5 ms·

> Our justice system has evolved in light of that. I don't know that I'd say 'evolved'. You said it yourself: the homicide rate has been 5-7x higher than in En

> Our justice system has evolved in light of that. I don't know that I'd say 'evolved'. You said it yourself: the homicide rate has been 5-7x higher than in England for more than a century. We're not really doing anything different than what we used to do - a punitive justice system, sometimes morally dubious punishment, and total 'othering' of convicted criminals. I don't know that we can really be shocked when nothing changes.

rayiner 12y ago
That's not true at all. There was a real effort in the 1950's and 1960's to turn the justice system into one more oriented toward rehabilitation. In the face of crime skyrocketing in the 1960's and 1970's, voters went the other way, instituting our present system. Take for example things like three strikes laws, which are mostly responsible for the "he went to jail for life for stealing $200" horror stories. Those were pioneered in 1993-94, by referendum in progressive states like Washington and California, by overwhelming margins (80-90% voting in favor).
- bronbron 12y ago
  > There was a real effort in the 1950's and 1960's to turn the justice system into one more oriented toward rehabilitation Err, so there was an erroneous decade where we tried to do better? The mid 50s-60s were a discrepancy in american history in a multitude of ways, so I'm not sure that I'd consider prison reform any different in that regard. I also wouldn't consider a decade as representative of the american justice system when we have plenty of evidence that it's not representative of either the past (where we used to just hang people after three strikes) or the present (where, as you noted, we have three strikes laws). In fact, it seems as though once a century we'll have a decade where they half-heartedly try to implement rehabilitative reforms, keep at it for maybe the better half of a decade, and then act shocked that it hasn't decimated incarceration rates yet. Shockingly, it takes longer than a few years to reform a society.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    The comparison was against the U.K. I'm not an expert in turn of the century British criminal law, but I don't imagine you'll find that it was particularly oriented toward rehabilitation. Yet, their homicide rate has always been dramatically lower.
    - bronbron 12y ago
      > I don't imagine you'll find that it was particularly oriented toward rehabilitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_League_for_Penal_Reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_League_for_Penal_Reform
      - rayiner 12y ago
        That link doesn't support the claim. You can point to random progressive oegsnizations; doesn't mean there was any effect.

rayiner 12y ago

That's not true at all. There was a real effort in the 1950's and 1960's to turn the justice system into one more oriented toward rehabilitation. In the face of crime skyrocketing in the 1960's and 1970's, voters went the other way, instituting our present system. Take for example things like three strikes laws, which are mostly responsible for the "he went to jail for life for stealing $200" horror stories. Those were pioneered in 1993-94, by referendum in progressive states like Washington and California, by overwhelming margins (80-90% voting in favor).

bronbron 12y ago
> There was a real effort in the 1950's and 1960's to turn the justice system into one more oriented toward rehabilitation Err, so there was an erroneous decade where we tried to do better? The mid 50s-60s were a discrepancy in american history in a multitude of ways, so I'm not sure that I'd consider prison reform any different in that regard. I also wouldn't consider a decade as representative of the american justice system when we have plenty of evidence that it's not representative of either the past (where we used to just hang people after three strikes) or the present (where, as you noted, we have three strikes laws). In fact, it seems as though once a century we'll have a decade where they half-heartedly try to implement rehabilitative reforms, keep at it for maybe the better half of a decade, and then act shocked that it hasn't decimated incarceration rates yet. Shockingly, it takes longer than a few years to reform a society.
- rayiner 12y ago
  The comparison was against the U.K. I'm not an expert in turn of the century British criminal law, but I don't imagine you'll find that it was particularly oriented toward rehabilitation. Yet, their homicide rate has always been dramatically lower.
  - bronbron 12y ago
    > I don't imagine you'll find that it was particularly oriented toward rehabilitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_League_for_Penal_Reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_League_for_Penal_Reform
    - rayiner 12y ago
      That link doesn't support the claim. You can point to random progressive oegsnizations; doesn't mean there was any effect.