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

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

#71

Post by GuiA »

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…

So, question- if you actively support putting people behind bars with the intent of seeing them die there, why not just kill them right away? If the intent is for them to not cause any harm to society, then that'll get the job done while saving money for society and making them suffer for a shorter period of time.

Unless the goal is to make them suffer for their entire life as punishment; in which case, why not just torture them? That seems like it would be more efficient.

I'm legitimately curious as to why one would support prison if one does not believe that society should aspire to transform criminals into better, law abiding citizens.

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

#73

Post by anigbrowl »

pswenson wrote: post #12

insanity. I don't understand how many of these cases aren't cruel and unusual punishment

Sadly, because it's cruel but not unusual. Oversentencing is so common in America that you can't make the argument in absolute terms, and some conservative judges are hostile to comparisons with extraterritorial penal policy - eg Justice Scalia got rather annoyed about such comparisons being made in a case about whether the death penalty could be administered to minors.

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

#74

Post by pfedor »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #15
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For example, Steven Pinker looks into this a little in "The Better Angels of Our Nature", long story short there's nothing conclusive, and a sufficiently motivated person can find reasons to doubt it (e.g., the big drop in crime happened some ten years after the ramp up of incarceration rates, Canada experienced a similar decline in crime over that period without the corresponding increase in prison population), however, Pinker himself thinks that when all is said and done it seems likely that incarceration was one of the reasons. One other contributing factor was a large increase in the size of police forces during Clinton's presidency. On top of that, he argues the culture just for some reason shifted to being less violent.

(I want to also mention that he debunks quite convincingly the theory that the decrease in crime had anything to do with legalizing abortion.)

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

#75

Post by GuiA »

zw123456 wrote: post #21

From the map it seems like all the cases are in the Southeast. Is the Southeastern United States sort or a 3rd Word Country within the U.S. ? It seems like every time I see something like this it is in the Southeast. It seems to me like the rift from the Civil War has never completely been resolved. Just an observation, does anyone else feel the same way?

I've lived in the southeast of the US as well as the west coast, and I am from Europe.

To my foreign eyes, infrastructures and poverty levels in the south east of the US definitely made it feel like a 3rd world country.

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

#76

Post by joshfraser »

jrockway wrote: post #38
joshfraser wrote: post #27

There is so much injustice with our prison system right now. There are countless people being locked up for their entire lives over petty crimes -- the same crimes that relatively comfortable white boys like me could easily get away with because I can afford a decent lawyer. It's racism and wealth discrimination disguised as justice. The US is leading the world in incarceration and the privatization of prisons is a b…

I don't think the underlying problem is privatized prisons. The underlying problems are our unconscious biases, political pandering ("tough on crime!") and weaknesses in our educational and healthcare systems.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/immigration-refo...

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

#77

Post by mschuster91 »

aspensmonster wrote: post #18
hobs wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Ever watched an episode of Cold Case? Public defenders in the US largely seem to be a joke

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

#78

Post by mikeash »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #47

My thoughts on the best and the worst: > Anthony Jackson has a sixth-grade education and worked as a cook. He was convicted of burglary for stealing a wallet from a Myrtle Beach hotel room when he was 44 years old. According to prosecutors, he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security guard and ran away. Police arrested him when he tried to use the stolen…

Where do you draw the line? I bet you wouldn't go for life in prison for someone who get three speeding tickets. Once we agree that there is a line, then it just comes down to which side of the line a particular crime is on. I don't see wallet theft as being all that serious. Yeah, it sucks to be the victim (been there, done that) but it's fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.

Ultimately, the point of letting him out is that he is still a human being who deserves freedom unless we can show some very good reasons why he doesn't. What would be the point of keeping you out of prison?

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

#79

Post by rktymnrml »

wrongc0ntinent wrote: post #67
evincarofautumn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a waste of space. But committing suicide is so boring—I don’t recommend it. You are going to have to figure out the point you want your life to have. So quit complaining on the internet about your privileged guilt, save your silly amounts of money for a while, then spend it executing your vision. The best any of us can hope to do is to mean something to somebody.

Edit. [disagreement was expressed re: suicide]

No suicide jokes were used you illiterate boob.

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

#80

Post by Mithaldu »

codezero wrote: post #72

I felt like the title here was misleading. They weren't sentenced to "death," as in, given a death sentence, they were sentenced to life in prison, which in some cases means they will die in prison, this is pretty different, though no less a tragedy.

Not some cases, all cases, as it's a life sentence without parole, meaning they can behave all they want in prison, they are never coming out, period. I think it's clear why this is just as good as a death sentence.
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