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0 pointswmil12y ago0 comments

Nonsense.

The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes.

The problem is generally their personality. Habitual criminals are impulsive, aggressive, and bad at thinking ahead.

It's unfair to expect everyone else to put up with a lifetime of offenses, even if each one isn't particularly horrible individually.

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w0utert12y ago

>> The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes.

You realize there's a virtually unlimited supply of people that could potentially qualify to be locked up because they are criminal for violating some more or less arbitrary law, right? Are you proposing locking up each and every one of them to get to a crime-less nirvana where all criminals are behind bars, and everyone outside is perfectly pure and honest?

The fact that there are people here defending the idea you should be sentenced to life for 3 offenses like stealing a wallet makes me sick. He who is without sins throw the first stone, some of you saying things like this would probably be in jail yourselves if this kind of 'justice' was the norm

Daniel_Newby12y ago

There is not an unlimited supply of potential prisoners. As wmil says, imprisonable crimes are generally those arising from poor impulse control and low intelligence. (If you want to learn more, Russell Barkley has some informative books on the connection between brain executive function, intelligence, and life outcomes.)

If we made wearing socks a three-strikes-eligible law, the same people would go to prison. Normal people would adapt, impulsive and dull people wouldn't. American criminal law is basically a test of certain neurological abilities. If you fail the test, they hit you with the banhammer. Psychiatrists would be cheaper and better, but democracy produces popular myths, not rational plans.

Mithaldu12y ago

Proclaiming theories as fact is not a very nice way to proceed in an argument.

That said, please consider a counter-theory to your theory: Due to the fact that many people imprisoned for long terms do end up obtaining their GED and one or more vocations, it seems quite probably that american criminal law is a test of education more than one of genetic factors.

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