I've known a lot of genuinely poor folks (even met the economic criteria at one time myself) who do not CHOOSE crime. Folks who do? "Rehabilitation" would involve more than any government can offer, IMO.
I'd rather reform the prison system by reforming the criminal justice system. For example, I'd rather put all the politicians and federal LEOs inflictinghavoc on our society with the fake "War on Drugs" on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones. Why? Because there is no legitimate power for the federal government to be involved in regulating drug use apart from interdiction at borders. States might well have the legitimate authority to regulate such things, but if the federal government REQUIRED an Amendment to the Constitution (the 18th, REPEALED by the 21st) to forbid the manufacture, distribution, import, sale or use of ONE drug, where does it get the authority to do so with the whole range of drugs lumped in under the fake "War on Drugs"? (Actually, only from the bloviations of lying politicians and complicit judges) And all those in prison on federal charges of drug abuse? Unconstitutionally persecuted.
Note: I don't use any drugs apart from an OTC allergy pill and a BP med, nor do I think folks who use mind-altering drugs deserve anything but to reap the FULL effects of their self-abuse (with NO help from society whatsoever: they make their own choices and should be held fully and completely responsible for them, paying full price for what they do both to themselves and others. No, "poor addicted druggie" card to play, as if they had no choice in what they did)
The biggest problem with our prisons,with the entire criminal justice system in this country, is the rapid growth of anarcho-tyranny: government sponsored abuse of common folks (often putting folks in prison for the stupidest and cruelest reasons having nothing to do with either justice or protecting other citizens from outlawry) and the *wink-wink, nod-nod* given to actually getting outlaws out of society.
Prison should be for real punishment of real crime. Rehabilitation? Dream on.
"...the real cause is poverty"?
ReplyDeleteI've known a lot of genuinely poor folks (even met the economic criteria at one time myself) who do not CHOOSE crime. Folks who do? "Rehabilitation" would involve more than any government can offer, IMO.
I'd rather reform the prison system by reforming the criminal justice system. For example, I'd rather put all the politicians and federal LEOs inflictinghavoc on our society with the fake "War on Drugs" on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones. Why? Because there is no legitimate power for the federal government to be involved in regulating drug use apart from interdiction at borders. States might well have the legitimate authority to regulate such things, but if the federal government REQUIRED an Amendment to the Constitution (the 18th, REPEALED by the 21st) to forbid the manufacture, distribution, import, sale or use of ONE drug, where does it get the authority to do so with the whole range of drugs lumped in under the fake "War on Drugs"? (Actually, only from the bloviations of lying politicians and complicit judges) And all those in prison on federal charges of drug abuse? Unconstitutionally persecuted.
Note: I don't use any drugs apart from an OTC allergy pill and a BP med, nor do I think folks who use mind-altering drugs deserve anything but to reap the FULL effects of their self-abuse (with NO help from society whatsoever: they make their own choices and should be held fully and completely responsible for them, paying full price for what they do both to themselves and others. No, "poor addicted druggie" card to play, as if they had no choice in what they did)
The biggest problem with our prisons,with the entire criminal justice system in this country, is the rapid growth of anarcho-tyranny: government sponsored abuse of common folks (often putting folks in prison for the stupidest and cruelest reasons having nothing to do with either justice or protecting other citizens from outlawry) and the *wink-wink, nod-nod* given to actually getting outlaws out of society.
Prison should be for real punishment of real crime. Rehabilitation? Dream on.
The current Canadian government is unfortunately headed down the same road as the US vis-a-vis incarceration.
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