high school shenanigans

[Gary Floyd 0]

C-Bacon: Look at the Zappa quote on my sig. It speaks the truth.

 

Honestly, why do we even bother to give this guy the time of day? It's like talking to a teenager.

 

You're the one who is always rushing to every C-Bacon post to call him an idiot. You're just as bad

At this point, I'm begining to become amused by his stupidity, so no.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

"Reintegration into society?" So you would be fine with a convicted murderer living next door to you?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I think this could work out. Someone steals something from me. So I kill them. I'll be treated humanely. The justice system works!

[cbacon 0]

"Reintegration into society?" So you would be fine with a convicted murderer living next door to you?

 

Once a murderer, always a murderer?

 

People can be rehabilitated, you know.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

"Reintegration into society?" So you would be fine with a convicted murderer living next door to you?

 

Once a murderer, always a murderer?

 

People can be rehabilitated, you know.

In what percentage of cases? And do the benefits outweigh the costs?

 

The larger point is again, when has this type of philosophy ever worked long term?

[cbacon 0]

Has such a philosophy been seriously implemented?

 

Even if the majority of individuals that commit violent crimes (due to mental illness) cannot be rehabilitated, we should still show empathy towards them and help them as best as we can, while at the same time protecting society.

 

Instead of quick fix punishment methods, we have to look at the root cause of why crimes are committed. Say I beat someone up. Why did I do it? What was I feeling at the time, how do I feel about it now, how do I think it made them feel, what would I say to that person if I could, etc. Mushrooms could sure help with that.

 

Here's a wiki article on Timothy Leary that I found interesting:

 

According to Leary's autobiography Flashbacks they administered LSD to 300 professors, graduate students, writers and philosophers and 75% of them reported it as being like a revelation to them and one of the most educational experiences of their lives. They also gave LSD to 200 professional religious people and 75% reported that they had the most religious experience of their lives. They administered the drug to prisoners, and after being guided through the trips by Leary and his associates, 36 prisoners allegedly turned their backs on crime. The normal recidivism rate of prisoners is about 80%, where as of the subjects involved in the project about 80% did not return to prison.

 

This is unsourced, but for what it's worth:

 

Concord Prison Experiment

 

The Concord Prison Experiment was conducted from 1961-1963 inside the walls of the Concord State Prison, a maximum-security prison for young offenders, in Concord, MA by a team of researchers at Harvard University under the direction of Timothy Leary. The original study involved the administration of psilocybin to assist group psychotherapy to 32 prisoners in an effort to reduce recidivism rates. The experiment was designed to evaluate whether the experiences produced by psilocybin could inspire prisoners to leave their antisocial lifestyles behind once they were released. How well it worked was to be judged by comparing the recidivism rate of subjects who received psilocybin with the average for other Concord inmates.

 

Records at Concord State Prison suggested that 64 per cent of the 32 subjects would return to prison within six months after parole. However, after six months, 25 per cent of those on parole had returned, six for technical parole violations and two for new offenses. These results are all the more dramatic when the correctional literature is surveyed; few short-term projects with prisoners have been effective to even a minor degree. In addition, the personality test scores indicated a measurable positive change when pre-psilocybin and post-psilocybin results were compared.

 

While these short-term effects were indeed significant, recent follow-up investigations have suggested that the long-term effects of the experiment (without the suggested counseling and support groups) were negligible. Many of the inmates involved eventually returned to their previous lifestyles at rates comparable to normally released prisoners

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Prison_Experiment

[Dobbs 3K 0]

You know what I think? I think that if you commit premeditated murdered, you've decided that you're unfit to live in society (this does not apply to the mentally deranged necessarily, before you try to pull that one out). You've lowered yourself to a subhuman level. What do we do with a dog that kills someone? We euthanize it, even though it's a stupid animal with no real thought process other than it's base instincts. I don't see why we shouldn't treat a reasoning person the same way. I do not believe in rehabilitation. The victim gets to chance to rehabilitate. Why should the criminal?

[Ripper 0]

...

 

So instead of punishing criminals we should give them LSD...

 

 

....

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

My main problem with the death penalty is that I simply don't trust the state with that level of power.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

My main problem with the death penalty is that I simply don't trust the state with that level of power.

 

Eh...we can't trust the state with a lot of things, but we let them deal with it anyway because there's no other feasible alternative, since we live in the real world and not C-Bacon's Candyland Fairytale Utopia.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

C-Bacon's Candyland Fairytale Utopia.

 

Frankly, I'd rather reside there than Invader3K's Lou Dobbs Mexican Work/Death Gulag Dystopia.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Why not go for a middle ground? I don't see what's unreasonable with saying that the death penalty is unnecessary, but also recognizing there are criminals out there who deserve to spend a minimum of 25 years in prison, and in some cases, life without the possibility of parole.

[cbacon 0]

You know what I think? I think that if you commit premeditated murdered, you've decided that you're unfit to live in society (this does not apply to the mentally deranged necessarily, before you try to pull that one out). You've lowered yourself to a subhuman level. What do we do with a dog that kills someone? We euthanize it, even though it's a stupid animal with no real thought process other than it's base instincts. I don't see why we shouldn't treat a reasoning person the same way. I do not believe in rehabilitation. The victim gets to chance to rehabilitate. Why should the criminal?

 

It would be nice if that example about the dog made any sort of sense. Again, the root cause of why crimes are committed are essential: What the motive was, what the person felt, how the felt after, etc.

 

You can't use prison or the death penalty as a deterrent, because I'm pretty sure that after killing someone you'd have a hard time living as though nothing had happened (barring mass murderers, obvz), regardless of what consequences others imposed on you.

 

There are a myriad of root causes (mostly social) that need to be looked at, unless you believe that it's human nature and that we're born with "original sin". I'd like to hear a realistic reason as to why criminals can't be rehabilitated.

 

Reactionary policies like minimum sentencing, increasing police powers, that whole three-strikes thing and capital punishment don't really deter crime but cause a huge drain on the public purse by cramming people into already over-crowded prisons. Focusing on crime prevention and rehabilitation is a more logical and cost-effective means of fighting crime.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Maybe because they don't deserve the chance at rehabilitation? Because if you kill someone, you're doing more than taking someone's life (something you have no right to do). Chances are, you're messing up a lot of people's lives, and showing that you don't deserve to live in a civilized society. The victim doesn't get a second chance, why should a murderer?

[Dr. Zaius 0]

We usually don't treat criminal like they treated their victims. It'd be hypocritical for us to say it was okay to do to them what they did to others. Even in death penalty cases, we still have a trial to prove their guilt and then multiple chances for appeals. The law treats people how they should be treated, not how they actually treated others. I cannot answer as to whether or not murderers can be rehabilitated, but I disagree with the idea that criminals should be treated a certain way because that's how their victims were treated.