Quote :

"It just goes to show how morally bankrupt liberals are that they'd devote so much energy to reducing penalties for murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals."

I actually would be in favor of replacing life imprisonment with the death penalty. Quite obviously "life" is a worse punishment than "death" in most cases; it seems rather unfair to me that people who commit lesser crimes should get the worse deal.

10/2/2005 2:02:49 PM

OH YOU LIBERALS!!!1

GRRRRR!

10/2/2005 3:52:48 PM

I disagree that prison is for rehabilitation. Prison should be used to seperate those who prove they are a danger to society. And the only problem with the death penalty is that it isn't used enough. Maybe if the consequences of breaking the law were more severe we would have less repeat offenders.

And forgiveness does not necessarily remove the consequences of a person's actions. In other words, you may commit a crime and the victim may forgive you, but that does not mean it has to go unpunished.

10/2/2005 4:07:21 PM

so we sentence someone to 10 years and during that ten years they are not rehabilitated. After ten years they are back on the street.

Conservatives = stupid

you have to rehabilitate.

[Edited on October 2, 2005 at 4:24 PM. Reason : .]

10/2/2005 4:22:30 PM

once again, partisan hacks assembling on both sides of an absolutist line

prison should be both for rehabilitation and also for punishment. In the case of murder and particularly heinous crimes, prison should be primarily a punishment. For lesser offenses like fraud and petty theft, prison should be a place for learning new skills and getting your life reset.

10/2/2005 4:27:16 PM

patman

Quote :

"No, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. That still leaves a margin of error. Plus, jurors are human. They are subject to prejudice, assumptions, intimidation, judgement of their peers, etc."

u cant choose a punishment for a crime based on the chance they might be innocent. That kind of thinking needs to end with the judge's hammer.

I dont mean I trust the government. They're lying sons of bitches. But if you have enough doubt about somebodys guilt to reduce their sentence, you have a reasonable doubt, and they should be found completely innocent.

[Edited on October 2, 2005 at 4:37 PM. Reason : ]

10/2/2005 4:34:40 PM

Quote :

"you have to rehabilitate"

10/2/2005 7:19:56 PM

I like george carlin's idea... empty out one whole state of USA and put all the prisoners there, fenced in and guarded by planes on the top. Let them form their own society in there, and every now and then throw in some food and weapons for them to fight over.

10/2/2005 7:30:43 PM

which state?

10/2/2005 7:57:56 PM

one of the rectangular states

10/2/2005 7:59:01 PM

Quote :

"u cant choose a punishment for a crime based on the chance they might be innocent. That kind of thinking needs to end with the judge's hammer. I dont mean I trust the government. They're lying sons of bitches. But if you have enough doubt about somebodys guilt to reduce their sentence, you have a reasonable doubt, and they should be found completely innocent."

No, that's not justice for anybody. When you wrongly imprison someone, you can at least clear their name, appologize, and compensate that person. But there is no making it right when you kill someone. Plenty of people have been wrongfully convicted of murder. As long as that is a possibility, execution is difficult to justify.

10/2/2005 8:06:15 PM

10/2/2005 8:12:05 PM

Quote :

"so we sentence someone to 10 years and during that ten years they are not rehabilitated. After ten years they are back on the street."

There are crimes for which efforts at rehabilitation make sense, and others where they don't.

The purpose of prisons is not to rehabilitate, punish, or separate inmates from society. The purpose of prisons is to remove threats from society in the "smoothest" way possisble.

Sometimes you remove a threat by training inmates to avoid certain behaviors -- either by simply beating them with the "If you do this, you go to jail" stick, or by more thorough rehabilitation. Other times, you remove a threat by permanently separating it from society one way or the other.

10/2/2005 8:40:01 PM

Quote :

"I like george carlin's idea... empty out one whole state of USA and put all the prisoners there, fenced in and guarded by planes on the top. Let them form their own society in there, and every now and then throw in some food and weapons for them to fight over."

ooh, ooh, can we also have another trail of tears?

10/2/2005 9:00:12 PM

Quote :

"Quite obviously "life" is a worse punishment than "death" in most cases"

I agree, but don't think it matters whether or not you're jail.

You don't gotta be locked up to be in prison...

But that's a personal view. Either way, if you're alive, you can make yourself dead, though it often isn't easy. However, the reverse is not true.

A life sentence can be ended if it turns out the guy ain't guilty. That's the best argument in favor of life.

10/2/2005 9:18:33 PM

For fans of rehabilitation, what do you suggest to rehabilitate someone? Who can be rehabilitated? How do you know if the efforts are successful? If they commit another crime is it then society's responsibility for not rehabilitating them properly?

10/2/2005 10:05:27 PM

plz to see Clockwork Orange

10/2/2005 10:07:18 PM

not that i necessarily think life sentences are a bad idea, but can you somehow prove those opposed to them are "liberals," because I don't see that anywhere in this article.

10/2/2005 10:19:40 PM

hello nytimes

10/3/2005 12:49:25 AM

I'm in favor of hard labor. I'm not talking about just picking trash or digging diches. I want to see them mining in quarries, working at landfills, building miles of wall. Wall such as the mexican boarder wall. Jobs like these are punishment and mental activity together. Sure they'll hate it, but they'll be busy working the whole time. Lets make them do horrible jobs just so they can eat and have a bed to go to at night. Slave labor = prison to me, i'm sorry.

I also like the idea of keeping our most sick and sadistic killers alive for mental research. Lets understand them better so we can better track down killers that are still out in the real world. The killers deserve a life time of slave labor anyway since they took someone else's life. There go, their life belongs to the prison system.

I've always believed the act of killing another human being does more damage than the percieved positive improvement of society. You're eradicating a threat, yes. You're also putting a mental impression on others that it's alright to kill. Sure the distinction here is that you're doing something honorable, when infact killer's have no sence of honor, so what does it matter then. We need to keep our criminals alive, study them, and put them to work IMO.

[Edited on October 3, 2005 at 11:02 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on October 3, 2005 at 11:04 AM. Reason : exploding proximity neck collars for teh win!]

10/3/2005 11:01:16 AM

patman

Quote :

"No, that's not justice for anybody. When you wrongly imprison someone, you can at least clear their name, appologize, and compensate that person. But there is no making it right when you kill someone. Plenty of people have been wrongfully convicted of murder. As long as that is a possibility, execution is difficult to justify."

There is no compensation the government would be willing to part with thats sufficient to pay for 20 wasted years of your life. The best they'll get is to leave prison early.

I've got a better idea, the previous judge, jury, and lawyers (its a new trial later) have to serve 10% of his jail time if new evidence later pops up after he was killed. Somebody needs to be held accountable to fix this problem. If you're not sure he did it, he didnt.

10/3/2005 2:01:39 PM

Quote :

"There go, their life belongs to the prison system."

holy shit please tell me you weren't trying to say "Ergo"

10/3/2005 2:15:12 PM

Quote :

"I'm in favor of hard labor. I'm not talking about just picking trash or digging diches. I want to see them mining in quarries, working at landfills, building miles of wall. Wall such as the mexican boarder wall. Jobs like these are punishment and mental activity together. Sure they'll hate it, but they'll be busy working the whole time. Lets make them do horrible jobs just so they can eat and have a bed to go to at night. Slave labor = prison to me, i'm sorry. I also like the idea of keeping our most sick and sadistic killers alive for mental research. Lets understand them better so we can better track down killers that are still out in the real world. The killers deserve a life time of slave labor anyway since they took someone else's life. There go, their life belongs to the prison system. I've always believed the act of killing another human being does more damage than the percieved positive improvement of society. You're eradicating a threat, yes. You're also putting a mental impression on others that it's alright to kill. Sure the distinction here is that you're doing something honorable, when infact killer's have no sence of honor, so what does it matter then. We need to keep our criminals alive, study them, and put them to work IMO."

China

10/3/2005 2:26:07 PM

The point of prison should never be to punish. That's the kind of emotionalistic eye-for-an-eye thinking that started the death penalty. The purpose of prison is correction.

10/3/2005 3:04:21 PM

correct as much as you can, if they're worth correcting, but if you dont make prison suck, they wont try to avoid it enough

10/3/2005 3:14:26 PM

The purpose of prison is not to correct.

And the purpose of prison isn't to punish, either.

Sometimes prison manages to do those things, but only by way of acheiving its real purpose, which is removing dangerous elements from society.

10/3/2005 4:22:00 PM

Quote :

"God forgives so we don't have to."

But aren't we supposed to be like God?

10/4/2005 7:46:52 AM