"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"....?

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent - Adam Smith

val wrote:

jpin

You say the solution is to make jail more of a deterant.
But, how? With regular spankings, or torture? Hunger, bestiality?
Then, why jails? Why not to cut the hands of burglars, castrate rapists, burn alive killers?
Such laws would be a good deterant. But then, law is terror, nothing else.

I agree with you, that Cyracuz position is unnacceptable. But your solution seems to me even worst. A society that fights crime with terror becomes a society of monsters.

Are you guys reading the same thing I wrote??? I never said anything about torture, hunger, soankings or beastiality(????).

We need to start with stricter sentencing. Federal guidlines is a good place to start. If people commit a certain crime they get x years minimum. This sets the bar high. If a criminal knows he is going to get a minimum of x years for his first offense it gives the DA lots of leverage for plea bargaining. To often criminals get off with a slap on the wrist multiple times before they even spend a day in jail.

Next we need to take a serious look at how jails are run. There was a federal prison here in WI that was nicknamed Club Fed. The inmates were mostly white collar criminals that JL(?) was talking about earlier. They got lobster dinners, tennis courts, were able to enter and exit their cells as they wanted... it wasn't a bad place to be. Now we don't need to start torturing people but we do need to take away everything that could be considered a luxury. While I would not condone tourture, I do think that once a person enters a prison they lose certain rights as an individual. If you don't like that idea... don't commit the crime. We also need to crack down on crime INSIDE of prisons. More guards? Less interaction with other inmates? I'm not sure what the answer to this is but something needs to be done to keep prisons as civilized as possible without turning it into a nice hotel for criminals.

The thing I am failing to see anybody write is an alternative. It is really easy to say there has to be a better way but nobody is offering any. Is that becasue there isn't any Question

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Letty wrote:

As for the "eye for an eye" concept, I suspect if we were the victims of harsh and violent crime, we would view this topic a little differently.

In such a case it wouldn't be the law or society dealing justice in the situation...

jp wrote:

The thing I am failing to see anybody write is an alternative

Hello? Am I the only one who read my suggestive to reinstate corporal punishment?

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they lose certain rights as an individual

Definitionaly you can not lose a right.

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If people commit a certain crime they get x years minimum

What's the point in having a judge then? They're paid the big bucks to do that.

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If you don't like that idea... don't commit the crime

Come back with that attitude once your justice system improves and more of the people in there are actually guilty.

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jpin

You are right, there is no alternative to jail. But the problem is in the fact that we have already jails and crime subsists.
The examples I gave about torture, had to do with your reference of making jail more deterant. But how? The example you gave of that prison for white collars is an exceptional case. Most of jails are crowded, and in very bad conditions.
There are no alternative to jails. But jails don't prevent crime. They are not deterant enough. But we cannot make them deterant enough without risking all our values.

You see, I agree with you except in one thing: there are no punitive means acceptable that could prevent criminality.

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antibuddha

Just a precision: I am not american and I don't know how american prisons are.

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theantibuddha wrote:

Merry, my latin's a bit rusty, but is that quote translated "I think I am, therefore I am... I think."?

Spot on, antiB. (It's a slogan best said with a Mexican accent. Smile

)

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Anti, I am American, but having never really seen the inside or the outside of a facility, I can't comment, but as a teacher, I can tell you that corporal punishment doesn't work, and although several of my students ended up in jail, many of them strayed because of early abuse in the home.

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theantibuddha wrote:

Quote:
If people commit a certain crime they get x years minimum

What's the point in having a judge then? They're paid the big bucks to do that.

Innocent until proven guilty... You're still entitled to a fair trial. Rolling Eyes

theantibuddha wrote:

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If you don't like that idea... don't commit the crime

Come back with that attitude once your justice system improves and more of the people in there are actually guilty.

Attitude??? More people actually guilty???? Rolling Eyes

What's wrong with actually holding people responsible for their actions? Rolling Eyes

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val wrote:

jpin

You are right, there is no alternative to jail. But the problem is in the fact that we have already jails and crime subsists.
The examples I gave about torture, had to do with your reference of making jail more deterant. But how? The example you gave of that prison for white collars is an exceptional case. Most of jails are crowded, and in very bad conditions.
There are no alternative to jails. But jails don't prevent crime. They are not deterant enough. But we cannot make them deterant enough without risking all our values.

I thought I already offered some examples.... More severe sentencing, less so called "rights" for the inmates, better enforced jails to keep crime/chaos from happening inside the jails.

val wrote:

You see, I agree with you except in one thing: there are no punitive means acceptable that could prevent criminality.

So why are we having this discussion? The options are: more severe punishment, less severe punishment or keep things the way they are. Which one do you think is going to have the best chance of being a deterant?

Why are people so hung up on treating criminals decently when they don't afford you the same opportunity?

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent - Adam Smith

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jpin

I don't believe that more severe sentencing would work as deterant. The only advantage is to assure that the more time a criminal stays in prison the more time he will be unable to commit crimes in the outside.
Less "rights" for the inmates? That is very vague. What concrete mesures would you propose?
I don't know how american prisons are. But I doubt they are very different from west european prisons: the food is not good, they are overcrowded, hygienic conditions are not good either.

So, the options: more severe punishment or less severe punishment?
But my question is: to be deterant, how much severe should be punishment? Sentencing someone to 20 years instead of 10? Multiply life condamnations?
I still doubt that would be effective to dissuade criminals. And do you think that the public would accept the increasing of taxes in order to assure the possibility of more prisons and more expenses? Don't forget that a man sentenced to life is a man whose existence will be supported by the state.

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Why don't you think a more severe punishment would deter crime? I think that you are right in the sense that there are some people who will commit crimes no matter what the punishment is, but there has to be a reason why most people do not commit crimes. Is it fear of jail? Is it just a greater sense of moral responsibility? What is keeping you from commiting crimes?

Would you agree with me that the lesser the punishment the greater the chance of that crime occuring?

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jp -- all the statistical evidence I've seen indicates quite clearly that longer sentences or harsher prison conditions do not serve as deterents. Most people who commit crimes do not believe they will ever get caught, so why worry about how hard it will be if they do get caught? It's the same reason that the presence of the death penalty never stopped anyone from committing murder.

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Speaking of a deterrent, would one approve to live in a country where every place is monitored by a perfect programmed artificial intelligence? Yeah, there's the fear of power abuse and the breach of privacy, but say that the problems don't exist.

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Ray, my own feeling is that security without freedom is worthless. I would never, under any circumstances, be willing to sacrifice any of my civil liberties in the name of a more secure society.

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Well, say that your freedom is secured by the system and therefore your security and freedom is what the program exists for. I would actually be alright with it if it were 'perfect'.

Then again, humans create it so it probably wouldn't be perfect, like in Minority Report.

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Jpin

Because most of criminals who leave jail, return there sooner or later. And because most criminals don't think of jail when they commit their crimes. Drug dealers, gang members, commit crimes in the logic of their daily life. Besides, they know that most of those crimes are never solved by the police.

About the reason most people do not commit crimes. I think the first reason is what you call "moral responsability". Even if I knew I would not be caught, I would not steal or kill or rape. I think it is wrong to steal, to kill and to rape.
The difference between me and you and a criminal is not in the fact they think that steal or kill is right. They don't want to be killed. They don't want that someone steals from them. The problem is that they cannot think beyond their egoistic interest.

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What about the grey areas? If someone rapes your girlfriend and beats her within an inch of her life, do you not feel a moral responibility to avenge her? What if you did find the man who did it, and then killed him? You would be sent to jail as a criminal, but would you feel like one? What if it turned out that this man was notorious for similar crimes in the past? It may shave a few years off your sentence, but still you would be condemned as a criminal. Would you feel that justice was being served by you sitting in jail?

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Quote:

Would you feel that justice was being served by you sitting in jail?

For you killing? Yup
For the guy you killed? Yup

It all works out soo goood.

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You are missing the point el-diablo. You're supposed to imagine yourself in this situation.

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Cyracuz

Yes, I would. No one can say he will not commit a crime. The example you gave is very good: in that case I think I would kill that rapist.
But I was not talking about crimes like those. They are ocasional. Men that commit those crimes, by emotional reasons, do not commit more crimes after leaving jail.
The problem about criminality is in the criminal activity. The gangs, sexual crimes, crimes associated to drugs. Those criminals leave jail and sooner or later commit a new crime. In this case, the problem is: what must we do? Jail is the only option. But it doesn't prevent another crimes, as we see in the western world.
What would be deterant in order to prevent that criminal activity? I think there is no solution - except torture or terror, but this is unnacceptable.

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Again, jail does not work. To drugdalers, pimps and gangmembers do not see their activities as crimes, rather as proffessions outlawed by the government. As long as there are drug addicts there will always be dealers. The only answer to this problem is to legalize drugs and get control over the markets. Same thing with prostitution.

As for gangs, how about better communication between generations? Many of our problems are personal issues ignored for too long. The person joining the gang is as much a victim as the poor fellow that is robbed and beaten.

In short, we need to get down from our high white horses and smell the mud. We are living in a tower of souls, high up where the foul things are suppressed to a minimum for comfortable denial. I have seen criminal environments from the inside. I have a past as a criminal. I don't have all my big words from books, as it may appear that some do, but from experiences I have earned.

So when you ask "what must we do" I kind of gets to me. First you must ask yourself why you want to do anything. If fear is your motivation for locking people away, both fear for your own life and those you love, then you will never be free from fear no matter how many criminals you put behind bars.

But it is the way of the coward: Fight the man who scares you instead of dealing with your fear. So we run to the battlefields. An easier war than the one in our hearts.

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"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"....?

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