4 ms·

There's a perverse incentive to jail people driven by the stupid war on drugs. Besides, if someone steals a bread leaf, they might go to jail at the expense of

by henvic 5y ago

There's a perverse incentive to jail people driven by the stupid war on drugs. Besides, if someone steals a bread leaf, they might go to jail at the expense of the whole society. This has to change. Justice should not be punitive, but rather reparative... and people who commit crimeless victims are the victims themselves of improper incarceration (in other words, state sanctioned kidnapping).

diogenescynic 5y ago
So what’s the alternative? Tent camps under every freeway overpass and near every park and green space with roaming tweakers and junkies stealing bikes and any other property not locked down? Honestly that seems like the worse option. It seems like the bleeding heart strategy of letting these people just go about their day is just a slow death for those drug users and lowers quality of life for everyone else. Why is there no middle ground like in Europe? America is too extreme. Either we lock people up for a joint or we give them more needles to use heroin and enable their addiction. It is totally bizarre in my opinion. California looks dirtier than most third-world countries I’ve been to. Clearly we can do better.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  I feel like tent camps are a housing problem and homelessness shouldn’t be a crime. We can do better, indeed. (Edit; also, apparently giving needles actually has significant benefits to a community, in that addicts are constantly exposed to a medically safe space where their addiction is treated like the health problem it is. It also gives them constant exposure to safe, non-judge mental avenues for recovery programs and detox clinics. It’s easy to say, as an addict, that I’m not going to a program recommended by a stranger or a cop. It’s harder to refuse when it’s this friendly receptionist who has never judged me and has told me that they know 5 others like me who have all succeeded breaking the addiction.)
  - diogenescynic 5y ago
    How would a drug addict on meth or heroin afford an apartment at any price? The homeless problem is made worse by the housing problem, but the people we see in the tent camps under freeways were not priced out because their rent got raised. That’s just propaganda the mayors in democrat cities put out to shift blame and responsibly. > Edit; also, apparently giving needles actually has significant benefits to a community, in that addicts are constantly exposed to a medically safe space where their addiction is treated like the health problem it is. It also gives them constant exposure to safe, non-judge mental avenues for recovery programs and detox clinics. But we don’t give free needles or insulin to people with diabetes? I just think our priorities are fucked. And you look at a city budget like SF where hundreds of millions are spent on the homeless only for the problem to get worse every single year and the money is never spend in an accountable way. I’d just prefer to help people who would actually help themselves so we aren’t just enabling them further in a self-destructive path. I’ve never seen another country with our policies that seems to be a working model. Why can’t we just copy something that actually work? I find it bizarre we just keep spending more and more but won’t look beyond our own paradigm for a better strategy.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      What works is that we straight up give them housing, free needles, free-at-the-point-of-access healthcare, and treating addiction like we would treat a medical condition like diabetes-get them on a treatment plan without judgement. The reason why there’s a ton of inefficient waste in Democrat cities is because of bullshit NIMBYism and constant resistance to just giving people minimum standards of living due to some notion of wanting to figure out who “deserves” it more. We know what works. Needles exchanges work. Free healthcare works. Providing housing works. Strong social programs work.
      - diogenescynic 5y ago
        Platitudes. Show me a country your model is functioning in. I don't see Portugal or other places just giving people free needles and letting drug addicts defecate all over tourist areas or make huge trash piles that look like spillover from a landfill. Why do we constantly waste money on these unaccountable programs instead of actually finding a working model? I'm all for giving them public housing and I believe in universal healthcare. But at what point after we offer them an alternative to living on the street to we force them to stop leaving needles and trash and being a public health hazard to everyone else? There has to be a carrot and a stick approach otherwise it won't work. San Francisco has tried an all carrot and no stick approach and it's getting worse by the day.
tyingq 5y ago
The statistics support that in an even stronger way if you expand the list beyond drug charges to "charges probably related to drugs". Check fraud, for example, is often done to buy drugs. Similar for many other types of theft, etc.

by henvic 5y ago

diogenescynic 5y ago

So what’s the alternative? Tent camps under every freeway overpass and near every park and green space with roaming tweakers and junkies stealing bikes and any other property not locked down? Honestly that seems like the worse option. It seems like the bleeding heart strategy of letting these people just go about their day is just a slow death for those drug users and lowers quality of life for everyone else. Why is there no middle ground like in Europe? America is too extreme. Either we lock people up for a joint or we give them more needles to use heroin and enable their addiction. It is totally bizarre in my opinion. California looks dirtier than most third-world countries I’ve been to. Clearly we can do better.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
I feel like tent camps are a housing problem and homelessness shouldn’t be a crime. We can do better, indeed. (Edit; also, apparently giving needles actually has significant benefits to a community, in that addicts are constantly exposed to a medically safe space where their addiction is treated like the health problem it is. It also gives them constant exposure to safe, non-judge mental avenues for recovery programs and detox clinics. It’s easy to say, as an addict, that I’m not going to a program recommended by a stranger or a cop. It’s harder to refuse when it’s this friendly receptionist who has never judged me and has told me that they know 5 others like me who have all succeeded breaking the addiction.)
- diogenescynic 5y ago
  How would a drug addict on meth or heroin afford an apartment at any price? The homeless problem is made worse by the housing problem, but the people we see in the tent camps under freeways were not priced out because their rent got raised. That’s just propaganda the mayors in democrat cities put out to shift blame and responsibly. > Edit; also, apparently giving needles actually has significant benefits to a community, in that addicts are constantly exposed to a medically safe space where their addiction is treated like the health problem it is. It also gives them constant exposure to safe, non-judge mental avenues for recovery programs and detox clinics. But we don’t give free needles or insulin to people with diabetes? I just think our priorities are fucked. And you look at a city budget like SF where hundreds of millions are spent on the homeless only for the problem to get worse every single year and the money is never spend in an accountable way. I’d just prefer to help people who would actually help themselves so we aren’t just enabling them further in a self-destructive path. I’ve never seen another country with our policies that seems to be a working model. Why can’t we just copy something that actually work? I find it bizarre we just keep spending more and more but won’t look beyond our own paradigm for a better strategy.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    What works is that we straight up give them housing, free needles, free-at-the-point-of-access healthcare, and treating addiction like we would treat a medical condition like diabetes-get them on a treatment plan without judgement. The reason why there’s a ton of inefficient waste in Democrat cities is because of bullshit NIMBYism and constant resistance to just giving people minimum standards of living due to some notion of wanting to figure out who “deserves” it more. We know what works. Needles exchanges work. Free healthcare works. Providing housing works. Strong social programs work.
    - diogenescynic 5y ago
      Platitudes. Show me a country your model is functioning in. I don't see Portugal or other places just giving people free needles and letting drug addicts defecate all over tourist areas or make huge trash piles that look like spillover from a landfill. Why do we constantly waste money on these unaccountable programs instead of actually finding a working model? I'm all for giving them public housing and I believe in universal healthcare. But at what point after we offer them an alternative to living on the street to we force them to stop leaving needles and trash and being a public health hazard to everyone else? There has to be a carrot and a stick approach otherwise it won't work. San Francisco has tried an all carrot and no stick approach and it's getting worse by the day.

tyingq 5y ago

The statistics support that in an even stronger way if you expand the list beyond drug charges to "charges probably related to drugs". Check fraud, for example, is often done to buy drugs. Similar for many other types of theft, etc.