Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers

Re:Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American ... by gknoy on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @01:51PM (#9577946)

In the context of the justice system, I think we tend to lack compassion. Most of the Americans I know (family, etc) seem more intent on __retribution__ and punishing Bad People, rather than compassion. Once someone is a Bad Person (criminal, poor, or even just someone they don't like), compassion seems to go out the window.

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Re:Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American ... by dragonwriter on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @03:21PM (#9578566)

> Once someone is a Bad Person (criminal, poor, or even just someone they don't like), compassion seems to go out the window.

More importantly, being a member of some group that is unliked, often because of the actions of some individual(s) that aren't really general to the group, is enough to make someone a Bad Person in many people's eyes.

Even being supported by a person who is viewed as a Bad Person (potentially for the same reason described in the preceding paragraph) is enough to make a person a Bad Person.

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Re:Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American ... by LLWM on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @03:19PM (#9578544)

And if you are not a Bad Person, there is plenty of compassion. Sounds like a more efficient system than blindly distributing compassion to everyone regardless of merit.

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