crowd that wanted to overthrow the government.
> And I wouldn't include the BLM protests of the summer as anti-establishment Why not? because they only wanted to defund the police?
In my opinion, anti-establishment types are anarchists or revolutionaries who want to overthrow the existing government, not change it.
I'm conflicted when it come to this idea, on one hand it does seem pointless to punish addicts but on the other, very few of the addicts that are incarcerated were not aware of the laws before they got caught. In many cases they traffic in "Minor" amounts to support their own addictions which just creates more addicts and spreads the sickness to other victims. In a perfect world, all drugs would be legal and more imp…
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The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding is partially to solve this exact problem. I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal background check. I don't think background checks should be allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks. A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say anything: 1. Yes I am fi…
I disagree with you to some extent, in that the world is shades of gray, and indeed, it is naive to think that either "someone is so dangerous we should deprive them of all liberty" or "despite past activities, we are so confident in their rehabilitation that no caution should be taken in their release to society". You do make an interesting suggestion that, if we do put a scarlet letter on someone for a past crime f…
Now I believe that if you pay your debt to society, you should be square with the house and your punishment should stop including any ex-judicial punishment like denying people work they are otherwise qualified for. I think reasonable exceptions can be made for sensitive jobs involving money handling or children.
While I agree with the conclusion. People tend to overestimate the fraction of people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. It is only ~15% https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
That still hugely misses the point, because sentences are not equal. Violent offenders serve on average 4.7 years while drug offenders serve under 2 years.
~40% of people who are sent to state prison are sent with drugs as the most serious charge.
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> The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around forever. Tell me about it. Between my prison "stigma" and the discriminatory ageism that is very prevalent in the industry, and even though I have 30 years professional programming experience, I am currently finding it impossible to find any work. Can someone please tell me...what am I supposed to do at age 55? Find a new "career"...doing what? I know ple…
The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding is partially to solve this exact problem. I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal background check. I don't think background checks should be allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks. A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say anything: 1. Yes I am fi…
Where should people stay before then?
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On the federal level in the USA that is not possible. Firearms and violence add on points to your sentencing and are often linked with mandatory minimums. Firearms in particular really tank your chances of a short sentence. Prior to the First Step Act you couldn't even participate in RDAP with a firearm linked to your crime. I outlined this in a different comment, but programming like RDAP should be developed and sta…
Yeah but (almost?) nobody is in federal prison on drug possession charges, especially after the latest reform bill. There are a lot in prison on trafficking and sales, but not possession ("minor", per the headline). The vast majority of drug charges are in state prison systems, where plea bargains are absolutely a thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding is partially to solve this exact problem. I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal background check. I don't think background checks should be allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks. A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say anything: 1. Yes I am fi…
I disagree with you to some extent, in that the world is shades of gray, and indeed, it is naive to think that either "someone is so dangerous we should deprive them of all liberty" or "despite past activities, we are so confident in their rehabilitation that no caution should be taken in their release to society". You do make an interesting suggestion that, if we do put a scarlet letter on someone for a past crime f…
I could be talked into saying no non-violent crimes should ever be felonies.
Looking at the categories of felonies on Wikipedia it is pretty obvious that some are not like the others. Murder is much different from copyright infringement.