Tucson Shooting

[Lawdog]

A MAIG Mayor Would Rather Have More 'Gun Control' Than Put Criminals Behind Bars

[Eyesa Horg]

Yup, the law abiding at fault again😡.

[Blackwater 53393]

Madam Mayor!! Do your job and order the prosecutors to actively request prison time for violent offenders! 
 

Demand that judges put these violent criminals in physical restraint by sentencing them to full length prison terms and stop coddling criminals!!

 

Advocate for stiffer penalties for violent crime and stop burdening law abiding citizens with ridiculous laws that prevent them from protecting themselves and their families and property.
 

Create an environment where thugs and criminals are unwelcome and are in constant jeopardy of finding themselves confronted with death or serious injury when they decide to commit violent crimes!!

[Eyesa Horg]

43 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

Advocate for stiffer penalties for violent crime and stop burdening law abiding citizens with ridiculous laws that prevent them from protecting themselves and their families and property.

From the pieces of crap you keep putting back into public 

[El Chapo]

46 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

Madam Mayor!! Do your job and order the prosecutors to actively request prison time for violent offenders! 
 

Demand that judges put these violent criminals in physical restraint by sentencing them to full length prison terms and stop coddling criminals!!

 

Advocate for stiffer penalties for violent crime and stop burdening law abiding citizens with ridiculous laws that prevent them from protecting themselves and their families and property.
 

Create an environment where thugs and criminals are unwelcome and are in constant jeopardy of finding themselves confronted with death or serious injury when they decide to commit violent crimes!!

 

We have the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world, at great expense to the taxpayers.

 

I don't think a lack of harsh punishment is the problem, in fact, there's a great deal of evidence to the contrary. 

 

Stiffer penalties do not create deterrence.  

 

Fear of victims resisting or getting caught, do.

 

Harsh punishment years after the fact does nothing and costs a ton of money.

[Blackwater 53393]

22 minutes ago, El Chapo said:

 

We have the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world, at great expense to the taxpayers.

 

I don't think a lack of harsh punishment is the problem, in fact, there's a great deal of evidence to the contrary. 

 

Stiffer penalties do not create deterrence.  

 

Fear of victims resisting or getting caught, do.

 

Harsh punishment years after the fact does nothing and costs a ton of money.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.  Much of the evidence that you refer to is at best questionable and I’m happy to see a portion of my tax money used to incarcerate violent criminals for longer periods of time. 
 

What I resent is my tax dollars being spent for capture and prosecution, only to see some wimpy judge release a violent, often multi time offender on probation, (which also costs taxpayers a ton of money) to go out and add to their criminal resume!!

 

Prison farms, chain gangs, and hard labor are NOT “cruel and unusual punishment” for someone who has committed a crime where injury or death has occurred!!!  What is cruel, (and should be considered criminal) is the victim or the victim’s family seeing these vermin allowed to go quickly back onto the streets to repeat their crimes because some namby-pamby liberal jurist believes that they will change their stripes voluntarily!!

 

And NOBODY seems to take into account the financial burden placed on victims and on taxpayers when funds have to be spent to provide care for victims who are unable to afford treatment and subsequent medical care!!

 

Finally, we tend to imprison non-violent offenders that could and probably should be sentenced to make restitution and provide public service as punishment for their offenses!  That statistic greatly skews the incarceration rate numbers in a misleading way.

[El Chapo]

6 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.  Much of the evidence that you refer to is at best questionable and I’m happy to see a portion of my tax money used to incarcerate violent criminals for longer periods of time. 
 

What I resent is my tax dollars being spent for capture and prosecution, only to see some wimpy judge release a violent, often multi time offender on probation, (which also costs taxpayers a ton of money) to go out and add to their criminal resume!!

 

Prison farms, chain gangs, and hard labor are NOT “cruel and unusual punishment” for someone who has committed a crime where injury or death has occurred!!!  What is cruel, (and should be considered criminal) is the victim or the victim’s family seeing these vermin allowed to go quickly back onto the streets to repeat their crimes because some namby-pamby liberal jurist believes that they will change their stripes voluntarily!!

 

And NOBODY seems to take into account the financial burden placed on victims and on taxpayers when funds have to be spent to provide care for victims who are unable to afford treatment and subsequent medical care!!

 

Finally, we tend to imprison non-violent offenders that could and probably should be sentenced to make restitution and provide public service as punishment for their offenses!  That statistic greatly skews the incarceration rate numbers in a misleading way.

 

It's not my opinion.  It's the result of decades of empirical research.  

 

You're arguing with a straw man about cruel and unusual and all of that.  It isn't about the criminals. It's about public safety.  Our criminal justice system is broken.  The primary cause is that people still believe that making it even more punitive than it is would create additional deterrence, which is absolutely not supported by the available evidence.

 

Effective probation is one of many reforms that could save taxpayer money and improve public safety tremendously.  The problem isn't probation, it's that probation is a joke compared to what it could be if evidence-based reforms were applied.

 

Nobody is saying that there shouldn't be prisons or that people don't deserve punishment.  The mistake in reasoning is thinking that making the law harsher without doing anything else will reduce crime.  That is almost universally untrue.  Even those who are strong believers in prison and punishment can recognize that 1) almost all people who go to prison have to return to the community and 2) sending them to a place where they become "better" criminals without a transition plan is a disaster.  For my entire life, and probably many generations before that, we have made the law harsher and harsher, with no improvement in overall public safety.

 

You can take whatever "financial burden" you want into account.  The United States has a tremendously punitive and expensive criminal justice system by any measure.  Look at it from any angle you want, just look at the data.  Any rational analysis of what we are getting versus what we are spending would show that we are wasting money that would be better spent with a different approach for some of the people who enter the criminal justice system.  That doesn't mean that murderers and child molesters shouldn't go to prison.  It does mean that burglars and thieves who would otherwise be decent and law abiding if they weren't drunks or addicts may have to get treatment to either shorten their sentence or stay out of prison completely.  We know that works, shown over and over again over the last ~40 years, that when addicts are in recovery, they are much less likely to return to the criminal justice system.  And that is just one such example of a behavioral modification that is proven to work and far more cost effective than simply locking them in a cage for as long as we're willing to pay for.

 

I learned all of this because for years, I believed it was my job to lock as many people away for as long as possible.  Some of them are still locked away.  Many of them, probably most of them, were people who might have deserved a taste of punishment but ultimately needed structure and direction to not come back to crime.  Unfortunately, too few of them got that, and we're all paying for it (me included).

[Rip Snorter]

If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught to fear is his victim.

Jeff Cooper

[Blackwater 53393]

You’re deflecting! I am talking about violent criminals!! 
 

The suspect in question has already been let go once after committing a VIOLENT CRIME  and now he’s allegedly done it again after being allowed to return to the streets instead of being imprisoned as the law prescribed!! 
 

THAT’S WHAT WE’RE DISCUSSING, (bold and caps for emphasis) and no form of “Catch and Release” is in any way productive or appropriate!

 

I didn’t argue that the penal system is in any way what it should be. Laws don’t work for crime prevention as such,  but longer prison terms DO KEEP VIOLENT CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR SOCIETY for greater lengths of time! This particular felon would still be behind bars if he had been properly sentenced and made to serve his time!! If you can deny that, I want to hear your justification!

 

Too many times, we’ve seen this same revolving door, (I’ve begun to hate referring to it as a) “justice system”result in the same criminal committing the same, or worse, crimes before the echo of the gavel dies!

 

I worry less because I am ALWAYS  armed and I am willing. I do worry for those who are unable to defend themselves because the justice system does little to protect them.  That’s why you hear our side saying that we have a “Criminal Problem” not a gun problem!!

 

Between certain prosecutors and Attorneys General allowing charges of violence to be reduced to lesser offenses, judges who refuse to follow recommended sentencing guidelines in places all over the country and the propensity for politicians to burden the law abiding with legislation that disarms them and opens them up to civil and sometimes even criminal charges, I think as you do that the system is broken, but for vastly different reasons!

[Vail Vigilante]

We have state pre-emption in AZ. The odds of her getting her way are low. That said, we must always be vigilant even in this state.

[Jimmy Reb, SASS #54804]

Citizens who resist against criminals should be awarded. Most of the time they are vilified.