Tookie Williams & the death penalty
- Thread starter limerickman
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Well said. HHRUMPHH!! HHRUMPHH!!wolfix said:
But calling prostitution a victimless crime is not looking at the whole picture. In recent years the US has seen a major increase in the importation of women from Central and South America, Asia and Eastern Europe. These women are being told there are coming to the US for better jobs and lives. Once here they are forced, using various nasty means, into a life of prostitution.
Slavery is still alive and kicking on every continent.
The average 'crack ho' on the street is not selling herself because she wants to, she doing it to make money to apply to her habit.
Add to this the courts cost for those who are arrested. Cost of medical bills the person or state must pay for workers and 'clients' that catch...whatever. And the cost to families after Daddy has to tell Mommy about his visit to the doctor and the court.
That being said, I will say that during my time as a young man in the Army, I visited Amsterdam and enjoyed myself very much. Wonderful scenery, and I hear the city was pretty too.
There's a reason its called the world's oldest profession.
limerickman said:
I agree here. I do not support capital punishment in any case.
But I have no remorse for Tookie. I read the his briefs and I don't doubt that he is guilty. He has, like many criminals, spent a lifetime lying and manipulating compasionate people to support him.
I believe that no state should be in the business of killing people. But I also don't think anyone should feel sorry for murders. Tookie should have spent the rest of life in jail. California shouldn't have killed him but he shouldn't have killed his victims.
I don't care much about Tookie. He can rot in hell, for all I care. But there is a more importnat principle, a principle that has nothing to do with scum like Tookie, and that's good government. Good government recognizes that the power of the state must be limited. It recognizes that the state must be an example of restraint and judgment, not a venegful god.
Principle is the backbone of the anti-death penalty movement, not people. If you want to stop the death penalty, argure against the death penalty, don't argue not to execute an individual person. No one with any heart wants to save a scum like Tookie, but everyone who cares about civil liberties wants our countries to respect rights. We have to save some **** to have real freedom. I'll buy that tradeoff.
For those who think that life in prison, a California prison, is a fitting sentence for murder, please meet Clarence Ray Allen.
Sentenced to life in prison for the 1974 murder of his son's girlfriend, Mr Allen ordered, from his jail cell, the murder of eight witnesses to his first murder. Two of these victims were teenagers who had no knowledge of any murders, they were just in the wrong place at the right time.
Mr, Allen, now blind, deaf, and confined to a wheelchair, is scheduled to leave this mortal coil on January 17.
Sentenced to life in prison for the 1974 murder of his son's girlfriend, Mr Allen ordered, from his jail cell, the murder of eight witnesses to his first murder. Two of these victims were teenagers who had no knowledge of any murders, they were just in the wrong place at the right time.
Mr, Allen, now blind, deaf, and confined to a wheelchair, is scheduled to leave this mortal coil on January 17.
I'm not quite sure how the pathetic security properties of your prison's is meant to be a reason for having capital punishment. If prison living conditions are too good, and liberties too great, change them. You don't have to kill people just because your prisons are comfortable. If Clarence was able to do as you state, then you need to address the security issues of your prison system.Chance3290 said:
Executing people because your prison system is not doing what it was meant to do doesn't quite make it to the 10 best reasons for retaining / reinstating capital punishment.
I'm all for locking them up and not letting them see the light of day for the rest of their lives. But those who fight against capital punishment also fight for inmates rights. This man killed a girl, no question. But because he has 'rights' in prison he was able to communicate to others and have innocent people killed.EoinC said:
Change prison conditions?
Make life miserable for the inmates? Are you insane? We have celebrity supported-billionaire funded organizations that do nothing but champion the rights of the down-trodden in prison.Again I'll say it, if you make prison life miserable, they won't want to come back. Going to prison, even for life is not a deterent for people who live as good a life, or better, than they lived on the street.
Does anyone have a problem with making prisoner work for a living during their incarceration and using their payed wages to go toward their keep plus repaying the victims or their families?
After all we are talikng about re-paying a debt to society,aren't we?
After all we are talikng about re-paying a debt to society,aren't we?
jhuskey said:
The penal system here (and I am sure it was the same in Britain) up until the 1960's was very very strict.
Free association was restricted, food quantities were weighed and measured to ensure that prisoners only got the minimum amount of food required to stay alive, prisoners had no access to education, prisoners had very very limited visiting time per week (30 mins per week).
Reform of the penal laws was carried out because it was deemed that a civilised society ought to help the most deprived people.
Prison is deprivation and thus prisoners up to the 1960's were deemed to be probably the most deprived of all.
What is the purpose of prison?
Is it retribution? Or is it rehabilitation?
I suggest that ot ought to be both : it should be a penalty for a crime but it must also offer a chance for people to change their circumstances.
The debt to society?
I do think that society dumps it's problems in it's prisons.
Many people who end up in prison are there because society didn't give a ****
about them in the first place.
I quote the govenor of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin John Lonergan who said
"I am left with the problems that irish society fails to address. A lot of the people incarcerated here, are here because they have been excluded from normal things like a job, an education, hope.
That's what I have - I have people for whom hope is gone".
Maybe if society took more care of it's people, you might find crime levels
falling.
limerickman said:
Well Lim,it works both ways the individuals need to give a **** to start with and I put that right back on poor parenting
I can cite you examples of poor white and minorities that have achieved great things without any advantages.
I have heard of one black family where the mother raised 4 children on her meager income and they all became doctors. I have also seen rich spoiled brats go bad.
It is within the individual to decide whether he will lay on his ass and drink beer or get on the bike and train as well as whether he will rob a bank or work at one and it is much much easier for a minority to enter a university in the US that a non- minority.
And criminals do owe a debt to society.....We all do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some are just too lazy to pay up.
A slight generalisation, Chance. I am against capital punishment, but I have not fought for inmates rights. Again, saying that your prison system is **** is not a sufficient reason to carry out executions - We had to kill this man / woman because otherwise he / she would have been able to watch cable tv? Capital punishment and the state of your prison system are 2 completely separate issues.Chance3290 said:
I, for one, have no problem with that. I think it is exactly the way it should be. Income should go towards (a) repaying any victim settlement assigned by the courts or arbitration / legislation; (b) maintaining there obligations to support there own families (repaying the Government for any social welfare payments made on their behalf); (c) paying towards the costs incurred in maintaining their incarceration; (d) (possibly) building savings for when / if they return to society.jhuskey said:
The vast majority of us have to work in order to support our families and ourselves. I have no desire for prisoners to be abrogated of that responsibility. It is sending exactly the opposite message to what is meant to be sent. For some, it may help them understand how mainstream society functions. For others, it may just be a means for society to get a little return on an expensive operation. So be it.
On the emotional side, it may mean more for victims (and their families) to receive support paid for by the perpetrator than receiving the same from a Government allocation.
I am against capital punishment for my own moral reasons (which have been echoed by others on this thread). I am not against prisons not being nice places to be, and I am not against Society expecting some return on their investment. I've seen hard labour 'at work' in Papua New Guinea - a prisoner would have to have a woefully crappy homelife for prisonlife to look comfortable over there.
It's pretty deep (as far as islands go, it falls into the class known as "Bloody Big Ones") and, once you head out of the backyard into the jungle, it's pretty bloody dark, too. The good thing is, with the temperature seldom droping below 30º C, it can be as deep and as dark as it likes, but cold beer will still taste good.jhuskey said:
I'm all for this and what Jh has suggested. As far as rehabilitation goes, if you have a guy that has spent half his life in prison, he don't mind going back. That guys life in prison should be hell. Hard labor, limited contact, crappy food, etc, as limerickman suggested from the old days.EoinC said:
For the first offenders and the like, by all means, try to rehabilitate them. Make them productive citizens.
But I'm not generalizing from all I've seen(I can't speak for Borneo). I have never heard one of our major anti-death penalty advocates suggest making life in prison hell. They all want to make sure the prisoners civil rights are not violated.
Chance3290 said:
I didn't suggest that penal rules to the 1960's were correct.
I merely stated how it used be in prison in those times.
I didn't advocate a return to the 1960's penal system.
Crime was not prevented by having a more harsh regime.
If you want to know what imprisonment is like,get a couple of friends,a tv,some beer...and lock yourselves in the bathroom.See how long you last.Chance3290 said:
Hard time only makes harder prisoners and you won't be the one who has to deal with them on a daily basis,as cops and prison officers do.
Friends, tv, beer... So you do know what prison is like. You forgot to mention sex, drugs, free medical & dental care, and most importantly, free vocational training. Not training like heating and air conditioning repair, or mechanics. Their free vocational training comes from those other inmates who were not afraid to return to prison again and again.stevebaby said:
In fact,I do. You obviously do not.Chance3290 said:
Very few people would class rape as "sex".It says a lot about you that you could in any way equate them.
Despite the "free medical and dental care",tuberculosis is making a comeback in us prisons,despite being virtually eradicated elsewhere in the western world.As any epidemiologist can confirm,prisons are prime breeding grounds for disease.AIDS and hepatitis are rife in prisons.
Drugs are also common in prisons.They are frequently smuggled in by prison officers,who prefer prisoners drugged.Drugged prisoners are easier to handle.For that reason,prison medical authorities supply tranquilisers and anti-depressants freely.
Suicide is common in prisons.Why do you think this is so?
Inmates certainly learn about crime in prison.I would have thought that is a pretty good reason not to send so many people there.
The overwhelming majority of prisons are there for petty offences.Most of them are drug-related.Rich people get "rehab".The poor get prison.
Dutch and scandinavian prisons generally treat prisoners as human beings.They have the lowest recidivism rate of any western countries.
You obviously have no experience in this area,nor do you have any idea what you are talking about.If you think prisons are nice places,feel free to take your next vacation there.
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