TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
I've had friends who were on parole (take that as you will) and it's the shittiest fucking arrangement you could get. Some of them even wished they had just finished their sentence because prison was much less likely to screw you over because of one single asshole who had power over you.
Imagine you've been out of prison for a few months, you're on an ankle bracelet for your first year and you've been a good boy. You're sleeping soundly at two in the morning when all of a sudden you hear someone bust down the door.
Now this individual has had problems with his parole officer in the past. His P.O. was basically a giant asshole who felt that it was his duty to catch these guys doing something bad no matter how minor or trivial. Now imagine that your ankle bracelet just decided to shit the bed when this overzealous asshole is watching over your every move.
P.O. busted down the door, scared the shit out of the kids and the dudes wife and wound up in a fist fight with said person of interest because the guy thought someone had broken into his house to rob him.
Needless to say he got shipped off to prison with time added on because of that fight and the asshole P.O. tacked on some bullshit attempted escape shit and the P.O. got time off for his injuries.
Well, it's not a hierarchy. Somebody could be fine with murder, but not with lying. People can be murdered for lying, even.
You know, if prison were a gambling man.
I just don't see how you can have a parole system without some judgement on a person's rehabilitation. The courtroom is the place to assert innocence, not the parole hearing.
Now, I'm all for general structured sentences that do a gradual transition based on the sentence and time served, but any sort of parole system will have subjective judgement if it's providing early release.
If a person can get parole without asserting and demonstrating they are reformed - and again, the parole board must operate from a position that a guilty person is guilty, there is no reason for any prisoner to take a position that they don't need to reform because they never did anything wrong and are innocent.
Seems to be a general structural issue that manifests in a generally stupid policy in the edge case of an innocent person wrongly convicted seeking parole. Or I wish it was more of an edge case, that's for damn sure. How about less wrongful convictions being the target instead?-
My main problem with this line of thought is it taps into the poisonous well of "they were convicted so fuck them". We've seen before innocent people do get convicted. Any system that forces an innocent person to confess to a crime they didn't commit is immoral and broken, there is simply no two ways about it.
Secondly as people have already pointed out, a no doubt intended side effect of this is it means you can never appeal because they'll just drag out your coerced confession from the parole board hearing.
Saying "we should just convict less innocent people then" is simply allowing perfect to be the enemy of good, mistakes in the justice system are always going to happen.
I've had friends who were on parole (take that as you will) and it's the shittiest fucking arrangement you could get. Some of them even wished they had just finished their sentence because prison was much less likely to screw you over because of one single asshole who had power over you.
Probation has bullshit like that too. I mean, your story about a cop breaking into somebody's house in the middle of the night is more extreme than anything I have. But stuff like "we need you to come in for a urinalysis in two hours and we don't care that you are at work and that you have to travel by bus, just be here" happens all the time
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
tl;dr: A 16 year old was accused of robbery, with only one eyewitness to connect him to it. He couldn't make the $10,000 bail, so sat in Riker's Island for three years until the Bronx DA finally concluded they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial.
Is there such a thing as like an auto-Habeus Corpus statute, where if you don't take a case to trial by [date] the charges are automatically dismissed? I'd like that to be a thing.
You have a constitutional right to a swift arraignment and timely trial, though for loose definitions of swift and timely.
Three years is extreme, but it happens. More commonly, people sit in jail for several weeks or a few months between arraignment and trial. A month isn't unheard of. If the court decides you need a psych eval, that might add another month, because there might only be one single psych professional serving the jail and he probably doesn't even work for them full time.
Think about what would happen to your life if you disappeared for two months. You'd likely lose your job. There is nobody paying rent on your apartment. Maybe nobody is paying your bills, or maybe you only have enough money in the bank to cover one round of bills. Maybe your kids are living with a relative, or maybe the court put them in foster care.
Even before you're convicted or plea, your life is basically destroyed.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
tl;dr: A 16 year old was accused of robbery, with only one eyewitness to connect him to it. He couldn't make the $10,000 bail, so sat in Riker's Island for three years until the Bronx DA finally concluded they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial.
Is there such a thing as like an auto-Habeus Corpus statute, where if you don't take a case to trial by [date] the charges are automatically dismissed? I'd like that to be a thing.
You have a constitutional right to a swift arraignment and timely trial, though for loose definitions of swift and timely.
Three years is extreme, but it happens. More commonly, people sit in jail for several weeks or a few months between arraignment and trial. A month isn't unheard of. If the court decides you need a psych eval, that might add another month, because there might only be one single psych professional serving the jail and he probably doesn't even work for them full time.
Think about what would happen to your life if you disappeared for two months. You'd likely lose your job. There is nobody paying rent on your apartment. Maybe nobody is paying your bills, or maybe you only have enough money in the bank to cover one round of bills. Maybe your kids are living with a relative, or maybe the court put them in foster care.
Even before you're convicted or plea, your life is basically destroyed.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
The requirement is just as much of a farce as asking somebody if they're innocent.
Literally anybody, the worst murderer ever even, can say that they feel bad about doing what they did without having to mean it. Especially when they've been advised by their lawyers that it's a requirement for parole.
It's purely a formality which kept a likely completely innocent man and woman in jail for 21 years, because they fiercely maintained that there was nothing to be sorry for, and in all probability were being completely honest.
It is a historical artifact from the partially-religious origins of the penal system. It is not a coincidence that the term penitentiary shares a root with penitence. Anglican clergy and Quakers argued in favor of incarceration over other contemporary punishments (which were often corporal) out of a belief that those who committed petty crimes could find penance through solitary reflection and prayer.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Hey, I thought we agreed to 'no prison rape jokes' in this thread.
... too meta?
But seriously, this is an issue that we need to address. There are many standards by which a society can be judged (treatment of the elderly, the poor, etc) and those who are incarcerated is certainly among them. The manner in which the US has turned its prison population into a profitable commodity, and the abuses that have cropped up (above and beyond the usual horror stories) is something that I hope is addressed in my lifetime, and suspect will be viewed with contempt in generations to come.
Yes, there are people who are dangerous enough to be separated from society in general while being rehabilitated, but prison as punishment (and all the inappropriate comedy found therein) seems far too often to do more harm than good.
Not to mention the need to take a hard look at how we treat former convicts, and yes, the manner in which the police and courts treat suspects. It's a massive issue, but those factors and more need to be addressed eventually.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
So over the last 20 years the number of incarcerated adults has increased 40% meanwhile instances of violent crime are down 33% and homicide rates are also down 40% (numbers do not reflect doing any math lol). Are people aware that crime is way way down?
The two could have a causal relationship. Maybe we are doing something very right.
I'd love to see the incarceration rates plotted against violent crime rates as some food for thought. Maybe there is a bit more to the story than middle america is racist or greedy fat cats and their prison money machines.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
hmm so presumably concomitant increase in canada prison population
noep
meanwhile in da states
dis is curious
let us look at which countries in da europes have da lowest crimez
now a kwick chart of homicide rates in european countries
i wonder if homicide rates hav been goin down everywhere
When it comes down to it, the magnitude of our problems come from one root issue - poverty. Yes, there will always be a need for prisons, and people from all classes and incomes commit serious crimes. But we should NEVER have people in prison who committed crimes truly out of necessity - and I consider most gang activity (drug dealing, violence, theft / burglary, etc) 'necessity' when you look at the reality of the people living in those mostly poor communities.
As someone who was in the thick of this in one of the poorest countries on the planet, I have to say:
Lifting the floor alone doesn't fix the problem after the gangs have already started. I'd compare it to getting sick: washing your hands & taking care of yourself is great, but prevention no longer works once you've got a parasite.
Gangsters won't let you improve the situation around them - they'll burn and pillage (figuratively in the first world, literally in the third world) until it's back to where it was before you began your work.
Sorting gangs out is a matter that requires policing, and probably armed policing. After you've sorted them out, preventing new ones from taking root is (mostly) a matter of economics & education.
With Love and Courage
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
So over the last 20 years the number of incarcerated adults has increased 40% meanwhile instances of violent crime are down 33% and homicide rates are also down 40% (numbers do not reflect doing any math lol). Are people aware that crime is way way down?
The two could have a causal relationship. Maybe we are doing something very right.
I'd love to see the incarceration rates plotted against violent crime rates as some food for thought. Maybe there is a bit more to the story than middle america is racist or greedy fat cats and their prison money machines.
Crime has almost always been on a downward slope, worldwide, as long as we've been keeping records. There is the occasional uptick elbow here or there, but the overall trend has always been a decline.
If you want a contemporary comparison between two different systems, look at the crime rate & recidivism rate in America, with it's 'tough on crime' theocratic approach that seeks to appease any onlooker that wants to see criminals paying penance, and then look at the same rates in Norway, with it's more empirical approach and 'outrageous' policies according to stupid onlookers used to western systems (criminals are treated as persons; they have restrictions on where they can go / what they can do based on their offenses and their danger to others, but otherwise they have decent lodgings, recreation, access to actual therapists rather than confessors, a sense of privacy & personal agency, etc) - including short terms.
Locking people up for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60~ years is retarded, unless you intend to keep them in jail indefinitely - and yet North American prisons routinely give sentences within those ranges.
At least there should be a preliminary hearing that requires the prosecution to prove it is important to hold a person that long in order to gather evidence.
I mean, this stuff is technically more about how awful the courts are, but it does tie in with the issue of prison overcrowding and such. At least part of the reason our prisons are so full is because we are so willing to send people there.
Gerstein hearings are supposed to establish within 48 hours whether probable cause exists to continue holding the suspect, but in practice the judges usually rubber stamp continued detention.
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
Re falling crime rates... We aren't becoming less murderous, we're moving so much population to incarceration that much of the violence is now poorly tracked interprisoner violence (just my theory, I've nothing to cite)
Re falling crime rates... We aren't becoming less murderous, we're moving so much population to incarceration that much of the violence is now poorly tracked interprisoner violence (just my theory, I've nothing to cite)
Probably wrong since, as Slurryeality points out, crime rates have also fallen in countries which haven't incarcerated such huge proportions of their population.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
Re falling crime rates... We aren't becoming less murderous, we're moving so much population to incarceration that much of the violence is now poorly tracked interprisoner violence (just my theory, I've nothing to cite)
Probably wrong since, as Slurryeality points out, crime rates have also fallen in countries which haven't incarcerated such huge proportions of their population.
Fair point, but it's entirely possible that crime falls in Norway as a result of progressive social policy while crime hides in the US as a result of regressive social policy, simulating an international reduction.
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited November 2013
crime falls because killing people is less fun than before. with the advent of realistic games where i can go on murderous rampages, the thrill of shanking 2 teenagers in an alley just isnt wat it used to be
When I see those graphs, especially combined with the ones surrealitycheck posted, my first thought is that we are doing something very, very wrong if we are locking up more people than ever before. This is despite a decrease in crime, not because locking people up is responsible for that decrease, which is pretty damn disturbing when you get right down to it.
When I see those graphs, especially combined with the ones surrealitycheck posted, my first thought is that we are doing something very, very wrong if we are locking up more people than ever before. This is despite a decrease in crime, not because locking people up is responsible for that decrease, which is pretty damn disturbing when you get right down to it.
Crime moves, to a point, in lock-step with standards of living: that's why there has always been a decade-by-decade decline (standards of living are always sloooowly going up).
Stable economy? Less crime. Governing body that is more than a few guys with machine guns driving around in a truck? Less crime. Widely available education? Less crime. Public water & electricity infrastructure? Less crime. A police force that at least tries to be an objective arm for a code of laws? Less crime. Public health services? Less crime.
Of course, when you realize the above, you should also (hopefully) realize why it's then stupid to create a little universe exclusive to criminals where none (or very few) of the above are any longer available and expect that said universe should churn out anything other than more fucking criminals.
Re falling crime rates... We aren't becoming less murderous, we're moving so much population to incarceration that much of the violence is now poorly tracked interprisoner violence (just my theory, I've nothing to cite)
Probably wrong since, as Slurryeality points out, crime rates have also fallen in countries which haven't incarcerated such huge proportions of their population.
Fair point, but it's entirely possible that crime falls in Norway as a result of progressive social policy while crime hides in the US as a result of regressive social policy, simulating an international reduction.
I think that'd explain the differences between the two rates, and why they individual factors might not seem to have as large an effect as smaller scale studies would suggest, but I think the main reason is due to improved communication and mobility, so people's idea of "one of us" is generally larger - you routinely interact with more and varied people so it's increasingly likely that they will be seen as real people rather than objects to be taken advantage of. At the same time, the amount of petty crime you can get away with is decreasing due to improved police techniques and technologies.
Chance of capture is going to be a much higher factor when it comes to deciding whether to commit a crime than the actual punishment. Once you get to over a year or two then there's probably not a great deal of difference between them as far as deterrent's go.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
When I see those graphs, especially combined with the ones surrealitycheck posted, my first thought is that we are doing something very, very wrong if we are locking up more people than ever before. This is despite a decrease in crime, not because locking people up is responsible for that decrease, which is pretty damn disturbing when you get right down to it.
"we" as an economy make a lot of fucking money of the prison sector. Like I hate, HATE getting all tinfoil hat, and I double-hate parroting NORML platforms in public because I have just had too many goddamn identical conversations in bars but this all about drugs, the economy, priorities, the rat race, your keys to your own mind and body, and the general contempt of the government for the fourth amendment. Our government chooses things to outlaw wrong, investigates crimes wrong, then it punishes them wrong. It's a giant wad of wrong, a Gordian knot of fuckmuppetry. The police culture in the united states of america treats the fourth amendment and first amendment as bugs, as hurdles, and does everything it can to side-step them and that's fucking wrong.
If the fourth amendment is a significant barrier to investigation and prosecution of a crime, that should be cause for ONGOING and CONSTANT evaluation of if the social damage of the crime is worth the abrogation of individual rights.
tl;dr: A 16 year old was accused of robbery, with only one eyewitness to connect him to it. He couldn't make the $10,000 bail, so sat in Riker's Island for three years until the Bronx DA finally concluded they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial.
Is there such a thing as like an auto-Habeus Corpus statute, where if you don't take a case to trial by [date] the charges are automatically dismissed? I'd like that to be a thing.
You have a constitutional right to a swift arraignment and timely trial, though for loose definitions of swift and timely.
Three years is extreme, but it happens. More commonly, people sit in jail for several weeks or a few months between arraignment and trial. A month isn't unheard of. If the court decides you need a psych eval, that might add another month, because there might only be one single psych professional serving the jail and he probably doesn't even work for them full time.
Think about what would happen to your life if you disappeared for two months. You'd likely lose your job. There is nobody paying rent on your apartment. Maybe nobody is paying your bills, or maybe you only have enough money in the bank to cover one round of bills. Maybe your kids are living with a relative, or maybe the court put them in foster care.
Even before you're convicted or plea, your life is basically destroyed.
Yet even in this forum, we see otherwise reasonable freak out when somebody is released rapidly on bail, if they feel this is an unjust result. And demand a trial regardless of potential for conviction, to "air things out" or "get to the bottom of it."
We just react this way for different defendants than the "tough on crime" conservative suburbanites.
Many people across the ideological spectrum are absolutely fine using the criminal process itself as a de facto punishment, even if the accused is eventually acquitted.
Yet even in this forum, we see otherwise reasonable freak out when somebody is released rapidly on bail, if they feel this is an unjust result. And demand a trial regardless of potential for conviction, to "air things out" or "get to the bottom of it."
We just react this way for different defendants than the "tough on crime" conservative suburbanites.
Many people across the ideological spectrum are absolutely fine using the criminal process itself as a de facto punishment, even if the accused is eventually acquitted.
The difference is that I'm not actually in charge of the criminal justice system (if I were, you'd probably be having a discussion as to whether or not the tanks full of crocodiles are really a necessary judicial mechanism).
I sort-of expect the people running the system to be better than me.
The difference is that I'm not actually in charge of the criminal justice system (if I were, you'd probably be having a discussion as to whether or not the tanks full of crocodiles are really a necessary judicial mechanism).
I sort-of expect the people running the system to be better than me.
This attitude is exactly why the system will not change anytime soon.
If you believe that retribution or revenge is reasonable, your elected representatives will believe similarly, as elected officials are just mirrors of the community. Because politicians who do not mirror their community get kicked out of office.
The difference is that I'm not actually in charge of the criminal justice system (if I were, you'd probably be having a discussion as to whether or not the tanks full of crocodiles are really a necessary judicial mechanism).
I sort-of expect the people running the system to be better than me.
This attitude is exactly why the system will not change anytime soon.
If you believe that retribution or revenge is reasonable, your elected representatives will believe similarly, as elected officials are just mirrors of the community. Because politicians who do not mirror their community get kicked out of office.
Prison is not, and should not, be purely rehabilitative. It is also punitive, ie retribution or revenge. A murderer might be highly functioning in society (rich even) who had a particular hatred for someone. This person might be "rehabilitated" - ready to enter society as a useful member unlikely to re-offend - immediately. A car thief may lack any real education, social or vocational skills, place to go (no family or friends) or moral compass. Such a person would almost have to be rebuilt from the ground up to become a useful member of society, especially if committing crimes resulted in no negative consequences.
Prison isn't just about turning the lives around of those who have committed crimes. Its not just about segmenting the population to quarantine law breakers. Its punitive as well. The nature of the crime determines the sentence, not how long it would take for someone to become useful
If you're arguing that prison is a deterrent, then I'm going to point out that it probably isn't to the extent you think it is. I'm mobile right now so I'll have to elaborate on this later. But without a deterrence effect, rehabilitation, or criminal segregation, prison just becomes a BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD excuse.
Anyway, I would also argue that if somebody is going to commit a crime once there would be little preventing them from being a repeat offender without rehabilitation.
Prison is not, and should not, be purely rehabilitative. It is also punitive, ie retribution or revenge. A murderer might be highly functioning in society (rich even) who had a particular hatred for someone. This person might be "rehabilitated" - ready to enter society as a useful member unlikely to re-offend - immediately. A car thief may lack any real education, social or vocational skills, place to go (no family or friends) or moral compass. Such a person would almost have to be rebuilt from the ground up to become a useful member of society, especially if committing crimes resulted in no negative consequences.
Prison isn't just about turning the lives around of those who have committed crimes. Its not just about segmenting the population to quarantine law breakers. Its punitive as well. The nature of the crime determines the sentence, not how long it would take for someone to become useful
Why?
What purpose, setting aside deturance, does punishment serve?
I don't support locking people up so that they can live a shitty life on the taxpayer's dime because most people support state-sponsored revenge.
So if I decided to go on a killing spree I should get a free stay in a prison themed day spa and receive free vocational training?
What could go wrong?
The problem with a liberal world view is the assumption that human behavior is static. If we were to adopt more prisoner friendly policies we would have more crime.
I've heard a few interesting theories on the increase and decrease in our homicide rate. Possible explanation is age demographics. If people in their 20s are more likely to kill our homicide rate is largely influenced by the age of the boomers. That would also influence crime rates everywhere as developed nations become geriatric as a whole.
But something big happened in the late 60s and mid 90s. One theory I've heard is that in the 60s we emptied out mental hospitals. Today we've picked up the slack with prisons, but the total rate of those institutionalized is roughly the same.
The quality of life argument seems silly to me because we had less crime in the 1950s than today.
That's not very representative. Before I get into any of the data, it should be noted that the UK and US report violent crime very differently. In the US its basically killing someone, raping someone or assaulting someone (but not battery). The UK includes battery, harassment and crimes against the person, so that comparison is difficult.
One, the drop in homicide rate in the US not recent. It goes back to the early 90s. A long term segmentation of those more likely to commit crimes could indeed create a reduction in crime rate. Stats from the last 4 years don't in any way disprove that. That chart doesn't describe a consistently dropping crime rate in Europe, and the full report describes an increase in crime from 2004. Its taken from Trends in crime and criminal justice, 2010 a EU publication. This describes only crime rates between 2007 and 2010 and that chart only describes homicides specifically. Also from the report is that prison population is up 2.5% per 100K over this time period(as well as an increase in crime rate from 2004).
Two, there's a perception that the US has a higher crime rate than Western Europe/the EU-27 or whatever. At one point that was true.
It is well known that the US experienced an unexpected drop in crime rates after 1990. In Europe, on the contrary, crime rates have been on the rise since at least 1970. Contrary to common perceptions, crime is today more widespread
in Europe than in the US, while the opposite was true thirty years ago
(again, put aside the UK result due to change in reporting patterns). But even if we use victimization reports that use a common standard instead of relying on reported to police stats:
The results of the ICVS 2005 show that on average 15.7% of citizens suffered at least one form of victimisation in the year preceding the interview. Of people who lived in main cities 21.7% was victimised. The countries with the highest prevalence rates for conventional crime are Ireland, England & Wales, New Zealand and Iceland. Contrary to common perception, overall rates of volume crime – such as burglary, robbery and assault & threats – are not higher in the USA than in most parts of Western Europe. In fact USA rates are significantly lower than those of, for example, Ireland and England & Wales. Robberies and attacks in the USA are more often gun-related than in Europe though. The overall rates of Canada and Australia are somewhat below the mean of the European Union and in the same range as those of the USA. Switzerland, although much less so than in the first rounds of the ICVS, still emerges as a country with comparatively low victimisation rates. Countries with the lowest rates form a fairly mixed group with a strong representation of Southern and Eastern Europe besides Japan and Hong Kong.
Crime is roughly flat-ish in Europe compared to the US over the time period in question, while US crime rates are sharply down. It certainly seems it could be argued that our crazy high incarceration rate has decreased crime substantially. Alternately it could be coincidental, but given we have if anything a weaker social safety net (at least pre-ACA) than we did 30 years ago and less broad prosperity another explanation would be needed. A drop in firearm ownership prevalence doesn't really explain it since crime overall is down and firearms only really correlate with homicide, suicide and an escalation to armed robbery.
I mean I'd much rather fix the underlying issues - obsession with guns, a weak safety net and racial discrimination overt, obscured (as in sentencing) or historical (economic) - but you can't completely dismiss that a high incarceration rate might be both a symptom and a limiting factor of those underlying issues in regard to the crime rate.
The problem with a liberal world view is the assumption that human behavior is static. If we were to adopt more prisoner friendly policies we would have more crime.
So then why do other industrialized nations with more "prisoner-friendly policies" not have much higher crime rates than the United States?
Also, are you seriously claiming that any change in prison policy that's more "prisoner friendly" will increase crime? Like, if we magically got rid of prison rape tomorrow there'd somehow be a spike in crime rates?
Not to mention that the "liberal" concept of prisons as potentially rehabilitative is in fact based on the exact opposite assumption, that human behavior is not static.
A bunch of prisoner friendly shit decreases recidivism rates and pays for itself. Locking everybody up permanently is not a cost efficient solution to the problem. The only reason it is considered a solution is because the other ways of dealing with the problem are unpopular.
Why would you assume that gun ownership drives the crime rate? I would think your acknowlement of European crime cause you to question this. I understand that "American obsession with guns" drives violent crime is a talking point most here assume is true in the total absense of critical thought. But perhaps it's worth questioning that one.
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Imagine you've been out of prison for a few months, you're on an ankle bracelet for your first year and you've been a good boy. You're sleeping soundly at two in the morning when all of a sudden you hear someone bust down the door.
Now this individual has had problems with his parole officer in the past. His P.O. was basically a giant asshole who felt that it was his duty to catch these guys doing something bad no matter how minor or trivial. Now imagine that your ankle bracelet just decided to shit the bed when this overzealous asshole is watching over your every move.
P.O. busted down the door, scared the shit out of the kids and the dudes wife and wound up in a fist fight with said person of interest because the guy thought someone had broken into his house to rob him.
Needless to say he got shipped off to prison with time added on because of that fight and the asshole P.O. tacked on some bullshit attempted escape shit and the P.O. got time off for his injuries.
Parole is the worst thing in the world.
You know, if prison were a gambling man.
My main problem with this line of thought is it taps into the poisonous well of "they were convicted so fuck them". We've seen before innocent people do get convicted. Any system that forces an innocent person to confess to a crime they didn't commit is immoral and broken, there is simply no two ways about it.
Secondly as people have already pointed out, a no doubt intended side effect of this is it means you can never appeal because they'll just drag out your coerced confession from the parole board hearing.
Saying "we should just convict less innocent people then" is simply allowing perfect to be the enemy of good, mistakes in the justice system are always going to happen.
Probation has bullshit like that too. I mean, your story about a cop breaking into somebody's house in the middle of the night is more extreme than anything I have. But stuff like "we need you to come in for a urinalysis in two hours and we don't care that you are at work and that you have to travel by bus, just be here" happens all the time
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
You have a constitutional right to a swift arraignment and timely trial, though for loose definitions of swift and timely.
Three years is extreme, but it happens. More commonly, people sit in jail for several weeks or a few months between arraignment and trial. A month isn't unheard of. If the court decides you need a psych eval, that might add another month, because there might only be one single psych professional serving the jail and he probably doesn't even work for them full time.
Think about what would happen to your life if you disappeared for two months. You'd likely lose your job. There is nobody paying rent on your apartment. Maybe nobody is paying your bills, or maybe you only have enough money in the bank to cover one round of bills. Maybe your kids are living with a relative, or maybe the court put them in foster care.
Even before you're convicted or plea, your life is basically destroyed.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
It is a historical artifact from the partially-religious origins of the penal system. It is not a coincidence that the term penitentiary shares a root with penitence. Anglican clergy and Quakers argued in favor of incarceration over other contemporary punishments (which were often corporal) out of a belief that those who committed petty crimes could find penance through solitary reflection and prayer.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Hey, I thought we agreed to 'no prison rape jokes' in this thread.
... too meta?
But seriously, this is an issue that we need to address. There are many standards by which a society can be judged (treatment of the elderly, the poor, etc) and those who are incarcerated is certainly among them. The manner in which the US has turned its prison population into a profitable commodity, and the abuses that have cropped up (above and beyond the usual horror stories) is something that I hope is addressed in my lifetime, and suspect will be viewed with contempt in generations to come.
Yes, there are people who are dangerous enough to be separated from society in general while being rehabilitated, but prison as punishment (and all the inappropriate comedy found therein) seems far too often to do more harm than good.
Not to mention the need to take a hard look at how we treat former convicts, and yes, the manner in which the police and courts treat suspects. It's a massive issue, but those factors and more need to be addressed eventually.
The two could have a causal relationship. Maybe we are doing something very right.
Edit here are the actual statistics. http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
I'd love to see the incarceration rates plotted against violent crime rates as some food for thought. Maybe there is a bit more to the story than middle america is racist or greedy fat cats and their prison money machines.
hmm so presumably concomitant increase in canada prison population
noep
meanwhile in da states
dis is curious
let us look at which countries in da europes have da lowest crimez
now a kwick chart of homicide rates in european countries
i wonder if homicide rates hav been goin down everywhere
hmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
As someone who was in the thick of this in one of the poorest countries on the planet, I have to say:
Lifting the floor alone doesn't fix the problem after the gangs have already started. I'd compare it to getting sick: washing your hands & taking care of yourself is great, but prevention no longer works once you've got a parasite.
Gangsters won't let you improve the situation around them - they'll burn and pillage (figuratively in the first world, literally in the third world) until it's back to where it was before you began your work.
Sorting gangs out is a matter that requires policing, and probably armed policing. After you've sorted them out, preventing new ones from taking root is (mostly) a matter of economics & education.
You're not. First world countries shouldn't be like this.
Crime has almost always been on a downward slope, worldwide, as long as we've been keeping records. There is the occasional uptick elbow here or there, but the overall trend has always been a decline.
If you want a contemporary comparison between two different systems, look at the crime rate & recidivism rate in America, with it's 'tough on crime' theocratic approach that seeks to appease any onlooker that wants to see criminals paying penance, and then look at the same rates in Norway, with it's more empirical approach and 'outrageous' policies according to stupid onlookers used to western systems (criminals are treated as persons; they have restrictions on where they can go / what they can do based on their offenses and their danger to others, but otherwise they have decent lodgings, recreation, access to actual therapists rather than confessors, a sense of privacy & personal agency, etc) - including short terms.
Locking people up for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60~ years is retarded, unless you intend to keep them in jail indefinitely - and yet North American prisons routinely give sentences within those ranges.
Gerstein hearings are supposed to establish within 48 hours whether probable cause exists to continue holding the suspect, but in practice the judges usually rubber stamp continued detention.
I host a podcast about movies.
Probably wrong since, as Slurryeality points out, crime rates have also fallen in countries which haven't incarcerated such huge proportions of their population.
Fair point, but it's entirely possible that crime falls in Norway as a result of progressive social policy while crime hides in the US as a result of regressive social policy, simulating an international reduction.
I host a podcast about movies.
wait wat
Crime moves, to a point, in lock-step with standards of living: that's why there has always been a decade-by-decade decline (standards of living are always sloooowly going up).
Stable economy? Less crime. Governing body that is more than a few guys with machine guns driving around in a truck? Less crime. Widely available education? Less crime. Public water & electricity infrastructure? Less crime. A police force that at least tries to be an objective arm for a code of laws? Less crime. Public health services? Less crime.
Of course, when you realize the above, you should also (hopefully) realize why it's then stupid to create a little universe exclusive to criminals where none (or very few) of the above are any longer available and expect that said universe should churn out anything other than more fucking criminals.
I think that'd explain the differences between the two rates, and why they individual factors might not seem to have as large an effect as smaller scale studies would suggest, but I think the main reason is due to improved communication and mobility, so people's idea of "one of us" is generally larger - you routinely interact with more and varied people so it's increasingly likely that they will be seen as real people rather than objects to be taken advantage of. At the same time, the amount of petty crime you can get away with is decreasing due to improved police techniques and technologies.
Chance of capture is going to be a much higher factor when it comes to deciding whether to commit a crime than the actual punishment. Once you get to over a year or two then there's probably not a great deal of difference between them as far as deterrent's go.
"we" as an economy make a lot of fucking money of the prison sector. Like I hate, HATE getting all tinfoil hat, and I double-hate parroting NORML platforms in public because I have just had too many goddamn identical conversations in bars but this all about drugs, the economy, priorities, the rat race, your keys to your own mind and body, and the general contempt of the government for the fourth amendment. Our government chooses things to outlaw wrong, investigates crimes wrong, then it punishes them wrong. It's a giant wad of wrong, a Gordian knot of fuckmuppetry. The police culture in the united states of america treats the fourth amendment and first amendment as bugs, as hurdles, and does everything it can to side-step them and that's fucking wrong.
If the fourth amendment is a significant barrier to investigation and prosecution of a crime, that should be cause for ONGOING and CONSTANT evaluation of if the social damage of the crime is worth the abrogation of individual rights.
I host a podcast about movies.
Yet even in this forum, we see otherwise reasonable freak out when somebody is released rapidly on bail, if they feel this is an unjust result. And demand a trial regardless of potential for conviction, to "air things out" or "get to the bottom of it."
We just react this way for different defendants than the "tough on crime" conservative suburbanites.
Many people across the ideological spectrum are absolutely fine using the criminal process itself as a de facto punishment, even if the accused is eventually acquitted.
The difference is that I'm not actually in charge of the criminal justice system (if I were, you'd probably be having a discussion as to whether or not the tanks full of crocodiles are really a necessary judicial mechanism).
I sort-of expect the people running the system to be better than me.
If you believe that retribution or revenge is reasonable, your elected representatives will believe similarly, as elected officials are just mirrors of the community. Because politicians who do not mirror their community get kicked out of office.
this is adorable. 8->
Prison isn't just about turning the lives around of those who have committed crimes. Its not just about segmenting the population to quarantine law breakers. Its punitive as well. The nature of the crime determines the sentence, not how long it would take for someone to become useful
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Anyway, I would also argue that if somebody is going to commit a crime once there would be little preventing them from being a repeat offender without rehabilitation.
What purpose, setting aside deturance, does punishment serve?
So if I decided to go on a killing spree I should get a free stay in a prison themed day spa and receive free vocational training?
What could go wrong?
The problem with a liberal world view is the assumption that human behavior is static. If we were to adopt more prisoner friendly policies we would have more crime.
Reading comprehension, and determining my actual position by actually reading what I have written in this thread, would help you.
Going on a killing spree makes you a likely-to-reoffend, in-need-of-rehabilitation, needs-to-be-kept-separate-from-society criminal.
Look at my post again. It's the revenge part of the prison system I don't support. We shouldn't be locking people up for purely punitive reasons.
This is usually said by people who know nothing about the prison experience.
Vocational training is extremely useful for prisoners and the prison system.
Try arguing against things people have actually said, please.
I've heard a few interesting theories on the increase and decrease in our homicide rate. Possible explanation is age demographics. If people in their 20s are more likely to kill our homicide rate is largely influenced by the age of the boomers. That would also influence crime rates everywhere as developed nations become geriatric as a whole.
But something big happened in the late 60s and mid 90s. One theory I've heard is that in the 60s we emptied out mental hospitals. Today we've picked up the slack with prisons, but the total rate of those institutionalized is roughly the same.
The quality of life argument seems silly to me because we had less crime in the 1950s than today.
That's not very representative. Before I get into any of the data, it should be noted that the UK and US report violent crime very differently. In the US its basically killing someone, raping someone or assaulting someone (but not battery). The UK includes battery, harassment and crimes against the person, so that comparison is difficult.
One, the drop in homicide rate in the US not recent. It goes back to the early 90s. A long term segmentation of those more likely to commit crimes could indeed create a reduction in crime rate. Stats from the last 4 years don't in any way disprove that. That chart doesn't describe a consistently dropping crime rate in Europe, and the full report describes an increase in crime from 2004. Its taken from Trends in crime and criminal justice, 2010 a EU publication. This describes only crime rates between 2007 and 2010 and that chart only describes homicides specifically. Also from the report is that prison population is up 2.5% per 100K over this time period(as well as an increase in crime rate from 2004).
Two, there's a perception that the US has a higher crime rate than Western Europe/the EU-27 or whatever. At one point that was true.
(again, put aside the UK result due to change in reporting patterns). But even if we use victimization reports that use a common standard instead of relying on reported to police stats:
Crime is roughly flat-ish in Europe compared to the US over the time period in question, while US crime rates are sharply down. It certainly seems it could be argued that our crazy high incarceration rate has decreased crime substantially. Alternately it could be coincidental, but given we have if anything a weaker social safety net (at least pre-ACA) than we did 30 years ago and less broad prosperity another explanation would be needed. A drop in firearm ownership prevalence doesn't really explain it since crime overall is down and firearms only really correlate with homicide, suicide and an escalation to armed robbery.
I mean I'd much rather fix the underlying issues - obsession with guns, a weak safety net and racial discrimination overt, obscured (as in sentencing) or historical (economic) - but you can't completely dismiss that a high incarceration rate might be both a symptom and a limiting factor of those underlying issues in regard to the crime rate.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
So then why do other industrialized nations with more "prisoner-friendly policies" not have much higher crime rates than the United States?
Also, are you seriously claiming that any change in prison policy that's more "prisoner friendly" will increase crime? Like, if we magically got rid of prison rape tomorrow there'd somehow be a spike in crime rates?
Not to mention that the "liberal" concept of prisons as potentially rehabilitative is in fact based on the exact opposite assumption, that human behavior is not static.