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Jared Loughner - A Plea for Mercy & Honorable Justice
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Prisons are places of rehabilitation and peace in plenty of other countries so it's not as if it's impossible to implement it in the US.
What the public opinion says is irrelevant - progress will always prevail in the end (see women, black and gay rights)
Which countries?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/18/prisonsandprobation-norway
http://cad.sagepub.com/content/31/4/573.abstract
http://gizmodo.com/5482558/if-i-ever-get-sent-to-jail-i-hope-its-to-norways-halden-prison
Sure, Scandinavia is a magical wonderland where the culture helps reduce recidivism rates and violence inside prisons but you cannot dismiss the benefits of having fewer prisoners per prison as well as treating them humanely.
Certainly from the American public's standpoint anyway, US prisons are seen as purely punitive. I'd wager if you asked most people, they would disapprove of even the most basic luxuries afforded to inmates, such as libraries and daily exercise.
Yeah, but then how would I turn a profit on my prison?
Right.
So we're going to adopt prison reforms from tiny, wealthy western European countries when our country resists adopting reforms seen in those countries that substantially benefit non-criminals?
Sorry, but my initial response to your idealism was a realistic one.
It's great to be idealistic, don't get me wrong. But idealism alone doesn't change anything. Baby steps towards reform is the best that can be hoped for. And reform requires public will, of which there is none for prison reform.
I don't think that city prisons are for anything other than short-term holding. I think county is the first level of actual prison, but I could be wrong.
Our penal system is a messed up web.
I've never seen evidence that lack of public support in the present makes progress on an issue impossible.
You need evidence that a lack of public support makes progress difficult?
I mean, to take a random example:
It is 1998, "There's really no public support for allowing gay people to marry. Let's stop trying, guys."
If you think it's important that prisons be places to rehabilitate rather than punish, you work toward that regardless of public opinion until you succeed and/or public opinion changes.
To use your metaphor what he is saying is "hey yeah gay rights need some work but lets go for things that are actually immediately viable instead of throwing a hail mary and risk getting nothing done".
Makes sense when you consider the appeals cost. The execution itself is also very very expensive.
It's because you don't want to have a too streamlined process that might inadvertently result in more innocent people getting killed.
The trade off is that it takes so much longer to finally execute prisoners that it's now more expensive than holding them for life.
In the particular case of Loughner, I don't really see how executing him provides a deterrent. The man shot a dozen people in a shopping center in broad daylight and seems most probably to be mentally unstable. I doubt if the threat of harsher punishment would have deterred him.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I don't think anyone here is claiming it's a deterrent. I don't think that's what's being argued.
Also, getting rid of most drug-related offenses would reduce our prison costs dramatically and instantly.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Really? Must have missed that.
I mean, I think it's a reasonable deterrent to people who have the capacity to choose to be career criminals, but career criminals don't usually go to jail for crimes that could sentence them to death. You don't get put down over theft or fraud or things like that.
I think the death penalty would be handy, from a utilitarian standpoint only really, if we could ensure the system was reliable enough to reduce the appeals process, even if only in certain cases like this one.
I'm not morally opposed to the death penalty, but nor do I think it's useful as a deterrent. I just think there's very little utility in lifetime institutionalization of the violently criminally insane.
It could give us valuable insight into why the violently criminally insane are the way they are and we could use them as a testbed for various treatments with the goal of changing them into no being violently criminally insane or learning how to better spot these people before they act out in society.
Is that utility enough?
Allowing gay marriage doesn't cost a whole lot of money, comparatively. Revamping a single prison would be a huge project taking years and millions of tax dollars. At a time when even relatively wealthy states are slashing budgets for things like transportation and education, you really think anyone is interested in "paying for thieves and murders to go horseback riding"?
But try to introduce something that will only noticably benefit you 20, 30 or maybe even 40 years down the line and you'll meet resistance.
There's some benefit, yes, but probably not enough to warrant the costs of indefinitely keeping these people cared for.
Like I said earlier in the thread, I've been at these psych prisons before in my schooling. The truly insane are incapable of reform, and little actual "therapy" goes on in places like that.
One of my patients I strongly remember was a guy who acknowledged killing his mother, but even 30 years later would not accept culpability. It was his family's fault, his doctor's fault, the police department's fault, but not his.
Most of these people are incurably ill. As well, they've already likely cost the taxpayers quite a lot by the time they get to jail. If specific individuals needed to be selected for such a program, sure, fine. But we have tens of thousands of criminally insane inmates in the US; we're in no short supply.
As long as we're skipping past vast tracks of reality to arrive at our ideal solution, why not just advocate making the entire world live in perfect peace and harmony together?
That would solve all our problems and we'd have no need for prisons or a criminal justice system.
Yeah, that is a pretty spectacularly terrible idea.
TWITTER TWATS
I would have never known about that if it weren't for you.
Stop feeding the trolls.
I was so close to forgetting she exsisted! Damn it King!
Ignoring these people is the only way. Well, the easy way.
Some of the news outlets had gotten statements from classmates and people who knew him, and they painted a picture of a young man who hated what the world had become and couldn't live alongside mainstream society. He hated how society had dumbed itself down for the sake of the masses, he firmly believed in NWO conspiracies, and was disgusted with how people slurp down brainless mass media. He's the kind of person who has already come to all the conclusions he needs to about life and no amount of "rehab" or isolation from society is going to change that. But is he crazy? No. Calling him crazy is a disservice to people who actually are crazy.
I'd hate to quote the Dark Knight, but strikes me as a person that just wants to watch the world burn. He was about as close to the Joker as you can get - a complete nihilist, to which nothing mattered and everything was pointless. His shooting was likely not motivated by anything in particular, and he had no real fear of the consequences because in his mind, his life - along with those he ended - was completely meaningless.
He doesn't need help. He needs to be put down and the world needs to move along with life.
You're even comparing him to the Joker.
I don't believe that the behaviors Loughner, or people like him, qualify as "crazy." I'd consider a crazy person to not have complete control over their thought processes and mental faculties. Being anti-social, a nihilist, or feeling that life has no meaning doesn't make you crazy. A bummer at parties, sure. But not crazy.
I wholeheartedly agree. What purpose would keeping him alive be, other than to satisfy the messiah complexes of a few? What contributions would his continued existence on this planet lead to?
He needs to be put out of his misery (assuming he could even muster up something even remotely resembling it).
TWITTER TWATS
This thread is quickly becoming a testament to how little people understand about mental illness.
It does when you decide to go on killing sprees.
No, I think this guy deserves to burn in hell, and the sooner the better.