Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

aclu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 513 posts

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#11

Post by sillysaurus2 »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #8
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

As an European citizen, I think such "sentences" are more resembling China, Russia or any other dictatorship, but not a first-world country. Do human rights actually mean something in the US?

You can have cute little Norwegian jails with light sentences when the population is Norwegians. But America is not Norway. We have a large underclass of people capable of destroying whole communities. Have you seen those pictures of Detroit in ruins? Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around.

Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around.

Does anyone have any data to back this claim up?

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#13

Post by mschuster91 »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have cute little Norwegian jails with light sentences when the population is Norwegians. But America is not Norway. We have a large underclass of people capable of destroying whole communities. Have you seen those pictures of Detroit in ruins? Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around.

Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around. Does anyone have any data to back this claim up?

Yeah, the decline in murder counts, for example.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#14

Post by pswenson »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #8
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

As an European citizen, I think such "sentences" are more resembling China, Russia or any other dictatorship, but not a first-world country. Do human rights actually mean something in the US?

You can have cute little Norwegian jails with light sentences when the population is Norwegians. But America is not Norway. We have a large underclass of people capable of destroying whole communities. Have you seen those pictures of Detroit in ruins? Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around.

you are defending this insanity? did you read the link?

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#15

Post by sillysaurus2 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #13
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around. Does anyone have any data to back this claim up?

Yeah, the decline in murder counts, for example.

http://i.imgur.com/S5QjFxC.png

Does anyone know of any research showing that the decline in murder counts is primarily due to harsher penalties?

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#17

Post by dsjoerg »

A throwaway thought: one of the (many) problems with 3-strike sentencing laws may be that the escalation curve is too quick to have the desired curbing effect.

It is obvious (to me) that some kind of exponentiation would be more effective. 2x - 3x elongation per offense would be plenty harsh, harsh enough for the offender to understand it's going to be much worse each time, without it having to be life in prison.

EDIT: On second thought, formulaic sentencing is bad. Sentencing is hard, consistency is hard, but to remove human judgment and discretion from the sentencing process seems obviously wrong.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#18

Post by aspensmonster »

hobs wrote: post #3
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

As an European citizen, I think such "sentences" are more resembling China, Russia or any other dictatorship, but not a first-world country. Do human rights actually mean something in the US?

If you are poor? Not really. Every person that I see listed was not able to afford a decent lawyer.

But... but... the public defender!

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#19

Post by prutschman »

anigbrowl wrote: post #4

This is poorly focused. I'm absolutely against 3 strikes sentencing laws and mandatory sentencing escalations that can put petty criminals in prison for life. On the other hand, I'm perfectly OK with some criminals dying behind bars, such as the recently sentenced Whitey Bulger, and so are most other people. By making the headline about the undesirability of custodial life sentences in general, they'er losing a large…

The largest word in the title is "what", as part of the phrase "for what?", making clear that the focus is on the reasons for--as opposed to the mere existence of--custodial life sentences.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#20

Post by jonah »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #8
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

As an European citizen, I think such "sentences" are more resembling China, Russia or any other dictatorship, but not a first-world country. Do human rights actually mean something in the US?

You can have cute little Norwegian jails with light sentences when the population is Norwegians. But America is not Norway. We have a large underclass of people capable of destroying whole communities. Have you seen those pictures of Detroit in ruins? Crime in the 1970s got out of control. Stuff like this played a role in turning it around.

Crime is a byproduct of a broken social system, not a cause.
Post reply on HN