What's the point of jail?

Jail.............or prison? .............. It's nothing the same.

One is a "time out", the other is a removal and separation.

Which are you asking about?  I suspect it's prison since you mentioned rehabilitation, which is not a part of our jail system.

And so,,,,,

Prevention - largely a myth. Think about any crime you may have committed...... not much of a deterrent, right?  Your own crime may have been very minor, but the mindset is the same for hardened criminals.

Punishment - largely in place to placate those of us who don't commit crimes, or commit crimes minor enough for us to still stand up in righteous indignation to those more heinous offenders, 

Rehabilitation - useful for kids and a small percentage of adults.....certainly worth a try for all, but mostly a failure for a certain percentage.

That being said, our prisons should be emptied of non-violent offenders.  Use jail (a time out), and massive societal sanctions.....house arrest with monitoring, mandatory counseling and, most importantly, mentoring.  Meaningful reprogramming does work.....it's the basic human condition reset.....ask any reformed criminal.  All good alternatives and workable...ask a recovering alcoholic

Violent offenders get a single chance at rehab......ONE CHANCE.  If they cannot be rehabbed in hat single instance and they commit another violent crime, then I'm sorry, you can no longer be trusted to live among the rest of us.  Life in prison.  It's harsh, but the truth is, violence grows.  The person who punches another person to get their way will resort to increased levels of violence to get their way and put all of us in an increasing amount of danger ......ask any abused wife if you don't believe it.  Yes, there are those among us who don't mind fighting back, but why should they have to live their lives in that manner?  If you think violence is the way to settle anything, and you act on those thoughts, we now have room for you in prison......forever.... and society is infinitely better for it.  And from a personal view, pizz on you, I'm sick of dealing with you, go rot in prison.

Prison should be for violent offenders......all non-violent drug and alcohol offenders should be released immediately, it's a joke to imprison those people.  Jail can be used for property crimes.  Rack up enough property crimes and you're gone too, but the truth is, most people who commit property crimes will become violent under the right circumstances......it just amounts to a basic lack of respect for your fellow man.  But there's enough space in our jails (not prisons) for thieves.....and we can make them really miserable places as well.

We've got room in our prisons/jails to accomplish this and make our society safer for all.......and in a few generations we won't even be discussing "gun control".

You might have missed the most obvious.... if you can't act right in society, then you need to be removed from it. It's not complicated.

Oh... I did not read far enough... everything Left Brain said.

Agreed, we will add the CD amendment.

I think you stay with it....increase the sanctions (fines, house arrest, monitoring, etc) AND the education.  It takes longer for some folks to see a better way.  But as long as they aren't physically hurting other people, there is no need to remove them from society, simply because we need the room for violent people.  Think about it......I bet we can pay "mentors" to stay with those people and continue to show them a better way cheaper than we can pay to imprison them, and prison will be much cheaper too, because I wouldn't provide anything more than the bare necessities of life.....food and shelter, that's it. 

And, let's face it, we need to get rid of some laws.....especially drug laws, so there will be many fewer "probationers".

QUOTE]Originally posted by kmac1346 The fourth point of prison sentences is deterrence. As with the reflections on the effectiveness of the other points of sentences, deterrence has also been shown to largely not work. There is very little, if any meaningful difference in the murder rates in states with the death penalty and those without it, so the deterrent effect of that sentence can't really be used as a justification. I do wonder though, if we did get rid of the threat of prison, how many Bernie Madofs would do the calculation, and figure the risk was worth the possible punishment? I do, however, really believe that we need to think more about why we put criminals in prison, and then apply that consistently in sentencing. As LB has pointed out, based different theories of punishment, we could have vastly different sentences.

That's why I advocate a second chance......because it happens. And, of course, like any idea mine needs to be tweaked. But I'll tell you this.... the Police, the courts, and the prison system all know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, who the violent people are.  When we get notice that one of them in our area is being released from prison we make it a priority to put them right back in.....and it usually doesn't take long.  Why do we pick on them?  Because we know damn well that when we have certain people off the street our crime levels drop.  It's not rocket science.  A very small percentage of people commit the majority of crimes.  Get them locked up.....forever, and enjoy the peace.

Oh yeah......if you don't like people stealing from your cars, your houses, or your businesses......legalize drugs and take away the overwhelmingly primary reason behind property crimes.....to get money for drugs.

Yeah, I agree.  There's no question that 90% (or maybe more) of the cases are obvious when it's truly violent.  It's just when you get the dang prosecutors involved they want to jack people with all kinds of stupid charges to make it a "violent" offense.

Reason #5 - Networking opportunities

The potential for collaboration between like-minded individuals is amazing.  Then add plenty of time.  I run 2 Day Summits and we get amazing results in a short amount of time.

4.)  To let you know just how good of a night you had.

In all seriousness, it is 2. Punishment.  Play by the rules or you do not get to be a part of society.  

So what do you do with habitual offenders?  The "non violent ones? Keep giving them time outs?

I have a case in MS where the subjects were habitual offenders for theft and they meet the standards for getting life? MS don't play around. Many in Memphis will do whatever we need them to do if they have charges in MS that we can help them with. So jail time can be a detterent.

Most habitual offenders in theft cases here are drug abusers.  prison is absolutely no detterent for them....unless they aren't ever getting out, and then, of course, the stealing stops.  BUT....I go back to my original thoughts, prison should not be for non-violent offenders....because all they are doing is taking up a bed that should be occupied by people who prey on other people.

The best way to stop the stealing by drug abusers (and really, most property crimes are committed by drug abusers) is to legalize the drugs, and make them easier to obtain by addicts so they don't have to steal.....and use the money made from the taxes of legal sales to fund drug rehab centers.  The problem with most "legalize" laws is that states want to use the tax money to fund the govt......that's dumb.

For me it was two out of three:

Punitive - I messed up and got punished

Preventative - I never want to go back. Ever

Yeah, there's no doubt it needs some tweaking like I said earlier.....but the war on drugs should be over and we should be looking at alternative ways of dealing with it, including legalization, providing, treatment, etc.  Anything except priosn is ok with me....because I want the space for violent offenders. 

As for the liquor thefts.....the majority of the cases we get are people stealing liquor and then trading for heroin, but then, we're pretty much overrun by heroin zombies so a huge amjount of our crime in centered around that addiciton.