[quote]Chushin wrote:
Why are you equating criminal behavior with an addiction?
Your logic is, well, illogical.[/quote]
No, I am not.
I am saying removing the corrupting element is part of the rehabilitation process.
Would you disagree with that?
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:<<< I listen to the same music, watch the same TV shows and the only time I want to commit a crime is when American Idol comes on. >>>[/quote]LOL!!! I’m onboard with your view btw.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:<<< I listen to the same music, watch the same TV shows and the only time I want to commit a crime is when American Idol comes on. >>>[/quote]LOL!!! I’m onboard with your view btw.
[/quote]
Thanks man. My fiance loves that damn show, so I usually have to suffer through it. I make her watch The Dukes of Hazzard to even it out though.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
If he was in Canada, he would be serving his time concurrently.[/quote]
In that case, it would only make sense to keep robbing until you got caught.[/quote]
Depends on what you get for that one robbery.[/quote]
How so? [/quote]
Because if its a harsh enough sentence it would not make sense to go on until you got caught.
[/quote]
It’s sort of hard to measure justice when you simply prescribe a punishment for the sake of prevention. The concept fails when you follow through with a harsh punishment for the sake of say setting an example when you have to set many examples. (may not bother some of you, but look at the amount of people in prisons, as well as proportion based on race/racial construct).
End of the day, we are paying for this first time offender to spend the remainder of his life locked up in a cage and institutionalized.
I don’t understand how this is justice, especially if you dare take a step back and look at the disproportionate statistical slants pertaining specifically to black men in prison, and black children in prison because they also are disproportionately tried as adults.
It’s sickening. If he had a little bit of money, or if he wasn’t black, there’s a strong likely-hood he could have plead to a lesser of the many charges, or something.
That some of you can defend a system that offers different forms of justice to people according to their race and income by the statistic should bother she shit out of you folks. If the statistics weren’t in your favor, how would you feel? Be honest.
It’s to the point that the actual letter of the law, and the amount of laws on the books don’t actually even attempt to address what is wrong with our justice system. If it’s open for discussion I’m fairly certain I could find many things we could all agree about that are absolutely dysfunctional about our, “justice system.” From the laws to the prisons and jails themselves.
[quote]Severiano wrote:
It’s sickening. If he had a little bit of money, or if he wasn’t black, there’s a strong likely-hood he could have plead to a lesser of the many charges, or something.[/quote]
Hmm. All of his accomplices pled out and testified against him. Were they all white?
[quote]Chushin wrote:
But there is also no way to completely remove “bad influences” from a convicted criminal’s life. Sooner or later he needs to take responsibilty for his own behavior and change. [/quote]
Let’s start by not putting nonviolent people in cages - especially with violent people.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pittbulll wrote:He got that sentence because he could not afford a good lawyer. Say what you like you get justice in America if you can afford it .[/quote]No, in America if you have enough money you can ESCAPE justice. Sometimes.
[/quote]
While I have to agree with you , I would say the truth lays some where between our statements
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
SHAME on all of you who think this is “justice”. He was 18 at the time of his crimes, did not hurt anyone in the commission of his crimes, was not the ring-leader in the string of robberies, the other participants got 9 - 22 years but he got 162 years? On his first offence? Wasn’t offered a plea bargain? That’s bullshit.
What some of you forget is that HUMANS have the capacity to EVOLVE. I am living proof of it. You see, this guy is ME 20 years ago. I committed a string of armed robberies from age 16 - 18. I got busted on one and was snitched out on the others. I was sentanced to TEN years and served FOUR years. It was my first offence as an adult (I had juvenile convictions). I did my time and learned my lesson and STILL had enough time to get myself on track and become successful in several careers. I have fathered two amazing chldren and I have become a POSITIVE member of my community and have helped other young men avoid making the same mistakes that I did.
If you look at my balance sheet, I’ve paid my debt to society MANY times over. WHY? Because I was given the opportunity to change, not locked in a hole for the rest of my life. That isn’t JUSTICE.
If you take the time to look a few layers deeper into ANY young criminal, myself included, and you’ll find a childhood that would chill you to the bone. These young men didn’t have a chance given their experiences growing up. They grew up only trying to SURVIVE, Yet you see fit to throw them away and discard them for LIFE as you sit comfortably in your home, never having even GLIMPSED their shoes, never mind walking a few steps in them. It’s been my overwhelming experience that people who hold the “lock 'em up and throw away the key” attitude are:
-white
-upper class (or cops, emt, firefighters)
-born with a silver spoon
-NEVER spent time anywhere NEAR an inner city environment
-NEVER spent time with ANY ‘low-class’ people
-View the world as black and white
-Are generally self-righteous pricks
-Tend to be racist or closet racist
Shame on all of you who think that it’s a good thing to throw this young man’s life away.[/quote]
Justice and mercy are opposites. Justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve.
[/quote]What one “deserves” is subject to opinion. Civilization has come a long way from an eye for an eye kind of mentality. As for your defenition of justice and mercy, the “scales of justice” which is a fairly significant historical metaphore, imply they are two sides of the same coin.
[/quote]
No, it doesn’t. It provides that justice should be blind and even.
[quote]
Temper: to dilute, qualify, or soften by the addition or influence of something else.
LOL thanks, for proving my point. You might not want to quote something you don’t understand.
String of armed robberies. “first offender,” yeah right.
Yup. just like everything you’ve written.
Not the kind of gift I meant. Life is a gift, even if you paid for a life saving operation.
I agree, doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve it.
When you start saying things like “shame on you” yeah, you sound like a self righteous prick.
You keep talking about people commenting on paths in life they haven’t walked down, tell me, that list you made telling everyone about the upper class white privileged fireman/EMT/cop, how much of that road have you walked? Hypocrite.
LOL. Now you’re getting ridiculous. Come over to my house, bring someone you love. I’ll put walk yall out back in the woods, make you dig a hole, kneel next to it, and put my .357 to your temple. There are a lot of solders with sever issues coming back from Iraq that are never “touched”. Give me a break.
[quote]
As for why I lumped cops, and other first responders in with rich people is obvious: they deal EXCLUSIVELY with the negative elements of society and therefore become jaded. What they experience is NOT average, it’s above average and skews their thinking.[/quote]
Bullshit. This is why you shouldn’t talk about what you don’t know. They see a lot of the worst AND the best of humanity. Stress brings out the best and the worst in people.
But again, those are exactly people who do have a lot of contact and experience with that segment of society. Experience you belittled everyone else for not having and touted yourself for having.
HE IS NOT A FIRST TIME OFFENDER. Sure, this is the first time he’s been caught, indicted, and tried. But a guy who commits seven felonies and gets caught once may legally constitute a “first offense” but in every other sense of the word, the guy is a serial felon. Oh, by the way, possession of an illegal firearm (I’m making an assumption it wasn’t legal because most criminals don’t register their weapons with the government) and discharging an illegal firearm in public are both felonies in most states to my knowledge.
If I’ve committed 7 crimes should I only be charged for one of them? If I rape and impregnate 7 women should I only have to pay child support to one child and serve jail time commensurate with a one-time rapist? After all I’m a first offender! I only went to court once!
Get real.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
Dude, for me life is many ways about probability…the fact remains, whether you try & ‘rehabilitate’ a lot of SERIOUS offenders or not, unfortunately, more often than not it doesn’t work.
So, with regards low level offenders such as: Shop-lifters, vandals etc…yeah, sure try & rehabilitate them. However, when it comes to holding a gun to someone’s head multiple times over…sorry, no, You’ve gone too far. For one reason or another you’ve allowed your own personal circumstances over-take basic human decency.
The more you treat young adults like ‘naughty children’ the more they’ll act that way.
Also, As I said before, while this sentence is ‘out of step with others I’ve seen’, having talked to thousands of victims of crime (I used to work in call centre doing a crime survey for the Scottish Executive), I ain’t going lose any sleep over this young man spending the rest of his days ‘inside’.
[/quote]
To rehabilitate a substance abuser the substance needs to be completely removed from the abusers system first.
How does one rehabilitate a criminal by caging him with other criminals?[/quote]
I am not sure I understand but even with our very successful war on drugs . You can get any drug you want in prison or so I hear
This man committed several crimes. Yes. For that he should be punished. However, given the socio economic conditions in this country, it often doesnt make a difference to the person as the same dangers in prison are still there on the streets.
The incentive system, education, outlook and whatnot of most of these people is far far different than most of us who were fortunate enough to be raised normal. That does not give an excuse for what he did, and the reasons for this social paradigm shift in reasoning for the urban youth are far too expansive to be relayed here.
So you have a few options, you can PAY YOUR TAXES to keep this man in prison for his whole life. Or you can take a chance on conditional rehabilitation. It is obvious that simple incarceration and stiffer sentences does not work in this country. Put incentives forward for him to correct HIS OWN behavior. This is what people react to, if you try to force him…it wont work. Let him use his limited rationale skill set to realize that acting correctly, and learning something useful will reduce his sentence. Give him the opportunity to do so. Perhaps he will then leave and be able to have a job and PAY TAXES. This is a much more productive use of taxpayer funds. Will it work on everyone? Certainly not, but all adults who go to college dont finish either.
I believe Malcolm X said the best thing that ever happened to him was Prison. For some its an opportunity (Angry Chicken in this case) and others will never fucking learn.
Here is a local example.
[quote]666Rich wrote:
This man committed several crimes. Yes. For that he should be punished. However, given the socio economic conditions in this country, it often doesnt make a difference to the person as the same dangers in prison are still there on the streets.
The incentive system, education, outlook and whatnot of most of these people is far far different than most of us who were fortunate enough to be raised normal. That does not give an excuse for what he did, and the reasons for this social paradigm shift in reasoning for the urban youth are far too expansive to be relayed here.
So you have a few options, you can PAY YOUR TAXES to keep this man in prison for his whole life. Or you can take a chance on conditional rehabilitation. It is obvious that simple incarceration and stiffer sentences does not work in this country. Put incentives forward for him to correct HIS OWN behavior. This is what people react to, if you try to force him…it wont work. Let him use his limited rationale skill set to realize that acting correctly, and learning something useful will reduce his sentence. Give him the opportunity to do so. Perhaps he will then leave and be able to have a job and PAY TAXES. This is a much more productive use of taxpayer funds. Will it work on everyone? Certainly not, but all adults who go to college dont finish either.
I believe Malcolm X said the best thing that ever happened to him was Prison. For some its an opportunity (Angry Chicken in this case) and others will never fucking learn.
Here is a local example.
Putting thieves in prison makes little sense to me. Sure they need to repay their debt but dow does making someone else pay to house him make the victim better off.
Justice is not about the criminal it is about the victim.
[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
Dude, for me life is many ways about probability…the fact remains, whether you try & ‘rehabilitate’ a lot of SERIOUS offenders or not, unfortunately, more often than not it doesn’t work.
So, with regards low level offenders such as: Shop-lifters, vandals etc…yeah, sure try & rehabilitate them. However, when it comes to holding a gun to someone’s head multiple times over…sorry, no, You’ve gone too far. For one reason or another you’ve allowed your own personal circumstances over-take basic human decency.
The more you treat young adults like ‘naughty children’ the more they’ll act that way.
Also, As I said before, while this sentence is ‘out of step with others I’ve seen’, having talked to thousands of victims of crime (I used to work in call centre doing a crime survey for the Scottish Executive), I ain’t going lose any sleep over this young man spending the rest of his days ‘inside’.
[/quote]
To rehabilitate a substance abuser the substance needs to be completely removed from the abusers system first.
How does one rehabilitate a criminal by caging him with other criminals?[/quote]
He learns self-control
[/quote]
If by that you mean not to cry out when is raped, certainly.
I personally have no problem putting some one in prison for life if we deem him untrustworthy in society . 18 years old is WAY to young to tell if he is trustworthy or not
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
SHAME on all of you who think this is “justice”. He was 18 at the time of his crimes, did not hurt anyone in the commission of his crimes, was not the ring-leader in the string of robberies, the other participants got 9 - 22 years but he got 162 years? On his first offence? Wasn’t offered a plea bargain? That’s bullshit.
What some of you forget is that HUMANS have the capacity to EVOLVE. I am living proof of it. You see, this guy is ME 20 years ago. I committed a string of armed robberies from age 16 - 18. I got busted on one and was snitched out on the others. I was sentanced to TEN years and served FOUR years. It was my first offence as an adult (I had juvenile convictions). I did my time and learned my lesson and STILL had enough time to get myself on track and become successful in several careers. I have fathered two amazing chldren and I have become a POSITIVE member of my community and have helped other young men avoid making the same mistakes that I did.
If you look at my balance sheet, I’ve paid my debt to society MANY times over. WHY? Because I was given the opportunity to change, not locked in a hole for the rest of my life. That isn’t JUSTICE.
If you take the time to look a few layers deeper into ANY young criminal, myself included, and you’ll find a childhood that would chill you to the bone. These young men didn’t have a chance given their experiences growing up. They grew up only trying to SURVIVE, Yet you see fit to throw them away and discard them for LIFE as you sit comfortably in your home, never having even GLIMPSED their shoes, never mind walking a few steps in them. It’s been my overwhelming experience that people who hold the “lock 'em up and throw away the key” attitude are:
-white
-upper class (or cops, emt, firefighters)
-born with a silver spoon
-NEVER spent time anywhere NEAR an inner city environment
-NEVER spent time with ANY ‘low-class’ people
-View the world as black and white
-Are generally self-righteous pricks
-Tend to be racist or closet racist
Shame on all of you who think that it’s a good thing to throw this young man’s life away.[/quote]
Justice and mercy are opposites. Justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve.
[/quote]What one “deserves” is subject to opinion. Civilization has come a long way from an eye for an eye kind of mentality. As for your defenition of justice and mercy, the “scales of justice” which is a fairly significant historical metaphore, imply they are two sides of the same coin.
[/quote]
No, it doesn’t. It provides that justice should be blind and even.
[quote]
Temper: to dilute, qualify, or soften by the addition or influence of something else.
LOL thanks, for proving my point. You might not want to quote something you don’t understand.
String of armed robberies. “first offender,” yeah right.
Yup. just like everything you’ve written.
Not the kind of gift I meant. Life is a gift, even if you paid for a life saving operation.
I agree, doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve it.
When you start saying things like “shame on you” yeah, you sound like a self righteous prick.
You keep talking about people commenting on paths in life they haven’t walked down, tell me, that list you made telling everyone about the upper class white privileged fireman/EMT/cop, how much of that road have you walked? Hypocrite.
LOL. Now you’re getting ridiculous. Come over to my house, bring someone you love. I’ll put walk yall out back in the woods, make you dig a hole, kneel next to it, and put my .357 to your temple. There are a lot of solders with sever issues coming back from Iraq that are never “touched”. Give me a break.
[quote]
As for why I lumped cops, and other first responders in with rich people is obvious: they deal EXCLUSIVELY with the negative elements of society and therefore become jaded. What they experience is NOT average, it’s above average and skews their thinking.[/quote]
Bullshit. This is why you shouldn’t talk about what you don’t know. They see a lot of the worst AND the best of humanity. Stress brings out the best and the worst in people.
But again, those are exactly people who do have a lot of contact and experience with that segment of society. Experience you belittled everyone else for not having and touted yourself for having.[/quote]
LOL I love that scenario with the .357 and the hole. That’s not what happened. Nor did the victims fight in COMBAT. It was a robbery where no one was hurt. But I know better than to argue with YOU about it. As for why I said what I said about law enforcement ect… is that they deal with it so much they are JADED. But I guess I shouldn’t talk about things I don’t know, right?
I like you better when we’re arguing on the same side of an issue! LOL You have your opinion, I have mine. I suppose my life experience affects my perspective on the issue. And I just have to accept that many of you believe that I’m a danger to society and should still be incarcerated. Oh well…
[quote]njrusmc wrote:
HE IS NOT A FIRST TIME OFFENDER. Sure, this is the first time he’s been caught, indicted, and tried. But a guy who commits seven felonies and gets caught once may legally constitute a “first offense” but in every other sense of the word, the guy is a serial felon. Oh, by the way, possession of an illegal firearm (I’m making an assumption it wasn’t legal because most criminals don’t register their weapons with the government) and discharging an illegal firearm in public are both felonies in most states to my knowledge.
If I’ve committed 7 crimes should I only be charged for one of them? If I rape and impregnate 7 women should I only have to pay child support to one child and serve jail time commensurate with a one-time rapist? After all I’m a first offender! I only went to court once!
Get real.[/quote]
He didn’t rape anyone. He didn’t HURT anyone physically. He shot at a DOG. YES he should do prison time, but not for the rest of his life.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
Dude, for me life is many ways about probability…the fact remains, whether you try & ‘rehabilitate’ a lot of SERIOUS offenders or not, unfortunately, more often than not it doesn’t work.
So, with regards low level offenders such as: Shop-lifters, vandals etc…yeah, sure try & rehabilitate them. However, when it comes to holding a gun to someone’s head multiple times over…sorry, no, You’ve gone too far. For one reason or another you’ve allowed your own personal circumstances over-take basic human decency.
The more you treat young adults like ‘naughty children’ the more they’ll act that way.
Also, As I said before, while this sentence is ‘out of step with others I’ve seen’, having talked to thousands of victims of crime (I used to work in call centre doing a crime survey for the Scottish Executive), I ain’t going lose any sleep over this young man spending the rest of his days ‘inside’.
[/quote]
To rehabilitate a substance abuser the substance needs to be completely removed from the abusers system first.
How does one rehabilitate a criminal by caging him with other criminals?[/quote]
I am not sure I understand but even with our very successful war on drugs . You can get any drug you want in prison or so I hear[/quote]
When I was in prison, I could have gotten ANY drug (or just about anything else) that I wanted if I had the money.