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Unread 26 Jan 2007, 13:59   #1
Paisley
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Prisons Today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6301125.stm
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/ne...name_page.html

After reading those pages I couldnt help to think the following questions...
Is appathy really getting that bad that it has to consider giving the vote to murderers and rapists instead of really addressing the issue why there is so much appathy?
Will it get to the stage where Politicans come election time have in their manifestos...better jails, fewer jails which means you get a lower sentence, get better grub "no more slopping out for you"... or Even a free TV with Playstations or yet Free playboy/gay channel/ or "walt disney" subscription (depending on their sexual preference) in every cell...to win the inmate vote?
Would the following stories from above encourage further apathy as a result? I wouldnt bother to conduct a poll on that one.
Is the law/those who work for it...are they deliberately trying to take the piss out of itself to show some point or do they think they are doing some service towards Britain or just in it for the money? The jury is out on that one.
Will getting compensation for not getting the vote open the flood gate to other compensation claims.. for example backdated disability benefit/Jobseekers allowance for being "out of work"... stay tuned for the next exciting eposide of "chancers and their lawyers milking it for themselves."

the theme tune would be to the tune of hotel california...
#Last thing I remember, I was Running from the court
had to change the plea bargaining back But the judge says 'free to go'
'Relax,' said the lawman, We are about to receive.
You can cash in any time you like, dont forget your legal fee#.

#Welcome to the hotel Barlinnie, such a lovely place, such a crowded place, cock in boys face.
plenty of room at the hotel barlinnie, what a nice suprise,what a nice surprise, bring the giro by#

Them glossy leafets about immigrating to Australia are becoming more and more tempting...
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Last edited by Paisley; 26 Jan 2007 at 14:13.
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Unread 26 Jan 2007, 14:18   #2
Dante Hicks
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paisley
Will it get to the stage where Politicans come election time have in their manifestos...better jails, fewer jails which means you get a lower sentence, get better grub "no more slopping out for you"... or Even a free TV with Playstations or yet Free playboy/gay channel/ or "walt disney" subscription (depending on their sexual preference) in every cell...to win the inmate vote?
Only if it get's to the stage where half the population of Britain is in prison and when that happens we'll have bigger things to worry about.

While our prison population is far too high it's not likely to have much of an impact on most elections. I presume if they could vote they'd be voting from the constituency they originally lived and as such I doubt 7000 votes spread over umpteen seats would make that much of a difference. I would also imagine that prisoners are disproportionately from very safe seats anyway.

So, no. You're basically talking bollocks.
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Unread 26 Jan 2007, 14:21   #3
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Re: Prisions Today

there are approximatly 80,000 people in jail.

there are approximatly 60 million people in the UK.

You do the math.

Edit: My favourite bit was the strong argument against a change in the law.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotland's Daily Mirror
Labour's Duncan McNeil said: "Letting prisoners vote is a crazy idea. There is an established precedent. If you go to jail, you cannot vote."
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Last edited by All Systems Go; 26 Jan 2007 at 14:43.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 01:25   #4
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paisley

After reading those pages I couldnt help to think
you certainly hide it well.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 04:01   #5
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Re: Prisions Today

revolutionary idea of lets not send people to prison who don't need to be there

shock horror.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 05:11   #6
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Re: Prisions Today

in trying to highlight prison overcrowding and just how dangerous the people that are let 'free' are the media bring up a man convicted for little more than thoughtcrimes.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 09:03   #7
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Re: Prisions Today

It not for us or the newspapers to decide who goes to jail and who doesnt, thats a mob mentality, and mobs are generally wrong.
Alot of the time the law is a well meaning arse, but for the most part they are fairly good laws, meant in kindness to protect people from people.
The interpretation and direction of those laws are set by one judge and 12 jury members per case, theese people are human, and prone to times of leniency or over zealousness, but ultimately we put our trust in their ability to put law into practise.

Prison as a deterrant has never worked properly for most, even when they were hell holes. Its just somewhere to drop people who break the laws, if you dont solve why they do it in the 1st place then they will simply repeat their mistakes.
Saying that .. the american 3 strikes .. as long as soloutions are sought is a feasible idea for the UK.

Now as to prisoners voting ? I'm not so sure.. i'd need to read more on the whys rather than media hype to make that decision.
The point of making prisoners unable to vote was a rights thing from history when the right to vote was important to the populace.. its certainly not hugely important to them now going by the numbers of voters that actually do.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 09:06   #8
Paisley
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Only if it get's to the stage where half the population of Britain is in prison and when that happens we'll have bigger things to worry about.
Its called Anarchy

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
While our prison population is far too high it's not likely to have much of an impact on most elections. I presume if they could vote they'd be voting from the constituency they originally lived and as such I doubt 7000 votes spread over umpteen seats would make that much of a difference. I would also imagine that prisoners are disproportionately from very safe seats anyway.

So, no. You're basically talking bollocks.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1101
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=6

The average prison population in England and Wales was just over 73,000 in 2003 – the highest annual figure ever recorded. It was over 28,000 more than in 1993, an increase of 64 per cent.
The average daily prison population of Scotland was 6,524 in 2003, a 16 per cent increase since 1993. The average prison population of Northern Ireland was 1,160 in 2003, a 40 per cent fall over the same period.
In mid-2005 the UK was home to 60.2 million people.
The UK population increased by 7.7 per cent since 1971, from 55.9 million

Just a question of time at this rate...shall I get the calculator out?
So, no. You will be living in denial.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yahwe
you certainly hide it well.
I was expecting some kind of "defense" on your beloved profession... oh well I can only try and hide my disappointment.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Milo
in trying to highlight prison overcrowding and just how dangerous the people that are let 'free' are the media bring up a man convicted for little more than thoughtcrimes.
I thought this was covered ground...
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=191569
Paedophilia is not a harmless bit of fun, some poor kid generally has to suffer to provide the Images. They also said that about gary Glitter before the trips to Thailand.
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Last edited by Paisley; 27 Jan 2007 at 09:14.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 11:33   #9
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paisley
Its called Anarchy
If half the British population was in prison, I'm pretty sure we'd be further from any sensible definition of "anarchy" that's imaginable. If anything, we'd be at some form of totalitarianism. Do you know how large a state we'd need to support a system like that?
Quote:
Just a question of time at this rate...shall I get the calculator out?
This is simple minded drivel. When there are changes over time, we have to look at why they occur and not just assume they will keep happening indefinitely. Between 2000 and 2007 my income increased by 320% or so. If I assume this will continue indefinitely, I will be receiving many hundreds of millions of pounds by the time I am likely to retire. The amount of women I have kissed has increased about 10,000% in the last five years. By this rate, I'll have got off with everyone on the planet before too long.

And what about Elvis Presley impersonators?
Quote:
At the time Elvis Presley died in 1977, he had 150 impersonators in the US. Now, according to calculations I spotted in a Sunday newspaper colour supplement recently, there are 85,000. Intriguingly, that means one in every 3,400 Americans is an Elvis impersonator. More disturbingly, if Elvis impersonators continue multiplying at the same rate, they will account for a third of the world’s population by 2019.
Even if we did follow your idiotic statistics blindly, you'd still be talking about a trend which would take well over 150 years to come to pass and would hardly be our number one issue to worry about. But at this point (when something like 40 million people would be in prison and when the British population was over 120 million) would denying the vote to so many people really be such a good idea anyway?
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 14:30   #10
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Unfortunately Prison doesn't really work in terms of reducing crime or protecting the public.
It rather obviously reduces crime and protects the public in the sense that there are at least some people currently in prison who would be committing crimes and harming the public if they weren't in prison. Or did you mean something else?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Even more unfortunately as sentences are getting longer, people believe they are getting shorter.
Daily Mail readers probably do, yes, but most people probably just think they're short, rather than getting shorter (especially since we've had so much exposure to the much longer sentences handed out in the US).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
The media was hilarious this week. As they raged about over-lenient judges letting every criminal on the streets, they also pointed out how over-crowded the prisons were, often within the same paragraph.
That'll be because they think the amount of crime is going up. If you think crime is going up and you know the prison population is staying pretty much level (i.e. at full capacity), then it's a pretty sensible conclusion to assume that sentences are getting more lenient.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Almost half of prisoners released re-offend.
[obvious]Then don't release them...[/obvious]

But seriously, I've seen this statistic hauled out so many times, but it's essentially meaningless, because there's never any point of comparison. A large number of people convicted of crimes reoffend, regardless of what punishment they're given, and if you assume that some sort of penalty must be imposed for crimes (I never know with you if this sort of assumption is dangerous, but 99.9% of the population would agree with me, so I'll go ahead anyway) the only sort of valid statistic would be one that compares reoffending rates across different punishments (fines, suspended sentences, community orders, etc.). And I've never seen any kind of remotely favourable statistics for community orders, which are supposedly the last step before prison.

On top of that, people tend to go to prison either for really serious crimes (that would normally indicate some sort of serious criminal mindset) or for repeated less serious offences, so it's natural that quite a lot of them reoffend - if you've got far enough through the criminal justice system that you end up in prison, you're often beyond saving. But that's not really the point - one of the purposes of prison is to scare the vast majority of people who would be terrified of going there, and the fact that some people aren't scared by it doesn't invalidate that purpose.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
As the prison system gets more crowded so it is less able to supply resources to rehabilitate people, thus creating a spiral of decline.
Then build more prisons and hire more staff to rehabilitate prisoners. (Obviously this would involve spending more money rather than attempting to solve the problem simply by passing more laws, which is why it's out of the question with the current Goverment.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Clearly increasing prison sentences as a deterrent and then watching the number of prisoners go up exponentially tells you a lot about the value of deterrents in the modern criminal justice system.
But part of the problem with that is that prison sentences as a deterrent work best when they go hand-in-hand with a high probability of being caught. As sentences get longer, the police are getting less and less effective and more and more overstretched (partly due to their seeming obsession with improving their image and catching people who sell peerages), and so whilst criminals know that if they get caught they'll do a long stretch they also know that they'll probably not get caught.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
The Government knows these things all too well but seems unable or unwilling to do something serious to address the issue.
The Government ignoring serious problems because they're too hard to fix? Surely not?
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 16:19   #11
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paisley
I thought this was covered ground...
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=191569
Paedophilia is not a harmless bit of fun, some poor kid generally has to suffer to provide the Images. They also said that about gary Glitter before the trips to Thailand.
Some poor kid has to suffer regardless of what i do. Capitalism can in a sense be seen as an inherently exploitative system. I have no problem with that.

Besides the complete and utter mongtardness of making it illegal to possess documents only becomes clear with time. If it hasn't happened already, then quite soon there will be people convicted for the possession of images that were taken before their birth. Id find it bizzare to be held to account for a photograph that was taken in say 1950.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 16:37   #12
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proteus
It rather obviously reduces crime and protects the public in the sense that there are at least some people currently in prison who would be committing crimes and harming the public if they weren't in prison. Or did you mean something else?


I pretty much took it to be something else, putting people in prison doesn't stop the law from being broken, it only prevents those that are in prison from breaking the law. Assuming theres a degree of rationality involved, after one iteration id say 'prison hasn't reduced crime'. I don't think a certain percentage of a population is born to commit crime, and hence a certain percentage need to be detained in order to reduce it; rather the laws imposed by society are wrong or its opportunities insuffecient.

If you're talking about crime in any other sense than the act of an individual, i don't see how you can say 'prisons reduce crime'. If they did, they'd have eliminated it along time ago.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 17:16   #13
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
I pretty much took it to be something else, putting people in prison doesn't stop the law from being broken, it only prevents those that are in prison from breaking the law. Assuming theres a degree of rationality involved, after one iteration id say 'prison hasn't reduced crime'. I don't think a certain percentage of a population is born to commit crime, and hence a certain percentage need to be detained in order to reduce it; rather the laws imposed by society are wrong or its opportunities insuffecient.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Could you be a bit more coherent?

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
If you're talking about crime in any other sense than the act of an individual, i don't see how you can say 'prisons reduce crime'. If they did, they'd have eliminated it along time ago.
That's what crime is, though - a series of acts perpetrated by individuals (or groups) that are against the law. If there are fewer illegal acts, we say "crime is reduced", but we could equally say "the number of crimes committed has gone down". Crime isn't some black cloud floating around our streets taking control of people and forcing them to do evil.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 17:50   #14
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proteus
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Could you be a bit more coherent?
If prisons reduced crime, after one iteration of said regime 'crime would have gone down'. It hasn't. Pretty much for the same reasons tnf said. To give you an analogy, if the americans produce a certain headcount of 'insurgent dead' every month, can the insurgency be said to have gone down?

Quote:
That's what crime is, though - a series of acts perpetrated by individuals (or groups) that are against the law. If there are fewer illegal acts, we say "crime is reduced", but we could equally say "the number of crimes committed has gone down".
Are those individuals all psychopaths? If they aren't theres a link between their behaviour that is dependant on their circumstance. If they were individuals and they acted individually then incarcarating them would stop their behaviour, the fact we've been sending people to prison for however many centuries in the belief that it 'reduces crime' when it hasn't, is pretty demonstrable evidence that other - more important - factors come into play.

Quote:
Crime isn't some black cloud floating around our streets taking control of people and forcing them to do evil.
I'm an ethical skeptic, there is no evil, and neither from my philosophical standpoint are all crimes 'wrong'.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 17:53   #15
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Re: Prisons Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
In response to Proteus.

1. Saying it obviously reduces crime is not thinking about crime in the right way. Whilst it is not unfair to presume that there are *some* people with innately criminal tendencies who are a danger to the public. You have to think of a lot of crime as being part of the social-economic round. That is that the crimes are waiting to happen. Take drug dealing for instance. If you arrested all the drug dealers, there would be new dealers to take their place.
I purposely didn't mention drugs, because I agree that the current drugs-law system is stupid.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Similarly with gangsters.
How are they comparable to drug dealers?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Now it seems fair to say that some people are more likely to commit crime than others, poor people for instance, or those whose lifestyles have been criminalised, but they are not destined to commit crimes and there are other things than can be done short of locking them up.
Obviously, and those things should be done with vigour. But the fact that you try to stop people committing crimes in the first place doesn't mean you can't punish those who do commit them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Many other crimes are highly circumstantial, so if someone kills his wife and you imprison him, it might mean that you have ensured person won't kill any more wives, but it seems more likely that that person might never have committed any further crimes in any case. So we can say that putting people in prison doesn't necessarily reduce crime by all that much, except perhaps in the very short term.
For things like that, prison is almost entirely a deterrent. In a "crime reduction" sense, we lock wife-murderers up to show other people that if you do that you'll go to prison. (It's impossible to analyse this statistically, since there's never been a time when murder didn't get you sent to prison, but I'd imagine homicide would go up if you introduced fines for murder.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Furthermore almost all of those in prison will one day be released, if you want to stop them committing further crimes you must address the individual circumstances which put them in the position to commit crime in the first place, be it poverty, drug addiction, lack of self respect, boredom or mental health problems.
Yes, I think everyone agrees with this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
2. Apart from the fact there are quite a lot of Daily Mail readers in this country, as it happens there have been studies where people have been asked to guess whether they think sentences are too lenient and they have said yes. They have then been asked what sentence they would give to a crime and it has been invariable more lenient then the real sentence.
I can name at least one very recent case where this isn't true...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
It is interesting you mention the US. Because there is a country with a massive prison population of gulag proportions, yet it still has a high crime rate. In fact so many people are in prison that entire economies are based on the prison being there. The state needs to keep the prison open to create jobs.
They have an entirely different (and far more violent society), though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
3. But that is not what people are saying, they are saying that it is rising year on year, that it is the highest has ever been.

Again as it happens the chance of being a victim of crime has fallen year on year since 1995. In fact in stats were released 2 days ago http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6297715.stm which suggested that this was the first time in 12 years that the chance of being a victim of crime had risen.

Now before anyone says "but T&F you have just said that sentences are going up whilst crime has been going down, surely that proves that prisons do work?" can I point out that clearly if the perception is that sentences are more lenient you can't say that they act as a deterrent. However what is most important, returning to my original point, is that we have also seen a change in economic circumstances with greater social provision in some areas and a change in policing which could account for the changes in crime statistics. So the correlations are not obvious.
I wasn't saying they were right about crime going up, merely that if you think that it is then assuming certain other things is a perfectly logical (if ultimately mistaken) conclusion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
4. Well you could have a policy of giving all prisoners life sentences. Its an interesting suggestion, albeit somewhat expensive. As I said I don't think that would have a long term impact on crime in any case.

You are straw manning in your point. No one is saying that people offend regardless of what punishment they are given (except perhaps you) in fact in many cases its obvious what you could do to prevent individuals from committing crime in the future. Furthermore I don't know what statistics you are looking at but prison comes off pretty bad in terms of re-offending rates. Now of course they are less hardcore but only 5-10% of those electronically tagged re-offend. I realise that is not comparing like with like, but there we are.

http://www.publications.parliament.u...22/8050501.htm

Is the report on alternative to prisons. It points out that keeping someone in jail costs about 10 times more than any other form of sentence. Furthermore it doesn't seem unfair to suggest that if you were to divert some of the vast resources being put into prison places (£3.5billion or so I believe) towards the alternatives you could get more from those services.

Now turning to the Carter Review http://www.probation.homeoffice.gov....s/pdf/52pp.pdf

"International analysis suggests that well-designed, well-run and well-targeted
rehabilitation programmes can reduce reconviction rates by 5-10 per cent"

Which is the same impact as prison and would be less of a waste of human life then just throwing away the key.

The report offers a range of reasonable alternatives to a lot of current sentencing as well.
Actually, I wasn't strawmanning, I was being facetious. As you're answering my argument by assuming I was seriously advocating full-life terms for all crimes, I'm not sure I can really respond to anything you've said.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
5. You say that we should build more prisons and hire more staff. But given the expense of prisoners (about £30k per year per prisoner as it stands, and with your suggestion would rise) wouldn't that money be better invested boosting the economy to remove the number of people likely to fall into criminal behaviour due poverty and alienation? Alternatively just half of that money could go into first class probation care which would go a long way to preventing re-offending.
a) No, I don't think it should rise. Lots of people going to prison shouldn't. I wasn't arguing for higher sentencing, merely that in some situations prison is a good idea.

b) That's a good long term plan, but people are committing crimes as we speak and something needs to be done about them. You can't tell victims of crime "the person who mugged you hasn't gone to prison, but don't worry, we've spent the money we would have spent on sending him there on making sure his son doesn't also become a mugger". (You should do that, of course, just not at the expence of punishing his father.)

You've got to remember that an important aim of the legal system is to show society that justice is being done. If someone cold-bloodedly murders someone, and you've just developed a new therapy which only lasts a week and which would make sure he never does it again, there'd be outrage if he was released after a week. People need to feel that society punishes those who act wrongly (and this is often what comes out in the news - it's generally "he deserves more" rather than "a longer term would render him a more acceptable member of society"). You may not like that, but any system that fails to consider it will never be accepted.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
6. Where is your evidence for police being less effective at catching criminals? If anything they have more resources at their disposal than ever before. Your point about peerages is, I am sure you aware, idiotic. Clearly anyone who is a criminal thinks they won't get caught. However given that we are the most surveiled (probably not a real word but hey) country in history its difficult to know how you could change that perception.
By talking to police officers and seeing how things are run. If something serious happens, then yes, the full technological might of our surveillance society is brought to bear to catch those responsible, but most of the time there simply aren't enough officers available to access the information for less serious crimes. And of course that's where the main problem is - people get away with minor crimes, and so gradually build up the criminal scale, with the result that when they do get caught they get a tough sentence and it takes much more effort to rehabilitate them.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 18:09   #16
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
If prisons reduced crime, after one iteration of said regime 'crime would have gone down'. It hasn't. Pretty much for the same reasons tnf said.
That's because crime reduction is a continuous process, not a thing you can do and say "oh look, I've reduced crime, good for me, I think I'll have a break for 600 years". To give you an analogy, if you massively increased the education budget, and had all schools with incredibly well-trained teachers and class sizes of 5, you'd, by any reasonable definition, have "increased the education of your populace". But if you continued doing it (like we've continued locking people up), education wouldn't keep getting better and better, it'd stay at the level it was for the first people who were taught under that system (except for a slight jump when the first people who'd had it became teachers). If, after 20 years, you stopped it, and returned to how it is now, it would return to how it is now. That doesn't mean that whilst you were doing it you hadn't increased peoples's education.

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
To give you an analogy, if the americans produce a certain headcount of 'insurgent dead' every month, can the insurgency be said to have gone down?
That's a silly analogy, as the process of "reducing insurgency" operated by the Americans (i.e. killing insurgents) actually makes more people want to be insurgents ("they killed my uncle, so I'll blow up that army base", etc.). It can hardly be said that people commit crimes as revenge against society for locking people in prisons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
Are those individuals all psychopaths? If they aren't theres a link between their behaviour that is dependant on their circumstance. If they were individuals and they acted individually then incarcarating them would stop their behaviour, the fact we've been sending people to prison for however many centuries in the belief that it 'reduces crime' when it hasn't, is pretty demonstrable evidence that other - more important - factors come into play.
This is about as coherent as the first post, unfortunately.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 18:44   #17
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Re: Prisons Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
I wanted to reply to you but I can't really find anything of substance to address. Having pulled back from your initial challenging of my proposition that Prisons don't work you are saying... well what are you saying?
The problem was partly that I felt the same thing about your last post. I agree with you that trying to stop people committing crime in the first place through education and social improvement is a good idea, that prison is not the right place for all (or even most) people who commit crimes, that people who read the Daily Mail are generally stupid, that surveys of the public demonstrate that no one knows how anything works, that rehabilitating prisoners is a good idea and that we're not in the middle of an enormous crime wave. I don't see how any of that, however, means prison doesn't work. The fact that it's not the solution to all the world's problems doesn't mean it's bad.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 19:22   #18
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proteus
That's because crime reduction is a continuous process, not a thing you can do and say "oh look, I've reduced crime, good for me, I think I'll have a break for 600 years".

Yes i know!, which is why prison doesnt work. The impact of prison is only over a single generation, the reason for crime continous to exist.

Quote:
To give you an analogy, if you massively increased the education budget, and had all schools with incredibly well-trained teachers and class sizes of 5, you'd, by any reasonable definition, have "increased the education of your populace". But if you continued doing it (like we've continued locking people up), education wouldn't keep getting better and better, it'd stay at the level it was for the first people who were taught under that system (except for a slight jump when the first people who'd had it became teachers). If, after 20 years, you stopped it, and returned to how it is now, it would return to how it is now. That doesn't mean that whilst you were doing it you hadn't increased peoples's education.
And i have silly analogies!! If you employed and trained enough gps to provide
medical care at a ratio of 2 patients per GP you wouldn't have a significant continous impact on general health issues unless you addressed the cause of those issues (obesity, smoking etc). If the NHS had a continous impact over generations, the budget of the NHS would be decreasing with time. Hereditary traits aside (which aren't comparable to crime) the 'general health' of a population can only be affected by improving their circumstance, not giving them heart bypasses after they get ill.

Quote:
That's a silly analogy, as the process of "reducing insurgency" operated by the Americans (i.e. killing insurgents) actually makes more people want to be insurgents ("they killed my uncle, so I'll blow up that army base", etc.).

I doubt any family is joyous at the sentence they recieve, still change insurgent bodycount to insurgent incarceration. If the americans capture a certain number of iraqis a months and via fair trial they're sentenced to x number of years, will the insurgency decrease?

Quote:
It can hardly be said that people commit crimes as revenge against society for locking people in prisons.

You love finding strawmen don't you?! It can hardly be said the insurgency is the simplistic result of people taking revenge. My analogy was on what drove them to commit crimes, and that as failure to address that there was no reduction in crime.

Quote:
This is about as coherent as the first post, unfortunately.
If prison had any kind of continous impact it would have worked a long time ago. It doesn't reduce crime. I'm afraid i write to the standard GD level, if you don't understand my point theres little i can do.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 19:40   #19
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
Yes i know!, which is why prison doesnt work. The impact of prison is only over a single generation, the reason for crime continous to exist.
So you agree it has an impact?

And I'm afraid I'm not going to be here for ever, so forgive me if I expect my government to do things that help me, and not say "well, it won't have any permanent effect, so I'm afraid we're not going to bother".

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
And i have silly analogies!! If you employed and trained enough gps to provide medical care at a ratio of 2 patients per GP you wouldn't have a significant continous impact on general health issues unless you addressed the cause of those issues (obesity, smoking etc). If the NHS had a continous impact over generations, the budget of the NHS would be decreasing with time. Hereditary traits aside (which aren't comparable to crime) the 'general health' of a population can only be affected by improving their circumstance, not giving them heart bypasses after they get ill.
You have the worst understanding of healthcare and illness I've ever seen.

(On the plus side, I'm not obese, I don't smoke and I live in a very well-off area, so I'm never going to get ill. )

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
I doubt any family is joyous at the sentence they recieve, still change insurgent bodycount to insurgent incarceration. If the americans capture a certain number of iraqis a months and via fair trial they're sentenced to x number of years, will the insurgency decrease?
Stop going on about Iraq. General crime in a Western nation and insurgency by a population against foreign troops seen as a hostile occupying force are such astronomically different concepts that no amount of tweaking is going to make your analogy worthwhile.

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
You love finding strawmen don't you?! It can hardly be said the insurgency is the simplistic result of people taking revenge. My analogy was on what drove them to commit crimes, and that as failure to address that there was no reduction in crime.
But that point wasn't made because you picked a silly analogy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
I'm afraid i write to the standard GD level
Heh.

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
if you don't understand my point theres little i can do.
I understand your point, I just think it's silly, and since your only argument for it is to repeat it as if it's fact I can't really discuss it with you.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 20:05   #20
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Re: Prisions Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Proteus
So you agree it has an impact?

Er no. I said i agree crime reduction is a continous process, and as such prison doesn't work.

Quote:
And I'm afraid I'm not going to be here for ever, so forgive me if I expect my government to do things that help me, and not say "well, it won't have any permanent effect, so I'm afraid we're not going to bother".
What about your kids, or grandkids? If you believe in the human impact on global warming do care about the policies your government carry out for future generations?. Sure theres no problem with believing in only those policies that have an impact on you but i personally find those discussions a tad boring.


Quote:
You have the worst understanding of healthcare and illness I've ever seen. ...

(On the plus side, I'm not obese, I don't smoke and I live in a very well-off area, so I'm never going to get ill. )
I believe that there is a link between the way people live and their health, and further the way they live is less healthy the poorer they are. Of couse i accept people will get heart attacks regardless, but those are outliers in the general trend 'way of lifevhealth'. Its comparable to pyscopaths as outliers.



Quote:
Stop going on about Iraq. General crime in a Western nation and insurgency by a population against foreign troops seen as a hostile occupying force are such astronomically different concepts that no amount of tweaking is going to make your analogy worthwhile.

My analogy is a tad abstract (as with the NHS), but i make no apology for that. The insurgency as a 'crime' is driven and influenced by factors completely independant of the iraqi prison system. It is driven by big socio, small economic factors.

Similarly crime in the uk is driven and influenced by factors that are independant of the prison system. It makes no more sense to say prison reduces crime than it would to put prisoners in holiday camps and say 'holiday camps reduce crime'.


Quote:
I understand your point, I just think it's silly, and since your only argument for it is to repeat it as if it's fact I can't really discuss it with you.

Thats fair enough, but all i can do is repeat it.
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Unread 27 Jan 2007, 21:37   #21
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Re: Prisons Today

Actually, Proteus' posts have been the highlight of this thread imo.

Last edited by Nodrog; 27 Jan 2007 at 21:59.
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Unread 28 Jan 2007, 00:19   #22
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Re: Prisions Today

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Originally Posted by milo
Some poor kid has to suffer regardless of what i do. Capitalism can in a sense be seen as an inherently exploitative system. I have no problem with that.

Besides the complete and utter mongtardness of making it illegal to possess documents only becomes clear with time. If it hasn't happened already, then quite soon there will be people convicted for the possession of images that were taken before their birth. Id find it bizzare to be held to account for a photograph that was taken in say 1950.
There is a big difference between your mother/father in their birthday suit (I am guessing that will be gold dust come any big landmark birthday party)... than a young kids having to "blow the trumpet" off a dirty f*cking beast.

Speaking of which I think you would change your tune if a loved one had to pucker up and blow... I think Banardos and RSPCC are looking for volunteers...the stint might might be an eye opener to you.
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Unread 28 Jan 2007, 02:05   #23
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Re: Prisions Today

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Whats this all about...
Are you implying that elviz fans are to get the jail?
Why arent pubs all over britain hosting elviz nights every friday.
Fights after closing time over heartbreak hotel was a better hit than viva las vegas. Wheres the sideburns and burberry "elviz costumes"?
And their blue suede steelies.
God help the kebab shops afterwards "how about a cheeseburger and ya money"
Even getting a group going around mugging old grannies... "Hey mama how about paying tribute to the king" and running off with their pensions. I think they were left "traumatized" bad enough back in the 60s dont you think.
Getting gangfights with shouts of "haw look at these bunch of buddy hollys" "Memphis Young team" "I did ya mama last night ya bas" I know Elviz did his bit in times of war but its not quite the same thing is it?
And when these guys finally get the jail....unless the Judge mistakes them as Gary Glitter impersonators instead of elvis ones in which they only get community service. Because of "the sentencing climate" there are so many elvis fans in the nick. Not as if they are splitting up the millwall bushwackers and chelsea headhunters here is it? they end up spending a few years in "Graceland."

2 guys in a prison Cell one says "What you in for?" The other replied "GBH and Breach of the peace". The other said "what you in for?" The other replied. "love me tender and dont be cruel"....guess who is covering jailhouse cock?

I am sure being an Elvis impersonator gets you great "street cred"
Just a little hole in the theory there Hicks...
Elvis impersonators are getting harder to spot these days... whilst in comparsion the bawbags, rapists, murderers, muggers, paedos, and scum in general are on the increase.
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Unread 28 Jan 2007, 03:52   #24
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Re: Prisions Today

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Whats this all about...
It's about misunderstanding statistical trends and their applications, which is a trend in and of itself you have continued.
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Unread 28 Jan 2007, 05:14   #25
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Re: Prisons Today

This is worse than when the negros arrived. I demand a swift and excessive response involving poorly thought-out rants and political campaigns based on buzz-words and fear.


I have to say I rather hold with the idea that prison is there to punish people. Justice isn't about everyone being ensured the best life possible. It's more about getting what you deserve. For all the faults our societies possess and all the flaws I'd like to see rectified I'd never think that someone should go free just because they're not likely to reoffend. You should be punished and rewarded for what you actually do.

I read an interesting point the other day in this book that it was a mistake to think that merely if our cause for invading Iraq was just and moral no social problems would arise afterwards. I felt that idea, while not new, was rephrased rather aptly.
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Unread 28 Jan 2007, 17:26   #26
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Re: Prisons Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
For all the faults our societies possess and all the flaws I'd like to see rectified I'd never think that someone should go free just because they're not likely to reoffend. You should be punished and rewarded for what you actually do.
Maybe.

In some instances it doesn't seem to be in societies interests (however this is judged) to do anything but forgive the person involved (if we're assuming we knew 100% they wouldn't reoffend).

But sure, if their crimes are too heinous to be forgiven then I'm all for punishment. But even then prison seems quite an expensive and troublesome way of achieving this. You need something like thirty income tax payers for every one prisoner you're going to have in the long term which seems a tremendous waste (especially if we're effectively only doing it out of spite). Can't we just offer the person a public flogging or something if we want it known that justice/vengeance/payback has been achieved? Sure it's barbaric but at least it's over in a few minutes and no-one is under any delusion that we're doing anyone any favours.

In addition to this, a reasonable proportion of the worst (/most brutal) crimes we seem to hear about seem to be perpetrated by people who are, if not genuinely nuts then perhaps of questionable mental health. It's not necessarily clear in my mind whether a distinction should be made for insanity in this context, but if there is - is punishment still appropriate? Somewhat simplistically : If someone's mind has "broken" (for whatever reason) and they go kill a bunch of people then who or what do we punish exactly? And to what end? (Of course this raises the wider issue of free-will in non-insane persons - as I say, I'm not convinced there's a difference.)

I never find the existing state of affairs very satisfactory with regards these questions. The varying philosophies and assumptions underpinning most of these arguments seem too divergant to be harmoised properly.

Perhaps there is an elegant way that we can rehabilitate somebody while maintaining their fundamental human-rights and simultaneously satisfying our collective blood lust, but it's hardly a trivial problem. At the moment we have some kind of middle ground where no goal is properly satisfied. Arguably then in some regards the result is worse than either a wholly-punitive or wholly-rehabilitative system would be.

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Unread 28 Jan 2007, 18:56   #27
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Re: Prisons Today

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Maybe.

In some instances it doesn't seem to be in societies interests (however this is judged) to do anything but forgive the person involved (if we're assuming we knew 100% they wouldn't reoffend).
Ignoring the fact that being 100% sure of something like this would be outrageously unlikely I can rather imagine a number of scenarios where I'm pretty sure we'd all find the idea of letting someone go purely because they are able to convince a court of law they're not going to reoffend both idiotic and repulsive.

Quote:
But sure, if their crimes are too heinous to be forgiven then I'm all for punishment. But even then prison seems quite an expensive and troublesome way of achieving this. You need something like thirty income tax payers for every one prisoner you're going to have in the long term which seems a tremendous waste (especially if we're effectively only doing it out of spite). Can't we just offer the person a public flogging or something if we want it known that justice/vengeance/payback has been achieved? Sure it's barbaric but at least it's over in a few minutes and no-one is under any delusion that we're doing anyone any favours.
This could be legitimately be held to be cruel and unusual punishment. That said I wouldn't be adverse to the exploration of different approaches in this area.

Quote:
In addition to this, a reasonable proportion of the worst (/most brutal) crimes we seem to hear about seem to be perpetrated by people who are, if not genuinely nuts then perhaps of questionable mental health. It's not necessarily clear in my mind whether a distinction should be made for insanity in this context, but if there is - is punishment still appropriate? Somewhat simplistically : If someone's mind has "broken" (for whatever reason) and they go kill a bunch of people then who or what do we punish exactly? And to what end? (Of course this raises the wider issue of free-will in non-insane persons - as I say, I'm not convinced there's a difference.)
If you can demonstrate to a court of law that you had no idea what you were doing, could not stop yourself at any time and played absolutely no role in getting yourself into this scenario then that'd probably count for a bit. Obviously whether this is true to a greater or lesser extent in different cases could realistically lead to different punishments for very similar crimes.

Quote:
I never find the existing state of affairs very satisfactory with regards these questions. The varying philosophies and assumptions underpinning most of these arguments seem too divergant to be harmoised properly.

Perhaps there is an elegant way that we can rehabilitate somebody while maintaining their fundamental human-rights and simultaneously satisfying our collective blood lust, but it's hardly a trivial problem. At the moment we have some kind of middle ground where no goal is properly satisfied. Arguably then in some regards the result is worse than either a wholly-punitive or wholly-rehabilitative system would be.
Perhaps, there are certainly better ways than what we're doing right now. I'd like the first step to be a recognition of the differences between rehabilitation and punishment and a restructuring of the system to better reflect this. That said this isn't very entertaining so perhaps a few public beheadings along the way would be required.
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Unread 7 Feb 2007, 12:20   #28
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Re: Prisons Today

Wow, the frigid and impersonal way you all talk about this issue makes me wanna wretch. It's not your fault, and I'm not trying to insult you, but when you've got a loved one in prison, whom you visit often, you see things in a different light.

My mother is an alcoholic. My mother is also bi-polar. All her adult life, she's used alcohol to self-medicate, since her condition went undiagnosed. Eventually, when it was finally diagnosed, she recieved meds for it. Unfortunately, she couldn't hold a job because of her alcoholism, and thus could not pay for her meds. I know this, because I would make phone calls to relatives for her while she was passed out drunk trying to get someone to loan her money. See, she never drank when she had her meds.

Eventually, she came to hate herself for everything, (bi-polar moment,) got drunk, and got in her car. She tried to commit suicide by driving in the wrong lane on a freeway. Thankfully, no one was hurt by the impact. One lady lied about a neck injury though, (it was proved later on that she was lying, as there were no medical documents supporting why she mysteriously wore a neck brace.)

Too late, my mother was sentenced to two years in prison. In this amount of time, I've seen her change. While in prison, my mother has learned to steal, smuggle, trick, and get away with it all. She's never been caught.

The best place to learn to be a criminal is in prison.

Meanwhile, she was sent to a condemned camp the week before she was to go up before the parole board, they almost didn't send her back to the other prison in time. She has been denied her meds, (which they are supposed to provide,) for weeks at a time. One woman there has violent seizures, (sp?) and they didn't get her the medication she takes 3 times a day, for 3 weeks. When she had a seizure, she mysteriously got her meds. Women are being packed six into a cell made for two, and and there are two bathrooms for 90 people in her unit. I'm sorry, but this is f*cking bull-shit.

My mother was supposed to be released Jan. 3rd this year. it is Feb. 7th, and we still don't know when she'll be able to come home. Why, you ask? because the idiots in the prison enrolled her into a re-entry program she doesn't need because she has all the things they provide, (GED, housing, etc,) and she would just be a positive statistic for the prison. A woman who has none of the above, and is literally crazy, was released without having to go through the program. Why? She would have failed it!

My mother was also enrolled in a program, without having an option, that doesn't even exist yet, and do you know what? They don't know when it WILL exist. There are about fifty other women in the prison in the same boat she's in.

So let me tell you, prisons don't deter crime, because my mother learned crime while in prison, and the sentences aren't too long, the prisoners just never get released because the government is f*cking them over.

Oh, and when you're drinking brown water at a condemned camp and are stuck six women in a cell made for two, and share two bathrooms with 90 other women, I think it's obvious that conditions suck royally and need to be improved.
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Unread 7 Feb 2007, 12:39   #29
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Re: Prisons Today

Even if that is true, it's not really relevent to this anglocentric debate, other than to provide an example of a system in decay.
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Unread 7 Feb 2007, 22:37   #30
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Re: Prisons Today

*takes a deep breath* I realize that, and I apologize to everyone. The topic interested me, so I began reading, and then the way the discussion went upset me.

At the end, I sort of tried to tie it in with a few of the things some of you have mentioned. Like the ongoing debate about how effective prisons are at reducing crime, for example. I know of a number of women who are in prison for defending themselves against lovers who beat them severely, who have never done anything else wrong, who learn to cheat and steal while there. When they get out, and if life doesn't look up for them, they put those skills to use, and get sent back to prison on some other charge.

My ill-placed rant was also supposed to be used as an example of a system in decay, (to once again contrast the true need and effectiveness of these facilities,) but it was written with an ill temper and I'm afraid I made a rather large arse of myself, and for that, I humbly apologize.

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Unread 8 Feb 2007, 00:14   #31
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Re: Prisons Today

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Originally Posted by Synthetic-Rose
I know of a number of women who are in prison for defending themselves against lovers who beat them severely,
OK.

But in Britain we have a specific defence that justifies women defending themselves and by law makes them not guilty.

there are limits to this. for example a woman can not stab her husband to death and claim that defence on the grounds that her husband once spat at her.

The reason you may not be very popular at the moment is that emotion has no place in logical debate. And specific examples are too often tainted with bias to be any use.
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