Peterkin

3 hours ago, Externet said:

Were the slaves from Africa centuries ago bought from their tribes

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. 

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

As a kind of overarching narrative one could argue that over time the profitability of the trans-atlantic slave trade did increase the demand for slaves, which in turn changed how they were acquired.

  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.

2 hours ago, beecee said:

You once again, have it all wrong....It's society in general that insists on justice, based on the popular meaning of justice.

Translation: "I speak for the majority; you two are in the minority."

Dimreepr and I are voters, too.

2 hours ago, beecee said:

Because sometimes the barbaric violence and cruelty inflicted by monsters on human beings, is beyond any sympathetic feelings.eg: The case of the little girl I gave....Adolf Hitler...the movement behind the suicide bombings in Kabul today. That will do for starters.

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.

2 hours ago, beecee said:

 Again you have it all wrong in making this so personal...

!!!!

50 minutes ago, iNow said:

Criminal justice and legal systems vary from one country to another, so generalizations like these require caution. Out of curiosity, which country’s criminal justice system do YOU primarily have in mind while making these posts?

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.

11 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Obviously each and every case requires assessment on what levels of protection and punishment is/or if required. I'm not saying its the answer to all crimes and all levels of crime, I'm just saying it is a quick and immediate solution that then allows sometime for the authorities to decide on the next procedure and sometime for the perpetrator to think about and reflect on the crime they have committed.  

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.

8 hours ago, Intoscience said:

There is nothing preventing looking at the reasons any crime was committed.

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.  

7 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Even if we achieve a 99% success rate investing in and using every prevention method possible, there is still 1% that has to be dealt with.  

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.

18 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Shouldn't the word be 'mitigation', it's the industrious mouse all over and why Ricky didn't get it.

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.

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

What do you propose in place of punishment?

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

12 minutes ago, Hans de Vries said:

This would give an early civilization a boost.

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. 

2 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

I wonder whether with enough selection a variety that grows on land could be created?

 

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.

7 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Is this a statistical fact? Cause if so, I'd say that's a pretty good success rate @ 0.001% failure. 

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. 

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Because 1 & 2 are one and the same when a criminal is locked away number 3 comes later if applicable. How do you suggest we deal with the immediate threat? 

[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

1 hour ago, iNow said:

And yet you continue posting / failing to engage meaningfully 

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. 

1 hour ago, iNow said:

How do we meet those basic requirements is my question. 

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.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Availability of resources isn’t the issue. Allocation of them (and accurately identifying those most in need of them) is. 

Yes. The insurmontable issue.

31 minutes ago, iNow said:

I thought maybe you wanted to have an intelligent conversation about this, but you’re contenting yourself with platitudes and flowery language. 

I have attempted 6 pages of intelligent conversation about this. I'm pretty much conversed out.

31 minutes ago, iNow said:

“Be better” and “be more awesome” isn’t a plan

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.

31 minutes ago, iNow said:

I’m asking you how you wish to make them a reality, not convince me that we should. 

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!

7 minutes ago, iNow said:

Totally agree, but I can’t do anything with that, can we?

Maybe you can't, but industrial societies certainly can.

7 minutes ago, iNow said:

Assume we have a magic wand / a blank check to prevent kids from turning bad. Gonna need much more detail than “put more effort and thought into their welfare” when asking the genie for those wishes or writing those checks. 

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.

14 minutes ago, iNow said:

How does that prevent kids from turning bad? I’m not following. Sounds like a bumper sticker.

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.

4 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Anything that resembles a hotdog on a stick deserves some research into its potential.

Unfortunately, that part has to be dried and pounded into flour (for the bun).

4 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Calories aside,  what is it's protein content, and what other nutrients does it have? 

The protein content is not high, but the shoots are green and the roots are sweet.

1 hour ago, beecee said:

but the facts remain again, that 100% success rate will never be achieved,

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.

18 minutes ago, iNow said:

Since you replied to my question with new questions of your own, I don’t feel any more clear on what you’re actually proposing. 

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.  

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Is there like a pill you can give them, maybe shock therapy, cut out parts of the brain? 

No, there are no magic bullets - and that includes throwing away keys.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

What does this look like in practice?

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.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Who gets to make that decision, and what are the objective metrics / thresholds when doing so?

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.   

I don't get this eternal dwelling on how to punish the rare, spectacular crime - after it has taken place, and how to prevent the next one, with no consideration given to preventing the first one. Didn't anybody ever notice anything odd about that boy at any time before he committed that one heinous act?

I think this is a large part of what Dimreepr has been advocating for. If there are babies born irremediably evil, we should sequester them long before they do so much damage. If they're not born evil, we should prevent them turning bad.  Shouldn't we be paying attention to how our children are developing and what kind of people they're growing into?

10 minutes ago, iNow said:

What point are you trying make

No points. Just discourse on the situation. If we can't or don't want to think about what our political leaders face once we put them in office, on what basis can we decide which ones to elect next time?