Unnecessary roughness

[ZedOmega]

Suge Knight.

[KnitShoni]

name me a famous person who's committed robbery while they were still famous. not after they'd just about lost everything, like some of the child stars who got into trouble later.

Winona Ryder

[ZedOmega]

Winona Ryder

That was just a shoplifting charge, wasn't it?

[Plaidman]

I'm well aware that I lost plenty of what little respect I had in this thread.

I do want to make clear that yeah, my style of justice is brutal. Very brutal.

But the current system doesn't work at all. So many crimes don't get punished. So many criminals get slap on the hand, and let go, and they go right back to doing whatever they wanted to do.

No-one deserves to be harmed in reality. But people do harm others. It's a away of life since before preschool. No-one will ever go through life without being harmed, ether physically or mentally. Often the people that do that, will get away with it, and even more so, get rewarded for it. Obviously the kill them with kindness does NOT work on criminals. So treat them like they treat others. Physical and mental abuse. I've heard all the excuses, that we shouldn't /lower/ ourselves to their standards, or an eye for eye makes the world blind.

How though? How does treating them EXACTLY how the treated others makes us blind? They want to hurt others. They crave it. It isn't because how they were raised. It wasn't because of brain chemesty. It comes down to choices, and they choose to do it.

People have been strong enough to say no to plenty of things. To take a stand. (Look at this thread here. My views are so harsh, that your all standing against me, that I'm the bully, and the criminals are nothing more poor souls that can't choose right or wrong).

Doesn't matter that history has always rewarded the bullies and scum that take lives. We as humans love to hurt others. We cherish those that are /evil/. There are people out there willing to die to protect the rights and prilviages of those that would go out and rape that person's mom the day they died at their funeral with a smile.

You can all protect your criminals and treat them with kindness and decency you feel they all deserve despite the crimes they've done to others. I really hope you'd stop and think about what lives they destroyed, but your too busy trying to improve their lives instead, /so that won't harm others/. Yeah. How does that make sense. Your taking a chance, they won't harm others rather then just straight up taking a stand and protecting others from the bullies.

It's what it's always been. Bullies are cool and popular, and we must protect them so that we can also be cool by side effects.


That being said, yeah, my views are harsh and crueled. They're still just as valid as any of your more peaceful and reward, or better word for it, bribe them to not do it anymore. That's what rehibiation is. You give them this, that, that, and this, and ask them not to do bad stuff anymore. Not demand. Not really asking most of the time, but pleading with them not to do it. Not that it stops the lot of them.

So while I'll respect your choices that those who harm and do nothing but destroy deserve more then those who make the choice to be a good and decent person by not hurting others, I can respect it, I just will never share that view. Ever.

Criminals are scum. They made their choices to harm others, and the longer we let them do it, the more and more they'll do it. Because they know people are too afraid to stand up to them. Too afraid to fight them on their terms.

[blas87]

I've launched this idea before, and it shut up a few bleeding hearts, maybe it will work on Panda.

If some people are so adament that murderers/rapists/molesters/junkies/hardcore thieves need to be let back into society to get a second chance, why not go to the proper people/places to get it so that these people can live in YOUR neighborhood when they get out? You know, since they are so much better off being let back into society to get a second chance and be better. And it would be win/win, since so many people protest people like that who are paroled or let out from being put in an assigned halfway house or neighborhood. Why not rally to have a halfway house put next door to you, since these people are obviously not going to cause more harm if they are given a second chance?

A bonus, Panda can walk around nude on her balcony for all of the ex-cons to watch and drool over, and they'll never leave or commit any crime again because they won't ever leave the house.

Or on a realistic note, the bleeding hearts can have it their way and people like Plaid and I can have it our way and have neighborhoods without people like that.

[Hobbs]

Actually Blas, it's a lot more complicated than that. While I do think there needs to be prison reform, I also think that harsh punishments for repeat offenders, capital crimes and such, should be left in place. However, the problem with crime is a fundamentally inherent symptom of societal issues like poverty and education. It's a quantitative and studied phenomena that more income with better educational opportunities add to a lower reliance on criminal activity for sustainability.

Also, if wanting to see the Constitution upheld for citizens makes me a bleeding heart, than I suppose I am one. And I am DAMN PROUD OF IT.

[blas87]

I like and respect you Hobbs, please don't take that as an insult, but do think about my proposition. Would you be comfortable with an ex-con living next door to you, say a guy who shot up a liquor store in a drug induced rage, after beating his wife to a bloody mess? If you can't really honestly say yes, there is doubt in you, and anyone else who can't confidently say yes, that wouldn't bother me. Then there is some amount of worry that he'd strike again. Then there is also some worry that prison didn't do enough for him.

[Hobbs]

There's a registered sex offender that lives in the neighborhood right next to me. I've never seen him, but we all got notices. So far, nary a one has heard of any complaints or confrontations with him.

I have family members who have been imprisoned. And they have not committed crimes after their incarceration. I feel safe meeting them at family functions. I work in a bar. Some of the people there are not the most outstanding of citizens, but they're friendly, jovial and we get along fine. So yes, an ex-con living by me doesn't concern me that much. Considering the population of the US prison system, an ex-con probably lives within a five-mile vicinity of me and I don't even know it.

Why does the ex-con have to be exceedingly violent for your proposal to work? That's the rub. Most people populating the prison system aren't crazy, violent offenders. The person you described would be serving at least a life sentence, more possibly considering its a capital crime [in Texas at least, he'd be on Death Row]. There's nothing to suggest within your scenario that an ex-con will necessarily go back to a life of crime.

Just because some ex-cons may become violent repeat offenders does not mean that all ex-cons will become violent repeat offenders. Psychological diagnostics should be performed at times of parole to make sure. As it is, certain prisoners are consistently denied parole for their crimes. I know of a man who sexually molested his children. He's been up for parole and denied already-the board believes he still poses a threat. You cannot predict the outcome of releasing a prisoner from confinement into the general populace any more than I can predict the next World Series.

I have consistently talked about confronting the root of criminal behavior, a tactic which you seem to ignore. Yes it is easy to do the easy way out and simply dole out harsh punishment; but isn't it more cost-effective to make sure more people remain honest citizens than criminals? You can't eliminate a crime rate, imho, but you can do what you can to make it negligible. The prisons need reform, that isn't debatable. Underlying socio-economic problems are at the root of the crime rate, and these problems should be addressed rationally and maturely.

[Mikkel]

The Danish prisons are more like Plaid's idea of a prison, you get your own room with television, many prisons are open and prisoners can leave them to go to work (with permission). But look at this pdf (statistics at page 7), 22 % remission is quite good. It means that 78% learn from their mistake.
And I have several good friends who have been in prison and who have learned their lesson.

[MaggieTheCat]

Here is an article that suggests harsher punishments actually make crime rates worse:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/160240.php

"Overly punitive approaches used on violent, angry criminals only provide a breeding ground for more anger and more violence."

[protege]

However, the problem with crime is a fundamentally inherent symptom of societal issues like poverty and education. It's a quantitative and studied phenomena that more income with better educational opportunities add to a lower reliance on criminal activity for sustainability.

Not necessarily, Hobbs. It's not just the poor folks from the ghetto breaking into homes--over the past few years, we've seen an increase in rich kiddies from the 'burbs doing it too.l They're either doing it to support a drug habit, or simply because they can. These kids go to good schools, have a family that's well-off, and don't really need to commit the crimes. Yet they do it anyway.

[Hobbs]

Not necessarily, Hobbs. It's not just the poor folks from the ghetto breaking into homes--over the past few years, we've seen an increase in rich kiddies from the 'burbs doing it too.l They're either doing it to support a drug habit, or simply because they can. These kids go to good schools, have a family that's well-off, and don't really need to commit the crimes. Yet they do it anyway.

Yes, but for them the problem isn't socio-economic. For them the problem is also a fundamental one, but which doesn't stem from poverty (in a sense it is a form of self-imposed poverty in supporting an expensive drug habit).

[blas87]

Here is a good story to bring the thread back on the original topic.

Last night, my bf stupidly went to a bar with someone he barely knows (a coworker) and they were playing pool with some guys. Anyone who doesn't already know, my bf is a body builder and very large and muscular and stronger than a damn ox.

Bf didn't know what sparked it up, because he had been outside smoking while it happened, but the guys took an issue with his friend. They then went outside and all four of them hopped on and started jumping the friend.

Bf immediately jumped in and took two of them right off of him and threw them both head first into the ground and beat them to keep them down. A third guy who was tall but really skinny punched my bf in the face but it barey phased him, and the fourth guy tried to slash him on his side. It didn't cut his shirt, but left something nasty on his skin. Someone screamed to call the cops.

Bf then ran away before the cops could come.

I didn't even know what the hell went on, I'd fallen asleep waiting for him and was pissed that he blew me off. I took him back to his car this morning, and two of his windows were bashed, and a broom was broken in half and laying next to his car, along with a pack of matches that say "Thank You!" laying on his trunk.

This is what violence does. Is it worth being a hero most of the time? No.

[Red Panda]

Hate to say it but if he ran from the cops then the story is probably not like what he said it is.