6 comment(s):

What is the alternative? Do we leave people who kill one person after another out on the street? Do we allow people to prey on our children? Do we let people who rape one a fter another women go free? Do we let the man who breaks in and steals your computer go on to steal somebodyelses? What crime should we ignore? If we ignore them will we have to live in a fortress surronded bu guards?

By  Dr.John, at 1.11.06  

see, this is part of the problem, people think that the only alternative to prison, is ignoring crime.

i would never suggest we ignore crime, and if you read my blog carefully, you'd know i was the victim of a crime recently, the trial for which is going on right now. i don't condone doing nothing, but as far as prevention is concerned, we already do nothing. we wait until a crime occurs, we wait until someone becomes a victim before we act. it doesn't make any sense, wouldn't a better, safer system focus on the prevention of crime and the prevention of victimization of innocent people?

By  Courtney, at 1.11.06  

how do we prevent these types of crimes? I was the victim of an assault and it happened completely out of the blue without provocation and by a complete stranger, but within a relatively safe environment. I'm the last person to advocate carrying any kind of weapon, but it seems like the only way to keep one's self safe, although at the expense of seriously harming the attacker, or someone you mistakenly think is attacking you. The main problem with any weapon is that if it is used to threaten the attacker they have the opportunity to take it away and use it on you, and if you use it right away, you risk injuring or killing innocent people.

Nothing in the attacker's past that I was aware of indicated a propensity towards violence or alcoholism, but he was intoxicated on alcohol at the time. Unfortunately I think it's a bit late to re-criminalize alcohol, but considering how much dammage it does to society at large it really shouldn't be so readily available in seemingly limitless quantities. I would support much more regulation, but you'll never hear anything like that because binge drinking is such a huge industry. Let it be rare, precious and cherished, not taken for granted abused for fun or because it tastes good. Some people will, of course, just like some people will always smoke crack, but those people have serious, and most likely obvious problems that can be addressed and dealt with if there are facilities and programs in place to treat them. You cannot completely wipe out any particular drug, people need drugs to get by in a world that's so fucked up, but as a society it's our duty to minimize the harm they do and prevent abuse, but we are not even trying to prevent binging on this very harmful drug, and that's when it is a particular danger to others, and thus society.

so what can we do? maybe if there was a person charged with some crime while being drunk on the news every single night people would change their minds? would that even be enough, considering the size of the global industry today? I feel rather helpless trying to make positive changes with so much weight behind an institution of great harm.

By  Anonymous, at 1.11.06  

We need another level of criminal procedure that must be considered for first-time offenders before current procedures are followed that allow for real help if the accused agrees to participate on the grounds that it must be a permanent recovery, not a drug induced state of "mental health" and thus may involve a long stay in an institution or therapy program. Trials are incredibly expensive so they need to push for jail time to validate the charge and they usually get it. First-time offenders invariably wind up more criminal coming out of prison than going in, and thus a disservice to society has been done and the criminal justice industry wins big. When these people degrade slightly further they will be locked up for life by being declared a dangerous offender or equivalent. Right now people report crimes, often because they want the accused to seek help, but instead are used by the criminal justice industry to produce a real criminal capable of much worse crime because of the socialization with much worse criminals.

Imagine how many more crimes would be reported if there was real hope for the accused? In many cases that would not apply, but a large percent of unreported cases are out of concern for the accused, so having that option available would allow and encourage the smallest infractions to be reported and dealt with proactively as early as possible, thus preventing real social harm and unnecessary expenditure of limited public funds. It's always cheaper to treat problems than it is to punish criminals for having the problems, but that's the problem: too much money is being made and there's no big money to be made treating people unless it involves a permanent synthetic drug prescription.

Legalize all drugs, but make abuse a crime that can only be dealt with by proper treatment. Friends and family could get a loved one help without dragging them into the league of criminal record carriers. This would need to include drugs like alcohol and tobacco because the harm to society the abuse of them does is no less real than the harm currently illegal drugs do. Legalize and regulate prostitution, but have another level of sexual charges that deal with unhealthy obsession and other minor trends indicating a statistical propensity for rape and get these people proper psychological treatment before it's too late and they wind up doing something indictable. Our current system is so flawed I encourage people to work outside it whenever possible and only use it as a last resort when other methods fail to produce results. I've seen too many folks doing the right thing only to fing out the hard way just how wrong they were about the criminal justice system.

By  Anonymous, at 2.11.06  

terry: i couldn't agree with you more. you know, you write something online about prison not being the answer for a lot of crimes, and you expect gasps and ridicule but the comments i've been getting are surprisingly constructive. maybe there is hope for real progress after all.

By  Courtney, at 2.11.06  

terry: there is already a system in place for first time offenders that does pretty much exactly what you want, except it's optional and hardly ever considered by the prosecution for serious offenses. It's called a Diversion.

By  Anonymous, at 4.11.06  

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