Peterkin

That wasn't in my sentence. It's okay to agree with things I didn't say, but not to pretend I said them. I think I'll skip the history lesson today. I'm never particularly sorry for people who abuse their power, when they finally - rarely - come to some kind of judgment. I can sort of appreciate why you mix in extraneous material, but I won't. Yay for Australia! (I mean that: it's one of the better western countries. But it's not the world standard - yet.)

Why should it? I didn't appoint or advise that magistrate. If that wrong decision influences other jurists to be unfair to other convicts, I have no control over that, either. Remember, my [uninformed] opinion was that the rapist had probably behaved abnormally long before the first major crime, and should have been flagged as potentially dangerous - possibly contained - sooner. Hitler didn't live in Australia: where and when he lived, it was normal. Racism has been, and is, quite normal and legal in many countries, and so were/are atrocities. Your definition of a normal western country does apply to modern Germany. You have no jurisdiction in the past. I am talking about all kinds of crime committed by heads of state. If they broke the laws of their own country, they can be prosecuted through its own legal apparatus, after they have left office. If they broke international laws, they can be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice, or in a war crimes tribunal set up for the purpose, after their defeat and apprehension. Suicide strikes me a quite sensible precaution in those circumstances.

Generally, they were bought - bartered - from other tribes. Some had been captured in standard warfare, and if they had not been transported across (or under) the ocean, might have been won back or ransomed by their own people, or traded on to yet other tribes (so the captors might see nothing amiss in selling them on to white trading partners), worked off their own ransom and let go, or assimilated (esp young women and children) into the victorious tribe. Yes!! Once the capture of one's enemies and rivals becomes a commercial enterprise, profiteering and corruption set in; people are kidnapped simply for their monetary value. Many European prisoners and debtors were transported to do mandatory servitude. While that's not exactly voluntary emigration, they at least were viewed as human beings with basic (very!) rights, and some hope of gaining their freedom through legal means. Other Europeans - half or more of the early immigrant population - signed up voluntarily for indentured servitude of a specified period (normally 4-7 years), to work off their passage. These people were often treated like property by their employers, but they had a superior legal status to African and native American captives.

T^^^hat's about it! A fine summary.

Translation: "I speak for the majority; you two are in the minority." Dimreepr and I are voters, too. The first and your all-time favourite example is a deranged person who may or may not be in control of his impulses. Certainly, someone like that needs to be sequestered - and should have been, before he committed that particular act. It's also possible - I have no detailed knowledge of the case - that at least some of his behaviour was aberrant long before, and nobody was paying attention. It's also possible, if you do not overburden the system with unnecessary crimes, to make such sequestering humane, and to give that captive activities beneficial to society. The other examples are invalid. Hitler was a head of state who greatly influenced or dictated the laws of his society; according to the laws of his land, he committed no crime.* Heads of state are punished only if defeated in war, revolution or election, caught and prosecuted and tried by a constituted authority. Hitler wasn't caught; Ceaușescu was; Trump wasn't prosecuted; the Taliban warlords probably won't be, though some may be assassinated - that's another form of justice available for leaders, good and bad. *Hence my first argument: If you want an orderly society, make good laws. Eg: criminalizing personal decisions and substance use; letting mentally unstable and untrustworthy persons run around with assault weapons. !!!!

The most readily available stats are from the USA. I do link sources whenever it seems appropriate. Australia's and Canada's crime rates are generally better; lower on violent crime, lower on false conviction, but the recidivism rates are remarkably similar, which doesn't speak well for the practice of imprisonment.

Except, that's not how the present system works in real life. However, if we cut down on the initial crime rate by 1. making better laws 2. practicing better enforcement 3. creating a social environment that engenders less privation, emotional instability and early brutalization, then the justice system wouldn't be overwhelmed and the authorities would have the resources to do that assessment and make those appropriate decisions. We might even have the extra space to sequester people suspected of posing a danger in humane conditions. Of course there is: volume. That's why they're giving accused thieves that lousy deal: if you insist on your right to a trial, you have to wait months (in jail, if you're poor) don't get a lawyer unless you're a pauper (if you are, you get a bad one), if you're just not rich, you have to hire one and be a pauper before it's over, and if you lose (likely, in either case, and nobody will give you back those months) and the sentence is drastically more severe than if you plead guilty to begin with. Helluva gamble for the accused; no skin off the prosecutor's office.

You can't determine an appropriate lesson or punishment or correction without knowing the cause of the criminality. Sometimes the cause of the crime is not within the criminal's control: vagrancy, homosexuality, miscarriage. Even in "reasonable westernized societies", some laws are impossible for some people to obey. Sometimes the person being punished didn't do what he's accused of, but since he's accused and in detention, and can't afford bail, he's counted a criminal and punished. Odds are, he won't learn anything positive from this experience - but, because of his criminalization, he is no longer eligible for the employment, housing, credit and social standing that he may have enjoyed before the incarceration, and might therefore turn to crime. Even among those duly convicted, many have not committed the serious crime of which they are accused; in lesser crimes, many confessions are false, as defendants are counselled to plead guilty and accept a lesser sentence, rather than risk losing a trial [in which they often can't afford to mount an adequate defence]. Than there is broken-law-breaking: acts that do no harm to society, but offend the resident powers: resisting arrest, failing to stop when pursued, obstructing justice, unlawful assembly and failure to disperse while kettled, abetting a suspect, assaulting an officer's boot with one's ribs.... Where somebody has actually and knowingly committed an antisocial act, it usually falls into one or straddles two of the common motivations: acquisition, love, anger, stupidity, mischief, activism, status. Each of those motivations has a range of intensity (and provocations), and so does the action they engender. But the severity of the legal response is determined less by the act itself than by the intended target. (e.g. you can get 12 years in prison, plus loss of your whole family's electronic devices for a five-minute interruption to Mastercard's advertising web-page. I just learned that today.) I don't consider any of that fair dealing - which is what I think justice should be.

And so much more expertise and resources available with which to do it, if the jails aren't full of people who can't afford bail and fines for minor infractions. But the 1% shouldn't determine what "justice" is.

I don't understand. Thing about "justice" is, to me, it's a much, much bigger and more inclusive concept than crime and punishment. There is the whole question of what a "crime" is and what makes the same act a crime in one situation, heroic in another and just routine work in a third. There is the question of the principles on which the social and legal structure are built; of who makes the law and for whose benefit, who is punished and who is beyond reach. There is the question of cultural norms, like bait-and-switch morality: teach the children to value winning above all else, then tell them honesty is the most important thing. Raise adrenaline- and sugar-junkies, then make them sit quietly behind a desk for eight hours a day. There is the question of what ways and means are available to which segments of the population; of which people become "criminals" and how it happens. There are anecdotes and statistics. I prefer to form my big picture from the latter. But that's just me.

Prevention: economic equity, early intervention, physical and mental health care, security, education, opportunity. Haven't i said?

It did help some early civilizations diversify their food base. Whether it helps a post-apocalyptic new civilzation will depend on their circumstances. We don't know all that will happen in the sequelae of climate collapse, nor where on the globe the bands of survivors will have a chance to start over.

Probably. But - why?

Scratch rice as a comparison, then. I was behind on the automated farming practices. Still skeptical about the bullrushes, though.

Commercially, it would face the same challenges as rice: large area, way too much water, in the open: subject to rapid evaporation, difficult to harvest, low yield, multi-purpose, thus has to be transported to different processing sites. And the wetlands, of which we have few enough left, would be trashed, with incalculable eco-web collateral damage. So, it will probably be done. But we'd do much, much better with vertical and indoor farming of food plants that are already developed. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/chinas-indoor-farming-research-feed-cities-leads-world/409606/ However, bulrushes make an attractive and useful component of urban water reclamation projects.

I suspect the profit motive was tertiary. First, something had to be seen to be done, by all those Americans shaking their impotent little fists at the sky on September 12, 2001. Secondly, Little Boots wanted to be "the war president" - without offending or inconveniencing his oil-brothers in the Saudi aristocracy. And there were his spirit guides, Cheyney and Rumsfeld, leading him to the answer. Some civilian crimes and most war crimes are status motivated.

No, it's a guesstimate of the "incorrigibles" - those who can never be rehabilitated, no matter what we try. (the only ones who, in my opinion, need to be sequestered from society) The remainder is not a success rate; it's a guesstimate at how many we could rehabilitate with the appropriate approach in each unique situation. Neither is a reflection of the present system, which has a very high failure rate: 43% recidivism, plus whatever happens to ex-cons who can't get a job and are not recaptured. [11]Punsishment": [2] Protecting victims and society:] I don't see how they're the same. Punishments protects nobody; it does escalate the violence in a culture; it does feed the baser drives of society's members; it does further brutalize people who were already damaged in some way. Protecting [potential] victims requires nothing more than containment of the [potential] danger. The actual victim has already suffered whatever harm they suffered, so you're not protecting them. That's where prevention would have been more beneficial. The actual danger from a particular lawbreaker can usually be assessed and their level of containment decided accordingly. But, of course, in all the hoopla over the most egregious cases, the vast majority of lawbreaking, for which prison is invariably the wrong answer, is overlooked. Once you've brutalized a cheque-kiter or graffiti artist or joy-rider, [3] Rehabilitation. is too late

I've continued to respond after i realized the futility, yes; you're right about that. You may have expected a new engagement when you joined in, but I simply haven't the energy to start over. If you're interested in anything I've said on the subject, or any of the statistics I've cited, you can find them. If not, I'm sorry to disappoint. Depend on who "we" are. I've listed the essentials, enormous bodies of work in social sciences have been published on the particulars. This is not a new issue. Yes. The insurmontable issue.

I have attempted 6 pages of intelligent conversation about this. I'm pretty much conversed out. Ending poverty and disparity, promoting physical and mental health, providing children with education, guidance and opportunity... In a wealthy advanced nation, that's an achievable plan. It has been proposed, repeatedly, by more knowledgeable people than i am. And shot down repeatedly, by more powerful factions who have their own plan for those resources. So it can't be done. And I have outlined it broadly. Not in minute detail, since this thread isn't about the fine points of social reform, but about "what people deserve". I think everyone deserves a chance at a reasonable life, and no-one deserves to grow up in fear. I think that if those basic requirements were met, "crime" would decrease to the point where resources became available to treat seriously disturbed and disruptive persons far more effectively.

Well, I know they let their governments make some bad decisions, but surely the entire US population can't be criminals!

Maybe you can't, but industrial societies certainly can. I elaborated further down, but it doesn't matter. Nothing can be done, because one prisoner in 100,000 will never be rehabilitated, so we have to keep the prisons in their present state for that one, and as long we have to have prisons, we might as well fill them with all the other people who have broken various laws but won't become habitual criminals until they've been to prison. In many possible and several certain ways. Bumper stickers win election.

You would need extensive wetlands - in a time when water is unreliable: scarce in some places, overabundant in others. It's a large plant with a low yield: you'd need some generations to breed it or gene-splice it up to an economically feasible food crop. And if it were then cultivated in commercial quantity - and especially by the usual industrial methods, the wetland in which they now thrive would be trashed in no time. However, North American natives did make extensive use of them both as food and material for making containers, boats and shelters. As part of a versatile diet, it could be extremely valuable for a new civilization of humans - as long as their numbers were much, much smaller than the current one. Unfortunately, that part has to be dried and pounded into flour (for the bun). The protein content is not high, but the shoots are green and the roots are sweet.

I'm looking for an improvement of a 10% reduction in avoidable incarcerations and a 10% increase in the rehabilitation rate of not-capital offenders ion the first five years of UBI, universal healthcare, well-equipped and staffed public schools and comprehensive family services. If, after ten years, the saving on crime and punishment doesn't balance the cost of resources added to social welfare, you will have some evidence that my proposal doesn't work. I'm looking at the whole system. You seem concerned only with the fraction of a % you have designated incorridgible. Different perspectives.

Do you mean, you don't know who, in your own community, is responsible for taking care of kids? I'm proposing: Pay a lot less attention to, spend less money on, give less public infrastructure, equipment and manpower to, wars of choice or convenience or profit. Pay less attention, devote less administration, bestow less reverence on the accumulation of great wealth by a few. Put a lot more effort, thought and care into the welfare of the young and troubled, ill and old, vulnerable and volatile. Even more simply: social justice is the better part of criminal justice.

No, there are no magic bullets - and that includes throwing away keys. As I asked before: Has nobody ever noticed anything odd about this boy before he committed this horrendous crime for which he is now famous? Why not? We'll never understand anything by punishing it, but we might understand what happens in a child's mind, what influences alter his course in in life, if we pay attention. Who makes decisions about autistic children, dyslexic children, children with any kind of problem? The parents, guardians, educators and health care professionals who monitor his condition. Taking care of children who exhibit anomalous behaviour or difficulty conforming to social standards isn't exactly a novel idea. It's just that the structures for helping/correcting them as it stands now is 90% cracks, through which far too many fall. A child who is spectacularly injured, mutilated or killed is the subject of a tsunami of maudlin sympathy for fifteen minutes. The other 10,000,000 are invisible.