RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (Full Version)

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tj444 -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 3:46:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kana
If you wanna do some really fun, seriously depressing reading, take a look into the growth of the modern american prison industrial complex. It's maybe the biggest growth industry in the country over the last 30-40 years, genuinely scary stuff. America, a free country has something like 7% of the worlds population, and 25% of it's prisoners, and those are (To a massive degree)disproportionately minorities, in particular black and hispanics.
Prisons form the backbone of many communities, the companies are multinationals in the best sense of the world, they act as slave labor camps (Where inmates get $1 a day), heck, they're so all American they are traded on the NYSE.
What could be better and righter than that!

I agree it is depressing (I have read about all of that before).. but what does engaging in all this say about the country? what does that say about "justice"? and punishment? How does someone innocent but without money to pay for a decent lawyer get a decent defence? Yes, it is scary stuff.. why are so many Americans blind to what goes on & what their govt does? and why are they so impotent to change a bad broken system? I dont understand it..



tazzygirl -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 3:54:39 PM)

quote:

why are so many Americans blind to what goes on & what their govt does? and why are they so impotent to change a bad broken system? I dont understand it..


Why?

List of Lawyers in the 111th Congress

TOTAL NUMBER OF LAWYER-LEGISLATORS IN THE SENATE: 54 out of 100 or 54%

TOTAL NUMBER OF LAWYER-LEGISLATORS IN THE HOUSE: 162 out of 441 or 36%

Thats just the tip. To get re-elected they have to keep their constituents happy.. and afraid. Keep them afraid by making them believe only bad evil people commit crimes.. and that all drug users are the same and just as evil.

Keep them happy by insisting they need jails and lawyers and courts just so they can feel safe in their beds at night.



tj444 -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:01:39 PM)

then they get the govt they deserve..

I try to understand it all (not just the "Justice" system, but everything else too).. but I think trying to understand it is a wasted effort & I should stop..



tazzygirl -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:07:54 PM)

We dont have that unique of a system... most governments have some level of corruption in them.. even the Canadian one.



tj444 -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:25:05 PM)

I never said Canada's system is perfect.. but there are no Prisons for Profit there, and pot smokers are not jailed, or for other minor offences which get people jail time in the US, it has a health care system that works pretty good (not for the profit of insurance corps, HMOs & rich doctors), it has a social safety net that works fairly well.. it has a decent school system, it has lower crime rates.. the multi-party political system is such that you dont need to be a 1% to run for office.. and the poor & middle class have a voice (as seen by the demise of the Federal Liberals & rise of the NDP).. and it has a different culture of live and let live, with religion kept out of politics, with women having control over their bodies and access to birth control, abortion, etc.. gays have been able to marry there for decades now..

I would say, since I have lived in both countries, that the systems may appear similar, but they are actually very different..



vincentML -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:39:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffBC

I think about this differently Vincent. I honestly don't care about "justice" or "punishment" or "retribution" or "rehabilitation". What I care about is expedience. If you convince the that the rabid dog is likely to stay rabid then I'm all about "put it down". If you can show me a reasonably cost effective way to rehabilitate then I prefer that. It's as simple as "You are the weakest link" and getting voted off the island (the earth in this case).

Jeff . . . not a rabid dog; a mad dog. Suppose we don't know why he is crazy. Does he deserve to be put down?

quote:

by it's very definition, in a modern moral society, any murder is an act of insanity,

Kana . . . that's my point.

quote:

Because you can't logically explain or rationalize an illogical irrational act.

If Dahmer's act was illogical and irrational was he morally responsible? Legally, yes. But, morally? Was he even acting according to our definition of a human? Was he humanly responsible?

quote:

And really, and this is the critical question for me, even if you could explain it, does it remove the evil from the act?
Does it help us be sure that the same wingnut won't kill again?
Is it just?
And does it make society safer?

For the most part these are unique actions. Only predictable in hindsight. Clearly, society requires safety. But "frying" these individuals will not make society safe. There are other monsters out there. Other unknowns.

For me, the moral question comes down to if these killers are nuts are they responsible? If not, can we justify capital punishment?



vincentML -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:45:07 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: cordeliasub

Several years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Because I take the medications as prescribed, try to live in a healthy manner, and comply with ALL treatment, most people would have no idea. If I decided tomorrow to go off all meds cold turkey, I am certain there would be repercussions of some sort to my brain. But you know what? Part of my responsibility as someone diagnosed with this type of illness is to comply with treatment. Many times those who are "insane" or mentally ill who commit crimes are not complying with ANY treatment. It is my opinion that their choice to reject treatment makes them responsible for whatever criminal acts they commit while untreated. In other words, I believe that mental illness should NOT be a mitigating factor in prosecution or sentencing. The people this man killed are dead because of him. He killed them in cold blood. I personally have no empathy and don't care if he was mentally ill. Mentally ill people do NOT have to walk around violent and psychotic - IF they comply with treatment. So no, I don;t see it as any kind of excuse that should be taken into account.

Cordelia . . . thanks. You raise some compelling points. Many bipolar and schizophrenics often go off their meds, as I understand. I wonder why. Are they in rebellion? Or delusional that they no longer need the meds? Is going off the meds part of the syndrome?

I respect your opinion that mental illness should not be a mitigating factor but the Yates case and the Dahmer case leave me wondering.



tazzygirl -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:45:47 PM)

They are similar in that both are corrupted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_political_scandals

Sex scandals involving children, embezzlement, voter fraud, illegal use of charity funds to finance elections, police corruption, the Air Ambulace scandal is quite interesting, contract fraud....

All I am saying is that governments arent run all that differently.



cordeliasub -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 4:51:17 PM)

The side effects can be...bad. When I took lithium, I literally became a zombie. I went from someone who wrote every day, did the scripts and music for my own school plays....to a teacher who stared at the blank bulletin board right before school started and just let the tears roll because I could not generate a single idea. I had no energy. My hair started falling out, I got acne, and my thyroid went caput so I gained lots of weight. My response was to beg the doc to try something else. After diagnosis, it can take up to two years to find the perfect med combination. Even now, the anti-depressant I take has such a short half life that if I miss a dose I begin having withdrawals in the form of nightmares and "brain zapping" shocks within 72 hours. The answer? Don't miss the meds. Lots of research has been done linking creativity and certain disorders - many musicians, artists, and writers were said to have had bipolar, depression or schizophrenia. The meds do dull creativity. But I learned how to discipline myself to be creative and to understand that the days of writing like a wildwoman for hours and hours were probably over. I still have managed to publish a couple of books.

Bottom line, I have an illness that can impact others. It isn't just about me. Part of my JOB as a fellow citizen and as a mom and as a friend or partner is to keep myself as healthy as possible. For myself AND for them.



tj444 -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 5:06:49 PM)

actually they are different.. elections in Canada are paid approximately 80% by taxpayers based on the number of votes a party gets.. each vote counts.. which is why the NDP gained seats.. your US choice is between a 1% party over the other 1% party.. [8|]

and again, there are no prisons for profits in Canada.. no throwing someone in jail for a minor offence so some public corporation can make a buck..

Show me any country in the world that does not have some corruption or scandals.. that does not make them all similar..



JeffBC -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 5:17:55 PM)

Having lived in both countries also I agree TJ. They look much more similar on the surface than they are in actuality. While it is certainly true that all the normal human vices occur in Canada also they just aren't so exuberantly unrestrained here.



tazzygirl -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 5:31:11 PM)

They are similar in that both are corrupted.

To date, Canada does not have any private detention centres, but we do have private detention services.

"The multinational security firm G4S...has the contract to provide security at the IHCs in Toronto and Laval, while the Corbel Management Corporation has had the contract to manage the Toronto facility since 2003," notes the Guardian article.

"Government records show that contract to have been worth more than $19m between 2004 and 2008."

According to immigration attorney, Michael Niren, this poses several concerns.

"The concern with having the government entering into contracts with private companies offering 'detention services" , is accountability. Detainees have rights under the law and the question is whether these private service providers will be held accountable when their client is the government," Niren told Yahoo! Canada News.

"Nothing is wrong in principle with privatization. But when it comes to delegation of law enforcement and other standard governmental institutions to the private sector that raises automatic concerns."

Some are also worried that the Harper government will ultimately seek out a private detention centre model. The Guardian claims that immigration minister Jason Kenney has toured private facilities in Australia and that prison companies have lobbied the government.

"By planning, by touring these different facilities, by having meetings with these different companies, it suggests that perhaps they [the Harper government] don't expect this bill to deter anything, and what they're in fact doing is creating a useful crisis in the form of mandatory detention that will be resolved by privatized detention facilities," Justin Piche — assistant professor of Criminology at the University of Ottawa — told the British newspaper.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/private-prison-companies-looking-profit-canada-asylum-rules-201208849.html

Dont blink. Canada may be next.



kalikshama -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 5:58:33 PM)

quote:

Where is the line drawn between retribution and rehabilitation? Is rehabilitation even possible?


There's a lot on the Norweigian prison/rehabilitation system and successes (as demonstrated by recidivism rates) in this thread: What gentle people you Norwegians must be.

There was discussion of rehabilitation in general. Nephandi and Aswad also discussed Breivik's sentence but did not frame this in terms of rehabilitation.

I had to force myself to stop at two quotes - it's a good thread.

http://www.collarchat.com/fb.asp?m=4218459

quote:

Original: Aswad

Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Only a handful of countries have lower crime and recidivism rates. Those countries use the exact same model and are generally our neighbour countries. Norway has one tenth the incarceration rate of the USA, using the worst figures for Norway and the best figures for the USA. The recidivism rate in Norway is one in ten, compared to two in three for the USA.


http://www.collarchat.com/fb.asp?m=4219203

quote:

Original: nephandi

Let me present two scenarios to you.

Jake is an American robber, during a robbery he shoots and kills someone and he get 30 years in prison. Jake spends his prison sentence in those cage cells you have over there with nothing but a bunk in his cell. He is treated like shit by the guards and his beat up and raped by other prisoners. When he is finally released he is just pushed out the door with nothing but the clothes on his back and perhaps a few dollars for buss and a meal. Now that he is a felon he have little chance for a job and is just labeled a criminal for the rest of his life.

Henning is a Norwegian robber, during a robbery he shoots and kills someone and get 15 years in prison. Henning's prison cell is small but it is a room, it have a real bed, it have curtains on the windows and he have a desk and a chair to work by. Henning mostly only spend the nights locked up in his cell, the rest he spend in the common area of his prison block, a place that have a library, hobby rooms and a kitchen. The guards, while authoritative, treat Henning with respect and violence against him will not be tolerated. When Henning nears the end of his prison term he is transferred to a open prison, here he is allowed to, if he asks permission, to leave and go to the local store, he might get a job and is allowed to leave the prison to go to work, slowly he is eased back into normal society, and when he is finally released there are programs in place to help former prisoners find a job, and apartment and law abiding friends.

Ignore wealth and such, which of these two men do you think is most likely to go back to crime and which are more likely to become a good, law abiding, productive member of society?



tj444 -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 6:15:50 PM)

As I have said, Canada is not perfect.. My biggest criticism is over the American policies being brought into Canada over the years by both the previous Federal Liberals & Conservatives.. its like a slow cancer that is spread & grows.. I have said in other threads the the US can do what they want in the US but to stop pushing their shite on other countries.. It has been going on for a long while, the forfieture laws brought into Canada at the behest of the US, drug laws (pot would have been made legal there decades ago if it had not been for US pressure), extradition laws changed cuz the US wanted an easier way without having to show cause in court in Canada (which is why Marc Emery is sitting in a US jail for selling pot seeds even tho he never stepped foot in the US). There was 9/11 and changes to laws cuz the US demanded it.. etc, etc.. Those laws and others, certain policies, etc would not exist there in Canada had US politicians & greedy US corps not been pushing for it.. I dont plan to live in Canada again because of that.. i dont want to watch my country turned into another version of the US.. but if it was only a choice between the US & Canada, Canada is a saner, fairer & more humane country.. I just hope it stays that way & Canada starts rejecting those "American values", policies, etc..



littlewonder -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 6:42:04 PM)

quote:

For the most part these are unique actions. Only predictable in hindsight. Clearly, society requires safety. But "frying" these individuals will not make society safe. There are other monsters out there. Other unknowns.


Edited to add that this is Kana on the mouses computer

So what do you propose doing with them?
If you can't predict with surety that they won't kill again (And you can't), then what are the alternatives?
1-Lock em up forever, which costs a fortune that could be better expended elsewhere, you know, like on non killers.
2-Drop em in a mental institute, which also costs a fortune, and allows for a chance that some whack job doctors will declare them sane and set em loose to walk among us again? See my Canada story for an example there....or
3-Fry em.
Me? I'm an expedient guy.
Plus, I believe in justice, and also in true evil. There are some people who just don't need to be living. Hate to be all cut n dried about it, but that's the case. Osama Bin Laden killed 5,000 innocent people. He deserved to die. People celebrated his death on the streets. And I have zero problem with that. Heck, I think the cats who killed him did the world a favor. He lived, breathed, shat and planned hate. So I'm cool with his getting capped.
Evil, real evil, should be eradicated like the scourge it is.
Now, we can debate what is and what is not reprehensible evil in many cases, but I think we can all agree that an individual who walks into an elementary school armed to the teeth and starts killing kids is evil.
As was Dahmler. As was Bundy.
You can talk to me until you're blue in the face and there's no way (Using Ted as an example) that you are gonna convince me that a guy who slaughtered 70+ women and had sex with their corpses wasn't evil. He may have been insane. He may have been mentally ill, but he was also evil to the core. As were his actions.
In the end, that's what I judge people on. Their actions.
And they deserved to die. We, all of us, are better without them.



Aswad -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 7:05:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aylee

Let's go a-Viking! 


The Vikings moved forward, while you want to move backward?

No wonder the Vikings went from poverty to wealth, while the US went from wealth to poverty.

Going by this thread, which is sadder than the shootings, violence and cruelty seems to be in your bones, quite simply; that's where these killings come from in the first place, I guess. But by all means have a ball. It's your country, and your future. Brew more anger and hate, lash out some more, set up a downward spiral you can't get out of, make enemies out of each other and get into the habit of death and cruelty. That's worked one way precisely so far: not at all.

Sheesh.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



vincentML -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 8:37:22 PM)

quote:

Bottom line, I have an illness that can impact others. It isn't just about me. Part of my JOB as a fellow citizen and as a mom and as a friend or partner is to keep myself as healthy as possible. For myself AND for them.

Good for you, Cordelia. Really. You are not alone, as you know. You were diagnosed and helped. You should look at the cases I have mentioned. They were not helped, evidently.



Marini -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 8:45:24 PM)

Interesting thread vincent.

I have noticed that very few people mention anything about the importance in having good mental health services or anything related to the importance of getting mental health services when you need them.

If the young gunman had been in treatment, or maybe in an inpatient/outpatient treatment program, we might not be having these conversations.

I often wonder about the "ramifications" of cuts to important services{especially mental health services}/access to mental healthcare, in the future.

I wish some of those on the handgun bandwagon would also jump on the bandwagon for increases and easier access to mental healthcare services.

hummmmm



vincentML -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 8:59:09 PM)

quote:

1-Lock em up forever, which costs a fortune that could be better expended elsewhere, you know, like on non killers.
2-Drop em in a mental institute, which also costs a fortune, and allows for a chance that some whack job doctors will declare them sane and set em loose to walk among us again? See my Canada story for an example there....or
3-Fry em.
Me? I'm an expedient guy.

Kana . . . social morality is not measured in dimes and quarters. What sort of people are we if we become executioners of the insane? Are we a moral civilization? Or is death delivered too easily in our names both in our prisons and in foreign villages? Down the slippery slope. We have accepted that we are torturers in hidden chambers and destroyers in foreign lands. Now we are prepared to execute the mentally deranged?

quote:

Evil, real evil, should be eradicated like the scourge it is.
Now, we can debate what is and what is not reprehensible evil in many cases, but I think we can all agree that an individual who walks into an elementary school armed to the teeth and starts killing kids is evil.
As was Dahmler. As was Bundy.
You can talk to me until you're blue in the face and there's no way (Using Ted as an example) that you are gonna convince me that a guy who slaughtered 70+ women and had sex with their corpses wasn't evil. He may have been insane. He may have been mentally ill, but he was also evil to the core. As were his actions.
In the end, that's what I judge people on. Their actions.
And they deserved to die. We, all of us, are better without them.

There is a difference between Evil and evil actions by the mentally deranged. The difference is a question of responsibility. Isn't Justice defined by responsibility? I think it is.

Execution will not make us safe. It will deprive us of the opportunity to study the 'monsters' and try to find predictors.



vincentML -> RE: Punishment Retribution Rehabilitation (12/15/2012 9:06:25 PM)

quote:

If the young gunman had been in treatment, or maybe in an inpatient/outpatient treatment program, we might not be having these conversations.

Thank you, Marini.

Ironically, James Holmes was under treatment at his University but dropped away when he did awfully on a scholastic examination. And Andrea Yates was under treatment which was curtailed by her husband or her pastor. I forget the story. But your point is well made. There probably should be mental health screening of some kind in the lower school grades.



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