What's the point of long jail sentences if the cons are freed after a short time anyway?

[Prodigy^]

I just saw this scoop on CNN about this guy having been freed from jail, he's been convicted of some bombings at a funeral some time ago. The show included some other people having been freed......it went like this:

this and that guy: served 11 years out of 650 years sentence

this and that 2nd guy: served 7 years out of 5 life sentences

this and that 3rd guy: served 2 years out of 25 years sentence.

What's the point of these long sentences if the guys don't serve more than max 10% of it in jail?

 

[duragezic]

I know, it is stupid. Someone will kill someone else and be sentenced to life in prison but will be out after 5 years or something. It is too easy. I bet if you got a death sentence for 1st degree murder no matter what, there would be less murders. Just a thought. Hell, in on e country (don't remember name), you can get the death penalty for the second offense of drunk driving!

 

[Double Trouble]

The problem is that there is not enough jail space for all the inmates, so they come out much sooner than they should. That, and of course the fact that they become eligible for parole way too soon.

To me, 60 years should mean 60 years, not 10, not 20 , but 60. A 'lifetime' sentence should mean "he ain't commin' out o' that place unless it's in a body bag".

 

[cfredc]

THe reason is that so that those freedom-rights liberals get to show how these criminals are "rehabilitated" and should be let back into society... i say that if you commit any murder that was planned and intentional, you should be put to death... no matter what

 

[ltk007]

5 life sentances and he got out in 7 years!!! Our justice system sucks.

 

[Tonec]

Hmmm... isn't the whole point of multiple life sentences to insure that early parole is not an option. Funny how cities have no problem financing sports stadiums to make wealthy owners even richer but can't seem to find the money for civil services.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Now you know why some people still support the death penalty.

Locally, 3 18 yr.old punks participated in a holdup during which the 19yr. old pizza shop co-mgr. was shot (and killed) point blank in the face with a shotgun. The longest any of them served time was for a total of 19 months!

Perhaps an implementation of Middle Eastern punishment regimens would prove effective, an "eye for an eye, hand for a hand". Seems to stop crime in their part of the world.

 

[(Chanse)]

eye for an eye is one of the dumbest idas I had ever heard of. If someone commits a crime worthy of extreme punishemnt. But I could never understand the idea of someone who is a poor criminal, gets caught, for whateer crime, and then is mutilated. Answer me this, how is the hell is a guy with no hands and one foot cut off ever gonna be a productive member of society. People oughta be sentenced depending on their crime. And in prison, you go to school or you work, Yo ugot to shcool and be good, you get more priveledges, you work, you get less. You commit violent acts in prison, you die. Maybe it would help eliminate some of the career criminals getting early release onto the streets. I think there's not enough jails cause many people deserve death but don't get it. and too many people get put in jail for stupid laws.

 

[Looney]

Well, depends if the life sentences were congurent (you get 5 lifetimes, but you do all those at once) or consecutive (you do each life sentence one after anohter). Either way, 7yrs is fvcked up.

Tougher sentencing? Yeah right, when the time comes people are so hypocritical about it. Remember the white boy that got spanked in Singapore? The entire US was in an uproar... even President Willy got involved.

Personally, i don't believe tougher sentencing is the answer. Because it hasn't been! Look at the US, which has one of the harshest sentencing and laws, yet the crime rate is the highest in all the industrial world. Obviously locking ppl up forever is not the answer. Not only will you run out of room and resources, but EVENTUALLY ppl ARE let out. All you're doing is treating the symptoms. You're involved only when the outcome has resulted. American people don't like prevention, because it's often difficult to measure the effectiveness of it. When you sentence somebody to life, the outcome is concrete, the victims family have closure. But when you spend money in preventing crimes, you don't see the effect of it so clearly... only when you begin comparisons with past numbers do you, and even then, eventually ppl will forget it's the prevention that was effective and they will pull out the prevention methods. Take the campaign against crack use in the mid 80s. A very effective campaign that resulted in a dramatic decrease in crack use up until the early 90s, when there was no longer a 'crack problem', then the campaigned was pulled... now the problem is coming back.. and new measures won't be introduced until it becomes a serious problem again.

As for the death penalty. Well, unless you can be 100% sure that no innocent would EVER be put to death, then in my opinion it's just not worth it. But is your justice system that foolproof?

 

[HungChow]

Look at the US, which has one of the harshest sentencing and laws?
what?
how about this,intentional murder-death really cheap and fast
rage murder hard labor(instead of them sitting on their asses watching cable tv)
rape-castration at the very least same with molesters,or depending how severe,I would say burning at the stake could be done cheap and some just downright deserve it for the crimes they do to kids
accidental murder-depends,accidents do happen
innocents are getting executed by hoods anyway,1 innocent out of 100 murderers is ok by me,and if an offical withholds evidence that proved the guy was innocent then they should suffer their fate and the family of the innocent should get the guilty officals holdings
sending convicted felons to prison to get reformed(translated from liberal to english getting snorkled up the hole)is not going to help anyone get back to society unless they are training to become some professional deviant

 

[herdmaster]

so the politicians( both sides ) can brag about how they are doing something about crime. its good PR to have a criminal sentenced 25 to life. you rarely hear about how long they actually serve.

time off for good behavior BS if youre good you'll get out at the end of your sentence. if not you stay longer.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Yeh its funny how the US has the harshest criminal justice system in the western world, complete with the highest incarceration levels in the world, yet also has the highest crime rates in the western world.

I wonder why?

Well I do know that the one thing that links convicts is almost universally low education levels. So its no wonder the US has this problem when you consider that many American states, like New York for example now spend more on jails than they do on education.

I do know to most people useally go to jail for petty things at first, but they soon matriculate to bigger & greater things - so the way some states have mandatory sentences for thing as petty as drug possesion just makes it worse, as those blokes will come out of jail worse than when they came in. Its like the easiest was to send a normal person nuts is put him in a psych ward, its the same with prisons - you are who you hang arround, even on a sub-conscious leval people influence each other. Thats why some people referr to jails as universities for criminals, plus they network in there to, so in the long run, long sentence for petty crimes is counter-productive.

Its gotten to such a state, with the 'prison industry' that by some reckonings is the fastest growing industry in the US. Look at California where the Prison Officers Association (their union) spent millions on a addvertising campaign to try & persuade voters to vote no on that referendum to decriminalise medical marjuarna. They never found out about it at the time, but with this recent referendum to decriminalise use (in other words so people wouldnt go to jail for merely using a substance), they were finally cought out trying to sway the vote without dissclosing who they were & was discovered that they did the same thing with the previous referendum.

Some say if laws were liberalised things would get worse, but its been shown the opposite is true. When it wasnt pointed out to the Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, when he was recently in Europe that the Dutch & in particular Dutch teenages smoke quite a bit less than Americans, all he did was 'who & ha' & come out with more mindless rhetoric.

whats the old saying? A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Really all the long sentences are for is so the politicians can show their electors that they are doing something about crime, when all it really does show is their contempt for the intelligence of their electors. But they as they do seem to be getting away with it, maybe they are right concerning the inteligence of their electors.