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Food for thought....against capital punishment is like playing wack a mole. By not killing the drug pusher you ensure multiple deaths downstream from the drugs being sold, territory defended and money acquired by robbery.
CP will never fly but the math is disturbing and should be an incentive for a solution other than passing symbolic laws sold as safety measures. Any pol who offers another gun law as a solution to reduce violent crime needs to be put out to pasture.
Drugs and gangs are the source of violence and the location of next murder is predictable as summer following spring. To discover the location, put push pins in the map of any city and note where they cluster.
You'd think the predictability would be a clue as to the root cause of violent crime. Legislators and thoise who elect them are in desperate need of buying another vowel to complete the puzzle. Asking for an 'S' everytime it's your turn is a losing proposition and diagnostic of mental impairment.
Don't be surprised to see more symbolic gestures from activists and politicians.
Then we have plea bargaining which allows a violent crime to be reduced to a lesser offense and the claim that most arrsted for drug related crimes to be non violent and deserving of sympathy. More smoke and mirrors to obscure the impact of drug violence.
Gangs and drugs and the downstream violence is supported and endorsed by your drug using friends, so be sure to thank them in the aftermath of the next violent episode.
This means that people have a higher chance of doing it, so we should really just plan ahead right? Put everyone in jail, and we've solved the problem.
Well there ya go, solve the problems BEFORE they happen!
You gotta be pullin' everyone's chain right? No one is as stupid as you're (hopefully) pretending to be. Put down every last drug dealer? What world do you live in where you think that's a possibility? And never say never, I could see hard drugs being decriminalized. I think decriminalizing use, while increasing penalties for dealers would be a good start, but honestly I think most drugs should be legal. If you want heroine for instance, you are GOING to find heroine. Problem is, most deaths associated from drugs like heroine are attributed to other chemicals it's cut with. You see "bad batches" pop up all the time, just a few weeks ago I heard of a bunch of people dying in Muskegon, MI due to "bad" heroine popping up. Are they idiots for injecting something into them that comes from some random dude? Yea, probably, but if it was legal that wouldn't be an issue. At the very least soft drugs should be legalized (LSD, Mushrooms, and Marijuana) Those are all non addictive, and are quite often used for spiritual use. What if someone wanted to do some LSD to cleanse their soul and raise their spirit and enlightenment but they were given some messed up designer drug by some idiot or trickster dealer? That's not O.K. It's like luring someone into a church and when they're expecting a service, beating the crap out of them with a stick, NOT O.K.
You gotta be pullin' everyone's chain right? No one is as stupid as you're (hopefully) pretending to be. Put down every last drug dealer? What world do you live in where you think that's a possibility? And never say never, I could see hard drugs being decriminalized. I think decriminalizing use, while increasing penalties for dealers would be a good start, but honestly I think most drugs should be legal. If you want heroine for instance, you are GOING to find heroine. Problem is, most deaths associated from drugs like heroine are attributed to other chemicals it's cut with. You see "bad batches" pop up all the time, just a few weeks ago I heard of a bunch of people dying in Muskegon, MI due to "bad" heroine popping up. Are they idiots for injecting something into them that comes from some random dude? Yea, probably, but if it was legal that wouldn't be an issue. At the very least soft drugs should be legalized (LSD, Mushrooms, and Marijuana) Those are all non addictive, and are quite often used for spiritual use. What if someone wanted to do some LSD to cleanse their soul and raise their spirit and enlightenment but they were given some messed up designer drug by some idiot or trickster dealer? That's not O.K. It's like luring someone into a church and when they're expecting a service, beating the crap out of them with a stick, NOT O.K.
No im dead serious. Every last drug dealer should be executed within the day.
Now, ovcourse I do not think this is a real possibility. As I said, people are way to soft and tolerant of crime.
I can assure you, meth and heroine will never be legalized in America. Not unless we are invaded and taken over by some ultra liberal European country. (Not gonna happen) Weed? Yes most likely.
You have to stamp out the use. If not you will have a much harder time stamping out the dealers.
Not even about the deaths of hard drugs. Have you seen what meth does to a person?
No im dead serious. Every last drug dealer should be executed within the day.
Now, ovcourse I do not think this is a real possibility. As I said, people are way to soft and tolerant of crime.
I can assure you, meth and heroine will never be legalized in America. Not unless we are invaded and taken over by some ultra liberal European country. (Not gonna happen) Weed? Yes most likely.
You have to stamp out the use. If not you will have a much harder time stamping out the dealers.
Not even about the deaths of hard drugs. Have you seen what meth does to a person?
No im dead serious. Every last drug dealer should be executed within the day.
Now, ovcourse I do not think this is a real possibility. As I said, people are way to soft and tolerant of crime.
I can assure you, meth and heroine will never be legalized in America. Not unless we are invaded and taken over by some ultra liberal European country. (Not gonna happen) Weed? Yes most likely.
You have to stamp out the use. If not you will have a much harder time stamping out the dealers.
Not even about the deaths of hard drugs. Have you seen what meth does to a person?
I don't like the phrase 'soft on crime.' It's often used by conservatives, and pretty consistently used by reactionaries. It's a phrase that translates to the unbiased party as 'they don't meet cruelty with cruelty.' And that is what it means. The mere suggestion that prison should rehabilitate criminals often is criticized by the far right as being too merciful. And mercy is weakness, and weakness is being soft, which is why the right hates Jesus (wait a minute...).
But if you look at the prison systems of the world, you need to compare the results to see what works. America's recidivism teeters between 40-60%, which makes sense as prisons are poorly run crime universities. So, we can just average that to about 50% of all criminals reoffend (though bare in mind, if someone goes to jail 4 times in their life, they jack that number up; same with divorce rate by the way). I don't know what the highest recidivism rate is in the world, nor do I know how close America is to the top (we have the largest prison population, housing 25% of the world's prisoners), but I do know the lowest is Norway, with a 20% recidivism rate.
Norway's system is pretty generous. The prisons are well funded, very humane, relatively comfortable, and are actually pretty open. Prisoners are allowed to leave. They of course have to come back and are monitored, but they can work a job and sometimes even see family and friends. The maximum prison sentence possible is 21 years, though you can get 5 years extensions if you are deemed likely to be a threat, so there can be life time prisoners. Some would say this is too generous, yet only 20% return, and by Norway's own admission, some of those people are just abusing the system to go back to a fairly nice facility to get regular meals, so the actual crime rates are naturally going to be lower.
And yes, that problem does exist in America, but to a drastically lower extent. People in Norway go back to prison because frankly, their prisons are like nice hotels. People in America go back because they're situation is nearly hopeless. That's not to say there isn't some of that in Norway, but there's certainly bound to be less given Norway's focus on rehabilitation.
So, basically we have American's "tough on crime" policy vs. Norway's fix the criminal policy. One has superb results, the other is a disaster, and there are sincerely people like you who believe our way is better? I mean, the evidence works against you AND the logic. If you go to jail for life without parole, what motivation does one have not to kill anymore? What motivation does one have to change themselves when our prison culture is run by pretty much indifferent morons who refuse to run the place properly, and that includes prison staff and politicians who suck at their jobs.
It's not soft or weak to rehabilitate and show mercy. Drug addicts can be helped. Yes, they have to want it, but if the outcome will actually be promising, which would require a cultural change (we'd actually have to adopt the Jesus values instead of the 'Christian' values we claim to have), but people would defiantly do it.
Also, anyone with a minimum understanding of prohibition during the early 1900s know that prohibition doesn't work. If you want to clean up crime, you make fewer laws. Illegal alcohol sales, and thus organized crime, increased during prohibition. Upon prohibitions end, these things subsided. No evidence exists to suggest the opposite would happen if we ended our mass drug prohibition we have now.
So what is the best options to make a dent in this problem given the above?
You're probably correct, at least in the short term of the next 20 years or more.
So, my vote would be to lessen (as in shorter, or in some cases eliminated) the prison sentences right on down the line. We have way to many people serving very long jail/prison for drug crimes. I'm not talking about any crime other than the actual possession and/or use of the illegal drug in question.
You commit property or gun crimes due to selling or using drugs......you will be charged and serve your full time accordingly.
People go into jail/prison with a few problems and some hardship issues to deal with......they come out 5, 10 or 20 years later with basically a ruined life, no job, very little prospect of a decent one, no outside friends, perhaps no family that still associates with them, and their only "friends" are other criminals they have spent the last 5, 10 or 20 years with......how do you think that's likely to turn out ? Duh !
If you're a direct danger (murder/rape and any other violent crime) to other people, I have no problem locking you up for a good long time. But if you're intent on destroying your own personal life by the use of drugs, locking you up in a cage 24/7/365 for an extended term seems a strange way to make your life better doesn't it ?
Not gonna happen. No way in hell the US is gonna legalize heroine and meth. Not a chance in hell.
Not to mention this sacrificing principle and moral code.
I want my daughter growing up in a drug free environment. Where even the mention of drugs brings gasps.
You mandate capital punishment for possession and give 1,000 dollar rewards for turning in sellers and it would pretty much wipe out the drug trade.
I don't want to live in a culture where things are artificially repressed and taboo because of one person's extreme or moralistic viewpoint. I'll take my social libertarian view where people should have the right to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt another person.
A society willing to execute a person for possession of a little bit of marijuana would be willing to do anything. When people are young they are stupid and they like to experiment. Many hard working, well adjusted people I know with wives and kids experimented with drugs when they were in their early 20's.. it's called being young. Just because you were sheltered and did not, doesn't make you special or superior.
I don't want to live in a culture where things are artificially repressed and taboo because of one person's extreme or moralistic viewpoint. I'll take my social libertarian view where people should have the right to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt another person.
A society willing to execute a person for possession of a little bit of marijuana would be willing to do anything. When people are young they are stupid and they like to experiment. Many hard working, well adjusted people I know with wives and kids experimented with drugs when they were in their early 20's.. it's called being young. Just because you were sheltered and did not, doesn't make you special or superior.
I like your view. It's the way I roll as well. Besides, we already have laws in place for when a person's actions directly harm another! ENFORCE THOSE! LAWS!
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