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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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So I came up with a solution the other day regarding theft, and stealing in general. I'm sick and tired of repeat offenders, who steal for whatever reason - it's cool, they "need" what they are stealing, they are just flat out greedy, whatever. I think they are basically dogshit.
That said, my solution is simple:
The first time anyone is caught stealing (above the age of, say, 16) and convicted, they receive an automatic sentence of a year in a medium security prison, with no possibility of parole. The second offense results in 5 years in maximum security prison, and the third offense results in life in prison.
Personally, I think this would send a pretty powerful message to those who think stealing is OK - either don't do it, or go down hard. For those who can't or won't stop, then that problem is solved by locking them up and throwing away the key.
We can free up the prison space by pardoning all non-violent drug offenders.
I'm actually serious about this, by the way - if anyone can point out a moral problem with my solution, please do so, because I can't find one.
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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
quote:
The first time anyone is caught stealing (above the age of, say, 16) and convicted, they receive an automatic sentence of a year in a medium security prison, with no possibility of parole. The second offense results in 5 years in maximum security prison, and the third offense results in life in prison. |
You and Vesayan need to hook up, have a few drinks, a couple of laughs.  |
In CA, David Floyd's system is alot closer to reality then you think, where people have been sent to prison for life for stealing bicycles and other minor thefts. It's actually more lenient, because if you steal something valuable enough on the first enough you will do alot more then one year in jail.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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Tuberski,
quote:
A fair number of the non-violent drug offenders are also thieves. |
Fair enough.
Shi,
quote:
Are you going to make any distinguishment based on the amount of money stolen, or are you going to send someone to prison because they didn't return a pen they borrowed from the library, or because they swiped a stick of gum? |
If someone is convicted of a theft, robbery, or burglary related offense, no, I'm not making a distinction.
No one is going to go through the trouble to prosecute someone for stealing a pen from the library. Not that it isn't stealing, but my plan relies on convictions, not hypothetical situations.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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quote:
In CA, David Floyd's system is alot closer to reality then you think, where people have been sent to prison for life for stealing bicycles and other minor thefts. It's actually more lenient, because if you steal something valuable enough on the first enough you will do alot more then one year in jail. |
And I fail to see a problem with that. Oh, there may be a Constitutional argument about cruel and unusual punishment, but that isn't what I'm talking about.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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quote:
They could if a person was despied in a community and they were looking for an opportunity to send them away. Say you had a community which hated Libertarians, and someone with Badnarik T-shirt forgets to return a Pen he took, and the person he took it from catches the Libertarian as he leaves. The Libertarian is arrested, prosecuted before a hostile jury in this anti-Libertarian community, and off to prison the Libertrian goes. |
Fine. Don't steal pens. I don't make a habit of it.
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I don't see why you limit it to Stealing or draw any distinction between stealings. I think California has the right idea here: Three felony convictions should equal life in prison. |
Oh, I certainly agree, with the caveat that non-violent drug, prostitution, and gambling offenses are essentially victimless, and thus not actually crimes in the moral sense of the word, so I won't support a system that punishes non-violent offenders of victimless crimes.
Other than that, though, certainly I am for such a system, I am simply just talking about stealing right now.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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Well, the odds of getting caught, prosecuted, and convicted are much greater, of course. You run the same risk either way, but the chances of actually being punished escalate along with the crime. Realistically, you probably won't get caught if you steal a pack of gum. If you knock over a jewelry store, you will almost certainly be caught.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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quote:
You could do it by mistake. But more to the point, it is completely out of proportion to send someone to prison for minor thefts. |
Yes, you could do it by mistake, which is why we have a system of trial by jury. Librarians also aren't going to call the cops over a missing pen. Not gonna happen.
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But more to the point, it is completely out of proportion to send someone to prison for minor thefts. |
Why? Otherwise, they will just keep stealing.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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quote:
They could if they hated you. |
I suppose. It'd be tough to prove, if the cops even bothered investigating.
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With Minor thefts, the damage done by them isn't enough to warrant life-in-prison as a penalty. |
The issue isn't the damage in that particular case, the issue is the habitual nature of the offense. Why let someone steal for the rest of their life? Why not just lock them up?
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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Unfortunately, California is, in most ways, extremely left wing.
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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:33
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Of, course, the article linked to by the wiki article seems to provide a pretty good argument against CA's way:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID...13-060859-2341r
quote:
Study: 3-strikes laws increase homicides
By Lou Marano
Published 9/16/2002 11:49 AM
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- "Three-strikes" sentencing laws actually increase homicide rates, a study by University of Alabama criminologists shows.
Although it might seem that such "tough-on-crime" legislation would increase public safety, the opposite has been found to be true. Felons who calculate they will receive the same punishment for murder as they would for having a third strike, kill their victims to avoid detection and police officers to avoid apprehension.
Many police organizations oppose "three-strikes" laws for this reason, said senior author John Sloan III, an associate professor of Justice Studies at the Birmingham campus.
The article "Unintended Consequences of Politically Popular Sentencing Policy: The Homicide-Promoting Effects of 'Three Strikes' in U.S. Cities (1980-1999)," written with assistant professors Tomislav V. Kovandzic and Lynee M. Vieraitis, appears in the current issue of Criminology & Public Policy.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, policy makers facing intense public pressure to "do something" about the high rate of violent crime, responded by strengthening laws targeting repeat offenders. Between 1993 and 1996, 25 states and the federal government enacted laws known by the baseball metaphor "three strikes and you're out." These laws generally reduce the discretion of judges by mandating severe prison sentences for third felony convictions.
The authors warn that though this intuitively might seem like effective policy, intuition alone isn't a sound basis for judging what will or won't work, at what cost, and with what side effects.
The Alabama criminologists replicated the results of "The Lethal Effects of Three-Strikes Laws," by Thomas B. Marvell and Carlisle E. Moody, which appeared in the January 2001, issue of the Journal of Legal Studies.
"According to Marvell and Moody ... criminals facing lengthy prison terms upon conviction for a third strike may take steps to reduce the chances of being caught, prosecuted, and convicted by changing their modus operandi," Sloan and his colleagues wrote. "That is, during the commission of an ordinarily non-lethal offense, an offender may decide to kill victims, witnesses or police officers to reduce the chance of apprehension."
Marvell and Moody looked at data by state.
"They found that states with three-strikes laws had significantly higher rates of homicide than states that did not during a roughly comparable period," Sloan told United Press International.
Sloan and his colleagues looked at data by city. They divided the 188 largest U.S. cities, those with populations of 100,000 or more, into two groups -- those in states with three-strikes laws and those in states without such laws.
The researchers then collected data on homicide from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports from 1980 to 1999. These data were collected from time periods both before and after the laws were passed.
"That's to control for any possible trends than might have begun prior to the passage of the laws that could have affected the crime rates afterward," Sloan said.
The criminologists also controlled for seven socio-demographic variables that previous research has shown to be important correlates of homicide: percent of people who are African-American, percent of the population aged 18 to 24, percent of female-headed households, percent of the population living below the poverty line, income inequality, percent of the population living alone, and prison population (a negative correlate).
Additionally, the researchers controlled for a number of crime variables.
"If, for example, robbery was going up, that could cause homicide to go up," Sloan said.
The results obtained by the Alabama criminologists were almost identical to those of Marvell and Moody. During the year in which a three-strikes law was passed (which the authors define as the "short term"), homicide rates increased, on average, by 13 percent to 14 percent. The cumulative effect from 1980 to 1999 (the "long term") was an increase in homicide rates in cities in the three-strikes states from 16 percent to 24 percent.
"These laws not only don't work, they increase homicides," Sloan told UPI.
Sloan said most crime control policy arises from knee-jerk reactions to particularly heinous offenses that, by definition, are not the norm. But because these crimes generate so much attention, pressure is brought to bear on legislators to "do something."
It's politically expedient to impose severe measures rather than looking at other kinds of solutions, the professor said, and too often the costs and unintended consequences of "get-tough" laws are not considered. |
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10-06-2005 09:34
ACK!
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