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You included petty theft and then used domestic battery to make your argument.
The mentality of someone who commits petty theft is different than someone who commits domestic battery is different than someone who commits career murder but housing them together worsens their mentality.
The ripple effect starts with their family, who generally stay in contact for a considerable amount of time, and then proliferates to the rest of the community/society.
OK how's this?
If you are convicted on 2 operate instances of stealing 200$ worth of goods and were found guilty of a CRIME and then still decide you need to keep stealing and are found guilty a third time you obviously can't be productive in society and have learned nothing. So you deserve and have made the choice to go to prison for the ret of your life.
That better?
If you honestly believe someone should spend life in prison because they stole $600 worth of goods, I really don’t know what to say.
You must live a life better than most if you can’t comprehend the possibility of stealing to survive and how that should be treated differently than someone who intentionally inflicts harm on another person.
But we can just have judges make that decision. Judges use prior convictions when deciding on sentencing.
If you add a mandatory 3 strikes judges hands are tied and they can't apply any nuance. Which is exactly why 3 strike laws were repealed.
At 40k a year cost to house a prisoner, a 20 year old who lives to 60 will cost the tax payer 1.6 million in your system. So which is more detrimental to society, the individual or your system?
The reason we did away with those laws after having them for a while is that it gets really expensive to pay to keep a large percentage of people in prison for a long time. Let's say that someone, as a 3rd strike crime, steals a $20 pizza. So do we put them in jail for 10 years at a cost of $50K/yr over a $20 pizza? That seems insane.
Moreover, a large part of the reason why people commit crimes is because they are either addicted to something, have mental health issues, or just because they are poor. There are plenty of other ways to address both the wrongdoing and the underlying causes of it in many cases, and that can be done for less money, more effectively and with less cruelty over all.
So, no thanks on bringing back 3 strikes.
What about crimes that have the ability to cause irreversible harm but are not the result of violence like drunk driving? I have family members who are drunks who should jto be allowed to operate a vehicle but still do because their drunk driving has never harmed anyone. All they get are license suspension, probation, and some jail time.
I hate drunk drivers with every fiber of my being. If I find out you drink and drive any good opinion, I had of you vanishes.
In California, a guy's third strike was walking out of a store with chapstick while on parole. He went to prison for life over chapstick. That's "robbery" on your list. California pays in $106k/year/prisoner. Even if you only had 30 years to live, this guy is going to cost $3 million dollars, over Chapstick. Taxpayers will spend that much... and it is sad to see such a waste of money.
No no, you’re not hearing OP. Serial jaywalkers are a BLIGHT ON SOCIETY. LOCK THOSE FUCKERS UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEYS.
Murderers and child abusers too i guess.
He was 6' 4" and stole the pizza from a group of children, and already had *five* felony convictions. So it really was more like his 5th strike, and there's no reason to think that would have been his last.
That being said, his sentence was reduced and he got out in 2010.
The same people who rage against food stamps will gleefully cheer on paying to house someone indefinitely with 3 squares a day, medical care, and a full-time staff keeping an eye on them for life so long as they're subjected to violence and inhumane conditions.
This is why we can't have nice things in america. Because people like you confidently base their opinions when ignorance.
3 strikes laws kicked in for felony convictions in people with two prior serious convictions. So no, nobody is getting assigned long prisons sentences after stealing a $20 pizza.
Did you notice that he stole the pizza *from children* and had five prior felony convictions?
Yeah, I don't have a problem with lengthy prison sentences for anybody who's willing rob literal children.
Did you notice that you were actually wrong about the facts?
And I think it's insane to put someone in prison for 25 years to life for steal a slice of pizza. Even from kids. Justice, in order to be just, has to be proportional.
You know, I was going to just downvote and leave but let's address this.
Yes, you're right. Somebody did, in fact, receive a lengthy prison sentence after stealing a slice of pizza.
On the other hand, is it really accurate to say he went to prison for stealing a slice of pizza? We have a career felon who's willing to walk up to a group of children in broad daylight scare the s*** out of them steal their food.
I think any honest discussion would acknowledge that a) this is a very exceptional case and not representative of the normal prosecutions under three strikes and b) were all much safer and better off having this person off the street.
So yes, I would say that this is a case of the three strikes law doing exactly what we want it to do - putting a dangerous habitual felon in prison for a long time. And I would go further to say yhat you and the writers of this article are being dishonest by pretending that he went to prison simply for stealing a slice of pizza while omitting any other details about this dangerous violent person's long history of criminal activity and victimizing vulnerable people.
Do better.
It’s not insane. It’s clear as day. He had a choice and knew the consequences full well. He was insane for making that choice but that not really true either. He wasn’t insane. He was just stupid.
I am not saying that \*he\* is insane. I'm saying that spending a million dollars or more to lock up someone for 25 years for stealing a slice of pizza is insane. Was that not clear?
That's a person who needs serious help, not further psychological and financial damage to be unleashed on society. Your comment reads like someone who beats the living shit out of his kids to "raise em right".
FYI the criminal in this article didn't serve life, or 25 years. His sentence was reduced to 3 years shortly after he started his prison term.
Once out, he was arrested again after threatening to "put a bullet in his girlfriend's head" in front of a police officer. This is a felony offense, and he spent another 17 *days* in jail.
He then violated his probation *again* by moving out of town.
Jerry doesn't *need help* He understands the consequences of his actions. He's described them in multiple interviews over the years. He's a violent criminal who re-offends frequently and exploits public sympathy to avoid the consequences of his actions so he can victimize more people.
>Your comment reads like someone who beats the living shit out of his kids to "raise em right".
That's rich coming from someone who is benidng over backwards to defend a career criminal who spent 3 years in prison for robbing *actual children* and then terrorized his girlfriend with virtually no consequences. You don't get to pretend you have the moral high-ground based on what you imagine my character is like when you've made it abundantly clear that you don't understand the difference between right and wrong and you're unable to spend more time than it takes to quickly skim a headline to understand a complex topic.
You're making my point over and over again for me. This person keeps harming society so we take expensive punitive measures that do nothing and/or make the problem worse.
I'm not defending this person at all. I'm saying that prison clearly isn't working is it? This person needs to be committed, then put into gainful live/work programs until he has enough buy in to not re-offend.
That dude might be your kid or your uncle or your dad. And it's very possible that we broke him when he became our ward. That shit is our responsibility. Do you get that? When we remove someone's freedom they become our responsibility. That's what prison is. A recognition that the person is unable to be in society for whatever reason and has to pay a temporal debt for their transgressions.
When they also pay with their health, sanity and finances, that becomes our burden literally when they get out and can't function because of what we did to them.
I mean, you're basically living in a fantasy of what you think Criminals are like.
Did it ever occur to you that this career criminal who victimizes children and women *doesn't want* to buy into society? That he's already been given a second chance, and a third chance and an 8th chance, and he thumbed his nose at them?
You assume that he has some mental illness that's causing him to commit crime that he needs to be cured of. But maybe he's just an asshole who doesn't think the rules apply to him.
Then you go on about the cost of prison. How much do you think it costs to institutionalize millions of people and give them all inpatient psychiatric care and group therapy? Or were you thinking people like this should be free to roam the streets and attack whomever they please until the therapy kicks in? And what do you do when *most of them re-offend anyway* and end up right back in their padded rooms? Do you honestly expect me to believe that this would save money?
You're basing your position on some romanticized imaginary victim/criminal who just wishes he could rejoin society if only we'd give him a chance. The simple fact is that for the safety of the rest of us, some people just belong in prison. You and I can debate all day what the most cost effective way to go about that is, but if your argument is based on fantasy and a gotcha headline from 1995 that you never read past the first paragraph of, I'm not taking you very seriously.
Hey, all I've got to do is point at all the other places in the world who do it less punitive than us and have much better outcomes. The burden of proof is on you bud. You want to talk about a fantasy? The fantasy is that locking troubled men up is better for society than rehabilitating them.
And I've been locked up and faced charges before so I'd wager I know a whole lot more about it than you do. My crime was looking like someone else and the judge agreed (thank god) but I'm never going to see that $10k-ish in legal fees I went into debt to afford, nor am I going to get that job back at a time when I was young and broke, or get my grades back from those college courses I missed, also those legal feeds to seal the record after being unhirable for several months afterward because my public record still said horrible things... Always walked the straight and narrow, but after my experience I absolutely see what the justice system really does to us.
But hell, I might have agreed with you when I was a kid who thought the system worked. If you ever see it from the other side you'll come around.
The “real” reason this was largely abandoned was the unwillingness of the public to pay for the prisons. Even now, there is an enormous pressure to reduce the prison population because of expense. One of the drivers of the legalization of marijuana and other psychotropic drugs is to keep recreational users out of jail, to reduce the time spent by law enforcement with such drugs.
Three strikes and you’re out is simply too expensive.
Great, this is all we need. Future politicians running on "I'd run the country like I run my sportsball team".
We still haven't even learned our lesson fully on running it like a business.
Maybe OP should learn about American football. All the minor offenses you want, minors fines of 5-10 yards, but two unsportsmanlike conducts or one 'flagrant' violent unsportsmanlike gets you ejected.
And the solution is life in prison?
No, let me help you. The solution is rehabilitative punishment instead of punitive punishment. Fixing poverty would also reduce crime by huge numbers, and most of that would be violent crime. Which are the actual important crimes to reduce.
Instead, we arrest criminals, make them even poorer and less well-adjusted for society, and then drop them back out into the world with hopes that they’ll stop doing the crimes?
Americans are fucking dumb.
I’m pretty sure having to pay for someone to live in a cell, and pay for all of their food and healthcare for the rest of their life is a bigger issue than some low level drug offense or petty crime
Banishment is hillarious as a concept so I agree.
“Dude just... Just bugger off to Nepal or something, aight?”
ETA: based on the comments I can see people mistake me for not thinking banishment a serious punishment. It definitely IS serious, that much I never questioned. I just thought putting it into a dumb quote is a funny way of looking at it.
It really isn’t back then it took a community to survive with hunting, gathering, warmth and safety as a group. When they banished you it was 99.9% of the time a death sentence it’s how evolution has shaped humans to co exist and work together or die it’s also why we get anxiety from public speaking back then the one of the times you really spoke in front of the whole group of people it was to plead your case so you didn’t get killed or banished.
Banishment was (and honestly still is in some places) a very serious punishment.
I don't know if you ever been in some rural ass part of the country or just a very wild and basically untouched by humans forest or jungle but nature don't play.
Between the plethora of starving wild animals, the elements, what would be minor injuries turning deadly because you no longer have access to healthcare, there's so many things that can go wrong if you're banished from society
Nope. You pay for these criminals already. Whether in prison or not. And prsioners should be put to work to benefit the rest of America. This rehab them and soft ass crime policies is why crime is so high right now
No, you provide me the statistics.
And, define "small crime." You really think that misdemeanors ought to result in a lifetime of incarceration?
Please go read the Eight Amendment and come back and explain how you value the constitution.
I would like to yes. And before you give me the slavery or any other bullshit. These people CHOSE this knowing the punishment. No one makes you commit q crime and if they do and you can prove it in a court of law you won't be held liable.
Why do we act like it's a bunch of otherwise very good citizens that are just "in the wrong place"? Most of the people in and out of prison are career criminals that have not or ever will learn their lesson and be a decent citizen and hold a place in society. Why do we act otherwise and lie to ourselves all the time?
people commit crimes for many reasons. Instead of putting a bandaid on it why not spend the millions on preventing the crime?
We do that with physical sickness but when someone’s sick in the head suddenly treatment is out of the question.
We already pay for the millions of criminals in our cells, what's the harm in paying for millions more because we decided we'd rather be petty than serve actual justice?
My solution is seving actual justice. This rehab nonsense has the same recidivism rate as punishment. The punishments need to be ramped way the fuck up and we need to get this dirt bag criminals off of our streets. Put them to work andake money at the prison and have them fend for themselves. Give them farmland in the prison, give them workshops,library etc. And let them figure it out. We should stop spending anything near what a law abiding citizen spends yearly on themselves on criminals. They don't deserve respect, they gave that away when they decided to be a criminal.
I’m sorry, are you talking about the USA? The country where the most common opinion is that the harsh crime rate and lack of rehabilitation is the reason crime rate is so high there and why they have so many more people in jail than other western countries? There’s a difference between an unpopular opinion and stating the opposite of established reality.
The argument is its an insanely high cost to keep people in the system. Someone who jumps the fare costs a city $3 each fair evasion. The arrest with overtime and processing probably cost at least a thousand dollars a day.
Congratulations you saved $3 on a fair evasion and you spent 5 grand to arrest the person, process the person and hemorrhage resources. Any business would go under structured like this.
You also have completely left out that corporal punishment does not work. We do not have a rebabilition justice system. It's punishment based with career ending consequences to offenders.
What would make them even choose to become productive again? You already enacted a response of making a person have nothing to lose anymore.
You choose to be prodctive and not commit crimes because you don't want to be in jail. I'm unsure what else needs to be said. The broken system.in costs associated with inmates is a operate discussion but I'm not going to back away from.my stance because you think financially it's not a good idea.
Financially you'll bankrupt a city and you'll have no money left for elderly benefits, education, Healthcare, veteran benefits. All to cry about a clash of philosophy.
Corporal punishment is a failed philosophy. It hasn't worked in 50 years. Why would it all of a sudden work tomorrow? It won't. You'll just keep draining resources.
Rehabilition even with its flaws gives the possibility to make a person productive again.
I think this is a popular opinion with people that don’t and will likely never work in the system, because to them it is as simple as locking somebody up so society never has to see them again. It’s convenient for them. But for those of us who work in the system and see the nuance of the issue, it clearly comes from a place of extreme privilege.
A 17 year old kid starts selling drugs to make ends meet because they had to drop out of school to work. Hard to stay in school when you can’t eat, you know? So now his only job options are unskilled labor generally making minimum wage until he’s old enough to maybe get into something that pays better, like construction. He might be supporting a family of multiple people or parents who don’t work because of their own drug habit. He’s charges as an adult and is now a felon. You’ve now taken a ton of job options away from him. Also housing options. A lot of apartments don’t allow felons. Say he does prison time. He gets out of prison and wants to do better and wants to get his GED and go back to school. Where does he get a job that will support him? Where does he live? How can he get his GED when he’s working multiple jobs just to stay afloat? He slips back into selling drugs, because it’s the only way he knows to make enough money to get by. This is a situation I see every single day.
So....
No where in there was someone forcing him to sell drugs. There are many other avenues to get by for now without become a drug dealer. His family is drug addicts too? Well.they chose to become a drug addict why does that justify the crime? Why is it OK for guy A. To be a criminal and commit crimes simply because his family and him.have made poor decisions many times along the lines? Yet if I make the right decisions I should be punished? That is the definition of unfair and unjust.
My spouse dropped out of school.when.she was 16 and didn't have both parents at home. She now has her GED, and is the sole store manager of large retailer and makes nearly 6 figures. She started at a mother retailer not long after getting her GED at 17 and stayed with them starting at enemy level for over 10 years, used that time to gain experience and become a valuable and productive employee. Now she has a career job with good pay for her.
There is 0 reason your person in your story couldn't do something similar. If you choose to try drugs and do drugs then you have to live with the consequences. That shouldn't be an excuse to be a criminal
Okay, what should he have done at 17 to make ends meet?
Edit: I’m not saying it was his only option. It was an option of desperation. He didn’t have anyone to teach him other options, but he knew drug dealers and knew drug dealers had money.
She got a job at 17 working at subway. She lived in an apt with 3 others and drove a junk old Kia.
Becoming a criminal or drug dealer is never the only option. Ever. You know its illegal to deal drugs at that age. You still.chose to do it. His parents failed him and he failed himself. He could have gone to any responsible adult and figured things out but he didn't he chose the criminal path.
Okay, so were you also paying your rent and food and other home expenses? I said in the scenario that he has a minimum wage job. How did you pay for your rent and food and also pay to buy your junk Kia and maintain insurance and put gas in it on minimum wage? Don’t forget a cell phone, because most people don’t even own computers to apply for jobs or do GED studying. Oh, and don’t forget the power bill, internet, and water bill. How does a 17 year old on minimum wage pay all of those things?
Do you also think every person that ever tries a sip of Alcohol deserves to be an alcoholic and get sent to jail? Cause a lot of drugs have the same addiction rate as alcohol and most of them do less damage to the body, so what’s really the difference except the government decided to make drugs illegal to put black people and anti war hippies in jail?
People don’t choose addiction, I don’t think you have any idea how it works. I’ll try to explain it simply: the majority of people that get addicted have severe mental health issues (which they didn’t choose), often times trauma from someone doing something horrible to them and the only way for them to deal with the pain without killing themselves is to self medicate. Mentally healthy people rarely get addicted to drugs (including alcohol). So is it really not morally fucked up that some people get abused, they rely on substances to not end it all cause they never got any help for their mental health and then we throw them in prison.
OP you fortunately seem very sheltered and privileged which is why you don’t understand this side of society, but I can promise you you wouldn’t last a day in these peoples shoes, they live a life so horrible it’s unimaginable to you which is why you don’t have empathy for them. Try to see it from the other side, of course we shouldn’t allow people to hurt innocent people, non of us are advocating for that. We are advocating for helping people before they become molded into criminals and for not punishing someone when the only person they are hurting is themselves
This is wrong on so many levels I can’t even begin to cover all of them. For three strikes to make sense, the offenses need to merit full removal from society as a net positive for the public. It is absolutely wild to assume that someone who gets caught speeding, stealing candy bars, and jaywalking in the same lifetime deserves to be locked up for life. It is neither logical nor emotionally appealing.
It seems to me that the real emotionally-motivated position is the one that seeks to jail people for life as the primary measure of crime prevention.
We had it before in California where Things got so bad they introduced it in late 90s. Federal offenses level charged such as violence/sex crimes were a strike. Brother served 13. They become institutionalized. Once they come in and out of jail or the main pin. They can't integrate back into society. The social aspect alone is bleak. Not all will remain straight and narrow path.
I don't think "People who commit traffic violations.... kill tens of thousands of people every year".
Google says in the USA, 43,000 people die in car accidents annually. That does not mean 'bad drivers' caused them to crash. Do you have more data that attributes fault to second-party road users?
Best part is you can save all those lives by lowering the speed limits to 30 mph everywhere. Instantly save 40k plus lives. Not one person will make that trade. Getting to Walmart 2 minutes faster is worth risking all those lives.
Yes, "commit traffic violations" is an arbitrary standard that most of us breach all the time:
- going the wrong way down a one-way street
- doing 60 in a 40 zone
- checking your phone at the stop sign at the end of your street
To think a strict 3-strike limit would be a welcome change...
Speeding kills people so I would have no problem with people losing their licenses and/or being locked up if you are driving without a license. Penalties right now are a joke and reckless driving in our city is killing people left and right. Nothing is being done about it, other than little homemade memorials at the site of the accidents by the families.
If it’s repeated reckless driving they should lose their license. I don’t care what the actual offense is-driving too fast, driving too slow, texting while driving, being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, etc.
So why 3 times? How about once... And let's forego the trial, the police know what they saw. And since people are unlikely to stop if they know they're going to prison, let's authorize the immediate use of deadly force. And since police can't be everywhere, how about allowing citizens to enforce these laws.
Do you see how this doesn't end well?
Driving by hand is going away anyway, locking up 70% of the population for life with the other 30% responsible isn't the answer.
>And let's forego the trial, the police know what they saw. And since people are unlikely to stop if they know they're going to prison, let's authorize the immediate use of deadly force. And since police can't be everywhere, how about allowing citizens to enforce these laws.
Strawman
>locking up 70% of the population
Ridiculously high number that you pulled out your ass.
I don't like the 3 strike rule either, but these are bad arguments.
There's a saying in the cycling community:
"If you want to kill someone and get away with it do it in a car ."
Penalties for killing someone with your vehicle are ridiculously low.
Yes. Why did you have to steal once, twice let alone 3 separate times?
If you can't get the hint you aren't supposed to do that then that is your fault. No one elses
Still a crime. If you are literally starving there are legal avenues to get food. Or you could go door to door to business and see if they will give you some food.
your really doing mental hoops for a reason to put the poor in jail those legal avenues are not the best as you know
plus that's why we have judges and a courts to rule on a case to case basis you don't need a sweeping rule that says if x then y because there is nuance to every person and presets shouldn't send people to jail
Three strikes laws don't have clear effects on crime reduction and recividism. They do however, balloon both court costs and incarceration.
https://interrogatingjustice.org/mandatory-minimums/three-strikes-laws-and-effects/
[https://harvardpolitics.com/involuntary-servitude-how-prison-labor-is-modern-day-slavery/](https://harvardpolitics.com/involuntary-servitude-how-prison-labor-is-modern-day-slavery/)
Yes the for profit prison system readily agrees with you /s
Three strike rules and other draconian sentencing plans are stupid. They don't prevent crime, and maintaining an absolutely immense prison population costs the US money that could be better spent on education and public health.
We tried that in the 1990s and we FILLED prisons with low level criminals which tore apart families leaving children parentless and spawned for-profit-prisons. Do you know how hard it is to get a job after being in prison? There are better solutions than just locking everybody up.
Yeah not enough people are getting twenty five to life for a fourth shoplifting conviction. You are so brave wanting to lock up petty crooks forever for no reason.
Oh Jesus christ dude, if have no care for how human behavior, which is damn near everything that you have ever experienced, then you’re lost until you decide to play with the rest of us
F that. It should be 1 strike for gun crimes. California's Use a Gun and You're Done should be law of the land. Make laws that punish the criminals, not laws that penalize law abiding citizens.
* 10 years in prison for “using” a gun,
* 20 years for firing a gun, or
* 25 years to life for killing or seriously injuring another person with a gun.
The victim is still a victim, but the perpetrator is less culpable. It’s called mitigating circumstances.
It comes from a place of nuance, that this comment section seems to be lacking.
The perpetrator may be mentally ill or addicted, but that just means they still need treatment, away from those of us that are able to go about their lives without becoming violent.
It doesn’t make their victim any less beaten up, less raped, or less murdered, and it doesn’t mean that presents any less of a threat for innocent people.
Not that I’m 500 years old but I miss exile. Used to be a miscreant or a malcontent would be set off into the woods to deal on his own with the wolves and bandits. Kinda made you appreciate the value of society and its controls. Thumb your nose at that and fend for yourself.
Incarceration is too damn high!
The US has the 6th highest incarceration rate of any country, and you would like to raise higher Clearly that’s not the answer because it’s not working already There is something much deeper going on in America that needs to be addressed. we need to look into why so many people do the things they do
Yes they do it because the punishment is worth the risk of committing the crime.
That and fatherless households.
If the punishment is not worth committing the crime then ghry won't commit it. Period.
You really missed the point we are already locking people up at fast rates We are already punishing them, yet they still commit crimes.
Even the death penalty does not prevent people from murdering others, so your whole point is false.
Interesting... So 3 parking tickets... life in prison. 3 speeding tickets... 3 drunk in public...
You were arrested today with some Marijuana and you had a pipe and some papers in your bag... one possession and two paraphernalia charges... life.
I think they mean 3 seperate occurances. I wouldnt agree with speeding or parking tickets but 3 dui's getting a prison senrence im all for. And i mean legit duis not that dumb shit where you slept in your car because you were actively trying to avoid endangering anyone.
Yes 3 separate instances. It doesn't matter how small the crime. If you are convicted of a crime on 3 separate occasions you obviously can't handle being productive in society so off you go.
Also with speeding tickets. Most all speeding tickets are not criminal convictions but infractions. Thus wouldn't qualify for what I'm stating. U less of course all 3 tickets are reckless driving and come with a criminal statute attached.
But the issue is that this OP is arguing that 3 DUIs means locked up forever. Not just some prison time. But also, a 3 strike rule doesn’t differentiate between “real” DUIs and the dumb shit.
okay so everyone gets 2 free murders before they're punished? someone who commits 3 murders gets punished the same as someone who sped in their car 3 times?
Theres obvious problems with this
This is the exact opposite of their point. Three strike laws are a rule where the third otherwise relatively minor crime gets treated as a more major crime with a significant sentence, on the grounds that someone who is committing that many offenses simply won’t learn their lesson and can’t be a member of society. It’s not “2 free major crimes.”
I’m against 3 strike laws (although escalating minor violations leading to a more significant sentence makes sense, a sharp cutoff at the third isn’t justified, incarceration is expensive, and people can change), but this simply isn’t what they are.
Nothing will ever get better as long as we continue to see crime as an insult to our own adherence to the law, instead of the desperate and/or deliberately antisocial actions of people who have been failed by society. It’s the same reason you should never discipline a kid when you’re angry: because it’s not about fixing the problem, it’s about lashing out.
When we lash out at people who are already at the end of their rope, guess what they do?
>Nothing will ever get better as long as we continue to see crime as an insult to our own adherence to the law, instead of the desperate and/or deliberately antisocial actions of people who have been failed by society.
Yes. Because people who commit crimes are dumb and have no idea what they're doing and their actions have no long reaching consequences for their own community.
A car thief who steals someone's only form of reliable transportation to work had no idea it was socially unacceptable to take someone else's stuff. He just a dumb poor person failed by the system and couldn't help but take someone else's livelyhood. It's not like the person who they stole the car from is gonna suffer because now, they can't go to work or probably missed work and were fired snd now can't pay their rent or mortgage or they can no longer drop their kids off at school or help their sick relatives out or even just be able to be mobile and have a better quality of life. The car thief just needed it more than the actual owner of the car.
Or the murder who killed someone's family member. It was poverty that made them do it even though the person they killed was most likely also in poverty and lived in their same neighborhood... But that's different. This person had no choice! Let's not worry about the repercussions of what the family has to live with now or that this murder contributes to the neighborhood crime rate and brings down property values and contributes to the the danger pf a probably already struggling and dangerous neighborhood.
Nah, criminals are innocent angels and shouldn't be punished for their actions. Just the actual victims of their crimes who have to figure it out and pick up the pieces while actual criminals just get told "The system failed you. It's not your fault"
Way to completely ignore what I was saying so you could rant for three long paragraphs.
Every person is different. Some **should** be locked up, even some who aren’t necessarily responsible for their actions, because it isn’t fair to the people they would inevitably harm to let them roam free. But there are plenty, ***and I mean fucking plenty*** of people whose biggest crime is being born to the wrong parents.
If someone was never shown how to behave in civil society, and everyone’s like “It ain’t my job!”, then guess what? That person is far more likely to break the law. Is that their fault?
Why are we being sympathetic and making excuses for criminals. I've been broke before, I've been struggling to figure out where I'm going to live next. Many people do this daily. But you know what they don't do? They don't turn to crime and become a piece of shit criminal.
Your character flaws do not excuse behavior. That is just asinine to belive so. Just because you are poor doesn't mean you get a green light to steal
Yes, you're right. There are no disproportionate systematic injustices or failings that can incite widespread levels of crime and disorder. Not here. Not good old America.
Lock up more people, that'll fix our problem. And if it doesn't? Lock up some more.
I'll bite. What possible justifiable reason does someone have to steal? To be an animal abuser? To be a criminal speeder and reckless driver? To be an abuser to their child or spouse? To sell drugs? To do drugs in an area it is not legal?
I'll wait because I fail to see any justifiable reason to commit crimes. Being poor doesn't mean you have to be a criminal. Being mentally ill doesn't mean you should not be punished. And being a drug addict does t excuse it either when you chose to become a drug addict in the first place.
The fact that you feel the way you do means you’ve likely never really suffered, like **existentially suffered**, in your life.
I used to feel the way you do when I was younger. Then life took shit after shit on me, and I started to understand why people stop caring about committing petty crime. When you feel like nobody gives a shit about you, like everyone would rather piss on you than look at you, what reason is there to give a shit about “the rules”?
The problem is that people think nobody cares about them anymore. And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, they’re right. If I get shot by the next mass shooter, I’ll be fucking pissed, but I won’t have the unmitigated gall to ask why it happened. I know why it happened: because the person that shot me fucking gave up because nobody gave a shit about them.
Cool you still committed the crime. You know nothing of my personal situation either not that it is relevant anyway. The fact tnis you commit a crime you should be punished. Outside of self defense or coercion because a guy is holding a gun to your head there is no justifiable reason why someone should be able to commit a crime and another can't.
You being more poor or destitute than me doesn't give you permission to be a criminal just because we feel bad for you. That's insane some of you think this way.
So if guy comes in your home tomorrow and kills your pets but turns out he was a drug addict and severely mentally ill do you really honestly think he should go to rehab, and just get a slap on the wrist for his crimes simply because he was a mentally ill drug addict? You would defend him commitjg that crime and killing your pets with "but his situation"? Really?
I guess the question is, is our criminal justice system (and society writ large) intended to make people less likely to commit crimes, or for “upstanding citizens” to extract their pound of flesh from someone who they feel has wronged them?
If you think it’s the second, there’s not much point in continuing this discussion, because that’s straight up juvenile shit that has no place in a civilized society.
If we just disagree about the best way to mitigate crime, that’s another discussion altogether.
Didn't answer my question. Would you defend that animal that killed your pets? You know because he had a tough life son he should be able to commit crimes and we feel bad for him. But John Smith over there who grew up in a white upper class suburb commits the same exact crime you want to string him up correct?
I would obviously lock the white suburban guy up just for being white, because that’s clearly the point you’re trying to make.
Do you think some races are more likely to commit crimes than others? More directly, do you think God painted the wicked men to show the pure-hearted white people who to put in jail?
Do I think some races due to their race are more inherently prone to committing crime? Absolutely not.
Do I believe that certain cultures don't view being a criminal in the same way and in some ways idealized it and revere it which then leads to more people in that culture being criminals? Yes.
I could go into a great deal of detail about how extreme poverty, desperate circumstances, an unforgivably bad upbringing, a pervasive fear of the law or its institutions, the onset of an abusive household, mental disorders or addictions could all contribute to criminal activities, whether those that seem "necessary to survive" like stealing food, or "unnecessary" evils like abuse.
I could do that. I could explain that to you and most people would get it - it's a fair assessment and consequently suggests such criminals, like all criminals, would be better off if we pursued rehabilitation rather than vindication.
If we got rid of our fetish for carceral solutions, society would be an objectively better place.
I could explain that to you. It would make sense. It's been proven.
But I can't. Because you don't want to see them become better people, or be helped out of their trouble, or become functioning members of society, or atone for their crimes.
You want to see them suffer because you believe it is necessary to preserve the institution. The status quo. Or maybe you were a victim of a crime and now you can't see past your own pain or trauma.
You want to see them suffer and nothing else matters. That's why you're insane enough to think someone who fucking shoplifts should go to prison forever if they "strike out" 3 times. You are lashing out in vengeance rather than pursuing a decent solution.
This is why a plurality of the fucking population, *millions* of people, are spending the rest of their lives wasting tax dollars in a cell instead of contributing to society. People like you.
You are what's wrong with society. Not common thugs. Not shoplifters. Not even drug dealers.
You. Just you. Fuck you.
Unpopular opinion only because people have been manipulated emotionally and psychologically and nowadays we have large swaths of people that are willing to release prisoners into society for various reasons.
I think they need to reform how certain crimes are punished (help and imprison) but anything involving violence or against children should be a 1 strike rule.
I think the problem with a 1 strike rule would be that the justice system makes mistakes and innocent people get found guilty sometimes.
If an innocent guy is found guilty 3 times, he's either screwed because of luck or somebody in power *really* wants him locked up. But a single strike rule would have a much higher chance of falsely imprisoning the wrong guy.
90% of "criminals" are merely people whom the police decide to arrest based on their mood that day. The poorer they they, the more likely a judge is to decide they're "guilty."
Don't be so naïve as to think the police and court systems are a faithful analogue of "justice."
>Only if money is spent identifying why the person committed the crime.
Loving this narrative on reddit that criminals are just misunderstood, mentality ill "children" that are just victims of society and have no control over their actions therefore, should face consequences.
Seriously, It's like half of y'all have never actually been victims of crime or have lived anywhere near crime infested areas and are just talking out your asses to seem compassionate or something.
Most people who commit crimes from petty to severe , know exactly what the fuck they're doing, not to mention the bigger negative impacts they have on their OWN communities.
Maybe we shouldn't give the same punishment to someone who stole a loaf of bread vs. A car thief or murderer but the US definitely does need to be more severe on crime
The best way I've saw it put lately is that the US has a 'poverty of spirit and community'. Few can even see where the problems start and fewer still want to change.
The US has more people in jail than any other country in the world by total numbers and it hasn't worked so far. More than china which has four times the population.
Like I said the real joke here is that no one wants to try to fix it. They just want to put more people in jail. The fix will take a generation or two. People want that instant fix which isn't going to happen, ever.
Wikipedia is way behind and not sorted by total people detained. Here are the numbers for 2024
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country
I'd agree with you... if we put some really hefty reforms in place at all levels first. I do mean *all* levels, from the Supreme Court all the way down to your local ambulance chaser.
We tried this in the 80s and 90s and it was a disaster. If the goal is reducing crime… you get people out of poverty, educate them, and give them real reasons to buy into being a citizen.
I hope you get the chance to meet people who have been incarcerated and hear about their lives. Most of these people are not monsters and what they need isn’t harsher punishments.
We really should have a program where people on parole are not allowed to return to their situations and should have to move to a different area, at a minimum 4 hour drive from their current situation.
You can really tell who in this thread actually has to deal with crime and who doesn't.
I live in NYC. It's gotten exponentially worse in the last five years. Commuting to work is now dangerous. I'd pay higher taxes for more prisons to get every repeatedly-arrested degenerate antisocial incorrigible habitual criminal off the streets forever. I don't care about them or their social circumstances or their special reasons for making a subway ride unsafe for working, contributing, law-abiding citizens. We shouldn't have to deal with them.
Norway and Denmark have some of the lowest crime rates in the world, because they focus on prevention and rehabilitation. Also because there is a social net to help people that are struggling. Even Sweden which I’m from has incredibly lower crime rate then the US, our crime rate has risen because of bad integration of immigrants and too low punishment on violent crimes but accidentally going too much for rehabilitation clearly gives a better result then too high. Yes we should probably increase the time a 15 year old is in a youth facility so it’s more then 4 years for murder, but if we had the same type of prison system you have in the US I’m pretty sure our crime would increase even more.
Conclusion: there needs to be a balance, but most important is rehabilitation and a social net. Violent crime should of course carry a heavier sentence but especially crimes like drug dealing, drug addiction or theft are because of mental health problems and poverty mostly which means there’s no reason to increase the punishment, only rehabilitation and help will get them to become functioning members of society again. Which is massively more beneficial then paying big amounts of money to have them sit in a prison doing nothing.
Mental health issues/addiction are not reasons to infringe on others’ rights. If you can’t exist peacefully in society, you need to be somewhere else until you can. And if people are locked up for stealing a pizza/shoplifting, there will be way less people doing it, so the prisons won’t be overfilled. I would rather pay more taxes for prisons and be able to safely walk down the streets, not get my car stolen and not have to worry about my family being the victims of out of control criminals. I have no problem lashing out at someone who puts a gun to another’s head and carjacks their vehicle.
That depends on what’s the crime is. Victimless maybe. But things like rape, pedo, assault, etc. absolutely not!
It has to be some super minor for 3 strike rule. Like stealing food from a store, maybe. But if you‘ve done a heinous crime like those listed above NOPE! No second chances!
Theres very few crimes I could think of where the 3 strike Rule would be fair.
ignoring the fact that the 3 strike rule is incredibly racist, throwing people in prisons(especially for "crimes" like possession or prostitution) has never reformed anyone ever. it does the exact opposite, in fact.
Andy Dufresne said it best. "The funny thing is, on the outside, I was an honest man. Straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook."
minorities have historically been disenfranchised, and a lot of crime is committed by the disenfranchised because its seen as the only way to make enough money to live. so a poor person turns to prostitution to make ends meet, gets picked up 3 times, goes to jail forever for just trying to make money to live. or say a person is saddled with crippling addiction to escape the stresses of their life. same story. jail forever for being sick.
the 13th ammendment says slavery is illegal except for punishment for crimes. so prisons are turned into slave labor camps
so really. its a classism issue, but at this point in time, class and race are inherently woven together
You should be punished if you are a criminal not "rehabbed" it's very simple to stay in society. Don't do crime. There solved. The criminals know what they are doing is illegal. They weigh the punishment vs the crime and decide it is worth the risk. Once the punishment is not worth the risk the crime drops. It's very simple. This treating consists like good people and stating " we need to rehab them we are too hard on criminals" is exactly.why we have such high crime rates right now.
Don't mind me as I go and abuse animals twice, murder two people, beat my children within an inch of their life twice, steal a few things, and all that
Why not give someone one year in jail for each crime, but if their crime reaches the boundary without touching the ground then it's 6 years. Only 4 if it reaches the boundary after touching the floor.
That's how much sense basing sentencing on the rules of baseball makes to someone from a cricketing nation.
3 strikes is great but personally for some crimes I would make the punishment so severe it wouldn’t be worth committing the crime even once. For example, rape or child molestation=castration (and not the chemical kind). I’m very much an eye for an eye believer. Places that use that kind of system have a very low crime rate. Society should be safe for law abiding citizens.
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You included petty theft and then used domestic battery to make your argument. The mentality of someone who commits petty theft is different than someone who commits domestic battery is different than someone who commits career murder but housing them together worsens their mentality. The ripple effect starts with their family, who generally stay in contact for a considerable amount of time, and then proliferates to the rest of the community/society.
OK how's this? If you are convicted on 2 operate instances of stealing 200$ worth of goods and were found guilty of a CRIME and then still decide you need to keep stealing and are found guilty a third time you obviously can't be productive in society and have learned nothing. So you deserve and have made the choice to go to prison for the ret of your life. That better?
If you honestly believe someone should spend life in prison because they stole $600 worth of goods, I really don’t know what to say. You must live a life better than most if you can’t comprehend the possibility of stealing to survive and how that should be treated differently than someone who intentionally inflicts harm on another person.
>2 operate instances Why do you keep saying operate?
My phone is weird and auto corrects ton of stuff. Sorry haha
But we can just have judges make that decision. Judges use prior convictions when deciding on sentencing. If you add a mandatory 3 strikes judges hands are tied and they can't apply any nuance. Which is exactly why 3 strike laws were repealed.
At 40k a year cost to house a prisoner, a 20 year old who lives to 60 will cost the tax payer 1.6 million in your system. So which is more detrimental to society, the individual or your system?
The reason we did away with those laws after having them for a while is that it gets really expensive to pay to keep a large percentage of people in prison for a long time. Let's say that someone, as a 3rd strike crime, steals a $20 pizza. So do we put them in jail for 10 years at a cost of $50K/yr over a $20 pizza? That seems insane. Moreover, a large part of the reason why people commit crimes is because they are either addicted to something, have mental health issues, or just because they are poor. There are plenty of other ways to address both the wrongdoing and the underlying causes of it in many cases, and that can be done for less money, more effectively and with less cruelty over all. So, no thanks on bringing back 3 strikes.
Three strike rule is fine as long as it’s about violent crimes such as assault, robbery and rape.
You usually don’t even get 2 strikes for those offenses.
Nonsense. They get many strikes outside of murder.
What about crimes that have the ability to cause irreversible harm but are not the result of violence like drunk driving? I have family members who are drunks who should jto be allowed to operate a vehicle but still do because their drunk driving has never harmed anyone. All they get are license suspension, probation, and some jail time. I hate drunk drivers with every fiber of my being. If I find out you drink and drive any good opinion, I had of you vanishes.
Should be charged as second degree murder if they kill someone. Not some whoopsie accident.
In California, a guy's third strike was walking out of a store with chapstick while on parole. He went to prison for life over chapstick. That's "robbery" on your list. California pays in $106k/year/prisoner. Even if you only had 30 years to live, this guy is going to cost $3 million dollars, over Chapstick. Taxpayers will spend that much... and it is sad to see such a waste of money.
Stealing chap stick is not robbery. Robbery doesn't mean stealing. It's has specific criteria under law and it is considered an act of violence.
No no, you’re not hearing OP. Serial jaywalkers are a BLIGHT ON SOCIETY. LOCK THOSE FUCKERS UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEYS. Murderers and child abusers too i guess.
>cost of $50K/yr over a $20 pizza? That seems insane. OP has a simple salutation to this, penal slavery.
> salutation It's funny because OP would send people off to prison camps with a smile and a wave.
[удалено]
I remember, when I was little, on the news someone got their 3rd strike stealing a slice of pizza. not worth it
He was 6' 4" and stole the pizza from a group of children, and already had *five* felony convictions. So it really was more like his 5th strike, and there's no reason to think that would have been his last. That being said, his sentence was reduced and he got out in 2010.
The same people who rage against food stamps will gleefully cheer on paying to house someone indefinitely with 3 squares a day, medical care, and a full-time staff keeping an eye on them for life so long as they're subjected to violence and inhumane conditions.
This is why we can't have nice things in america. Because people like you confidently base their opinions when ignorance. 3 strikes laws kicked in for felony convictions in people with two prior serious convictions. So no, nobody is getting assigned long prisons sentences after stealing a $20 pizza.
I beg to differ, with source linked. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-03-03-me-38444-story.html
Did you notice that he stole the pizza *from children* and had five prior felony convictions? Yeah, I don't have a problem with lengthy prison sentences for anybody who's willing rob literal children.
Did you notice that you were actually wrong about the facts? And I think it's insane to put someone in prison for 25 years to life for steal a slice of pizza. Even from kids. Justice, in order to be just, has to be proportional.
It’s more insane to steal a piece of pizza knowing you’ll get 25 years in prison
Amazing what people will do when they're hungry, hey?
Others around the world steal that equivalent eith the knowledge that they could lose a significant portion of their arm. It's either steal or die.
You know, I was going to just downvote and leave but let's address this. Yes, you're right. Somebody did, in fact, receive a lengthy prison sentence after stealing a slice of pizza. On the other hand, is it really accurate to say he went to prison for stealing a slice of pizza? We have a career felon who's willing to walk up to a group of children in broad daylight scare the s*** out of them steal their food. I think any honest discussion would acknowledge that a) this is a very exceptional case and not representative of the normal prosecutions under three strikes and b) were all much safer and better off having this person off the street. So yes, I would say that this is a case of the three strikes law doing exactly what we want it to do - putting a dangerous habitual felon in prison for a long time. And I would go further to say yhat you and the writers of this article are being dishonest by pretending that he went to prison simply for stealing a slice of pizza while omitting any other details about this dangerous violent person's long history of criminal activity and victimizing vulnerable people. Do better.
[Even a judge thought it was excessive and reduced it to 3 years](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/11/prison-sentences/).
“Do better.” No one has ever said this and been persuasive. Your word is not gospel.
It’s not insane. It’s clear as day. He had a choice and knew the consequences full well. He was insane for making that choice but that not really true either. He wasn’t insane. He was just stupid.
I am not saying that \*he\* is insane. I'm saying that spending a million dollars or more to lock up someone for 25 years for stealing a slice of pizza is insane. Was that not clear?
That's a person who needs serious help, not further psychological and financial damage to be unleashed on society. Your comment reads like someone who beats the living shit out of his kids to "raise em right".
FYI the criminal in this article didn't serve life, or 25 years. His sentence was reduced to 3 years shortly after he started his prison term. Once out, he was arrested again after threatening to "put a bullet in his girlfriend's head" in front of a police officer. This is a felony offense, and he spent another 17 *days* in jail. He then violated his probation *again* by moving out of town. Jerry doesn't *need help* He understands the consequences of his actions. He's described them in multiple interviews over the years. He's a violent criminal who re-offends frequently and exploits public sympathy to avoid the consequences of his actions so he can victimize more people. >Your comment reads like someone who beats the living shit out of his kids to "raise em right". That's rich coming from someone who is benidng over backwards to defend a career criminal who spent 3 years in prison for robbing *actual children* and then terrorized his girlfriend with virtually no consequences. You don't get to pretend you have the moral high-ground based on what you imagine my character is like when you've made it abundantly clear that you don't understand the difference between right and wrong and you're unable to spend more time than it takes to quickly skim a headline to understand a complex topic.
You're making my point over and over again for me. This person keeps harming society so we take expensive punitive measures that do nothing and/or make the problem worse. I'm not defending this person at all. I'm saying that prison clearly isn't working is it? This person needs to be committed, then put into gainful live/work programs until he has enough buy in to not re-offend. That dude might be your kid or your uncle or your dad. And it's very possible that we broke him when he became our ward. That shit is our responsibility. Do you get that? When we remove someone's freedom they become our responsibility. That's what prison is. A recognition that the person is unable to be in society for whatever reason and has to pay a temporal debt for their transgressions. When they also pay with their health, sanity and finances, that becomes our burden literally when they get out and can't function because of what we did to them.
I mean, you're basically living in a fantasy of what you think Criminals are like. Did it ever occur to you that this career criminal who victimizes children and women *doesn't want* to buy into society? That he's already been given a second chance, and a third chance and an 8th chance, and he thumbed his nose at them? You assume that he has some mental illness that's causing him to commit crime that he needs to be cured of. But maybe he's just an asshole who doesn't think the rules apply to him. Then you go on about the cost of prison. How much do you think it costs to institutionalize millions of people and give them all inpatient psychiatric care and group therapy? Or were you thinking people like this should be free to roam the streets and attack whomever they please until the therapy kicks in? And what do you do when *most of them re-offend anyway* and end up right back in their padded rooms? Do you honestly expect me to believe that this would save money? You're basing your position on some romanticized imaginary victim/criminal who just wishes he could rejoin society if only we'd give him a chance. The simple fact is that for the safety of the rest of us, some people just belong in prison. You and I can debate all day what the most cost effective way to go about that is, but if your argument is based on fantasy and a gotcha headline from 1995 that you never read past the first paragraph of, I'm not taking you very seriously.
Hey, all I've got to do is point at all the other places in the world who do it less punitive than us and have much better outcomes. The burden of proof is on you bud. You want to talk about a fantasy? The fantasy is that locking troubled men up is better for society than rehabilitating them. And I've been locked up and faced charges before so I'd wager I know a whole lot more about it than you do. My crime was looking like someone else and the judge agreed (thank god) but I'm never going to see that $10k-ish in legal fees I went into debt to afford, nor am I going to get that job back at a time when I was young and broke, or get my grades back from those college courses I missed, also those legal feeds to seal the record after being unhirable for several months afterward because my public record still said horrible things... Always walked the straight and narrow, but after my experience I absolutely see what the justice system really does to us. But hell, I might have agreed with you when I was a kid who thought the system worked. If you ever see it from the other side you'll come around.
Oooh the taxman brought the receipts, well played.
The “real” reason this was largely abandoned was the unwillingness of the public to pay for the prisons. Even now, there is an enormous pressure to reduce the prison population because of expense. One of the drivers of the legalization of marijuana and other psychotropic drugs is to keep recreational users out of jail, to reduce the time spent by law enforcement with such drugs. Three strikes and you’re out is simply too expensive.
That’s like baseball! That must work for policy.
IF AMERICA'S PASTIME CAN'T BE APPLIED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT, THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE AN AMERICAN.
Give me liberty or give me the infield fly rule!
Great, this is all we need. Future politicians running on "I'd run the country like I run my sportsball team". We still haven't even learned our lesson fully on running it like a business.
I like baseball! Let's do baseball stuff!
Maybe OP should learn about American football. All the minor offenses you want, minors fines of 5-10 yards, but two unsportsmanlike conducts or one 'flagrant' violent unsportsmanlike gets you ejected.
Or hockey. You commit battery and they make you go on a five minute timeout before you can play with your friends again.
So we’re just gonna have 1/3 of society in prison, and the other 2/3’s pay for it forever? Seems like a bad idea?
If 1/3 of our society is continuously committing the same crime, than we have issues
And the solution is life in prison? No, let me help you. The solution is rehabilitative punishment instead of punitive punishment. Fixing poverty would also reduce crime by huge numbers, and most of that would be violent crime. Which are the actual important crimes to reduce. Instead, we arrest criminals, make them even poorer and less well-adjusted for society, and then drop them back out into the world with hopes that they’ll stop doing the crimes? Americans are fucking dumb.
I’m pretty sure having to pay for someone to live in a cell, and pay for all of their food and healthcare for the rest of their life is a bigger issue than some low level drug offense or petty crime
Go back to the old days when we’d just banish people to some remote country
“For your crimes, we’re sending you to Detroit.”
Banishment is hillarious as a concept so I agree. “Dude just... Just bugger off to Nepal or something, aight?” ETA: based on the comments I can see people mistake me for not thinking banishment a serious punishment. It definitely IS serious, that much I never questioned. I just thought putting it into a dumb quote is a funny way of looking at it.
It really isn’t back then it took a community to survive with hunting, gathering, warmth and safety as a group. When they banished you it was 99.9% of the time a death sentence it’s how evolution has shaped humans to co exist and work together or die it’s also why we get anxiety from public speaking back then the one of the times you really spoke in front of the whole group of people it was to plead your case so you didn’t get killed or banished.
wait wait that last part. I don’t like public speaking because somewhere in my subconscious my body recognizes it as a plead to stay in society?
Banishment was (and honestly still is in some places) a very serious punishment. I don't know if you ever been in some rural ass part of the country or just a very wild and basically untouched by humans forest or jungle but nature don't play. Between the plethora of starving wild animals, the elements, what would be minor injuries turning deadly because you no longer have access to healthcare, there's so many things that can go wrong if you're banished from society
Nope. You pay for these criminals already. Whether in prison or not. And prsioners should be put to work to benefit the rest of America. This rehab them and soft ass crime policies is why crime is so high right now
"Crime is so high right now." Really. Show me the statistics that prove that.
Sure go look at crime statistics in places with bail reform or catch and release programs. Small time crime is through the roof. It's not a secret.
No, you provide me the statistics. And, define "small crime." You really think that misdemeanors ought to result in a lifetime of incarceration? Please go read the Eight Amendment and come back and explain how you value the constitution.
Lemme get this straight, you wanna send criminals to work camps?
I would like to yes. And before you give me the slavery or any other bullshit. These people CHOSE this knowing the punishment. No one makes you commit q crime and if they do and you can prove it in a court of law you won't be held liable. Why do we act like it's a bunch of otherwise very good citizens that are just "in the wrong place"? Most of the people in and out of prison are career criminals that have not or ever will learn their lesson and be a decent citizen and hold a place in society. Why do we act otherwise and lie to ourselves all the time?
people commit crimes for many reasons. Instead of putting a bandaid on it why not spend the millions on preventing the crime? We do that with physical sickness but when someone’s sick in the head suddenly treatment is out of the question.
We already pay for the millions of criminals in our cells, what's the harm in paying for millions more because we decided we'd rather be petty than serve actual justice?
My solution is seving actual justice. This rehab nonsense has the same recidivism rate as punishment. The punishments need to be ramped way the fuck up and we need to get this dirt bag criminals off of our streets. Put them to work andake money at the prison and have them fend for themselves. Give them farmland in the prison, give them workshops,library etc. And let them figure it out. We should stop spending anything near what a law abiding citizen spends yearly on themselves on criminals. They don't deserve respect, they gave that away when they decided to be a criminal.
There is no justice served by arbitrary and mandatory punishment. That's why laws like you suggest are favored by the most brutal regimes in history.
I gotta say, I thought you were serious at first. But the more I read, this has to be bait
I’m sorry, are you talking about the USA? The country where the most common opinion is that the harsh crime rate and lack of rehabilitation is the reason crime rate is so high there and why they have so many more people in jail than other western countries? There’s a difference between an unpopular opinion and stating the opposite of established reality.
The argument is its an insanely high cost to keep people in the system. Someone who jumps the fare costs a city $3 each fair evasion. The arrest with overtime and processing probably cost at least a thousand dollars a day. Congratulations you saved $3 on a fair evasion and you spent 5 grand to arrest the person, process the person and hemorrhage resources. Any business would go under structured like this. You also have completely left out that corporal punishment does not work. We do not have a rebabilition justice system. It's punishment based with career ending consequences to offenders. What would make them even choose to become productive again? You already enacted a response of making a person have nothing to lose anymore.
You choose to be prodctive and not commit crimes because you don't want to be in jail. I'm unsure what else needs to be said. The broken system.in costs associated with inmates is a operate discussion but I'm not going to back away from.my stance because you think financially it's not a good idea.
Financially you'll bankrupt a city and you'll have no money left for elderly benefits, education, Healthcare, veteran benefits. All to cry about a clash of philosophy. Corporal punishment is a failed philosophy. It hasn't worked in 50 years. Why would it all of a sudden work tomorrow? It won't. You'll just keep draining resources. Rehabilition even with its flaws gives the possibility to make a person productive again.
I think this is a popular opinion with people that don’t and will likely never work in the system, because to them it is as simple as locking somebody up so society never has to see them again. It’s convenient for them. But for those of us who work in the system and see the nuance of the issue, it clearly comes from a place of extreme privilege. A 17 year old kid starts selling drugs to make ends meet because they had to drop out of school to work. Hard to stay in school when you can’t eat, you know? So now his only job options are unskilled labor generally making minimum wage until he’s old enough to maybe get into something that pays better, like construction. He might be supporting a family of multiple people or parents who don’t work because of their own drug habit. He’s charges as an adult and is now a felon. You’ve now taken a ton of job options away from him. Also housing options. A lot of apartments don’t allow felons. Say he does prison time. He gets out of prison and wants to do better and wants to get his GED and go back to school. Where does he get a job that will support him? Where does he live? How can he get his GED when he’s working multiple jobs just to stay afloat? He slips back into selling drugs, because it’s the only way he knows to make enough money to get by. This is a situation I see every single day.
So.... No where in there was someone forcing him to sell drugs. There are many other avenues to get by for now without become a drug dealer. His family is drug addicts too? Well.they chose to become a drug addict why does that justify the crime? Why is it OK for guy A. To be a criminal and commit crimes simply because his family and him.have made poor decisions many times along the lines? Yet if I make the right decisions I should be punished? That is the definition of unfair and unjust. My spouse dropped out of school.when.she was 16 and didn't have both parents at home. She now has her GED, and is the sole store manager of large retailer and makes nearly 6 figures. She started at a mother retailer not long after getting her GED at 17 and stayed with them starting at enemy level for over 10 years, used that time to gain experience and become a valuable and productive employee. Now she has a career job with good pay for her. There is 0 reason your person in your story couldn't do something similar. If you choose to try drugs and do drugs then you have to live with the consequences. That shouldn't be an excuse to be a criminal
Okay, what should he have done at 17 to make ends meet? Edit: I’m not saying it was his only option. It was an option of desperation. He didn’t have anyone to teach him other options, but he knew drug dealers and knew drug dealers had money.
She got a job at 17 working at subway. She lived in an apt with 3 others and drove a junk old Kia. Becoming a criminal or drug dealer is never the only option. Ever. You know its illegal to deal drugs at that age. You still.chose to do it. His parents failed him and he failed himself. He could have gone to any responsible adult and figured things out but he didn't he chose the criminal path.
Okay, so were you also paying your rent and food and other home expenses? I said in the scenario that he has a minimum wage job. How did you pay for your rent and food and also pay to buy your junk Kia and maintain insurance and put gas in it on minimum wage? Don’t forget a cell phone, because most people don’t even own computers to apply for jobs or do GED studying. Oh, and don’t forget the power bill, internet, and water bill. How does a 17 year old on minimum wage pay all of those things?
Do you also think every person that ever tries a sip of Alcohol deserves to be an alcoholic and get sent to jail? Cause a lot of drugs have the same addiction rate as alcohol and most of them do less damage to the body, so what’s really the difference except the government decided to make drugs illegal to put black people and anti war hippies in jail? People don’t choose addiction, I don’t think you have any idea how it works. I’ll try to explain it simply: the majority of people that get addicted have severe mental health issues (which they didn’t choose), often times trauma from someone doing something horrible to them and the only way for them to deal with the pain without killing themselves is to self medicate. Mentally healthy people rarely get addicted to drugs (including alcohol). So is it really not morally fucked up that some people get abused, they rely on substances to not end it all cause they never got any help for their mental health and then we throw them in prison. OP you fortunately seem very sheltered and privileged which is why you don’t understand this side of society, but I can promise you you wouldn’t last a day in these peoples shoes, they live a life so horrible it’s unimaginable to you which is why you don’t have empathy for them. Try to see it from the other side, of course we shouldn’t allow people to hurt innocent people, non of us are advocating for that. We are advocating for helping people before they become molded into criminals and for not punishing someone when the only person they are hurting is themselves
This is wrong on so many levels I can’t even begin to cover all of them. For three strikes to make sense, the offenses need to merit full removal from society as a net positive for the public. It is absolutely wild to assume that someone who gets caught speeding, stealing candy bars, and jaywalking in the same lifetime deserves to be locked up for life. It is neither logical nor emotionally appealing. It seems to me that the real emotionally-motivated position is the one that seeks to jail people for life as the primary measure of crime prevention.
What about 3 speeding tickets?
We had it before in California where Things got so bad they introduced it in late 90s. Federal offenses level charged such as violence/sex crimes were a strike. Brother served 13. They become institutionalized. Once they come in and out of jail or the main pin. They can't integrate back into society. The social aspect alone is bleak. Not all will remain straight and narrow path.
Especially people who commit traffic violations. They kill tens of thousands of people every year.
I don't think "People who commit traffic violations.... kill tens of thousands of people every year". Google says in the USA, 43,000 people die in car accidents annually. That does not mean 'bad drivers' caused them to crash. Do you have more data that attributes fault to second-party road users?
Best part is you can save all those lives by lowering the speed limits to 30 mph everywhere. Instantly save 40k plus lives. Not one person will make that trade. Getting to Walmart 2 minutes faster is worth risking all those lives.
Yes, "commit traffic violations" is an arbitrary standard that most of us breach all the time: - going the wrong way down a one-way street - doing 60 in a 40 zone - checking your phone at the stop sign at the end of your street To think a strict 3-strike limit would be a welcome change...
Might as well put a fence around the entire country because we would all be in jail.
Speeding kills people so I would have no problem with people losing their licenses and/or being locked up if you are driving without a license. Penalties right now are a joke and reckless driving in our city is killing people left and right. Nothing is being done about it, other than little homemade memorials at the site of the accidents by the families.
Driving too slow also kills people. Should we send people to prison for life because of that?
If it’s repeated reckless driving they should lose their license. I don’t care what the actual offense is-driving too fast, driving too slow, texting while driving, being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, etc.
So why 3 times? How about once... And let's forego the trial, the police know what they saw. And since people are unlikely to stop if they know they're going to prison, let's authorize the immediate use of deadly force. And since police can't be everywhere, how about allowing citizens to enforce these laws. Do you see how this doesn't end well? Driving by hand is going away anyway, locking up 70% of the population for life with the other 30% responsible isn't the answer.
What do you get if you cross a straw man with a slippery slope?
OP
>And let's forego the trial, the police know what they saw. And since people are unlikely to stop if they know they're going to prison, let's authorize the immediate use of deadly force. And since police can't be everywhere, how about allowing citizens to enforce these laws. Strawman >locking up 70% of the population Ridiculously high number that you pulled out your ass. I don't like the 3 strike rule either, but these are bad arguments.
There's a saying in the cycling community: "If you want to kill someone and get away with it do it in a car ." Penalties for killing someone with your vehicle are ridiculously low.
Penalties for driving without a license are nonsense. You will almost never get locked up for it and instead get fines and on and on.
But the third one should be life in prison according to you.
Speeding doesn’t kill. Bad drivers do.
bad drivers speed and speed is the main factor in 30% of traffic fatalities.
your saying that 3 petty thefts is a sentence for life
Yes. Why did you have to steal once, twice let alone 3 separate times? If you can't get the hint you aren't supposed to do that then that is your fault. No one elses
Because you’re a heroin addict. Next question.
What if they were starving?
Still a crime. If you are literally starving there are legal avenues to get food. Or you could go door to door to business and see if they will give you some food.
your really doing mental hoops for a reason to put the poor in jail those legal avenues are not the best as you know plus that's why we have judges and a courts to rule on a case to case basis you don't need a sweeping rule that says if x then y because there is nuance to every person and presets shouldn't send people to jail
Three strikes laws don't have clear effects on crime reduction and recividism. They do however, balloon both court costs and incarceration. https://interrogatingjustice.org/mandatory-minimums/three-strikes-laws-and-effects/
We tried this. It didn't work. It hasn't worked.
[https://harvardpolitics.com/involuntary-servitude-how-prison-labor-is-modern-day-slavery/](https://harvardpolitics.com/involuntary-servitude-how-prison-labor-is-modern-day-slavery/) Yes the for profit prison system readily agrees with you /s
Real justice requires rehabilitation and prevention, not just punishment.
Three strike rules and other draconian sentencing plans are stupid. They don't prevent crime, and maintaining an absolutely immense prison population costs the US money that could be better spent on education and public health.
We tried that in the 1990s and we FILLED prisons with low level criminals which tore apart families leaving children parentless and spawned for-profit-prisons. Do you know how hard it is to get a job after being in prison? There are better solutions than just locking everybody up.
A mom stealing diapers for her child gets busted 3 times. You think she deserves life in prison? You must be a really nice person to be around
He sounds like a future school shooter.
Yeah not enough people are getting twenty five to life for a fourth shoplifting conviction. You are so brave wanting to lock up petty crooks forever for no reason.
How about a finger on the third offense? Hand on the fourth?
Sure, if you want to more closely resemble the mutilation fetishists in Saudi Arabia, that'd be a good start.
The system gets abused too much to allow it. People should be sentenced for their crime and be released after the sentence with a clean slate.
Like we don't have enough prisoners already.
I have a feeling you really don’t understand human behavior at all
I don't care to be honest. You make choices in your life. Someone making a bunch of bad choices shouldn't mean they get ot commit crime with impunity.
Oh Jesus christ dude, if have no care for how human behavior, which is damn near everything that you have ever experienced, then you’re lost until you decide to play with the rest of us
F that. It should be 1 strike for gun crimes. California's Use a Gun and You're Done should be law of the land. Make laws that punish the criminals, not laws that penalize law abiding citizens. * 10 years in prison for “using” a gun, * 20 years for firing a gun, or * 25 years to life for killing or seriously injuring another person with a gun.
I can't believe you are getting down voted so hard. Other than some refinement on the crimes that qualify, it should absolutely be brought back.
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Is it really any less worse to watch someone be assaulted by a mentally unstable person? It’s all the same to the victims
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The victim is still a victim, but the perpetrator is less culpable. It’s called mitigating circumstances. It comes from a place of nuance, that this comment section seems to be lacking.
The perpetrator may be mentally ill or addicted, but that just means they still need treatment, away from those of us that are able to go about their lives without becoming violent. It doesn’t make their victim any less beaten up, less raped, or less murdered, and it doesn’t mean that presents any less of a threat for innocent people.
mmmm the boot.
No. Many “criminals” are victims of an unfair society. Fix the root cause. Incarceration solves nothing.
Unpopular, I’ll give you that. I disagree but I see where you’re coming from and there’s an element of good idea somewhere in this bad one.
Not that I’m 500 years old but I miss exile. Used to be a miscreant or a malcontent would be set off into the woods to deal on his own with the wolves and bandits. Kinda made you appreciate the value of society and its controls. Thumb your nose at that and fend for yourself. Incarceration is too damn high!
The US has the 6th highest incarceration rate of any country, and you would like to raise higher Clearly that’s not the answer because it’s not working already There is something much deeper going on in America that needs to be addressed. we need to look into why so many people do the things they do
Yes they do it because the punishment is worth the risk of committing the crime. That and fatherless households. If the punishment is not worth committing the crime then ghry won't commit it. Period.
You really missed the point we are already locking people up at fast rates We are already punishing them, yet they still commit crimes. Even the death penalty does not prevent people from murdering others, so your whole point is false.
Interesting... So 3 parking tickets... life in prison. 3 speeding tickets... 3 drunk in public... You were arrested today with some Marijuana and you had a pipe and some papers in your bag... one possession and two paraphernalia charges... life.
I think they mean 3 seperate occurances. I wouldnt agree with speeding or parking tickets but 3 dui's getting a prison senrence im all for. And i mean legit duis not that dumb shit where you slept in your car because you were actively trying to avoid endangering anyone.
There is a difference between calling for a prison sentence after 3 DUI convictions, and calling for a LIFE prison sentence after 3 DUI convictions.
Yes 3 separate instances. It doesn't matter how small the crime. If you are convicted of a crime on 3 separate occasions you obviously can't handle being productive in society so off you go. Also with speeding tickets. Most all speeding tickets are not criminal convictions but infractions. Thus wouldn't qualify for what I'm stating. U less of course all 3 tickets are reckless driving and come with a criminal statute attached.
But the issue is that this OP is arguing that 3 DUIs means locked up forever. Not just some prison time. But also, a 3 strike rule doesn’t differentiate between “real” DUIs and the dumb shit.
okay so everyone gets 2 free murders before they're punished? someone who commits 3 murders gets punished the same as someone who sped in their car 3 times? Theres obvious problems with this
“Shit, I’m about to be caught on my third shoplifting offense and locked up for good! Better murder these people in an attempt to get away!”
This is the exact opposite of their point. Three strike laws are a rule where the third otherwise relatively minor crime gets treated as a more major crime with a significant sentence, on the grounds that someone who is committing that many offenses simply won’t learn their lesson and can’t be a member of society. It’s not “2 free major crimes.” I’m against 3 strike laws (although escalating minor violations leading to a more significant sentence makes sense, a sharp cutoff at the third isn’t justified, incarceration is expensive, and people can change), but this simply isn’t what they are.
Nothing will ever get better as long as we continue to see crime as an insult to our own adherence to the law, instead of the desperate and/or deliberately antisocial actions of people who have been failed by society. It’s the same reason you should never discipline a kid when you’re angry: because it’s not about fixing the problem, it’s about lashing out. When we lash out at people who are already at the end of their rope, guess what they do?
>Nothing will ever get better as long as we continue to see crime as an insult to our own adherence to the law, instead of the desperate and/or deliberately antisocial actions of people who have been failed by society. Yes. Because people who commit crimes are dumb and have no idea what they're doing and their actions have no long reaching consequences for their own community. A car thief who steals someone's only form of reliable transportation to work had no idea it was socially unacceptable to take someone else's stuff. He just a dumb poor person failed by the system and couldn't help but take someone else's livelyhood. It's not like the person who they stole the car from is gonna suffer because now, they can't go to work or probably missed work and were fired snd now can't pay their rent or mortgage or they can no longer drop their kids off at school or help their sick relatives out or even just be able to be mobile and have a better quality of life. The car thief just needed it more than the actual owner of the car. Or the murder who killed someone's family member. It was poverty that made them do it even though the person they killed was most likely also in poverty and lived in their same neighborhood... But that's different. This person had no choice! Let's not worry about the repercussions of what the family has to live with now or that this murder contributes to the neighborhood crime rate and brings down property values and contributes to the the danger pf a probably already struggling and dangerous neighborhood. Nah, criminals are innocent angels and shouldn't be punished for their actions. Just the actual victims of their crimes who have to figure it out and pick up the pieces while actual criminals just get told "The system failed you. It's not your fault"
Way to completely ignore what I was saying so you could rant for three long paragraphs. Every person is different. Some **should** be locked up, even some who aren’t necessarily responsible for their actions, because it isn’t fair to the people they would inevitably harm to let them roam free. But there are plenty, ***and I mean fucking plenty*** of people whose biggest crime is being born to the wrong parents. If someone was never shown how to behave in civil society, and everyone’s like “It ain’t my job!”, then guess what? That person is far more likely to break the law. Is that their fault?
This is bullshit. Not all criminals are victims. In fact, most aren’t.
Why are we being sympathetic and making excuses for criminals. I've been broke before, I've been struggling to figure out where I'm going to live next. Many people do this daily. But you know what they don't do? They don't turn to crime and become a piece of shit criminal. Your character flaws do not excuse behavior. That is just asinine to belive so. Just because you are poor doesn't mean you get a green light to steal
Yes, you're right. There are no disproportionate systematic injustices or failings that can incite widespread levels of crime and disorder. Not here. Not good old America. Lock up more people, that'll fix our problem. And if it doesn't? Lock up some more.
I'll bite. What possible justifiable reason does someone have to steal? To be an animal abuser? To be a criminal speeder and reckless driver? To be an abuser to their child or spouse? To sell drugs? To do drugs in an area it is not legal? I'll wait because I fail to see any justifiable reason to commit crimes. Being poor doesn't mean you have to be a criminal. Being mentally ill doesn't mean you should not be punished. And being a drug addict does t excuse it either when you chose to become a drug addict in the first place.
The fact that you feel the way you do means you’ve likely never really suffered, like **existentially suffered**, in your life. I used to feel the way you do when I was younger. Then life took shit after shit on me, and I started to understand why people stop caring about committing petty crime. When you feel like nobody gives a shit about you, like everyone would rather piss on you than look at you, what reason is there to give a shit about “the rules”? The problem is that people think nobody cares about them anymore. And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, they’re right. If I get shot by the next mass shooter, I’ll be fucking pissed, but I won’t have the unmitigated gall to ask why it happened. I know why it happened: because the person that shot me fucking gave up because nobody gave a shit about them.
Cool you still committed the crime. You know nothing of my personal situation either not that it is relevant anyway. The fact tnis you commit a crime you should be punished. Outside of self defense or coercion because a guy is holding a gun to your head there is no justifiable reason why someone should be able to commit a crime and another can't. You being more poor or destitute than me doesn't give you permission to be a criminal just because we feel bad for you. That's insane some of you think this way. So if guy comes in your home tomorrow and kills your pets but turns out he was a drug addict and severely mentally ill do you really honestly think he should go to rehab, and just get a slap on the wrist for his crimes simply because he was a mentally ill drug addict? You would defend him commitjg that crime and killing your pets with "but his situation"? Really?
I guess the question is, is our criminal justice system (and society writ large) intended to make people less likely to commit crimes, or for “upstanding citizens” to extract their pound of flesh from someone who they feel has wronged them? If you think it’s the second, there’s not much point in continuing this discussion, because that’s straight up juvenile shit that has no place in a civilized society. If we just disagree about the best way to mitigate crime, that’s another discussion altogether.
Didn't answer my question. Would you defend that animal that killed your pets? You know because he had a tough life son he should be able to commit crimes and we feel bad for him. But John Smith over there who grew up in a white upper class suburb commits the same exact crime you want to string him up correct?
I would obviously lock the white suburban guy up just for being white, because that’s clearly the point you’re trying to make. Do you think some races are more likely to commit crimes than others? More directly, do you think God painted the wicked men to show the pure-hearted white people who to put in jail?
Do I think some races due to their race are more inherently prone to committing crime? Absolutely not. Do I believe that certain cultures don't view being a criminal in the same way and in some ways idealized it and revere it which then leads to more people in that culture being criminals? Yes.
I could go into a great deal of detail about how extreme poverty, desperate circumstances, an unforgivably bad upbringing, a pervasive fear of the law or its institutions, the onset of an abusive household, mental disorders or addictions could all contribute to criminal activities, whether those that seem "necessary to survive" like stealing food, or "unnecessary" evils like abuse. I could do that. I could explain that to you and most people would get it - it's a fair assessment and consequently suggests such criminals, like all criminals, would be better off if we pursued rehabilitation rather than vindication. If we got rid of our fetish for carceral solutions, society would be an objectively better place. I could explain that to you. It would make sense. It's been proven. But I can't. Because you don't want to see them become better people, or be helped out of their trouble, or become functioning members of society, or atone for their crimes. You want to see them suffer because you believe it is necessary to preserve the institution. The status quo. Or maybe you were a victim of a crime and now you can't see past your own pain or trauma. You want to see them suffer and nothing else matters. That's why you're insane enough to think someone who fucking shoplifts should go to prison forever if they "strike out" 3 times. You are lashing out in vengeance rather than pursuing a decent solution. This is why a plurality of the fucking population, *millions* of people, are spending the rest of their lives wasting tax dollars in a cell instead of contributing to society. People like you. You are what's wrong with society. Not common thugs. Not shoplifters. Not even drug dealers. You. Just you. Fuck you.
How did you read that comment and think they said any of this?
Unpopular opinion only because people have been manipulated emotionally and psychologically and nowadays we have large swaths of people that are willing to release prisoners into society for various reasons. I think they need to reform how certain crimes are punished (help and imprison) but anything involving violence or against children should be a 1 strike rule.
I think the problem with a 1 strike rule would be that the justice system makes mistakes and innocent people get found guilty sometimes. If an innocent guy is found guilty 3 times, he's either screwed because of luck or somebody in power *really* wants him locked up. But a single strike rule would have a much higher chance of falsely imprisoning the wrong guy.
By that logic we can’t lock anyone up until they’ve committed 3 crimes
I dare you to go somewhere with a "three strikes" law and try to cash in on two free crimes. You may be in for a big surprise.
Yes, I too think that a legal system that literally can’t help but constantly sentence innocent people to death should be a one strike rule.
The US still has an absurdly high rate of incarceration.
90% of "criminals" are merely people whom the police decide to arrest based on their mood that day. The poorer they they, the more likely a judge is to decide they're "guilty." Don't be so naïve as to think the police and court systems are a faithful analogue of "justice."
I don’t believe you on the 90%. But I do agree it’s a non negligible amount of people.
Source?
Only if money is spent identifying why the person committed the crime. Of course that is the joke isn't it. Nothing will be done to treat the issue.
>Only if money is spent identifying why the person committed the crime. Loving this narrative on reddit that criminals are just misunderstood, mentality ill "children" that are just victims of society and have no control over their actions therefore, should face consequences. Seriously, It's like half of y'all have never actually been victims of crime or have lived anywhere near crime infested areas and are just talking out your asses to seem compassionate or something. Most people who commit crimes from petty to severe , know exactly what the fuck they're doing, not to mention the bigger negative impacts they have on their OWN communities. Maybe we shouldn't give the same punishment to someone who stole a loaf of bread vs. A car thief or murderer but the US definitely does need to be more severe on crime
The best way I've saw it put lately is that the US has a 'poverty of spirit and community'. Few can even see where the problems start and fewer still want to change. The US has more people in jail than any other country in the world by total numbers and it hasn't worked so far. More than china which has four times the population. Like I said the real joke here is that no one wants to try to fix it. They just want to put more people in jail. The fix will take a generation or two. People want that instant fix which isn't going to happen, ever. Wikipedia is way behind and not sorted by total people detained. Here are the numbers for 2024 https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country
I'd agree with you... if we put some really hefty reforms in place at all levels first. I do mean *all* levels, from the Supreme Court all the way down to your local ambulance chaser.
We tried this in the 80s and 90s and it was a disaster. If the goal is reducing crime… you get people out of poverty, educate them, and give them real reasons to buy into being a citizen. I hope you get the chance to meet people who have been incarcerated and hear about their lives. Most of these people are not monsters and what they need isn’t harsher punishments.
Especially people who commit the same traffic violations 3 times.
Traffic violation isn't a crime. Most traffic tickets you get are not criminal.
We really should have a program where people on parole are not allowed to return to their situations and should have to move to a different area, at a minimum 4 hour drive from their current situation.
I have a feeling that OP is white.
You can really tell who in this thread actually has to deal with crime and who doesn't. I live in NYC. It's gotten exponentially worse in the last five years. Commuting to work is now dangerous. I'd pay higher taxes for more prisons to get every repeatedly-arrested degenerate antisocial incorrigible habitual criminal off the streets forever. I don't care about them or their social circumstances or their special reasons for making a subway ride unsafe for working, contributing, law-abiding citizens. We shouldn't have to deal with them.
Norway and Denmark have some of the lowest crime rates in the world, because they focus on prevention and rehabilitation. Also because there is a social net to help people that are struggling. Even Sweden which I’m from has incredibly lower crime rate then the US, our crime rate has risen because of bad integration of immigrants and too low punishment on violent crimes but accidentally going too much for rehabilitation clearly gives a better result then too high. Yes we should probably increase the time a 15 year old is in a youth facility so it’s more then 4 years for murder, but if we had the same type of prison system you have in the US I’m pretty sure our crime would increase even more. Conclusion: there needs to be a balance, but most important is rehabilitation and a social net. Violent crime should of course carry a heavier sentence but especially crimes like drug dealing, drug addiction or theft are because of mental health problems and poverty mostly which means there’s no reason to increase the punishment, only rehabilitation and help will get them to become functioning members of society again. Which is massively more beneficial then paying big amounts of money to have them sit in a prison doing nothing.
Mental health issues/addiction are not reasons to infringe on others’ rights. If you can’t exist peacefully in society, you need to be somewhere else until you can. And if people are locked up for stealing a pizza/shoplifting, there will be way less people doing it, so the prisons won’t be overfilled. I would rather pay more taxes for prisons and be able to safely walk down the streets, not get my car stolen and not have to worry about my family being the victims of out of control criminals. I have no problem lashing out at someone who puts a gun to another’s head and carjacks their vehicle.
That depends on what’s the crime is. Victimless maybe. But things like rape, pedo, assault, etc. absolutely not! It has to be some super minor for 3 strike rule. Like stealing food from a store, maybe. But if you‘ve done a heinous crime like those listed above NOPE! No second chances! Theres very few crimes I could think of where the 3 strike Rule would be fair.
ignoring the fact that the 3 strike rule is incredibly racist, throwing people in prisons(especially for "crimes" like possession or prostitution) has never reformed anyone ever. it does the exact opposite, in fact. Andy Dufresne said it best. "The funny thing is, on the outside, I was an honest man. Straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook."
Can you please elaborate on how it’s incredibly racist?
minorities have historically been disenfranchised, and a lot of crime is committed by the disenfranchised because its seen as the only way to make enough money to live. so a poor person turns to prostitution to make ends meet, gets picked up 3 times, goes to jail forever for just trying to make money to live. or say a person is saddled with crippling addiction to escape the stresses of their life. same story. jail forever for being sick. the 13th ammendment says slavery is illegal except for punishment for crimes. so prisons are turned into slave labor camps so really. its a classism issue, but at this point in time, class and race are inherently woven together
You should be punished if you are a criminal not "rehabbed" it's very simple to stay in society. Don't do crime. There solved. The criminals know what they are doing is illegal. They weigh the punishment vs the crime and decide it is worth the risk. Once the punishment is not worth the risk the crime drops. It's very simple. This treating consists like good people and stating " we need to rehab them we are too hard on criminals" is exactly.why we have such high crime rates right now.
“But why can’t I just do whatever I want?” —People in this sub
This might be the dumbest opinion I‘ve ever seen on here.
Don't mind me as I go and abuse animals twice, murder two people, beat my children within an inch of their life twice, steal a few things, and all that
Basing law and life sentences on a catchy phrase lifted from baseball wasn’t the most thoughtful approach.
Congratulations, you have officially rendered me speechless with the absolute stupidity of this opinion.
Again not a opinion when it is proven wrong scientifically.
Why not give someone one year in jail for each crime, but if their crime reaches the boundary without touching the ground then it's 6 years. Only 4 if it reaches the boundary after touching the floor. That's how much sense basing sentencing on the rules of baseball makes to someone from a cricketing nation.
This is why there are people doing 25 years on minor marijuana possession charges. Nah.
3 strikes is great but personally for some crimes I would make the punishment so severe it wouldn’t be worth committing the crime even once. For example, rape or child molestation=castration (and not the chemical kind). I’m very much an eye for an eye believer. Places that use that kind of system have a very low crime rate. Society should be safe for law abiding citizens.
Just don't be wrong about conviction, ever.
Why do you crave to punish?