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mew force shoelace posted:I think this really is a case where people don't know about the situation. Lots of times people don't care or have differing opinions or whatever. In this case I think spreading the news is important because while lots of people have generally abhorrent ideas about "justice" very few people want this. So spreading the word is probably the best direct thing you can do at the moment. The most depressing thing about word of mouth are the aforementioned abhorrent ideas. I've seriously tried to convince friends and family that the prison system is a nightmare, but it usually ends with something like, "Well it's not supposed to be rehabilitation," or the typical, "Why have sympathy for killers and rapists?" I find this kind of thing is also very common when talking about the death penalty. Great thread, btw. Thank you, Fire for saving all of this info.
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Jul 26, 2010 04:56
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mew force shoelace posted:I think most people have limits, I think if many Americans got a magic wand to design our justice system however they wanted they'd make something terrible, but I think even then most people are simply and literally unaware how bad the system actually is (and are even proud to be unaware). I really feel if more people knew a lot of people would be angry even if their system would still be pretty inhumane. When it comes to executions, I usually try to convince people it's wrong and inhumane by describing what happens to the people that go through them, and by also mentioning the number of innocent people executed on death row. Even then, though, most people just don't even care because they don't want someone ruining their collective vengeance boner.
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Jul 26, 2010 05:30
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HELLO THERE posted:I'm curious: Is the US incarceration rate the highest ever recorded? How does it compare with, say, North Korea, or the Soviet Union during the height of the Gulag system? Currently, the United States' incarceration rate the highest in the world at 748 per 100,000 (I couldn't find any figures on North Korea). According to this article, we surpassed the Soviet Union in incarceration in 1998.
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Jul 26, 2010 05:48
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Dusseldorf posted:I may not know much about the Soviet Union in 1998 but... Well, yeah. But the point is that in 1998, the United States surpassed the former Soviet Union in terms of incarceration per 100,000 people, presumably at the USSR's height of incarcerating people. That was 12 years ago that we surpassed that statistic and the incarceration rate has only grown.
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Jul 26, 2010 07:10
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mew force shoelace posted:In California the governor has to sign every parole but once someone on parole raped a baby or something scary like that so for decades they just refuse to sign any ever. Parole board goes through all the work of checking someone for release, prisoners go through all the stuff to earn good behavior and then pretty much every single one gets flat out rejected because no one wants to sign off on someone that goes on to kill again. That reminds me of that Willie Horton add.
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Jul 26, 2010 20:45
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Rutibex posted:The whole "tough on crime" bit is a very christian attitude. The whole redemption through suffering thing. The thing is though, that doesn't make society better and it's not like your saving their souls for some non-existent after life. From what I've read, it seems that rehabilitation results in lower recidivism whereas harsher punishments (like death) result in high recidivism rates. Unfortunately, I don't think rehabilitation will ever catch on in this country because that would mean upgrading prison conditions to provide decent education and libraries, as well as programs that help to destroy an 'us and them' gang mentality that is so prevalent in prisons. Obviously, all of this stuff would cost a lot of money, money that no taxpayer would want to pay. I'm not saying they wouldn't want to pay it because of the expenses, but rather what it would go toward. Some people already have qualms about paying for the horrible conditions in prisons already, and they probably aren't going to want to pay for stuff that might give convicts a safe environment to serve their time in. It all relates back to the 'tough on crime' mentality.
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Jul 26, 2010 21:16
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mew force shoelace posted:I still don't think he's exactly slipping anything by anyone. He writes books about the crap he does and people love it, he's a terrible person and the people vote for him because he is not unknowing that he is. Personally, I think it's partly xenophobic attitudes towards latinos regardless of their legal status in this country. I think the other part of it is that people want to believe that Arpaio's tough attitudes toward crime result in lower recidivism. However, according to Arpaio himself, the recidivism rate is about the same as the rest of the rest of the country. So what it really amounts to I think is xenophobia, vengeance, and an illusory sense of effectiveness. Favorite Arpaio quote: Sheriff Joe Arpaio posted:I'm tough, but humane.
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Jul 27, 2010 05:12
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JohnClark posted:I was watching this video in the watch room at the fire department I volunteer at and got some pretty sad but all too typical reactions. Whenever I have to point out to someone how wrong they are about the prison system, I usually start with the prison population, and the fact that many people are in prison because of victimless crimes. From there I usually move on to discussing how horrible and inhumane all forms of execution are, innocent people on death row that have been released or executed, and that states with capital punishment have higher recidivism rates. Finally, I usually bring prison conditions as a whole (i.e. gangs, brutality, torture, etc.), and the U.S. mentality of punishment instead of rehabilitation and how these problems lead to recidivism.
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Sep 3, 2010 01:28
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There was more after this about prison rape and what a magical bit of humor that is. It comes up in these threads all the times, but how do you even begin to combat this attitude? Both of these guys have notions about criminal justice that are flatly, objectively wrong. In addition, they seems utterly inhuman when they joke about rape as an appropriate punishment. Is there something unique to America that makes this stuff acceptable to us while the rest of the developed world generally regards it as barbaric?