Yeah but punishments don't fit the crimes...
then don't do the crime..simple solution to all the bitching inmates! If you don't want to be punished, don't commit crime. I think that it is far more common to see that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, because we Americans are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too lenient, and the criminals are not punished harshly enough. Perhaps if the punishments were more severe, we wouldn't have near as many repeat offenders.
America has been far, far too hard in some instances and I know for fact in my State in Australia, the courts are disgracefully too lenient....
It embarrasses me actually....I am thoroughly ashamed of our justice system...
I don't think it's possible to be too hard on a criminal. I mean, in other countries, if you get caught shoplifting, you get your hand cut off. Is this too harsh? No. Because maybe someone would think twice about stealing if they knew it could cost them their hand.
I think the other part of America's problem is that we don't carry out our punishments. How many people are on death row, years and years after being sentenced? It is more likely that they will die of old age than to die by execution. I think that if we carried out the punishments in a timely fashion, people would realize that a death sentence doesn't translate to years of living in an air conditioned cell, getting three meals a day, and getting a college education while waiting for an execution that will, in all likelyhood, never happen.
What kind of deterrent is that? Half the time, they live better in jail than they did or would if they were released back out in public.
I think it's very telling that the crime rate in America is what it is . Other countries that don't fuck around with carrying out punishments don't seem to have the crime rate we do, and they don't seem to have the re-offender rate that we do. Other countries might be considered less advanced than America...but I think we could stand to learn a thing or two from them. Look at our jail populations exploding, not having enough jails/prisons to hold criminals so we are forced to release them due to overcrowding, and then everyone is all shocked and surprised that a released rapist decided to rape again. Well...we sure aren't doing something right.
This is a classic example of what's wrong with our judicial system..read the below about a lovely man named Joseph E Duncan III :
His first recorded sex crime occurred in 1978 in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, when he was 15 years old. In that incident he raped a 9-year-old boy at gunpoint, and the following year he was arrested driving a stolen car.
He was sentenced as a juvenile and sent to Dyslin's Boys' ranch in Tacoma, where he told a therapist who was assigned to his case that he had bound and sexually assaulted six boys, according to a report by the Associated Press. He also told the therapist that he estimated that he had raped 13 younger boys by the time he was 16.[5]
In 1980 (also in Tacoma), Duncan stole a number of guns from a neighbor and then abducted a 14-year-old boy and sodomized him at gunpoint. Duncan was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but served 14 years then was released on parole and re-incarcerated for three more years for parole violations.[6]
In 2004, Duncan was charged with groping the genitals of a six-year-old boy. He was arrested in April 2005 in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. The judge granted bail at $15,000. A businessman in Fargo, North Dakota, Joe Crary, gave Duncan money for bail.[7] When freed, Duncan skipped bail.[8]
OKAY....why would he EVER be released on parole? and why the FUCK would he EVER be released on bail, with a record like his? thanks to our BRILLIANT system, he was released (and jumped) bail, and then he managed to kill a mother, her boyfriend, and the mother's oldest son, all beaten to death with a hammer. The boy managed to wander around the house, bleeding everywhere, before collapsing and dying at his dead mother's feet. Mr. Duncan took the daughter and remaining son and raped them both, before raping and killing the boy in front of his sister. She gets to live the rest of her life with that image in her mind, of her brother being raped and murdered.
and there are actually people out there who claim the American justice system is too harsh? are you fucking kidding me???????????????
