I imagine that they would further divide themselves into smaller gangs, even when segregated.

>> ^chilaxe:

Wouldn't it be more humane to segregate them to prevent gang fights and killings?
I guess that wouldn't be sufficiently politically correct, and while saving lives, would expose them to lawsuits.

>> ^NetRunner:
What makes it right for you to take a life, when the reason you're taking a life was that someone else took a life first? Doesn't that seem paradoxical?
It ain't QED, but it's persuasive.


I suppose that's where you get to the philosophical side. The Dr. Heller quote just strikes me as too simple and very general. There are persuasive arguements on both sides. Innocent people can actually be put to death. No system is perfect. We can continue to improve methods for preventing the conviction of innocent people, but it will most likely never be 100% accurate. There are long time periods and lengthy appeal processes between the sentencing and actual carrying out of an execution to allow for new evidence to be revealed, but sometimes that fails as well.

I personally see the death penalty as something that should be maintained, but in a different way. Not for cost saving reasons, but for some of the reasons Rottenseed listed. I think some people are so far beyond the capability to live in a civil society that the only answer is to lock them away permanently or destroy them. Is it any better to have people locked away with life sentences without hope of parole? Rehabilitation would be nice, but I believe it's just as naive to think every prisoner can be changed as it is to believe everyone that will be sentenced to death is guilty.

Look at prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood. I can't see any reason why they shouldn't all just be put to death. This is a prison gang responsible for over 1/4 of all murders in the federal prison system. These are people, some with life sentences, that operate like an organized crime family. That is the ideal scenario for the death penalty. The guilty and already convicted that prove their complete inability to reform. To answer your original question, to put those men to death is not paradoxical to me at all. They are killers that do so by choice. An execution is carried out to stop them from killing again. That's a 25% reduction in prison murders right there.

QM, WTF are you going on about this time? And WTF does the price of gas have to do with it?

Here's a few clues about what they are complaining about, not Dan himself but some of what I consider the more valid racial complaints based on what I've seen. You're more than welcome to try to "disprove" it but given that it comes from our own records that seems unlikely.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_comparative_intl.pdf

That's a bit out of date but is the record of our rate of prison growth from the mid 1920's to pretty recently. Prison population stayed fairly consistent in line with population growth for decades then explosive growth with the drug war which hasn't stopped yet.

And these are some of the results of that growth.

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

And in case you assume they really earned it, not really, or not as much as it seems. Some of the stats behind the stats then I'll try to explain how it happens.

http://www.idpi.us/resources/factsheets/mm_factsheet.htm

As that shows they are just 15% of the nations drug users which isn't far off from their portion of the population as a whole, about 14%, but they make up 37% of those arrested for drug violations, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense.

Ok, let's look at part of WHY that happens.

Take a neighborhood which didn't start off with people much different than in any other, but they lived in a crowded area. Pass safe school zones and such and the effect turned out to be that they can overlap in places... in the suburbs a kid spends little time in one so spends little time at risk unless they do something at school. In the city they might spend most of their life in one and not even know it much of the time. Where the kid in the suburbs has options such as treatment that mandatory took the options away in the city. The 100:1 disparity, yes 100:1, between the way we sentence crack and powder cocaine didn't help any either.

That type of thing starts us off, then come the politicians and such. Someone notices that we've got way too many felonies for a small area and orders a crackdown without considering what caused the spike in felonies so it's designated a high crime area. So now they are not only getting hit with the safe school zones but increased enforcement as well, everyone is a suspect and they start to get treated that way. Prison doesn't do good things for people so kids who went in with a bad habit come out criminals, often with gang ties since it's not easy to survive alone inside and not easy to leave them when you get out.

Now the neighborhood is being hit by two sides, the cops on one hand and the new prison gangs on the other, and eventually what used to be a decent area starts to look like too many of our streets do today.

If you want to get some details on it ask whatever you'd like, if you'd like to hear it from law enforcement themselves try LEAP and some other groups, they are well aware of the situation and trying to help fix it too.

One last thought here, this isn't specifically racial but goes to the conditions in our system in general due to overcrowding, under funding, and a number of other issues. It's a bit of reading but if you want an education that's a good start. http://www.prisoncommission.org/

Some prisons have become so overcrowded and so poor at care that we've had to have the feds take over aspects such as medical care, and NO it's not a partisan issue as some of the more simple minded would have us believe. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation, stated the following about this. “For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.”

What we're doing doesn't work and intentionally or not, yes, it has had some sharp and specific racial impacts which I'd hope like hell weren't intended. These are some of the ones I'm aware of, others who are more familiar with other areas have valid complaints as well. Assuming they just happened because we weren't paying attention so some programs had some unexpected results, then yes, Dan Charnas has an excellent point in that it would really help if we listened for a change instead of insisting we didn't mean anything so everything just MUST be alright. It's not alright and many of the problems we're dealing with today we helped to create ourselves through flawed policy.

"Imagine the impact of hard drug usage following a similar trend after legalization."

I have. We've got two parts to deal with, regulation and education. Regulation helps to control the drug damage, education is to control drug use.

The death rates would fall because first of all they'd now have regulated doses that are known to be constant from time to time and that under medical supervision. If they do get into trouble they can call for help without fear. That removes the two biggest reasons for the climb in the death rates. According to the Swiss results we should, if properly done, expect improvement in terms of crime and employment as well as homelessness. Bonus here, for every user we remove from the streets that's one less who supports the dealers, remove enough and we reduce or eliminate the dealers at least where the program is prevalent. With it prescription only and fewer dealers we've got fewer chances for a kid to run across some by accident one day so maybe less new addicts, we're reducing the problem for a change. Less attractive for kids with the Swiss, why do you assume different with ours? We're also not supporting the wrong side in Afghanistan now. That's the regulation part.

We've also got them coming to us instead of having to chase them down, here we can use the education. Canada recently did a safe injection site test where they found a higher number entering voluntary treatment when they were brought into contact with medical professionals at the site. No program has a great success rate if you follow the addicts over time, but if it's their idea your odds improve.

On the rest, mind sourcing any of that? Did use rise or fall in neighboring nations at the same time? More or less? Jail or prison time doesn't seem to solve the problem of sending messages. One thing it has offered us is these.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Worlds-most-dangerous-gang
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Aryan-Brotherhood-Documentary

The 2005 national gang threat assessment I read didn't sound too hopeful about prison gangs either, we're falling behind.

http://www.nagia.org/PDFs/2005_national_gang_threat_assessment.pdf

And strict doesn't seem to mean less use. Read this for yourself, it's easier than trying to quote it all. http://www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion1.htm

I'd agree with you, quantumushroom. Violence, murder in particular, is down over the last decade or so because law enforcement shifted from confrontation to containment but the gangs are still growing and getting more professional. Rather than get rid of the problem we've just delayed it.

As long as we've got the largest prison system in the world we'll grow prison gangs, the best way I see to limit their growth is to deprive them of recruits. Stop putting non-violent offenders in at all and isolate the truly dangerous ones from the rest. Drug war and such is what feeds this, finances it, and offers them recruits.

Anyone with an interest in gangs, prison gangs in particular, might find the following document interesting. The 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment. Fair sized PDF file so be aware.

http://www.nagia.org/PDFs/2005_national_gang_threat_assessment.pdf

The worst of them can be pretty serious, they've been known to take over prisons and kill guards who won't cooperate. Latin Kings and others have been known for that.