Crime and punishment

Would you put a shoplifter in prison for the same amount of time as a murderer?  Would you put a shoplifter in prison for the first offense?  What if they are 17 and it's their first offense? (normal age of an "adult" in the criminal justice system)  A DWI gets prison?  How about vandalism?  Not paying child support?  Drug crimes?

I have no problem with violent people being people removed from society, that's what prison should be for IMO.  I'm not so sure about the rest of those crimes.  Lots of people commit petty crimes and are not violent.....usually related to drug abuse.  There needs to be a discussion on what do do with them.....but I don't think prison is the first answer.

Speaking form the retail world, I understand that you do not think shoplifter should do jail time, so let me ask you this, How do you stop them from stealing from retailers? I am not talking about the kid who steals a Jay-z CD, but I am talking about the people that we in LP know by name because they continually steal and are known to sell it on the streets for multiple purposes. A simple citation and fine does nothing to curb this and in my 13 years of experience, the people I am speaking of are not shoplifting (or boosting) for the fun of it, there are many tie ins that go along with this lifestyle.

Without a doubt, there comes a time in a criminal "career" when prison is obsolutely appropriate for stealing. 

I will say this, however.....legalize drugs and you will see stealing offenses drop exponentially.  There are many ways to skin this cat......we should be smarter then just "lock them up". 

LB, what is a felony in your state? $500 theft is felony here

The thought behind this is that most lower level thieves are stealing in order to get money for their drug habit. So that if cocaine was legal, then people could get it legally and would not have to resort to criminal activity to buy or sell said drug.

While I know that a big part of thefts are drug related, I don't believe it is that simple. I know plenty of people that make a living stealing things and selling them on eBay, craigslist or to resellers.

I think it would be a lot better for everyone to get rid of drug use entirely but I know that is impossible.

Legalizing drugs would drop the costs of drugs.  The reason illicit drugs are so expensive is not because they are expensive to manufacture.  99% of the costs of drugs is related to costs associated with the cartels getting the drugs into the United States.  Drug cartels want a high cost of entry because that's why they get paid so much. Remove that barrier and the costs and worldwide violence drops dramatically. 

Drug laws also significantly to the prison population, both violent and non-violent.  The United States has roughly 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the worlds incarcerated population - its more than mere coincidence that the United States accounts for roughly 25% of the world's illicit drug using population

Halting the 45 year long, failed War on Drugs is the answer to much of the crime problem, both violent and non-violent - just decriminalization.  Legalizing drugs and bringing the trade out of the black market would go even further.    

500 here too......and three misd. convictions will land you a felony as well.

Fellas - believe this......the OVERWHELMING majority of thefts, including robberies, thefts from vehicles, shoplifting, etc. are drug related.....and by a long shot, heroin related.  You can't hold a job on a 200.00 a day heroin habit...so stealing "pays the bill". 

Just ended a robbery investigation today.  35 yar old man knocked a 70 year old woman to the ground and stole her purse.  Threw the purse and it's contents away and kept 40.00 cash to buy heroin.  He cried like a baby when he confessed to the crime due to his addiction.  Yesterday put another investigations to rest with a 20 year old with multiple counts of burglary, auto theft, and stealing from vehicles.....hopeless heroin addict.  It's non-stop!

If I had to guess, I would say that easily 75% of our crime is drug related.  The rest are like you stated.....career criminals making a living boosting whatever they can.

Drug laws don't stop people from doing heroin, cocaine, etc.....if they did, we'd have no problem .....and the problem is HUGE.  Don't worry, you won;t use heroin just because it's legal......if you think about it, being illegal is not what keeps you from using now.  All of the other factors that go into having a productive life is what does.  Treatment and regulated, cheap supply to addicts is the answer.  Your politicians can't see the forest for the trees because the lllegal drug trade is a HUGE cash cow for many local govts. on up to the Federal level.  Nobody factors in the human toll or the monetary loss to individuals and corporations due to crime. (or they are profiting from it)  Of course, it's not quite as simple as that, but it's not that difficult to look at the problem with a different set of eyes.......I did, and I have worked the drug enforcement end of my business for many years through undercover work, interdiction, wire taps, etc.......we have made ZERO impact on a problem that continues to grow.  The war on drugs is a failure.......it's time to re-think what we are doing.

You've changed my opinion a lot on this topic over the years, but I do still struggle in a few areas.  For sure fewer people will be arrested for drug convictions if drugs are made legal, and the current thugs will have access to cheaper drugs but they'll still have to get money to buy them.  I'm not sure they'll go get jobs at McDonalds to buy their $20 heroin versus $200 heroin.  Sure, some crime will go down but I suspect there will still be a fair amount of drug crime.
I know there's the argument that more people will do them and cause other problems, but I tend to think that's the mythical slippery slope argument so I won't go there.

As for crime and punishment in general, I'm a huge proponent of civil rights and have a big problem with how our current system works.  It's extremely punitive to the poor and manipulated by the rich.  Remember, I went through the very criminal justice system and saw the atrocities first hand.  The prosecutors are truly some of the most evil people I've seen on this planet and seem to get off on destroying people unnecessarily.  It doesn't matter what the alleged crime is, they pull every technicality and trick to punish people as if they are a mass serial killer.

Our system used to be that it was better to let 99 guilty people go free rather than punish one innocent person.  It has devolved into a system of punishing 99 innocent people to avoid letting one guilty person go free.  Then idiot conservatives keep getting elected promising to get tougher and tougher on crime and make the system even worse.

Tony, if they steal 20.00 per day instead of 200.00 we will be so far ahead in the game it will be ridiculous.  Nothing will be perfect with regard to drug addiction, it's horrible, but what we do now is an absolute mess.

Agree.  Like I said, you've changed my opinion drastically on this topic so I am teachable.  

I've got a good friend of mine who got a drug felony back when he was 18 years old.  I don't know the full details of it, but I believe he was selling weed in college.  It has haunted him his entire life and he continues to have challenges, even though he's 45 years old now and hasn't touched drugs for almost 30 years.  He's married with three great kids and no different than any other suburbanite in Omaha but has the black cloud following him everywhere.

When I look at crime and punishment overall I tend to base a lot of my punishment options with regard to severity of crime and recidivism.  If a crime is low level, but has an extremely high recidivism rate I tend to think of it differently than I do a crime that is mid (or even severe) with extremely low recidivism rates.
It's not perfect though because crimes like murder have the lowest recidivism rate due to the perpetrators being locked up for the rest of their life.

Where I get wrapped around the axle is when prosecutors victimize people (especially the poor) and punish them far worse than their crime deserves.  I think I've told the story here before about a guy I met that got drunk and argued with his wife.  He got ticked and went to storm out of the house and his wife jumped in front of him to stop him.  He pushed her to the floor and said "if you do that again I'll kill you" and stormed off (no bruises or marks).  His wife called the cops because she was worried about him drinking and driving and told them everything that went down.  He was arrested and charged with seven different crimes including attempted murder, terroristic threats, domestic violence, you name it.  He was facing almost 200 years in prison with all the charges levied.  His wife was freaking out and screaming at the prosecutor, and refused to testify, but he didn't care because he already had her statements and would throw her in jail if she refused to testify.  Then you throw in that they were poor and forced to use an overworked public defender who just wanted to make the case go away he took the "generous offer" of the prosecutor dropping most of the charges and asking for a light sentence on the others.  He felt he had no choice and took it.  The prosecutor completely lied to him and proceeded to ask for max everything at sentencing and the dude was sentence to over 50 years in prison.  WTF
He absolutely did something wrong, but the level of vicious behavior from our legal system is the real atrocity IMHO.

I do recognize that I live in Nebraska which is a very "tough on crime" state and it's not that way everywhere.  LB, I'm sure you have many stories that are just the opposite where people truly did deserve to get hammered and skated off with little to nothing.

Everything you say WILL be taken out of context and used against you in a court of law.  I learned that one the hard way first hand.   

Tony, I don't know a state in the Union where one spouse can be compelled to testify against the other.  Just saying.

Welcome to Nebraska.

2006 Nebraska Revised Statutes - § 27-505 — Rule 505. 
Husband-wife privilege; general rule of privilege; definitions; waiver; criminal cases; exceptions to the privilege.

These privileges may not be claimed:

(a) In any criminal case where the crime charged is a crime of violence, bigamy, incest, or any crime committed by one against the person or property of the other or of a child of either or in any criminal prosecution against the husband for wife or child abandonment;

The issue with this one was that she had made the statements to the police already telling them what he said and did.  After she realized the severity of the charges they came up with she then clammed up.  They said something to the effect that it didn't matter because she already made the statements and they'd call her to the stand where she'd have to either lie or confirm the statements.  Granted, I got my information from the guy getting hammered, so it is technically hearsay and I'm of course not a lawyer.

He ultimately pled guilty to the lesser offenses based on the threats (real or not), so it worked either way.

They might not (but probably could) compel testimony, but the spousal privilege would not keep her previous statements out.  The federal rules along with most states have an exception to the spousal privilege for crimes against family members.

I've never seen a case where they would do anything close to that if there was no injury.  Not saying it can't happen.....but short of some really extenuating circumstances (like a BIG previous record) I know it would never happen here.

Damn......I was going to retire to Nebraska......now I'll have no recourse when my wife takes the TV remote.

lol, I absolutely love this state, but I absolutely hate our legal system and legislature.  Think of Conservatives on steroids in the legislature who want to imprison everyone for life because we know they all "did something".  They manage to remove intent from more and more laws every year just so they have more things to throw people in jail for.

A few years back they made it illegal to entice a child into your car.  Of course we all say this is a good thing, but they also removed intent from the language in the law.  So, if a person is driving home and see's their neighbors son walking home in the rain and asks him if he wants a ride home, he has just committed a felony offense for enticing a child into their car and must register as a sex offender for 25 years (I believe it's punishable by 20 years in prison as well).  There doesn't have to be a sexual component or bad intent at all.  It's ridiculous. (http://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=28-311)
I think it was two years ago I successfully fought against them considering ammunition to be the same thing legally as a firearm.  So, if you're under 21 and have a spent 22 shell laying in the floor of your car, you would have been guilty of felony possession of a firearm  (it almost passed).  You can't make this stuff up sometimes.

"I think it was two years ago I successfully fought against them considering ammunition to be the same thing legally as a firearm"

Nice work, brother.....I would of showed up and been sentenced to 1,000,000 years in prison. 

Originally posted by chirunner134 Tony, this video is for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuctitle: Don't Talk to Police. Pretty interesting viewing. I also seen even enough stupid people at check points were if you talked to police for about 1 minute you can move about your day. Being kind of a dick its you in trouble. So I guess talk to the police sometimes.

Seen this many times, and it was mandatory viewing for all of my kids prior to them getting the keys to their car.  There's a handful of other Civil Liberties ones I have them watch that role play out several scenarios.

My oldest had a funny incident where he went to visit a friend at school and arrived a few minutes before the last bell went off.  He just walked in to hang out in the lunch area to meet his friend, but the school security guard stopped him and told him to go back out to his car.  He walked out and sat on a bench near the parking lot to wait for his friend there and the school resource officer (uniformed officer) came out screaming and yelling at him about if he'd been asked to go to his car.  Being very well informed of his rights he exercised his 5th amendment protection with the officer because he wasn't sure if there was some rule or regulation he violated.  He was respectful and polite, but refused to answer the question and the officer went full on emo against him screaming and yelling and caused quite a scene.  My son asked if he was being detained and walked away with the cop still screaming at him.  He was genuinely fearful after the event, but I simply asked him if he got arrested and his answer was no, so we called it a success.

Told him I was proud of him, but that probably wasn't the best battle to pick because it was pretty obvious he wasn't doing anything illegal.  lol

I have been a cop for right at 30 years.  I have taught all of my children to respectfully refuse to answer questions that the Police may ask them with regard to any crime and to always say no to a consent to search.  Giving up your rights is always a bad idea in my experience.  Your rights are there for a reason....to protect you.