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Raerlynn posted:Remind me again which high school class teaches these basic facts. Because it wasn't in any of the four high schools in different parts of the country I went to. (military brat) My highschool taught me this in Civics, just like that person above me.
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Aug 28, 2015 15:58
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ActusRhesus posted:If you have two kids and you give one $10 for mowing the lawn, are you punishing the one who didn't? Bad analogy. A better one is you have two kids and you've grounded them both for doing something you can't prove they did. Whichever one cops to the bad thing is grounded for less time, regardless of the guilt of either kid. You're not giving something in a plea deal, you're using the threat of worse punishment to compel. That is the dictionary definition of coercion: "The practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats" - Oxford Dictionary
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Aug 28, 2015 15:59
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-Troika- posted:My highschool taught me this in Civics, just like that person above me. So again, two anecdotes for, one against, and no proof it's actually covered nationwide?
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Aug 28, 2015 16:00
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ActusRhesus posted:If the suspect thought a deal was being offered, tough poo poo. Why do you think this is good public policy. I'm sure the family of the real killer's next victim will share in your glee and smug condescension towards the 16-year-old kid that the cops and the prosecutor railroaded into a false confession by taking advantage of his ignorance rather than trying to actually find and lock up the guy who did the crime. They'll be all "hey thanks for deciding to punish ignorance instead of murder, if my daughter were here today she'd be so glad that dumb kid got what was coming to him for having a poo poo civics education" Why not just assign lawyers to suspects as a matter of course. You've made clear that no rational informed person would talk to the cops without a lawyer present if he's suspected of a crime. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 16:00
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We learned about constitutional rights in high school, but never how they applied directly to us or how to use them if you were ever in trouble with the law. Obviously if you were halfway intelligent you could figure it out, but not everyone is.ActusRhesus posted:Largely because the thread often overstates the scope of the problem, improperly ascribes nefarious motives, and proposes thoroughly ridiculous sweeping reforms. If course I think wrongful convictions are bad. Of course I would care if I was responsible for one. Fair enough. And I wasn't trying to imply that you might be responsible for one, just it came across as "those backwards states don't know what they're doing, can't be helped"
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Aug 28, 2015 16:03
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VitalSigns posted:Why do you think this is good public policy. Dum Cumpster, this is an example of what I am talking about. This thread has a tendency to address the exceptions as if they were the rule.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:04
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ActusRhesus posted:Largely because the thread often overstates the scope of the problem, improperly ascribes nefarious motives, and proposes thoroughly ridiculous sweeping reforms. quote:If course I think wrongful convictions are bad. Of course I would care if I was responsible for one. quote:Your concern for victims is really lacking here.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:04
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ActusRhesus posted:Generally because they think they are smarter than they are. So there's a continuum to this, then Mentally Retarded - Get lawyers ordered by state Smarter than Retarded, but still very stupid - Pro se during interrogations Average intelligence and up - Ask for lawyers Yes, this is clearly a desirable public policy
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Aug 28, 2015 16:06
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ActusRhesus posted:Dum Cumpster, this is an example of what I am talking about. This thread has a tendency to address the exceptions as if they were the rule. No I think it's a fair question. Why do you think it's good public policy to convict people for ignorance. Or am I misinterpreting you and you think it's bad public policy and you're just neutrally giving us the facts, in which case how should we fix it.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:06
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ActusRhesus posted:Dum Cumpster, this is an example of what I am talking about. This thread has a tendency to address the exceptions as if they were the rule.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:09
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Devor posted:So there's a continuum to this, then The purpose of the criminal justice system is not to protect people from their poor decisions. I have a case right now where the petitioner insists on representing himself. He has been canvassed. He understands what he is doing. And it will go poorly for him. But his choice. VitalSigns posted:No I think it's a fair question. Why do you think it's good public policy to convict people for ignorance. Or am I misinterpreting you and you think it's bad public policy and you're just neutrally giving us the facts, in which case how should we fix it. The second paragraph of your post did not encourage actual discussion and was more "cops don't care about convicting the innocent" noise. Also, are we now acknowledging that the feelings and suffering of the victim matter? Because a few pages ago they didn't. ActusRhesus fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 16:10
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ActusRhesus posted:The second paragraph of your post did not encourage actual discussion and was more "cops don't care about convicting the innocent" noise. I thought it was important to remind you that convicting the wrong person lets the guilty go free to kill again, because you were being a bit flip. When you say stuff like "if you're too goddamned stupid to watch law and order and find out about this stuff that's on you" then it kind of seems like you don't care about convicting the innocent, so again maybe you should speak more precisely. For someone who nitpicks the tiniest bits of word choice, you sure do have an issue with choosing your words inexpertly. So what do you think we should do with a kid who doesn't realize he can end his interrogation at any time by demanding a lawyer before it continues? As a good faith gesture I will assume "convict him because he's so goddamned stupid" is not your true opinion and was just a lighthearted joke to relieve the mood 
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Aug 28, 2015 16:14
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ActusRhesus posted:Dum Cumpster, this is an example of what I am talking about. This thread has a tendency to address the exceptions as if they were the rule. And you have a tendency to white wash abuse. It's like you don't realize, or maybe don't care, that part of your job's effectiveness hinges on the good will of the people in your constituency, much like a good police force. If people don't trust that the system will yield just results, they're unlikely to trust its actors, and unlikely to cooperate. If I have no faith that the police or prosecutors office is interested in pursuing a crime and getting the actual criminal, why should I report them? Why should I cooperate with them when I feel it's a sham? That's why I, at least, harp on these situations. Sure, I'll grant that in the face of the system as a whole, the number of times these events occur is minor. The problem is the impact is devastating when they happen. The person wrongfully imprisoned loses time that you cannot give back, suffers psychological trauma you can't comprehend or undo, and suffers well after the mistake is caught. And that's before you account for the ripples that impact everyone else involved. The real criminal gets away and can offend again. The falsely convicted's family is shattered, and frequently imposes a severe financial burden. Really, in that regard its similar to when a commercial plane crashes. They're very rare events, happening in the US maybe once every few years. It impacts hundreds of people directly involved, shakes public confidence in the airline that crashed, and causes lasting harm. The difference between the two is when an airline crashes, people actually pay attention and there's stiff penalties for loving up. Prosecutors, not so much. And your attitude in this thread highlights just how little skin in the game you have of the wrong person goes to prison. Maybe we should review that and see if we can address that weakness, and possibly reduce that low number even further. Or we can keep doing what you're doing, shrug and say "welp win some, lose some".
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Aug 28, 2015 16:18
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Raerlynn posted:So again, two anecdotes for, one against, and no proof it's actually covered nationwide?
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Aug 28, 2015 16:19
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ActusRhesus posted:The purpose of the criminal justice system is not to protect people from their poor decisions. quote:The second paragraph of your post did not encourage actual discussion and was more "cops don't care about convicting the innocent" noise. Also, are we now acknowledging that the feelings and suffering of the victim matter? Because a few pages ago they didn't.  .
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Aug 28, 2015 16:22
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Raerlynn posted:The difference between the two is when an airline crashes, people actually pay attention and there's stiff penalties for loving up. Prosecutors, not so much. And your attitude in this thread highlights just how little skin in the game you have of the wrong person goes to prison. Maybe we should review that and see if we can address that weakness, and possibly reduce that low number even further. Could you imagine if we treated airline crashes the way this thread treats corrupt police departments and courts? "Well the pilot died in the crash so he got what he deserved the system works!"
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Aug 28, 2015 16:22
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VitalSigns posted:Could you imagine if we treated airline crashes the way this thread treats corrupt police departments and courts? Hey why not? It worked for Wall Street, right?
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Aug 28, 2015 16:27
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Mr. Wookums posted:You're asking for nationwide curriculum which does not exist in any extent in the status quo. Hey, you can look at statewide curricula, and by the process of addition, determine how well this is mandated nationwide. Granted, that would take a bit of effort, and even then you'd still have the basic problem of how well this is taught in practice, not that people in the justice system seem to have much regard for implementation. Beyond that moat and curtain wall, there still lies the keep of whether "gently caress them, they're stupid and I don't feel any responsibility for them" is a moral or immoral belief to hold. Good luck.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:29
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Can you teach civics to people with mental health issues, brain trauma and drug addictions?
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Aug 28, 2015 16:33
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Pretty sure I've said on multiple occasions that willful prosecutorial misconduct should be a felony. However I object to things like "said the word victim during closing argument when he wasn't supposed to" or "didn't turn over a police report he didn't know existed" as "misconduct". However, because they are analyzed on appeal as "misconduct" or "impropriety" cases, the stats are misleading. Hell, I've been in a position where I didn't know some dumb gently caress navy cop didn't know that "turn over your file" means all of it, including the scribble notes you took writing down numbers on screencaps that were turned over. Is that withheld evidence? Technically. When I found out it existed, did I turn it over? Yes. Should someone be disbarred for that? No. The cops didn't even know it was wrong because in their mind "we turned over the screencap already...who cares about our scribbles that we wrote down as we were taking the screencaps?" A reasonable, albeit incorrect thought.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:34
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Effectronica posted:Hey, you can look at statewide curricula, and by the process of addition, determine how well this is mandated nationwide. Granted, that would take a bit of effort, and even then you'd still have the basic problem of how well this is taught in practice, not that people in the justice system seem to have much regard for implementation. Beyond that moat and curtain wall, there still lies the keep of whether "gently caress them, they're stupid and I don't feel any responsibility for them" is a moral or immoral belief to hold. Good luck. Yes this is a problem for poor districts as they have fewer electives, but that's more towards educational reform than criminal justice.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:35
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Before we can address solutions, we need to agree on the scope of the problem. That's where we have an impasse.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:37
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Mr. Wookums posted:unless things have changed the statewide would simply be a "social studies" or "civics" requirement which can be as diverse as psychology, government, practical law (my schools class iirc) or X history. You'd have to mine down to districts as I believe American and State history are the only mandated in most states. Education and poverty reform in general would do a lot to address crime rates IMO.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:38
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ActusRhesus posted:Education and poverty reform in general would do a lot to address crime rates IMO. They wouldn't, because the correlation is with socioeconomic status, a relative phenomenon. Even if everyone has a six-figure income, people with $100,000 will commit more crime than people with $800,000 in yearly income. Even if everyone completes college to a Bachelor's, people who went to state schools will still commit more crimes than people who went to private schools. Ending crime through reforms must focus on the class, race, and sex systems, and the emphasis would be on the upper hierarchies.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:47
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ActusRhesus posted:Education and poverty reform in general would do a lot to address crime rates IMO. You sound like one of those pro-gun folks that always suggest mental healthcare reform but never have any specific suggestions to make that happen.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:48
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ActusRhesus posted:Before we can address solutions, we need to agree on the scope of the problem. That's where we have an impasse. That's because you have a pattern of refusing to acknowledge that any issues in the justice system could be systemic, which coincidentally is also the reason people fight with you, because you go to bat for the justice system in seemingly almost every circumstance.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:52
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Effectronica posted:They wouldn't, because the correlation is with socioeconomic status, a relative phenomenon. Even if everyone has a six-figure income, people with $100,000 will commit more crime than people with $800,000 in yearly income. Even if everyone completes college to a Bachelor's, people who went to state schools will still commit more crimes than people who went to private schools. Ending crime through reforms must focus on the class, race, and sex systems, and the emphasis would be on the upper hierarchies. Are you seriously suggesting that focusing on job training and opportunity wouldn't have an impact on crime? Radbot posted:You sound like one of those pro-gun folks that always suggest mental healthcare reform but never have any specific suggestions to make that happen. Are we talking about that now? OK. Stop over subsidizing stafford and Perkins programs so upper middle class kids can rack up six figure debt studying advanced panda law and reinvest in free tuition at technical and vocational colleges for indigent students. That's one suggestion. Stop gentrification efforts that allow trendy yuppies to displace working poor families and drive them from working poor neighborhoods into high crime areas. Provide more funding for after school enrichment programs in poor areas. Stop linking educational funding to property tax. Want me to go on?
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Aug 28, 2015 16:55
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Effectronica posted:They wouldn't, because the correlation is with socioeconomic status, a relative phenomenon. Even if everyone has a six-figure income, people with $100,000 will commit more crime than people with $800,000 in yearly income. Even if everyone completes college to a Bachelor's, people who went to state schools will still commit more crimes than people who went to private schools. Ending crime through reforms must focus on the class, race, and sex systems, and the emphasis would be on the upper hierarchies.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:55
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Radbot posted:You sound like one of those pro-gun folks that always suggest mental healthcare reform but never have any specific suggestions to make that happen.  As opposed to the many many "useful" suggestions on the other side of the spectrum that have been posted in this thread?
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Aug 28, 2015 16:56
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-Troika- posted:
Well...there was that suggestion to get rid of trial by jury. And the fifth amendment.
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Aug 28, 2015 16:58
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Ferguson has already demonstrated a viable path to reform, and it gets results. It's not one that will lead cops or prosecutors to agree on "the scope of the problem," however. In fact I don't think oppressors and oppressed will ever agree on the scope of the problem, how baffling.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:00
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VitalSigns posted:So what do you think we should do with a kid who doesn't realize he can end his interrogation at any time by demanding a lawyer before it continues? As a good faith gesture I will assume "convict him because he's so goddamned stupid" is not your true opinion and was just a lighthearted joke to relieve the mood This kind of gets at the core of disagreement here and is why these arguments will never go anywhere. The more "pro-police/justice system" (for lack of a better term) posters in this thread hold a view that many people are just bad (or stupid) people and that if someone is bad/stupid then they deserve pretty much anything; after all, it's easy to not be a bad person (from their point of view, at least), so they don't have an excuse! My view is that, with rare exceptions (like people who are actually sociopaths), some people are not just randomly worse than others and spontaneously decide to do bad things. People are the product of the environments they grow up in. The fact that we see increased crime rates among the poor is just further evidence that this is the case. It seems inherently immoral to be enthusiastically (this is pretty clear from a lot of the language used by people, like the ActusRhesus post VitalSigns is referring to) in favor of punishing these people. The only possible argument that would still make this view justified is "even though it's due to their circumstances, we still must give them harsh punishments to reduce crime", but it seems like all the evidence I've seen does not point towards this being the case (more rehabilitative justice systems seem to result in lower recidivism*), and at the very least the burden should be on the people advocating harsher punishment to justify why it is necessary. While I believe that this "some people are bad and deserve pretty much any punishment in light of them being bad" view is morally reprehensible, it's not really one that you can convince anyone to change in an argument like this. *Just to add to this, you could argue "they don't have lower recidivism due to their rehabilitative justice system, but instead due to other factors (lower overall poverty, etc)," but in that case you still know that more rehabilitative and less punitive justice systems don't result in more crime, so why in the world would you still not prefer them over more punitive ones? (The answer is that you don't care if "bad people" are punished for being "bad people.")
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Aug 28, 2015 17:04
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Toasticle posted:Police should not be able to talk to anybody in the first place beyond basic info like ID and if they are under arrest what the charges are until at minimum a PD gets to at least explain to them what their rights are. Society kind of has a pressing interest in the police speaking to people to investigate crime.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:05
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Effectronica posted:They wouldn't, because the correlation is with socioeconomic status, a relative phenomenon. Even if everyone has a six-figure income, people with $100,000 will commit more crime than people with $800,000 in yearly income. Even if everyone completes college to a Bachelor's, people who went to state schools will still commit more crimes than people who went to private schools. Ending crime through reforms must focus on the class, race, and sex systems, and the emphasis would be on the upper hierarchies. Haha seriously? Its like watching someone who heard about anomie theory one time back in high school try to describe while on a poo poo ton of acid. Or maybe I'm just giving you too much credit by trying to figure out what actual real theory you might have derived this from.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:10
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ActusRhesus posted:Are you seriously suggesting that focusing on job training and opportunity wouldn't have an impact on crime? Knowing how to weld decreases your chance of committing a crime because it elevates you socioeconomically. When that's the bottom, welders will become criminal (though at somewhat less rates of minor property crimes assuming that there's no inflation involved) because they're no longer elevated. This is why education is a fallacious approach. Furthermore, your approach only makes sense if the goal is to produce drones who are incapable of thinking or acting independently, given that you are against intellectualism ("advanced panda law" obviously referring to English, history, etc.). Not only will this degrade society and make everyone's life more hellish if it happens, it also won't happen and it would increase crime rates by producing an openly antagonist relationship between technocratic overlords and their underlings. Simply put, when you get smug about how stupid millennials are, you are throwing stones from a glass house. Mr. Wookums posted:While I agree there's an aspect of relative wealth when it comes to crime, pretending that having students receive their only consistent meals, which consists of some crackers and a juice box for breakfast and some square pizza and milk for lunch 9 months out of the year is somehow consistent with your hypothetical is absurd. Actually, I don't think most homicides are committed because people are hungry, or because they were malnourished. Improving the conditions of people is a good, but it has very little to do with crime rates and it's a sure path towards racism and caste structures to link the two. Jarmak posted:Haha seriously? Its like watching someone who heard about anomie theory one time back in high school try to describe while on a poo poo ton of acid. It's the mark of a dull mind to emphasize historicism rather than deal with the ideas presented.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:10
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Raerlynn posted:Hey why not? It worked for Wall Street, right? From an earlier discussion in this thread, ActusRhesus's position is basically that it's sufficient that the companies were fined, and besides, fraud cases are too difficult so why bother. Meanwhile every prosecutor's office in the country continues to imprison non-violent drug offenders. ActusRhesus posted:Well...there was that suggestion to get rid of trial by jury. There were also the suggestions of -Independent oversight of prosecutors and actual consequences (you actually said that 5 days in jail for the prosecutor and disbarment of the judge was a "good outcome" after a prosecutor lied and railroaded someone into a 25 year sentence). -Independent oversight and monitoring of police officers. -Reduced latitude for police officers and prosecutors to mislead defendants. -Better controls to ensure that all defendants are aware of their legal rights (as opposed to "well, if they're too stupid to ask for a lawyer, tough poo poo") -Reducing inequities of bail requirements to make it more reasonable for poor people to bring cases to trial. -Not using unreasonably long sentences as a cudgel to force defendants to accept plea bargains regardless of actual guilt. -Improving prison conditions and reducing sentences. But focus on what you want, I guess. AreWeDrunkYet fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 17:13
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Effectronica posted:Knowing how to weld decreases your chance of committing a crime because it elevates you socioeconomically. When that's the bottom, welders will become criminal (though at somewhat less rates of minor property crimes assuming that there's no inflation involved) because they're no longer elevated. This is why education is a fallacious approach. Furthermore, your approach only makes sense if the goal is to produce drones who are incapable of thinking or acting independently, given that you are against intellectualism ("advanced panda law" obviously referring to English, history, etc.). Not only will this degrade society and make everyone's life more hellish if it happens, it also won't happen and it would increase crime rates by producing an openly antagonist relationship between technocratic overlords and their underlings. Simply put, when you get smug about how stupid millennials are, you are throwing stones from a glass house. /e- Like literally one of the reasons gangs are able to recruit from schools is giving the kids food and shelter.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:28
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Mr. Wookums posted:The gently caress are you on about? Your premise seems to be that the people on the bottom of society will turn to crime as relative to those above they have less, but not if it's food. Elevating people is a good thing, however it will result in a worse caste system and more crime because educating people results in anti intellectualism. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that people on the bottom of society turn to crime because they are on the bottom and are thus pushed into crime by a variety of methods, regardless of their actual material conditions. Peasants in medieval society rarely starved, but they were still criminal classes because the upper echelons of society criminalized them and their activities. Ensuring everyone has enough to eat and be sheltered and clothed is good, but it doesn't change these basic relationships, and assuming people will stop being criminals if they have enough to eat but are still on the bottom means that, inevitably, the thought that they are inherently criminal will gain credence. Furthemore, "Mr. Wookums", educating people solely to be laborers of one kind or another, and refusing to countenance knowledge of anything that is not a practical laboring process, or at the very least limiting it to a very few, is anti-intellectual, since intellectualism is about thinking, pondering, contemplating. The life of the mind. It is not really concerned with pragmatics, and people that go into intellectual pursuits for pragmatic reasons are lovely at what they do unless they can develop a higher, more rarefied reason to pursue them.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:34
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:So the sentence offered by a plea deal is, from the prosecutor's view, sufficient and appropriate to serve its purpose of protecting the public by isolating the defendant. But if he exercises his constitutional right to a trial in front of a jury of his peers, you deem it fit to throw him in jail for a longer period because he dared to cost the state the expense of proving its case? Who cares what the prosecutor is asking for as a sentence unless its a situation where they're using mandatory minimums to tie the judge's hands. A prosecutor can ask for the moon but at the end of the day it's not up to them what sentence the person receives. A few years ago I was dealing with a guy that pled guilty to three probation order breaches (failure to report, failure to abstain, and failure to keep the peace). Client had a horrible record for breaches & substantive offences of violence and the Crown was asking for 3 months per charge. We argued it in front of the judge and the guy got 100 days, 90 of which was for failing to report to probation which the judge found serious since it was supposed to help rehabilitate him and reduce his risk in the community. The judge in his decision went on to comment on how sending people to lengthy periods of jail for those types of charges wasn't effective. I can think of a number of cases off the top of my head where Crown attorneys have sought significant jail time (before and after trial) and the individual gets no jail time. At the end of the day it's the judge that passes the sentence.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:40
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Effectronica posted:That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that people on the bottom of society turn to crime because they are on the bottom and are thus pushed into crime by a variety of methods, regardless of their actual material conditions. Peasants in medieval society rarely starved, but they were still criminal classes because the upper echelons of society criminalized them and their activities. Ensuring everyone has enough to eat and be sheltered and clothed is good, but it doesn't change these basic relationships, and assuming people will stop being criminals if they have enough to eat but are still on the bottom means that, inevitably, the thought that they are inherently criminal will gain credence.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:46
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