(October 1, 2022 at 5:39 am)bennyboy Wrote:(October 1, 2022 at 3:41 am)Irreligious Atheist Wrote: The problem is that they are in prison at all? Well, we're never going to get to a place where there are no innocent people in prison, so that's a moot point. The same goes for the death penalty. Even if one innocent is killed on death row, that's one too many, which is why there can be no death penalty.
It sucks to be the victim of injustice, but that's not necessarily a reason not to imprison anyone or even to kill them for very serious crimes. The government should have this burden-- to match the punishment to the crime, but to accept increasing responsibility of due diligence for the biggest punishments. That's why death row inmates are there sooooo long, and there are sooo many appeals and so on.
Civilians are much less careful than this, in ways that are so likely to cause injury or death that I think negligence should receive almost the same punishment. For example, the outcome of driving while using a phone is SO likely to cause harm, that being caught doing so should lead to a prison sentence of several years. Every few years, some asshole celebrity dies in a sports-car crash, and everyone mourns him. Fuck that-- we should line up to take turns pissing on his grave because his willingness to launch a Lamborghini into the air for excitement was a threat to us all.
To me it's curious that when a government makes a mistake involving injustice, the world is ending. But every day, my precious family walk out into a society filled by fuckwits. I let 300 million other people roll the dice for me-- where a losing roll ends up with something so horrific happening to my family that it will end my happiness in an instant and forever.
Yeah, being wrongly imprisoned for murder SUCKS. But there were 16,000 homicides in the US-- and it's better to lock up a few people wrongly than to let 16,000 murderous fuckwits roam free.
Being wrongly imprisoned for rape SUCKS. But there were 85,000 rapes reported in 2010-- and it's better to get a few cases wrong than to let 85,000 rapist fuckwits roam free.
Remember that for every story that runs about a wrongful imprisonment, there are many thousands of very hard, dangerous men behind bars not raping you or killing you for your jewlry for a couple doses of Fentanyl. Cry for their "human right to vote" when they care about your rights to safety or liberty.
I see where you're coming from, and of course we don't want bad people that are going to hurt others to be free on the streets, but the death penalty and voting rights for prisoners don't really factor into that I don't think. And I don't believe in free will so I think humans are just like bears or any other animal in that we just do what we do, and we can not do otherwise, so I don't believe in killing prisoners for doing something they didn't have a say in that the physics of the universe made them do, but the free will debate is a whole other topic and there is another thread for that, and I don't want to get things too far off topic.
Yeah, dangerous people being on the street and being potential threats to our families is not an idea that I love either, and no one will disagree with that, but a lot of imprisoned people take plea deals when the evidence is pretty questionable at best. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you wouldn't want to lose your own freedom based on lacking evidence, then you shouldn't be ok with anyone else losing theirs, I think, even if they are really guilty but the evidence is just not there to back that up. Those who would give up freedom for a little bit of security, deserve neither, as the saying goes. That's just my personal take on things. Freedom is not free. It always comes at a price. For our own freedom, we have to put up with many criminals getting off scott free for their crimes. I understand that's not a bargain you are necessarily willing to make, but I hope that explains my position a little better at least. And if we want statistics, the Nordic model of compassion for criminals seems to be working over there for them, and seems to be a better system than the one we have, as it leads to less recidivism, so there's that at least to keep in mind. Of course, none of us here want a crime ridden society, but in my opinion at least, the Nordic model seems to be the best in terms of results.
