If gun control were up to you!

[JCF]

edit. duplicate post.

 

[JCF]

First of all, I DID pick up on your considerable sarcasm, as was evidenced by my sarcastic reply about your intelligence.

I see. Well… I’m sorry to have let you down. I’ll work harder to live up to your standards TCB.

And as for the "how does it fix them, well the biggest issue being faced with sentencing recommendations and judicial descretion is that they are being applied by individuals who are more concerned with criminals rights than with victims rights. Put individuals in place who intend to punish violent offenders and neither is an issue.

So it is your contention that our judges and legislators are pro-crime? You'll forgive me if I consider that a bit cliche. Given the fact that the overall prison population in America has doubled in the past twenty-five years, there are more classes of crimes on the books than ever before, we execute on par with countries like Yemen, and our sentencing and term completion rates are overall among the most stringent on the planet... just what do you base that position on?

Quote:
With all due respect, I’m not sure what it is you do for a living, but I suspect that it hasn’t much to do with criminal justice. Do you understand what the implications are of a criminal justice / judicial system that is devoid of sentencing guidelines, judicial discretion, etc?

With all due respect, right back at you, I have a quite thorough understanding of the workings of our current "justice system" and to be honest those "workings" are a good bit of the problem.

So do you understand what the implications would be of a judicial/criminal justice system that is devoid of sentencing guidelines, judicial discretion, etc.?

This idea that the judge should be "legislating" from the bench is at the heart of many of the existing problems. IF good laws are on the books, then most of the instances you are talking about have NOTHING to do with the conversation that we are having.

You believe that it is possible to install legislators capable of instating only “good laws” which will remain only “good laws” to the extent that there is no need to permit contingencies?

Do you understand the potential implications this has for gun owners in America TCB?

What baffles me, is that people delude themselves into believing what we are seeing in the "Justice System" really has anything to do with "checks and balances"

These checks and balances are exercised daily TCB. The fact that you do not personally see or understand them does not preclude their existence.

I mean the majority of threads here are about how poorly Judges are "interpreting" law. Put sound law into place and then have Judges follow it. Giving someone who "murders" someone a light sentence is a joke. If the judge doesn't believe the charges meet the crime then work with the DA and the defense to lesson the charges. Besides if good law is in place then you really will have a lessor chance of your scenerio occuring.

You can’t do what you are suggesting in the absence of judicial discretion, sentencing guidelines, etc.. TCB. The laws become static and unilateral.

Well first of all this IS the internet, how many substantial conversations about the real nuts and bolts of any subject are hashed out in this medium. So over simplification IS par for the course. But since YOU are intent on shouting everyone down with the sheer vol. of your posts, I will do my best to respond to your post.

There is myriad substantive discourse taking place on this very forum daily TCB. Just because it is the internet shouldn’t make one lazy and complacent.

Beyond this, I have no desire to “shout” you or anyone else down with volume. If one wishes to engage in the discussion and debate of complex issues however it is sometimes necessary to commit to reading more than a comic strip editorial. Sometimes it is even necessary to open books.

It has been 3 or 4 years since I have visited either of the local regional correction facilities and probably 10 years since I visited the nearest Fed. facility but you have plenty of W/C and felons of victimless crime residing in them. Lots of drug USERS, a plenty of small time drug GROWERS, plenty of guys in for assault,rape, and murder as well. But I happen know of 2 locals who got out in the last 2 years. 1 spent 4 years in for growing pot, the other got out in 5 for manslaughter. (down from the attempted murder he was charged with but it saved the tax payers of the county SO much money on a trial! )

LOL… first of all, there is a manifest difference between a white collar criminal and a drug offender. Secondly, if you consider a white collar criminal to be a victimless offender or one who poses little risk to society you have an exceptionally underdeveloped understanding of the reality of crime in America. It would probably benefit you greatly to do some tangible research into the impact of white collar crime.

All this aside, if you were to actually do that research you would quickly learn that white collar criminals represent a thin minority of the overall prison population in this country: predominantly due to the availability of advanced legal defense, and the skewed perception of the populace that they are no threat to the community.

Insofar as drug offenders go, I agree that many should not be incarcerated.
Nonetheless, most of them are not the innocuous and persecuted outlaws that much of society likes to portray them to be. To describe their crimes as “victimless” is at best specious. It would turn the stomachs of the better part of society to see what the impact of these people’s behavior actually is. I suspect that most people would be exceptionally reluctant to turn the key if they were actually put in the place of making the decision to release these folks.

Quote:

Quote:
You may be right, but I can assure you that letting out all of these violent offenders ain't doing nothing for anyone. But if you really want to get down to brass tacks, there are a lot of inmates doing time for victimless crime. Letting those folks out sooner makes A LOT more sense than the way things are now.
No it doesn’t. Not necessarily.

When you actually have an understanding of the way that crime in this country works you begin to understand that the answers are not nearly as neat and simple as one might expect.

Lets see, you are saying that if you take away their guns these individuals will NOT commit these violent crimes?

No. I am not saying that.
???

Quote:
Perpetrators of “victimless” (which is in itself a highly contentious term) and non-violent crimes, incur on the people of this nation, by and large, a much higher toll than do the traditionally reviled violent offenders. We concentrate on violent offenders because of the immediately identifiable enormity of their actions. However, they represent the overwhelming minority of offenders overall. And when examined clinically, outside of emotion, it becomes apparent that our traditional beliefs and views of violent offenders do not necessarily coincide with reality.

Consider if you will:

Statuatory rapists are generally considered to be the most innocuous of sexual offenders. In fact many people believe that stat rape should not be considered a sexual offense at all. There is tremendous mythology regarding so and so’s neighbor’s brother, etc. who is a registered sex offender but has been married to his victim for the past twenty years.

First of all I said VICTIMLESS crime, last time I checked having sex with a "child" even a willing one is far from "victimless".

I agree with you. Wholeheartedly. Yet there is an enormous part of society that does not agree with US. That will create a problem for your legislators TCB will it not? Unless of course you foresee yourself our Emperor or the like... in which case these problems will be easily resolved.

What exactly are the “victimless crimes” you are referencing that are taking up all our prison resources?

Quote:
Incest offenders are generally reviled and there is a pervading belief that the most effective treatment is community based delivery of a Gold Dot to the temple.

YET… when we actually examine the statistics surrounding these offenders, we find that in fact incest offenders are often very amenable to treatment, very, very low likelihood of displaying recidivist behavior, very low likelihood of graduated re-offense, and low likelihood of further contact with the criminal justice system in general.

Stat rapists on the other hand are among the HIGHEST risk of sexual offenders in terms of recidivist behavior, they are among the HIGHEST risk of graduated sexual offending behavior, they have among the LOWEST level of success in treatment, and their victims self-report EQUIVALENT degrees of loss and injury as victims of incest and stranger rape.

So is it better to let out the perpetrator of the "victimless crime", or the child molester who "deserves to die"?

Just because one believes (and truly wants) an issue to be simple does not mean it actually is.

I completely agree with your final statement here and feel that you might need to go back and rev. some of what you are saying with that in mind.

???

What have I suggested to be a simple issue?

The idea that removing guns from the hands of the populace will reduce crime presupposes that the problem of criminality is contingent upon the presence of an implement facilitating its display.

OK its the GUN that made me do it? That is the premise or principle that you are buying into?

It is neither. And I am advocating neither. The point I am trying to illustrate is that the premises as presented are irrelevant… one cannot address their validity when the underlying principles are as flawed as those discussed.

Quote:
Most gun owners have successfully been able to wrap head around the idea that this is something of a thinking error. Part of the reason that they have done so is, in my personal opinion, convenience. I say that because a failure to transcend to that level of advanced thought places one in a position of being compromised in their ability to defend his or her right to own a firearm. There is inherent reward for doing your homework in this regard.

So mine is a failure to "relate to" and "understand" why a scumbag violates someone else?

No.
???

Or is it that I have not "advanced" or "transcended" to that that higher place where I can accept that MY having a weapon, the MEANS to defend myself and those I love, somehow excuses someone else's use of any weapon for evil? No sir I HAVE done my homework. I perfectly understand the "IDEA" that you are getting at, and I completely reject it at every level.

You’ve completely lost me. I’m not sure what you are interpreting as the “IDEA” I am getting at, but it isn’t in any way associable to me with the previous several sentences you’ve typed. Could you please enlighten me?

It is not convenience, it is one of the bases that our society is formed upon. The idea is that we have certain rights, like life, liberty and the...... well you know where this is going, and that if you WANT to remain a part of this society then you need to play by those rules. Those who don't should have to face the consequences. BTW I understand the principles and mechanics of crime JUST fine, and believe it or not, in spite of that I still believe that if you "do the crime then you should do the time!"

I do too. But that is not enough. There needs to be MORE.

I think you may be assigning me a position on this matter that I don’t actually occupy. Perhaps a more careful reread is in order. I also think it is necessary to adopt stiff penalties for crime. What I am suggesting to you is that this is not in and of itself the answer, nor is it enough. Given the fact that the nature of crime in this country is such that prisons will be filled at the rate of availability, it is also not feasible nor responsible to advocate MORE incarceration.

Do you argue with the stats that more often than not violent offenders repeat? Well whether you do or not, is truly irrelavant to me, I do believe those stats and that coupled with several other things, harsh punishiment, reduces crime. Hey I may be wrong but I will feel much better if the effort was made TO prove me wrong.

That is not the point of the statement I made, but I’d be pleased to address it for you anyway.

No I do not argue with the stats.

But the fact that the system has incarcerated a violent offender does not equate to a concurrent, correlative, or correspondent drop in violent crime. The causality remains. It is possible to control crime on a cellular level through vigorous enforcement, but it only results in displacement, not resolution.

Crime IS both a reflection of the society and the individual, and as such we certainly should attempt to improve the social factors that contribute, but we SHOULD NOT ignore the punishment of the individual either!

I am not suggesting that we do. I am suggesting that we not over prioritize it to the detriment of society in order to lull ourselves into false security.

Basically I am saying PROVE me wrong then, because for the last 30 years we have moved towards your line of thinking and our society is going to H@ll in a handbasket.

Sorry TCB. This statement, although very popular, is just simple BS.

The USA incarcerates more people, in more prisons, for longer periods of time, for more classes of crime, with the blessing of a greater portion of society than virtually any other nation in the world, and more than any other period in its’ history.

It was on its way to hell long before anyone actually put any thought into it, and largely because no one put any thought into it.

What has happened is that there has been a concurrent evolution of academic discourse alongside this process which is attempting to understand why the system isn’t working. This recent process has been conveniently scapegoated as the cause of the failure of a system that has been rotting progressively for over a century.

In most circumstances those who obey the law do so for one of a couple a couple of reasons (or perhaps a combination of the two). You either do right because you believe in doing right or you are concerned about the consequences of doing wrong. Right now the consequences for doing wrong are less than I personally feel they should be.

Punitive deterrence has never been proven to be a success TCB. My beloved state incarcerates and executes en masse and it still can’t seem to convince anyone that it’s not in their best interest to kill other people.

Good luck with that way of thinking though.


Quote:
This is an overly simplistic and shortsighted response to a very, very complex and pervasive social problem.

I agree that long term many things need to change, but again if we need to build a WHOLE bunch of prisons to protect the law abiding from the law breaking then I have NO problem with that.

You should. Because we don’t NEED to. And we can’t AFFORD to. And once they are here they are going to fill up and not going to go anywhere. That TCB is the problem.

Because ignoring the individual who trasgresses will NOT improve things. You are spouting a lot of psychological ideas that may or may not be right.

I am not advocating ignoring the individual. Psychological ideas? What psychological ideas? Explain these assertions to me if you would.

One thing that has pretty much been by Pavlov's dog, is that rewarding behavior certainly encourages it. Right now we are making crime "PAY".

How? How are we doing so any more than ever before?

You are correct that we cannot hold the entire community responsible, but right now we are hardly holding the individual responsible either. All the rest of this is just making excuses for those who refuse to abide by the rules of our society.

How am I making excuses for anyone? Please clarify this. I am advocating a higher level of overall accountability. It appears to me more that YOU do not wish to own any responsibility for your community’s well-being, preferring instead to take an approach vested solely in blame.

Psycho babble aside,

Again… please explain this to me.

I agree that crime is a profound problem that has MANY different things at it's root, and I will be more than happy to agree that there are a NUMBER of things that our society can do to improve reduce many of the factors that contribute to crime, but flawed as I and my thinking may be, coddling those who commit violent crime is NOT among them, and I feel for those individuals who delude themselves to the point that they feel it will.

I’ve NEVER advocated coddling violent offenders. Quite the contrary. Please demonstrate where you are deriving this position from.

 

[[email protected]]

Here's one for ya.... All weapons legal if you pass an IMMEDIATE background check. Reason I say this is I can go to my local court webpage & search for a name & up comes their record in that court. I'm pretty sure the national gobermint has that ability, or how would they do our checks now. The only weapons band are those you or your vehicle cannot move AKA nuke submarines, aircraft carriers, tanks (unless you can feed it gas lol) etc. Only places you can't carry is in court, & maybe bars ( you hand weapon to bartender to be returned when you leave). If you come up as a child molester on the check the gunshop can "violate" you with a 45 or better on the spot. Anyone else think of any crimes that need to be on the "violate" list?

 

[TCB in TN]

Quote:
And as for the "how does it fix them, well the biggest issue being faced with sentencing recommendations and judicial descretion is that they are being applied by individuals who are more concerned with criminals rights than with victims rights. Put individuals in place who intend to punish violent offenders and neither is an issue.

So it is your contention that our judges and legislators are pro-crime? You'll forgive me if I consider that a bit cliche. Given the fact that the overall prison population in America has doubled in the past twenty-five years, there are more classes of crimes on the books than ever before, we execute on par with countries like Yemen, and our sentencing and term completion rates are overall among the most stringent on the planet... just what do you base that position on?

I am beginning to question your reading comprehension. I never said we did not NEED sentencing guidelins or judicial descretion just that we needed to put people in place who would do a significanly better job with them.

With all due respect, I’m not sure what it is you do for a living, but I suspect that it hasn’t much to do with criminal justice. Do you understand what the implications are of a criminal justice / judicial system that is devoid of sentencing guidelines, judicial discretion, etc?

With all due respect, right back at you, I have a quite thorough understanding of the workings of our current "justice system" and to be honest those "workings" are a good bit of the problem.

So do you understand what the implications would be of a judicial/criminal justice system that is devoid of sentencing guidelines, judicial discretion, etc.?

Again see above.

This idea that the judge should be "legislating" from the bench is at the heart of many of the existing problems. IF good laws are on the books, then most of the instances you are talking about have NOTHING to do with the conversation that we are having.

You believe that it is possible to install legislators capable of instating only “good laws” which will remain only “good laws” to the extent that there is no need to permit contingencies? Do you understand the potential implications this has for gun owners in America TCB?

I believe we have a far better chance of installing decent legislators than I do of getting rid of appointed for life Federal Judges. And I certainly do understand the implications for gun owners. Outside the possible (as of yet un-proven) gains in SCOTUS, and a smattering of semi positive legal rulings in the last couple of years, we as gun owners have made our gains, as meager as they are through legislation much more so than through the court system.

Quote:
What baffles me, is that people delude themselves into believing what we are seeing in the "Justice System" really has anything to do with "checks and balances"

These checks and balances are exercised daily TCB. The fact that you do not personally see or understand them does not preclude their existence.

Again, I see we have made MANY times the number of gains from the legislative side. Were the "checks and balances" really working then we would not be in the shape we are today.

I mean the majority of threads here are about how poorly Judges are "interpreting" law. Put sound law into place and then have Judges follow it. Giving someone who "murders" someone a light sentence is a joke. If the judge doesn't believe the charges meet the crime then work with the DA and the defense to lesson the charges. Besides if good law is in place then you really will have a lessor chance of your scenerio occuring.

You can’t do what you are suggesting in the absence of judicial discretion, sentencing guidelines, etc.. TCB. The laws become static and unilateral.

Again read what was written.

Well first of all this IS the internet, how many substantial conversations about the real nuts and bolts of any subject are hashed out in this medium. So over simplification IS par for the course. But since YOU are intent on shouting everyone down with the sheer vol. of your posts, I will do my best to respond to your post.

There is myriad substantive discourse taking place on this very forum daily TCB. Just because it is the internet shouldn’t make one lazy and complacent.

I personally, come to the www as something to kill a little time to enjoy our selves and to possibly throw out a few idea. The "Big Picture" discussion is usually good enough for most people out here. Most of my REAL political discussion occurs face to face, here in my "grass roots" area, or on the phone with my State or Fed. legislators. If that makes me lazy or complacent
then I guess I owe you and everyone else here a big "I am sorry."

Beyond this, I have no desire to “shout” you or anyone else down with volume. If one wishes to engage in the discussion and debate of complex issues however it is sometimes necessary to commit to reading more than a comic strip editorial. Sometimes it is even necessary to open books.

REALLY are they big books, or just little ones, how bout pictures do they have those in 'em too?

:
It has been 3 or 4 years since I have visited either of the local regional correction facilities and probably 10 years since I visited the nearest Fed. facility but you have plenty of W/C and felons of victimless crime residing in them. Lots of drug USERS, a plenty of small time drug GROWERS, plenty of guys in for assault,rape, and murder as well. But I happen know of 2 locals who got out in the last 2 years. 1 spent 4 years in for growing pot, the other got out in 5 for manslaughter. (down from the attempted murder he was charged with but it saved the tax payers of the county SO much money on a trial! )

LOL… first of all, there is a manifest difference between a white collar criminal and a drug offender. Secondly, if you consider a white collar criminal to be a victimless offender or one who poses little risk to society you have an exceptionally underdeveloped understanding of the reality of crime in America. It would probably benefit you greatly to do some tangible research into the impact of white collar crime.

If you will go back and read my initial thread I mentioned White Collar, and victimless crime in two seperate parts of my comments, YOU were the one who brought the two together in an assumption that I do not understand the difference between the two. Again I cannot help YOUR assumptions.

All this aside, if you were to actually do that research you would quickly learn that white collar criminals represent a thin minority of the overall prison population in this country: predominantly due to the availability of advanced legal defense, and the skewed perception of the populace that they are no threat to the community.

Insofar as drug offenders go, I agree that many should not be incarcerated.
Nonetheless, most of them are not the innocuous and persecuted outlaws that much of society likes to portray them to be. To describe their crimes as “victimless” is at best specious. It would turn the stomachs of the better part of society to see what the impact of these people’s behavior actually is. I suspect that most people would be exceptionally reluctant to turn the key if they were actually put in the place of making the decision to release these folks.

So the description of "victimless" is specious at best, well if you are going to go onto the whole gun's facilitating crime thread then how about following your own logic to the natural conclusion about "victimless" crime. By making the recreational use of drugs illegal you "facilitate" the formation of an entire criminal drug industry, and rather than taxation and regulation of the industry by the Government you end up with a new manufactured class of felony criminals. I personally do not, nor have I ever done illegal drugs, in fact I seldom even drink a beer, but even I with my faulty logic and lack of a transcendent state of being I understand that were pot, and some other illegal drugs made legal, then much of the problem goes away, and the resources currently used to fight those crimes could be re-purposed towards
"greater evils."

I agree with you. Wholeheartedly. Yet there is an enormous part of society that does not agree with US. That will create a problem for your legislators TCB will it not? Unless of course you foresee yourself our Emperor or the like... in which case these problems will be easily resolved.

Well this thread is exactly that IF I were Emperor then I would be able to do exactly as I see fit. That is one of the things you seem to be missing. This thread is exactly about that very thing.

What exactly are the “victimless crimes” you are referencing that are taking up all our prison resources?

I have not recently looked at the figures but I have seen different number putting the % of people in prison for drug usage/selling/etc at anywhere from near 25% to 70%. Depending upon their definition. So after legalization and regulation impacts the street market, and those drug related violent offenders in the system are gone I would imagine that I would free up a significant about of our resources in the long run.

Incest offenders are generally reviled and there is a pervading belief that the most effective treatment is community based delivery of a Gold Dot to the temple.

YET… when we actually examine the statistics surrounding these offenders, we find that in fact incest offenders are often very amenable to treatment, very, very low likelihood of displaying recidivist behavior, very low likelihood of graduated re-offense, and low likelihood of further contact with the criminal justice system in general.

Stat rapists on the other hand are among the HIGHEST risk of sexual offenders in terms of recidivist behavior, they are among the HIGHEST risk of graduated sexual offending behavior, they have among the LOWEST level of success in treatment, and their victims self-report EQUIVALENT degrees of loss and injury as victims of incest and stranger rape.

So is it better to let out the perpetrator of the "victimless crime", or the child molester who "deserves to die"?


Just because one believes (and truly wants) an issue to be simple does not mean it actually is.

I completely agree with your final statement here and feel that you might need to go back and rev. some of what you are saying with that in mind.

???

From your statement you feel that the majority of the focus need to be on society and cultural issues. The path you are taking leads to Government involvement in the home, further involvement in the schools, and an even further expansion of the Nanny State. Society can only be fixed from within, social experimentation to "improve" the state that man lives in, and helps to remedy the wrongs of our society are not possible in a free country. Only in a system where the state rules all aspects of life can it even attempt such a thing. That is something that I personally do not want, need, or feel that anyone should begin to try and implement.

The idea that removing guns from the hands of the populace will reduce crime presupposes that the problem of criminality is contingent upon the presence of an implement facilitating its display
OK its the GUN that made me do it? That is the premise or principle that you are buying into?

It is neither. And I am advocating neither. The point I am trying to illustrate is that the premises as presented are irrelevant… one cannot address their validity when the underlying principles are as flawed as those discussed.

But it is not even close to an apples to apples comparison. There is a HUGE flaw in the logic. If I want to commit a violent crime I do not need to use a gun, I can use a knife, or bat, or brick, or bomb, or a pc of piano wife, where as the commision of a crime, by definition requires a criminal

Most gun owners have successfully been able to wrap head around the idea that this is something of a thinking error. Part of the reason that they have done so is, in my personal opinion, convenience. I say that because a failure to transcend to that level of advanced thought places one in a position of being compromised in their ability to defend his or her right to own a firearm. There is inherent reward for doing your homework in this regard.

So mine is a failure to "relate to" and "understand" why a scumbag violates someone else?

No.
???

Or is it that I have not "advanced" or "transcended" to that that higher place where I can accept that MY having a weapon, the MEANS to defend myself and those I love, somehow excuses someone else's use of any weapon for evil? No sir I HAVE done my homework. I perfectly understand the "IDEA" that you are getting at, and I completely reject it at every level.

You’ve completely lost me. I’m not sure what you are interpreting as the “IDEA” I am getting at, but it isn’t in any way associable to me with the previous several sentences you’ve typed. Could you please enlighten me?

If that is not your point then please explain exactly where you are going with this, as I cannot understand your logic. I know from a moral standpoint my RKBA is sound and I can defend it, I know from a common sense standpoint the logic is solid, as looking back through history those w/o arms have not fared so well. Further more those great men who founded this nation made it pretty clear that they thought it was a good idea, so I intend to go with that also. So when I hear you beginning to go all transcendental on me, all I can figure is that we are about to "feel someone pain" or something.

It is not convenience, it is one of the bases that our society is formed upon. The idea is that we have certain rights, like life, liberty and the...... well you know where this is going, and that if you WANT to remain a part of this society then you need to play by those rules. Those who don't should have to face the consequences. BTW I understand the principles and mechanics of crime JUST fine, and believe it or not, in spite of that I still believe that if you "do the crime then you should do the time!"

I do too. But that is not enough. There needs to be MORE.

Before going forward, WHY, does there need to be more?
Personal responsibility, being willing to work for things, self control, self sacrifice, working to build for the future. Having respect for one's self and those around you. Those are laudable goals, but again WHO is going to instill these into our society?

I think you may be assigning me a position on this matter that I don’t actually occupy. Perhaps a more careful reread is in order. I also think it is necessary to adopt stiff penalties for crime. What I am suggesting to you is that this is not in and of itself the answer, nor is it enough. Given the fact that the nature of crime in this country is such that prisons will be filled at the rate of availability, it is also not feasible nor responsible to advocate MORE incarceration.

I have went back and re-read your position and I am still not convinced. As I have said above, I DO think that both More and more selective incarceration are both feasible and warrented.

Do you argue with the stats that more often than not violent offenders repeat? Well whether you do or not, is truly irrelavant to me, I do believe those stats and that coupled with several other things, harsh punishiment, reduces crime. Hey I may be wrong but I will feel much better if the effort was made TO prove me wrong.

That is not the point of the statement I made, but I’d be pleased to address it for you anyway.

No I do not argue with the stats.

But the fact that the system has incarcerated a violent offender does not equate to a concurrent, correlative, or correspondent drop in violent crime. The causality remains. It is possible to control crime on a cellular level through vigorous enforcement, but it only results in displacement, not resolution.

I agree there is not currently a strict causal relationship between an increase in incareration and violent crime occurances. IMHO there are a couple of reasons for that. First is as mentioned about, the current illegal drug infrastructure. For far to many of our low income citizens that market seems to be the best ticket out. Ridding our streets of that "easy money" will make the idea of education much more palatable to those masses. Second is prison itself. While currently not a "great" place, it certainly isn't what it was 40 year ago. Prison today is well, easy. Other than the loss of freedom prison is looked on as a decent existence, after all they feed you cloth you, hey you even get a gym and TV in many places. For many folks I have spoke with it is a better life than any they ever had before. Make prison BAD again and I believe you will see more of a deterrent. Add to that a REAL sentence for violent offenders and I believe you WILL make inroads into the problem.

 

[TCB in TN]

Quote:
Crime IS both a reflection of the society and the individual, and as such we certainly should attempt to improve the social factors that contribute, but we SHOULD NOT ignore the punishment of the individual either!

I am not suggesting that we do. I am suggesting that we not over prioritize it to the detriment of society in order to lull ourselves into false security.

OK I will bite on this one, how can you "fix society's ills" w/o further expanding the "Nanny State?"

Quote:
Basically I am saying PROVE me wrong then, because for the last 30 years we have moved towards your line of thinking and our society is going to H@ll in a handbasket.

Sorry TCB. This statement, although very popular, is just simple BS.

Really well I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree on that one.

The USA incarcerates more people, in more prisons, for longer periods of time, for more classes of crime, with the blessing of a greater portion of society than virtually any other nation in the world, and more than any other period in its’ history.

It was on its way to hell long before anyone actually put any thought into it, and largely because no one put any thought into it.

What has happened is that there has been a concurrent evolution of academic discourse alongside this process which is attempting to understand why the system isn’t working. This recent process has been conveniently scapegoated as the cause of the failure of a system that has been rotting progressively for over a century.

We certainly do, and many of them are both the wrong ones, and for the wrong reasons, as I mentioned above.

Quote:
In most circumstances those who obey the law do so for one of a couple a couple of reasons (or perhaps a combination of the two). You either do right because you believe in doing right or you are concerned about the consequences of doing wrong. Right now the consequences for doing wrong are less than I personally feel they should be.

Punitive deterrence has never been proven to be a success TCB. My beloved state incarcerates and executes en masse and it still can’t seem to convince anyone that it’s not in their best interest to kill other people.

Good luck with that way of thinking though.

Really, it doesn't work, has never been proven to be a success. Well do YOU break the law? WHY? Punitive deterrence does work for some, doesn't for others, especially when the punishment is seen as less than robust, so I somewhat agree and yet it does have one advantage though, those who are not detterred are then detained, which does provide a certain level of safety for the rest of society.

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This is an overly simplistic and shortsighted response to a very, very complex and pervasive social problem.

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I agree that long term many things need to change, but again if we need to build a WHOLE bunch of prisons to protect the law abiding from the law breaking then I have NO problem with that.

You should. Because we don’t NEED to. And we can’t AFFORD to. And once they are here they are going to fill up and not going to go anywhere. That TCB is the problem.

Really, we don't NEED to. I just don't buy that. If your idea is right, then why do we even have prisons at all? No we do need serious prison time and even execution for those individuals who refuse to abide by the minimum standards of society.

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Because ignoring the individual who trasgresses will NOT improve things. You are spouting a lot of psychological ideas that may or may not be right.

I am not advocating ignoring the individual.

Again it sure sounds a lot like it.

Psychological ideas? What psychological ideas? Explain these assertions to me if you would.

Certainly, it sounds as if you are speaking of dealing with crime at a societal level. There are plenty of theories out there right now about the collective soul or the nation (or some crap like that). The basic premise is that if you can fix enough of society's ill's that most of the problems go away. Much like the current push by the AMA to be involved in "forcing" people to eat healthy, avoid risky behaviors (including gun owner ship). The problem with all of these ideas is that while they sound good on paper, they don't work. They fail just like the biggest social experiment the world has ever seen. (USSR)

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One thing that has pretty much been by Pavlov's dog, is that rewarding behavior certainly encourages it. Right now we are making crime "PAY".

How? How are we doing so any more than ever before?

Lets see, in most parts of the country we have made sheep out of so many of the people that they cannot even fathom self defense. Criminals all over the nation EXPECT that they will meet no resistence and they are more often than not correct in that assumption, this is borne out in the rise in home invasions, car jackings, and other violent crime. Most criminals are just not afraid of citizens or the justice system at this point. IF they do happen to get caught they end up in a prison system that is really not that bad, for what more often than not ends up being not such a long time. So I believe we have made crime begin to pay.

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You are correct that we cannot hold the entire community responsible, but right now we are hardly holding the individual responsible either. All the rest of this is just making excuses for those who refuse to abide by the rules of our society.

How am I making excuses for anyone? Please clarify this. I am advocating a higher level of overall accountability. It appears to me more that YOU do not wish to own any responsibility for your community’s well-being, preferring instead to take an approach vested solely in blame.

See above.

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Psycho babble aside,

Again… please explain this to me.


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I agree that crime is a profound problem that has MANY different things at it's root, and I will be more than happy to agree that there are a NUMBER of things that our society can do to improve reduce many of the factors that contribute to crime, but flawed as I and my thinking may be, coddling those who commit violent crime is NOT among them, and I feel for those individuals who delude themselves to the point that they feel it will.

I’ve NEVER advocated coddling violent offenders. Quite the contrary. Please demonstrate where you are deriving this position from.

Maybe you are right, perhaps I am naive but your insistence on finding a solution to crime at a societal level (which I don't believe can be artificially engineered), and your staunch resistence to heftier punishment for violent offenders points me to that conclusion.

 

[JCF]

I am beginning to question your reading comprehension. I never said we did not NEED sentencing guidelins or judicial descretion just that we needed to put people in place who would do a significanly better job with them.

I see…

So flexibility in interpretation and administration of the law is in and of itself NOT a problem then. In fact what IS a problem is the actual substance of those interpretations and decisions. Am I getting that right?

So tell me what kind of a “significantly better job” needs to be done? I mean rhetoric and clichés aside… specifically.

I believe we have a far better chance of installing decent legislators than I do of getting rid of appointed for life Federal Judges. And I certainly do understand the implications for gun owners. Outside the possible (as of yet un-proven) gains in SCOTUS, and a smattering of semi positive legal rulings in the last couple of years, we as gun owners have made our gains, as meager as they are through legislation much more so than through the court system.

Well, I think the truth in your statement may be somewhat contextual. While binding state and federal legislation certainly comprises the face of 2A rights in our country, one might be careful however not to quite so quickly discount the impact of the decisions made by our DA’s, judges, and grand juries in addressing the actual cases that are presented to them on a daily basis. The 2A friendly legislation implemented by state and federal legislators does very little to influence the decision not to prosecute the citizen who rightfully, but unlawfully, deployed his concealed weapon against an attacker. Yet those kinds of decisions are made, unseen, regularly in DA’s offices and courtrooms around this country by the same judges and DA’s who understand that vigorous full-scale prosecution and incarceration of every violent felony charge is NOT in the best interest of the community in the long run.

Again, I see we have made MANY times the number of gains from the legislative side. Were the "checks and balances" really working then we would not be in the shape we are today.

Do you really think so? Or do you think that perhaps, just maybe, our justice system might have already collapsed upon itself several decades ago? Perhaps our 2A rights might have already succumbed to the onslaught of peace and safety initiatives that pervaded the past 40 years? How many nebulous and obtuse rule of law convictions do you suppose would have been rendered as a result?

So the description of "victimless" is specious at best, well if you are going to go onto the whole gun's facilitating crime thread then how about following your own logic to the natural conclusion about "victimless" crime. By making the recreational use of drugs illegal you "facilitate" the formation of an entire criminal drug industry, and rather than taxation and regulation of the industry by the Government you end up with a new manufactured class of felony criminals. I personally do not, nor have I ever done illegal drugs, in fact I seldom even drink a beer, but even I with my faulty logic and lack of a transcendent state of being I understand that were pot, and some other illegal drugs made legal, then much of the problem goes away, and the resources currently used to fight those crimes could be re-purposed towards
"greater evils."

First of all, I am sorry that you are so very exceptionally put off by my use of the term “transcend”. I assure you that there is no specific associable philosophical value to the term. I at no time referenced a “transcendent state of being”. Please feel free to replace the term with whatever word or group of words that make you more personally comfortable. You might try surpass, exceed, move beyond, git up yonder from, etc… It is really doesn’t impact our discussion. I would be pleased to make similar accommodations for any other words or phrases that might you mad.

Secondly, while I agree with you that many drug crimes should not be so categorized, the objective reality of the situation is that our criminal justice system has been gradually moving away from carceral sanctions of low grade drug crime since the mid-late 1980’s. The irony is that the greatest objection to this has come from the “tough on crime” advocates who feel strongly that the only method of controlling America’s drug problem is… you guessed it… punitive deterrence.

The majority of drug criminals that are entering the system currently are going in for much higher grade offenses (distribution of cocaine, manufacture of methamphetamine, etc.). When you actually examine the statistics, the United States incarcerates a relatively very small number of people for marijuana related offenses any longer. The majority of those who do go in for pot offenses are now distributors, growers, etc., but they are miniscule compared to the meth and cocaine dealers.

Also… when you have any experience with the system you quickly learn that low grade drug offenses are quite frequently used as the basis for the incarceration of gang affiliated offenders who are involved in other criminal activity that cannot be prosecuted. Al Capone, for example, was incarcerated as a “white collar criminal” who had committed “victimless crimes”. That strategy is still used today.

Now tell me… is manufacture and distribution of cocaine and methamphetamine a victimless crime?

I have not recently looked at the figures but I have seen different number putting the % of people in prison for drug usage/selling/etc at anywhere from near 25% to 70%. Depending upon their definition. So after legalization and regulation impacts the street market, and those drug related violent offenders in the system are gone I would imagine that I would free up a significant about of our resources in the long run.

If your statement presupposes that these offenders are predominantly incarcerated, on a national level, for marijuana related offenses you are very sorely mistaken.

Or are you saying you would legalize the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine and cocaine?

From your statement you feel that the majority of the focus need to be on society and cultural issues.

The focus needs to be placed upon BOTH.

More importantly however, the focus needs to be on criminal justice sanctions that have meaning.

You are absolutely correct when you say that there are plenty of offenders that do not need to be in prison. The problem is that you buy into the popular rhetoric that identifies said offenders based upon emotion as opposed to actual demonstrable success and social benefit; eg. the stat rapist vs. the incest offender. You advocate minimizing the prison population whilst simultaneously propagating the mythology that our society needs to build more prisons and jail more people.

The path you are taking leads to Government involvement in the home, further involvement in the schools, and an even further expansion of the Nanny State.

LOL… and building more and more prisons is not in your estimation a propagation of the “Nanny State?” Building more prisons; a process of perpetually increasing taxation upon the innocent victims of crime, and creating legions of dependent and socially inept citizens, is somehow better??? Advocacy of greater imprisonment is akin to suggesting that we transcend (sorry… we leap frog) from a “nanny state” to an “ICU state”.

Society can only be fixed from within,

Yes, that’s my point. Last I checked prisons still met the criteria of external control.

social experimentation to "improve" the state that man lives in, and helps to remedy the wrongs of our society are not possible in a free country. Only in a system where the state rules all aspects of life can it even attempt such a thing. That is something that I personally do not want, need, or feel that anyone should begin to try and implement.

No one is suggesting that it is possible or that we should even necessarily try in many cases. What I am saying to you is that your “simple” solution to the problem of crime in this country is based in rhetoric and emotion; it is ludicrous and irresponsible given the extent of the underlying and compelling social maladies.

Big prisons, lethal injections and sh** talking legislators will do NOTHING to alleviate the problem of crime in America.

But it is not even close to an apples to apples comparison. There is a HUGE flaw in the logic. If I want to commit a violent crime I do not need to use a gun, I can use a knife, or bat, or brick, or bomb, or a pc of piano wife, where as the commision of a crime, by definition requires a criminal

TCB… the premise is irrelevant. One can say that the elimination of gummie bears and tomato soup from corner convenience stores will reduce crime, and it means no more or less than the argument you have forwarded. The underlying basis of the argument, that the problem of crime has its root in anything other than society, is the problem. You can blame it on the individual if you like, and yes the individual does need to be held accountable, but eradication (or even control) of the problem requires initiatives directed at the SOURCE.

Jailing criminals over and over while ignoring the social problem of crime is like confiscating guns in the hope of their eradication while simultaneously funding the factories producing them.

If that is not your point then please explain exactly where you are going with this, as I cannot understand your logic. I know from a moral standpoint my RKBA is sound and I can defend it, I know from a common sense standpoint the logic is solid, as looking back through history those w/o arms have not fared so well. Further more those great men who founded this nation made it pretty clear that they thought it was a good idea, so I intend to go with that also. So when I hear you beginning to go all transcendental on me, all I can figure is that we are about to "feel someone pain" or something.

*Sigh*

The logic behind the RKBA is sound. I am not questioning that.

What I am suggesting to you is that the people have developed an advanced understanding of this right due to its immediate impact upon them… convenience. It is not a slight against gun owners.

They have not developed as advanced understanding of the principles behind crime and justice because there has not been an equivalent need.

Before going forward, WHY, does there need to be more?

Because prisoning in and of itself as a solution to crime, the idea of a straight up the middle punitive response to criminality has been tried and has failed miserably.

Personal responsibility, being willing to work for things, self control, self sacrifice, working to build for the future. Having respect for one's self and those around you. Those are laudable goals, but again WHO is going to instill these into our society?

YES! Excellent. And I admittedly don’t know the answer. But I will tell you that the answer is NOT in a prison cell. And it is NOT in investing billions and billions of taxpayer dollars in constructing and staffing them.

I agree there is not currently a strict causal relationship between an increase in incareration and violent crime occurances. IMHO there are a couple of reasons for that. First is as mentioned about, the current illegal drug infrastructure. For far to many of our low income citizens that market seems to be the best ticket out. Ridding our streets of that "easy money" will make the idea of education much more palatable to those masses.

But again TCB… you are then necessarily advocating legalization and regulation of drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. Not to mention the fact that a HUGE component in crimes committed in low income urban areas is alcohol, a substance which is already legally available. People don’t shoot each other over the availability of alcohol anymore TCB, but they still shoot each other because of it. How do you plan to reconcile the resultant dysfunction?

Second is prison itself. While currently not a "great" place, it certainly isn't what it was 40 year ago. Prison today is well, easy. Other than the loss of freedom prison is looked on as a decent existence, after all they feed you cloth you, hey you even get a gym and TV in many places. For many folks I have spoke with it is a better life than any they ever had before. Make prison BAD again and I believe you will see more of a deterrent. Add to that a REAL sentence for violent offenders and I believe you WILL make inroads into the problem.

TCB… I’m sorry but this is a whole load of rhetoric. Today’s inmates serve longer sentences than ever before in history. The physical facilities are better, but the conditions are more violent, overcrowded, disease ridden and restrictive than ever before also. By and large, the negative disparity in conditions between home and prison are generally accepted to be greater now than they were during the “halcyon” days of imprisonment during the 20’s and 30’s.

OK I will bite on this one, how can you "fix society's ills" w/o further expanding the "Nanny State?"

I don’t know that you can TCB. I don’t know that there is an honest answer to the problem. There certainly is NOT a SIMPLE one and that has been my point from square one. But I’ll tell you that the problem certainly cannot be addressed through further propagating the folly that we have been engaged in for the last century.

Really, it doesn't work, has never been proven to be a success. Well do YOU break the law? WHY?

Not because of a fear of going to jail if that is what you are implying. Is that the reason you don’t kill people TCB?

Punitive deterrence does work for some, doesn't for others, especially when the punishment is seen as less than robust, so I somewhat agree and yet it does have one advantage though, those who are not detterred are then detained, which does provide a certain level of safety for the rest of society.

The success of punitive deterrence is based upon the ability of the offender to rationally and successfully engage in a process of cost-benefit analysis. Punitive deterrence works in situations where the potential offense is devoid of emotional context, the probability of apprehension is extremely high, and the sanction so far outweighs the benefit so as to make it tangibly offensive to the perpetrator.

For instance: if your state legislature were to pass a law making overtime parking at a meter a capital offense, it would have a profound punitive deterrent effect. Making rape a capital offense on the other hand would have very little impact given the difficulty in apprehending suspects and the various pathologies associated with such offenses.

Thus, punitive deterrence is a profound failure in that there are very profoundly few combinations of circumstances in which the requisite factors align to facilitate success.

Really, we don't NEED to. I just don't buy that. If your idea is right, then why do we even have prisons at all? No we do need serious prison time and even execution for those individuals who refuse to abide by the minimum standards of society.

We need prisons. We need serious prison sentences. We don’t need to keep building more and more and more. We can’t afford to. There are myriad options available to addressing crime, from restorative and restitutive sanctions, to community supervision, to community based treatment. Many of these have been PROVEN to be more successful than incarceration. We need more responsible alternatives than warehousing millions of people. And even at that, we are not yet beginning to touch the problem of cause.

Psychological ideas? What psychological ideas? Explain these assertions to me if you would.
Certainly, it sounds as if you are speaking of dealing with crime at a societal level. There are plenty of theories out there right now about the collective soul or the nation (or some crap like that). The basic premise is that if you can fix enough of society's ill's that most of the problems go away. Much like the current push by the AMA to be involved in "forcing" people to eat healthy, avoid risky behaviors (including gun owner ship). The problem with all of these ideas is that while they sound good on paper, they don't work. They fail just like the biggest social experiment the world has ever seen. (USSR)

I’m still unsure what this has to do with psychology.

I am talking about crime on a social level, yes. I don’t see how one can examine the issue outside of a social perspective.

And you are right, you can’t force people to eat right, and you can’t force them to stop smoking, etc… But you can educate them why it is a good idea that they do and leave it up to them to make their own decisions. Those initiatives have worked quite well over the last twenty years in promoting the health of the nation. No, I don’t agree with every position held by the AMA, etc., but I also don’t agree with every position held by the NRA, etc. I am not about to dismiss all and every position forwarded by either organization on the basis of a few that offend me.

Lets see, in most parts of the country we have made sheep out of so many of the people that they cannot even fathom self defense. Criminals all over the nation EXPECT that they will meet no resistence and they are more often than not correct in that assumption, this is borne out in the rise in home invasions, car jackings, and other violent crime.

You are suggesting that criminals do a cost-benefit analysis in their decision to commit criminal acts? Do you suppose they keep track of the statistics regarding armed response by citizens as well to gauge the risk?

Most criminals are just not afraid of citizens or the justice system at this point. IF they do happen to get caught they end up in a prison system that is really not that bad, for what more often than not ends up being not such a long time. So I believe we have made crime begin to pay.

Again… this is a very popular assertion, but one that has little, if any, basis in reality.

Most criminals have virtually NO knowledge of the potential sanctions they will face for any particular offense. When offenders are interviewed after an offense or following conviction, they consistently report little or no consequential forethought to most crime.

Further, as noted, the relative conditions in today's communities vs. prisons are more disparate than were those of 80 years ago.

This is mythology borne largely out of entertainment media.

Maybe you are right, perhaps I am naive but your insistence on finding a solution to crime at a societal level (which I don't believe can be artificially engineered), and your staunch resistence to heftier punishment for violent offenders points me to that conclusion.

I make my living in the system TCB. I have a very fully developed sense of the toll exacted upon victims of violent crime. I know exactly what it looks and sounds like. I see it each and every day. I am the LAST person to oppose hefty punishment for violent offenses. What would lead you to suggest this?
__________________

 

[TCB in TN]

So much wrong here I don’t even know where to start. You REALLY believe that the “justice system” is doing a good job of handling violent crime?

And yes I do believe that even with the problems we have the Legislature is much more “reliable” than the Judiciary.

As for long sentences for Meth mfg well we certainly are not seeing that here, and no I do not consider the Mfg of Meth a victimless crime. I do consider ALL drug use a victimless crime. This is a conclusion that I have some to over the years, and the more argument I see against it, the more I am convinced that it truly is victimless.

And no I do not feel that the Majority of drug offenders are for pot alone, but I do contend that were Pot and other low level illegal recreational drugs legalized then you would in the long term reduce the level of more powerful illegal drugs. It is a function of supply and demand, and currently there is a huge demand, which has created an infrastructure to supply them. Lets take the issue of drinking by minors, and compare that to Pot usage by minors. It is much easier for a minor to get pot than it is for them to get alcohol. Regulation of the one limits its availability. Etc. The net effect of legalization of those low level drugs is that they would be more difficult for the average minor to acquire, ending long term in a reduction in drug use, etc. since you are involved in the Judicial system you are probably more familiar with this arguement than I am, so I will not bother to further spell out my position on this.

I certainly do not advocate minimizing the prison population. What I do advocate is that we put those people most likely to be a danger to society into prison regardless of the number.

In my estimation building prisons has nothing to do with the “Nanny State”. By definition Prison is a place where your life is ran for you. I am a HUGE fan of the principle. In my estimation letting the “State” run prisons and keeping them OUT of the lives of the rest of society is a grand idea.
To me prisons are outside of society

”Big prisons, lethal injections and sh** talking legislators will do NOTHING to alleviate the problem of crime in America.”

I completely disagree, without consequences Laws mean nothing. Incarceration, capital punishment both have their place.

You said

“TCB… the premise is irrelevant. One can say that the elimination of gummie bears and tomato soup from corner convenience stores will reduce crime, and it means no more or less than the argument you have forwarded.”

Again I will just have to completely disagree with you on this. If you want to make a point in debate, then the premise, is certainly important. Your comparison was seriously flawed, the two points were so loosely related as to have very little relevance.
You said

“Because prisoning in and of itself as a solution to crime, the idea of a straight up the middle punitive response to criminality has been tried and has failed miserably.”

Again we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. For some the punitive response is all they can understand. You talk about education and getting to the root of the issues and I agree that both are laudable idea. That said they have failed just a miserably in their attempt to fix the ill’s of man. You are looking to “reconcile” something that lies in the hearts, minds, and soul of man. Some folks just DON”T do what they should, even in spite of having all they should ever want, money, fame, education, etc. How do you plan to reconcile such dysfunction?

I will not argue about the facilities, and how they are better than ever before, but as for the whole “serving sentences longer than ever before” well I don’t know. I sure see a lot of violent criminals getting out in 3 to 5 years. Maybe that is longer, but whether it is not not, it still isn’t long enough.

So you do not commit crime because you are not afraid of punishment? Well if we had no punishment then you would still follow the speed limit? How about paying your taxes? You ask about Murder, well no, I really don’t personally want to kill anyone although there are a few people that I have met, that I am willing to reconsider if the consequences were to be removed.

You said

“The success of punitive deterrence is based upon the ability of the offender to rationally and successfully engage in a process of cost-benefit analysis. Punitive deterrence works in situations where the potential offense is devoid of emotional context, the probability of apprehension is extremely high, and the sanction so far outweighs the benefit so as to make it tangibly offensive to the perpetrator.”

Well I disagree, half of the success of punitive deterrence is that it reminds those in our society who can rationalize the consequences, of the reasons to avoid breaking the law. Your assumption is that the benefit is for the offender, but it is not, the benefit is for society. Removal of the offender, and a reminder to the rest of society, is where the benefit lies.

You said

“We need prisons. We need serious prison sentences. We don’t need to keep building more and more and more. We can’t afford to. There are myriad options available to addressing crime, from restorative and restitutive sanctions, to community supervision, to community based treatment. Many of these have been PROVEN to be more successful than incarceration. We need more responsible alternatives than warehousing millions of people. And even at that, we are not yet beginning to touch the problem of cause.”

So where is the large scale example of this success? I have never seen or heard of it. I am an Educator, and in education we try to use positive re-enforcement, tailor education to meet the specific needs of each of the student. It is a great thing, and works for a large percentage of them. For some it just doesn’t work. For those students you end up having to remove them from the General Education classroom and they typically have to be placed into a more “structured” environment. Even then there are some who are not able to make it and have to placed into Juvie. Btw if those individuals that you are talking about are unable to rationalize punitive deterrence how are they likely to respond to these wonderful programs you mention?

You said

“I’m still unsure what this has to do with psychology.”

I cannot see any other way to take it. You are looking at crime as if it can all be explained and treated like bipolar disorder or some other mental issue.

You said

“ And you are right, you can’t force people to eat right, and you can’t force them to stop smoking, etc… But you can educate them why it is a good idea that they do and leave it up to them to make their own decisions. Those initiatives have worked quite well over the last twenty years in promoting the health of the nation. No, I don’t agree with every position held by the AMA, etc., but I also don’t agree with every position held by the NRA, etc. I am not about to dismiss all and every position forwarded by either organization on the basis of a few that offend me. “

Well this disturbs me, you feel that “the AMA’s education programs” have done well? After all there are more obese folks in the country today than ever before. High blood pressure, etc. are pretty much at all time highs, your assumptions is that if people know better then they will do better, and in light of the evidence in front of us, I would say that idea has failed miserably.

I most certainly am saying that criminals do a very simple bit of “risk analysis”. If you look at states where gun ownership is very high, you just do not find the same number of “sheeple related” crimes. I don’t think they keep track of statistics, but I do think they notice when people get shot regularly for mugging, car jacking, home invasion etc.
As for you making your living in the system, well OK, I have to live with the outputs of that system. As an educator I know exactly how it feels to have all the blemishes of your profession paraded for all to see, and I also know what it is like to honestly say that many of those criticisms are valid.

 

[JCF]

You REALLY believe that the “justice system” is doing a good job of handling violent crime?

No, I absolutely do not. I have repeatedly asserted that the system is desperately flawed. The solution however is not, as you are suggesting, an amplification of exactly what we are currently doing.

As for long sentences for Meth mfg well we certainly are not seeing that here, and no I do not consider the Mfg of Meth a victimless crime. I do consider ALL drug use a victimless crime. This is a conclusion that I have some to over the years, and the more argument I see against it, the more I am convinced that it truly is victimless.

And I hope that you understand that “drug use” in itself is not an action for which one is incarcerated. It is the extraneous behavior associated with that “victimless” act that causes a problem for the individual; theft, burglary, prostitution, armed robbery, child abuse and neglect, manufacture and distribution, etc.

And no I do not feel that the Majority of drug offenders are for pot alone, but I do contend that were Pot and other low level illegal recreational drugs legalized then you would in the long term reduce the level of more powerful illegal drugs. It is a function of supply and demand, and currently there is a huge demand, which has created an infrastructure to supply them. Lets take the issue of drinking by minors, and compare that to Pot usage by minors. It is much easier for a minor to get pot than it is for them to get alcohol. Regulation of the one limits its availability. Etc. The net effect of legalization of those low level drugs is that they would be more difficult for the average minor to acquire, ending long term in a reduction in drug use, etc. since you are involved in the Judicial system you are probably more familiar with this arguement than I am, so I will not bother to further spell out my position on this.

I understand and fundamentally agree with most of your argument. Particularly where issues of supply and demand for marijuana are concerned.

I am considerably less confident however regarding the assertion that legalization and regulation of “lower level drugs” is apt to lower demand for rock cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, etc. There is very little, if anything, to support this position, and a great deal of material surrounding the pathology of addiction to refute it.

There is also an emerging body of evidence that points toward the idea that legalization of marijuana may compound the problem of pervasive addiction through universal legitimation of drug behavior. The jury is still out on that as it is socially and contextually specific, and therefore impossible to verify.

What I do advocate is that we put those people most likely to be a danger to society into prison regardless of the number.

I am with you on this TCB, but it is my contention that the process of identification of these people is not quite as simple as one might think. The data surrounding tangible impact, perceived victim loss and quantified recidivism supports this.

In my estimation building prisons has nothing to do with the “Nanny State”. By definition Prison is a place where your life is ran for you. I am a HUGE fan of the principle. In my estimation letting the “State” run prisons and keeping them OUT of the lives of the rest of society is a grand idea.
To me prisons are outside of society

Prisons are outside of society?

I would be more inclined to agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that the prisons we are currently operating (just the prisons… not including community supervision, halfway houses, etc.) weren’t already costing the citizens of this nation in excess of 60 billion dollars annually.

I would be more inclined to agree with you if it were not for the fact that the majority of people that get released from these animal factories back into our communities after any length of time are stripped of virtually any ability to exist independently without community support.

TCB, the prison system is the mother of all Nannies. It is a gigantic, fat and abusive babysitter that is creating legions of dysfunctional children. You eschew social experiments? What exactly do you think our massive concrete and steel rat maze is TCB? It’s been a 100+ year social experiment that no one knows how to end.

Incarceration, capital punishment both have their place.

Incarceration has its place. We don’t need any more than we already have though. No one is suggesting the abandonment of consequences. As I said earlier, the answer to our problem is not to amplify the mistakes we have been making for the last hundred plus years.

Again I will just have to completely disagree with you on this. If you want to make a point in debate, then the premise, is certainly important. Your comparison was seriously flawed, the two points were so loosely related as to have very little relevance.

I was illustrating an example of a similarly nonsensical conclusion TCB, I was not drawing a direct comparative. In any event, you’re dwelling on the inconsequential portion of the argument. The matter of substance is the issue of crime’s origin. Interpret it as you wish however.

Again we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. For some the punitive response is all they can understand. You talk about education and getting to the root of the issues and I agree that both are laudable idea. That said they have failed just a miserably in their attempt to fix the ill’s of man. You are looking to “reconcile” something that lies in the hearts, minds, and soul of man. Some folks just DON”T do what they should, even in spite of having all they should ever want, money, fame, education, etc. How do you plan to reconcile such dysfunction?

I don’t know that one can. One certainly cannot imprison it out of someone.

I will not argue about the facilities, and how they are better than ever before, but as for the whole “serving sentences longer than ever before” well I don’t know. I sure see a lot of violent criminals getting out in 3 to 5 years. Maybe that is longer, but whether it is not not, it still isn’t long enough.

People tend to dwell on the early release stories. They tend to interpret them as normative. It is hard to blame them for becoming emotive in response as it offends the sensibilities. Nonetheless, one needs to understand that these stories make good copy and are great leaders for the local media. The story of the same offender receiving an average sentence is much less lurid and consequently less interesting. When you look at actual sentencing trends TCB, the actual sentences are (and time served) is higher now than ever before in history.

So you do not commit crime because you are not afraid of punishment?

That’s correct.

Well if we had no punishment then you would still follow the speed limit?

I may or may not follow it precisely, but I would certainly be in very close proximity to it. I frequently drive below the speed limit, particularly in the city. I’ve seen my share of carnage TCB. I drive the speed limit out of a desire for self preservation and feelings of responsibility to those around me.

How about paying your taxes?

Yes, I would. It’s called civic responsibility. It’s the same general process that drives people to volunteer to join the Army, etc.

You ask about Murder, well no, I really don’t personally want to kill anyone although there are a few people that I have met, that I am willing to reconsider if the consequences were to be removed.

I don’t have those feelings, even lightheartedly. Perhaps you and I have differently requirements of external control. Perhaps that influences our position on this issue.

Well I disagree, half of the success of punitive deterrence is that it reminds those in our society who can rationalize the consequences, of the reasons to avoid breaking the law.

The point TCB is that those who engage in such behavior do not as a matter of course engage in a process of rationalization of consequences to their actions aforehand. This assertion has been studied exhaustively, and has been thoroughly debunked.

Your assumption is that the benefit is for the offender, but it is not, the benefit is for society. Removal of the offender, and a reminder to the rest of society, is where the benefit lies.

Those in our society who choose not to violate the law do not need to be rewarded for their decision, nor do they expect to be. Lawfulness is an expectation of our society, not meritorious conduct. Removal of an offender for the safety of the community is an expectation of law abiding behavior, but it comes at profound cost… it is in absolutely no way a reward.

So where is the large scale example of this success? I have never seen or heard of it.

There are no large scale examples in this country. There are lots of small ones. Such initiatives are virtually impossible to implement on anything other than a regional or cellular level due to the hue and cry from “tough on crime” advocates who decry them as “coddling”. Alternative initiatives require novel thinking and, frequently, an examination of conventional thought; a process that makes traditional law and order thinkers rather uncomfortable.

In Texas for instance, the Dept. of Health operates a community-based outpatient sex-offender treatment program for sexually violent predators. It is much more successful than inpatient prison-based treatment. It is cheaper and better for the community overall. It is safer. It drives the “tough on crime” people insane. It should be the standard, but it likely never will be because it “just don’t make common sense”.

You are looking at crime as if it can all be explained and treated like bipolar disorder or some other mental issue.

I have done absolutely no such thing. I am suggesting that it is MUCH MORE than a pathology. YOU are the one limiting responses to criminality to those aimed at individual pathology.

Well this disturbs me, you feel that “the AMA’s education programs” have done well? After all there are more obese folks in the country today than ever before. High blood pressure, etc. are pretty much at all time highs, your assumptions is that if people know better then they will do better, and in light of the evidence in front of us, I would say that idea has failed miserably.

LOL… where exactly do you think we would be without said education TCB???

We smoke less than ever, we wear our seatbelts, we roll condoms on our (and each other’s) genitals, we check automotive safety ratings on consumer reports, you can purchase low-fat, sugar-free, and low-cholesterol anything and everything at the grocery store, infant mortality is at an all-time low, etc., etc., etc. Yeah, we are getting fatter… that is hardly a failure of the AMA or the education system.

I most certainly am saying that criminals do a very simple bit of “risk analysis”. If you look at states where gun ownership is very high, you just do not find the same number of “sheeple related” crimes.

Demonstrate that to me if you would please (in terms of causality I mean, not an overall statistic that attempts to draw a comparative between crime rates in Wyoming and California, etc).

I don’t think they keep track of statistics, but I do think they notice when people get shot regularly for mugging, car jacking, home invasion etc.

Show me where that works.

As for you making your living in the system, well OK, I have to live with the outputs of that system. As an educator I know exactly how it feels to have all the blemishes of your profession paraded for all to see, and I also know what it is like to honestly say that many of those criticisms are valid.

*Sigh*

Yes TCB, the system is badly flawed... I am neither shy nor sensitive about that fact.

Once again, we certainly don’t need MORE of it as you are advocating.

 

[TCB in TN]

Well, I think the horse is just about as dead as it can get. The more we say on this issue the further we are apart in our conclusions, as to how things are, and how they should be. It has certainly been both fun and informative.

Good day and God Bless you.