Protecting society for one, yes, and also the belief is widely held that prison is meant to motivate to resocialize even though by now it is principally understood that this is not or not always or not necessarily so... IMO juvenile offenders should be sent to prison for a short time the very first time around rather than to give them umpteen raised index fingers and then another umpteen wrist slaps and then maybe after they've committed their first 15 or so violent crimes to send them to kiddie prison with horseback riding and youth discount... all that is achieved by doing so IMO is to teach them that you can get away with a lot and maybe even get rewarded for it by positive attention. Spending two nights in a cell with a bunch of felons after your first shoplifting dare would probably cure a number of people of wanting to experience that again. And no, I do not believe in 3 strikes. I just think that if a threat is to be effective it should be visible. And first and foremost, I believe that good parenting, respect, attention and most of all education are the best crime prevention out there. And as to Anders Bering Breivik or Andrew Berwick as he liked to call himself on the internet is IMO a manic nutjob who should be locked away from all and any publicity. That would hurt him most.
2011/7/25 John Francis <jo...@panix.com>: > On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 08:00:10AM +0200, DagT wrote: >> Den 25. juli 2011 kl. 04.39 skrev John Sessoms: >> >> > From: Eckehard Wegner >> >> 2011/7/24 Ken Waller <kwal...@peoplepc.com>: >> >>>> I'll never understand the complete absence of dignity in terrorist >> >>>> thought. >> >>> I'd nominate this for a MARK ! if it sometrhing to do with photography. >> >> Which in turn prompted my memory to dump before my feet Adorno and his >> >> statement that writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric... can >> >> monstrosity really eclipse beauty? Nothing can bring back those killed >> >> but rather than to dismiss it as the act of a lone nutjob, erect the >> >> usual ugly memorial stone and move on IMO the best thing to do would >> >> be to fill the island with the very spirit he was looking to >> >> destroy... so in a sense poetry is IMO imperative. >> >> >> >> Sorry if I rambled >> >> Ecke >> > >> > One thing that's disturbing me about all this is according to news reports >> > I've seen, the maximum sentence he can get is 21 years. He should at least >> > be locked up the rest of his life. >> >> We have a law that let us keep them longer if they are still a danger to >> society. > > This underlines a major difference between the US and European prison systems. > > The US sentencing is all about punishing the wrongdoer; European systems > tend to be a lot more about protecting society. > > When I moved to the US (some thirty-plus years ago now) I was astonished > to see testimony from the family of victims being given so much prominence > at sentencing hearings. It just seemed out of place, almost saying that it > was somehow more acceptable to murder people without families. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
