The Justice System

[Cool Girl]

So, this has been on my mind for a while. We have a justice system and I have no doubt in my mind that it works. That being said, I see that there are times when it doesn't work. Studies have shown that offenders who are in jail the first time and who get released will be repeat offenders. I thought the point of prison is to "rehabilitate". My dad and I had a conversation about this a while ago. My dad thinks that first offenders like drugs and all of that shouldn't go to jail, but should go to rehab and then if they repeat it, that's when they go to jail.

 

I also have something about the death penalty. If someone kills someone and we do the same to them, isn't that us going down to their level? Also, there are problems. What if they guy/girl you're executing is proven to be innocent afterwards? That is bad.

 

I heard we also spend more money on prisons than education!

 

That being said, I like this judge's idea

Spoiler

 

This is what we should be doing at times.

 

There's a show on A&E called 60 Days In. Basically, it's prisons that grab volunteers who are citizens to go undercover in prison and report them their findings. I recommend you guys watch it as it can be informative.

 

Let me know your thoughts on this! I'm sorry if I've missed some things, but this is really a broad topic.

 

Thanks,

CG

[Wolfox]

That judge seems to know how the world work. I would also share my oppinion on the USA Justice system but seeing as I'm not from the US I feel like I do not have the right to potentially critisize the US Justice system. from what I know about the one from my country(the Netherlands) that system seems to work pretty well. Though I will say that the judge in the video deserves a prize for how he does things

[Chase]

Despite being conservative on most issues, this is an area I am distinctly liberal on. Here's a conservative take on the issue we have with prison populations rising however. If we continue to crowd them under the notion that we are putting away threats to society, the taxpayer money needed to house them increases with the population. Monetarily speaking, locking them all up isn't a solution.

 

The reality is that prison all to often is what the owner of the facility wants it to be. Private prisons actively encourage increasing population because they profit off of it. Public prisons vary based on the attitude the state(s) have on prison population and viability - many of which come from tough love conservative influence. Federal prisons are usually reserved for genuine threats to society - so even they are guilty of maxing out population out of what they feel as need.

 

1. Petty crimes need not have overblown consequences and should not immediately translate to prison time.

 

2. Heavy fines are to be encouraged more in second offenses.

 

3. Life needs to stop being a common sentence.

 

4. Prisons need to be deprivatized.

 

5. The Death Penalty either needs to be enforced more often - or not at all without life in prison as the immediate alternative.

[Anime]

the Judge in that video seems to be knowledgeable in the field of laws and justice, i agreee to what he said, even thought i'm not an american ( you already know that xD) i feel like the USA justics system is going just well

Edited April 21, 2017 by Another Retired Shipper

[mde2001]

Yeah, I'm really not a big fan of the US justice system in general. 

 

Firstly, I am fundamentally opposed to the death penalty, and I honestly can't understand how a country like the US can still use it. I suppose growing up in a country that almost unanimously doesn't support it, the whole concept of killing prisoners is relatively foreign to me, but I share your logic on the fact that killing people for murdering others is sinking down to their level. 

 

Secondly, mandatory minimums are antiquated, idiotic and often rather racially charged. They serve no purpose other than removing the legitimacy of your court system. 

 

Thirdly, electing judges (which I realise is not a thing that is done everywhere) is an awful idea. Judges should be upholding the law, without having the worry about popular opinion. If a judge starts to make decisions based on getting themselves reelected, the poor people who are innocent but get tried as guilty are completely screwed over. There are some pretty interesting studies about number of death penalty sentences around the time of elections in some areas, which is pretty horrible. No judge should send someone to be killed for their own reelection. 

 

That judge also looked pretty interesting. His methods wouldn't really work in higher level cases, but it would certainly be interesting to see what happened if more local judges took that up. 

[FairFamily]

First we have to talk about the general purpose of court and sentences. Many see sentences as an act of vengeance but it isn't. Sentences in my opinion should serve twofold. It should work as a detriment for potential criminals and should guarantee that the person is ready to reenter society in an acceptable state. If it means that a person can't enter society in an acceptable fashion we are forced to exclude him from it and if possible treat him for it. In other words sentences are meant to stop crimes not satisfy the victims.

 

My dad read a book interesting on the different type of offenders and their reasons. One of them is a interesting case and that is the case of the logical offender. They make the logical balance and check Profit> punishment * chance being caught. One case was of a cartel of Truck manufactoring in Europe. They decided prices, regulate technology flow, ... . The most cynical part was that they were already saving for a potential fine. You already see the video that people have little problems paying a fine. So I'm wondering in the effectiveness of fines.

 

In the video the judge said two interesting things first that judging should beyond the rules and that the prison problem start in the courts for minor offences. I aggree with the first and dissagree with the second. The first is quite clear to explain. A Judge has to make sure that no further violations happen. I know that this is not easy in some countries since they have to follow the law and I'm happy for the US that this judge has the power to his job this effective.

 

The second I dissagree in the sense that it the problem happens a lot earlier then the court room. It starts in law making and law enforcement. People will follow the law if there is belief in the law system.

The logical offender for instance will not do anything if he is cought very easily and/or the punishment is high. One case of this happening is a statement I joke with my father is that the law for driving only applies for those without a driver license. So people misbehave quite often on the road because our law enforcement barely captures them.  Driving and drinking same problem, they do one weekend a flashy show but the majority of alcohol controls happen between 12 and 20 while in our country (Belgium) the culture is about drinking in the evening. My absolute favorite is that in 100 days before the end of shool all last-year students celebrate heavily. In this type of party we use a special type of marker which is very hard to remove. The city prohibits the usage of these markers for this purpose (don't they have better things to do?). In a city of 1000 students the police and city council proudly proclaims how they managed to find around a dozen markers. Jokes on them, almost everyone has at least one some even multiple. I even received 2 for free because someone had 4. I can come up with a lot more cases. How will crime lower lower when nobody takes law enforcement serious? 

 

Another thing to consider that not only law enforcement is to blame. It is the government as well. Another profile my father brought up was that some offenders perform crime out of sense of fairness. The statement is basically : "if they are cheating, why can't we?" or "everyone else is doing it as well". You see companies come up in bad light with things like dieselgate ,the panama papers, social dumping, etc. and while people feel the companies are cheating the governement barely does anything against these practices. Instead they keep themselves busy with minor cases like markers , speeding tickets, parking tickets or making sure that knowing how fast to drive is nearly impossible to know for a foreigner (Germany made a huge joke with the Belgians on that one). Sometimes they even protect offenders blatenly. Because of this they feel that justice isn't done right and therefore cheat themselves.

 

So based on this crime prevention must happen before the court room, that the court room has to intervene as well is a given but it is not the start.

 

For the death penalty , I'm against it. First we're almost never 100% sure that the person is guilty for a crime. Even if we take the cases where we're 200% sure he is guilty. Do we need to? The damage is done and we can't change it. If we put him prison and if necessairy keep him stuck there then society is still a better place.

 

Well education vs prisons. If people have a decent live they might not be forced into crime.  Another catogory of criminals: because it is their only option. If people have a shitty life they might resort to crime. After all they have little to lose. If the choice is either starving to death or stealing a bread well guess who's stealing the bread. Education clearly helps in that regard since it helps you get a better life standard but other investments are good as well.

[Chase]

On the death penalty:

 

Strongly opposed. Not only does a Christian worldview discourage wasting life, but there were three things that you couldn't do under my father's, the Defense Attorney's roof

 

• open the door seven hundred times and go in and out of the house.
• talk back.
• support the death penalty.

The issue however is that FairFamily is absolutely right, even when it comes to the death penalty. The sentencing needs to discourage criminal activity from others -and- send a message to the original offender so that corrective behavior occurs.  With a death sentence, the sentencer feels it is absolutely necessary to make you an example and that the corrective behavior is irrelevant because you are far too gone to salvage.

 

If there is any reason behind the death penalty, and I'm not arguing for it, it would be that there's only a one-fold decision to be made. Kill the offender, and the community is saved from someone that has absolutely no control over themselves. Judges actually have a tradition of breaking and disposing pens used to make such death sentences official, because the totality of it involves taking a life. You can't fault a judge for making such a sentence. There is genuine heartache, often, about having to levy one.

 

So, in order to truly justify getting rid of it in the United States, you have to be able to find a better alternative to dealing with people that will pose danger to others regardless of how strenuous your reformative programs are -or-how much money and time you sentence them with. Thankfully, the death penalty is an extreme, and can easily be worked on by pressure from opponents.

 

---

 

On education.

 

Obviously, if you give a man a fish, he'll eat dinner tonight. if you teach him to fish, he'll eat dinner for the rest of his life. Or something.

 

Unfortunately, there is a total reform that needs to happen not only with schools and prisons, but with communities and pop culture itself. Music and visual media are some of the most interpretive ways to demonstrate false "social norms". For example, rap, hip hop, or metal music that espouses messages that indicate sexually abusing women is okay or that doing extremely dangerous drugs and upwards to things like murder is something to be proud of. Some of my favorite movies are movies like Scarface, where being a mafia member seems pretty cool.

 

At the political level, communities need to be willing to fund education and provide kids opportunities to learn, and communities need to push for criminal reform programs over building new jailhouses. That's all fine and dandy - but if the kids are learning from the world around them what is encouraged - then a nice public school and a cooking class in jail isn't going to make a new person.

 

On top of all this, you have to make crime -not- the means someone has to get by. That involves job training, but also buy in from the criminal in question.

 

In other words, this is a very complex issue that isn't going to be solved by throwing money at it.

 

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on the misadventures of law enforcement and the justice system...

 

GOD this is such a tired topic. If it's taking us centuries to overcome racism, is it really a fair expectation to say "we're going to be the generation"? In America, which I would say is actually a fantastic place to live in general, we still have organized Klans, and we still have people looking to fly the Stars and Bars in the Deep South. Of COURSE we're going to be dealing with judicial prejudice that is far from even.

 

What's needed here? A TON of patience, a good chunk of hope, and continuing to reform. There's not really an end in sight for this one.

 

 

 

 

[5hift]

Honestly amazed of how often this subject is ignored.

 

The US has one of the largest incarceration rates in the entire world it its costing us a metric shit ton of money.

 

Prisons are being filled to the brim with small time offenders getting mixed in with the real hardened individuals. Since when was that ever a good idea? Not to mention it costs even more money to expand and build entirely new prisons to house more criminals.

 

I'm with Chase on improving the education system. There's a pretty big reason why crime is so prevalent in inner cities like downtown Chicago. As somebody who grew up near that area I can tell you the school systems aren't worth shit there. Meanwhile the area gets turned into a full blown war zone with the amount of illegal firearms, gang violence and other stuff that would probably land a person in jail for the rest of their lives.

 

I sorta disagree with pop-culture influencing criminal activity though. I mean plenty of people play violent video games but you don't see all of them exhibiting violent tendencies that would get them in trouble. Most people are bright enough to keep that stuff to pop-culture and carry on as productive citizens. I think the real influence comes from the individuals who commit crimes and aren't punished accordingly for them. They end up getting others mixed up in their shit and cause even more damage.

 

We need to focus more on redefining how our justice system "rehabilitates" people. If they don't get any help they'll definitely end up starting shit again and going back to prison. At this rate we're creating more criminals than we are incarcerating them.

Edited April 29, 2017 by 5hift