Motives begind criminal actions

[Zierro]

You can go down the list and see for yourself, higher rates of incarceration don't correlate with lower crime rates.

 

You are comparing India and Nepal to America. The justice system isn't the only difference responsible for their crime rates. Isn't there more opportunity for crime in places like America? With all the drug trafficking, gangs, and other American stuff.

 

Imprisonment is an effective deterrent because there are a lot of people who would do crimes if they didn't have jail to fear. In other words, if there was no jail, more people would commit crimes. You really don't think people want to steal cars, get into fights, etc. but are held back because that consequence is there? I heard kids wanting to in school, but they never would because they weren't willing to go to jail over it. I'm not the one denying facts here.

 

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?

 

A revamp of the system would be nice. There are a lot of people who get put away for petty things, so I kind of like the program idea for petty crimes. But then again, there are just some people who just aren't worth the risk to the rest of society.

[magekillr]

Zierro, weren't you the one who said on a death penalty thread that you didn't care what the studies showed, you couldn't believe that the evidence wouldn't support your position that the dp is a deterrent? This is more or less why I've avoided this thread since. If you aren't going to accept the evidence, what's the point?

[OldJoe]

we are only the number 2 in the world when it comes to reported rapes per capita in the world.

 

One explanation for this which probably amps up our percentage by a bunch is because the definition of rape is much looser here in Sweden than in other countries. For example, it doesn't require forced penetration for it to be called rape. Additionally, some countries don't regard rape within marriage, date rape or even homosexual rape as "rape" at all, so they don't report it, which I'd imagine skews the statistics quite a bit.

Yes i know.

Obviously, people in i.e. Africa don't report it to the police in the amount of western countries. Of course i know that the real numbers would make Congo&co go to the top of the list.

But you cannot deny that we have an extreme amount of rapes in Sweden. I view rape as a worse crime than screwing the government out of a couple of millions in taxes. However, the economic criminals are sent to prison with longer sentences. I find it disgusting.

[Zierro]

Zierro, weren't you the one who said on a death penalty thread that you didn't care what the studies showed, you couldn't believe that the evidence wouldn't support your position that the dp is a deterrent? This is more or less why I've avoided this thread since. If you aren't going to accept the evidence, what's the point?

 

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's existence has never prevented a single crime (How could you even have statistics for crimes that have been prevented?). The word I'm looking for is non-sequitir I think.

[Bloodstain]

 

http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=220867

Use google translator swedish - english

 

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.

[Bloodstain]

Zierro, weren't you the one who said on a death penalty thread that you didn't care what the studies showed, you couldn't believe that the evidence wouldn't support your position that the dp is a deterrent? This is more or less why I've avoided this thread since. If you aren't going to accept the evidence, what's the point?

 

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

[Zierro]

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

 

I disagree. Saving human lives and virginities is more than enough justification.

 

Rocco, I'm pretty busy with other posts. Besides, what was there to say to that? I've already repeated myself long enough. My point is that jail scares some people out of doing crimes. The statistics you are showing me are irrelevant to that fact, let alone disprove it. I've witnessed people wanting to steal cars and whatnot if they didn't have to go to jail. But again, I'm not saying it deters everybody from committing crimes.

[Bloodstain]

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

 

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?

[Azvareth]

we are only the number 2 in the world when it comes to reported rapes per capita in the world.

 

One explanation for this which probably amps up our percentage by a bunch is because the definition of rape is much looser here in Sweden than in other countries. For example, it doesn't require forced penetration for it to be called rape. Additionally, some countries don't regard rape within marriage, date rape or even homosexual rape as "rape" at all, so they don't report it, which I'd imagine skews the statistics quite a bit.

Yes i know.

Obviously, people in i.e. Africa don't report it to the police in the amount of western countries. Of course i know that the real numbers would make Congo&co go to the top of the list.

But you cannot deny that we have an extreme amount of rapes in Sweden. I view rape as a worse crime than screwing the government out of a couple of millions in taxes. However, the economic criminals are sent to prison with longer sentences. I find it disgusting.

 

Of course, I do too. Our judicial system is far from perfect, but nobody claimed it was, so I don't see how it's relevant to what we're talking about; other than giving you a reason to segway into a court case where an immigrant did something bad so you can complain about our immigration politics and how our country is going down the gutter for the hundredth time. Especially when you bring up statistics that are uncertain at best (there's probably a good reason for why Sweden is left out in a lot of studies regarding rape).

 

 

I disagree. Saving human lives and virginities are is more than enough justification.

 

Over 600 of the 5100 inmates have been in there over 25 years. 85% of them (of the 5100 not the 600) are expected to die in there due to the extreme length of prison sentences in Louisiana. Many were wrongly convicted, but due to shoddy records and shady forensics, we will never know how many. Michael Williams was 16 years old when he was wrongly convicted of rape based on one eyewitness. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Shortly after his 40th birthday- after 24 years in Angola- he was freed based on DNA testing. He received no compensation, because compensating people for wrongful conviction or imprisonment is illegal in Louisiana.

 

Torture is rampant at Angola, last year they finally had a hearing on the abuse, and practices such as the freezing treatment were at last exposed in open court. The freezing treatment is stripping someone naked and spraying them with water and throwing them in an unheated cement room with open windows in the winter time. They got to hear about jaws being broken if you talked back, forcing inmates to urinate and defecate on themselves (and beating those who refused until they lost control of their bodily functions). For example "one of the guards was hitting us all in the head. Said he liked the sound of the drums the drumming sound that from hitting us in the head with the stick." Medical records supported almost every allegation. The state agreed to settle without admitting liability. Some of the inmates got $7,000 settlement payments, most got nothing.

 

This is what you're defending.

[Zierro]

So it's worth it to pay more money for a deterrent that hasn't been proven to work?

 

Yes, it's worth money to keep murderers and rapists away from the rest of society. Also, I have said that those recreational programs could be used for petty crimes. But criminals who are a threat shouldn't be pampering around, continuing to do more crime.

 

This is what you're defending.

 

Rape, murder, theft, etc. is what you're defending. :wink:

[Bloodstain]

So it's worth it to pay more money for a deterrent that hasn't been proven to work?

 

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%.

[Bloodstain]

 

This is what you're defending.

 

Rape, murder, theft, etc. is what you're defending.

 

Lol nice straw man

[Giordano]

So it's worth it to pay more money for a deterrent that hasn't been proven to work?

 

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.

[Alg]

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%.

Should we bring in the stats for rehabilitation too?

I doubt it's as simple as you say. In order to be a productive member of society, first you need the opportunities, many of which are locked to people with a criminal record, I'm sure. Furthermore, if someone is a criminal because there are no opportunities for honest work or they aren't as lucrative, what have you done? Chided them for their choices without doing a thing to change what caused them to make the choice to begin with. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty pissed at the system in that case. More than I was before, at any rate.

 

It may still take years and still cost huge amounts of money, and cutting corners, as people have been known to do, is extremely dangerous. It's also going to turn many people off the system. Why pour so much into what may be a gamble?

 

And where are they going to be while they're being rehabilitated? Their neighborhoods? How many people would want to raise families near a dangerous criminal? Forced away from society and heavily guarded? We're already doing that. Though I could see integrating that kind of program into the prison system.

 

I've only seen prison and the death penalty referred to as a deterrent by people who argue that they fail as a deterrent. Perhaps we should look at them for what they really are. They're a punishment. It's not going to stop someone from committing a crime if they want to or need to commit the crime. Not many things will. It's there so that people can feel safe in knowing that the known killers, rapists, and thieves are locked away far away from society, where they can't impact people's lives. Not sure there are numbers for the peace of mind that would give.

[Bloodstain]

So it's worth it to pay more money for a deterrent that hasn't been proven to work?

 

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

[Bloodstain]

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%.

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.

[Zierro]

 

This is what you're defending.

 

Rape, murder, theft, etc. is what you're defending.

 

Lol nice straw man

 

Lol that was the joke man. :shades:

 

they can safely be released into society.

 

And what about the many that haven't changed after therapy?

[Alg]

Post turned into an essay while you were responding :lol:

I used "rehabilitation" because I'm not sure of a more suitable word. Reading it to mean attempting to "cure" what makes a criminal a criminal so that they don't commit further crimes... Which after this post, does seem like rehab :lol: .

[Bloodstain]

 

 

And what about the many that haven't changed after therapy?

 

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.

[Giordano]

So it's worth it to pay more money for a deterrent that hasn't been proven to work?

 

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.

Yeah, why not drag all of society back to the dark ages? Why not adopt out of date practices on the grounds that it will save money?

 

Tell you what, we can adopt any system you like, as long as you spend 10 years in it first to simulate a wrongful conviction.

I don't know why I enter TIF debates, I must of been really bored. People just love to asssume, like to me, as if I wanted to trade our current courts and prosedures to that of the middle ages instead of the idea of a simplier prision system.

 

So yeah dude, keep assuming and right. You are da man.

[Bloodstain]

 

I don't know why I enter TIF debates, I must of been really bored. People just love to asssume, like to me, as if I wanted to trade our current courts and prosedures to that of the middle ages instead of the idea of a simplier prision system.

 

So yeah dude, keep assuming and right. You are da man.

 

Maybe you should be more clear in your posts then

[Myweponsg00d]

Basically, everyone does things that they think are in their own interest.

 

So, a shoplifter steals because he wants an item, and would rather risk getting caught than have to pay for the item. Many criminals do not really care about their lives in the same way that other people do. As far as gang members are concerned, many gangs actually strive to be put in jail. Its all about what you want.

 

For the "good people" you have a sense of morality. If you could mug somebody, and know you would make $1,000 dollars, and know that you wont get caught, would you mug the person? If the answer is yes, then you want the money more than you would dislike the feeling of guilt. If you answered no, that means you think that having an innocent concious is more valuable than having $1,000 dollars.

 

Its really just all about what you want. People are selfish. Even people who do volunteer work all the time are selfish because they are doing what gives them the most satisfaction.

[OldJoe]

http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=220867Use google translator swedish - english

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.

I don't think it's right to put a 16 year old in prison either, but he isn't transferred to prison when he becomes an adult (18). That is what annoys me about this particular case.

 

we are only the number 2 in the world when it comes to reported rapes per capita in the world.

One explanation for this which probably amps up our percentage by a bunch is because the definition of rape is much looser here in Sweden than in other countries. For example, it doesn't require forced penetration for it to be called rape. Additionally, some countries don't regard rape within marriage, date rape or even homosexual rape as "rape" at all, so they don't report it, which I'd imagine skews the statistics quite a bit.

Yes i know. Obviously, people in i.e. Africa don't report it to the police in the amount of western countries. Of course i know that the real numbers would make Congo&co go to the top of the list. But you cannot deny that we have an extreme amount of rapes in Sweden. I view rape as a worse crime than screwing the government out of a couple of millions in taxes. However, the economic criminals are sent to prison with longer sentences. I find it disgusting.

Of course, I do too. Our judicial system is far from perfect, but nobody claimed it was, so I don't see how it's relevant to what we're talking about; other than giving you a reason to segway into a court case where an immigrant did something bad so you can complain about our immigration politics and how our country is going down the gutter for the hundredth time. Especially when you bring up statistics that are uncertain at best (there's probably a good reason for why Sweden is left out in a lot of studies regarding rape).

I commented the sentences regarding rape.

[Dupin]

On the original topic, the traditional perception of prisons being full of "evil" people is inaccurate. From my experience, the so-called "criminals" I have met have been kids who grew up in an environment that disrespects the law and encourages fighting, drugs, and other dangerous and unlawful behaviors. These kids will go on to become true criminals because that is all they know how to be. As for serious criminals such as serial killers and rapists, they have mental conditions as a result of childhood problems or genetical disorders. But the majority of people in jail are men who were born on the wrong side of the law.

 

For the current discussion, I completely agree that the justice system in the USA is ineffective. More often than not, what you will see is petty criminals being turned into serious killers with a powerful dislike of rules and society in general.

[Alg]

"But the majority of people in jail are men who were born on the wrong side of the law."

 

From here I think that the best solution isn't to try to set them on the "right' side of the law as much as try to fix what caused them to end up on the wrong side to begin with. It looks like a choice between pouring resources into one inmate or pouring them into ensuring that the area produces fewer future inmates.

 

Shame it isn't that simple, though.