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

Post by Daniel_Newby » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 4:05 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 enko » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #202

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #197

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Criticism of government has it's limits. Snowden is questionable because what he said was not public knowledge and had crippling negative effects towards security of the state, but say, expressing your criticism of government by blowing up a federal building...

Similarly to how China would react to someone talking about Tianamen Square which isn't public knowledge but knowledge of it would cause a massive shit storm that would undermine the security of the state. It's not what happened, it's the idea of one man standing up to the state that strikes fear into their hearts.

Post by rayiner » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 4:21 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #345

rayiner wrote: post #340

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The ACLU page is rather manipulative in that they construe the facts very favorably to the convicted. E.g. "After serving two years in prison during his mid-twenties for inadvertently killing someone during a bar fight." Oh yes, he just accidentally killed someone in a bar fight. Happens all the time really, right up there with leaving your credit card with the hostess after getting a little too tipsy. It would be le…

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?

Post by Daniel_Newby » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

w0utert wrote: post #267

wmil wrote: post #113

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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.

>> The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes. 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…

Post by Zigurd » Sat, Nov 16, 2013, 4:28 PM UTC

cmccabe wrote: post #141

lostlogin wrote: post #33

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Failure to sign the Ottawa treaty (anti landmine) and the international criminal court agreements, execution of minors (and execution at all), assassination of opponents even if citizens (via drones), torture, war crimes, illegal invasions, use of phosphorus (probably comes under war crimes), continual killing of civilians in non declared wars, massive prison population, secret prisons, outsourcing torture, supportin…

Three-strikes laws are dumb, but so are you. Take your anti-US agenda somewhere else. I suggest North Korea, China, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, or any of the other countries not allied with us, so you can see how much "better" they are.