Not really. The problem isn’t just that convicts aren’t actually incarcerated for any significant time (“They’ll get a slap on the wrist, an ass-chewing by a judge and then they are back on the streets doing what they do,”) but that the penalties that would be severe to you and I as responsible, property-owning citizens mean very little to hardened career criminals. Lengthening sentences and even taking away privileges like television are relatively inconsequential in terms of reforming felons or deterring crime. Indeed, many petty criminals will seek a means to be arrested for some modest crime in order to go into jail when they are doing poorly or just can’t cope with reality outside. Prison may not be great, but it’s a warm cot and three squares, plus better medical and dental treatment than they can expect to receive on the outside. And putting nascent criminals in the general convict population merely has the effect of inculcating in them criminal attitudes and behavior, regardless of how stringent the actual penalties are. Releasing dangerous felons because of prison overcrowding is a shameful practice (and admittedly exacerbated by in increase of incarcerations for non-violent drug crimes), but it is unclear that serving complete, long sentences does anything in terms of rehabilitation other than isolating that criminal from society for the period of the sentence.
Most criminals just do not think they way you and I do; they’re not part of the chimpanzee tribe, they’re pure predators, and I very much doubt any external attempt at rehabilitation will truly reform them.
Prison needs to be Prison (somewhere NO ONE wants to go) Make them work from dawn to dusk, feed them bread and water, take away the weights and basketball courts, the televisions and the reading materials
Shorten Sentences to allow for rehabilitation based upon number 1 being enacted. I can almost guarantee that the rehab rate is much much higher than it is currently.
Death Penalty changes. The way it is currently used in the States that allow it costs too much in money and time. Try them, a few times if need be. Convict only the most heinous and kill them, timely.
Our last three Presidents have been illegal drug users prior to becoming POTUS. I really thought that my generation would change the laws and make pot legal. The situation has improved, but why is there still any question about the legalization of marijuana?
There won’t be anyone on the street selling it. You will buy it at the corner market and pay bunches of taxes. Think about all of the taxes the government could collect!
Well of course decriminalization of drugs will reduce crime. That’s what crime is: doing something against the law. No law no crime… And there is a huge crime industry around smuggling, distributing and selling recreational drugs, along with crimes committed to get money to do drugs.
Now, if you are arguing that decriminalizing drugs won’t make life better for the poor and underserved, that’s a separate topic. I argue that if we took all the money we spend criminalizing drugs and spend it instead on helping the poor and underserved and drug-inclined, we and they would be better off. And I do not buy the argument that if we decriminalize drugs a whole lot of people are going to suddenly start consuming them like candy.
I’d also argue that it’s cheaper and more humane to provide the drug-inclined with inexpensive or free drugs than it is to criminalize them.
I like to say (as a lifetime ED doctor) that Marx was wrong. “Religion is not the opium of the people. Opiates are the opium of the people.” And if we want to relieve the sigh of the oppressed, and the oppressed are determined to use drugs to relieve themselves, why…let them use drugs until we can dissuade them of it. Locking them up and creating a crime-based industry has not been, and will not be, effective in helping them sigh less in a heartless world.
Of course, neither thing is going to happen. We are not going to decriminalize drugs and we would not spend the savings on helping the underserved and drug-use prone.
Everything I know about the American legal system comes from TV
So not wanting to insult your country:
Even the supposedly more truthful shows(the Wire, Law and Order) show the US legal system as a game focusing on winning/scoring by political ambitious DA’s(?) where my impression of the most other law systems have more solemn/truth finding focus.
The number of convictions is treated like a statistic in say Baseball or American Football, and successful DA’s are treated as sport stars
Am I wrong about this?
I heard that this was mostly a urban myth, child rapists only end up on the bottem if they were considerd weak by the other inmates, if a child rapist could fight of the first attack he would be safe for the rest of his stay