criminal rights

[AkiraMakie]

Can't say much now, tired, about to get to bed.

I didn't say most people in jail had a drug habit. I said many of them do. My main point was that poverty isn't the cause of crime. Crime is the cause of poverty and unemployment. Not the only cause, of course, but a large one...

We could probably debate that point all day. you think crime cause proverty and unemployment, and i think unemployement and proverty cause crime. We will never agree on that.

And yes, I have lived some pretty damn bad places, where poverty and crime are all over the place.

really? where? :rolleyes2

I don't know why you would like debating with me, because I have to re-explain most everything I say because you don't understand it at first.

Dont insult my intelligence. its not that i dont understand you. its that i dont agree with you. theres a difference.

Yes, drug addicts need treatment as well as jail time.

So how would you feel if they tossed your mother into jail only because she had a drug problem. would you want her rotting in a cell or would you want her getting help. i dont believe you really be so quick to make all these assumptions if you had to deal with these problems.

(Edit: Whether or not you agree with drugs being illegal, if somebody commits a drug-related crime, whether it be buying, selling, possessing, etc., he has still committed a crime and should be punished accordingly.)

ok, true enough. But thats the problem with out laws. but ok, your right on that one.

[Sasquatch]

"so now your saying most people in jail have a drug habit? or are you saying being on drugs makes you a criminal?"

So you DID understand what I was saying, you just...acted like you didn't? (By the way. Drugs are illegal. Being on drugs does make you a criminal.)

I said that drug addicts need treatment as well. But if somebody I was close to was sent to jail for drug use (which has happened, to two different people), then I would expect then to be rehabilitated off the drugs while they were there. Which is what happens.

I don't feel the need to explain my living history to you. But I will say that the place I live now is number ten, in state number four, not including the more than a year I spent in Iraq for the Army. So I haven't lived in a little peachy rich neighborhood all my life, thank you very much.

[AkiraMakie]

"so now your saying most people in jail have a drug habit? or are you saying being on drugs makes you a criminal?"

So you DID understand what I was saying, you just...acted like you didn't? (By the way. Drugs are illegal. Being on drugs does make you a criminal.)

yeah that was bad sarcasm

I said that drug addicts need treatment as well. But if somebody I was close to was sent to jail for drug use (which has happened, to two different people), then I would expect then to be rehabilitated off the drugs while they were there. Which is what happens.

ok your right, thats your belief on how it should be run, and i apologize for making an assumption on your family history.

I don't feel the need to explain my living history to you. But I will say that the place I live now is number ten, in state number four, not including the more than a year I spent in Iraq for the Army. So I haven't lived in a little peachy rich neighborhood all my life, thank you very much.

ok, i dont understand this. Are you saying you live in the tenth worst city of the 4th worst state?

and once again, i apologize for making an assumption on where you lived and how you grew up.

[Sasquatch]

It happens.

This is the tenth place I've lived, in four different states. Born in IL, spent a year in AL, like to consider myself "raised" in GA, and now live in WI. Moved around a couple times inside the state, too.

[Cloud No.9]

please children enough of the back chat here. i hope that's the end of it.

i don't believe a deterant for crime can ever work. i think in the mind of the criminal there are one of two things happening he believes he won't be caught so why care about jail because you aren't gonna go there anyway. or he's not thinking about all he's thinking about is his next fix or for whatever other reason he/she has.

i poverty doesn't cause crime neither does drugs. inequality causes crime of the type i believe we have moved onto. impoverished countries have fairly low crime rates but countries with huge divides between rich and poor have far greater rates. i believe the feelings of helplessness from this can lead to drugs. some people belive crime can be used to jump the inequality gap or see life as not fair.

technically drug usage is not an offence, possession and dealing is but to have it in your system is not.

but aside from that. something that will be slammed down.

someone before mentioned murder was normally a crime of passion. if this is the case it would be very rare to commit it twice and everyone is succeptible to commit it. if there is a extremely small chance of reoffending and could have been claimed to be a natural reaction why jail or even the death sentence for this?

[eestlinc]

It is a reflection on the failures of American society that we have so many in prisons. If life in prison is better than life out of prison for some, that is an indictment on the pathetic nature of poverty in the US.

You don't stop being human just because you commit a crime.

[DarkLadyNyara]

It is a reflection on the failures of American society that we have so many in prisons.

I'm with you on that. We have the worlds highest incarceration rate. That's pretty sad.

[Garland]

Failures of American society? I disagree. Failures of the criminals themselves? There you have it. American society bears no responsibility for people who break the law.If less people committed crimes, there would be less people imprisoned. Blame the prisoners for the high incarceration rate. It's because of their mistakes that the US has that ill distinction. There's no excuse for crime. There are no Jean Valjeans. In fact, even Jean Valjean deserved imprisonment. Crime is crime. I don't think it's a good practice to make so much gray out of black and white issues.

[eestlinc]

Do you suppose there are reasons why some people commit crimes and others do not? Are they just born evil? Do you think we shouldn't do anything to try to prevent so much crime from happening in the first place?

[Sasquatch]

Actually, having drugs in your system is illegal, depending on the drug. My stepfather was sent to jail because he tested positive for cocaine.

Of course, coke only stays in your system for three days, and he didn't just fail one test, he failed two, and he knew both were coming more than a week in advance of each of 'em...but stupidity wasn't what he was put away for, it was coke.

I agree with Garland. It's not society that makes criminals, it's bad people that make criminals. There are reasons some people commit crimes and others do not, but it's nothing upon society. I can live across the street for somebody all my life and grow up to be a serial killer, or rapist, or even just a petty thief, and he could grow up and lead a clean, successful life. Why are some kids in elementary school nice and quiet, when some are loud and disruptive, or bullies?

[Cloud No.9]

crime is not just about where you live, it's about who you live with, who you associate with, your education, your childhood.

i prefer to see criminality as a condition of the mind. an inability to see the consequences of actions, the inabilty to empathise and an inability to take moral decisions.

if crime was all the criminals fault and had nothing to do with society then you'll need to explain why criminals are criminals, are they just born bad?

american society needs to take the blame for criminals as criminality is your society. it's not a genetic disorder that more americans commit more crimes than anyone else. there has to be something wrong with the system in order to make that happen.

the idea that america has the highest incarceration rate in the world just because there is more criminals is circular logic. why are there more criminals? because people commit more crime? why do they commit more crime? because they are inherently bad? if so why are americans badder than any other people?

[ShunNakamura]

People are how they are due to a mix of nurture and nature.

This means that the criminal, lets call him Jack for simplicity. Jack may have been born in a good neighborhood with good neighbors and brought up with correct values and morals.. yet he still goes and robs a store.

Another young man named... Simon for simplicity. Grows up in a bad neighbor hood... Was raised by his grandmother who taught him to be moral. But dispite his hardships he never commits a crime. Now both thiese people were taught morals, but one was more desperate then the other. Yet the desperate one didn't break the law.

My point by this very ridiculas hypothetical models is to point out that nature can sometimes be the cause, but that nurture(parents, society, etc.) also can play a part. The amount that each plays is definately debateable.

[Masamune·1600]

Two brief points:

First, I would like to point out something; this issue may or may not have been raised previously in this thread. That is the issue of accurate DNA testing. Many people have been exonerated of horrible crimes (particularly murder) that they didn't commit, now that this method to prove their innocence exists. Admittedly, there may be situations where DNA testing is not applicable, but this has led to the release of many people who were wrongly convicted. For those people who would take every right from the violent criminal, at least bear in mind that some of them may not be violent criminals after all.

Secondly, although a punitive measure is involved, the primary goal of incarceration should be rehabilitation. When someone commits a crime, that's a terrible thing. However, if no effort is made to reform the individual, then the problem is only compounded. Although the application of such an ideal may be difficult in many real world situations, to abandon it utterly (which many here would seem to rush to do) is a scar upon all of us.

[Sasquatch]

The purpose of incarceration is punishment. Through that, they are somewhat rehabilitated. Like when you're a kid, and you do something bad, and you have to go stand in a corner (we'll use good ol' "time out" for this analogy, no matter how people grew up). Were you standing in a corner, with your mommy or daddy standing beside you lecturing you why you shouldn't have done what you did, or were you standing in a corner in the hopes that you would learn simply through your punishment?

That may not have made as much sense as I had planned. Oh well. The point is, punishment is rehabilitation. Granted, for some crimes/criminals, further rehabilitation may be needed, but there's a big difference in prison and group therapy.

Society is not the cause of crime. As ShunNakamura said, each person is different. You might could blame their response to society, but not society itself. It might be the way the person was raised, or the people they hung out with, or it may very well be that the guy is just a bad person. Who knows? But it's not right for the whole of society to take the blame for the heinous acts of specific individuals.

And America has a high incarceration rate for a lot of reasons. For one thing, there are more laws in America, and more actions that are against the law, than in many other countries. For another, a lot of money is spent on law enforcement, of all varieties.

Yes, DNA has proven many people innocent that were found guilty prior to the extended use of such technology. But that was then, and this is now, and now, a case can hardly get a conviction without DNA evidence. Forensics have improved many times over since just 20 or 30 years ago, and now it is extremely rare for a person to get wrongly convicted. It may happen, but it's prettymuch almost unheard of.

[AkiraMakie]

The purpose of incarceration is punishment. Through that, they are somewhat rehabilitated. Like when you're a kid, and you do something bad, and you have to go stand in a corner (we'll use good ol' "time out" for this analogy, no matter how people grew up). Were you standing in a corner, with your mommy or daddy standing beside you lecturing you why you shouldn't have done what you did, or were you standing in a corner in the hopes that you would learn simply through your punishment?

see, your own anology helps to prove my point. How many times where you given "time out", only to be put back in time out for the very thing that got you put there the first time? Punishment is obviously not a deterrant. What you have to do is explain to people why what they did was wrong and help them to be a better person, along with the punishment. Punishment alone is not the key. All punishment does is give you the time to figure out how not to get caught the next time.