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US prision system
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| cougar23 |
To take the focus off the Palestinian/Israeli conflict for a bit, I am interested to hear everyone's opinion of the US judicial and prision system. I was just reading that the US contains 6.3% of the world's population, yet over 25% of the world's prision population, and that got me to thinking, "What is up with that?" Of course, a very disproportionate percentage of inmates are minorities. So what is the problem? Are we, as a whole, a more criminal minded society than everyone else? Or are our laws jsut that much more strict?
On another note, I don't understand the use of the death penalty, either. It has proven that the death penalty does not deter crime, it costs tons of money, it kills innocent people, and it kills guilty people. I do not support killing at all, whether innocent or guilty. It is wrong. The funny part about this is that the death penalty has SRTONG support from the Christian Right in this country. How could a Christian support this? If there are any Christians out there who support the death penalty, please explain why! Remember, the death penalty is what killed Jesus, so you'd better have some strong evidence.
So ther you have it....
Debate! |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
I started a similar thread a while ago, but it plummeted in the surrounding of Israeli-Palestinian conflict threads. Anyway, I'll answer you still. The US judicial system isn't much worse than the others. The problem lies more in the fact that the larger US cities have areas in which the police forces enter very rarely, and such a lack of order maintainance is perfect for creating a criminal environment. Whether it is a conincidence or not, those areas are usually populated by the minorities. I'd say it's probably because most minority members in the US, especially blacks, started out as poor people, and since living costs in those parts of the cities are neglegable, it's obvious they cluttered up in there. Their lack of financial resources ensured that they became irrelevant members of the society, and therefore their protection was and still is the government's last concern. Their lack of education on the other side, ensured that they became suspectable to criminal activities.
As far as death sentence goes, I don't think it should be removed. In some cases, where the accused people are mass murderers and where there's not even a hint of doubt, there's no reason whatsoever to keep such an individual alive. Also, there's another situation where death sentence would be very useful, and that's in case of crime bosses. If you catch a criminal kingpin and put him in a regular jail, even the high-security one, he's still going to keep running his business from inside the jail, and the only way for preventing that is to either kill him or to put him in the solitary confinement for life. Besides, an individual who is running a criminal organization or has killed many people simply doesn't deserve to live.
Now, I am against the regular jails also, as I previously pointed out in my thread too. I think it is a waste of time and money. It's really rediculous that the taxpayers are paying for the upkeeping of a criminal during his stay in a prison. Prisons should be turned into forced labor camps, so that the problematic elements of the society can be actually converted into something useful. And it's also a better solution in terms of their rehabilitation for them to do some actual work than just have them sitting around in cells the whole day. |
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| occrider |
From the second best website on the planet:
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Some Questions That Have Been Asked Lately About America
Why does America have the highest incarceration rate in the world?
Obviously, we, as a nation, understand the need for punishment and control of bad people. Being civilized gives you the opportunity to make your nation a better place by putting the undesirables away where they cannot cause any harm to law-abiding, good citizens. Put quite simply, other nations jail less people because they enjoy evildoing criminals running rampant, raping, selling drugs, and terrorizing their villagers. America will not stand for this. In this new age of global terrorism, we hope that a new pre-emptive criminal apprehension process can be put in place, that will capture and imprison criminals before they commit any future crimes. We are hoping the FBI, CIA, and TIA (Total Information Awareness) departments develop and put into place such an effective justice system, in the very near future.
http://www.patrioticamerica.net/
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:)
Hehe I'll reply with my serious response when I get home from work. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by cougar23
To take the focus off the Palestinian/Israeli conflict for a bit, I am interested to hear everyone's opinion of the US judicial and prision system. I was just reading that the US contains 6.3% of the world's population, yet over 25% of the world's prision population, and that got me to thinking, "What is up with that?" Of course, a very disproportionate percentage of inmates are minorities. So what is the problem? Are we, as a whole, a more criminal minded society than everyone else? Or are our laws jsut that much more strict?
On another note, I don't understand the use of the death penalty, either. It has proven that the death penalty does not deter crime, it costs tons of money, it kills innocent people, and it kills guilty people. I do not support killing at all, whether innocent or guilty. It is wrong. The funny part about this is that the death penalty has SRTONG support from the Christian Right in this country. How could a Christian support this? If there are any Christians out there who support the death penalty, please explain why! Remember, the death penalty is what killed Jesus, so you'd better have some strong evidence.
So ther you have it....
Debate! |
I more or less agree with much of what you say. I think that social problems result in crime affecting a large part of the US and the general mentality is to either A) ignore it because it is not effecting them or B) build more prisons or increase the police force rather than addressing the root of the problem.
Yes part of fixing the problem could be to increase the police force and make cities safe, but I'm not sure that the reason why the US has a crime problem is because our police is inept compared to other countries. I think that a partial redistribution of wealth is needed through the creation of social and welfare programs such that people don't need to take up crime to live. We essentially need to make it less lucrative to resort to crime rather than increase the penalties of turning to crime because for many people, this is the option of last resort. And when I say social programs I don't mean more welfare checks, but actual programs designed to educate and assist people in getting back on their feet. I think it's silly to simply give people money that they might throw away ... we need to spend the money for them by enrolling them in education courses, enrolling them in living communities, food programs, etc. People are too lazy and think the problem is gonna solve itself if we just give them money without supervision.
Yes I know I kinda strayed off the topic of prisons but there really isn't anything wrong with our prisons ... just the number of people in them.
I do disagree with you with respects to the death penalty. I think that certain heinous crimes demand heinous punishments. Unless it's a sentence of life with hard labor (which I doubt would ever occur) as tito suggests, where they would have ZERO chance of enjoying any part of whatever life they have left to live, I am for the death penalty. However, I would wish to see it modified so we can be absolutey sure that that person is guilty. I think it's ridiculous that we have innocent men on death row. Perhaps modify it such that the death penalty can only be implemented with direct, incontrovertible evidence? I'm ok with guilt being determined by the standards of beyond a reasonable doubt ... I think the death penalty should have a standard of being beyond ALL doubt.
Edit: Btw, are there European cities where there are ghetto sections where crime is obviously in the open and rampant? And by areas where crime is open and rampant I mean a scene from the movie training day. Yes it is a movie but I'm sure LA has parts that ARE like that. |
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| rizen |
The prison system is a huge business, I think a prisoner alone gets more money from the state than a K-12 student in a public school, in California. Not sure about other states. Im sure theres tons of lobbies and the government it self who have investments on prison related to pass more laws so more people could end up in jail for a longer time.
http://www.booksnotbars.org/archive/archive.html and a more recent article http://hazelberry.diaryland.com/030305_30.html |
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| rupert |
The Prison system does what it is intended to get rid of otherwise unemployed people. A large slice of the prison population are from minority groups who are also poor. Also a large slice of the prison population are drug offenders.
The War on Drugs which partially fueled the explosion in the prison population is a war on the poor. As 2Pac put it "Instead of a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me"
This also happens in many other countries that have embraced "free market liberalism". The free market and rising prison populations go hand in hand.
An excellent work on this is False Dawn by John Gray.
"What. The land of the free. Whoever told you that is your enemy" RATM |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | | Btw, are there European cities where there are ghetto sections where crime is obviously in the open and rampant? And by areas where crime is open and rampant I mean a scene from the movie training day. Yes it is a movie but I'm sure LA has parts that ARE like that. |
I don't think so. I've been to quite a few, and while there certainly are neighbourhoods which look, and probably are, dangerous, there isn't any that resembles something like Harlem.
| quote: | From the second best website on the planet:
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What's the first? :) |
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| Arbiter |
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Twelve People Who Cannot Get Out Of Jury Duty Are Not My Peers
Mr. Lizard
www.mrlizard.com
What's wrong with American justice? It's simple:
a)Jury duty is slavery.
b)Slaves do lousy work.
Thus, OJ is scouring golf courses for 'the real killers', and morons who ignored the Surgeon Generals' warning for 20 years are awarded millions of dollars instead of a boot to the head (Neh-neh) and a verdict of "Too stupid to live".
The 13th Amendment makes it clear that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" shall be permitted in the United States. Is jury duty a service? Yes. Do people volunteer for it? No. Thus, it is involuntary servitude, and should be considered unconstitutional. It won't be, of course, because our present system of juries serves the lawyers, and we are a nation of lawyers, not men.
So there you have it -- juries are composed of slaves. Beginning from that, though, the current system manages to make it even worse. Are you well-educated? We don't want you. Do you have strong political, ethical, or moral opinions? Get lost. Are you aware of the world around you, a regular reader of newspapers? Scram. Do you have a good job, a position of responsibility where you're used to making critical decisions? Beat it.
So we have juries of the unemployed, the ignorant, the mindless. We begin with a random sampling of humanity and strip away anyone actually qualified to think dispassionately, rationally, and intelligently about the issues -- then we turn the running of the court system, the thing that diffrentiates a society from a mob, over to them. This is why murderers walk free and multi-million dollar awards are handed out not on the basis of responsibility, but on the basis of how many tears were shed by the witnesses.
But society needs juries, you claim! True, it does. It also needs doctors, accountants, garbagemen, school teachers, and people to stand on the bus cursing at the martians, but we do not draft these people from a general pool, then rub acid in the open wounds by throwing back the ones most qualified to do the work. If there are too few school teachers or doctors, we suffer a bit, but we do not let that suffering cause us to assemble press gangs to compel people to fill the roles needed for society to function. Even in the other classic example of legal slavery, the draft, we still maintain a large set of professionals to do the work full time, and, when we do begin the enslavement process, we at least select people who can manage to carry a rifle onto a battlefield. (Imagine if the processing of draftees was like the processing of potential jurors. "You -- the strapping young 21 year old with five years of target shooting and a constitution like an ox on steroids and wearing the 'Kill them all, let God sort them out' T-shirt -- get lost, you're not soldier material. We'll take the 67 year old lifetime member of HCI with the 'You Can't Hug A Child With Nuclear Arms' bumper sticker on his 60's VW van."
As with all other roles society 'needs' to function, the answer is simple:If you want the job done right, turn it over to professionals, and make it pay well enough to attract the best qualified. Just as the government has lawyers, so to it shall have pools of jurors. Just as there are private lawyers, so too shall there be private jurors. A jury shall consist of six from each side, but they must still reach a unanimous verdict. More importantly, all debates, conversations, discussions, etc shall be made public for full review after the trial. (Indeed, this should be done even today. Why is the most crucial part of the trial -- the thumbs up/thumbs down, the decision to set a man free or condemn him to poverty, prison, or perdition held in secret, while the rest is open to full public view?)
Some would objecct that this process is open to corruption. No more so, and possibly less so, than the present system. Some would say that 'professional' jurors would, by definition, be a non-representative slice of the populace. True, but again -- no worse, and possibly better, than the present system. More to the point, why is it wrong for them to be 'non representative'? Judges and lawyers rarely mirror the populace as a whole, why should jurors? Would you want to have your defense handled by some shmuck plucked off the street? How about your sentencing? Why, then, would you want the decision of guilt or innocence to be so handled?
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The way I see it, the following are the major problems with the U.S. justice system:
1. Unqualified or underqualified individuals are frequently employed as jurors and in many cases also as judges or lawyers. The result is a high degree of error.
2. Overtechnicality of the legal system often make small points of law or procedure more important in determining the outcome of a trial than what is just or right.
3. A bloated legal code which invites the trial of individuals who are not dangerous to society as well as facilitating frivolous litigation. In other words, the rise of neofascism (the war on drugs, etc).
One might note that item two is a result of an attempt to compensate for item one. If we had intelligent people running the justice system, we could trust their judgment rather than relying on technicality. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
The way I see it, the following are the major problems with the U.S. justice system:
1. Unqualified or underqualified individuals are frequently employed as jurors and in many cases also as judges or lawyers. The result is a high degree of error.
2. Overtechnicality of the legal system often make small points of law or procedure more important in determining the outcome of a trial than what is just or right.
3. A bloated legal code which invites the trial of individuals who are not dangerous to society as well as facilitating frivolous litigation. In other words, the rise of neofascism (the war on drugs, etc).
One might note that item two is a result of an attempt to compensate for item one. If we had intelligent people running the justice system, we could trust their judgment rather than relying on technicality. |
Phew ... we are clashing a lot as of late :). I'm about to pass out and I'm probably too drunk to properly argue so I'll keep it relatively short and continue my arguments later.
First of all I think that equating jury duty with slavery is simply ridiculous. Much like we are required to pay taxes, performing jury duty is just another function of participating in organized society. Second of all, the jury system does not weed out the smart in favor of the stupid. It initially weeds out those who may be biased to the case at hand by experiencing similar circumstances firsthand, and then it 3 strikes are given to BOTH the prosecutor and the defense attorneys to weed out personnel dislikes. This is designed to eliminate outliers in the jury pool which is perfectly understandable if one of the jurors was found to be an ex kkk clansman when the defendant is black.
Secondly, yes there are many "technicalities" in our laws which set many guilty defendants free, but these technicalities are in place to ensure that the constitution is upheld. For one who argues the "slippery slope" argument I'm surprised you're taking this stance. So if we were to give the ok to a minor technicality in an illegal car search that yielded the murder weapon in a high profile case does that mean that it's ok to exploit that technicality in all searches? In such a scenario a person busted for pot possession found in an illegal search is still guilty despite the technicalities in securing that guilt? Yes I get pissed off when a person you KNOW is guilty goes free, but I'd rather have a society that follows a set of strict standards in determining guilt as opposed to a society that is liberally minded in determining guilt based upon it's "better judgement."
At any rate I'll address the issue of professional jurors when I'm less intoxicated :) |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Phew ... we are clashing a lot as of late :).
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Always a pleasure...
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First of all I think that equating jury duty with slavery is simply ridiculous. Much like we are required to pay taxes, performing jury duty is just another function of participating in organized society. Second of all, the jury system does not weed out the smart in favor of the stupid. It initially weeds out those who may be biased to the case at hand by experiencing similar circumstances firsthand, and then it 3 strikes are given to BOTH the prosecutor and the defense attorneys to weed out personnel dislikes. This is designed to eliminate outliers in the jury pool which is perfectly understandable if one of the jurors was found to be an ex kkk clansman when the defendant is black.
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I'm not arguing that jury duty is immoral. I understand that it is a civic duty, and personally I'd love to have the opportunity to serve on a jury. Unfortunately, the vast majority of jurors are less than enthusiastic to be a part of the process. This is where problems arise. When people are unenthusiastic about the task which they are presented with, it would be irrational to presume they would perform that task with the degree of effort and attention to detail which a good juror must have.
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Secondly, yes there are many "technicalities" in our laws which set many guilty defendants free, but these technicalities are in place to ensure that the constitution is upheld. For one who argues the "slippery slope" argument I'm surprised you're taking this stance. So if we were to give the ok to a minor technicality in an illegal car search that yielded the murder weapon in a high profile case does that mean that it's ok to exploit that technicality in all searches? In such a scenario a person busted for pot possession found in an illegal search is still guilty despite the technicalities in securing that guilt? Yes I get pissed off when a person you KNOW is guilty goes free, but I'd rather have a society that follows a set of strict standards in determining guilt as opposed to a society that is liberally minded in determining guilt based upon it's "better judgement." |
I agree that we should have strict standards in determining guilt. I just don't think those standards should place procedural technicality above actual evidence of guilt or innocence. I think a better way to ensure that procedure is followed is to actually hold the officer or individual who violates that procedure responsible for the violation. Rather than letting the guilty man free as a discouragement to a violation of procedure, why not simply impose strict penalties for violating the procedure itself?
A prosecutor may dismiss a juror for bias if that juror expresses that he is aware of his absolute right to choose not to apply the law in question, provided the judge agrees (which would be about 99 out of 100 times), and in addition in most felony cases each side is given 15 free strikes. Members of the Fully Informed Juror Assocation frequently report being dismissed by the judge or prosecutor if they admit that they are aware of their right of jury nullification, and are advised by the same organization on how to answer questions evasively to avoid this type of dismissal.
A system which relies on the judgment of individuals who are frequently selected prohibitive to those who understand the complete function of their position is one which must be viewed with suspicious eyes. |
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| cougar23 |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Phew ... we are clashing a lot as of late :). I'm about to pass out and I'm probably too drunk to properly argue so I'll keep it relatively short and continue my arguments later.
First of all I think that equating jury duty with slavery is simply ridiculous. Much like we are required to pay taxes, performing jury duty is just another function of participating in organized society. Second of all, the jury system does not weed out the smart in favor of the stupid. It initially weeds out those who may be biased to the case at hand by experiencing similar circumstances firsthand, and then it 3 strikes are given to BOTH the prosecutor and the defense attorneys to weed out personnel dislikes. This is designed to eliminate outliers in the jury pool which is perfectly understandable if one of the jurors was found to be an ex kkk clansman when the defendant is black.
Secondly, yes there are many "technicalities" in our laws which set many guilty defendants free, but these technicalities are in place to ensure that the constitution is upheld. For one who argues the "slippery slope" argument I'm surprised you're taking this stance. So if we were to give the ok to a minor technicality in an illegal car search that yielded the murder weapon in a high profile case does that mean that it's ok to exploit that technicality in all searches? In such a scenario a person busted for pot possession found in an illegal search is still guilty despite the technicalities in securing that guilt? Yes I get pissed off when a person you KNOW is guilty goes free, but I'd rather have a society that follows a set of strict standards in determining guilt as opposed to a society that is liberally minded in determining guilt based upon it's "better judgement."
At any rate I'll address the issue of professional jurors when I'm less intoxicated :) |
Sounds pretty good, occrider, i guess we agree on civil rights issues.
I was gonna respond, but i'm too wasted and deleted my post. man...i'm almost passing out right now. i gess i have to fo to bed.
Night!!!! |
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