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

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 1:43 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #294

waps wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep wondering how people can possibly defend what Snowden did. He used social engineering exploits in his job as sysadmin on a large scale, then published the resulting information. He apparently even compromised personal accounts of the people he was supposed to help. Are we seriously suggesting letting people do this if they think the goal is just ? It seems so. I shudder to think what the consequences of that w…

Are we seriously suggesting letting people do this if they think the goal is just ? It seems so. I shudder to think what the consequences of that would be. This is actually a significant part of why we have trial by jury (according to some; others argue that it's just silly); they can decide that the accused did commit the crime and still return not guilty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Post by clarkevans » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 1:52 PM UTC

drivingmissm wrote: post #263

grey-area wrote: post #251

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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.

Post by stephen_g » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 1:58 PM UTC

eftpotrm wrote: post #269

humbledrone wrote: post #200

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> 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.

It costs USD40k per year per prisoner? Wow. 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…

Post by skyraider » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #240

skyraider wrote: post #106

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A few points: - Many former judges are prosecutors. Prosecutors are trained to get the maximum 'sustainable' sentence. This means looking at what the law says and enforcing it. Fault: legislature. - If the law says that sentences should or must be X long, sentences are going to be around X long. Outside of the 3 strikes system and the California Supreme Court's ruling, how is this the judiciary's fault? There is a se…

How much, really, does sentence length have to do with re-election? If you mean, with the voters? Almost nothing. It you mean, in the ability to get votes in the next election through adequate funding? It means a lot. The prison union (among others) is a heavy, heavy funder of politicians here in CA (and I assume other places). Obviously they benefit from having more customers^Hprisoners; hence, politicians are willi…

Post by MarcusBrutus » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 2:15 PM UTC