Sampo Syreeni
But just as Tim argues, the latter always involves cost-effectiveness too...There should always be a sufficient, predictable cost associated with putting people away to guard against criminalization for convenience, prudence and political gain only.
I'm sure that "cost-effectiveness" has a role to play here. I just don't agree that the cost savings of parole are all that big a factor. The US has more prisoners per capital than just about anyone (I think the US is surpassed by Russia and maybe South Africa). So we've already made the decision that we can afford to lock up a lot of people. Also, the assumption that locking up more people comes at some sort of linear increase in costs. One of the simplest answers is to just overcrowd the facilities "we" already have. No, I think Tim and Sampo have the cart before the horse. We have the criminal laws we have because that feeds the government, not because we save so much with parole. Eliminating parole by overcrowding or by building still more prisons would increase, not decrease human suffering. Honestly, would you rather wear a ankle transponder or be Bruno's bitch? S a n d y
At 4:09 PM -0700 7/4/01, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
Sampo Syreeni
But just as Tim argues, the latter always involves cost-effectiveness too...There should always be a sufficient, predictable cost associated with putting people away to guard against criminalization for convenience, prudence and political gain only.
I'm sure that "cost-effectiveness" has a role to play here. I just don't agree that the cost savings of parole are all that big a factor. The US has more prisoners per capital than just about anyone (I think the US is surpassed by Russia and maybe South Africa). So we've already made the decision that we can afford to lock up a lot of people.
Also, the assumption that locking up more people comes at some sort of linear increase in costs. One of the simplest answers is to just overcrowd the facilities "we" already have.
No, I think Tim and Sampo have the cart before the horse. We have the criminal laws we have because that feeds the government, not because we save so much with parole. Eliminating parole by overcrowding or by building still more prisons would increase, not decrease human suffering.
Honestly, would you rather wear a ankle transponder or be Bruno's bitch?
This is that chestnut of a logical fallacy called "false alternatives." (Or "false dilemma.") The choice is not just between an ankle transponder and being Bruno's bitch. Sampo and I are both arguing that the costs of making things illegal is no longer as visible as it once was, especially as when local jurisdictions had to make a choice between building a school or a jail. These costs have been hidden from the voters and taxpayers in the usual ways: -- by bundling costs and shifting them great distances -- by hiding the costs in bond issues which fool people into thinking that new prison won't cost anything -- by not actually _needing_ the additional prison space. I'm not saying there is a simple cause-and-effect relationship between parole and criminalization, that parole caused more criminalization of activities. Things are more complicated and nuanced than that. But what I _am_ saying is that both trends have gone hand-in-hand, and the results are made _worse_ by having so many people on parole. And if things go on (another logical fallacy, I realize), we are heading towards a situation where a large chunk of the U.S. (and world, as other nations are copying our schemes) population is disenfranchised, can't own firearms, has no expectation of being secure in papers and possessions, and which may even be restricted in other ways in the future. The fact that your friend got out on parole after 7 years is nice, for her. (Jeez, even murderers rarely face more than a few years, and I know of an arsonist who is getting no prison time at all, just a very long period of "parole.") --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
Tim May wrote:
At 4:09 PM -0700 7/4/01, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
... Honestly, would you rather wear a ankle transponder or be Bruno's bitch?
This is that chestnut of a logical fallacy called "false alternatives." (Or "false dilemma.") The choice is not just between an ankle transponder and being Bruno's bitch.
Yes that IS the choice. This is not a logical fallacy. This is the real choice real people have to make every day. "Changing the system" is not an individual option. Right now, in the real world, prisoners have to decide whether they are going to be "hard cases" and staying in the joint or of "going along" and getting out sooner, albeit on parole. Eliminating parole should be the LAST thing done to reform the system. Anything else merely compounds the evil. I'll go a bit further. To the extent a libertarian society had prisons, I think there would--and should--be a system of parole (i.e., "conditional release") to help released inmates re-enter society. S a n d y
On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
I'm sure that "cost-effectiveness" has a role to play here. I just don't agree that the cost savings of parole are all that big a factor. The US has more prisoners per capital than just about anyone (I think the US is surpassed by Russia and maybe South Africa). So we've already made the decision that we can afford to lock up a lot of people.
Got any cites? Thought not (as usual you make the shit up as you go along). That's ok, I provided some.... We're 5% of the world population and we've got 25% of the prisoners. -- ____________________________________________________________________ Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
Yes that IS the choice. This is not a logical fallacy. This is the real choice real people have to make every day. "Changing the system" is not an individual option.
Not only is it a logical fallicy, but a legal one as well. It's all(!) a personal choice. Saying "I passed this law I knew was unconstitutional because it was the only thing I could think of" doesn't excuse the abuse. ONLY individuals have that right...it's a pity we've lost the true meaning of 'American Democracy'. Just too radical for most folks I guess. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- ____________________________________________________________________ Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Sampo Syreeni
But just as Tim argues, the latter always involves cost-effectiveness too...There should always be a sufficient, predictable cost associated with putting people away to guard against criminalization for convenience, prudence and political gain only.
I'm sure that "cost-effectiveness" has a role to play here. I just don't agree that the cost savings of parole are all that big a factor. The US has more prisoners per capital than just about anyone (I think the US is surpassed by Russia and maybe South Africa). So we've already made the decision that we can afford to lock up a lot of people.
The disparity in numbers is largely due to the way we treat the mentally ill. "They" (Russia, and most of europe) don't count the numbers of people forcebly institutionalized for "mental illness" as part of their prisoner counts, and here in the US the government *usually* doesn't forcibly institutionalize someone until after they've committed a crime, or at least been convicted of a crime of some sort, whether it really should be a crime.
Also, the assumption that locking up more people comes at some sort of linear increase in costs. One of the simplest answers is to just overcrowd the facilities "we" already have.
Simple answers are for simple problems or simple people. This is not a simple problem.
No, I think Tim and Sampo have the cart before the horse. We have the criminal laws we have because that feeds the government, not because we save so much with parole. Eliminating parole by overcrowding or by building still more prisons would increase, not decrease human suffering.
I think you're both wrong. We have increasingly more laws because we don't have enough problems for our elected leaders to deal with, and in order to justify their pay checks they feel they need to "Be Doing Something", so they manufacture one crisis after another, propose and half-ass implement some nit-wit solution. The problem is that dimwitted idiots keep re-electing these rotten sonsabitches.
Honestly, would you rather wear a ankle transponder or be Bruno's bitch?
CypherPrisonSluts? -- http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.
On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
I'm sure that "cost-effectiveness" has a role to play here. I just don't agree that the cost savings of parole are all that big a factor. The US has more prisoners per capital than just about anyone (I think the US is surpassed by Russia and maybe South Africa). So we've already made the decision that we can afford to lock up a lot of people.
Yep, the US does lock a whole lot of people up. But what about the constant whining about "overflowing prisons", then. Or the many instants where prisoners are put on parole en masse to cut costs and/or to free up prison real estate? That sort of thing isn't about a decision to invest a lot into incarceration, but precisely the kind of thing that one day makes everyone a parolee.
Also, the assumption that locking up more people comes at some sort of linear increase in costs. One of the simplest answers is to just overcrowd the facilities "we" already have.
There would be ways to control this too. One way is to make it possible for inmates to sue for damage due to overcrowding and the violence it causes. This would make for a superlinear increase in cost, and eventual balancing in the density of inmates.
No, I think Tim and Sampo have the cart before the horse. We have the criminal laws we have because that feeds the government, not because we save so much with parole.
*Of course* parole isn't the initial cause, but it's one of the few enabling factors which allow excess criminalization of harmless conduct to be at least partially quenched. The usual reasons for legislative bloat stop us from pruning the code directly, but a strong strawman can be made for not letting people out of the slammer before their term is up.
Eliminating parole by overcrowding or by building still more prisons would increase, not decrease human suffering.
That's really just the age old question of whether two people suffering half as much each constitutes the same amount of total suffering. From the standpoint of individual freedom, one might argue that more people are now hurting. You would probably say the maximum harm/injustice done is now less. I still think that in the first case the probability of a given person being unjustly imprisoned is doubled, and this is bad.
Honestly, would you rather wear a ankle transponder or be Bruno's bitch?
As you already put it, given a chance, neither. But the real point is that transponders shouldn't be an option *and* the cost of putting people away should be high enough to become prohibitive for anything but the most serious of crimes. If this was to come to pass, the question would instead become "would you rather be free with your rights intact than wear a tag?". Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, petro pulled this right out of his ass...
The disparity in numbers is largely due to the way we treat the mentally ill. "They" (Russia, and most of europe) don't count the numbers of people forcebly institutionalized for "mental illness" as part of their prisoner counts, and here in the US the government *usually* doesn't forcibly institutionalize someone until after they've committed a crime, or at least been convicted of a crime of some sort, whether it really should be a crime.
Total, unequivocal bullshit. You have anything to back up these absurd statements? (1) "Forcibly institutionalized" patients are *NOT* [legally] "prisoners", and therefore are not included in prisoner counts. Obviously, this statement excludes those persons committed to institutions by a court as "unfit to stand trial" - a microscopic percentage of the "patient" population in the U.S. (2) The "2-P.C." [2 Psychiatrist Committal] laws do NOT apply to someone *after* they have committed a crime. After they commit a crime, they are under the jurisdiction of a *court*, and they are no longer patients (and only _patients_ get 2-P.C.'d). (3) The 2.P.C. laws are in EVERY state specifically allow for, and in fact, REQUIRE, that a person be involuntarily committed if "they present an immenent danger to themselves or others". This is clearly not the same as "have committed a crime". First you claim that "nobody has ever survived a shot to the head with a .32", and now *this* -- Where do you get this shit from??? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 01:18:51AM -0700, petro wrote:
CypherPrisonSluts?
Speaking of which, this is happening today: PRESS RELEASES The Bureau of Justice Statistics will issue a release (embargoed until Sunday) regarding HIV infection among prison inmates. (Miller) -Declan
-- On 4 Jul 2001, at 16:49, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
Eliminating parole should be the LAST thing done to reform the system. Anything else merely compounds the evil.
Anyone who can be safely paroled, should probably not have been convicted. Parole is cheap way of punishing decent people. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG eeF6bWdGi6Nlilw20hDTBV02B16d1ESzbPeXnQJn 4UXpXu/jnduCgpY098KSl2dx7IXoLpBcMta+VJ/xz
-- On 4 Jul 2001, at 16:09, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
I'm sure that "cost-effectiveness" has a role to play here. I just don't agree that the cost savings of parole are all that big a factor. The US has more prisoners per capital than just about anyone
I am inclined to doubt this much touted statistic -- for example china is estimated to have executed a thousand people last month, not withstanding the fact that it is routinely claimed that the US leads the world in executions. There are more executions reported in a day in China than in a year in the US, and most go unreported. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG neI92PXMeEo+ptXtc+YRJz9i0lF53Zg8kfnOHDu/ 4uBqot95kQAC2bLElfCbSoo0OKuQMBfzYKirulFIW
jamesd@echeque.com wrote:
Anyone who can be safely paroled, should probably not have been convicted.
I don't see how that follows, but in any case, it is irrelevant to my point, that from the individual's point of view, parole is better than incarceration.
Parole is cheap way of punishing decent people.
Or guilty people for that matter. S a n d y
On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
Anyone who can be safely paroled, should probably not have been convicted.
I don't see how that follows, but in any case, it is irrelevant to my point, that from the individual's point of view, parole is better than incarceration.
The difference is that most of the people around here seem to be arguing from the societal point of view. (Cheap) parole, even if sheer bliss for the felon, is a bad thing when thought about with due respect to what it does to whole communities. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
participants (8)
-
Declan McCullagh -
jamesd＠echeque.com -
Jim Choate -
measl＠mfn.org -
petro -
Sampo Syreeni -
Sandy Sandfort -
Tim May