5 ms·
I've observed the criminal justice system at work in Texas a few times. A murder case, some misdemeanors, a few felonies. I've seen it from arrest to prison lif
by ryanmarsh 10y ago
I've observed the criminal justice system at work in Texas a few times. A murder case, some misdemeanors, a few felonies. I've seen it from arrest to prison life.
It is a dark and deeply depressing thing. There is little compassion for victims, the accused, the convicted. I could write a thousand words but it pains me to think about it.
I pray I never get falsely accused of a crime and I'm so glad I'm not black. If all the boring white folk who couldn't fathom finding themselves so much as suspected of a crime had to go through the criminal justice system as the average YBM the system would be massively overhauled yesterday.
Most of the boring white folk I know think everyone in jail is a cold blooded psychopath who works out all day and dreams of stabbing people... "hardened criminal".
The system is just full of unlucky humans. God knows I did shit in my youth I could still be in prison for. The extremely violent type are actually quite rare.
- nibs 10y agoMy observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. The big difference I have observed, independent of race, wealth, etc. is that people who have criminal records tend to "go off" while others do not. Otherwise it may as well be the same person.
- kiba 10y agoI believe that if we can understand what make them tick, we can fix them. Though that also comes with it the horrifying possibility of dystopian societal control.
- wott 10y ago"we" vs "them"... I am always surprised when I (very often though) hear/read "normal" people, generally meaning good, who think that there are two separate kinds of individuals, the "we" and the "them"; who cannot fathom that all of "us" may slide slowly or fall suddenly into the "them" category.
- kiba 10y agoJust to be clear, I thought everyone has a capacity for murder and other crimes. Fixing 'them' may also involves fixing 'us' since crimes also occur in the context of our social environment. Think of prosecutors and the police. They are driven by incentive and cognitive bias to commit gross miscarriage of justice and get away with it. In order to do that, you have to know humanity on an uncomfortably and dangerous deep level.
- coldtea 10y ago>My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. Those are the violent criminals, repeat offenders, lowlife, etc. There a huge number of "criminals" that are perfectly normal people like you and me that got dragged in some criminal act somehow. Including totally innocent people that just looked too black, were in the wrong place, etc.
- ryanmarsh 10y agoImpulse control? How about a guy who grew up destined to be a fuck up because everyone in his life is a fuck up?
- bsder 10y ago> My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. You don't even have to go that far. "Impulse control" is the big one. Several inner city social programs were all about getting people to simply think for a moment before doing things like killing someone for "disrespect". It's really surprising how strong the taboo for killing people is and how well it asserts itself if you just give it a moment to kick in.
- cmurf 10y agoBoring white folk? Do you mean boorish? Or maybe ignorant?
- ryanmarsh 10y agoNo. People who are middle of the road, don't take risks, don't hang out with odd characters, people who have zero chance of getting mixed up in something stupid.
- cmurf 10y ago“Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.” Biologically, risk taking when things are going well is a bad characteristic. Risk taking when things are going badly is probably a good characteristic. So I think you over value risk taking without any other considerations.
- refurb 10y agoBasically people that follow the law?
- dredmorbius 10y agoIt's quite possible to break out of picket-fence-and-white-bread without breaking the law. Or at least, without breaking the law any more than anyone else does: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1248668478.shtml http://www.volokh.com/posts/1248668478.shtml (I don't find Kozinski and Tseytlin's original in a brief search, though it should be out there. Very much worth reading, and helpful to consider that federal law isn't the only possible risk.)
- ryanmarsh 10y agoWe all break the law, but only some of us are punished.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]