More Americans In Jail Than In Stalin's Gulag Archipelago

Originally posted by EvilDuck
reply to post by luciddream

 

True enough. The people they do catch are probably not the biggest problems on our streets in the first place.

That doesn't mean they should walk.

We are a nation of laws and if we start picking and choosing which ones we want to follow this country will spiral down so quick it would be horrendous.

Change the laws if you don't like them but while they are there you have to obey them.

reply to post by Hopechest


I agree with 'thisguyrightthere' on this one for the most part. It seems that if a law is a law, regardless of how valid it may be in usefulness, you are more than happy to just do whatever you're told to do. I'm glad that you are law abiding, but not all people are going to be as strong willed in decision making as you seem to be.

Now add to the fact that most people are in jail due to drugs like you said. I think that the victim of those crimes usually are nobody more than the people in jail themselves. I'm not comfortable jailing people for victimless crimes. It indicates that we don't want to help drug users... we'd rather just quarantine them from our lives and the lives of loved ones. If somebody wants to go home and smoke crack, then they are victimizing themself and should be left alone until they victimize someone else with their wrong doings.

It bothers me even more to see these power hungry judges to throw contempt of court sentences at people for calling the judge an explicative name after being punished for a victimless crime. I don't want tax payer money paying for a judge being bothered by someone calling him/her a name. We are in deep financial troubles in this country, and jailing people for victimless crimes is a waste of money. There are just as many drug users walking on the streets as there are in jail, so what's the point of paying for quarantining a small percentage of them?

Originally posted by Berzerked
reply to post by Cabin

 

What do you mean, "someone will START taking advantage of it?"
I guess that you havent heard about that judge that was caught making deals with the owners of a private prison.
He was sentencing people to prison for offenses that would normally warrant a fine or probation.
Yep, he was caught and sentenced to 28 years..
Just think how many havent been caught though.

btw, in case your curious about that judge.. just google, "kids for cash scandal"

edit on 17-5-2013 by Berzerked because: (no reason given)

By saying START, I meant overally about prisons, not only US. I do not know in detail, which countries do have private prisons, although most developed countries do not have, except US and maybe a couple of more nations. US has proved well that this can lead to corruptness, so start was meant to any country in the world, who would ever consider such thing.

To the posts, who were referring to people knowing about the laws:

There is a difference between knowing and not knowing.

When the prison system is for-profit, it has the option of influencing the decisions of the law makers so that many, even minor offenses might lead to prison time. Such laws can often lead more-over innocent people to jail, who have done nothing major and often without any knowledge of the law. Also the jail-time can be influenced. Smaller offenses leading to more jail time.

The difference between US and here is that here most offenses are common sense. You do not need to know the laws in 99% of cases. You just act normal and nothing happens. It is just common sense. Easiest rules. Follow the signs, do not harm others either physically, mentally or financially, pay your bills. These rules cover nearly every law. Unless you are serial killer or some mafia boss, it is impossible to be jailed for over 20 years round here. Murders usually give about 10-15 years of jail-time. Jail is considered as much as a rehabilitation than punishment, I have heard only two cases ever being with life-time and these were serial killer and a killer who killed again after being released.

Also the tax system is very easy. I do not know exactly how it is like in US, although here I never need to think about paying taxes, as my employer does it for me. My salary is my net income. Employer pays the taxes from the gross income. Unless you are self-employed or an employer, it is nearly impossible to avoid paying taxes. I do not about US, but the fact that over 40% of people are not paying income tax is impossible round here. It would require 40% of people being self-employed/employers. Also most taxes are universal, so that instead of adding some specific tax, the income tax is rised by 1% for everybody. As far as I know, there are around 4 taxes total, that non-juridical person needs to know - sales tax (20%), social security tax (33%), income tax (20%) , property tax. Every one of these is paid by the employer/shop, except the property one, although most people do not own their property, it is rented, so they do not pay for it directly.

Long story short:

More Laws, even some absurdic ones+Longer Jail-times, even for smaller crimes.=more people in prison=more money for the prison system

The laws and jail-times can be influenced by increased lobbying (more money)

Originally posted by ttobban
reply to post by Hopechest

 

I agree with 'thisguyrightthere' on this one for the most part. It seems that if a law is a law, regardless of how valid it may be in usefulness, you are more than happy to just do whatever you're told to do. I'm glad that you are law abiding, but not all people are going to be as strong willed in decision making as you seem to be.

Now add to the fact that most people are in jail due to drugs like you said. I think that the victim of those crimes usually are nobody more than the people in jail themselves. I'm not comfortable jailing people for victimless crimes. It indicates that we don't want to help drug users... we'd rather just quarantine them from our lives and the lives of loved ones. If somebody wants to go home and smoke crack, then they are victimizing themself and should be left alone until they victimize someone else with their wrong doings.

It bothers me even more to see these power hungry judges to throw contempt of court sentences at people for calling the judge an explicative name after being punished for a victimless crime. I don't want tax payer money paying for a judge being bothered by someone calling him/her a name. We are in deep financial troubles in this country, and jailing people for victimless crimes is a waste of money. There are just as many drug users walking on the streets as there are in jail, so what's the point of paying for quarantining a small percentage of them?

I do not like all the drug laws either but they are there. If you break them you will and should go to jail until us normal people can get them changed.

Ignoring laws is not acceptable in a nation of laws. Those that do ignore them know the risks and they choose to travel down that route, I have no sympathy for them, they are not victims, they are choosing the risk by using or dealing.

As for judges handing out jail time for being offended, i'm sure that happens but its not the norm. I've been in many a court and seen a judge cursed up one side and down the other without them overreacting. Your applying specific cases to the overall judicial system and that's not an accurate assessment.

reply to post by Cabin


I agree that for profit prisons are nothing but a bad idea as it will lead to corruption as we see in many cases here in the US.

They should be done away with.

I am also against rehabilitation since it obviously does not work. I would prefer to see a return of chaing-gangs and as we have shown here in Arizona, you can run a prison in the middle of the desert very cheaply.

well considering who and what stalin was, and depending on how you look at it.
those that made it to the gulag were lucky.
it's estimated that stalin killed between 20 to 50 million russains. that way more than 6 mill

and although life in a gulag, was almost a death sentence in it's self, i'm sure those that wound up there were glad to be alive if at least for a short while.

The locking up of people for victimless crimes is worldwide but none more prevalent than the US, primarily because the US came up with the drug war and pushed it on the rest of the world. This extended into transforming the American police into some sort of quasi-military outfit that seems to get bolder and bolder by the minute in trampling all over peoples rights and freedoms. The heavy handed tactics used by said police contribute to America being known as a violent nation where everyone thinks only of themselves first - the ever eternal quest to be better than the person next to you, rather than combining forces and working together.

As it stands now, the United States is the LAST place on Earth I would risk visiting. I might reconsider after a massive upheaval and change that rids the country of the corruption and filth but at the moment, I wouldn't go to the US even if I was being paid for it.

reply to post by Hopechest


You're putting yourself on a high horse, like you're better than those that use drugs. Good for you that you didn't have parents that brought you into the world already addicted to drugs, or into a situation of poverty that increases the chances of using drugs 100 times over. It's poor money management to isolate these problems from others that ride the same high horse you're on.

What about prescription drugs. You get a doctor that writes false prescriptions. He gets caught and gets jailed... like he should. Do you still want to jail all of the people that he helped get addicted to drugs? It could be hundreds of local residents who broke the laws of drug use, and it may not have been their fault.

Originally posted by ttobban
reply to post by Hopechest

 

You're putting yourself on a high horse, like you're better than those that use drugs. Good for you that you didn't have parents that brought you into the world already addicted to drugs, or into a situation of poverty that increases the chances of using drugs 100 times over. It's poor money management to isolate these problems from others that ride the same high horse you're on.

What about prescription drugs. You get a doctor that writes false prescriptions. He gets caught and gets jailed... like he should. Do you still want to jail all of the people that he helped get addicted to drugs? It could be hundreds of local residents who broke the laws of drug use, and it may not have been their fault.

Yes, I would jail them all because they are breaking the law.

You are justifying law breaking by saying they don't have a choice but they do. Plenty of people get off an addiction when they are ready so your theory makes no sense.

Because someone is choosing to use drugs to feed their addiction should not give them a free pass. They are aware of the laws and I cannot think of anyone I know that uses that does not know its illegal.

If your bugging your doctor every 10 days for a refill on your vicodin you are probably aware that you are having an addiction problem. If you choose to keep using the "they fell down the sink" excuse, I have no sympathy for you. I hope you get caught and get 5 years in prison. As well as your doctor who is supplying you.

Ahhh.. Now there is a difference in replying to the OP post directly... Stalin didn't give them Cable TV, 3 squares a day, (watched by outside groups for content closer than some school districts are)...and access to sue the very system holding them, morning noon and night.

I'd say that there are some key differences to be fair about any such comparison. lol....

reply to post by Hopechest


Now you're wishing to waste money on me to do five years in prison for my opinions on these matters? You really do want to spend as much tax payer money as you can to eradicate drugs from your life, huh?

Well, it might interest you to know that I don't do drugs of any sort, so you're pointing fingers in the wrong direction. You'd be wasting money keeping me in jail.

Also, doctors wrote over 4 billion prescriptions in 2012 alone, so you'd have to jail a whole lot of people just to help fix legal drug addiction, let alone illegal drug addictions.

reply to post by Hopechest


Here are some quotes from people who are FAR more intelligent than most people on this planet - all of whom disagree with you and your take on unjust laws. There are far more where these came from, if you need more quotes let me know as I would be happy to oblige....

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War 1942-49

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“That we should obey laws whether good or bad is a new-fangled notion. There was no such thing in former days. The people disregarded those laws they did not like and suffered the penalties for their breach.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
― Ayn Rand

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
―Tacitus

The more laws, the less justice.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
― Noam Chomsky

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.
― Lao Tzu

Originally posted by Hopechest


Yes, I would jail them all because they are breaking the law.

Sorry. But this is a very "slippery" argument. Shall I remind you that the atrocities of the Nazis were done "LEGALLY" Just look up the Nuremberg race laws of 1936. I still have a German dictnorary form this time period that includes about 20 pages of these "Laws".

reply to post by Kryties


Your first quote is actually Martin Luthor quoting Aristotle.

All of the great philosophers agreed that unjust laws should not be followed but when you study them you will see they are referring to issues such as a tyrant telling you whom you should worship.

They all agreed that all societal laws must...MUST....be followed.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, ... all of them agreed with this.

Originally posted by Guenter

Originally posted by Hopechest


Yes, I would jail them all because they are breaking the law.

Sorry. But this is a very "slippery" argument. Shall I remind you that the atrocities of the Nazis were done "LEGALLY" Just look up the Nuremberg race laws of 1936. I still have a German dictnorary form this time period that includes about 20 pages of these "Laws".

Change the law then.

If you allow a society to pick and choose what laws they want to follow you will not have a society for long.

reply to post by Hopechest


Wow, you have such a simplistic, naive view of the world.

It must be nice living on a cloud, surrounded by pretty lights and ponies!

reply to post by Hopechest

You change laws by disobeying them. Or simply by lobbying for them. And maybe have a clause of NON-ENFORCEMENT while a law is under revision/debate. As it happens in some countries. But one does not go around and shrugs shoulders with the comment: "Well its the law ...."

reply to post by Hopechest


In Arizona it is still illegal to own more than two dildos. Under your guidelines, should we jail those that own three dildos?

Originally posted by Hopechest
Well unlike Stalin's Russia, our people know what sends them to prison and yet they still do it.

Perhaps you shouldn't blame the prison system.

Soviets never thumps their chest for FREEDON/LIBERLTY and FREEDOM OF SPEECH, never declared it and never practice it and everyone knew where he/she will end up when asked for it.

Not everyone in American prisons is (criminal)… small examples?? TAKE a look at GITMO for start!

Originally posted by Guenter
reply to post by Hopechest

 

You change laws by disobeying them. Or simply by lobbying for them. And maybe have a clause of NON-ENFORCEMENT while a law is under revision/debate. As it happens in some countries. But one does not go around and shrugs shoulders with the comment: "Well its the law ...."

As the current system shows - disobeying laws does not change the law, it only ends you up at the prison.

The laws may be harsh and often unfair, although at the end it is your choice and your responsibility if you get caught not following them, bearing the consequences is part of your choice, so you can ultimately blame no one else but yourself for the poor choice you made.

Whether we want it or not, that is how the world is currently.