Crime: Why does anyone even bother?

[gritsar]

Unfortunately we don't get to practice an eye for an eye in this country.

Nope, you murder someone we have to worry about your rights (give me a freakin break

). We have to provide you with all the comforts of home, sans freedom, at the taxpayers expense. If you get the death sentence and it's finally carried out, after years and years of appeals, we have to do it in a nice, PC, painless way.

How different might the violent crime rates in this country be if every town had a hanging tree and a large supply of sturdy rope.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Yup! Was watching a lock-up show the other day... they were interviewing a prisioner that killed his ex wife and 3 kids...
He admitted to the crime, said he wasnt sorry for it either, he just was getting back at his wife and didnt want her to have the kids..(something like that).. and WANTED the death sentence, cause he didnt want to spend the rest of his life in jail...he'd just rather die.. but NOT because he was remorseful of his murdering his children..
... hes been on death row for YEARS... hes NOT appealing it or anything either! He said they PROMISED me that it would happen THIS year.... and here i still am...
Well see if they finally do it NEXT year...
Even HE was disgusted with the system..

 

[mama24]

I actually used to love watching the original CSI. My dh and I had just as much fun making fun of the lab rats getting instant results as we did with the story line.

We're both analytical chemists. It's freaking hilarious when they put their samples (usually in the wrong type of vial b/c that one looks cooler) on the machine and BAM! seconds later the results print out! Not only do their results print out in an instant, but they always tell them exactly what the scientists are looking at. Not how it works, but amusing. It is kind of annoying that b/c of these shows a lot of people think that's how it really works. In reality, you put a sample into most chemistry instruments, it will only tell you if exactly what you're looking for is there or not. Not only that, but it takes a while, most runs on something like a GC or HPLC are 40min to 12 hours long. If the crime lab is lucky, they'll have a GC-MS or LC-MS that WILL give them a better idea of what the unknowns they have are, but it won't tell them for sure what it is. Mass spec (the MS part) tells you what the molecular weight of whatever you're looking at is, and also of what the molecular weights of fragments of it are. Based on how it fragments, you can get a better idea of what it could be, but you get a list of possibles, not a definite answer.

I don't know much about DNA, I'm not a biochemist.

I do know it takes at least several hours to look at a DNA sample, though.

And most states, cities, etc, don't have the kind of funding needed to have enough people running these tests. There's usually a several month backlog of tests that need to be run, depending on how much money the lab has to pay enough people and have enough equipment. High priority stuff takes precedence. So if some Senator or CEO or someone like that is murdered, their case will be pushed ahead of all the poor people who were murdered months ago that no one really seems to care about.

 

[mom'sfolly]

This is why we don't need a hanging tree in every town, and a good supply of rope.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Browse-Profiles.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulia,_Texas

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchstats.html

 

[gritsar]

mom'sfolly :

This is why we don't need a hanging tree in every town, and a good supply of rope.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Browse-Profiles.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulia,_Texas

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchstats.html

A drop in the bucket compared to the ones that never get caught. And may I remind everyone that those people weren't convicted by the cops or the state. In most cases they were convicted by a jury of their peers.​

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:
The "cops" have saved my butt more times than I can count on one hand. I have the utmost respect for them all. Yes, there are always a couple of bad apples, usually easy to spot. But those folks, men and women, risk their lives daily. For YOU. Show them respect.

The judicial system is not perfect. I agree with Welsummer, why on earth do people risk their freedom? Mostly because they lack common sense and education, IMO. And then there are the influences of peer groups, drugs, poor upbringings- well, it comes down to common sense and education again.

 

[JustAChickenLittle&More]

Robin, I watched that Essa case too. What a moron huh?

 

[arabianequine]

Quote:
Yup! Was watching a lock-up show the other day... they were interviewing a prisioner that killed his ex wife and 3 kids...
He admitted to the crime, said he wasnt sorry for it either, he just was getting back at his wife and didnt want her to have the kids..(something like that).. and WANTED the death sentence, cause he didnt want to spend the rest of his life in jail...he'd just rather die.. but NOT because he was remorseful of his murdering his children..
... hes been on death row for YEARS... hes NOT appealing it or anything either! He said they PROMISED me that it would happen THIS year.... and here i still am...
Well see if they finally do it NEXT year...
Even HE was disgusted with the system..

Sounds like he should of killed himself too but could not get it done himself.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Yup! Was watching a lock-up show the other day... they were interviewing a prisioner that killed his ex wife and 3 kids...
He admitted to the crime, said he wasnt sorry for it either, he just was getting back at his wife and didnt want her to have the kids..(something like that).. and WANTED the death sentence, cause he didnt want to spend the rest of his life in jail...he'd just rather die.. but NOT because he was remorseful of his murdering his children..
... hes been on death row for YEARS... hes NOT appealing it or anything either! He said they PROMISED me that it would happen THIS year.... and here i still am...
Well see if they finally do it NEXT year...
Even HE was disgusted with the system..

Sounds like he should of killed himself too but could not get it done himself.

Cowardly... he wants the EASY death the state gives you....

 

[elizabethbinary]

Quote:
I disagree. You can tell a lot about the human condition by the way they treat their lowest common denominator. It's why I got into prison health - the 'comforts of home' is a laughable comment. Prison isn't terribly challenging (and prisoners say this, just keep your nose clean) but it isn't particularly home-like either. A lot of the things that get taken away from prisons (like television) actually CAUSE more crime because the criminals become bored and destructive, like children. The reason I took a particulart interest in prison diets is because I found they were feeding prisoners things that were proven to cause an increase in crime rate.

All these things people want to take away from criminals (some who have done MINOR crimes) are the things that give them a higher chance of reformation. Unless we want to shut them away for every day and pay 200k a year in taxes each, we're going to have to work on reformation. Created bored obese criminals and putting them in a room to learn off each other for five years and then sending them into the world where nobody will give the a job because of their record... will only cause more crime. We can agree on that much, I'm sure.