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Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are ways to isolate him in say, a psychiatric hospital, where he can get treatment if there's any. Of course, if your point is that certain people are beyond help, then I guess you can always find examples where this is true and then maybe you can set certain rules specific for those extreme cases. But I think that doesn't invalidate the GP's point. In most cases helping the person recover is actually…

> I'm sure there are ways to isolate him in say, a psychiatric hospital, where he can get treatment if there's any. No, there aren't. You can't force someone into psychiatric care unless they are a danger to themselves or others and even then it's a difficult process. > But I think that doesn't invalidate the GP's point. In most cases helping the person recover is actually possible so it's worth giving that road a tr…

I think we are saying the basically the same thing.

My point was that someone that gets arrested not 100+ times, but even 5+ or 10+ is probably someone having serious issues participating in society (assuming we are not talking about North Korea or some other dictatorship regime with absurd incarceration laws).

Sometimes the culprit is going to be a medical reason for which we can try a medical treatment, but if not, there might be other possible treatments like those used with gang members (watch "La Vida Loca" documentary).

When all this fails, then we can maybe argue that we are dealing with one of those people for which there is no possible help, but it's not until now (hopefully) that we consider some potentially uncivilized way of dealing with these extremes.

That's how I would like to (broadly) deal with these people anyway. Not saying it's what happens, unfortunately.

Re: Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners

#182
post #160

This reduction in prison population is, at root, a consequence of ending drug prohibition. In the US, state voters are working on this in places like Colorado, Washington, and now my home state, Massachusetts. So far, voters have had to do it. Legislatures can't, yet, do it, because the vested special interests in continuing prohibition are too strong. I'm sure somebody can speak for California; I don't know much abo…

Heroin and Cocaine are safer than Alcohol ? Can you share some info please ?

Paradoxical, isn't it? Here are the reason heroin and cocaine, delivered safely, are safer than alcohol.

Part of this counter-intuitive claim stems from the fact that alcohol has common and dangerous side effects like domestic violence and automobile violence.

Another part of it comes from statistical evidence showing the other compounds, when delivered safely (and not by criminal gangs) are not as dangerous as believed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/04/everythin...

http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP325.html

Finally, consider the Iron Law of Prohibition: Prohibiting a substance drives out all but the most potent (easiest to smuggle) formulations of the substance. That makes the shit more dangerous.

Look, the claim is NOT that heroin and cocaine are not shit. They are. The claim is that the war on drugs has exaggerated their shittiness to justify itself.

Re: Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners

#183
post #98
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belgium has an abysmal track record when it comes to prisons. It's been repeatedly convicted for treating prisoners like cattle, for putting psychiatric patients in regular prisons without treatment etc. Sending some prisoners to Dutch prisons (including a prison boat, iirc) is one of the best things that's happened to the Belgian penal system in years. Sadly it's only a temporary relief, and it's been cancelled (and…

The programme was stopped because Belgium finished building new prisons.

When was this? Last I heard there were still over crowding issues.
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