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Are our laws too lenient?

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Comments

  • #62
    charlemont
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,725 ✭✭✭charlemont


    Zambia wrote: »
    As short as I can make it criminality is a result of poverty and a lack of education.

    Those are the issues you need to fix because without them criminality is limited to the truly evil.

    So less resources used trying to change Criminal Johnny to good Johnny and a bit more emphases on stopping Criminal little Johnny ever appearing.

    Sometimes by the time they are bad its too late.

    Its like triage save the ones you can.

    Frankly its worse the country is getting for trouble. I'm only in my mid thirties and I was no stranger to trouble in my time but even I can see that the attitudes and viciousness of people today is a whole different ball game to the stupid types of things I did. That journalist getting killed in Dublin was an appalling act, how anyone to do that to a stranger is beyond me.

    You points are right about the education and poverty but its the attitudes too and mental illnesses drug/alcohol/prescription pill's addiction, Years ago everyone sort of knew who to expect trouble from but nowadays it can come out of anywhere, I live in a bad area and I'm used to seeing trouble but lately its gone to hell in a handcart here.
    Had new neighbours move in yesterday and the first place they asked to find was the off-license and by four in the morning they had a paddy-wagon outside after legging it from a taxi man without paying, Say's it all really. :mad:


  • #63
    Procrastastudy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,224 ✭✭✭Procrastastudy


    Total segregation is all well and good but how do you suggest we pay for it? Current prison population costs us about €4 billion a year. Thats around €1,000 for ever man woman and child in Ireland. Every extra year you put people into the broken system is more money down the drain.

    People rarely want criminals punished - all they want is crime not to happen to them - idealy for it not to happen at all. Investment in social systems is the only way to reduce crime. This constant alarmist non-sense about "society today" does no one any good.


  • #64
    MagicSean
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    valleyoftheunos wrote: »
    ah it would be a slow week on here without one of these "lock em all up" threads appearing.

    I would suggest that those people who think that 8 years is a "short" sentence or that prisons in Ireland are some sort palatial hotels or that throwing away the key solves crime and makes our society a better place to live ought to firstly appraise themselves of the facts and secondly consider some of the research that has gone into the effects a penal system actually has on those involved and on society as a whole.

    Is the criminal Justice in need of reform? Yes to a certain extent. Does that mean a need to increase sentences across the board? Certainly not. Furthermore, contrary to what one poster would like to suggest "segregation" isn't an effective strategy for dealing with crime and not something a healthy and free society seeks to engage in.

    I suggest you try dealing with a rape victim whose attacker has been released early because he was a good boy. You can start by explaining to her how she can feel safe because he is a changed man.


  • #65
    Procrastastudy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,224 ✭✭✭Procrastastudy


    MagicSean wrote: »
    I suggest you try dealing with a rape victim whose attacker has been released early because he was a good boy. You can start by explaining to her how she can feel safe because he is a changed man.

    Sad thing is because we are locking up people who shouldn't be - he won't be. If we had a prison system that worked then maybe she could feel a bit safer.


  • #66
    valleyoftheunos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,332 ✭✭✭valleyoftheunos


    MagicSean wrote: »
    I suggest you try dealing with a rape victim whose attacker has been released early because he was a good boy. You can start by explaining to her how she can feel safe because he is a changed man.

    Of course you are correct, by definition all criminals are beyond redemption and should remain in prison until their victim allows them to be released. That will solve crime, protect the innocent and wont in anyway result in a divided and twisted society.


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  • #67
    Procrastastudy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,224 ✭✭✭Procrastastudy


    I'm gonna hijack this as they'll be another daily mail reader along at some point to start another. If we accept that prisions are neccesary for some offenders due to society not being able to "cure" them what would the ramifications of non-specific sentances be? The idea being that these people would be genuinely locked away to be rehabilitated - no matter how long that might take.

    I'm thinking murderers (as opposed to manslaughter), serial rapists and paedophiles.


  • #68
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 4,183 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    jimmycrackcorm wrote: »
    The biggest problem we have with our judicial system is the revolving door where someone can repeatedly commit a crime without any increasing consequences. A three strikes and you're out policy is really needed; combined with progressively less attractive jail conditions.

    In his thesis "Three Strikes and You’re Out: A Triple Differences Approach to Estimating the Deterrent Effect of California’s Three Strikes Law" Daniel Marcet concludes that:
    Daniel Marcet wrote:
    I estimate the deterrent effect of California’s Three Strikes Law, using data from before and after the law was passed in combination with data from states other than California to perform a difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis. Using this unique combination of data sets enables me to control for the effect of omitted factors that seem to have influenced the results of previous authors. While I find evidence suggesting that the law operates to deter all criminals in California, I do not find significant evidence to support the idea that the law’s harsher sentences provide an additional deterrent effect for criminals with one or two strikes. I can rule out a deterrent effect greater than 6.9 percentage points, or 15.5%, for criminals with one strike, and 3.3 percentage points, or 6.9%, for criminals with two strikes. In addition, I find that the law’s unorthodox penalty structure creates incentives that cause individuals with two strikes to be 9.2 percentage points more likely to commit a serious or violent felony, conditional on recidivating. On the other hand, I find that individuals with one strike reduce their likelihood of committing a serious or violent felony by 8.2 percentage points, conditional on recidivating. I determine that the law falls far short of being a cost-effective method of reducing crime through deterrence.

    The paper is a look at the law from an economic standpoint but the work is actually quite comprehensive and well worth a read.


  • #69
    MagicSean
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    valleyoftheunos wrote: »
    Of course you are correct, by definition all criminals are beyond redemption and should remain in prison until their victim allows them to be released. That will solve crime, protect the innocent and wont in anyway result in a divided and twisted society.

    I don't agree with your stance that victims should decide a criminals punishment


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