I'm not a bioligist

[rightleft22]

So you might agree that when people use these words they do so without much thought.
In the religious community I grew up in I can comfortably say that the words were used so often that it was assumed those using them and hearing knew what the meant and of course failing to see the log in their own eyes . In assuming often behave like asses

[Fenring]

So you might agree that when people use these words they do so without much thought.

Yeah, that sounds likely. Or maybe more specifically, that they do have thoughts about what they want and the words are just a means to an end to get what they want. So if what I want is "to be honored by everyone around me" I might choose to say things and use words that will achieve that, which is a sort of social realpolitik. You are gaming others all the time, in other words. So if we're going to agree that it's "without thought" I guess we'd have to specify that it's without thought for something more important than craven desires. They definitely do have thoughts, just probably incorrectly-oriented ones. But I should be clear again that this isn't my general statement about conservatives or religious people; I think left-wing people are just the same in this regard, using various words for social cred or power games rather than because of their inherent rightness or goodness.

[TheDrake]

s an attempt at having a strong immune response to infection

Except its like trying to boost your immune system with the power of healing crystals and votive candles. There's no evidence that doubling penalties has much impact on crime rates. But I don't think its like that at all, not based on the language tough on crime people use. They like to dress up the death penalty as a deterrent to crime because they don't want to admit that they just want to kill the offender punitively as his comeuppance, the righteous consequence of his action. Revenge. You hurt one of our nice citizens, now we'll make you hurt worse. Lucky the founders excluded corporal punishment in the books, although there are ways around it like housing people in tents in the desert. I don't doubt that many of them honestly believe that violent crime can be deterred by tougher sentencing. They think to themselves, "I'd sure think twice about it." Not understanding the lack of rational thought that goes into such things, and not trusting actual research.

[rightleft22]

If the stories we tell, movies, tv shows.... are a reflection of how people perceive the concept justice then justice has become something you GET something you deserve, usually thorough meeting out of punishment vice consequence for breaking of the social contract as defined by the people.

There is a reason a crime is considered to be an offence against society as a whole and not the individual. The idea is to prevent the revenge and justice getting confused. we have failed

The majority of people I a have talk to about the idea of justice see it as the movies tell it. Something they deserve to have as a form of revenge when someone does them wrong. It is the revenge that makes them feel better not justice. 

Lately when I'm engaged in conversations about things like freedom and justice I have started to ask the them about what they mean when they use those words. Its been eye opening. Usually it ends the conversation.

[cherrypoptart]

So how does the better system work?

What's an acceptable recidivism rate?

Let's say we release a hundred criminals and 95 of them go on to become productive members of society and never get into problems again but 2 of them end up murdering people and three of them end up raping some people.

We got 95 people out of 100 completely rehabilitated. Basically, we saved 95 lives and it only cost us however many victims there were from the 5 who failed. Are we going to say that's a success and pat ourselves on the back?

There's an argument that giving 100 guilty people a second chance isn't worth it if it gets one more innocent person raped or murdered. That's a judgement call though. What are acceptable losses? How much collateral damage is worth it? How many more innocent people have to suffer so some of us get to feel good about being forgiving and providing a chance for redemption? If we knew for sure it was our own loved ones who would pay the price for it would that make a difference?

[msquared]

Cherry

Didn't one of the founding father say something like it is better for 100 guilty men to go free then one innocent man to loose his freedom?

[cherrypoptart]

That came to mind but this is something a little different. This is setting 100 guilty men free knowing that some innocent people are going to get raped and killed so that most of those guilty men would have a second chance. The premise here is that we're talking about people we know are guilty: rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and we're deciding to set them free anyway knowing full well that some of them will commit more of the same crimes they did before, knowing there will be more innocent victims, and deciding to do it anyway because most of them will use their second chances wisely.

[TheDrake]

So how does the better system work?

What's an acceptable recidivism rate?

Let's say we release a hundred criminals and 95 of them go on to become productive members of society and never get into problems again but 2 of them end up murdering people and three of them end up raping some people.

We got 95 people out of 100 completely rehabilitated. Basically, we saved 95 lives and it only cost us however many victims there were from the 5 who failed. Are we going to say that's a success and pat ourselves on the back?

There's an argument that giving 100 guilty people a second chance isn't worth it if it gets one more innocent person raped or murdered. That's a judgement call though. What are acceptable losses? How much collateral damage is worth it? How many more innocent people have to suffer so some of us get to feel good about being forgiving and providing a chance for redemption? If we knew for sure it was our own loved ones who would pay the price for it would that make a difference?

Such drama! I'm sure the casual drug user is going to pop out of prison and start murdering people. You know what would also keep people from getting killed? Living in a police state. Well, as long as you don't count murders done by the authorities. How about we just make every sentence mandatory life? Zero chance of anybody getting hurt by a repeat offender - BIG WIN! Then you go on to say "people we know are guilty" when we know nothing of the kind. There are innocent people who take plea deals because the system is stacked against them. Innocent people convicted. Does that change the "lock em up and throw away the key" equation? You really want to prevent yourself some crime, start reading people's communications before they commit the crime. Why wait until the first offense to lock them up, much safer to seal them in a tomb if they look dicey.

Some people might say that knowing full well that some of the cops are going to commit murder and assault, we should defund them to prevent that.

[cherrypoptart]

We need to understand what we're talking about here. For the people in prison for using drugs, what should we expect them to do if we release them? Hopefully some will get the help they need but for many their act of recidivism will be using drugs again. And that's fine.

But now if we're talking about second chances for rapists and murderers that's a different story. Their act of recidivism may be another rape or murder. And that's not fine. That's a huge problem.

So we still get back to the question of whether or not it's worth giving them another shot at society if a few of them go back to doing what got them into prison in the first place. Using drugs? Sure, go for it. Forgive and give them another chance. Raping women? Raping kids? Raping men? Murder? Drive by shootings? Nope. No thanks. The price for their victims is too much to pay.

So sure, if you're talking about people in prison for using drugs or putting their child in a good school district that is outside of their neighborhood residence eligibility then yeah a second chance shouldn't be out of the question. A guy spreading videos of little kids getting raped? Yeah, maybe a second chance eventually, but not after only three months.

Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man go to prison, so the saying goes. Well how many innocent people is it better to have  raped and murdered than to have a hundred guilty men stay in prison for a long, long time?

[cherrypoptart]

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violence

Perpetrators of rape are often serial criminals.

Out of every 1,000 suspected rape perpetrators referred to prosecutors:7
370 have at least one prior felony conviction, including 100 who have 5 or more
520 will be released—either because they posted bail or for other reasons—while awaiting trial
70 of the released perpetrators will be arrested for committing another crime before their case is decided

When convicted, perpetrators are spending more time in prison.

In 2013, there were 161,000 state inmates incarcerated as punishment for sexual violence crimes—that’s about 12% of all state inmates.
These inmates are staying in prison longer: the median time served for sexual violence convicts has increased 10 months since 2002 (from 38 to 48 months served).

------------------------------------------------------------------

Less than 4 years. Set free to rape again and again. And that's out of the relative handful that are ever even charged and convicted. Pathetic.

I mean if you want to talk about releasing non-violent people that's one thing but we're already giving these rapists only 4 years and how's that working out? Is that making people safer? Would releasing them sooner or not sending them to prison at all be even better?

[TheDrake]

Using your source, and allowing the specifics of sexual violence for ease of discussion and to keep from having a moving target:

Victims of sexual violence who are incarcerated are most likely to be assaulted by jail or prison staff.

In jail or prison, 60% of all sexual violence against inmates is perpetrated by the institution’s staff.4

That might be a pretty good indication that releasing a prisoner might prevent a rape rather than causing one. But also that you might not be preventing the rape, you might just be shifting it to a fellow prisoner. Who might be a non-violent offender.

What about these pre-trial releases? So the idea is to deny bail to everyone? Not worried about a wrongful accusation? This isn't your scenario of letting a guilty person out, they aren't proven guilty yet.

I don't disagree that some convicted of sexual crimes receive a light sentence. Brock Turner certainly lands in that category, he faced a maximum of 14 years, prosecutors asked for 6, and received a sentence of six months.

When it comes to rape, as opposed to other sexual violence crimes - including sexual assault - national guidelines are between 8 and 20 years - I guess you'd make that life without parole? One thing to consider, if you make rape punishments the same as murder, there's really no upside in the rapist letting the victim live. It also eliminates any plea bargain, so you'll be taking everyone to trial. Which may injure the victim - or  make them less likely to report it knowing they must testify for sure.

[msquared]

What was different about Brock?  Oh yeah a young white male from a privileged back ground.

[Lloyd Perna]

Recently there was a mass shooting in Sacramento, I'm sure you read about it in the news.

One of the suspects was sentenced in 2018 for domestic violence and assault with great bodily injury after he pushed his way into his girlfriend's home, punched her, dragged her from the residence by her hair and whipped her with a belt.

He was released from his 10-year sentence in February of this year after authorities said his sentence was completed due to pre-sentencing credits, even after a parole board rejected his bid for early release last May. In that parole haring prosecutors said the 2017 felony assault against his girlfriend along with convictions for possessing an assault weapon and thefts posed "a significant, unreasonable risk of safety to the community."

Will we lock this guy up forever this time?  My guess is no.

[TheDrake]

Recently there was a mass shooting in Sacramento, I'm sure you read about it in the news.

One of the suspects was sentenced in 2018 for domestic violence and assault with great bodily injury after he pushed his way into his girlfriend's home, punched her, dragged her from the residence by her hair and whipped her with a belt.

He was released from his 10-year sentence in February of this year after authorities said his sentence was completed due to pre-sentencing credits, even after a parole board rejected his bid for early release last May. In that parole haring prosecutors said the 2017 felony assault against his girlfriend along with convictions for possessing an assault weapon and thefts posed "a significant, unreasonable risk of safety to the community."

Will we lock this guy up forever this time?  My guess is no.

Are you recommending life imprisonment for domestic violence assaults, and then letting parole boards decide who is risky and who isn't? And what happens when the parole boards approve all the rich white abusers for early release, and not the poor minorities? We know parole boards are biased from statistics. The recidivism rate for such cases is 23%, so its not like it is inevitable that they will repeat.

[Lloyd Perna]

Hardly, but I do believe that government has an obligation to society to protect them from violent criminals. Notice, I did not mention race in my previous post, nor will I in this one.

Lets talk a bit more about Smiley Martin.
Six months after he turned 18, Martin was caught in January 2013 with an assault rifle and two fully loaded 25-bullet magazines and was convicted of felony gun charges.

“The rifle had a pistol grip and the capacity to accept a detachable magazine in front of the pistol grip. Inmate Martin was also found to be in possession of two fully loaded twenty-five round magazines for the assault weapon. Inmate Martin admitted to transporting the assault weapon and large capacity magazines to potential buyers. Inmate Martin was sentenced to probation and county jail.”

10 Months later, he pushed aside a Walmart clerk to steal computers worth $2,800. He pled to the robbery and was sentenced to two years in state prison.

In 2016, he was arrested as a parolee at large. And less than six months after that was the assault that sent him back to prison.

He plead no contest to charges of corporal injury and assault likely to cause great bodily injury.  In return for the government dropped the charges of kidnapping and intimidating a witness or victim.

For some reason I cannot fathom, of those charges only Kidnapping is considered a violent felony in California.  This will be important later.

Prior to sentencing Martin sat in jail for 254 days.  The judge awarded him time served credit for twice that. again, I don't get California.

So that would knock his remaining time to serve down to about 8.6 years for release sometime in 2026.

But it gets better!  In California, non-violent felons can earn "a variety of additional post-sentencing credits" which would have prior to 2016 reduced his time served by an additional 20%. But in 2016 California passed Proposition 57 which bumped those credits to 50%!

So that is how a clearly violent criminal only serves 4 years of a 10 year sentence.

The problem is that California failed it's duty to protect society from a violent criminal. Who though he has not been charged for it yet probably participated in a mass shooting resulting multiple murders.

[cherrypoptart]

Forgive me if I'm not seeing something but the appearance is that Democrats care more for the guilty criminals than they do for innocent victims. The only innocent people they care about are the ones falsely accused and put in prison, and that part is noble, but the innocent people who are hurt by people who were rightfully convicted of violent crimes and then set free? If there is any concern for them anywhere in the Democratic platform, it's well concealed.

Is that because the guilty people who are in prison are being punished, being hurt, by the government which is made up of the people so Democrats feel they are responsible for causing people pain as opposed to when the violent criminals who are set free shoot, rape, rob, and murder innocent people the Democrats see that as "not my problem, not my responsibility"?

We have no duty, or if we do have any obligation it's very small and limited, to protect people from people, to protect citizens from citizens. The main responsibility we have is to protect people from government law enforcement, cops and the prison system. What people do to each other doesn't weigh on our conscience because we can't be expected to control that. We only have control over what our government does.

[rightleft22]

Hardly, but I do believe that government has an obligation to society to protect them from violent criminals

The government (we are the government) has a obligation to protect society thus justice is a balance. Justice and freedom the the exercises of determining and setting of boundaries.
As individuals we wish to be protected from criminals and protected from wrongly being convicted. There by the grace of God...

Forgive me if I'm not seeing something but the appearance is that Democrats care more for the guilty criminals

That says more about a bias then fact. Outside the echo chambers the desire to set healthy boundaries of freedom and protection the concern is the same. The difference is scale - freedom from <-> freedom to...

Lioyd's argument was interpreted as recommending life imprisonment for domestic violence assaults. Taking that If I say all republicans want to lock up for life anyone they perceive as a threat for life.  Better a innocent man go to jail for life then in hindsight we hear a story of someone released commenting more crime.

That of course is Absurd. Sadly it is all to common to chose a few examples as proof of the whole. I have a example of dem being idiots ergo all Dems are idiots

Everything is either or, with me or against me making honest dialog impossible. I'm not very optimistic we will do anything about the absurdity and change the inevitable end of such foolishness'. 

Societies rise and fall as all things do. Even if we clearly see it coming we won't change it. History shows we will press down on the accelerator. The better we have things, and never have so many people have things so good, the more we will try to cling and create the very outcomes we fear. 

[TheDrake]

Forgive me if I'm not seeing something but the appearance is that Democrats care more for the guilty criminals than they do for innocent victims. The only innocent people they care about are the ones falsely accused and put in prison, and that part is noble, but the innocent people who are hurt by people who were rightfully convicted of violent crimes and then set free? If there is any concern for them anywhere in the Democratic platform, it's well concealed.

Is that because the guilty people who are in prison are being punished, being hurt, by the government which is made up of the people so Democrats feel they are responsible for causing people pain as opposed to when the violent criminals who are set free shoot, rape, rob, and murder innocent people the Democrats see that as "not my problem, not my responsibility"?

We have no duty, or if we do have any obligation it's very small and limited, to protect people from people, to protect citizens from citizens. The main responsibility we have is to protect people from government law enforcement, cops and the prison system. What people do to each other doesn't weigh on our conscience because we can't be expected to control that. We only have control over what our government does.

This brings so many things into play. One does not lose all their rights and liberties forever because they are guilty of one act. I suppose we could do that, but we have decided not to. We certainly do plenty, from onerous parole and probation requirements to disastrous three strike rules and sentences so high that even Trump reformed them - a man who can hardly get any more law and orderish and harsh on crime.

The First Step Act was proposed by a Republican and passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. Most people aren't prepared to discard anyone who has ever committed an assault.

As for Lloyd's anecdote, it is completely useless. I'll bet I can find an anecdote of a violent offender, maybe even a repeat offender, who went on to become active in his community devoting himself to a life of service as well. Or an anecdote about somebody who spent twenty years in prison under mandatory minimum sentencing and was eventually exonerated by the Innocence Project.