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After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

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Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#61

Post by goggles99 »

asveikau wrote: post #17
zalew wrote: post #2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_G._Santos While in prison, he divorced, got married, received a college degree from Mercer University in 1992, a master's degree from Hofstra University in 1995, began a doctorate, and developed programs and resources for inmates and their families. well, you can say he got a lot of time for that in there, but still, wow.

The whole time reading this article, I thought, sounds good, but having spent 25 years in jail he must have done something pretty bad. Then I read that Wikipedia article and it turns out he was caught selling cocaine in his 20s... Man, say whatever you want for drugs being bad, but that's kind of a BS reason to rob someone of their youth like that. For 25 years I thought maybe he'd killed a guy.

This is a problem mentality. Obviously the sentence was not harsh enough, because he still ran a huge cocaine smuggling operation. I wonder if the penalty for running a cocaine operation was death (like in lowest crime rate Singapore) if he still would have done it? If he did, Id bet the next person would not have.

It is impossible to predict the murders and overdose deaths that a drug kingpin ultimately causes. Also we have robberies, scams, shoplifting, assaults, Law enforcent and legal system costs, children who follow same the vicious cycle ETC...

The mindset someone of saying that a sentence like this is too harsh is weak, new age, wussified emotion (as opposed to sound and proven logic). Do you think that being a drug kingpin is something that you could ever do by accident? He made a conscious choice. A decision, over and over again until he was caught. His benefit outweighed the risk in his mind. If anything, the punishment should be heavier.

Look at a country like Singapore, they have the lowest crime rates on the earth. Crime has fallen every year for the last 20 years. Why? They are harsh on crime unlike us wussy western nations. Many Asian countries share a similar story.

It is clear if you listen to any of Santos' speeches, that he is playing a victim. He never takes responsibility for his actions. All he can do is take jabs at the legal system. He remains a deviant. I bet that if his money dries up and his wife leaves him that he will go back to a life of crime. He has done a lot to help prisoners become successful, and I agree with a lot of what he says, but I think that he is sorry for being caught, not for his crimes.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#62

Post by draugadrotten »

yareally wrote: post #58
draugadrotten wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish system tries to rehabilitate prisoners using various evidence-based methods. For some types of prisoners it works very well. Prisoners are paid but only a few cents per hour. They generally spend it all on buying cigarettes. The punishments are much lower in Sweden than in the US. Drug smuggling offences and murders carry the longest penalties. I would say on average penalties are a factor 5x or 10x lower…

Wow, thanks for the insight. I didn't realize things had changed so drastically in Sweden in the past decade. So just statistically speaking, has the overall crime rate gone up drastically in Sweden throughout the past decade or is it more of a slight bump? Just wondering if it has gone up enough that the average person notices in their daily lives or if it's more of a news report/sound bite for politicians? I'm not…

Crime is up.

Statistics are complicated and there's no simple truth, but the number of reported crimes have risen dramatically since the 1950s (when immigration started). [1] As soon as you start discussion why there is an increase you're holding a very hot potato. For example, if you look at the armed robberies in 1987 and compare with 2011, the number of armed robberies by Swedish citizens are constant, but the number of armed robberies in Sweden by foreign citizens have quadrupled in absolute terms, or relatively speaking, the percentage of armed robberies have gone from 40% to 70% foreign citizens. From 1975 to 2006, violent crime is up 200%

Some say Sweden's crime rate is out of control [4]

Mind you, I still perceive Sweden as a land with a low crime rate. It seems international crime statistics are very hard to compare. For intentional homicides, the rate in 1997 was 1.77 for Sweden, 0.54 for Japan, and 6.80 for USA. For major assaults, the rate in 1997 was 37.93 for Sweden, compared with 20.91 for Japan, and 382.31 for USA. For rapes, the rate in 1997 was 14.71 for Sweden, 1.31 for Japan, and 35.93 for USA. For robberies, the rate in 1997 was 75.04 for Sweden, 2.23 for Japan, and 186.27 for USA. [5]

[1] Wikipedia has a trend graph : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Sweden

[2] Robberies graph, blue citizens red foreigners: http://affes.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ran_1987_1999_2011....

[3] violent crime graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anm%C3%A4ld_misshandel_197...

[4] http://cavatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/sweden%E2%80%99s-cri...

[5] http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/europe/sweden.htm...

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#63

Post by OGinparadise »

SmokyBorbon wrote: post #14
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #7

The story is amazing. But what continuously went through my head was how different our world will be 25 years from now. It'll be 2038...what will technology be like? If you take a second to realize what it was 25 years ago, what it is now, and then ask yourself what it WILL be in 25 years...well shit, I was left speechless.

Except for computers and the internet, science and technology have been stagnant for the past 50 years. Our civilization is in decline. In 25 years, we will only have slightly refined versions of what we have today.

"So, other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080803233506AA...

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#64

Post by rwmj »

probably_wrong wrote: post #59
mynameisvlad wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the dealer is not wholly to blame for that. It's the person's choice to use the drugs in the first place, and, sometimes with help, you can quit. A gun store is not blamed for someone dying at the hand of a gun they sold.

I don't think I agree completely with your second statement. You are comparing the drug dealer with the gun store, while in fact you should be comparing a drug store to a pharmacy, in the sense that both sell stuff that can be misused but has lots of other uses, and where both have a code they are expected to adhere to. A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his customers to his pro…

A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his customers

It's clear you haven't known many (or any) drug dealers. Drugs are taken for pleasure, and drug dealers (who are often primarily also users just trying to make ends meet) sell pleasure to people who are gladly buying it.

What the criminal did in this case is no different at all from what major supermarkets do all the time with alcohol, with the sole exception that it's illegal because society has some very naive and stupid laws.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#65

Post by rayiner »

yareally wrote: post #58
draugadrotten wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish system tries to rehabilitate prisoners using various evidence-based methods. For some types of prisoners it works very well. Prisoners are paid but only a few cents per hour. They generally spend it all on buying cigarettes. The punishments are much lower in Sweden than in the US. Drug smuggling offences and murders carry the longest penalties. I would say on average penalties are a factor 5x or 10x lower…

Wow, thanks for the insight. I didn't realize things had changed so drastically in Sweden in the past decade. So just statistically speaking, has the overall crime rate gone up drastically in Sweden throughout the past decade or is it more of a slight bump? Just wondering if it has gone up enough that the average person notices in their daily lives or if it's more of a news report/sound bite for politicians? I'm not…

Immigration of large numbers of poor, unassimilated people is a problem, as much as European countries are loathe to admit it. I don't have evidence to prove it, but my hypothesis is that much of what makes the scandenavian countries work historically is a homogenous population with a strong sense of community.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#66

Post by ThomPete »

babuskov wrote: post #51
asveikau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole time reading this article, I thought, sounds good, but having spent 25 years in jail he must have done something pretty bad. Then I read that Wikipedia article and it turns out he was caught selling cocaine in his 20s... Man, say whatever you want for drugs being bad, but that's kind of a BS reason to rob someone of their youth like that. For 25 years I thought maybe he'd killed a guy.

I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be hard unless we want to see more and…

And making it illegal have helped how many?

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#68

Post by ThomPete »

In a hundred years from now, they will look at the war on terror end the criminalization of it as one of the most useless and primitive forms of legislation ever made.

Tens of thousands of innocent people gets killed every year, because we don't want people who have made far more conscious "choices" to become heroine addict.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#69

Post by tokenadult »

_delirium wrote: post #43
OGinparadise wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So patronizing. I was born in DC; I don't need the Wikipedia article on the crack epidemic. Put that on your profile so next time this topic come up we know. Seriously. I didn't know that about you and time and time again posters post something from the past to give context. Context might explain why the "tough on crime" politicians pushed for mandatory sentences even for minor amounts.

I would say that playing to populist fears explains just about everything related to "tough on crime" politicians. It's also curious that the same "tough on crime" politicians seem for the most part surprisingly uninterested in the root causes of crime, such as poverty or lack of access to education.

Are you really sure that if there were no poverty and everyone had lots of education that there wouldn't be that kind of crime? Where are your real-world data to back up that idea?

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#70

Post by jader201 »

antoinec wrote: post #23
mardix wrote: post #6

This article has been posted so many times now... c'mon people...

At this moment it's in first position, I guess that's because most of HN readers (including me) haven't read it before, so the repost is totally worth it.

I agree but I think, as a general rule on HN, that any repost - or maybe any article dated earlier than the current date - should include the date in the title.
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