Bloodstain

Okay, you've made yourself clear that retributive system has helped people, but seriously, at the cost of getting rid of prisons? It just isn't worth the risk. Why can't we have both systems? Offenders are jailed and kept away from the rest of society, but they can still make amends to their victims? This would be something I'd support as a way to find out how successful restorative justice would be on a large scale and with a bigger sample. If it proves to be effective as it's thought to be, then additional things can be change. With that I'm going to say this is as far as this is going to get without starting to get stupid and redundant

Yes, you can't change that she was raped. Harm doesn't necessarily refer to the PHYSICAL harm of the offense. This explains it better than I ever can: http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/justice/ Again, we were presented an article in one of my courses about two women who were violently raped by the same man on different occasions. While woman A was raped, she looked over at her clock and saw the time was 4:18, and ever since at 4:18 she wakes up in a frenzy. Woman B accidentally knocked over her clock radio during the rape and music started playing, ever since she CANNOT listen to music. They both agreed to contact with the offender, Woman B actually met him and Woman A would only do it over recorded videos. After getting to talk with the offender (who was willing to meet the women and took accountability for what he did), and getting to ask questions like "Why me?", woman a was able to sleep perfectly fine from then on. On the way home from the meeting, Woman B was able to turn on the car radio and enjoy music again. I got some details wrong I'm sure, and I don't remember the names, but that's the gist of it. Compare that with the retributive system where after the reporting of the crime, and possibly a victim impact statement, the victim is left high and dry. I never mentioned serial killers, and "cured" is a bad word to use. There are instances RJ doesn't work, and one that I know of that it is NEVER tried with is domestic abuse, because of the power imbalances involved. I'm complaining about spending money on something that isn't proven to be an effective deterrent. Restorative focuses on both the victim and offender to help them move on and to make efforts towards not letting it happen again that doesn't involve writing people off. It also focuses on PROACTIVE methods which would be much more effective than jail. I like how you keep using rapists instead of offenders though. Many murders are committed in the heat of the moment, much more than planned and deliberate ones. Even people who meant to kill people can benefit from this approach, and so can their co-victims. Typically this IS how they go as far as I've seen, it doesn't always end in charities and speech tours, but it is mostly beneficial to the victim and offender (MUCH more so than prison ever can). I feel that you're looking for some huge study stats or something, which unfortunately don't exist because people are unwilling to try new things. Especially on a large scale, although I'd love for one. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4183/is_20020606/ai_n10050905/ Doesn't seem likely, you go back to what you know. Even if we assumed what you said is true, they're still committing offenses, so they're not really being deterred. Just open your mind for a bit, ignore all those "I HATE CRIMINALS, KILL ALL VIOLENT OFFENDERS" emotions and thoughts, and read up on restorative justice. It has roots in Aboriginal culture, which is quite an interesting one, and I must say from what I've read, they dealt with things a lot better than we do e: I hate the part of arguments/discussions when we start multi quoting in the same post

No you aren't, the retributive system IS a retroactive system. I'll respond to the other stuff later today, I'm going out for a while. It's restorative, not recreational by the way

They wouldn't be released? How would you know if they were "cured" or not until they've proven it? It's not exactly that hard to pretend or even legitimately think that you're fine, then get released back into society and your old habits still surface. Which has happened before. I don't see why criminals who take innocent humans' lives deserve another shot at civilization - another chance to strike. I think if we have the chance to prevent more deaths and rapes, we should take it. And it goes beyond the whole forgiveness thing - we're simply talking about disabling murders from happening. I guess it just comes down to me having a lot of empathy towards innocent people and potential victims, but you have a lot for the serial killers, the people who crossed the line and shown no empathy towards people who have done nothing wrong to them. The right to live in peace VS the right to walk amongst society at the risk of re-offending. I think the innocent have earned their right more. You're just building criminals up as these evil part of the population who don't want a better life and like being criminals. If you have so much empathy for victims, how come you advocate a system where the victim has zero involvement over a system where the primary focus is repairing the harm done and acknowledging that the victim needs to be a big part of the process? Hell, the current system basically just says "naughty offender, you did a bad thing now we punish you", versus a restorative approach that makes the offender actually be accountable for their actions. You're also taking the extreme example of an offender by saying serial killer, which are rare and obviously wouldn't be eligible for restorative approaches. Example: I was shown a short documentary about an alcoholic who finally hit and killed someone while driving home drunk. He was put in prison for a while, and was approached with an offer to take a more restorative approach and meet the family of the person he killed (and he would receive no benefit, like a lessened sentence). He agreed, and in the end the family ended up forgiving him, although he still hated himself for killing the woman and said the only person who hasn't forgiven him yet is himself. The alcoholic and the son of the woman killed ended up making some sort of charity and giving speeches about the dangers of drunk driving and blah blah blah. Now, do you think prison would have had NEAR this effect on anyone involved? The family got to meet with the person and get everything off their chest, and ended up being able to move on. The offender got forgiveness from the family (even though he didn't think he deserved it) and can start moving on as well. Compare that to him sitting in prison for a while and then getting out, probably drinking even more, and the family being bitter, depressed, and full of hate. Restorative justice is about acknowledging that crime = harm to a person, community, etc. and repairing that harm done and trying to prevent it from happening again (or in the first place). Retributive justice is about crime = infraction of the law, and putting people in a cell for a while and hoping that they come to some sort of epiphany. e: It's hard to explain how the restorative process works, because there isn't one definitive route. I'll just leave it at it isn't just saying you're sorry and going on your way, it's much more involved and complicated than that When I took my first restorative justice course, I thought it sounded like a bunch of hippy crap, but the more you learn about it the greater it seems.

Maybe you should be more clear in your posts then

For my claymation I preferred http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaQ27Hu8ix0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA71f3IiFqE I hum the Wallace and Gromit tune so mucb

It's not therapy either, but they wouldn't be released. One of the ideas put forth by RJ scholars is to have a system that allows the offender to choose whether they'd like to take the traditional courts and prison and all that route, or a RJ route. I realize that I keep talking about restorative justice without really explaining it, but I feel there's too much to explain.

Should we bring in the stats for rehabilitation too? Go ahead, I'm not arguing for rehab, I'm arguing for a more restorative oriented and proactive justice system. Rehab, in my opinion, is so unsuccessful because when you're in rehab you may find it easy to quit, but once you're back out on your own without all the support and all the cues, good luck.

Yes, it's worth money to keep murderers and rapists away from the rest of society. Also, I have said that those programs could be used for petty crimes. But criminals who are a threat shouldn't be pampering around, continuing to do more crime. No, they should be taught how to be a productive member of society, Stopped reading right there. I don't know about you, but I most certainly won't trust them back into society if they committed a heavy crime. You're talking about the money spent in prisons. I'm thinking about the money spent on the medieval jails where they didn't have roomy cells, TV, "free time", and such. Not going to bother responding to this

Rape, murder, theft, etc. is what you're defending. Lol nice straw man

Yes, it's worth money to keep murderers and rapists away from the rest of society. Also, I have said that those programs could be used for petty crimes. But criminals who are a threat shouldn't be pampering around, continuing to do more crime. No, they should be taught how to be a productive member of society, so that instead of keeping them locked up and spending billions of our money at the same time, they can safely be released into society. I'd also like to point out that prison isn't even an effective deterrent for people who have been there - USA's one year recidivism is 44%, while the 3 year is 67%.

I disagree. Saving human lives and virginities are is more than enough justification. So you agree that using something that isn't as effective as commonly believed, at an extremely high price, is better than trying promising methods that could have huge positive impacts?

That's because you slap the label of "evidence" on a floppy hypothesis, like you do with all your sexist debates. Sorry for not accepting some kind of pseudo-science. Do you also think there aren't people out there who would do crimes if there was no jail to stop them? I really don't get why you people think a bunch of statistics prove that jail has never prevented a single crime. The word I'm looking for is non-sequitir I think. It isn't effective enough to justify spending what, $46 billion was it (?), on it every year. And there are other methods that have proven thus far to be much more likely to achieve what a retributive system cannot

Being a 16 year old, I don't think prison would have been the proper place to put him. At such a young age, he is hopefully at a point where they can help him and prevent him from being some sort of career criminal. I don't think a 3 year sentence is going to achieve that however, but a restorative course of action could have a real chance of success I think.

Why would you send a murderer to rehab? Rehab is for drug addicts Because that's a prime example of how bad the penal system is in my country. I find that hard to believe, got a link? If it's true, that is bad, and is not at all what I am talking about

The penile system is not the only factor that dictates the crime flow. Like I said before, cultures are different so it's not wise to judge them all the same. America is a more wily culture than most others, so I'm really not surprised that our jails are full. And maybe American cops and judges are more corrupt over here too? Unless you can compare the crime rate of an America with jail and an America without it, you don't have much to work with statistic-wise. By the way, a barely effective deterrent is a lot better than no deterrent, especially when we're dealing with innocent lives and virginities. So wouldn't you say it would be a better strategy to take some of that $49 billion America is spending on prisons and instead use it for PROACTIVE strategies, like focusing on inner city neighborhoods and crime hotspots? Instead of being retroactively warehousing criminals, releasing them, arresting them, releasing them, and so on? Or developing programs and methods of dealing with criminals to reduce their likelihood of re-offending?

I'm going to drop some links for people about Restorative Justice, because I think I'm not explaining it clearly. http://www.restorativejustice.org/whatisslide/keyprinciples http://www.restorativejustice.org/university-classroom/01introduction One of the important things to remember about RJ is that it is about involving the victim and offender to repair the harm done by the offender.

Go to a prison, ask the convicts why they committed the crime when they knew about jail. They'll tell you that they didn't think they'd get caught. It's as simple as that, and it's widely accepted in the criminal justice field. I'm going to stop replying to this thread because it'll just turn out like the last one. Suffice it to say no one is changing their minds on the topic I never argued about them thinking they wouldn't get caught. My argument was that there are people who have never committed a crime because they were afraid of the jail punishment, which proves that jail is a deterrent for crime. The fact that some people don't think they will get caught and end up doing the crime regardless of the punishment only shows that jail is not a deterrent for EVERYBODY. So then with such high incarceration rates in USA (and whatever other countries), can you really say that it is an EFFECTIVE deterrent?

Why would you send a murderer to rehab? Rehab is for drug addicts

Go to a prison, ask the convicts why they committed the crime when they knew about jail. They'll tell you that they didn't think they'd get caught. It's as simple as that, and it's widely accepted in the criminal justice field. I'm going to stop replying to this thread because it'll just turn out like the last one. Suffice it to say no one is changing their minds on the topic

Criminals don't think they're going to get caught, that is why the consequence of jail is ineffective. Most criminals think they committed the perfect crime. Punishment wouldn't achieve anything. If you want to increase the chance a criminal won't commit a crime again, do something useful with them. It wouldn't be rehab or education either, for example, johnny smashes carol's car and steals her radio. Carol now can't get to her job, or drop her child off at daycare (she is a single mother), and can't afford to get the car fixed. Johnny and Carol (and some of their friends and family) agree to attend a Family group conference, where everyone can speak to each other. Johnny's friend's explain that XYZ is why he stole the radio and smashed her car. Carol and her group get to explain the impact Johnny's actions had on them directly to his face. In the end, maybe they agree that Johnny will pay for the repairs and do whatever else they agree to. That's a rough rough example of a process of restorative justice. e: As a side note, if I were Johnny I think I'd rather spend a month in jail than have to meet with the family/people I victimized.

If you're back HURTS, that's not good. If it starts to hurt that much again, I'd lay off the back exercises for a while, speaking of which, what exercises exactly are you doing?

Look at how wrong you are. Statistics has shown time and time again that the whole "arrhhh revenge and retribution" philosophy for criminals simply does not work as a deterrent, at all. In fact, and as an example, in the U.S (a country that eats the whole "an eye for an eye" [cabbage] up) over 2/3 of the criminals end up getting re-arrested within 3 years of release, and half get charged with a new crime. In contrast, Norway, which has one of the (if not the) highest prison standard in the world, where they truly focus on prison education and rehabilitating their criminals, hardly anybody gets re-arrested (I'm too tired to look up actual statistics right now, but it's unbelievably low). That's not the only problem with the U.S. prison system though, where both racism, torture and prison rape is pretty much guaranteed. It's one of the things about the country that makes me sick to my stomach. Agreed 100%. I'd like to see a bigger interest in Restorative Justice too, everything I've read and learned about it show it as far superior for a lot of crimes. Sorry, that's just straight up wrong. Motives vary from person to person and crime to crime. Could be money, power, necessity, upbringing, psychological/mental (psychopaths) etc. There is no one definitive motive Nothin like convict college for learning the tools of the trade better. Or a criminal record that prevents you from finding a good job

Also some might find this article interesting. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/fat_loss_training_wars.htm

Good catch Das, I was never much for GI JOE or Transformers, but <3 x-men and the old batman (and the live action batman with adam west, used to rerun). Everyone else who watched Johnny Quest, please, please, please, PLEASE tell me you watch Venture Brothers