Jesus Christ these graphs are fucking terrible dude

like, political opinions aren't along an x and y axis like this, and this only makes sense in an American context

These graphs are political ideology not opinions on policy.

cook is Ascended

Quote from Cook

Jesus Christ these graphs are fucking terrible dude

like, political opinions aren't along an x and y axis like this, and this only makes sense in an American context

I feel like I'm in the presence of a political messiah.

Run for president one day Cookie

lol

Quote from Vorpal

Yeah, sorry Alph, Skele shut you down with 2 words.

Besides what's with this notion that justice is merely punishment, when punishment is just a small facet of justice...justice originally being a much larger concept.
example: just behavior or treatment.
"a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people"

If you think punishment is more important than rehabilitation in regards to prison, again, you're fucking up. It's that sort of shitty mentality that has our prisons filled to the brim with re-offenders. Our top priority as a society should be ensuring these offenders don't repeat again, to prevent the crime, the things we've decided we're against, so that our prison complex can be much more manageable. Like arch said, often spending the best years of your life in a controlled environment is a far greater punishment than what we do in the environment itself anyways.

I'm sick of this childish "eye for an eye" mentality that thinks the world gets better if you send away all the badguys to rot. Well most of them eventually get out, and then what? You don't create a more peaceful world by filling it with embittered former criminals that are getting punished in the system by this crappy mentality and then when they get out they're being punished further socially by an inability to get any decent jobs or places to live.
That way of thinking clearly doesn't work, it's stupid.

I'm lookin' at you alph and smile.

Corrections does not equal rehab. I mean, we're nitpicking here, and I doubt that changing that answer would shift my graph immensely, but still.

We've been trying to rehab folks for a long time. I've got two correctional officers that I know, and I've chatted with them. 90%+ of all prisons (at least in America) are pretty easy on people. Sure, you'll hear about the hellish ones on the news and stuff, but that is far from the norm.

Also, most re-offenders happen not because they're oh so embittered -- it's because they don't want to change. Where I live gangs are a big deal, so I hear about them a lot -- in fact, a city just 40 mins from me had to start up a whole special task force for them. I've talked to folks who work in prisons that handle the gang members, and they say that the criminals don't stop their activities EVEN WHILE IN PRISON. I'm not even sure why this is possible, but I've check up on it and it's true. Gang leaders sent to prison for decades just run things from behind bars.

One of the problems nowadays that I've heard my officer friends talk about is that they've started to realize criminals aren't afraid of prison. They know that short of being a child molester or something that you're gonna get it pretty easy in there -- and for most of them, the environment isn't any different from what they're used to anyway.

People know they can do crime, and then get treated like misbehaving children who need a slap on the hand and then talked to by the mommy. Crime needs to have an immense cost. Swizterland has some of the strictest punishments (along with a few other countries) for crimes -- DUIs can get the death penalty, for example.

Compared to countries with more "tender" prison systems, they have a rather low crime rate.

I'm not saying rehab isn't important, but fear is the appropriate response to getting jailed...not nonchalance. Most of these people are trashing the best years of their life anyway to get into jail for long periods of time (small offenses typically don't land you in jail, or if they do it is for a matter of months). Jail makes life easy for them, quite frankly -- a lot easier than the kind of lives they had been leading.

Employment is another issue, but that's not the government's fault. That's the employers fault, but also their right. I mean, you do something wrong, you're going to have to recognize that most businesses don't want to hire someone with a record. That's part of the punishment. That, however, is outside of this discussion because it is unrelated to the government itself, but rather private sector choices.

An eye for an eye does make the whole world blind. But guess what? Gun crime rates would drop down hella low.

Sure, this seems like it's being mean -- but you have to remember that these criminals aren't, by and large, poor little misguided souls that made one mistake. "Poor little misguided souls" don't get dropped in jail for a decade (generally -- the justice system has plenty of faults on its track record, but I'm talking about non-mistakes). If you are in for "the best years of your life" you did something that deserved it. You knew what could happen, and you did it anyway.

You want to make the "eye for eye quote"?

How about "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Deterrent works wonders. People look at what could happen and say "Hell, it's not worth it." (How we handle our youth also plays into this, but that is yet another discussion).

figures, a topic potentially worth discussing and you guys make it about semantics

I landed dead center in the lower left segment, forgot to save the link but I'm sure you can paint a mental picture

Jail makes life easy for them, quite frankly -- a lot easier than the kind of lives they had been leading.

Systemically ruined communities and people who don't have anywhere to live, work or for whom

the [jail] environment isn't any different from what they're used to anyway.

are going to have to be worried about a very very bad jail experience to suddenly change their mind about making their life easier by committing crime.

Either you improve their lives in the first place like having enough homeless shelters and a way for everyone to live/sleep/eat/drink or you make prisons like concentration camps. I think the former method is still more likely to reduce first and repeat offenders.

Quote from Alphaeus

Swizterland has some of the strictest punishments (along with a few other countries) for crimes -- DUIs can get the death penalty, for example.

Compared to countries with more "tender" prison systems, they have a rather low crime rate.

uh... what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Switzerland

[quote=]Capital punishment is forbidden in Switzerland by article 10, paragraph 1 of the Swiss Federal Constitution.[/quote]


or is "Swizterland" different than Switzerland... a secret country where you get put to death for drunk driving? :eek:


also, you might want to read up on the deterrent quality of the death penalty, because the scholarly consensus is that it does not deter crime whatsoever.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=death+penalty+as+a+deterrent

pick pretty much any of these and i'm relatively confident the conclusion will be the same.

for example, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/000271625228400108

[quote=]To summarize: statistical findings and case studies converge to disprove the claim that the death penalty has any special deterrent value. The belief in the death penalty as a deterrent is repudiated by statistical studies, since they consistently demonstrate that differences in homicide rates are in no way correlated with differences in the use of the death penalty.[/quote]

also:

[quote=]This analysis in a sense represents a continuation of similar work done intermittently in this country during the last thirty-five years. These previous studies have uniformly concluded that the death penalty is inconsequential as a deterrent and that the relative frequency of murder in a given population is a function of the cultural conditions under which the group lives.[/quote]

and in case you're thinking "these studies are not conclusive" -- consider that the burden of proof rests on those who are supporting policy based on an assumption. if you think the death penalty is beneficial, you need to prove that it's beneficial--otherwise, statistics and evidence are stacked up to conclude that it is useless.

from another result:




(for the record, i support keeping the death penalty on the table, but if you do research i'm confident you'll conclude that it's wasteful/inefficient/useless to put criminals on death row for severe charges and expect some sort of social payoff.)

Quote from Exile

figures, a topic potentially worth discussing and you guys make it about semantics

Sometimes the discussion actually becomes about semantics, especially when people are interpreting justice to mean whatever is convenient for them to believe.

Way to contribute nothing though.
:canadian:

Quote from Alphaeus

Wall-o-text

Look, before I get into this post I'm gonna have to type this disclaimer. I feel like I've already decided that I'm unwilling to budge with you on this one, that you'll probably be unable to convince me to deviate or waver from my general opinion on this matter. Because you so clearly don't know much about our prison system or most prison systems that it's blatantly obvious.
Also you've structured your post in such a way that now I feel like I have to address your points one at a time, so sorry if I'm picking your post apart.

The reason I say this to you, instead of just ripping into you like a piece of rare meat, is because it's actually distressing that we've got a wave of new young men getting into our government and politics who really think thoughts like the ones you posted. It bodes poorly for the future of our country.

Quote from Alphaeus

We've been trying to rehab folks for a long time. I've got two correctional officers that I know, and I've chatted with them. 90%+ of all prisons (at least in America) are pretty easy on people. Sure, you'll hear about the hellish ones on the news and stuff, but that is far from the norm.

Speaking of semantics, this is the text book definition of conjecture. I could regale you with the long list of officers/criminals I'm friends with or in my family that would vehemently disagree. But at that point we're playing "He said, she said."
At the end of the day you have no citation for a statement like "90%+ of all prisons are pretty easy on people" and I'm not going to ask you for a citation either, because you wont find one. If this is something you actually believe, it's definitely not based on experience or research into the matter.

Quote from Alphaeus

Also, most re-offenders happen not because they're oh so embittered -- it's because they don't want to change. Where I live gangs are a big deal, so I hear about them a lot -- in fact, a city just 40 mins from me had to start up a whole special task force for them. I've talked to folks who work in prisons that handle the gang members, and they say that the criminals don't stop their activities EVEN WHILE IN PRISON. I'm not even sure why this is possible, but I've check up on it and it's true. Gang leaders sent to prison for decades just run things from behind bars.

My point about embittered criminals wasn't that it's the sole reason criminals re-offend, I actually have much more to say on that matter. The point was that if you're interested in justice and therefor most likely interested in maintaining peace then you should recognize that eventually releasing all these people back into the public without the proper rehabilitation done, isn't conducive to maintaining said peace in society.

And yes there's gangs in prison, I don't know how this is a news flash to you or something. It's probably because criminals are people with lives and history outside of prison. When gang criminals get sent to the same box with each other, from same gangs or enemy gangs, they don't just immediately forget everything.
Also joining a gang in prison is something people would do to protect themselves, you know, when they're put in an environment where they could get raped or killed.

But you can continue to believe that our recidivism rate is because "they don't want to change" even though that's a gross over simplification of a multi faceted issue. Many people think this way, because it's the intellectually easy thing to think.

Quote from Alphaeus

One of the problems nowadays that I've heard my officer friends talk about is that they've started to realize criminals aren't afraid of prison. They know that short of being a child molester or something that you're gonna get it pretty easy in there -- and for most of them, the environment isn't any different from what they're used to anyway.

I think that's more of a societal thing than a prison thing.
When you take the criminal out of prison and continue to punish them for their whole lives socially, by making it harder for them to live in society. Especially when their time was supposed to be served it's can become more difficult for them to survive in society than behind bars. We live in a world where even people with no criminal background are struggling to make ends meet every day.

Another example of recidivism being more complicated than them "not wanting to change" and the solution isn't to crack down harder on criminals, because that hasn't worked for us in the past.

Quote from Alphaeus

People know they can do crime, and then get treated like misbehaving children who need a slap on the hand and then talked to by the mommy. Crime needs to have an immense cost. Swizterland has some of the strictest punishments (along with a few other countries) for crimes -- DUIs can get the death penalty, for example.

Compared to countries with more "tender" prison systems, they have a rather low crime rate.

I don't even know where to begin with this one, luckily Index has this one covered.
All I'm gonna say is, don't you think a rather low crime rate is indicative of their justice system...working? Isn't a low crime rate....desirable?

Quote from Alphaeus

I'm not saying rehab isn't important, but fear is the appropriate response to getting jailed...not nonchalance. Most of these people are trashing the best years of their life anyway to get into jail for long periods of time (small offenses typically don't land you in jail, or if they do it is for a matter of months). Jail makes life easy for them, quite frankly -- a lot easier than the kind of lives they had been leading.

You think criminals aren't afraid to be locked inside with a bunch of other offenders and armed guards for an extended period of time? Where did you get the idea that criminals are nonchalant about getting caught and sent to prison? I get the feeling this is something accepted into your mind that you aren't aware of, or didn't think very much about, or that you're trying to steer this into some sort of false dichotomy. Where the only options are to treat criminals like the lowest form of life on earth, or to coddle them like babies or something.
You're post is starting to get a little off the rocker here.

Quote from Alphaeus

Employment is another issue, but that's not the government's fault. That's the employers fault, but also their right. I mean, you do something wrong, you're going to have to recognize that most businesses don't want to hire someone with a record. That's part of the punishment. That, however, is outside of this discussion because it is unrelated to the government itself, but rather private sector choices.

I find a disturbing amount of people think it's morally acceptable to tell criminals that they're serving their time to society, yet when they're released they don't get a fair chance.
If they're gonna be treated like second class citizens for the rest of their lives, don't you think as a society we're already emphasizing punishment over rehabilitation? An emphasis that...you know, isn't working very well for us?

Quote from Alphaeus

An eye for an eye does make the whole world blind. But guess what? Gun crime rates would drop down hella low.

Sure, this seems like it's being mean -- but you have to remember that these criminals aren't, by and large, poor little misguided souls that made one mistake. "Poor little misguided souls" don't get dropped in jail for a decade (generally -- the justice system has plenty of faults on its track record, but I'm talking about non-mistakes). If you are in for "the best years of your life" you did something that deserved it. You knew what could happen, and you did it anyway.

But alpheus, you're extending that metaphor in a way that doesn't make any sense contextually.

And now I'm very sure you're trying to make this some false dichotomy. Like you're painting some picture where criminals are all either lowly scum suckers or "poor little misguided souls." The truth is much more complicated than that, so it's easier for people to make it black and white I suppose.

I'm not interested in forcing our opinions to be polarized just to more easily make sense of things. That's how you end up with republicans/democrats.

I never said any of those things you're implying, nor do I really understand your counter argument. You just make it seem like you're agreeing that losing several years of your life behind bars is a punishment...which is okay? I'm glad we agree on something?

Quote from Alphaeus

You want to make the "eye for eye quote"?

How about "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Deterrent works wonders. People look at what could happen and say "Hell, it's not worth it." (How we handle our youth also plays into this, but that is yet another discussion).

You're sending conflicting messages now, I'm confused. Do you think criminals aren't afraid of prison, that they're nonchalant about it like you said earlier? Or do you think we're preventing our crime because they think it's not worth it?

Also as I mentioned our country's recidivism rate has been extremely terrible for a developed nation. I'm inclined to ask you about what sort of prevention you're talking about here? Because when I look up the actual facts, it would seem that we're hardly preventing crime at all. It's almost like the stringent old ways aren't working or something.

Don't believe me?

Consider the following:
Almost one-third (31.7%) of the offenders studied were reconvicted (as opposed to just rearrested), and one-quarter (24.6%) were reincarcerated;
http://www.ussc.gov/about/news/press-releases/march-9-2016

The USA despite having only about 5% of the worlds population has by far the most prisoners in the world. That's more prisoners than China. And about as much as the next five highest countries Russia, Brazil, India, Thailand and Mexico combined.
http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total

If you believe our current way of thinking about this problem is working. If you believe our current justice/prison systems are working well enough for the people. Then I'm sorry to say alphaeus, but you're wrong.

Quote from Raptor

I did one for Jeff.

This is wrong



Accurate

My god, Jeff, have mercy on us.

Boring result

https://www.politicalcompass.org/yourpoliticalcompass?ec=-2.13&soc=-2.46

I would have assumed you would get Lefty Authoritarian.

Y'know? Because you're a mexican communist?