Prison Bans Books and Disco Pickle Learns a Lesson

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

what we have now, while flawed, still has checks and balances that help to prevent this sort of thing and is also fluid and able to be changed over time when mistakes are identified.

you're still operating under the false premise that the system, as it currenty exists, is something other than EXACTLY what it was intended to be. Those "checks and balances" are a lie, and nobody who has any degree of control over how the system is shaped has any interest in making changes that you or I would regard as improvements. In fact, they have a heavily vested interest in NOT making any of those sorts of changes.

Exactly, its like saying that Windows 95 works. 

[Thurnez Isa]

I saw an article a few months ago that said they were actually closing prisons in the Netherlands because they didn't have enough inmates. That would never happen here, we just build more and find ways of overcrowding them.
When you subtract the wrongfully convicted people, the people convicted of consensual so-called "crimes", the driving-while-black and similar, how many are left? You probably COULD let them out and the resulting crime wouldn't be a fraction of the horrorshow created by the court system.

Stay scared America
Stay scared

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder.

The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s.

Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI.
{snip}
Experts say that homicides are tougher to solve now because crimes of passion, where assailants are easier to identify, have been replaced by drug- and gang-related killings. Many police chiefs -- especially in areas with rising numbers of unsolved crimes -- blame a lack of witness cooperation.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/24/unsolved-homicides/

God, this is swiftly approaching mental abuse.

It's okay. If they can't figure out who did it, they can always just grab a black guy.

[Adios]

Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder.

The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s.

Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI.
{snip}
Experts say that homicides are tougher to solve now because crimes of passion, where assailants are easier to identify, have been replaced by drug- and gang-related killings. Many police chiefs -- especially in areas with rising numbers of unsolved crimes -- blame a lack of witness cooperation.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/24/unsolved-homicides/

God, this is swiftly approaching mental abuse.

It's okay. If they can't figure out who did it, they can always just grab a black guy.

Only if he chooses to be grabbed.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder.

The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s.

Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI.
{snip}
Experts say that homicides are tougher to solve now because crimes of passion, where assailants are easier to identify, have been replaced by drug- and gang-related killings. Many police chiefs -- especially in areas with rising numbers of unsolved crimes -- blame a lack of witness cooperation.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/24/unsolved-homicides/

God, this is swiftly approaching mental abuse.

It's okay. If they can't figure out who did it, they can always just grab a black guy.

Only if he chooses to be grabbed.

[*GrumpButt*]

Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder.

The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s.

Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI.
{snip}
Experts say that homicides are tougher to solve now because crimes of passion, where assailants are easier to identify, have been replaced by drug- and gang-related killings. Many police chiefs -- especially in areas with rising numbers of unsolved crimes -- blame a lack of witness cooperation.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/24/unsolved-homicides/

God, this is swiftly approaching mental abuse.

It's okay. If they can't figure out who did it, they can always just grab a black guy.

Only if he chooses to be grabbed.

[East Coast Hustle]

He probably should have chose to be born white and avoided all that unpleasantness in the first place.

I would expect most white Americans to not truly understand the impact that pervasive institutional racism can have on a person's life, but I expected better from someone who has actually spent time living in a place where they were the racial minority.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

, Charley.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I often forget that you don't actually want to help, or at the least your idea of helping would likely be to just let everyone out and start over from the beginning.  

wat

How does it feel to have words stuffed in your mouth?

Even if the true error rate of America's criminal justice system is only ten percent, this translates to 200,000 innocent people presently behind bars in the United States. It means that there are more innocent prisoners in America than there are prisoners of all kinds in France, Germany and Britain combined.

Meanwhile, rates of violent crime have been plummeting for over 20 years, but the incarceration rate has skyrocketed.

But the disco pickle is around the bend, now. He's not even responding to the people here, he's just frothing at the mouth and ranting.

while violent crime has been decreasing since the 90's, due to the War on Drugs and the laws that came with it in the 80's, yes, we're incarcerating a shit ton of people for drug offenses.  This was discussed earlier in the thread.

Ah, so the people who SHOULDN'T be in prison don't count, and it's all good.

That seems to be the crux of his argument, yes.

[Luna]

I often forget that you don't actually want to help, or at the least your idea of helping would likely be to just let everyone out and start over from the beginning.  

wat

How does it feel to have words stuffed in your mouth?

Even if the true error rate of America's criminal justice system is only ten percent, this translates to 200,000 innocent people presently behind bars in the United States. It means that there are more innocent prisoners in America than there are prisoners of all kinds in France, Germany and Britain combined.

That's not accurate at all.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri-crime-total-crimes

WTF?  That shows crimes committed, not people in prison.

Damn those pesky facts all to hell!

sorry, this was the proper link.

[EDIT FOR LINK]http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/world-prison-pop-seventh.pdf

[EDIT]and where did you get a percentage on people falsely imprisoned in the US?

dicks. that was a bit rude.  you're not ALL dicks.

You DO realize that your link is to the exact same source I just posted... with older data.

[Triple Zero]

If our system was "OK" I could see Pickle's argument... but its demonstratively not even 'OK'.  Claiming "its not perfect, but it works" seems like a head in the sand response.

I'm not even sure what his argument is, anymore.

The basic idea seems to be that people choose to commit a crime. But this is not always correlated very well with whether they end up in prison. So people don't choose to be in prison. That's a bit of a (strange) distinction having caused much confusion up to now ITT. Right so far Pickle? Because then I don't see how this related to whether it is okay to treat the prison population as slave labour.

As far as I'm aware, the Dutch system isn't only focused on punishing the people in prison, but also on trying to make sure that when they get out, they won't commit crimes again. This is incredibly hard, and -- No I could say that, but reading the Dutch Wikipedia on Prison, matters are very much more complicated than that and depend a lot on the kind of crime and duration of inprisonment. The goals are (in order of appearance) firstly to keep society safe from dangerous individuals, then as a punishment, as example/discouragement to other lawbreakers, and only lastly in order to increase the chances of successful reintegration into society by means of education,work experience or therapy. The latter of course not for people sentenced to life, in their case, focus is on quality of life within the set limitations of imprisonment. (loosely translated from the Dutch wikipedia article).

Not very interesting, because it's just words and intentions. I mean, in the US they also say that the law is equal for everyone and blah, but reality shows different. Since I'm thankfully not very familiar with the Dutch criminal system, I can't say how much the words and intentions match up with reality. I'm fairly sure it's a lot better though, but I don't want it to appear like it's a utopia or anything, since it's built by the same species of monkeys, after all.

An interesting statistic might be our recidivism rates. 75% of people that served prison time for a felony repeat their mistakes. For juvenile prison it's even 80%. The actual numbers might be higher, since they can only count the people that are caught, after all.
However, people that are sentenced to community service, only have a recidivism rate of 45 percent (youth: 55%). However, it must also be stated that people that got an alternative sentence generally committed less severe crimes than the people sentenced to prison.


Additionally, Anna Mea Bollocks, I hadn't heard that about NL having to close down prisons cause they weren't needed. I remember a while back (5-10 years or so) they were overcrowded, though. Got a link for that maybe?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder.

The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s.

Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI.
{snip}
Experts say that homicides are tougher to solve now because crimes of passion, where assailants are easier to identify, have been replaced by drug- and gang-related killings. Many police chiefs -- especially in areas with rising numbers of unsolved crimes -- blame a lack of witness cooperation.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/24/unsolved-homicides/

God, this is swiftly approaching mental abuse.

It's okay. If they can't figure out who did it, they can always just grab a black guy.

Yep, even if he didn't commit that crime, I'm sure he committed others. So its JUSTICE!

[Luna]

I often forget that you don't actually want to help, or at the least your idea of helping would likely be to just let everyone out and start over from the beginning.  

wat

wouldn't that create the lulz, chaos and disorder you so adore?

No, I think the lulz, chaos, and disorder is doing quite nicely, thank you.  I don't expect you to understand.  Hell, anyone other than RCH, LMNO, Richter, Nigel, and Payne¹ that say they DO understand is either confused or lying.  It's certainly not something I'd expect an objectivist to comprehend, because your heads are full of bad signal and a pile of the wrong values.  You've already found something to believe in, so you don't need The World As It Really Is.

No, I think it's better that you comfort yourself with the notion that all the people who got ground up in the system just made bad choices, choices that a fine young Randite like yourself would never make.  And you can keep congratulating yourself, as you continue burrowing your head up your arse in search of the light that must surely eventually be there.



¹  There are plenty of people who understand Discordianism, but only a few that truly understand Doom.

This...  I've never quite been able to wrap my brain around what objectivists believe...  I try, I do...

Discordianism makes more sense, though.

[Adios]

http://caught.net/innoc.htm

Even if the true error rate of America's criminal justice system is only ten percent, this translates to 200,000 innocent people presently behind bars in the United States. It means that there are more innocent prisoners in America than there are prisoners of all kinds in France, Germany and Britain combined.

lern 2 reed DP

[Disco Pickle]

He probably should have chose to be born white and avoided all that unpleasantness in the first place.

I would expect most white Americans to not truly understand the impact that pervasive institutional racism can have on a person's life, but I expected better from someone who has actually spent time living in a place where they were the racial minority.

I'm having trouble keeping up with all of the posts and still getting drawings edited, so sorry about that.

I was actually targeted twice by police when I lived there.  They were both times very clear that if I just greased their palms I wouldn't have to go through all that nastiness of going before a magistrate and potentially facing a larger fine.  Whether it was because I was white or not I'll never know.  It isn't actually in the police's interest to be fleecing the whiteys in a town where tourism is the primary industry.  

After talking to a few of my friends down there I found out that sort of shit happens to everyone, not just the minorities.  

I gladly paid them in cash and went on my way.  If I had to choose my corruption, I'd have to say I'd rather have it up front and out in the open.