so were just talking about low level prisoners then? like people convicted of dui's?
i don't know about where your from ,but here in ma it takes at least 2-3 sometimes 4 convictions before you even see any jail time for dui.
look ive worked in construction for over 15 years not that long, but i've seen enough to know a good majority of construction workers have severe drinking and drug problems ,i could name a hundred people i've worked with that have been to prison for dui,assualt,drug possesion,etc those are all considered mild charges in some peoples eyes ,
but from what i have seen from these people for years is ,they come to work usually late every day,still buzzed from the night before , their dangerous with tools and coworkers ,and they are always bumming rides ,and money for coffee.
sure some people are just unlucky and get busted that one time they were driving after 2-3 beers ,the bottom line is drinking and driving is not excepted by a majority of the people , and most most of the people that get busted do it on a daily basis and eventually get caught.
Illuxion wrote:
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'm not trying to discount what anyone thinks.
It is my personal opinion that those who are naughty enough to be behind bars deserve bread, water, and some vitamins. I also think that the punishment should outweigh the crime to some extent. The thought of committing a crime, especially high end crimes, should scare the crap out someone. Not the .....foot legal system we have now, oh please don't tread on the murderers rights. Regardless of citizenship, I think major crimes should be treated as a temporary revocation of citizenship and while incarcerated you no longer enjoy the rights or freedoms of a citizen. You get out of line you pay for it.
How about global examples. Write graffiti get caned. Makes you think twice before doing something stupid.
Throw a .... in the middle of the road, $750 fine(1000S). It's steep, but oddly enough you don't see them in the street. How about minimum 6 months jail term for petty theft? Malaysia has it, and do you know how much petty theft there is? Not a lot. Drug trafficking is punishable by death(you are reminded every embarkation card), do you know how much trafficking there is? not much. Owning a bullet, let alone a gun, you will do time, usually 2-5 years. They started having trouble in the 90s with people using guns to commit crimes, but not squeezing the trigger so around 2000-1 they raised the penalties to the possibility of death for simply using a gun to commit robbery. In 2000 they had about 750 acts of robbery with a firearm, last year less than 100. Wow, make the penalty truly suck and the crime drops drastically. Shooting someone is punishable by death, regardless if they live or not, if you aim a gun at someone and squeeze the trigger, and the bullet hits them, YOU DIE. A country with 27M with 500 murder/homicide per year(including vehicular manslaughter), and 40% of their prisoners are foreign(mostly Thai, Lao, Indon and Cambodian). One stat of the US that is terrifying is that HALF of our murders are committed by youths, WTF is wrong with that figure.....They aren't afraid of anything...
Making the sentences longer, doesn't necessarily equate a harsher punishment, especially when incarceration is like a summer camp. I wonder what prisoners would be like if every prison were like military boot camp..... hmmmm
Why weren't those people who came in late every day fired? It takes 4 or 5 DUI's to get any jail time, yet you know "hundreds" of them? You are just a judgmental bundle of stereotypes, aren't you?
Do you think the presence, or lack of, a TV in jail would make any difference to someone with a drug problem? Do you really think that some guy getting ready to drive drunk would stop and say to himself, "There's no TV in jail. Maybe I should call a cab."? That's a pretty good judgment call considering the guy is drunk, dontcha' think?
They tried military style boot camps in FL. They were an unequivocal failure and were discontinued. Also, you DO lose nearly all your rights as a citizen when you are incarcerated. But not your human rights. And you don't get many of your civil rights back even when you get out either. You sound very impressed with your brutal police state societies. Do us a favor and stay there please. Sounds like a coward's paradise.
The fact is, what you consider "coddling" conditions in jail has absolutely no effect on the value of jail as a deterrent. In fact, most correctional officers are all in favor of the things that people like you think should be denied to inmates. (Do you think maybe that's because they know what they're talking about and you don't?) C.O's are much safer in a less brutal prison.
How do you explain the coexistence of high crime rates and some of the most brutal prisons in the world as exist in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico? Don't you think it's more to do with the education and income levels of the citizens than how much you can terrorize potential criminals? Notice how 40% of the crime in your examples is committed by people from poorer countries than Malaysia? Think that might have something to do with it?
There are plenty of other countries with low crime rates like Malaysia, etc. And they don't need draconian sentences and a citizenry terrorized by their justice system to accomplish it. Life is cheap in Asia. There's plenty of crime like drug trafficking. It's just further underground and monopolized by the real professionals. Also, do you really trust those crime statistics? the old USSR used to put out statistics like that as they bragged about their great penal system. Ask the Chinese government about their crime rate. You'll get a similar answer. Asian governments are notorious liars about things like that. Believe me, if brutality was the key to an effective criminal justice system, we'd have it here. In fact, until the 40's or 50's, our system was pretty harsh. It didn't work. That's why we changed it.
At any rate, streets clean of cigarette butts and graffiti is not worth a system that terrorizes it's citizens. And that's what they have there whether you personally feel that way, or care to admit it or not. I'd bet they have a conviction rate close to 100% also. Am I right? I'm sure they're infallible.
In fact, I would argue that, at least for drug offenses, the threat of jail has no deterrent effect whatsoever. If it did, we would see drug use decline in the U.S. as sentences were ratcheted up over the last 30 years or so. But, we don't see that. Instead, we see less rehab in jails and increasing drug use. Coincidence? I think not.
The countries with the lowest drug offense, recidivism and crime rates, especially for violent crime, have prison conditions that would drive your type crazy. That's a fact. You can let your thirst for vengeance override common
sense, but those are the facts and your bloodlust doesn't change them one bit.
If you get off on the idea of brutalizing someone as "punishment", fine. Admit being what you are. But don't expect me to believe the fiction that, somehow, the worse prison conditions are, the better off society is. The exact opposite is true.
Jails and prisons should be for one purpose and one purpose only, to protect the rest of society from those who would prey on them by isolating them away from potential victims. That is the only legitimate function. When incarceration is abused for other reasons, like vengeance, profit-seeking, political gain, or deterrence, it is a drain on society, immoral, and an insult to humanity. Imprisoning people for any reason other than to protect, via isolation, is barbaric and makes me wonder who the real criminals are.
Remember when Saddam was hung? Remember the people who tried to mutilate him both before and after he died?
What did you think of those people? Did you think they were barbaric and disgusting, or did you cheer them on? My guess is that you cheered them on. That's the difference between you and me.
And as much as I think Madoff is a scum of the first order, I don't think he should be in jail at all. Who is being protected by having him in prison? It's another big waste of money and other resources. He should be be forced to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, making restitution as best he can, probably for the rest of his life. He has the skills to do it and they are being wasted in the name of revenge so that barbaric types can feel better. As current events have demonstrated, financial scam artists are not being deterred and not a single investor he defrauded will be compensated one dime by having him locked up.
Finally, I would ask, do you refrain from crime just and the sent because the jails are brutal and the sentences long? If not, then why don't you engage in crime? Do you think you are unique in that regard?
