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We have too many things that are felonies. A proper punishment would be to clean up all their mess and pay a fine. "Should be a serious felony," is how we got
by Clubber 9y ago
We have too many things that are felonies. A proper punishment would be to clean up all their mess and pay a fine.
"Should be a serious felony," is how we got into the police state we are approaching. Just because it's emotionally distasteful to uglify nature doesn't mean it warrants years in prison, never being able to work again, and never being able to vote again.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kec 9y agoSome things can't be easily fixed. It can take years or even decades to restore damaged wilderness to something approaching its natural state.
- Clubber 9y agoYes, I mean if it is something like toxic waste like Love Canal, that's one thing, but if it's dumping trash, that's easily remedied. Also, once the trash is removed, nature will typically revert to it's natural state all by itself. Humankind has to actively prevent nature from engulfing cities. But to say, "they left trash everywhere, FELONY!" is a seriously emotional reaction. Criminal justice should be a rational not emotional thing. Is dumping trash the same thing as rape, robbery or murder? Certainly not. Felonies should be reserved for the harshest crimes against people, not littering or ingesting things. The US has more people incarcerated, not only per capita, but as a total number than any other country in the developed world. This includes China. That statistic shows a serious, systemic problem with our justice system. http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-popula... The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-economics-of-the-america...
- briandear 9y agoKind of silly to compare China — they have very, very few murderers, drug traffickers and rapists in prison — their rapidly enforced death penalty sees to that.
- Clubber 9y agoEven if China imprisoned rather than executed, we'd still have a much higher number imprisoned. The US prison population is 33% higher total than China and almost 7x higher per capita. I guess you don't realize how messed up our justice system is. When you look at the numbers, it's a real eye opener. China is a distant #2 in total imprisoned yet they are 4x more populated than the US. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China#Rates_of_execution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China#Ra... The number of executions has dropped significantly since the Supreme People’s Court regained the power to review all death sentences in 2007; for instance, the Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed 12,000 people in 2002, 6,500 people in 2007, and roughly 2,400 in 2013 and 2014. For actual numbers, we have 2.1 million people imprisoned and China has 1.6 million.
- nine_k 9y agoOK, we've caught the perpetrators, spent a lot of taxpayers' money on keeping them in prison, then pushed out, mostly unable to work (except low-paying jobs), almost inviting them to do some worse offense just to feed themselves. How did all that help restore the ruined patch of land?
- kec 9y agoDeterrent for others. Weed farming is lucrative, even large fines wouldn’t be a large deterrant.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoRuining a person's life is not a good deterrent.
- briandear 9y agoIf it were a serious felony, then perhaps they wouldn’t do it? If they continue to do it despite it being a serious felony, then they’ve written their own check.
- Clubber 9y agoYes, that theory certainly eradicated drug use in the US.
- contravariant 9y agoScaring people away by shooting at them should be a more serious offence than just making a mess. Of course it already is, so I don't really see the point of adding more felonies. Really the problem isn't that people demand more and more felonies, but rather that they demand felonies for things that are already illegal.