"Ross A. Finlayson" wrote:
>
> S.J. Van Sickle wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Brian D Williams wrote:
> >
> > > What's wrong with people who commit crimes serving their full
> > > sentence?
> >
> > I don't have a problem with the old and feeble being paroled...such as the
> > British 1950's organized crime figure who was recently paroled about a
> > month before his death (cancer I believe). Perhaps *very* occasionally in
> > the face of overwhelming evidence that the prisioner has turned his life
> > around and no further good is ocomplished by incarceration.
> >
> > There may also be other rare circumstances for parole...possibly
> > participation in dangerous medical experiments? Though the bioethicists
> > have ruled that one out.
>
> Prisons are sad. Imprisoning each of the 2 million prisoners costs American
> taxpayers about 60,000 a year each, not to mention prison construction and
> labor costs. Two million times 60,000 is 120,000,000,000 dollars a year.
> Maybe the cost per prisoner is actually only 15,000 dollars a year, which it
> is not, then it would cost thirty billion dollars, a year. Perhaps these
> numbers are lower and higher, but they are illustrative.
The average cost is around $35,000. The $60,000 figure is for death row
inmates specifically. Either way, for most non-violent prisoners who are
not mentally ill, some say it would be cheaper to just cut them a check,
or maybe not. It costs around $60,000 a year per beneficiary to run the
welfare system (even though the average recipient only receives around
$10,000). So as long as they are not on death row, prisoners actually
are cheaper than if they were on welfare on the outside.
>
> American has the highest rate of imprisonment of any democratic country, which
> is absolutely pathetic. Even ninety-nine percent of extremely violent
> offenders are not violent ninety-nine percent of the time.
The second sentence here is a non-sequitur. It makes no logical sense in
the argument. Just as a genius only needs to be brilliant once to be
regarded as such, a killer only needs to kill once to deserve the death
penalty.
>
> Not having been imprisoned, I wouldn't want to be. Not being a criminal, I
> see less reason to imprison anyone.
Unfortunately, you don't have the sort of moral flexibility and
initiative criminals do. You can't imagine why they do the things they
do.
>
> When I was a high school student, the debate topic for the year was prison
> overcrowding, and how to resolve it. Plans included decriminalizing drugs.
> We argued for the complete year the entire issue of prisons. The other annual
> debate topics were space and the elderly.
I say cordon off selected areas of the country. Structure social
services they depend on to only have offices in those selected areas.
Essentially set up communities such that criminals typically only kill,
rob, or hurt other criminals. Oh, yeah, we already have those. They are
called cities.
>
> Sometimes this list talks about "transparency", where for example public
> cameras help deter crime. Here's how it should be, all the on-duty cops and
> prison guards are videotaped regularly, and only them, as it can be expected
> that they would be in the vicinity of crime reports. This video wouldn't be
> available to the general public, nor any other public or private entity, but
> it would be available to any court proceeding.
How about this: weld a camera around the neck and embed a transponder
and taser into the skull of anyone convicted of a felony.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:26 MDT