From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Mon Jul 29 2002 - 03:06:18 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
> Randall writes
>
>>>I really am amazed that you could think they start out the same as people
>>>not convicted of crimes, and only then become different. Oh well.
>>
>>According to http://www.bop.gov/fact0598.html#Offense , at least 64.2
>>percent of the people that are in federal prison right now are there
>>for nothing I would consider a crime. They are just like you or me.
>
> Maybe for nothing that *you* would consider a crime, but
> they broke the law. That's one completely objective and
> plain difference, so they are *not* "just like you and me".
You admit below that you can't know that you haven't broken
some law. There are too many. I quote:
>>There are so many laws on the books that no one can know whether they
>>have violated one or more...
> Here too, I absolutely agree.
I moved this up from later in the message to juxtapose the
two sentiments; the first, that they are "*not*" like you
and me, and the second that they may very well be, since
we can't know if we've violated the law.
You seem to believe that those in prison are intrinsically
evil people. But if you might be in prison if your own
infractions came to the attention of some civil servant who
dislikes you, then the only way in which you are different
is that you are not unlucky enough to come to someone's
attention.
> Yes, you're right that a huge number of them, 55%, are in
> for what you and I agree should not be a crime: drug offense.
> And yes, a good first step is always to reduce the unnecessary
> exercise of government power by unnecessary laws!
We agree here, I think.
>>Because of the way statistics are grouped, I can only say for sure that
>>at least 14.6[%] are there for something I would consider a crime.
>
> Wow! While I don't know what "D.C. Offenses" means (do you?),
> the rest are indeed crimes in my book. But as I said earlier,
> that doesn't matter so much as the fact that these individuals
> were convicted.
I believe that "D.C. Offenses" are probably the total of violations
of Washington, D.C. laws, since those are federal crimes, D.C. being
a federally administrated area. Those who commited crimes like
those would typically be incarcerated in state prisons instead.
As for the 14.6 percent figure, I didn't include D.C. Offenses as
crimes I was sure of, since I know that drugs and firearms are
illegal to some degree in D.C., and so the statistics are hopelessly
mixed for my purpose here. I simply don't know how many of those
in prison for that are there for crimes I would recognize, such as
those against property and person. Therefore they are not included
in either the 64.2% or the 14.6%.
Some of the others are mixed in such a way that I can't really tell
how many were convicted of what, so, for instance, they group arson
with possession of firearms, and fraud with bribery, etc.
> One of the sad legacies of the civil rights movement for black
> people was the prominent use of civil disobedience, and the
> predictable lack of understanding most people would have of it.
> I think it came to be misinterpreted by far too many of the
> unthinking that "it's okay to break a law that (you consider)
> wrong". Laws should be obeyed, right or wrong.
Here we disagree. Obeying laws which are wrong increases the
amount of injustice in the world.
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "Congress keeps telling me I ain't causin' nuthin' but problems and now they're sayin' I'm in trouble with the government; I'm lovin' it" -- Eminem
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