Sniper,

I see only a couple of factual issues with your claims. First, Wikipedia itself has flawed information in many cases. Don't know if this particular source material is flawed, but their system has proven flaws. Second, China, Saudi Arabia, etc do not have open books. People go into their prison systems without any documentation. There is no true accounting of how big their prison systems truly are and where all the bodies lie. Several human rights groups give claim to large penal systems where more than 1 in 100 would be in incarceration at any point in time. Add to that a system that could/will require people to live and work in certain areas. There is no freedom of movement, thought, word, deed thus the entire society COULD be thought of to be in a state of internment.

I see some factual truths in what you say. We do have a flawed system. It has always been thus.

I do not see how a group of vigilantes could provide better justice to the accused and the accuser. Human beings have certain general tendencies that need to be managed with group think (yeah, just my stupid opinion). Have you read Karl Marx? He created a great work about a perfect utopean society. He presented great arguments, his ideas are very enlightening, and it reads as if it would be the most wonderful system around. Have you seen his system applied? It has always ended up in a complete mess because humans want to be in charge. It just simply, in my opinion, cannot work with humans. Ants and bees and such seem to do just fine with a similar system. We cannot.

Harddrive,
Wow, Considering this with your post from last week concerning the losing of your own temper. Now it makes sense. Dude these situations are very stressful and it has touched a deep nerve. It has allowed you to see maybe yourself in a different light. Take a few deep breaths.

Wow, 5% of the world population resides in the US, yet we have 25% of the world prison population, and all you see is "the stupidity of the offenders"?

Truly amazing.

I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm on my part...

Are you implying i'm a communist because i'd like to know why our prison population has soared by over 400% since 1980?

If so, frak you.

As far as our prisoners being 'more free' than a 'free' saudi arabian(or Chinese, or wherever), i think you're nuts. I've never been to prison, but i bet living in Riyadh is 10,000x better than living in a steel cage.

Sniper,

I normally agree with you but on this one I only can agree with you to a point. While I think the U.S. population is WAY over-policed, over-incarcerated and that the police in this country are WAY too overzealous about the wrong kinds of offenses, this is not necessarily a failure of the criminal justice system. Mostly it's a failure of our legislation. We have too many laws on the books - period. The job of law enforcement is exactly that - to enforce them, right or wrong, stupid or smart, well-intended or ill-intended.

Here's the inherent problem with our system:

Elected officials have one primary objective and one only - to get re-elected. There are inadequate term limits and there are too many "career politicians" that run for elected office for the wrong reasons. That said, we all know the reality - politicians care first and foremost about re-election prospects. All else is secondary.

That creates an interesting situation whereby legislators constantly feel the pressure to sensationalize issues, grandstand, and (most importantly) constantly propose and pass new legislation on anything/everything they can come up with. If they don't do this, it makes them vulnerable for a challenger to peg them as "do-nothing" or "part of the system" or "a political insider". The best defense against such things is to paint onesself as being active, promoting legislation (particularly on "hot-button" issues that get the attention of the press and public), etc.

So there it is. There is NO incentive in our system to eliminate old, stupid, ill-conceived, inapplicable, inappropriate or outdated laws. There is EVERY incentive to simply create new ones.

I would propose the following solutions:

1. Strict term limits. Both for individual offices AND (more importantly) a lifetime limit on service of how many years a person can spend holding ANY elected office - federal, state or local. Get rid of the career politicians. Naysayers will say "this will get rid of the most experienced". In this case, I don't care. It'd be worth it.

2. Eliminate "dead" legislation. Create a requirement whereby two old, outdated or otherwise "dead" pieces of legislation to be stripped from the books before any new ones can be passed into law. It'd be nice to see the volume of laws and codes SHRINK for a change instead of bloating up bigger and bigger year after year. . .

3. Sunset provisions. Every new piece of legislation should have a reasonable expiration date or sunset clause. A way for it to automatically "go away" when it's done addressing whatever problem it is intended to address.

- - - - -

I agree our system is not perfect. I agree that there is tremendous manipulation of it by the wealthy. I agree it is corrupt. I agree it is in many ways just a way to legitimize oppression of the poor and less fortunate. It's sad.

But every once in a while, even our imperfect system gets it right. In the case of putting away a rapist scumbag, a thief/con-artist (such as a former g.f. of a close friend of mine who recently stole $12,000 from a former employer), a murderer (such as the two worthless pieces of schit who murdered another close friend of mine some 15 years ago, and who are still rotting away in prison), etc. I don't have a problem defending our system.

Yes, it does occasionally get it wrong. But it's nice when it gets it right - such as in this case.

We don't have to agree on all the details Jeff, it is obvious we are in agreement about the overall state of affairs, and just how totally out of control things are.

We live in an ultra heavily armed high-tech police state that locks up it's citizenry at a rate so vast that it's truly mind boggling.

The really scary part is what it will be like if you extend all the current trends out 20 years.

Harddrive, I feel your pain.

I was on a jury a few years ago that found a father guilty of molesting (raping) his 7 yo daughter. We found him guilty, but were going to give him probation so that he could still see his daughter supervised. Why? Unfortunately he was probably one of the better people in her life :( .

The father chose 14 years in prison from the DA rather than let us sentence him. We could have given him 99 years in prison, but of course he didn't know we were going to give him probation.

I cried the night after the little girl spent the day on the stand. It was her testimony that sent her dad to prison. As bad as what he did was, you could tell she still loved him.

You should have said he ruined someone life and hopefully he gets life in prison. The guy is a drain on society and deserves whatever he gets.

Do you feel bad for being successful while the rapist has been a failure at life?



We all win by having one less rapist on the streets.

I'm glad he didn't listen to nut jobs like yourself who wanted to let a child molester back on the streets.

I personnally wanted him in prison. We agreed to the 10 years probation so we could get a unanimous guilty verdict. It was a very messed up situation for the girl. Both parents in prison. Mom was convicted on drug charges, dad was the only one with a job bringing income for his wife, children, and his wife's girlfriend :(. It's just so different from my middle class upbringing that I can't comprehend the life those children will have.

my own experience with being a juror was an uncle that was treating his very young niece like a wife. it was very disturbing. 7 years! scarred me for life. what got me worried was that after a month of trial, i got really desensitized to the horror stories. we hung that effer. something like 14 counts of lewd and lascivious bullschit. two other nieces came forward. they were young women now. nobody was right anymore. the girls had issues. i checked, and i think the guy got 38 years. he was older, and i hope he dies in prison.

i thought the perv should die, but that wasnt an option. i slept well. no issues.

Hard drive, you did the right thing...

I had a co-worker that turned out to be serial rapist, never would have guessed it, he was married and had a good job etc.

Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves for trying to drag this thread into a $hit storm. :rolleyes:

True drains on society it sounds like and it's even worse that you had to compromise on probation to get an unanimous decision. Who wouldn't want to send that guy to prison?

Very keen oberservation. I didn't strike anyone, obviously my loss of temper for a moment and what this man did are not comparable. But the element of loss of control was there. I was 'not myself' for a brief moment. And it REALLY bothered me to watch myself exhibit even a scrap of the raging behavior I was hearing about in the court room.

Thank you all for the kind words.

I drove around last night with the wife and talked. I feel better.

Perhaps the 'police state' discussion deserves its own thread?

Based on what the defense lawyer said, it's a shame he wasn't locked up beside the rapist.

No sense of right or wrong or truth or lie, just win or lose.
I don't hate all lawyers, only the ones who think and act like this.

Why don't you tell us what you see.

Are you saying that the people in prison aren't there because they've broken an obvious law?

There are exceptions, like Martha Stewart's incarceration, but those are few and far between.

I recall being on pre-jury selection and in they walk a man accused of child rape.

Serious
*****.

I think having over 1 in 100 americans incarcerated is utter insanity. I think the "War on drugs" has done nothing but create a para-military police state (and the attendent supporting manufacturing base). It has done absolutely NOTHING to stop the flow of drugs in any meaningful way, and it will NEVER stop the flow of drugs in any meaningful way. It has also created a massive criminal enterprise network all across the western hemisphere and beyond. I think that in order to justify these ever increasing police budgets, they need to 'produce'. That means arrests and convictions. "The War on Drugs" is prohibition to the 10th power.

I think putting people away in America is big business.

I think it's effing sick.

I partially agree with Sniper.

I think that the private prison industry and federal law enforement agencys are not at all interested in reducing crime or stemming the flow of drugs. They are interested in bolstering their own bottom line. If one looks at the racial aspects of the issue, it is especially disturbing. Its one area that perhaps Sharptons and Jesses rehetoric is based solidly in fact. Even in 2008, a black male has a much greater chance of being swept up in the legal system. One could argue that its because they commit more crime, but I don't find that convincing.

Sniper, I think you are mistaken however in claiming that the entire legal system is bad. If you carefully compare the system we have with those of other countrys, its is (sad to say) actually very good. Would my opinion be different if I was black? Maybe.

Are you saying black people are being sent to prison just because they are black?

Look at the area with the highest crime.

On another note, :(

Sheriff: Corrections Officer Raped By Prisoner



http://www.news4jax.com/news/15913382/detail.html

Even from behind bars these animals are hurting people.