Good points, Redsky.

However, there hasn't been nearly enough research on the effects of rehabilitation to claim that it consistently reduces recidivism. You mention Scandinavian countries in particular. How many of those rehabilitated prisoners were guilty of violent crimes? If you want to reduce recidivism, the death penalty will offer guaranteed results.

As for the U.S.'s murder rates, they aren't the highest among first-world countries. Higher than European countries, sure, but Europe is tiny. Russia is more comparable to the size of the U.S. and it has almost double the murder rate. China claims to have a 1.0 but I'd question the reliability of any data provided by that government.

I'm also pretty sure that most criminals recognize the severity of their crimes. If they aren't insane, they'll know that jaywalking will result in a far lesser penalty than murder. What it comes down to is risk versus reward. If breaking the law is the most convenient way of getting what they want and the likelihood of them getting caught is low, they'll break the law. That's rational behavior. It's the reason why people people slow down when they see a cop on the freeway instead of speeding like they would normally do. It's the reason why people won't hesitate to download a pirated movie but would think twice before trying to steal a movie from Best Buy. If someone wants to rob a liquor store and they see a cop inside, they will most likely not rob that particular liquor store. Not all criminals are psychotic murderers. On the contrary, most criminals are perfectly sane and break the law on a regular basis. They just make sure that the risks are low enough so they don't get caught.

Severe penalties mean nothing if they aren't enforced and increasing surveillance increases the likelihood of enforcement. Increasing surveillance wouldn't be cheap but then, rehabilitating criminals isn't cheap either. Getting rid of the prison system entirely and replacing it with efficient executions (nothing overly elaborate like lethal injections) would cut costs dramatically and allow for greatly expanded surveillance and enforcement, in addition to dramatically increasing the risk for any given crime. If the penalty for speeding was death and there were more cops patrolling the roads and freeways, I guarantee 99.9% of drivers would stop speeding. There's no hard data for this, of course, but that's because no country has ever attempted it.

Venezuela currently has over ten times the murder rate of the U.S. It was the first country in the world to abolish the death penalty. Now, the country is riddled with corruption. Laws have no meaning because they are not enforced so criminals do whatever they want without fear of reprisal.

I read your first post... and your second which for the most part was like reading the first one again, although without the zeal for rapid executions. Speaking of replying and not reading...

Never did get an answer to how many innocent people you'd be willing to sacrifice to see that "justice' was enacted that much faster?.

What your argument has lacked in its entirety is any sort of facts beyond what you seem supremely confident would work.

Correct me where i'm wrong... i'm genuinely asking here... Lets get the whole list of what exactly your advocating... as the solution to solving the prison problem.

Rapid executions... i'm assuming some kind of limit to appeals and time to issue them? (despite over 140 people being exonerated since 1973)

Dramatic increase in government surveillance... Because you know... its not like a right to privacy was one of the founding principles of this country.

Forced Sterilizations?... I'm really curious how else you'd enforce your breeding policy... or would you simply lockup the parents if they didn't meet the criteria you think appropriate, and had a child anyway? May fine them into oblivion?

Dramatically stricter sentencing?.. because lets be honest those jaywalkers have had it too easy for too long!... guessing this means you'd be advocating dramatic bulding projects... more prisons... more guards... MUCH more from the sounds of it. I'm sure companies like Geo Group would LOVE to provide that service... they're doing just awesome so far!...

And finally prison conditions... despite it being extraordinarily expensive to warehouse people for profit like we are... Doing just a TERRIBLE job of doing it and already sending an unprecedented number of people to prison... you want more.. because THAT will deter crime.

You want conditions to be 'adequate' yes? Indoor-plumbing... clean water... etc... just not TOO adequate lest they get to comfortable at 'casa de prison' system and never want to leave!...So things like AC or 'clean food' might be optional?... and of course... they should be billed for any treatment?.. .maybe have to 'work off the cost'?

Did i miss anything?

@Jerykk

Wouldn't a much better way to get the crime rate to go down be, oh I don't know...not criminalizing illnesses like substance addiction and instead getting those people the medical/psychological help they need?

Or maybe--and I'm just going out on a limb here--constructing a more equitable society so that people don't feel so disenfranchised that crime seems like a better way to accrue wealth than slaving at some minimum wage job where you'll never actually make enough to afford anything above the subsistence level?

Maybe we might want to consider these kinds of suggestions before we start executing people for jaywalking or sterilizing people "unqualified" for parenthood.

Also, I love how your answer to the problem of too many American's being incarcerated is more surveillance and enforcement so we can catch more people and put them in prison. I'm amazed no one has thought of this solution. Bravo.

You should read my complete post before posting reactionary statements. I never said current prison conditions are ideal. I said prison isn't working as a deterrent to criminals. As I said before, there are three potential ways of fixing that: make the punishment more severe, increase surveillance and enforcement or make prison safer and more comfortable in an attempt to rehabilitate criminals. The first two options are practically guaranteed to produce results. People litter, jaywalk, pirate and break traffic laws all the time because they know they can get away with it and even if they get caught, the punishment will be relatively minor. Conversely, it's much harder to get away with major crimes and the punishments are far more severe, which is why major crimes are committed far less often than minor ones. History has proven that fear is a very effective deterrent. Convince people that there are significant consequences for their actions and they'll think twice before doing something stupid.

Rehabilitation is less proven. If prison were comfortable, safe and enlightening, it could reduce crime rates as criminals are taught the error of their ways and spread their new-found wisdom amongst other potential criminals. Or it could increase crime rates as prisons become a refuge where the desperate get free food, shelter, healthcare and other conveniences.

The ideal solution would be to ensure that only qualified parents are allowed to reproduce. The majority of criminals are the result of poor upbringings, with negligent, ignorant and/or abusive parents unwilling or unable to train their children to become productive members of society. In an ideal world, there would actually be prerequisites to parenthood. Aspiring parents would need to meet certain criteria like minimum income, education and a clean record. If these requirements were somehow enforceable, crime rates would drop drastically.

What's really terrifying is how often people make silly Nazi analogies on the internet.

Our prison system is broken but not because of how it treats prisoners. It's broken because it's not acting as an effective deterrent. The whole point of prison (or any other punishment) is to deter people from committing crimes. Our current prison system isn't accomplishing that.

If we replaced prison with immediate execution (no more sitting on death row for years), crime rates would probably go down. If we increased surveillance and enforcement, crime rates would probably go down. If we made prison nicer and tried to rehabilitate instead of punish criminals, would crime rates go down? Good question. If I knew that prison would be a safe and comfortable experience, I'd definitely be more inclined to break the law. If my current living conditions were bad enough, I might even be inclined to break the law just to gain the benefits of such a prison. Free food, free shelter, free healthcare. Not a bad deal if you don't have to worry about being beaten, raped or killed. I'd love to see what would happen if all the prisons in the U.S. were as posh as the Halden Prison in Norway.

Both sides have conclusive proof that it was the other side, so... Aliens?

Jokes aside, if it really was a Gadfly, there has to have been radar activity specific to that type of SAM. Given the ongoing military activity in that zone, someone must have recorded it, be it a ground station or an airborne surveillance platform. Everone's going to try to spin the flow of information to their use, so we might not get to see it for a few decades, but still...

If you're still interested in emerging details of the NSA/GCHQ story, keep reading. If not, feel free to delete the comment.

As you might have heard, a parliamentary investigative committee was set up in Germany to shed some light on at least some of the claims made by the press. They don't want to pay too close attention to it, given that our own intelligence services are just as bad, but that's another discussion.

Today, two expert witnesses were supposed to testify, William Binney and Thomas Drake, Everything was to be broadcast, as is custom, but they decided not to broadcast it after all. Given that recent interviews with both Binney and Drake indicated that they were planning to reveal quite a lot about shady cooperation between NSA/GCHQ and our own services, a set of rather embarassing details might have emerged. What a coincidence... [see footnotes]

Additionally, one of our public broadcasters, in cooperation with Jacob Appelbaum, revealed a piece of source code from a selector of XKeyscore. Hardcoded within, for some reason, we find the IPs of all servers running a TOR directory authority, once of them owned and maintained by a German student. So now we have the names of two German citizens under surveillance, and it'll be significantly harder for our Attorney General to find ways not to open up an invenstigation into espionage.

Also part of the revealed code was a confirmation that using TOR gets you labeled as an "extremist" and your ass is now amongst those whose activities will be monitored, constantly. A Google search for it is enough to land on their shit list, same for Tails.

That's the day so far, and it's not even 1pm.

Edit #1: Binney and Drake are considered witnesses, their statements are exempt from broadcast/streaming. Opposition forced a vote on it, government prevailed, no stream available.

Edit #2: I'll provide a summary of the juicy bits once they are done.

Edit #3: Members of the US Congress present, curious to see some (yet unmentioned) names.

Edit #4: Well, 0:20 and they're finally done for the day. Here's a summary of today's session, though the source can sometimes be a bit of a mouthpiece for the government.

Baby steps: ISPs take GCHQ to court in UK over mass surveillance, Chaos Computer Club files complaint against GCHQ

At 8:10ish - what the hell kind of rentacop is that and why should anyone believe his utter speculation on the future impact of surveillance cameras? What an irrelevant bit of footage - some random plod who happened to join the police force in the 80s and end up in the camera room telling us about the complex civil and social implications of a spy network on a populace? Get fucked, give me a university professor at least.

One point Snowden missed the opportunity of making (or just made too poorly for it to be noticeable) is the one about the paradox implicit in the "surveillance which aims to protect our freedom" *becomes* "surveillance that strips us of our freedom."

Intentionally or not, I think Snowden nails it here as far as why these mass surveillance programs exist:

"or are we trying to throw money at a magic solution..."

The key here being "throw money," not the search for a magic solution. Who stands on the receiving end of the money "thrown?" Identify them and you identify the source and purpose of these programs.

Wasn't saying any of this above panty-knotters, merely an intonation of things to come already in place,innocently served to the masses to remind us all that we're watching you,no where to run or hide from total real-time surveillance.

Also, a serious waste of technology for the sake of advertisement, misappropriation of funds with a view to instilling in the poopulation the reality of technology as a means of identification and eye-in-the-sky,one very goddamn light-post for your....safety. Bullshit.

You could use a $30,000 pair of bi-noc-u-lars that will tell you what type of plane you're focusing on with real-time heads-up of tail numbers ,points of origin and destination,etc....You can't buy one a gadget shop though now can ya??

No chaos, it's a serious problem that money is wasted on advertising when it could be used to oust assholes from power though....

There are real and serious problems with surveillance, data gathering etc.

This isn't one of them.

You're gonna call this surveillance? Really? If you want to see a map showing the flight path of the plane your friend/family member/colleague is on, in real-time, you can just go on the web and bring it up. It's been that way for years. No big deal. But hey what the hell, let's spin spin spin it and see if we can get some clicks!

While we're at it, let's just call all data gathering "surveillance" until the term is all but meaningless, because the true abuses need to be even more accepted as everyday ho-hum nothing to see here folks move along.

That's a remarkably reliable surveillance system they have installed there.