It's not the deeds, it's the hate.
POSTED BY: Fremdfirma
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 8, 2008 18:47
VIEWED: 10808
PAGE 12 of 13
Quote:See my post above. .
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:But this is not the case. We not only have the highest crime rate, we also have the highest incarceration rate.
Bluntly, if Americans are more likely to get away with criminal behaviour, it would hardly be a surprise if they performed more criminal behaviour.
.
Quote:
In addition, the very high rate of recidivism argues that jail-time (anticipated or actual) does NOT reduce violent crime. It just doesn't.
You have not considered the rate of recidivism among criminals who escape punishment for their crimes. And if fear of jail discourages people from committing a crime, and they discover from personal experience that jail is not as bad as they thought, that discovery should make them more likely to risk jail in future.Do you really want to argue that escaping punishment for a crime makes people less likely to commit a crime. .
Quote:
Violent criminals for the most part have something screwy with their brains: they either were abused as children, or they have brain damage/ poor impulse control, or they grew up in extremely dangerous neighborhoods, or they're on drugs, or some combination. Jail? The only thing jail stops is premeditated crime.
---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.
If they are really incapable of responsibility for their actions, they should not be jailed until the end of their sentences. They should be in mental hospitals for the rest of their lives.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The ONLY choices you can think of are jail or a permanent institutionalization ?
I guess we can get rid of special-ed then - they're obviously way to screwed up to help ! Forget therapy - it obviously never works ! Forget job training - whatever would they use it for ? And we should forget about changing drug laws (which account for 50% of inmates, many of whom are 'self-medicating') - because jail and permanent institutionalization would work so much better ! Let alone change our society to be more humane to reduce violence to levels found elsewhere.
***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:But you do that, from a pool of people you never chose to meet.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
We chose our friends and our mates and that's about it, you don't even get to chose your family.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:This is nonsense. The UK has the highest imprisionment rate in the EU.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
I’m told that if you do this for the UK, it turns out that the punishment you can expect for a crime there is lower than in anywhere in the rest of the EU. And the crime rate in the UK is higher than in the rest of the EU.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Let alone change our society to be more humane to reduce violence to levels found elsewhere.
Exactly - but HOW ?
I agree treating drug use and addiction as a purely medical, rather than legal, problem would damned sure be a step in the right direction, however.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
It would take a major revolution of thought or a collapse of the current system to even have a hope of starting.
I don't see a major revolution of thought on the horizon, do you ? First of all, most USers think that this is the best of all possible worlds. 
It's hard to change when you don't see a problem. And even if there was mass enlightenment, given the demonstrably miserable human capacity for pro-active problem solving, even if it means survival, I'd put my money on a collapse happening first. Though a collapse would more likely generate a Somalia failed-state scenario than major positive change.
But no, I don't think the answer lies in teaching children to play nice and cooperate. B/c unfortunately in the grown-up world, by design, that gets you taken advantage of.
***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
While looking for information on Ann Sullivan (Macy), Helen Keller's teacher, I came across this, which belongs best here.
The "Helen Keller story" that is stamped in our collective consciousness freezes her in childhood; we remember her most vividly at age seven when her teacher, Annie Sullivan, connected her to language through a magical moment at the water pump. We learned little of her life beyond her teen years, except that she worked on behalf of the handicapped.
But there is much more to Helen Keller's history than a brilliant deaf and blind woman who surmounted incredible obstacles. Helen Keller was a socialist who believed she was able to overcome many of the difficulties in her life because of her class privilege - a privilege not shared by most of her blind or deaf contemporaries. "I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment," she said. " I have learned that the power to rise is not within the reach of everyone." More than an icon of American "can-do," Helen Keller was a tireless advocate of the poor and disenfranchised.
COVERT CENSORSHIP: PROMOTING THE INDIVIDUAL
"The world is moved not only by the mighty stories of heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."
Helen Keller
***************************************************************
Maybe Helen Keller has something to teach us about acting in concert to make society humane for everyone.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
She was also a radical socialist, and thus a strong member of the four-pole alliance, supportive of Eugene Debs, passionately anti-war, a partial founder of the ACLU...
And an IWW member.
(Whom, I might add, were all for breaking the barriers of class, race and gender long before anyone else had the guts.)
Of course, THESE things you won't find in your public school system history textbook.
It shames me that we've so effectively purged the four-pole alliance and it's noteable folk from our history, when they had such a tremendous impact upon it.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:This is nonsense. The UK has the highest imprisionment rate in the EU.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
I’m told that if you do this for the UK, it turns out that the punishment you can expect for a crime there is lower than in anywhere in the rest of the EU. And the crime rate in the UK is higher than in the rest of the EU.
It has the highest imprisonment rate per head of population.
I am told it has the lowest imprisonment rate per crime.
For these two statements to be true it must also have the highest crime rate per head of population.
So I wonder if the same is true of the US.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I said: If they are really incapable of responsibility for their actions, they should not be jailed until the end of their sentences. They should be in mental hospitals for the rest of their lives.
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The ONLY choices you can think of are jail or a permanent institutionalization ?
I guess we can get rid of special-ed then - they're obviously way to screwed up to help ! Forget therapy - it obviously never works ! Forget job training - whatever would they use it for ? And we should forget about changing drug laws (which account for 50% of inmates, many of whom are 'self-medicating') - because jail and permanent institutionalization would work so much better ! Let alone change our society to be more humane to reduce violence to levels found elsewhere.
If someone cannot be responsible for their own actions, there are two options:
a) Make someone else responsible for their actions. This means that this someone must be able to control their action, or else the someone could not be help responsible for them.
b) Change the way their mind works until you like the way it works. (As was tried unsuccessfully on Miranda…)
In neither case can you be said to be treating the person as a free citizen, or even as an ordinary prisoner.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME