[Silver]

How about making prisons self sustaining so they aren't a burden on the tax payers?

How?

You're going to run into trouble with two groups of people...first, the prison guards and the prison industry in general. They like the way it is now. Lots o' drug offenders means lot o' jobs. Reforming laws where the harm from the offence is on the offender would create a large drop off in the amount of prisoners and hence money that goes into the system.

Second, the business community. Prison industries have had trouble with this, and for good reason. It's kind of hard to compete with workers making $.70 an hour. I'm sure the Republican solution to this is to get rid of minimum wage laws and bring back debtor's prisons, but I'm not sure that is an improvement...

 

[ridetoofast]

how about making them work land to grow their own food, or work textile mills to make their own clothes, christ anything but sitting on their ass watching cable tv.

 

[sanjuro]

so that monster that recently kidnapped those kids in utah or oregon or wherever it was i dont remember off the top of my head, who is also very likely tied to some other gruesome acts against children,
you are going to sit there and tell me HE deserves to LIVE???
someone who kidnapped, and REPEATEDLY raped a LITTLE girl.

he deserves to live? that is rich.

Well, to counter, there have been people executed who were innocent.

I don't think a person like this should see the light of day every again, but a death sentence won't stop the next child killer either.

 

[Damn True]

5 hours and counting to room temp.

 

[sanjuro]

5 hours and counting to room temp.

Reminds me of Johnny Cash's "25 minutes to go"...

 

[ridetoofast]

i don't listen to him often enough but every time i do im pleasantly surprised at how much i dig his stuff

 

[Changleen]

How?

You're going to run into trouble with two groups of people...first, the prison guards and the prison industry in general. They like the way it is now. Lots o' drug offenders means lot o' jobs. Reforming laws where the harm from the offence is on the offender would create a large drop off in the amount of prisoners and hence money that goes into the system.

Second, the business community. Prison industries have had trouble with this, and for good reason. It's kind of hard to compete with workers making $.70 an hour. I'm sure the Republican solution to this is to get rid of minimum wage laws and bring back debtor's prisons, but I'm not sure that is an improvement...

Aside from clearing the issues of instituational resistance, you could allow private companies to 'project manage' groups of prisoners for a small charge, then apply a slightly higher tax rate to these companies to compensate for the low wage advantage. You could have projects like road building, sewer cleaning, tunnelling...

 

[Silver]

Reminds me of Johnny Cash's "25 minutes to go"...

Or "The Mercy Seat"

Maybe more approriate for Tookie.

 

[blt2ride]

so that monster that recently kidnapped those kids in utah or oregon or wherever it was i dont remember off the top of my head, who is also very likely tied to some other gruesome acts against children,
you are going to sit there and tell me HE deserves to LIVE???
someone who kidnapped, and REPEATEDLY raped a LITTLE girl.

he deserves to live? that is rich.[/QUOTE]

I know who you're talking about. He was linked to the death of a child in the Riverside, CA area in 1996. Not only does this guy deserve to die, but he deserves a painful death. Even someone who doesn't believe in capital punishment has to admit that this dude deserves to be executed. There is only one way to ensure that society is safe from someone like him--he needs to be removed.

 

[Damn True]

I haven't seen this mentioned yet (feel free to delete if it has).

Interesting tidbit regarding the "legacy" of Tookie and his anti-crime/non-violence message.

It seems that the Nobel Peace Prize nominee has a couple of sons. The first, also named Stanley Williams is currently in Susanville (max security pen in far northern CA) on a 1994 murder rap. and the second son, Lafayette Jones who is a registered sex offender, was as of Nov 15th being sought in LA on alleged sexual assault.

IMO, it seems the efficacy of Tookie's "Dont do like I did" message is in question.

 

[Kopiklokoli]

Although it is a little late to be talking about this, (14 min before his murder) I would say that putting him to death is a big mistake. Not only have you murdered a man who has, I believe truly reformed, you are essentially displaying that it is impossible to attain clemency. If a man who has spent what about 15 years in prison trying to get out a message of non violence can't get clemency, who can? Why not let him spend the rest of his life in prison and continue to let him preach non-violence?

 

[skatetokil]

You know, I think we need to take a page from the british empire's book. we simply incarcerate and kill an impractical number of people. instead, we should just send all the violent criminals to some desolate place far away where they cant **** with us. suggestions for possible locations? france? north dakota?

 

[rooftest]

Although it is a little late to be talking about this, (14 min before his murder) I would say that putting him to death is a big mistake. Not only have you murdered a man who has, I believe truly reformed, you are essentially displaying that it is impossible to attain clemency. If a man who has spent what about 15 years in prison trying to get out a message of non violence can't get clemency, who can? Why not let him spend the rest of his life in prison and continue to let him preach non-violence?

I think you're missing the point - his sentance was death, not "if you get 'reformed' you can live."

Kinda like if I stole a car and got sentanced to 5 years, then started bitching and moaning after 1 year that they won't let me out because "I'm reformed." I even wrote a book on "why not to steal cars."

 

[Reactor]

Aside from clearing the issues of instituational resistance, you could allow private companies to 'project manage' groups of prisoners for a small charge, then apply a slightly higher tax rate to these companies to compensate for the low wage advantage. You could have projects like road building, sewer cleaning, tunnelling...

One of the biggest hurdles to "prisoner employment" is risk. Most courts have video conferencing systems and use them to save on the cost and risk of moving prisoners around for routine hearings, motions, probation/pretrial officer/attorney visits. Any time the prisoner leaves the prison the risk of escape goes up, combine that with tools, most of which make pretty good improvised weapons...you get the picture. If employment takes place outside prison, it wouldn't be acceptable to most law enforcement officials and the public at large.

On the other hand, most of the jobs you can do in prison are pretty marginal. The increased cost of "supervising" the prisoners usually cancels out any profit. On the other hand I saw a lot of baskets at Ikea......

The real travesty is the way we confine people of minor drug crimes. We allow alcohol, but not other drugs? We allow tobacco, but not marijuana? We confine users for years in prison, instead of getting them help in kicking their addiction...maybe I'm getting skeptical in my old age...but it doesn't seem to add up.

We make helmet, seatbelt and airbag laws, but continue to allow bars to operate producing a situation that is sure to cause drunk drivers...drivers responsible for almost half of all motor vehicle deaths? If people were allowed to smoke MJ,tobacco or drink at home, where they are less likely to drive and kill someone, and got rid of bars would it be that bad? We could allow restaurants to sell a couple of glasses or wine or beer with a meal..just eliminate the places people go only to drink. We have less people in prison, they'd contribute to society and pay taxes, instead of consuming them, and a lot fewer drunks on the road.

I know this is tangential, but does anyone else think our system is illogical? It goes farther than that even....We glorify violence in television shows, but try to deny sex exists. You can show someone getting their brains blown out and splatted on a wall, but if two genital-lessTeam America puppets have sex, the film threatened with an NC-17?????

 

[Brian HCM#1]

Although it is a little late to be talking about this, (14 min before his murder) I would say that putting him to death is a big mistake. Not only have you murdered a man who has, I believe truly reformed, you are essentially displaying that it is impossible to attain clemency. If a man who has spent what about 15 years in prison trying to get out a message of non violence can't get clemency, who can? Why not let him spend the rest of his life in prison and continue to let him preach non-violence?

Of course he's reformed, he was behind bars, what else is there to do? If his murder was for killing other gang members, then maybe I could see letting him live. But robbery & murder of strangers? No way, you gotta pay the piper.

 

[blt2ride]

Of course he's reformed, he was behind bars, what else is there to do? If his murder was for killing other gang members, then maybe I could see letting him live. But robbery & murder of strangers? No way, you gotta pay the piper.

To be honest, he was like everyone else in prision: 1) He found God. 2) He was reformed. 3) He was innocent. You're right, he killed four innocent people, who were just living their lives.

If Tookie was really reformed, he would have expressed remorse for his crimes, he never did that. He wasn't reformed--just desperate.

 

[LordOpie]

How about making prisons self sustaining so they aren't a burden on the tax payers?

They tried that horrible experiment and we wound up with vegimite, ValveBouncer, Olivia Newton-John, and Midnight Oil.

 

[Silver]

They tried that horrible experiment and we wound up with vegimite, ValveBouncer, Olivia Newton-John, and Midnight Oil.

That's a low blow.

Midnight Oil isn't that bad...

 

[Westy]

Midnight Oil isn't that bad...

They put on one hell of a good live show.

 

[Tattooo]

Took rode the needle at 1:20 this AM.
And the world is a better place.