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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?

#401

Post by PeterisP »

oscargrouch wrote: post #391
rayiner wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most basic principles of system design is that there will be edge cases. Every engineer knows that. In a country with 300 million people, enough will fall into these edge cases for the ACLU to put together a pamphlet with a few examples. That's inevitable. That said, with three strikes laws, you don't need to resort to sob stories. The statistics are evidence enough: about half of three strikers in Califor…

>One of the most basic principles of system design is that there will be edge cases. Every engineer knows that. In a country with 300 million people, enough will fall into these edge cases for the ACLU to put together a pamphlet with a few examples. That's inevitable. What if you are the next edge case in this system? with nobody to remember that you even exist, if its fair.. Just one person beiyng this edge case is…

No, one person being the edge case is definitely not enough to put the whole system down.

If we get, say, 1000 edge cases every year - then it's completely acceptable unless you can provide another system that will have much less edge cases. And if you're not sure, you don't switch until you are sure. If you simply "switch off" the system, then you get random 'mob justice' which whill have much more problems than the current situation.

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

#402

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

omni wrote: post #356
enko wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that is attempted murder basically Oh come on. I've lost my license for what you'd call DUI - made a stupid decision to drive the 1.5km back home from a pub, got a 1 year ban and a hefty fine. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do and I deserve what I got, but attempted murder ? Don't be ridiculous. At most repeated DUI is criminal negligence, and negligence on the part of whomever supplied the offender with the vehicle…

Grabbing a stat off of Wikipedia, almost 18,000 people died in drinking-related vehicular accidents in the US in 2006. Maybe attempted murder is a little extreme, but I think negligent homicide would be right on the mark. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_Sta...

Every vehicular accident where any party has any sign of drinking is counted as "drinking-related". If a drunk guy jumps out in to a busy street and is hit by a stone-cold sober driver, that's "drinking-related", though obviously not a case for further-strengthening DUI laws.

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

#403

Post by EliRivers »

nhangen wrote: post #393
EliRivers wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get too worked up about a system that sentences this guy to life in prison. Is that seriously the best fucking option you can come up with? A massively expensive revenge-trip that causes far, far more damage than the theft of a wallet? Perhaps there's some kind of much, much more effective way to get him to stop taking things that don't belong to him. I say perhaps; of course there are. Lots, that are cheaper…

Are you kidding me? What do you want to do instead, cut his hand off? If we have to pay to keep a criminal like this off the street, then I'm OK with that. We're paying for protection. Not to mention, there's lots that could go wrong with lacking the 'impulse control' to enter someone's hotel room.

Are you kidding me? What do you want to do instead, cut his hand off?

The sheer lack of imagination and knowledge you exhibit is astonishing. If I don't think it's smart to imprison him, I must want to cut his hand off? Let me guess; you're a US citizen and you don't travel much, so all you've ever seen regarding prison policy is identical US politicians posturing over who can be more "tough on crime"?

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

#404

Post by summerdown2 »

PeterisP wrote: post #339
avenger123 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredible. Please, please take a step back and read what you wrote. Now, for each of those instances you described, please assume this is your uncle, brother, cousin etc? Do you still feel the same? No one is saying these people did nothing wrong. The main issue is that the punishment does not fit the crime. That's it. Simple. Where do we draw the line? Obviously for you the line is ok where it is at. But, frankly,…

Serial theft is a tricky issue. Imagine someone pricking you with a pin. And doing it repeatedly. For years. The crime is tiny, but you'd anyway want him to stop permanently. So the question is what do we do with people who commit small crimes as a lifestyle, and have proven repeatedly in practice that our rehabilitation doesn't work on them? On one hand, harsh punishment doesn't fit the crime, but on the other hand,…

> So the question is what do we do with people who commit small crimes as a lifestyle, and have proven repeatedly in practice that our rehabilitation doesn't work on them?

Do you think the US system offers sufficient rehabilitation mechanisms to make the case that rehabilitation doesn't work?

Personally, I don't. To European eyes, it looks revenge-heavy, and rehabilitation-light.

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

#405

Post by adamc »

rayiner wrote: post #355
michaelt wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be less biased to show statistics for the kind of people sentenced under the three strikes law, but that wouldn't tug the heart strings as much. Perhaps we could aspire to have a law that works right in outlier cases, not just on average?

One of the most basic principles of system design is that there will be edge cases. Every engineer knows that. In a country with 300 million people, enough will fall into these edge cases for the ACLU to put together a pamphlet with a few examples. That's inevitable. That said, with three strikes laws, you don't need to resort to sob stories. The statistics are evidence enough: about half of three strikers in Califor…

It's a justice system. Justice requires doing something sane with edge cases. The three strikes laws don't do that.

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

#406

Post by grey-area »

drivingmissm wrote: post #263
grey-area wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've never seen evidence of a hard correlation between incarceration rate and crime rate, it sounds intuitive if you assume everyone has equal chances in life and has other options, but do you have figures?

If that were the case, the US, Cuba and Rwanda should be the safest countries in the world (all near the top in incarceration rates) and Sweden one of the worst. The opposite is true if you look at (for example) homicide rates. I'm not sure there is any evidence of even a good correlation between higher incarceration and lower crime.

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

#407

Post by [deleted] »

silverbax88 wrote: post #385
enko wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that is attempted murder basically Oh come on. I've lost my license for what you'd call DUI - made a stupid decision to drive the 1.5km back home from a pub, got a 1 year ban and a hefty fine. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do and I deserve what I got, but attempted murder ? Don't be ridiculous. At most repeated DUI is criminal negligence, and negligence on the part of whomever supplied the offender with the vehicle…

I've got a massive 7 inch scar across my face from when a drunk driver plowed into our car when I was 8 years old. I had over 100 stitches in my head and my face was a criss cross of zipper scars for years. The only thing that saved my life was that I was reading a book when we were struck - the book literally saved my life by blocking the glass from slashing my throat. So, yea, murder. That's how serious DUI (or tex…

[deleted]

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

#408

Post by SolarNet »

632830 wrote: post #397
chongli wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

instead of trying to paint an accurate picture with statistics. People are even more unmoved by accurate pictures painted by statistics than they are of "minorities living on the edge". That's the problem here. The ACLU is trying to relate to people on a human level so that they can build some support. So what if they end up producing something very biased? Is this a scientific paper in peer review? I think most peop…

> biases towards the left wing The ACLU Is a Conservative Organization - Noam Chomsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tebAFbBb0gQ

I think the problem is that modern conservatives have gone so far to the right that organizations which are traditionally conservative are now considered left wing.

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

#409

Post by SolarNet »

EliRivers wrote: post #403
nhangen wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding me? What do you want to do instead, cut his hand off? If we have to pay to keep a criminal like this off the street, then I'm OK with that. We're paying for protection. Not to mention, there's lots that could go wrong with lacking the 'impulse control' to enter someone's hotel room.

Are you kidding me? What do you want to do instead, cut his hand off? The sheer lack of imagination and knowledge you exhibit is astonishing. If I don't think it's smart to imprison him, I must want to cut his hand off? Let me guess; you're a US citizen and you don't travel much, so all you've ever seen regarding prison policy is identical US politicians posturing over who can be more "tough on crime"?

Instead of insulting him, why not provide some links:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-pri...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-p...

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

#410

Post by javajosh »

jnbiche wrote: post #341
javajosh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is hope. Software is the key to addressing a great deal of injustice in the world. I believe that software programmers who want to make a difference can do so by collaborating on open source projects intended for use by government at every level. Consider: if we can write the software that cities, states, and even the federal government uses to do it's job, then we can also have a material impact on transparenc…

> it would arguably contribute greatly to society. It would contribute to the system that is perpetuating these kinds of injustices. Recall that a good portion of these people serving life sentences for non-violent crimes are in state prisons. How is helping them build their software systems going to find justice for a man in jail for life for stealing some tools? By the way, this is not a rhetorical question: I'm ho…

In this case, technology could have helped in (at least) two places:

1. In the courtroom. These people could have received a faster, more painless, and more just trial. The proceedings could have been more open, easier to search and data mine, and hence easier to react to faster. Additionally (and somewhat science-fictiony) I personally would like to see us experiment with alternative juries - particularly much larger, distributed juries. If justice can't be crowd-sourced, then I don't know what can.

2. In the legislature. Although the creation of bills is an intensely collaborative process, too often the details are delegated to underlings, and those details are seriously misinformed by the facts. So one piece of software that is needed world wide are better document collaboration tools that are tied to accurate sources. The legislature in particular should be obsessively concerned about how the justice system is applying their laws. Better visibility into what's happening, in real-time, would make the legislature a) more aware and b) more responsive to injustice.

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