Crime and Punishment

[Bob S.]

Are we too harsh in our sentences of the convicted, especially those who commit non-violent offenses?

This has been on my mind for a long time. I have been thinking about how I was taught to discipline the kids where I work. The first action is redirection, if that fails, then we try to get the kids to solve the situation, if that fails, we try to solve the situation for them. The very last thing on the list is a time out.

In the justce system however, it seems that jail time (time out) is used way too frequently. We have a large prison population filled with people who probably should not be there.

The first thing we as a society should be doing with people who commit a non-violent crime is to redirect them. We need to tap into their dreams inside and encourage them to follow their dreams. Or find out what they like to do and figure out if they can get a job in that field.

Within that context of trying to get them on the right track, we need to give them the skills to solve their own problems without breaking the law.

If they cannot do either one of those, then the system needs to get on them to "force" them to straighten their life up. Give them more help such as a group home situation or some other semi-custodial situation where the person can get back on their feet within an appropriate setting. Jail should be the place of last resort.

Rehabilitation should be the ultimate goal for most of our prisoners, even those who did perform a violent act. After their sentence is over in jail (or during the last part of their sentence), they should be in an out-of-jail custodial situation where they can ease back into society.

When you have non-violent offenders spending more time in jail than violent offenders, something is wrong. And when you have 18 and 21-year-old people being sentenced for life in jail, I consider that a failure on our part and a life wasted.

If we could move about half of the money spent on extra prisons into rehabilitation programs, we would have the same amount of money with a lot more contributing members of society, less prisoners to watch, and less overcrowding in those prisons.

Bob S.

[Bob S.]

Are we too harsh in our sentences of the convicted, especially those who commit non-violent offenses?

This has been on my mind for a long time. I have been thinking about how I was taught to discipline the kids where I work. The first action is redirection, if that fails, then we try to get the kids to solve the situation, if that fails, we try to solve the situation for them. The very last thing on the list is a time out.

In the justce system however, it seems that jail time (time out) is used way too frequently. We have a large prison population filled with people who probably should not be there.

The first thing we as a society should be doing with people who commit a non-violent crime is to redirect them. We need to tap into their dreams inside and encourage them to follow their dreams. Or find out what they like to do and figure out if they can get a job in that field.

Within that context of trying to get them on the right track, we need to give them the skills to solve their own problems without breaking the law.

If they cannot do either one of those, then the system needs to get on them to "force" them to straighten their life up. Give them more help such as a group home situation or some other semi-custodial situation where the person can get back on their feet within an appropriate setting. Jail should be the place of last resort.

Rehabilitation should be the ultimate goal for most of our prisoners, even those who did perform a violent act. After their sentence is over in jail (or during the last part of their sentence), they should be in an out-of-jail custodial situation where they can ease back into society.

When you have non-violent offenders spending more time in jail than violent offenders, something is wrong. And when you have 18 and 21-year-old people being sentenced for life in jail, I consider that a failure on our part and a life wasted.

If we could move about half of the money spent on extra prisons into rehabilitation programs, we would have the same amount of money with a lot more contributing members of society, less prisoners to watch, and less overcrowding in those prisons.

Bob S.

[Qikdraw]

I agree with you Bob. There are far more people in prison than needs to be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the back of my mind comes up with a 'fact' that there are more non-violent offenders in jail than violent offenders. (again this is just my brain speaking to me, and I may be way off base here, so if someone has numbers I'd love to see em)

I think the failed "War on Drugs" has a lot to do with the mass ampounts of people in jail. Personaly I think pot should be decriminalised, at best it should be a ticket. (up to a certain amount of course) Harder drugs should be met with detox, not jail.

Prisons should not be one of the best growing sectors of the economy. That shows a failure on so many levels.

Part of the problem with crime is that there is an economic element as well. If more jobs were available then the need for crime would decrease.
I've thought of an after-school program for poor children that might help... My idea is that we get the older generation of craftsmen, those who know how to do things the old fashioned way, and have them teach some of these kids how to do it. There are too many trade skills that are dying off because its all about mass production, and 'quick and easy'. Teaching them will accomplish a few goals, one it will keep alive tradeskills, and two it will give these poor kids a valuable trade.

Just my two cents worth.

Qikdraw

[MJ_KC]

In my opinion, too many things that don't directly harm someone else have been made criminal offenses. The war on drugs has been a massive failure, with even possesion of small quantities ruining a person's life along with their family.

I think the Netherlands has a better and more realistic approach that would be much less damaging to our country than what we are currently doing.

[nacktman]

Since the failure of the "war on drugs" has been cited for one of the reasons for our over crowded prisons, how about we actually win it.

How you ask? Well, the quickest way to quash any enterprise is to TAX it. Why not regulate it as we do "medical drugs"? Do that and we could raise alot more money and decrease our national debt.

A few people are still old enough to remember when opium, lithium, laudinum, mercury and cocaine were sold at the general store in towns across this country. During the time these were available to the general public the national debt was almost zero dollars per citizen and look where it is now.

This is not to say the availibility of "drugs" causes the debt ot rise or fall, there are too many factors for that, but tax revenues from a regulated industry can be used to lower the debt.

Hell, the original formula for Coca-Cola, besides being colored green, had cocaine in it. (it was a cough syrup originaly, folks)

[David77]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/020...33551?n=283155

[Caipora]

quote:

Qikdraw said:
Part of the problem with crime is that there is an economic element as well. If more jobs were available then the need for crime would decrease.

The justice industry provides jobs for lawyers, policemen, prosecutors, etc.

Serious crime in the U.S. has fallen drasticly in the last twenty years. Why aren't there fewer policemen and prosecutors?

New crimes are invented, preferably those that let law enforcement work out of the rain and near the donuts: posing as teenage girls to entrap middle-aged men on the internet, etc.

While the war on drugs has always trumpeted the danger of hard drugs, my understanding (and I may be wrong on this) is that the overwhelming majority of money spent, and people imprisoned, is for marijuana, which seems to be no more harmful than alcohol.

So, yes, part of the reason many non-violent offenders are sent to jail is the need for jobs.

- Caipora

[namedun]

I usually look at stuff like this from two perspectives. One is the social perspective: "what would be better for society?" and the other is "what would be better for humanity?".
In the social aspect, I love the death penalty. If there's no contest in whether the criminal actually did murder/rape/steal, the death penalty should definately apply. In fact, let's scrap this whole electric chair/gas chamber/lethal injection garbage. As George Carlin put it, we can do things cheap, easy and painless with a guillotine, and we could also have the head roll into one of ten baskets which would be lotteried and have the proceeds go to cancer research. I mean, honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill someone? What's the point of that?
Then, I have the humanity view. We shouldn't need to be killing people, because "crimes" are usually just human nature conflicting with this abnormal and terribly inhuman lifestyle we are all participating in. So let people commit crimes, it's just helping my arguement that we aren't supposed to be living this way, we haven't evolved to accomodate this nonsense.

[Bob S.]

Qikdraw:"Correct me if I'm wrong, but the back of my mind comes up with a 'fact' that there are more non-violent offenders in jail than violent offenders."

I would imagine that would be the case. More people commit non-violent crimes than violent crimes. And that is why rehabilitation should be used more often: to get these non-violent offenders back into a productive member of society faster and not mixing so much with the violent felons.

As for the war on drugs, that would be best fought with rehabilitation or drug use/abuse treatments. I do not agree with legalizing them rather altering the front line fighting.

Bob S.

[Qikdraw]

quote:

Originally posted by Bob S.:
As for the war on drugs, that would be best fought with rehabilitation or drug use/abuse treatments. I do not agree with legalizing them rather altering the front line fighting.

Well as Caipora said pot is really no more dangerous than alchohol. In fact you can directly link alchohol to many crimes (fighting, spousal abuse, etc..) and deaths (drunk driving, etc...).
I'm not saying cocaine or heroin, or any similar drugs, be legalised, but something like pot should at the very least be decriminalised.

Much like protitution. Leaglise it, regulate it, tax it. As long as its between two consenting adults it shouldn't be illegal. Add kids or animals and there is a problem.

Qikdraw

[Nude in the North]

There are many good points on Both sides of the issue.
The problem is that there are just too many factors entering into the causes of crime.
It's not only unemployed people that steal. It's not only poor people that beat their wives.
It's not only alcoholics that drive drunk.

We would have to put nearly everyone into some sort of "treatment" if we tried to prevent people from breaking laws.

Prisons arn't such a burden on the "taxpayer" if you happen to be one of the taxpayers that has had his life destroyed by a drunk driver, or someone that has stolen your Idenity and cleaned out your bank account and maxed out your credit.

Greed, Self Indulgence, and Immorality are the root causes of Crime. Society Certainly needs to be more focused on teaching people to control these tendencies, but there will always be plenty of people that will not conform.

Maybe the reason Crime is down for the most part, IS because there are more criminals in prison , for longer periods of time.

Steve

[Sanslines]

Nude in the North,

I agree with what you say. Just a few questions ........Does the USA not have the highest incarceration rate in the world? If this is really true, they why do we have so much more crime as compared to other western democracies? How many people can we lock up? What went so wrong that the real root causes of crime have become so out of control?

[missouriboy]

Much mention has been made as to violent/non-violent crime. How about considering instead 'victimless' crime as a level above violence? When there is a victim, then consider violence. If there is not a victim, is it really a crime?

The libertarians say there is no crime without a victim. And to recognize that as official policy would greatly reduce the incidence of so-called crime in this country, as well as the prison population.

I don't know if I can fully agree with them in all instances, but I believe a whole lot of 'crime' could be eliminated with this approach.

[Nude in the North]

quote:

Does the USA not have the highest incarceration rate in the world?

Maybe so. But isn't that better than having the highest number of criminals walking the streets?

" How many people can we lock up?"
As the number of criminals decrease per capita, and the number of prison cells increase. I would think there will come a time when the answer will be, All of Them.

"What went so wrong that the real root causes of crime have become so out of control?"

Nobody wants to take the blame for the decline of a social structure. But the blame is with all of us. Churches, Schools, Government, and Parents have "Dropped the Ball" where it comes to raising our next generation. The decline of the Family has been going on for generations. In our efforts to "Provide for" , we have forgotten the most important thing we can provide our children.

Love.

[Naturist Mark]

quote:

Maybe so. But isn't that better than having the highest number of criminals walking the streets?

Perhaps, but almost all prisoners are eventually released. And after a prison stint they are likely to be even worse criminals.

The frightening thing about our penal system is that it seems almost puposefully designed to create better and more violent criminals. Felons are placed in crowded conditions and subjected to a violent environment where they quickly learn the only way to survive is to be manacing themselves or to acquire the protection of those who can be menacing on their behalf. Criminologists call this process 'violentization' -short for 'violent socialization'. Violentization includes four kinds of experiences:

• brutalization
  
• subjugation
  
• violent coaching
  
• criminal activity[/list]
  To become violent, according to this theory, a person must be the victim of repeated violence, be powerless to avoid it, be taught by models and through instruction how and when to be violent, and profit from brutal acts. In other words, their world teaches them to be violent.
  
  Of course violentization mostly occurs in the home, but modern prisons seem perfectly designed to reinforce it. Now think about all those non-violent drug offenders serving long mandatory sentences being placed into an environment of violentization. What happens when they are released?
  
  My solution? Solitary confinement. Really. In most cases parolees are required to avoid contact with other felons and 'bad influences' once released, but in prison they are forced into intimate prolonged (and often brutal) contact with them. That is nuts. Let the felons be lonely, bored (maybe they will learn to read and finish their education?), and eager for human contact- perhaps then the social workers, missionaries and other do-gooders will have a positive effect on them. The one influence they should be absolutely shielded from is other felons.
  
  The idea is for them to leave prison as less of a threat than before they went in.
  
  About violentization:
  
  Wikipedia
  Why They Kill
  the theories of criminologist Lonnie Athens regarding the motivations of violent criminals.
  
  
  (mostly reposted from an old topic)
  
  -Mark