Is 12 years being enslaved for $1.25 fitting with another 3 on probation and in halfway houses? I don't believe it is especially when watching white collar folks steal millions, do infinitely more damage, and be released in 1/3 the time to pick up where they left off.
Ultimately, being forced into slave labor and having to pay hundreds per a month to talk to family despite research showing it's one of the best ways to drive good behavior and rehabilitation in prisoners, is cruel and unusual punishment even if the crime committed means the person is never getting out.
Even if we agree on the length of sentence, for someone who did work the entirety of their 12 year sentence, in roles that would have paid $50-70K a year to emerge still owing restitution on a paltry debt of less than a new car, is a travesty.
Completely agreed. And it's not just that -- ex-prisoners also come out without any social network other than what they may have gained among prisoners, and they face extreme social stigma that makes finding work difficult even if they had the skills and connections.
Anything beyond that is charity.
I didn't try to kill them, even though I managed to fight the upper hand off of them. When the scuffle ended all I said was "don't point things at my head."
Choose to believe me or not. Don't make presumptions about eagerness.
The death penalty will always be executed with a certain false positive rate. Willing it as a form of punishment necessarily entails willing the death of innocent people, who crucially can’t be brought back in the event that the state realizes it was mistaken.
There are plenty of criticisms for the death penalty but now you're changing the goalposts as you realize your description written in a science fiction feel good reality was a bad fit.
Post one: The death penalty is always wrong because it can be handed out in error and cannot be revoked.
Post two: The death penalty is always wrong because it can be handed out in error and cannot be revoked.
No goalposts have changed in the making of this thread.
The slave labor is punishment, and I believe the only form of slavery allowed under the US constitution. I think the prison could pay nothing but they choose practically nothing.
I agree on reforming exploitative services like $5/minute phone calls. I don’t think prisoners should be abused financially. I wish I could vote for candidates who supported this kind of reform.
In elections near me, this isn’t even an issue where candidates differentiate. There were a few candidates that were running for reform but they were more along the lines of not prosecuting certain misdemeanors.
I think the whit collar crime being punished less than violent crime kind of makes sense. I’d rather someone steal $1M than injure someone. It’s pretty mercenary to say that someone stealing $5M without violence is worse than someone stealing $35k with violence. I also don’t think prison sentences have clear relationships for comparison.
Is your brothers crime worse than raping 5 people? He would have received less jail time. Is that right? I’m not sure.
For what it’s worth, I agree with his point. The west looks down on revenge ruling, “an eye for an eye” etc. Yet the US prison system isn’t any more evolved.
The worst part of it is because we are talking about “bad people”, any defence of their treatment is easy to dismiss - and I get why. Arguing that someone who commuted armed robbery should have rights too does sound like a perverse thing to say. But ignoring those rights just allows problems to proliferate. So all your prison system does is the proverbial cutting off ones nose to spite ones face.
He was making doing exactly that when he said no one was injured. Just because someone wasn't physically injured doesn't mean they weren't profoundly harmed by being a victim or armed robbery. How long did it take that victim to feel safe in their community again? His brother-in-law took that away from someone and deserves harsh punishment.
I get the need for justice but what you’re describing is revenge, not justice. Justice needs to contain a rehabilitation part and not just punishment. The point the GP was making is that the rehabilitation part has been substituted for exploitation. Regardless of whether you think the sentencing was just or not, and to be clear: I don’t think even the GP was suggesting that his brother-in-law didn’t deserve jail time, if you don’t try and rehabilitate then you’re just encouraging your offenders to go out and reoffend. Thus perpetuating the cycle of crime and increasing the number of peoples who are physically and mentally scared from crimes in the process.
Rehabilitating inmates doesnt need to be done for altruistic purposes. There’s a very self reason to do so: those inmates will become less likely to commit further crimes upon release.
And that is the crux of the argument here. It’s what the discussion should be focused on, rather than a pseudo-morality debate about whether they deserve the time. Because literally no one believes there shouldn’t be punishment for crimes. But what we don’t agree on is whether criminals deserve a chance to reform.
Treating prisoners as captive markets to be bled is not good for society.
It's been said that if you asked someone to design a process to create more criminals, they would likely invent prisons: mix as many skilled criminals, with random unfortunate individuals, so that they can share their knowledge of criminality, and have to fight to survive.
Prison is bad as a deterrent and is terrible at reforming criminals. The only thing prison is good at, is keeping violent people off the street. There's absolutely no reason why non-violent offenders should be in a prison, give them any other punishment instead.
Whoever, while committing a robbery, is armed with a dangerous weapon or any article used or fashioned in a manner to lead the victim to reasonably believe it to be a dangerous weapon, or inflicts bodily harm upon another, is guilty of aggravated robbery in the first degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 20 years or to payment of a fine of not more than $35,000, or both.
Or is your stance that a person committing robbery with a weapon and threatening to use it should instead be considered a hapless person that has not chosen to act in a way that is highly likely to cause great injury or death? Like a gun is "ok" and should not be considered as evidence of intent to commit harm during the act of robbery unless they shoot it?
"Or is your stance that a person committing robbery..."
Consider the crime of attempted murder.(IMAL) that's when a person attempted to commit murder but failed. So they had intent and action, they just failed
Armed robbery is someone whose intent is to rob someone and they are successful at the act of robbery.
The reason the robber is armed is not to harm the person but as a threat. If their intent is to harm the person that's an additional crime (assault, murder, attempted murder)
"that is highly likely to cause great injury or death?"
Highly likely for the robbery or if they carry out the threat. I believe the vast majority of robberies where violence was threatened don't end in violence. I don't have data for this so if you contest it I'll recind that claim.
If they simply rob without a weapon, there are generally robbery charges with lessor penalties.
There is a clear uplift of risk/jeopardy of death or harm when using a weapon while committing robbery -- the person committing the crime is only partially in control of the outcome: the victim, witnesses, law enforcement interruption or an infinite number of random events can all trigger the harm (which is attached to the original crime). But this is well known and a decision the assailant made before committing the act -- they inherently are willing to kill or harm the second they chose to use the weapon in the act even if their intent walking into it was not to kill specifically.
I guess we just disagree, but I am very happy the laws and punishments are written to align with my POV.
Because they brought a gun. I’m not sure how you truly know someone’s intention. But getting a gun, loading it, and threatening someone with it is perhaps the closest to knowing they are willing to use it.
I think that people can’t even know themselves as many who claim they didn’t mean to, still “accidentally” shot someone.
But in the case of sentencing guidelines, you don’t need to know whether they will or not. If they use lethal force that’s a multiplier in prison time.
And I’m ok with that. I don’t care to get into nuance with people who threaten innocent people with death.
Note, there are exceptions when the gun isn’t loaded and the sentence is not the same as a loaded gun.
No one was harmed. But the crime involved threat of death. So threatening to kill at least one person is a pretty serious crime. It’s good that no one was killed, but definitely the intent to kill for personal gain was part of the reason for such a lengthy sentence.
There are many flaws with the prison system but I wanted to point out the logical flaw of “no one was killed in this game of Russian roulette so it’s not that bad of a thing” kind of thinking. Threatening someone’s life for $35k is a big deal, I think.