Posted on 03/15/2009 5:09:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Well, I could see that you are against it. :-)
But, I still have the principle of a life for a life, and I won’t budge on that one. I would imagine that quite a few others won’t budge either. I don’t think you’ll ever get support for that kind of a view to be implemented (i.e., kill someone if they aren’t rehabilitated after a specific period of time, whatever time you assign to it...).
I don’t see why. There’s no reason to keep people locked up for so long. If they don’t belong in society, contributing and mingling with other people, then they don’t belong in this life...period. Send them to the next life.
But the first thing I think they need to do is to drastically shorten all jail times...and make them way way more unpleasant. They never will though. It will mean huge job losses in the penal system. And the penal system is self serving, just like government. They will never put up with a reduction in their bugets or their payrolls.
you still don’t get it. Nobody hands down a death sentence AFTER someone serves time in jail. They get a death sentence at their trial or not at all.
You said — “you still don’t get it. Nobody hands down a death sentence AFTER someone serves time in jail. They get a death sentence at their trial or not at all.”
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That would never work, especially under our Constitution. For one thing, you would have to make a “prediction” ahead of time, that someone would be rehabilitated or not, within whatever specified time you wanted to designate. That would put the determination of whether someone would live or not, as a judgement call, a prediction into the future, before “behavior” has ever *happened* to say that someone *dies* right now.
That will never fly under any circumstances. No one will be making predictions on someone’s viability for rehabilitation, into the future and then killing them on the basis of such determination.
That’s even more radical than killing them after a specified period of time (after they’ve “demonstrated it”).
You’ve got quite an imagination to think that you’ll ever get society or our Constitutional system to back such an idea... :-)
Are you TRYING to misunderstand me?
I agree completely about most of what you said. But I have read that solitary confinement drives people insane in a relatively short period of time. I have always felt that the privatization of prisons was a bad idea. I agree there are a lot of people in prison who should be killed. And I guess you are saying that a return to a productive tax-payer is the sign of Rehabilitation? There is no reason to keep a person saddled with a felony if they have returned to a decent life. Shorter prison terms for some offenses, or no prison time at all. And the penal system is self-serving. I see the major barrier to any type of reform in the fact that too many people, especially now, are too burdened with their own problems to even care.
A young co-worker of mine, when I asked him if he was going to vote, told me “No, that would make me eligible for jury duty.”
And I have a suspicion that under Obama, the growth of the prison system is going to explode.
You said — “Are you TRYING to misunderstand me?”
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Well, from what I read from you up above, you said — “What the heck is ten years incarceration going to accomplish that 5 years can’t?”
So, you’re saying (at least to me) that if someone is going to be in prison for more than (let’s say, like your example) — five years — then you kill the guy. Well, you’re predicting, ahead of time (if you decide to “kill him at the conclusion of the trial” — that this guy will not be rehabilitated in five years — thus, we’ll “kill him” now, to be done with it.
Well, I don’t think anyone would say that. Therefore, *no one* would ever be killed under that scenario, but would get five year sentences instead. And when you get to the end of five years and the guy is not rehabilitated by that time, he’s free. He’s served his time, but he’s not rehabilitated yet. So, what do you do, go another five years? Kill him then? How do you know he’s rehabilitated or not, before he gets out in society and does something else?
It doesn’t seem workable. As I said, no one would ever “kill someone” instead of simply giving him “five years”. And thus you would have a lot more criminals out on the street than we do now...
Supposedly crime rates go up when the economy goes bad. So yep. Likely way more inmates to feed and clothe. No big deal. Obama will print more money.
No. You’re wearing me out. One last time...
If they can’t be rehabilitated in 5 years, they can’t be rehabilitated. Granted, my 5 year number is pulled out of thin air and I could be off one way or the other by a few years(i’m no psychologist). But you get my point. Even though you are trying real hard to not get it, you still get it. It’s way to simple to not get.
There’s no excuse whatsoever to keep a human being locked up for 50 or 100 goddam years. NONE. It is totally asinine. It’s worse than that. It’s evil. And it is a waste of money to boot.
All this results in — in practice — is everyone gets 5-year sentences and no one gets the death penalty, except those who take a life (or as is allowed in law right now for the death penalty).
All you accomplish by this is maximum five year sentences for everything, and nothing else (aside from existing death penalty cases, as provided by law right now).
If you say so.
Some people think the purpose of incarceration is to remove individuals from circulation that they don’t “feel comfortable” interacting with.
Not only do I dissagree with that mentality, I SPIT ON IT. Those kind of selfish jerkoffs really, totally disgust me. I consider them evil.
The purpose of incarceration is to teach the incarcerated person something. If you can’t teach them something, then there’s no reason to incarcerate them.
no, I have never been locked up.
I like the Japanese method - lock ‘em in a cell all day with just a little plaque listing their crimes and how long they have to serve; no human contact; no reading material; limited or no personal possesions.
Only let them out for food, baths, etc., which have to be taken quietly, or even silently.
Combine this with a high-carbohydrate/low-protein diet and you should have relatively docile prisoners who don’t EVER want to go back to prison again.
My own addition would be a fixture in the ceiling which would be perfect for tying off a sheet...
I disagree.
The purpose of incarceration is punishment.
Taking them out circulation from law-abiding folks is just a bonus.
Have you ever spent any time in prison?
You said — “Have you ever spent any time in prison?”
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I know you were saying that to “mamelukesabre”, but I thought I would comment.
I haven’t ever spent any time in jail or prison, but I have seen enough shows and documentaries on them to know that they are not a place I would like to spend my “living time” in... LOL...
Given that in general prisons, there is a “law of the jungle” that is operational, even though slightly modified by the rules and regulations of the prison, with guards watching — it does not seem like a type of “society” that I want to live in. In that kind of environment, assault and killings are the “way of life” if you don’t participate, cooperate or “overlook” (some things you’re not supposed to “see”). This is not “civilized” and of course, that’s what this “type of character” (these criminals and malcontents) bring to the equation. Unfortunately, there are others who don’t have the same level of “criminality” but are jailed, nonetheless, and they get to learn more about this mindset and they end up adopting it, as a matter of survival (or they’ll end up being assaulted repeatedly or killed eventually). That’s why you also have “gangs” in prison, a sort of methodology that they’ve adopted for maintaining *their type* of order (a lot of which is disorder) and for their own protection against others.
Then there are the super-max prisons (or super-max sections in a general prison), where you never see another prisoner, you never interact with one, you never has any kind of “social relations” with another human being, other than guards doing their duty in maintaining your imprisonment in the first place. And you’re placed in an isolated cell for 23 hours out of the day, only one hour out, in some sort of space, other than your own cell, and then you’re back in your 7 x 12 cell.
In all that, the freedom that all people have “on the outside” is not existent in there. A prisoner is extremely limited, and only able to perpetrate violence on other prisoners (for the most part). They don’t have choice in what they can do, how they go about doing something, and when they might want to choose to do something. It’s a total lack of control over every facet of their lives.
Anyone who says that these conditions are way too pleasant must not put too much value in freedom and being able to live freely in society. To them (i.e., who say that), apparently “freedom” is a way overrated thing... LOL...
You said — “I like the Japanese method - lock ‘em in a cell all day with just a little plaque listing their crimes and how long they have to serve; no human contact; no reading material; limited or no personal possesions.”
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That sounds like the super-max prisons and/or the facilities like that, we have within general prisons...
See post 31.
I see that now, thanks.
I have spent more than my fair share of time in jails and prisons around this country (not as a guest), and I’ve never saw one that I thought could be even remotely described as pleasant.
Leaving aside StarTraveler’s comments about the basic infringement on a prison’s right to free locomotion (and I think they are quite accurate), jails and prisons are horrible, awful places, where the inmates are treated little better than cattle. They dehumanizing and degrading and notion that they are comfortable is one usually put forth by someone who hasn’t ever been inside an active prison.
Certainly some are worse than others. Jails are usually the worst (because of the overcrowding and generally unsanitary conditions); prisons are better. And while minimum or medium security inmates typically don’t have to fear for their life from prison gang activity, it’s by no means a vacation where everyone goes out to the yard and plays horseshoes after dinner.
I recently worked to get a man out of prison after fifteen years of wrongful incarceration. He wept like a baby at the hearing when the judge released him. I’m not sure that he would describe his time in prison with the “lunchrooms, yards, and exercise rooms” as a positive time in his life.
N.B. - In your world, this man would have been dead ten years ago, executed at the hands of the state.
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