Enforcing the law and the rules

[East Street Trader]

It is very easy to believe that the answer to crime is to lock criminals away.

But that is an idea which palls very quickly indeed if you get at all close to the administration of criminal justice.

The main reason is that when you get close to criminals they stop seeming like demons. But you also start to see some of the dispiriting realities about prisons.

For one thing they are hideously expensive.

Which might not be so bad if there was any evidence at all that locking lots of people away for longer reduced the level of crime. But there is no such evidence.

The most dispiriting thing of all, though, is when you look at who make up the prison population. Because you find that the overwhelming majority are just inadequate folk who have done rather pettty things but in respect of whom no one has yet been able to figure out some lesser treatment which is sufficiently punitive.

The whole thing is depressing.

We have politicians at present (in the UK) who like the cheap political return of advocating long sentence and who have been taking us down the US route with an ever growing prison population. But they baulk at building ever more prisons and paying out yet more billions. So we have been trying to find ways to cut down on numbers.

But it is really hard to do because of the sort of reactions from the public that you express.

[Meticulous Man]

[Patroklos]

It is the soicalist liberals who have created the major punishment problem with the "everyone is special and deserves infinate chances" idea, and then it is also their fault for causeing and perpetuating the original crime problem due to their insane social views. Just my opinion though

I do agree that hard time prisons should be for the major criminals. One reason prisons are so expensive, besides the fact that they are far to comfortable, is that they house the wrong people. We build too many prisons to encmopass to broad a scope of criminals. If we have murders AND credit card scammers in the same prison, all have to be held in the same state of security to protect the integrity of the whole facility.

I suggest more specific prison types. There used to be alot of prisons in America that were just regular buildings surrounded by barbed wire that were just big farms. Inmates would go out and work all day to grow the food they eat, and then would go back to the "barracks" at night. These cost alot less money to build and maintain. You don't actually save money by growing your own food, but it does give the inmates something to do besided form gangs and stab each other all day doing nothing. They could probobly be used to maintain the whole facility, minus fences. I would even suggest that since labor, and farming is not unusual punishment, is involved it should count as time. You sort of get double your punishment without eating too much of a persons life away. It is not a chain gang though, can't sell their food outside the prison and do not work off prison property to avoid corruption.

That suggestion would be for non-violent offenders with lets say, no more than a five year sentance. I think the piggest prison problem is idleness. For the lifers in "pound me in the arse prison," throw away the key. By definition we have given up on these people, or rathe they have given up on us.

[East Street Trader]

You can nibble at the cost of locking people away but, short of transportation (and we have no empty land left for that) no one in three centuries has ever made it any less than enormous.

The problem about locking up the wrong people is another conundrum.

What happens is that some inadequate soul gets into trouble. They come in for some minor punishment like a fine. Their inadequacy does not go away nor do their circumstances change. So after a while they transgress again. The courts bend over backwards not to impose a prison term but eventually a bench of magistrates or a judge pots them. And for every subsequent offence the overwhelmingly likely sentence is a slightly longer term than was last imposed.

And there is also a problem about agreeing exactly who the "right" people to lock away are. Some fear violence so they advocate prison where offences involve violence. Some want property protected hence the 30 year sentences tend to be large robberies (the great train robbers held records for length of sentence here for many years). Others dislike recidivism so you get the three counts and out type of idea.

In the end politicians pander to all and any of this depending on what the last headline catching incident was.

There is one thing which I believe would be worth doing in this area. Which is for politicians to have a go at educating folk to see criminals clearly for what they are - rather than leaving them with demon status. And to explain a bit about the benefits (cost and practicalities mostly) of shorter sentences and less stringent regimes.

But the only thing which would really start making this less depressing would be for someone, somewhere, to come up with an alternative form of punishment.

A task which, despite half a lifetime desultorily thinking about it, is beyond me.

[Patroklos]

I gave you an alternate form, vut after work I will expand.

[Pekka]

EST, Good posts, I agree to some extent.

Hey, I don't mean we should all get mad and throw them to pits and destroy the keyes. But here, I'm talking about pedophiles who are guilty, who tortured victims and had sex with little boys, and was punished with nothing. Not even fines! That is WRONG. I might add, that this person was convicted in the 70s for same crimes. I was talking to this with my dad, and he said he heard in the news he had over 200 counts of molesting.. that's not little porking around. Icing to the cake was when court ordered that the man must have his sex toys and torture tools back! Even the original 3.5 years is a joke. Sure this man is sick, not normal. But it's no excuse, we can't let sexual predators like these walk in the streets just because we believe in good side of humans, and that everyone has something good in them. It really doesn't help when he goes around and gets new victims. I can not stand the idea of relapses in this case. Alcoholics have them and that's normal. Pedophiles, violent criminals, it's unacceptable. HOw about 15 years of prison and no vacations either. I think that's justified after porking kids on 200 counts that we know of, plus torturing few. and only because he's obviously sick, otherwise I'd throw him in the slammer for life. He's multiple offender and not first timer. He will not stop. He is now free and he will continue his sick ways I'm sure.

I have a suggestion. We categorize criminals into different problems, and then make them different prisons. There they can have that special treatment and help for their problem. Pedophiles in their own prison, at least now they won't be killed by other inmates, and then therapy all the way. But hard punishments.

Violent criminals should be categorized even more, we can't throw them in one place or all hell brakes loose.

Murderers and killers, I have absolutely no problem with them getting life sentences, if the case is clear murder motivated by money, or hate, and not some kind of other things that might little justify his act. If you murder someone gold blood because you want his money, I think you don't deserve another chance to get around in the society. That's it. Prisons should be humane though, and prisoners should be treated like humans and give them opportunities to study in there, have hobbies and things like that and not be beaten and stuff.

But the way it is now is no way to go. No way, this is not laalaa land, this is a place where serious crimes take place, killings, beatings, rapes, you have to go to jail for it, you just have to. And if you murder few people, you can't get out in 7 years, you can't. That's just plain wrong. The only motivation can not be rehabilitating them back to society. There must be sign of punishing and paying back for what you did. If you murder two people we can't pat on their heads 'well you are in pain we know, we will help you'. What is one human life worth of, when it's wrongfully taken? Not much!

[Pekka]

Also, the punishments must be parallered to what the society thinks about it. If society wants to give out life sentences for murders, it must be followed. If the justice system still decides to give few years, then there is a contradiction. What happens then, is vigilantism. You can be sure, that this pedophile will be beaten badly x 100 by people. This is what we don't want as civilized society, we want to avoid people taking justice into their own hands.

Also we are now only worrying about the criminals, who are humans too. What about the victims? We are effecient about forgetting them.

I view these as if it happened to me. It's easy to say 'well 3.5 years is enough and justified', but when it hits me, I'll be looking at it differently. Why should we look it like that? Because that's the victims perspective, and victim is the one getting screwed here.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
This is something i have never understood about Europe. If something like that happened in the United States, that guy would net get out for at least a few decades.

That's not really true. Attempted murder doesn't get you very long sentences and with plea bargining and time off for good behavior, you could expect to serve less than five years, I expect.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Jack_www
Many say that this is the reason why crime has gone down in California, because we lock up all the criminals.

Yes, but that ignores the fact that crime also went down by the same margin in states that didn't "get tough on crime." Crime isn't deterred by greater or lesser punishments, but by the mere fact of punishment itself. A more important factor is the state of the economy. If it is easy to work and suppotr yourself without resorting to crime, it is's easier to keep a job, and not have to turn to crime cuz you can't find a job, then crime goes down. That's what happened in the '90s. Since the recession began, crime, in almost every state, has begun to rise again.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Why not? If a minor knows right and wrong then he should be charged as an adult. If you kill or rape, I don't care if you are 12.. you should go away for a loooong time.

So we won't let them vote or be held liable for a contract, because they are too young to fully understand the implications of their action, we can still send them to prison as adults? If you're gopnna treat kids as adults, don't do it half-assed. Get rid of age-of-consent laws, drinking ages, driving ages, working ages, etc. Either kids are fully competent or they aren't.

[Patroklos]

Once again Che chimes in with an idealistic but unrealistic solution. Kids at 10 know it is wrong to kill people. Though I don't want kids in prison at that age, but when they turn eighteen they get their facilities upgraded.

And once again, while it may be easier to fall into the trap of crime when times are bad, it is no excuse to go pillaging. Your econimic situation has no link to your criminal activity as they are thinking people capable of making decisions, unless you suggest poor people are not capable of bieng rational. Most poor people are not killers and theives, so it is possible. We all have mosters to wrestle with, some greater than others and poverty is just another one.

On another note, we fail in reforming anyone because we try to reform everyone. Wyhy reform a person with a life sentace? Focus on the people that can be saved like youth offenders and petty criminals.

[Pekka]

Ok, everyone who thinks it's a good idea to forgive every person all the time, what would you give to this person, todays winner from the 'let's kill strangers'.
just today.
57 year old man was killed in downtown area of city. He left behid 3 year old daughter and his wife died too earlier to decease, so 3 year old is orphan now.
So what happened? He was walking in parking lot, and there were a group of young men drinking heavily. Yes, it's legal here to drink where you want, you have the right to do it. Anyway, they got into argument, and 27 yo guy decided to punch the old man, who fell instantly to the ground. Then he took a large knife (15cm long blade) and stabbed him into his ribs, behind armpit piercing lounges and heart. A big blade, stabbing an old man with clear intent to kill. He died very soon after from bleeding very badly in the middle of the day in downtown parking lot.

Crap happens. But what are we going to do with this person? Paper says, he was earlier convicted from 2 SERIOUS batteries, regular battery and other smaller crimes. Listen, serious battery here means, that you have to use a weapon to attack, knife, baseball bat and USE it, and injure someone badly. This man is 27, wtf is he doing walking the streets???? IF HE WAS IN PRISON where he belonged! The 3 year old girl would still have her other parent, her father! **** this ****!

Now, they are seeking the HUGE 8 500 euro money for mental pain and traumas and what not. 8 500 euros? That's nothing! But they won't get it, maybe half from that. They will announce the actual punishment later, but I tell you, this ****ing savage killer will be out in ... less than 5 years. Because he was drunk, they will reduce his sentence, so maybe 4 years. Justice? HELL NO!

I want the person to say it's enough of a punishment to go and say that to the little girl who then turns 7 or 8 and starts school that 'hey, the baddie who brutally killed your daddy, we just let him out. Ok, I need to go bye'.

[Shai-Hulud]

Nothing much left unsaid. I agree with many of the posts and being a finn I can certainly relate to your feelings Pekka. It's nice to see that sense of justice is a live in Finland...though not well.

What puzzles me is that great majority of people I've come to contact with actually agree on harder sentences etc. but...nothing is happening. So, who are the conservatists who wish to preserve this injustice? It seems to me that they're politicians not citizens. This doesn't surprise me the least, finnish politics have always shown incredible inefficiency at dealing with REAL issues. Now, politics tend to be inefficient in general. But in Finland it's really getting dangerous.

Although I agree that crime is no simple consept to be solved simply by hardening sentencies or stacking more prisoners into jail I must oppose the current system(in Finland) because of its injustices. Pekka's examples are from real life and they are totally outrageous and unacceptable. We may not redeem the life of a victim but we must redeem his/her rights.

I support re-education and general forgiveness towards "smaller" crimes. Crimes NOT committed against the freedom of life. But getting just a couple of years from murder is perversion of justice. I find it very difficult to understand. I suppose the sense of justice in Finland has not yet developed to meet the standards of modern society. We rather blame the system than the individual. Resulting all offences from the falses of the system, unprogressice communitarian ideal that is still judging our criminals...many thanks to communists and alike. However, sooner or later this is going to change, or Finland is in SERIOUS trouble. In fact, I think, this is already a serious problem. But with time such a perversion of justice will lead to worse.

I'm doing what I can to change things...but I'm not planning to raise my children in this environment. I hope that in future I will be able to provide them safer environment somewhere else if finnish people show no respect for inalienable rights of men.

[Pekka]

Shai-Hulud, I agree with you all the way. Your post was like from the more intelligent version of me .

[Pekka]

Also, I realize these kind of crimes happens everywhere all the time. But how the justice system handles the cases, that's what bothering me, because these are not exceptions, these are rule how they always go.