21–30 of 200 posts
Talk about cruel punishments, locking up someone for two fucking robberies without any deaths for nearly a century is unreasonable, cruel and defies everything our civilization stands for. But hey, private prison operators need to make money and police/DA/any part of the justice system profits from being "tough on crime"... Thank God I'm German, even if you end up killing someone you'll at most get 15 years (okay, th…
Talk about cruel punishments, locking up someone for two fucking robberies without any deaths for nearly a century is unreasonable, cruel and defies everything our civilization stands for. But hey, private prison operators need to make money and police/DA/any part of the justice system profits from being "tough on crime"... Thank God I'm German, even if you end up killing someone you'll at most get 15 years (okay, th…
Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes. If you're robbing a place and your punishment for being caught is effectively life in prison, what reason do you have not to murder all the potential witnesses to improve your odds of getting away with the crime? All you have is morality, and I don't want to rely on the morality of c…
That said, 10-15 is more than enough for this kind of crime.
This article was a very good read. If you are in America, you should try and contact that governor his family is lobbying. I would, but I'm not living in this country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fifteen years while loved ones of the deceased spend the rest of their lives in mourning? Thank God I'm not.
FYI "because I want the person to suffer" is not a valid reason to lock someone up. We lock people up as a punishment just like your parents may have sent you to your room when you were acting up. We do it under the thinking of they won't do it again once they've paid their debt but that thinking is flawed on SO many level. Among them are: 1. Prison does NOT reform people in fact it pushes many deeper into a life of…
I don't know if it's valid, but it certainly a reason why we lock people up. "An eye for an eye" is a universal principle and I assume victims expect some type of revenge. Maybe that's something we should refrain from in a perfect world, but I don't think we're there yet!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes. If you're robbing a place and your punishment for being caught is effectively life in prison, what reason do you have not to murder all the potential witnesses to improve your odds of getting away with the crime? All you have is morality, and I don't want to rely on the morality of c…
The main function of prisons is to keep the criminals away from law-abiding society. Note that the guy's accomplice continued his criminal behavior inside prison. That said, 10-15 is more than enough for this kind of crime.
Indeed. When he gets two-three murders worth of time without murdering anyone, you really have to question the proportionality of the whole thing.
They both definitely deserved jail time. I'm certain the crimes had an impact on the people they robbed and threatened.
And I agree, 10-15, MAYBE up to 20 is proportionate. 90 years is not.
Private prisons have a strong profit motive to increase the number of people behind bars until we have the kind of situation we have today in the U.S. These are folks who can afford to pay lobbyists to create the kind of sentencing that leads to 98 years for 2 robberies, and criminalize non-violent or victimless 'crimes.'
Here's a Last Week Tonight segment on the broken prison system in the U.S.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pz3syET3DY
Talk about cruel punishments, locking up someone for two fucking robberies without any deaths for nearly a century is unreasonable, cruel and defies everything our civilization stands for. But hey, private prison operators need to make money and police/DA/any part of the justice system profits from being "tough on crime"... Thank God I'm German, even if you end up killing someone you'll at most get 15 years (okay, th…
Business as usual in the Prison Industrial Complex, aka the New Jim Crowe. Some people make lots of money by locking people up. I don't expect the laws to change anytime soon.
A Bank Robber, 45
'They originally charged me with murder, kidnapping, and bank robbery, but I'm really just a bank robber with really bad luck. You see, my buddy and me were robbing this bank, and when we come outside there is a cop waiting across the street and he starts shooting. He shoots my buddy, but I don't know he's dead so I pull him into the car and drive away. When they bust me, they charge me with murder, kidnapping, and the robbery.
I ask my attorney, "How the hell can they do that? All I did was rob a bank"
He says the law says if you are committing a felony and someone dies, a bank teller has a heart attack or something, you can be charged with murder. He tells me they charged me with murder because my buddy got killed.
He says the law says when I pulled my buddy into the car and drove off, I kidnapped him because I was taking a body from the scene of a crime. That's how they got me for kidnapping.
He says the law says that I can be charged with all three even though I didn't kill nobody and I didn't kidnap nobody.
I say the law sucks.'
The insanity of the charges/sentencing reminds me of a passage from The Hot House (which is excellent, Pete Earley somehow got permission to go mingle with prisoners at USP Leavenworth for a year and write about it). A Bank Robber, 45 'They originally charged me with murder, kidnapping, and bank robbery, but I'm really just a bank robber with really bad luck. You see, my buddy and me were robbing this bank, and when…