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The affluenza kid is just a perfect example of how hosed up our system is. Compare rich people getting drug charges to poor people getting drug charges. It's the same thing. Black guy who works part time for minimum wage gets caught with a bit of crack? Dude might end up with life. If he doesn't he's completely hosed either way. He can't go to college because a drug charge means "lol gently caress you, no loans." He has a criminal record now and might even end up being a felon which means no voting ever again in much of America. Then once he does get out of jail he's going to be on probation and will be treated like tainted goods. He may never be able to hold a traditional job ever again which dramatically increases his chances of going back to jail. Rush Limbaugh gets caught with tens of thousands of pills and he gets to go to a swanky, expensive rehab. Once he's done he immediately goes back to his old job and old life, no questions asked, and no criminal record to speak of.
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Apr 29, 2016 22:11
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Liquid Communism posted:Another salient point is that we really, really need to work on improving the quality of life for the poorest demorgaphics of our society so that being convicted and going to prison isn't shrugged off as a better end-game than not getting involved in criminal enterprise. I've found that it's extremely difficult to explain to people why poverty leads to crime and why reducing poverty directly reduces crime. Like the situations the poor end up in can give them difficult decisions. Rent's due in three days, the kitchen is almost out of food, and the kids are hungry. Your car is going to need work any day now. You have $50 and pay day isn't for a week and a half. A coworker offers you $1,000 to take a package to a guy he knows in the city. He never said what was in it but you know it's a box full of drugs. What do you do? So you do it then you don't get caught. The he asks you again later and you don't get caught again. So when you need some cash you work as a drug mule; hey it's decent money. Then you get caught, you go to jail, you get a few charges. Luckily you don't get life but when you get out well...gently caress, now you don't have a job but the guys you ran drugs for have a need for a good pair of hands to...take care of some things. Nobody will hire you because you're an ex-con and even if they did they'd offer you bottom rung minimum wage work at best but the drug guys are actually pretty alright in your book and pay better. Or, you know, dude is hungry and can't afford to eat so he steals a loaf of bread. "Just this once," he promises himself. He doesn't get caught; turns out he's good at sneaking and stealing. Well gently caress the rent is due and I don't have the money. Well this guy here is pretty wealthy so he won't miss it if I steal his wallet. Oh drat, he only had $75 in it. gently caress, well let's see that guy leaves his house unlocked and lives alone...I'll just sneak in, nick a few things, and head for the pawn shop. Desperate people do desperate things and no amount of "well you just shouldn't do those things" is going to keep a truly desperate person from doing it. Generally speaking relatively few people actively seek out a life of crime. Usually if they end up doing illegal things there's some external circumstance doing it. Poverty and lovely prospects are a big one.
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Apr 30, 2016 23:36
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What a ton of people fail to realize is that deterrence and punishment are only part of the equation. They also never bother to think about it beyond "punish criminals" because whatever gently caress 'em. A very common view is that rehabilitation should be entirely removed from the system because if they couldn't deal with the punishment they never should have done the crime. Then every year they elect somebody else that promises to be "tough on crime" while anybody that dares even suggest that maybe just maybe a purely punitive system doesn't work will get the "this guy is soft on crime and wants you to be raped and murdered let's destroy him" response. What actually works isn't even considered relevant. If a "jail to work" program gets set up somewhere it's probably also corrupted to shuffle ex-cons into lovely, minimum wage jobs that they must keep as part of their probation conditions. Take a wild guess how those jobs tend to treat people that are not allowed to lose their jobs.
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May 3, 2016 17:11
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