4 ms·

While I'm against jailing for non-violent drug offenders, the first thing that came to mind was what is the 2nd reason listed. That all the worst criminals are

While I'm against jailing for non-violent drug offenders, the first thing that came to mind was what is the 2nd reason listed. That all the worst criminals are locked up due to mandatory minimum sentences, and the most violent criminals just aren't born at a fast enough rate everyday to replace them. I wasn't too far off, the article states ~25% reduction can came from locking up more. It says possibly less, but honestly I'd assume more than 25% till you reach diminishing returns. Egregious criminals usually get caught at some point, sentenced harshly with less false convictions thanks to modern technology and it makes sense. I think we could reduce violence even further by having a mandatory minimum sentence of 50 years hard labor for anyone caught with a gun outside their house. Or using any knife or object to injure someone. This includes the cops and gov't figures. Start to ratchet up the sentence to that and publicize it, even the craziest might decide to find another hobby. Crime has gone down but police abuse has gone up. Time to take away their tools to abuse, and make prison less attractive for everyone.

nl 11y ago
Taking that to the logical conclusion, if everyone spent 50 years doing hard labor in jail I'm pretty sure the rate of violence outside jail would decrease even more. I'm not sure that putting more people in jail for longer is a great solution.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I think putting demonstrably violent people in jail is a fine idea. Cleary GP's ideas are too extreme, simply having a gun or knife doesn't harm anyone, but if you use a weapon to commit a crime and injure/kill someone (as distinct from doing that out of self-defense) yeah, in general you need to be taken out of society.
  - BuckRogers 11y ago
    It sounds extreme, but it works in the UK and other societies. Why wait till someone uses a weapon or harms someone? What other purpose is a weapon used for? It's for offense, or "offense is the best defense", which I disagree with. Disarm everyone, civilize this place a bit. We should be following Europe's lead here.
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  That's not the logical conclusion at all. I'm suggesting if you're carrying a weapon, you're going away to some seriously undesirable conditions. Would you carry a gun in that instance? Not me.

nl 11y ago

Taking that to the logical conclusion, if everyone spent 50 years doing hard labor in jail I'm pretty sure the rate of violence outside jail would decrease even more. I'm not sure that putting more people in jail for longer is a great solution.

ams6110 11y ago
I think putting demonstrably violent people in jail is a fine idea. Cleary GP's ideas are too extreme, simply having a gun or knife doesn't harm anyone, but if you use a weapon to commit a crime and injure/kill someone (as distinct from doing that out of self-defense) yeah, in general you need to be taken out of society.
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  It sounds extreme, but it works in the UK and other societies. Why wait till someone uses a weapon or harms someone? What other purpose is a weapon used for? It's for offense, or "offense is the best defense", which I disagree with. Disarm everyone, civilize this place a bit. We should be following Europe's lead here.
BuckRogers 11y ago
That's not the logical conclusion at all. I'm suggesting if you're carrying a weapon, you're going away to some seriously undesirable conditions. Would you carry a gun in that instance? Not me.