Is it really justice to take violent criminals and lock them away for the rest of their lives? Would it be more or less justice to just kill them from the outset? Should we make more of an effort to find out what drove them to committing the horrible crimes they have?
It is very rare that a violent criminal kill randomly with out some sort of motivation and it is very rare for such criminals to have stable happy lives. Often they have had terrible lives, with unloving or abusive parents, trouble getting food, abuse from their peers, or all sorts of other problems and influences. Often these factors are ignored during criminal trials and sentensing. And they are very rarely solved or helped by locking someone away for twenty or thirty years. How are they gonna be any better coming out than when they came in? How can we expect someone, who has been completely separated from the world for twenty years to be able to come out of prison and be ready to handle themselves in soceity. Is the goal of prisons to simply remove people from society or to prepare them for reentry and help them if they can be helped?
To clarify the exact questions: Are we doing enough for people in prisons to help them be ready to reenter life in society? Should we let them reenter soceity at all, and if not keep them in prison their entire lives or kill them? What more can we do to help them reenter society?
[ July 30, 2004, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Alcon ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Let's suppose the only two choices are locking them up for life or executing them. Even if we had an unerring justice system, I would say life for all but a few. To me, it is very important to give people the opportunity to repent before they die. Even if it cost 10x the money to keep them alive than to kill them, I would still support life in prison.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
You know what's interesting that I saw on the History Channel a few months ago? The US prison system has only really been around since the Victorian era. Back then it was a kind of rehabilitation, since prisoners were expected to be introspective and come to an understanding about their failures. Or something like that, it was a long time ago.
The prison system certainly isn't perfect, but a better solution hasn't presented itself.
Posted by Insanity Plea (Member # 2053) on :
I think, the thought that capital punishment is the final and worst punishment a person can have is rather flawed. First, I don't think it's our responsibility to judge whether or not a person should live or die. Second, had a person kill my own daughter, I don't think I'd want him to die, I'd want him to sit in a 5 by 5 cell with nothing on the walls except the picture of my daughter and a speak that lets out the sound of the scream of her death upon the anniversary of her death so he could sit there and think very hard about what he's done. After a few years of this, we'll see if he's learned the err of his actions.
edit: thinking about what i said above, I think I'd agree with mph, society should make an attempt to rehabilitate criminals. Satyagraha
[ July 30, 2004, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Insanity Plea ]
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
My Dad had an interesting idea...
He was opposed, and I agree with him, that we have way too many people in prison for too long for small crimes.
20 years is a LONG ass time. He argued that sentences should never be longer than 20 years...and if the crime is so terrible that it warrents over 20 years that we should just put them to death.
This of course means shortening almost all current sentences... so no more life terms for using drugs. Only stuff like rape or murder gets you 20 years and, as said above, if really really horrible, the death penalty.
[ July 30, 2004, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
Really hard questions.
I'd like to believe that some people (but not all, I'm not that optimistic) would benefit from a special home/school where they would learn to be happy without hurting other people or otherwise breaking the law. But it would take a dedicated kind of person to work in such a place. Think foster homes for minor criminals, especially youth criminals.
But that's a pipe dream, I figure. There is no easy solution. Especially because for every four people who can truly learn, there's the one person who has no interest in changing. That person will kill again, and then the public will want to know why more wasn't done to stop it.
----- But at the very least, prisons should be looked at and evaluated with scrutiny. Perhaps prisons should be encouraged to try out different methods of communicating with the inmates (read: positive ways, not torture ways). Trials of programs should be run, and feedback should be gotten. It's not fair to say that the inmates don't deserve this, or don't deserve to give input. Then you're not working for change, the opportunity to be a better person, encouraging them to be better people.
[ July 30, 2004, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: dabbler ]
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
People rarely want justice.
They want revenge.
They want safety.
They want the appearance of justice.
But they rarely want true justice.
True Justice, for us all to pay for the crimes we commit daily, from speeding to disrepecting our neighbors, to not being as thoughtful and caring as we know we should be. True justice for all the questionable lazy shortcuts we take to make it through the day. True, unerring justice for all, not just what is good for you, is very very painful.
No, what most people want is punishment for those who cheat worse than they do.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
That's pretty cynical, dan. Jeez. Way to run my afternoon. Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
*seeks out justice for Wheat's snarkiness*
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
Nothing wrong with a little revenge. Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Here's what I think 20 years or over for murderers (depending) and rapist. All other criminals like thieves, drug dealers and most youth offenders would get rehabilitated. They would get a mininum security prison separated from murderers and violent criminals. There they would be educated in the afternoons and evenings but in the morning they'd work in fields or some sort of factory and would get paid reasonably so they can have money when they get out of jail. It would NOT be some easy place where they can watch television or lift weights all day long, they would be punished for their crimes and rewarded for studying and trying to better themselves. Most murderers would be put in a small cell. They would get anger management classes, drug treatment if they need it, working skills. Things like that... But, it would probably never happen...
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Nothing wrong with a little revenge.
Unless you actually believe "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
Which I do.
[ July 30, 2004, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
Synth, all the people who are currently working those factory and farming jobs are going to be pretty upset when they lose them to criminals...
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
For some reason, I was (briefly) a criminal justice major.
As noted earlier, our modern correction system is designed on the idea of prisoner introspection and self-corrective behavior with the negative reinforcement of being locked away.
The rough theory is, "gee...I don't want to go to jail, so I'd better adjust my anti-social behavior that got me arrested and convicted to begin with."
Unfortunately, a number of prisoners become "prisonized" - or so inducted into the social customs of prison life that they are unable to function in normal society. The term used is "prisonization" - although it can be argued that any extreme situation can lead to people adapting so completely to the different standards of a sub-culture that they are unable to function when returned to the original culture.
Rehabilitation programs are not particularly encouraged from what I remember in my time in the program and indeed are viewed as catering or pandering to "those criminals." Society takes a very dim view of people who have been incarcerated, making it difficult to ever fully re-enter society in any vaguely meaningful way.
I personally suspect our inherent dislike for central authority and perhaps an over-fondness for George Orwell prohibits most attempts at establishing reform programs designed to reduce or eliminate recividism rates.
-Trevor
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:This of course means shortening almost all current sentences... so no more life terms for using drugs.
Are you saying that there are really people serving life sentences for doing drugs? I find this incredibly hard to believe. Care to give me a book name, document name, or even an internet link that can verify this?
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
*wonders what happened to the vigilante justice thread*
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I remember being shocked at a short naarative we read in English class (sorry, can't give the name, and it was by a guy from around here, so i don't it's widely known) from a guy who served as the jury alternate (don't know what it's called) at the trial of a repeat drug offender. The defendant eventually got 40 years of jail time for smoking (possibly dealing, it was a long time ago) marijuana. I remember being completely shocked. While I don't favor decriminalizing pot, I don't think the sentence should be far greater than what many people get for murder or rape.
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
If nothing else they shouldn't have AC and cable TV. I have always been a big fan of the prison that somewhere, Texas maybe opened instead of building a new one. The inmates lived in Tents on top of concrete pads and farmed to produce food for the prison.
Prison shouldn't be something better than what you have outside of it.
Three squares and a place to sleep.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
quote:Prison shouldn't be something better than what you have outside of it.
Three squares and a place to sleep.
You do realize that that is part of the problem? In prison, the poeple are at least guaranteed "3 hots and a cot" - and there's no guarantee of that on the outside.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Well since you are so envious of that fine prison life, get busted and go to jail.
[ July 31, 2004, 04:38 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:20 years is a LONG ass time. He argued that sentences should never be longer than 20 years...and if the crime is so terrible that it warrents over 20 years that we should just put them to death.
One "little" problem with increasing use of the death penalty.
Actually, there are many problems that can be argued, but I'll focus on the one that graduated from being the "elephant in the living room" here in Illinois to a full blown scandal.
Seems that a lot of innocent people end up on death row - at least here in Illinois. After the judicial system dotted all its i's and crossed all its t's we still ended up with something like (I have trouble keeping up with the count) seventeen people on death row who turned out to be innocent.
And it wasn't the "system" that saved most of them. It was a Northwestern professor who assigned many of these cases to his classes to investigate.
Hard to be real enthusiastic about the death penalty here in Illinois. Reality checks have had a dampening effect.
[ July 31, 2004, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
by aspectre's comment
Perhaps I can be clearer . . .
BECAUSE the prospects of providing for oneself in the "outside" are so slim, and the ability to reintegrate with society is so dim, many criminals end up back in jail/prison over and over again - because there they are at least assured that their basic needs are met. Frequently, petty crimes are committed to ensure this resumption of placement. It's called survival.
So, the earlier thought (edited to add: expressed by HollowEarth) that limiting the prison experience to three balanced meals a day, and a place to sleep produce the desired results of less jail/prison time is most likely not going to happen, (edited to add)IMHO.
(Edited to add: early a.m. sarcasm, directed at NO ONE) Perhaps hard labor, chained to the rest of the convicted, beating boulders into pebbles . . . ?
[ July 31, 2004, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Shan ]
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
Shan, I agree completely, however really we can't and shouldn't make it less than that. That is not to say, however that, 8 of the waking hours of the day shouldn't be spent in some sort of productive activity. Whether this be education or merely labor is irrelevent.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:I remember being shocked at a short naarative we read in English class (sorry, can't give the name, and it was by a guy from around here, so i don't it's widely known) from a guy who served as the jury alternate (don't know what it's called) at the trial of a repeat drug offender. The defendant eventually got 40 years of jail time for smoking (possibly dealing, it was a long time ago) marijuana. I remember being completely shocked. While I don't favor decriminalizing pot, I don't think the sentence should be far greater than what many people get for murder or rape.
Are you sure it wasn't simply fiction? "I heard" is not a very convincing example. There are certain laws for minimum and maximum sentences, even for repeat offenders. They vary from state to state, but are mostly similar. What I'm saying is that there is no way someone could get that high a sentence just for smoking pot.
Now, if they were doing drugs along with other illegal activities, then this is believable. The problem is that most drug advocacy arguments leave out the simple fact that almost all of the cases cited as "just doing drugs" are in there for other things, and the drugs simply added time to the sentence.
aspectre:
quote:Well since you are so envious of that fine prison life, get busted and go to jail.
Spoken from the perspective of one who never had to worry about missing meals or sleeping next to a dumpster. County prison populations are often inflated by those wanting three squares and a roof for a short time (30-90 days). Many repeat offenders have been known to prefer the "security" of the jail cell over the outside, as well.
[ July 31, 2004, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Jutsa Notha Name ]
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
It wasn't supposed to be a convincing argument, it was more me randomly saying what this made me think of. And, no, it wasn't fiction. That's the one part I'm quite sure of, the guy was covertly arguing against strict drug laws.
If you're really interested and not just picking a fight I can call my seventh grade teacher and ask her the title.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
I don't know about the particular story, but there are some troubling accounts of people falling under the "three strikes" law:
quote:Buried alive under California's law of 'three strikes and you're out' Protest marks 10 years of rule that means decades in jail for minor theft
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles Monday March 8, 2004 The Guardian
Brian A Smith didn't know the two women who were shoplifting. They were caught on security cameras stealing sheets at the Los Cerritos mall in Los Angeles and received a two-year sentence.
But Smith was seen standing near the shoplifters as they committed their crime. Despite having no stolen goods, he was convicted of aiding and abetting them.
Under California's three strikes law, which marked its 10th anniversary on Sunday, the 30 year old received a 25-year-to-life sentence.
Smith's crime was to have two previous convictions, one 11 years earlier and the second six years before the shoplifting incident. Those convictions, for purse snatching in 1983 and burglary in 1988, earned him the dubious honour of being one of the first criminals to be sentenced under the California law.
By September last year, California, the US state with the highest prison population, had 7,234 prisoners held under the three strikes rule.
***
Under the three strikes law, 25 years means 25 years: prisoners have no chance of parole. The law was voted for in March 1994, under California's proposition system, in which the electorate votes directly for specific policy initiatives. But unlike the three strikes laws operating in some other states, California's version does not restrict the initiative to violent crimes.
Sixty-five per cent of those imprisoned under three strikes in California were convicted of non-violent crimes; 354 of them received 25-years-to-life sentences for petty theft of less than $250.
Campaigners for an amendment to the legislation point out that offenders sentenced under the law for drug possession outnumber those serving sentences for second-degree murder, rape and assault with a deadly weapon combined.
They also point to the cost of the sentencing policy, with the imprisonment of non-violent offenders under the three strikes law estimated to cost the state nearly $1bn a year. With California's budget deficit the subject of intense political activity, they argue that this would be one easy way to save money. The private operators of California's prisons might have a different view of the possible removal of a steady source of long-term income.
Yet there is no indication that the law has decreased crime. Counties in the north of the state which have not used the legislation have seen crime drop by 22% more than the southern Californian counties that have rigidly applied the law. Between 1993 and 2002 New York state, roughly comparable with California, but without a three strikes law, saw its crime rate reduced by 27% more than California's.
The three strikes policy has also disproportionately affected blacks and Hispanics. The African-American incarceration rate is 12 times higher than that for whites, while the rate for Hispanics is 45% higher.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Blackwolve, if you think you can get the title, I'd be interested to know its name.
Sndrake, I've heard of that "three strikes" thing before, but according to that article, the convictions are still coming for other crimes, not drug possession. The trick with criminal prosecution is that they prefer to stack charges when there is a chance. By this I mean when police are catching people in possession, they are more often than not found while being apprehended for other criminal activity, or other ilicit activity or property are found in posession as well.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Snd: Not to say that guy deserved to go to jail or anything, but he had prior convictions. Completely innocent people don't fall victim to it because they don't have prior convictions at all.
I guess, they should try to get the guy out if he's innocent, but it's not like it's a pitfall that innocent people just happen to fall into. He was pushing the limits in the first place by having two strikes already.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
Yeah, well, it just blows the hell out of the idea of "proportional" punishment.
As y'all may recall, I'm not a Christian, but I was always impressed that the old "eye for an eye" part in the bible was a call for restraint and respnses that were in proportion to the offense.
25 years for nonviolent crimes looks like a jump backwards as a culture.
[ July 31, 2004, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Yeah, sndrake, the proportional argument is definitely not based on reality. I agree with that.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
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