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Tibbsy wrote:
All of Dakka is in agreement?

This is certainly a historic day...

It's a St. Valentine's Miracle!

I believe we need to start thinking about prisoners differently , like why are they there? not just the crime they committed but what circumstances caused them to do the act. Most people who go to jail for petty things come out worse because they come to learn that crime is survival. We need to educate them because a lot of people who wind up in jail come from desperate lives and are under educated. people may say this is liberal hippie bullcrap and a waste of tax dollars but aren't our prisons for reforming criminals into functional members of society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
but yeah

 sebster wrote:

The weirdest thing about the 'hard on crime' thing is that they're aren't that many of them, and most of them are already committed in their votes. You actually don't win many votes directly with the strategy... and yet the strategy still works brilliantly because of some weird alpha male bs.

In the US being seen as "hard on crime" (or simply harder on it that your opponent) can also be an important factor in certain primaries, and local elections; especially when either is conservative.

Moreover, a hard on crime" stance is relatively easy to defend in most cases. Not just because of alpha male bs, but because people will tend to accept that crime is bad and that stronger measures in the punishment of criminals will generally reduce it. After all, people tend to avoid doing things which cause them to suffer negative consequences, so the argument that criminals will do the same is simple. Of course that argument is nonsense, but folk psychology will almost always trump deeper consideration of the subject matter.

 sebster wrote:

Lots of research since has found that even among people who are opposed to execution, they will like the person more on their other policies and respect them more overall. Even when seen as being too tough, people will be in awe of their manly willingness to kill people be a manly leader. It's that weird part of our tribal brains that makes us trust alpha males more.

Another thing to consider is that support for the death penalty necessarily requires a committal response to a question, so it will naturally receive a lower number of positive responses. Generally speaking, people will always gravitate towards indifferent , or non-committal responses regarding specific issues when questioned by a stranger or someone who is not perceived as trustworthy*. As such, the number of people reporting support for the death penalty is likely to be lower than the number of people that actually support it.

Moreover, most people tend to acknowledge that killing another person is bad, so that is itself an inbuilt aversion to open support of a policy which will likely result in a person's death.


*Which is why middle-aged women in average health are so highly sought after by organizations conducting surveys in the US.

 sebster wrote:

You see a similar effect with war, people may oppose a war but they are likely to like the President more for doing... but this has a few caveats (the war has to be small enough that it isn't a major campaign issue, and you have to win and win quickly, so Panama yes, Iraq II no).

There's also the caveat of going to war with an established enemy. Using Iraq II as an example, many people reported support for the idea of going to war against Saddam Hussein (many more than reported going to war against Iraq) prior to Iraq II.

I'd say leave it up to the states. This isn't an issue that the Federal Government needs to concern itself with.

Surely if federal elections are involved the federal government should be involved in the matter.

Part of the problem with the American justice system is that once a criminal, always a criminal. Even if all you did was steal a pack of gum and get caught.

We wonder why our recidivism rate is so high. Well after your first offense, life sucks. Might as well keep breaking the law because you'll never get a decent job.

I think once a person has served all time/parole/fines for a first offense (within reason) the records should be sealed.

 dogma wrote:

Another thing to consider is that support for the death penalty necessarily requires a committal response to a question, so it will naturally receive a lower number of positive responses. Generally speaking, people will always gravitate towards indifferent , or non-committal responses regarding specific issues when questioned by a stranger or someone who is not perceived as trustworthy*. As such, the number of people reporting support for the death penalty is likely to be lower than the number of people that actually support it.

Moreover, most people tend to acknowledge that killing another person is bad, so that is itself an inbuilt aversion to open support of a policy which will likely result in a person's death.

I'm generally in support of the death penalty if we can prove the crime AND the criminal adjudicates (SP?). I have a hard time with it on other accounts, because there are so many examples of people being wrongfully imprisoned. I know that whole viewpoint creates a myriad of problems with forced confession, etc.

The problem, Sick, is where we draw the line at "within reason". I mean, surely we don't want "one time" pedophiles working with kids, right? Is that where we draw the line. Or "one time" spousal abusers working in women's shelters.... I know these are both a bit hyperbolic, but it creates a sticky situation. I don't think most employers look at "youthful misdemeanors" that poorly. When it comes to felonies though.....

There are a lot of problems. But for a lot of these people, crime is a LOT easier than taking the steps to get yourself out of a gakky upbrining.

The way to address that is to make people's upbringings less gakky.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The way to address that is to make people's upbringings less gakky.

Oh, absolutely.

Figure out how to fix that overall and I'll crown you Tzar of the United States myself.

Sadly, I'm not sure how much white folks can help impact that for miniorities. I do a lot of volunteering and tutoring for underprivledged kids, and I'm always leery when I got some of the more ubran (see: minority laden) schools simply because I never know how seriously they'll actually take me, and rightly so. I don't "think" I do it out of 'white guilt;' I really don't have any of that. But I'm afraid thats what they'll see it as, and see it as condescending or disingenous.

I think we all secretly know the way to make poor people's gakky life less poor and gakky.

For anyone who hasn't twigged it, there's a clue in the term "poor".

 Ouze wrote:
I also agree that the voting rights should be restored.

There is no situation in which I think you should be disenfranchised forever.

Unless you kill a President, VP, or governor. Then, you lose the right to vote forever. Killing a Congressmen? Maybe time served +15 years without voting. Killing a Mayor? If the mayor is in a city of >250,000, then time served +10 years. <250,000, time served since that Mayor wasn't worth that much in the grand scheme of things. Killing any local officials below mayor would be time served.

Convicted of removing the tag from a mattress? Time served +10 years. That's as important as killing a mayor of a city >250,000 people.

What if it was a bad mayor?

 d-usa wrote:
What if it was a bad mayor?

What if he was soooo bad, that it was more immoral to not kill him?

 kronk wrote:

Convicted of removing the tag from a mattress? Time served +10 years.

Well, I always thought that was the dumbest law.

 d-usa wrote:
What if it was a bad mayor?

Irrelevant!

Only the size of the city is important.

Period.

 Breotan wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 whembly wrote:
*meh*

I can be persuaded each way.

But, I think once you served the punishment, your voting rights should be restored.

Agreed.

Except that there is a process which allows for this. After you've been out of prison for a certain amount of time, you can petition for your rights to be restored. There are some requirements such as no further infractions and stuff like that but in most cases, only repeat offenders and lifers lose their rights forever.

Actually, many of those petitions get rejected or outright ignored. Just because there is a mechanism in place to get the rights back does not mean that you will automatically get yours back if you fill out the proper forms.