Is that you soon find yourself incarcerating more people than anywhere else in the world.
A smarter way is to only jail violent offenders. Non-violent offenders, and people who commit violence unintentionally, should remain free, and on probation. This not only saves the taxpayer money by not jailing these people, but it also leaves these offenders free to keep working so that they can, at the very least, provide some financial compensation to their victims, or to society (depending on the violation).
Even just a stiff *fine* for some of these “crimes,” I’d think…
What you are saying when you advocate thusly, is that if no one actually tears your flesh, that suspect doesn’t deserve to be jailed.
Well, how about the fraudsters who steal your last dime by stealth instead of by violence? You’re just as poor in the end, only minus the few lumps they would have made if they were violent.
Also, when you advocate thusly, you have assumed that these “minor” criminals actually have a proper adult mindset and will PAY those fines, restitutions, etc.
I worked for several years as a guard/marshal for the local courts, and I’m here to tell you that at least half the Court’s time is taken up with those convicts who refuse to pay their assessments. They refuse even though the Court grants them some very lenient terms, such as $10/month on a $500 fine, with no interest.
Yes, this is the greatest democratic Republic in the world, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a nasty underclass. When WE fail to control that underclass and their illegalities which spill over into the normal society, what are WE showing?
Failure to lead our society, and such failure spawns failure to survive.
As I have said before, and will continue to preach, libertarian philosophy sounds great, but fails the reality check.
I subscribe to the 3 s theory. Steal from me and you will see it in action. Now, however, should you ask, I would give you the shirt from my back.
To steal implies violence, the only variable is if the thief needs to apply it to gain his ends.
Which part of the philosophy, RD?
If the crook can’t pay cash, they lose their property. If they have nothing of value, they work for the state until that debt is paid off. If they refuse to work to pay off the debt, they will have then violated enough of the civil code and therefor opened themselves up for incarceration.
Once prisons become more like prisons and less like resorts, the crooks will begin to pay up (and probably less likely to commit the crime in the first place).
That’s simple RD, it’s called garnishment, the convict works, the money is taken out of his paycheck before he ever cashes it. If he fails to work, he gets to work for the state on a chain gang until the debt is paid.
Phil has the right of it: make prison a very, very bad place to go (ie. Maricopa County) and the fucknozzles won’t be so anxious to break the law.
JEBTEXAS, plenty of fucknozzles getting arrested every day by the efficient Maricopa Co SO.
Courts have interpreted the “work off your debt to society” very liberally. It’s almost impossible to get anything in the way of real work out of these miscreants, and garnishment of what? Few of them hold legitimate jobs with decent wages, most are totally dependent on the dole. The few that do start to work off their debt usually get “injured on the job” or some other excuse to avoid working. Sheriffs’ chain gangs are fine, but they generate little cash, and have quite the overhead to deal with.
Reality bites, but you’ll never get the “poorhouses” of the 19th century back without a totally new Republic. Now, if we want to work towards THAT goal, let me know, I’m all ears.
Ah, so jailing non-violent offenders right off the bat (which we pay for, and through the nose, I might add) is somehow better than fining them and requiring they work to pay the fine with a job that actually reports income (i.e. no showing up to pay the fine with a fat wad of cash and no bank accounts or pay stubs, if the IRS can’t track the money, it isn’t accepted as payment).
My overall point here is simple, there are a lot of people doing time for minor crimes, mainly drug use, where there isn’t much in the way of victims, where there isn’t a serious societal cost, and where the very fact that they are/were incarcerated for a felony destroys their ability to even TRY to become a productive member of society.
It’s hard to stop being a fucknozzle, when fucknozzle is the only option you are really given.
I take the long view. Solitary confinement for every prison inmate, no TV, no Internet, no library. Boredom the entire time. Those outside prison would eventually be extremely anxious to stay out of it
California has a statute that says that prison is explicitly not for rehabilitation of inmates. Of course, we break that statute every day.
As for minor crimes, any cop will tell you (rightly or wrongly) that most of those folks are bad guys who are known to have committed major crimes — those just can’t be proven so easily as the drug possession charge, so since that gets the bad guy off the street, that’s the crime charged. I tend to believe them on this point.