Raped by the system

[:) Smiley]

Guilty until proven innocent is contrary to US ideals. They're going to regret they did that someday though, as any time one side extends too far there's generally a backlash from the other side.

Though I have to say that the US system is still better than, say, the Iranian system where the victim is punsihed worse than the offender.

There's got to be some nation that's found the happy medium. Where is it and what do they do?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Smiley
Guilty until proven innocent is contrary to US ideals. They're going to regret they did that someday though, as any time one side extends too far there's generally a backlash from the other side.

Though I have to say that the US system is still better than, say, the Iranian system where the victim is punsihed worse than the offender.

There's got to be some nation that's found the happy medium. Where is it and what do they do?

there is no happy medium. there is two things, which side u err on and how accurate ur system is.

do u lockup the innocent or let teh guilty go? and how often do u do either.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Trajanus
you're pretty strange; you're for the 3 strike law but you wan't to legalize prostituion and drugs as well!! frikking weird

yep, that's me . That's why I'm neither a conservative nor a liberal. I consider myself a moderate. I lean one way on some issues, and the other way on other issues.

As for supporting the 3 strikes law- well 3 might be a little too harsh. But it coincides with out national pastime of baseball . And I don't support all the crimes encompassed by the 3 strikes law. Even violent crimes like assault aren't that bad and probably shouldn't be included. All drug laws of course shouldn't be included. But when you are talking about rape, murder, attempted murder, child abuse of any kind. Then yes these people should be locked away. You could say many of these people get life sentences anyways. You'd be suprised how many get out and commit more crimes.

[:) Smiley]

They say the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Locking up the innocent is very unamerican. Letting the guilty loose is excusable.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Smiley
But the US crime rate is still very high compared to other nations. Why? Because a load of the ppo in the big house are there for doing drugs.

The only druggies doing hard time are the dealers. Your average user spends almost no time in jail when caught unless there are extenuating circumstances like being out on parole or weapons violations.

NPR had a great documentary about this two months back after a 10 year nation wide study showed that there are very few drug users in the Federal Pen due just to drug use. The states jails may have different satistics but it's a lie that jails are over run with poor innocent first time drug offenders.

[Dis]

yes, but dealing drugs isn't that bad. They shouldn't be in prison. Now if they committed some violent crimes while dealing, that's different.

[Dinner]

The really interesting question is how blacks can make up 11% of the total population yet there are as many black in jail as there are whites in jail. Seriously there are about 1.9 million whites and 1.9 million blacks in US prisions (and about 1 million hispanics). This is despite the fact that whites out number blacks like 7 or 8 to 1.

American Black culture is seriously ****ed up.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Oerdin
American Black culture is seriously ****ed up.

Maybe the Lily White Court system and Police Departments are what's screwed up

Justice can be bought... and the poor can't afford it.

[Dinner]

I'll agree that seriously rich people can afford the super lawyers to get them off and it doesn't matter if it's a rich black or a rich white. Being rich is the key to walking free. Still 99%, in my humble guess-stimate, of the cases are not dealing with super rich people. Most of them are every day joes who get a decent attorny and who face the system.

In such circumstances it would seem the controlling factor is that certain groups have a higher propensity towards commiting crime. Why would one group commit more crimes? Well, socio-economic status is one factor (poor people commit more crime on average) and blacks certainly are disproportionately poor, but, the majority of the blame seems to land on culture.

How can I make such a claim? Simple. Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the US and they, like blacks, are on averge less educated and poorer then whites yet hispanics go to jail at nearly half the rate of blacks. It seems that by comparing blacks & hispanics we have controlled the socio-economic factor and the single largest outstanding difference is one of culture.

[Dr Strangelove]

About 70% of people in prison for drug use are serving time simultaneously for other felonies as well.

[blackice]

Crying wolf

Det. Leaver fears for smaller Canadian forces, where police may have been thoroughly inculcated in the school of woman-as-victim, but less well-trained in investigative basics: "That is putting people at risk," she said.

Ironically, it is the notorious case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka which may provide the bookends to this treacherous territory.

As the rapist who eluded police by moving from Toronto to St. Catharines, Ont., where he married Homolka and launched his career as a killer, Bernardo provided the tragic rationale for Ontario legislating VICLAS.

His former wife, on the other hand, was arguably the ultimate illustration of the way women came to be seen in the justice system.

After Bernardo's 1994 trial at which she testified at length, with her husband convicted of murdering teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, several jurors wrote letters to Homolka's family, expressing their sympathy for the woman who cheerfully had handed over their youngest daughter, her sister Tammy, to Bernardo, then just Homolka's boyfriend, for drugging and raping one Christmas.

Tammy choked on her own vomit and died during the pair's attack.

It was clear Ontario prosecutors had achieved the improbable and managed to turn Homolka into a victim, albeit a repellent one.

There were all sorts of reasons for that portrayal -- chiefly, that it served to justify the plea bargain the government had reluctantly made with her -- but the message was nonetheless stark.

If Homolka was a victim; if the Crown could argue she was telling the truth in court; if psychiatrists could testify this was a battered spouse of a sexual sadist, any woman -- all women -- must be surely viewed through the same distorting prism.

For the "no" sayers are you absolutely sure?

[Dale]

Originally posted by Dissident


yep, that's me . That's why I'm neither a conservative nor a liberal. I consider myself a moderate. I lean one way on some issues, and the other way on other issues.

Actually, that would make you a "swinger". Moderates stay in the middle ground ALL the time.

[monolith94]

"DNA FBI files show one out of four are false."

One out of four is 25%, not 60%.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ming


Maybe the Lily White Court system and Police Departments are what's screwed up

Justice can be bought... and the poor can't afford it.

Alright, let's assume for the sake of argument that half of the black prison population is there unjustly. This still makes them 4 times more likely to be there. This ratio mirrors the ratio in murder rates btw. So racism aside, there's a problem with the culture of some African-Americans to the extent that they are willing to murder one another so easily, just as there are white areas where there are bad stats and a problem with an overly violent culture as well.

[Dis]

This may not be politically correct.

But I think a lot (read: not all) of blacks have a chip on their shoulder for the crappy way they and their ancestors were treated in the U.S. for hundreds of years. This combined with poverty is a dangerous combination. And then combine this with a gangster culture and you can explain the higher than normal crime rates among blacks.