DescentBB

Interesting article...makes you think about how many laws you are breaking at this exact moment. I'm sure you could be breaking one...

Here's a fine example of how things work..
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/38768.html

Grendel wrote:Here's a fine example of how things work..
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/38768.html

Could you please get that in a place anyone can read without having to sign up.

Shadowfury333 wrote:

Grendel wrote:Here's a fine example of how things work..
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/38768.html

Could you please get that in a place anyone can read without having to sign up.

Just use http://www.bugmenot.com, no need to sign up.

Genghis wrote:

Shadowfury333 wrote:Just use http://www.bugmenot.com, no need to sign up.

Thanks.

As for the article, I'm not entirely surprised at the actions taken. When you consider that there has been quite a bit of violence with teenagers recently, it isn't particularily astonishing for the SS to investigate this one.

Shadowfury333 wrote:

Grendel wrote:Here's a fine example of how things work..
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/38768.html

Could you please get that in a place anyone can read without having to sign up.

Weird -- didn't ask me to sign up. Maybe bacause I'm not allowing any active scripting..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarcerat ... arceration

I'd like to contrast all the countrys' Rates of Incarceration with their Human Development Index (HDI) ratings. I wonder what conclusions could be drawn from the results of such a study.

resources for such a study:
[dyk]Per Country - Rates of incarceration
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/wo ... t-2005.pdf

Per Country - HDI rates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ment_Index[/dyk]

here we are, the top 30 scorers of the Human Development Index (ordered as such). With their incarceration rates included as comparison.



There's some things sticking out like sore thumbs

Prisons are highly profitable. It's in the government's best interests to lock up as many people as possible. Jail time=$$ and free labor.

Testiculese wrote:Prisons are highly profitable. It's in the government's best interests to lock up as many people as possible. Jail time=$$ and free labor.

I slightly disagree. It's in private interests best interests to lock up as many people as possible. Prisons may be built and run by private enterprise, but they are funded by government.

In otherwords, high incarceration rates are another way big business is fleecing the tax payer. While the government politicians - deep in the industry's pocket - dutifully blesses the whole deal.

So whether or not it's in the government's best interest, depends on your definition of government.
Government for big business? Or government for the people?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison-industrial_complex

Oh, I didn't know they were privately held. I do know that holding one person in jail nets the jail over $75,000 a year. I heard this figure a few years ago so I'm sure it's been upped since.

Testiculese wrote:Oh, I didn't know they were privately held. I do know that holding one person in jail nets the jail over $75,000 a year. I heard this figure a few years ago so I'm sure it's been upped since.

I have heard this as well. What I haven't gotten anyone to tell me is who pays the jail the 75k a year? If it's a gubment jail, does the gubment pay itself? Prisons as a money maker have never added up to me.

I thought it cost the tax payer $x per year to hold a prisoner. I doubt it is profitable to the government to hold them.
I don't know how much a private entity makes from running a prison but my gut tells me it will cost the government less to outsource the management of prisons to a civilian company rather than let a government agency manage them.

As to this:

The prison-industrial complex refers to interest groups that represent organizations that do business in correctional facilities, such as prison guard unions, construction companies, and surveillance technology vendors, who some people believe are more concerned with making more money than actually rehabilitating criminals or reducing crime rates.

I'd just say that prisons are not designed to rehabilitate! They are designed to hold criminals safely away from society as their primary function and as punishment as a secondary consideration. Any rehab is done as an experiment but it is a side venture in social engineering not a function of the prison system as a solution to crime.

Release the drug offenders and our numbers will fall in line with other similar nations on the scale. We have a strange situation in america because we are really very free to do a lot of things yet we have draconian-like drug laws so we end up with a lot of people in jail which skews the results on Roids chart. You can take his chart and make a alot of wrong assumptions about the quality of life in america where actually you should sub-divide america into drug users and non drug users to consider the odds of being incarcerated compared to the quality of life criteria etc.

I know drug users will read that as a distinction without a difference but take it from me a former drug user, I don't think I'm suffering nearly as much as Roids chart would lead you to believe and I'm quite confident that my home country is ranking much higher than many on his chart since I don't run the risk of being jailed for using illegal drugs. Being a non illegal drug user I live in a different america than the one tallied up in Roids chart...

I wish they would decriminalize drug use but I don't really care how some group can manipulate data to put me \"theoretically\" lower on some scale. Plug in some other criteria like forms of social freedoms and opportunity to increase ones wealth and see how we rank then!
Face it america rocks, our poor people live fat and wealthy compared to most other places. Many of our homeless are the kind of people that would be institutionalized in other countries so they count as a negative for us in those studies where as in a higher ranking country they are locked up and medicated and considered a positive but go ask them if they would rather be hanging out in California free to come and go from the shelters and soup kitchens and health clinics or locked up in the bowels of Paris and see how that factors in!

My first thought was similar to what Will just wrote: I'd love to see the stats broken out to account for drug use or sales, drug-related other crimes, and not-drug-related violence.

New Zealand features poorly in that report too - we imprison too many people.

As to compliants about seat belt laws? These boggle my mind. If you are killed in a car (at least in NZ, it's probably more in the USA) it costs the govrenment $200,000 just to clean up the mess, plus another 2 million in lost GDP. If you think wearing seatbelts is for life saving then you are correct - but the government enforces seatbelt laws to save money - not lives.

I have seen what happens to peeps who don't wear belts. Even at 15 mph - you die, you have your face sliced off as you rcoket into the windscreen. And, your knees have to be surgically extracted from the under-dash parts. That's if the steering wheel didn;t kill you, or the air-bag didn't break your neck because you weren't properly restrained.

Simply stated: if you don't wear a seatbelt, you deserve to be dead.

I fully support killing all laws about drug use though.

I'm down with killing laws about drug use... just as long as any crime while under the influence is heavily prosecuted. Want to get high? Knock yourself out. Want to rob a store while you're high? Extra jail time for you.

Lothar wrote:Want to get high? Knock yourself out. Want to rob a store while you're high? Extra jail time for you.

Yep. the ONLY way it could work is if we actually prosecuted and punished crimes commited under the influence.

Lothar wrote:Want to rob a store while you're high? Extra jail time for you.

Categorically - no one who is "high" is going to rob a store. That would harsh their mellow something bad, MAN!!

Let's be honest, someone high on pot is as far away from holding up a liquor store as it is possible to get, unless they are really fouled up on other drugs or mental afflictions at the same time.

People who are "trippin", "wiggin' on P" are a different story. However, a crime is a crime is a crime. It doesn't matter if you were drunk or sober - you did the crime - you do the time - it's simple.

Are you suggesting that if I get stoned and break the speed limit, I should be fined more severely than if I was stone cold sober? No - I think you'd agree, that the only charges bought against me should be one for speeding, and one for DUI.

If I kill someone with an axe while drunk, should I be imprisoned for longer than if I were sober and did the same thing? I think not. (In fact, I would tend towards locking up the sober person for longer!)

What the topic about is "victimless" crimes - and holding up a store is not victimless. (This is quite apart from the fact that most Americans seem to think they are victims of something. )

No, there shouldn't even BE victimless crimes on the books! If there are no victims how can a crime have taken place? Am I showing my libertarian roots here? Coz, I'm actually leaning right in my old age. Call me a libertarian republicrat!

--------------------------------------
How Many Escape Pods are there? "NONE, SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"

Mobius wrote:If I kill someone with an axe while drunk, should I be imprisoned for longer than if I were sober and did the same thing? I think not.

I could agree with this, EXCEPT:

Mobius wrote:(In fact, I would tend towards locking up the sober person for longer!)

The attitude of the law and juries has so often been that being under the influence is a mitigating excuse for crime. Especially alcohol. If you murder someone while drunk, well, you weren't really responsible were you? OR, if a guy runs over a little girl while driving drunk, the jury lets him off easy, thinking, "there, but for the grace of God, go I"

I have no problem with not adding extra legal penalties for committing a crime while you are under the effects of some drug. Murder is murder, speeding is speeding. BUT the fact that you were "tripping" or drunk, or high, or whatever must NEVER be an "excuse". Quite the contrary, murder someone while you are drunk and the case should be tried as pre-meditated murder. You made the choice when you chose to get drunk.

Mobius wrote:...Are you suggesting that if I get stoned and break the speed limit, I should be fined more severely than if I was stone cold sober? No - I think you'd agree, that the only charges bought against me should be one for speeding, and one for DUI.....

The DUI charge is being fined more severely for being under the influence. If you were sitting on a bar stool or your couch you wouldn't be charged for sitting under the influence.
But break the speeding laws while being high and you get punished for the drug use as well as the speeding charge.

So Lothars position that one who breaks the law while under the influence deserves extra punishment for the drug use isn't really something new.

It addresses the inherent problems that arise from drug use. Getting high is to purposely impaire your own judgement. Do that and then causing harm or loss to others is a more serious offense.
If you get high and start a fight you should suffer for starting the violent assault and also be punished for being high because the two acts can not be seperated, just like they aren't seperated for someone voluntarily impairing their own judgement and getting behind the wheel and causing a crash.

The premise is that responsible drug use is tolerated but if you screw up you pay the price for what you did and how you did it. Consider it an irresponsibility tax.

Will Robinson wrote:As to this:

The prison-industrial complex refers to interest groups that represent organizations that do business in correctional facilities, such as prison guard unions, construction companies, and surveillance technology vendors, who some people believe are more concerned with making more money than actually rehabilitating criminals or reducing crime rates.

I'd just say that prisons are not designed to rehabilitate! They are designed to hold criminals safely away from society as their primary function and as punishment as a secondary consideration. Any rehab is done as an experiment but it is a side venture in social engineering not a function of the prison system as a solution to crime.

Release the drug offenders and our numbers will fall in line with other similar nations on the scale. We have a strange situation in america because we are really very free to do a lot of things yet we have draconian-like drug laws so we end up with a lot of people in jail which skews the results on Roids chart. You can take his chart and make a alot of wrong assumptions about the quality of life in america where actually you should sub-divide america into drug users and non drug users to consider the odds of being incarcerated compared to the quality of life criteria etc.

I know drug users will read that as a distinction without a difference but take it from me a former drug user, I don't think I'm suffering nearly as much as Roids chart would lead you to believe and I'm quite confident that my home country is ranking much higher than many on his chart since I don't run the risk of being jailed for using illegal drugs. Being a non illegal drug user I live in a different america than the one tallied up in Roids chart...

I wish they would decriminalize drug use but I don't really care how some group can manipulate data to put me "theoretically" lower on some scale. Plug in some other criteria like forms of social freedoms and opportunity to increase ones wealth and see how we rank then!
Face it america rocks, our poor people live fat and wealthy compared to most other places. Many of our homeless are the kind of people that would be institutionalized in other countries so they count as a negative for us in those studies where as in a higher ranking country they are locked up and medicated and considered a positive but go ask them if they would rather be hanging out in California free to come and go from the shelters and soup kitchens and health clinics or locked up in the bowels of Paris and see how that factors in!

i see your point about 2 americas.
But drug laws - just like drug abuse - effect more than just drug users themselves. In fact most "drug problems" are caused by the laws themselves, they are "drug LAW problems".

The positive implications for repealing drug laws are theorised to reach far and wide. Huge amount of cash freed up by releasing non-violent drug offenders. Cash from taxation of drugs. Lowering of alcohol use as people choose other safer (and non violence encouraging) recreational drugs instead. Doctors allowed to prescribe highly effective drugs that were previously illegal. Also research (currently banned) into the uses for these drugs will provide a positive feedback effect for the previous point. And i havn't even said how the current drug problems would be solved - more reality based drug education, drug affordability, purity and dosage information - means no more theft related to drugs, fewer overdoses, fewer addicts (and better treatment for them). I can go on and on.

As for your comments on how you think America should be greater than it actually is on the HDI scale - we had that conversation last year viewtopic.php?t=7827
USA's GDP-per-capita-USD isn't high enough to offset it's low education-index and life-expenctancy.

Lothar wrote:My first thought was similar to what Will just wrote: I'd love to see the stats broken out to account for drug use or sales, drug-related other crimes, and not-drug-related violence.

The study i used on incarceration rates per country actually did have something to say about drug related incarcerations and how some countrys do not count them the same - Singapore for instance locks it's drug offenders into treatment and they are not counted towards the incarceration tally. Also the study mentions asylums and how some countrys use them as makeshift prisons (we're all familure with them historicaly being used as political prisons).
However, remember my graph only shows the top 30 HDI nations (outof hundreds). I assume that the higher the HDI the less corruption there is, therefore the less prone they would be to hide political prisoners in asylums.

I too would be very interested in adding asylum-incarceration rates and various drug use/abuse/treatment stats to the mix. It'd be some work.

Kilarin wrote:The attitude of the law and juries has so often been that being under the influence is a mitigating excuse for crime. Especially alcohol. If you murder someone while drunk, well, you weren't really responsible were you? OR, if a guy runs over a little girl while driving drunk, the jury lets him off easy, thinking, "there, but for the grace of God, go I"

I have no problem with not adding extra legal penalties for committing a crime while you are under the effects of some drug. Murder is murder, speeding is speeding. BUT the fact that you were "tripping" or drunk, or high, or whatever must NEVER be an "excuse". Quite the contrary, murder someone while you are drunk and the case should be tried as pre-meditated murder. You made the choice when you chose to get drunk.

Yeah, responsibility is kinda screwed around when intoxication is involved. You can say that you arn't as responsible for the speeding, but you are responsible for your taking the drug in the first place - either way you're responsible for something, and the end result was speeding.

Your punishment/rehabilitation would concentrate on either your lack of driving, or your lack of self-control while under the influence. Either way something should be done.

I think it's come out in this thread that people think of prisons in different ways. Prisons can be ways to inflict moral PUNISHMENT on people; And/or prisons can be ways to reduce the amount of harm done by people to people in a society.

the former - MORAL PUNISHMENT - well.. i don't like this. It assumes a lot of "morals" that i guarentee everyone will NOT agree with. I've seen enough to know that morals almost always come from religion. To simplify: it's law based on religion and emotion (revenge). It is a system designed to make people suffer.

the latter - HARM REDUCTION - Where the prison's primary goal is to first remove the dangerous people from a society, to stop them from harming more people. Then the secondary goal is to "fix" these people so that if and when they are released back into society they will not re-offend (harm more people).

In an enlightened and free society is there any proper reason to lock people away, other than "they are a danger to others"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless ... losophy%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_order_crime

roid wrote:As for your comments on how you think America should be greater than it actually is on the HDI scale - we had that conversation last year viewtopic.php?t=7827
USA's GDP-per-capita-USD isn't high enough to offset it's low education-index and life-expenctancy....

Not really relevant to what I was saying. I said I don't really care how we rank on that scale. I said there are other criteria that are more important to me than the criteria used to establish those rankings.

So I accept that scales findings I just don't see them as important as you do. For example, if there is a large disparity in emigration from higher ranking countries to the lower ranking america, and there is, then I'd say the people of those places agree with my assesment that there are other things more important than the criteria used to formulate your studies results.
It's not that I don't think we need major improvement but I don't think america has nearly as bad of quality of life as you imply by using that study.

People generally seek improvemenrts in their life, they seek what is important to them and they seek, by and large, to move to america. That is a study that holds some weight with me. If they choose to live a little shorter span but enjoy it much more than electing to live beyond 100 in some mediocre location then you should ask yourself why.

The HDI thread from last year that i linked to is quite relevant because everything you just asked - you already asked last year and it was answered in the thread.

It mentions the falsity of \"America - Land of the free\" which this thread we're in now has capitalised on.
Very relevant.

Roid wrote:no more theft related to drugs, fewer overdoses, fewer addicts

Well, yes and no. I'd agree we would probably have LESS theft, but not none. I think the best we can expect is that the crime related to drugs will fall to the same level as the crime related to alcohol. Which is still very high.

Roid wrote:In an enlightened and free society is there any proper reason to lock people away, other than "they are a danger to others"?

Yes and no. I agree that prisons should be used primarily to protect society from dangerous people. BUT, we must be careful that we don't remove the concept of "Justice" from the system.

I think C. S. Lewis' essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" has some very interesting points on the subject. It's not very long and well worth the read.

roid wrote:The HDI thread from last year that i linked to is quite relevant because everything you just asked - you already asked last year and it was answered in the thread.

It mentions the falsity of "America - Land of the free" which this thread we're in now has capitalised on.
Very relevant.

Roid, your response directed at me was very clearly aimed at my take on the HDI study. Look, in your own words:

As for your comments on how you think America should be greater than it actually is on the HDI scale"

And I think it's not being too bold to consider myself the supreme authority on what I think.

So I stand by my previous comments. I think these studies are not conclusive on judging the quality of life in america or any other country. They are conclusive in ranking countries according to the criteria used in the study but it is up to the reader to understand the limitations of statistical analysis and decide how much weight they might assign the study when determining their own assesment of the quality of life somewhere.
You may not like that I see things that way, you may prefer I simply say "Oh, this study says were hurting bigtime so we must be...", but I do think for myself and believe I have given you reasonable examples of other criteria for judging the quality of life here that your study didn't include and I believe I have good reason to find the study lacking for the exclusion of such factors!

Perhaps I shouldn't take the study itself to task since I don't know the motives behind it or how it would be represented by the authors but the conclusions you draw from the study are suspect to me for the reasons I gave.

With crimes-while-on-drugs laws, the penalty has to be a bit harsher for something done on drugs than a normal crime*. Not because punishment is the goal of the law, but because punishment itself is a deterrent -- if you know your buddy got 5 years for doing something stupid while under the influence, you're going to be much more likely to stop before you get that blasted. That's the goal of crimes-while-on-drugs laws -- to discourage irresponsible use, or to encourage people to put safety measures in place before they start (ex: giving your keys to a designated driver, locking away most of the stash, etc.)


* but, of course, make sure you're comparing apples to apples. I would say a murder while drunk is worse than a murder while sober, provided both were just out of anger, spur of the moment type things. If the sober-murder (or the drunk-murder for that matter) was premeditated, that makes it far worse.

Lothar wrote:I would say a murder while drunk is worse than a murder while sober, provided both were just out of anger, spur of the moment type things.

Those aren't necessarily apples and apples in current law. That could be man slaughter (unplanned or accidental taking of a life)or technical murder. Anywhere from detailed plotting (murder 1) all the way to "in the moment" killing. i.e. crime of passion etc. There is also self defence. Mosaic Law even makes these distinctions.


(I'm posting from work..against my better judgement)

Right, Duper, which is why I specified that you SHOULD compare apples to apples. If the law already distinguishes between two types, adding drunkenness to the lesser crime doesn't make it worse than the greater crime. Drunken manslaughter should be legally worse than not-drunken manslaughter, but not worse than sober murder 1.

aaAAAaah. Very true. See, I knew I should have waited till I got home. I get into too much of a hurry here.

Sigh. I've wanted to get a farm for a long while, thought it would be a treat being able to grow my own food and sell to others what they want. Quiet, simple, peaceful life. Nope.

Thats just sad.

Skyalmian wrote:..which part? Busting on me for something I want or "sad" because I can't?

Ha! Sorry, I'll be more verbose.

I think it's sad that we've reached the point where our society is so regulated. I think its terrible that I need a permit to add a room on to my own house. I think its incredible that the police shut down kids running lemon aid stands. I think its unbelievable that I have to get permission from a doctor before I can take many medications. And I think the most absolutely sick thing about all of this is that people willingly put up with it and actually have grown to no only tolerate this interference in our lives, but to expect it and even invite it.

Lothar wrote:With crimes-while-on-drugs laws, the penalty has to be a bit harsher for something done on drugs than a normal crime*. Not because punishment is the goal of the law, but because punishment itself is a deterrent -- if you know your buddy got 5 years for doing something stupid while under the influence, you're going to be much more likely to stop before you get that blasted.

Hmm, so then we should have lighter than normal sentences for people who get high, because getting high deters crime more than being sober!

Skyalmian wrote:Sigh. I've wanted to get a farm for a long while, thought it would be a treat being able to grow my own food and sell to others what they want. Quiet, simple, peaceful life. Nope.

Everything I Want to Do is Illegal (PDF, 4 Pages)

thesedays i chalk up my hatred of paperwork to a personal flaw. i mean, everyone else does it don't they?

i'm thinking of a computer assistant that handles all paperwork for you. Beurocrats are essentially computer wannabes anyway - so let them deal with computers, and leave me outof it.

ps: are you sure you wouldn't rather discuss this Everything I Want to Do is Illegal PDF in a new thread?

Jeff250 wrote:getting high deters crime more than being sober!

If by "getting high" you're specifically referring to marijuana and similar relaxants, I'd say getting high most certainly deters *aggression*. But it also generally causes impaired judgement. I'm not aware of any decent evidence showing getting high deters crime, and based on my experience growing up, I saw a fair correllation between being high and committing crimes (other than the obvious "using drugs".) Granted, correllation is not causation, but it's not completely ignorable either.

I suppose I'd put it this way: being impaired by a relaxant might make you less likely to commit crimes of aggression (or it might not; impaired judgement can make people do wacky things even when they're pretty laid back.) But it makes you much more likely to commit crimes of negligence. Being impaired by stimulants makes you much more likely to commit both types of crime. I think it's important for the law to encourage responsibility in both directions.

Kilarin wrote:I think it's sad that we've reached the point where our society is so regulated.

Agreed.

Kilarin wrote:I think its terrible that I need a permit to add a room on to my own house.

There's too many people in this/these country/ies.

Kilarin wrote:I think its incredible that the police shut down kids running lemon aid stands.

...I'm afraid to ask about this.

Kilarin wrote:I think its unbelievable that I have to get permission from a doctor before I can take many medications.

Well you shouldn't be taking medications without knowing which to take first.

Kilarin wrote:And I think the most absolutely sick thing about all of this is that people willingly put up with it and actually have grown to no only tolerate this interference in our lives, but to expect it and even invite it.

You really have three proper choices for this:
1: Quit complaining. This is what happens when you have loads of people working in a society.
2: Move to a more isolated country.
3: HAIL HITLER! And other such people that are known for removing many people from country's population.

Lothar wrote:I think it's important for the law to encourage responsibility in both directions.

Why draw the line at drugs? Why not give someone a greater ticket for reckless driving because they were extremely sleep deprived from staying up and watching movies all night? Why not lock up a guy a few additional years for battery because he had anger management problems and failed to go to anger management class? Shouldn't the law also encourage good sleeping habits and anger management to deter these crimes?

Especially when you look at the larger crimes like murder, it seems like the person is almost always going to have some sort of outstanding festering problem of this sort. Joe murdered Bob because Joe is an alcoholic or because Joe is a rage-a-holic, or whatever. This is true simply because most normal people just don't do things like murder. It seems like what you'll end up doing is giving every murderer a greater sentence for having some outstanding problem, because most of them do.

The reason I drew the line at drugs is that we're talking about drugs. Nobody asked about other things so I didn't comment. If drugs are going to be legal, there needs to be a penalty for engaging in certain activities while impaired. And, yes, I'd agree that \"sleep deprived\", \"just had sex\", and many other conditions qualify you as impaired as well; if you're in one of those states you shouldn't be driving or whatever.

Think of it like an added penalty for negligence. (And, yes, \"failure to deal with anger management issues\" is also a form of negligence.)

It seems like what you'll end up doing is giving every murderer a greater sentence for having some outstanding problem, because most of them do.

I never suggested restricting this to cases of murder. In one particular implementation, it might make every murder carry a greater sentence (though even in the expanded \"negligence\" definition I don't envision it as applying to every murder) -- but the point is, it makes a LOT of crimes carry a greater sentence in certain circumstances, while decriminalizing responsible use of certain substances. It moves the criminality from \"you smoked some dope\" to \"you did something extra stupid while on dope\" (but can and quite sensibly should include \"you did something extra stupid while sleep-deprived\" or \"you did something extra stupid because you didn't deal with your anger issues\".)