261–270 of 513 posts
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You know what it costs to imprison a human being for 40-50 years? I doubt it outweighs a couple of stolen wallets...
Party of the first part: If condition C holds, response R is called for. Party of the second part (indignant) : But condition C holds! What's your point?
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Is it already time for the "imagine you're the victim" rhetoric? There's a reason we don't let victims decide criminal penalties.
> There's a reason we don't let victims decide criminal penalties. True, but the process for determining what criminal penalties should be is heavily based on "imagine you're the victim".
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…
You should try looking at prison differently. It's incredibly expensive to lock someone up for their life - that's four walls, meals, space to exercise and guards for say another 40 years. We shouldn't spend that unless the alternative would cost a lot more (say violence against another person, a person's life). he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security…
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Three strikes on drug convictions is unfair - especially given the disparity in sentencing for crack cocain vs. other drugs. Do you have any idea how many privileged celebrities would be in jail (some for life) if drug crimes were enforced fairly and uniformly?
So for drug convictions it's unfair? possession or distribution? what about manufacturing? is the crime for possession change depending on amount? what about the type of drug? i think the way our country approaches the issue of drugs is not only pointless but down right dumb. about as dumb as breaking the law 3 times when you know that there's a three strikes rule on the books. i just don't have sympathy for people t…
That's not all. Roughly 80% of those convicted for possession of crack cocaine are black, only 10% are white [3][4]. Yet crack cocaine usage within both races is about the same [5].
If you analyse conviction rates vs use for different classes (rich vs poor), I bet you'll find similarly outrageous numbers.
1. http://famm.org/Repository/Files/FS%20Brief%20History%20of%2... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act 3. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/08/03/data-show-rac... 4. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/racial-disparity-dr... 5. http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickconfig.do?34481-...
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> At what point does society get to tell people "you know what, knock it off"? You're thinking about this the wrong way. First, ask yourself: Why is there the justice system and prisons? The answer: To reduce occurrence of crime. Now why are prisons meant to help reduce crime? By scaring people into not committing crimes? That obviously doesn't work, especially when many people live lives so bad that they can't see a…
What is it these guys are doing right and we're doing wrong? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-p...
http://www.studyineurope.eu/study-in-sweden/tuition-fees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits_in_Sweden
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You should try looking at prison differently. It's incredibly expensive to lock someone up for their life - that's four walls, meals, space to exercise and guards for say another 40 years. We shouldn't spend that unless the alternative would cost a lot more (say violence against another person, a person's life). he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security…
U.S. violent crime rates have plummeted in part because of higher incarceration. A lot of people on this list don't remember when cities like New York and Washington, DC were very dangerous places and all native born inhabitants were leaving.
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> At what point does society get to tell people "you know what, knock it off"? You're thinking about this the wrong way. First, ask yourself: Why is there the justice system and prisons? The answer: To reduce occurrence of crime. Now why are prisons meant to help reduce crime? By scaring people into not committing crimes? That obviously doesn't work, especially when many people live lives so bad that they can't see a…
Nonsense. The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes. The problem is generally their personality. Habitual criminals are impulsive, aggressive, and bad at thinking ahead. It's unfair to expect everyone else to put up with a lifetime of offenses, even if each one isn't particularly horrible individually.
You realize there's a virtually unlimited supply of people that could potentially qualify to be locked up because they are criminal for violating some more or less arbitrary law, right? Are you proposing locking up each and every one of them to get to a crime-less nirvana where all criminals are behind bars, and everyone outside is perfectly pure and honest?
The fact that there are people here defending the idea you should be sentenced to life for 3 offenses like stealing a wallet makes me sick. He who is without sins throw the first stone, some of you saying things like this would probably be in jail yourselves if this kind of 'justice' was the norm
This part struck me. There was grellas' comment on the Google vs Authors Guild thread were the judge decided to go against the 'mechanical' application of the law and took time to come up with a sensible interpretation to handle the case. It's crushing to think about a mother of two in prison for life for a crime the judge itself thought wasn't worth the sentence, potentially leaving her kids in the hands of an abusive husband (I hope they got sheltered at least)
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> I bet you wouldn't go for life in prison for someone who get three speeding tickets. Sure. > 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 actually don't find this to follow, because your example is exceptionally poor. I don't favor speeding tickets at all; as far as I can see, they're just a way for governments to capriciously collect extra revenu…
> If the cost of keeping him out of it exceeds the cost he inflicts by his presence You do realize that it costs $40,000+ per year to incarcerate someone, right? So to meet your justification for imprisonment, this guy would have to be an excellent criminal. Why not just give him $40,000 per year and let him be free? He'd probably not need to burgle anymore.
As I understand it's substantially more than 40k GBP per year per prisoner. If the American system is costing less in the order of half what we're paying it must be absolutely horrendous.
Which is a side point to the absurdity of whole-life mandatory sentencing. It's incredibly expensive and pure vengeance; there's no way the cost to society in cash or emotional harm terms is minimised by spending MILLIONS of dollars depriving these people of their liberty for decades. So why does the Land Of The Free do it? Short, often community based sentences with strong rehabilitation would be orders of magnitude cheaper and have a very similar effect on the ultimate crime rate.
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> Why not just give him $40,000 per year and let him be free? He'd probably not need to burgle anymore. If we did this, I suspect we'd see a sharp rise in burglaries. As to the figure itself, another commenter noted that the low end of prison costs seemed to be Lousisiana, in which operating a prison cost $13K / year. That would make the per-prisoner cost much, much lower than that.
why do you think there would be a sharp rise in burglaries?
Honestly, I didn't (and don't) expect that to be a controversial prediction.