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Athens · Mar 15, 2005, 01:12 PM

This is related to other topics in the past where we debate the difference of life sentances vs shorter ones. Basically I have been of the opinion for a while the reason the US has more violent crimes because of the tougher laws. For example if you do something and you know you are going to jail for most of your life and your life is distroyed you are going to do anything and what ever it takes to excape and to stay escaped. Well this has been validated to some part with teh Atlanta shootings. That hostage told the story how he new his life was over and he had nothing to live for which in turn created teh situation for him to do what ever he could to escape. 4 dead people. Looking at other countries that have lower violent crime rates you have 2 extremes. Either a very soft system like Canada's or a really harsh system like China. When you have a system puts a robber away for life or 70 years, some one who robbed some one is going to become a very violent person because he has nothing to lose. Tougher laws dont always make places safer.

I have a feeling Im going to get accused of being pro Canadian and Anti American again so I should point this out. There are 2 reasons why I compare the US and Canada a lot in my debates. 1 I live in Canada and I have travelled the US many times. So its easy to compare the 2. Second but most important Canada and the US are identical for the most part. Same style of cities, same economics, same access to goods and services, same education same medical technology, same technology, same average incomes, we are for every intent the same. Not to mention we are side by side and a undefended boarder. We have evolved together for the last 200 years. The only real difference is attitudes towards things and the way some things are done like the legal system, the war on drugs and social programs to make things a little more even for every one. So before you go pouting anti american there are no 2 countries so similar yet so defferent to compare against, specially when comparing the US.

Millennium · Mar 15, 2005, 01:29 PM

A sample size of one is not proof of causation, or even correlation.

Millennium · Mar 15, 2005, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by Athens:
I have a feeling Im going to get accused of being pro Canadian and Anti American again so I should point this out. There are 2 reasons why I compare the US and Canada a lot in my debates. 1 I live in Canada and I have travelled the US many times. So its easy to compare the 2. Second but most important Canada and the US are identical for the most part. Same style of cities, same economics, same access to goods and services, same education same medical technology, same technology, same average incomes, we are for every intent the same.

I know a lot of Canadians and Americans who would be insulted by that statement. I'm not one of them, but I can't deny that you're oversimplifying things.

Athens · Mar 15, 2005, 01:32 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:
A sample size of one is not proof of causation, or even correlation.

its just the most resent, most of those extreme guys end up dead in a police shoot out to tell why they did it.

deomacius · Mar 15, 2005, 02:09 PM

Originally posted by Athens:
This is related to other topics in the past where we debate the difference of life sentances vs shorter ones. Basically I have been of the opinion for a while the reason the US has more violent crimes because of the tougher laws. For example if you do something and you know you are going to jail for most of your life and your life is distroyed you are going to do anything and what ever it takes to excape and to stay escaped. Well this has been validated to some part with teh Atlanta shootings. That hostage told the story how he new his life was over and he had nothing to live for which in turn created teh situation for him to do what ever he could to escape. 4 dead people. Looking at other countries that have lower violent crime rates you have 2 extremes. Either a very soft system like Canada's or a really harsh system like China. When you have a system puts a robber away for life or 70 years, some one who robbed some one is going to become a very violent person because he has nothing to lose. Tougher laws dont always make places safer.

I have a feeling Im going to get accused of being pro Canadian and Anti American again so I should point this out. There are 2 reasons why I compare the US and Canada a lot in my debates. 1 I live in Canada and I have travelled the US many times. So its easy to compare the 2. Second but most important Canada and the US are identical for the most part. Same style of cities, same economics, same access to goods and services, same education same medical technology, same technology, same average incomes, we are for every intent the same. Not to mention we are side by side and a undefended boarder. We have evolved together for the last 200 years. The only real difference is attitudes towards things and the way some things are done like the legal system, the war on drugs and social programs to make things a little more even for every one. So before you go pouting anti american there are no 2 countries so similar yet so defferent to compare against, specially when comparing the US.

I don't mean to nitpick, but your argument might have more weight if you at least clean up your post.

JohnSmithXTREME · Mar 15, 2005, 02:25 PM

Originally posted by deomacius:
I don't mean to nitpick, but your argument might have more weight if you at least clean up your post.

I have just assumed that Athens is not a native English speaker, so I think it is best to try and see past his minor typos. After all, I doubt most of us can speak Chinese as well as he can.

Athens · Mar 15, 2005, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by deomacius:
I don't mean to nitpick, but your argument might have more weight if you at least clean up your post.

im going on 30 hours no sleep i couldnt care less about spelling right now.

Athens · Mar 15, 2005, 02:30 PM

Originally posted by JohnSmithXTREME:
I have just assumed that Athens is not a native English speaker, so I think it is best to try and see past his minor typos. After all, I doubt most of us can speak Chinese as well as he can.

no im a deslexic, i can see words right but i type or right them wrong. More tired I am the worse it is. Same with sentences, I can read what I thought I wrote over and over and really its not, missing words and stuff. I generally run things through the speak on my mac which allows me to catch mistakes but im on my PC right now which dosent to that. Im not chinese.

JohnSmithXTREME · Mar 15, 2005, 02:33 PM

Oh, my mistake. Sorry Athens.

BoomStick · Mar 15, 2005, 02:51 PM

I've traveled to Honduras many times and have never witnessed any crime whatsoever.

Does that make them crime-free?

Our PC liberal laws that coddle the violent offender just cost a judge and 3 officers their lives.

Athens · Mar 15, 2005, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by JohnSmithXTREME:
Oh, my mistake. Sorry Athens.

its ok, lol i spent the first couple years learning french cuz my grandma wanted me to, then in school my english was so week they took my out of french classes in grade 3 and i was behind in speech in general, to complicate things worse is the dislexia so my spelling is pretty bad unless i spend like a zillion minutes over looking everything 10 times to make sure its right.

deomacius · Mar 15, 2005, 03:36 PM

I stand corrected. I apologize if I came off persnickety. I didn't know you weren't a native English speaking individual. I'm used to spotting different ques in a message for most non-natives than I saw in your post.

To stay on topic, I disagree with your assertion that tougher laws mean harder crimes. I think our problem here is that we need to ENFORCE these tougher laws. Criminals know that we aren't really going to do anything to them but send them to a concrete resort. In fact, I've been told that I have a relative that will intentionally get arrested during the winter months so that he gets three hots and a cot. We need to mean what we say and follow through on all of these so-called tough laws. Otherwise, who's going to take them seriously?

typoon · Mar 15, 2005, 04:00 PM

I would have to disagree. As somone else said we need to ENFORCE the laws that we have. In the US they keep talking about more gun laws yet they are NOT enforcing existing gun laws very well. What good is a law if you are not going to enforce it?

Criminals in a lot of ways get off too easily in this country. To me if they had public canings on Pay per view and the money went to the victims or their families I would be all for that. You could almost guarantee that there would be A LOT less crime in the country. Unfortunately you'd get groups saying this was cruel and unusual punishment for a CRIMINAL.

I think there could and should be a happy medium between what we have now and cutting off hands for stealing like is done in other countries.

I don't think it would matter how tough the laws are there would still be criminals.

bubblewrap · Mar 15, 2005, 04:53 PM

We need tougher CRIMINAL control. Law abiding citisens are no the problem. In the US or Canada.

Athens · Mar 15, 2005, 05:28 PM

The whole system has to be changed starting with prevention. There should be more intervention when youths are starting there life of crime. Schools, parents, communities need to work together to identify problem youths. If a youth is in a dirt poor family in a bad area of town chances are the people that youth is going to hang around with are more boad youths. First step is better social services to prevent that kind of enviroment. Poor people need to be dispersed in cities not consintrated. Social housing needs to be a house here and there. Identifing homes with drug and abuse problems is a key, get those kids out of those homes, and into good foster homes. Second when a youth has started comitting crimes sticking him in jail where he will learn how to do crime better and to get connected with other criminals is a mistake. Detention camps, which can be intergrated into the military would do problem youths more good. The structured enviroment and life skills learned and the fact its hard work would be more of a deterent. At the same time your already uses resources that are there and troubled youth are with good people not other bad people. When you get to the young adult stage military service vs jail is also im my opinion a better option. They come out better people and because they have been given the steping stone to a better life they prob wont want to go back to there old life. Removing the criminal element of drugs and providing addicts with drugs who are already addicted as a medication will remove a large element of crimes. Older criminals, carrier criminals that have been through all that and still wont change studies should be conducted on why, what is it that keeps them screwing up. Perhaps banning some one from a city is a option, froce them out of that enviroment that keeps them messing up.. dam rides here i'll continue on this after. Because violent ppl are the ones that should be in jail but i had alot more to say.

deomacius · Mar 15, 2005, 05:31 PM

Originally posted by bubblewrap:
We need tougher CRIMINAL control. Law abiding citisens are no the problem. In the US or Canada.

This post reminded me of one other important thing. Laws do NOT stop criminals. They bind the hands of the people who would abide by them. A bad person is going to do bad whether you have an explicit law spelling it out or not. Killers are going to get guns and law abiding citizens will become easy prey for them if gun laws were created to abolish them. Think about that.

typoon · Mar 22, 2005, 04:03 PM

We should send our Criminals to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they make it back they either get a lighter sentence (depending on Crime) or the are allowed to go free. It would definitely save some of the lives of our troops over there now.

bubblewrap · Mar 22, 2005, 04:25 PM

Didn't the Brits do this in 1778?

deomacius · Mar 22, 2005, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by typoon:
We should send our Criminals to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they make it back they either get a lighter sentence (depending on Crime) or the are allowed to go free. It would definitely save some of the lives of our troops over there now.

What would prevent them from switching sides, out of curiosity?

bubblewrap · Mar 22, 2005, 05:54 PM

Didn't that happen to the Brits in 1779?

SVass · Mar 22, 2005, 07:03 PM

Special prosecutors should be appointed to indict prosecutors who put felons on the stand to claim that their fellow inmates "confessed" while sharing a cell. They should prosecute civilian presidential appointees who criminally violate treaties such as war crimes, conspiring to ignore criminal laws (torture), and conspiring to ignore congressional laws against advocacy using public money. Harsh penalties for such crimes will reduce the public adulation for our criminals. We have more violent crimes because we provided longer sentences for religious violators (drug use, sodomy, etc) than for theft of millions by lying corporate executives. sam

typoon · Mar 23, 2005, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by deomacius:
What would prevent them from switching sides, out of curiosity?

Same thing could be asked about anyone of our soldiers.

I think for many the prospect of not going back to jail might prevent them from doing so.

deomacius · Mar 23, 2005, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by typoon:
Same thing could be asked about anyone of our soldiers.

I think for many the prospect of not going back to jail might prevent them from doing so.

I disagree. Most soldiers probably aren't looking at coming home to a prison cell. Criminals probably are. Even if they aren't they probably have a grudge against the country that incarcerated them. What more powerful way to get back at "the man" than to switch sides. I mean, we already KNOW that the criminal has poor judgment and shady morals. That isn't quite as true when talking about soldiers in general. It's practically a guarantee with criminals.