Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
I'm not necessarily arguing for torture either. I'm arguing for making the punishment fit the crime. Stop coddling criminals and really punish them for what they've done. I've heard a few ex-cons claim that their lives were much easier in prison than on the streets. There's something radically wrong with that.
Yeah, well there's a problem there. All the research shows that punishment that fits the crime just breeds more crime. Yeah, I know. It's very counter intuitive. Research shows that opportunity doesn't make the thief. It's a lot deeper than that. Crime is just a symptom of a huge complex problem with marginalised people feeling excluded by society. And they don't feel any more included by society by having a criminal record.

You may feel that we should punish criminals hard for the sake of justice. I really can't argue against that. But don't pretend it'll solve anything or make the world any safer. It's easy to check the statistics. The longer the prison terms the higher the chance of repeat offending. So even if they're not doing any crimes while in jail, they're more likely to do it again once they're out. Or we could have capital punishment for every offence no matter how small. That would fix it. Nothing I'd vote for, but it'll work.

Nobody thinks life in prison is better than on the streets. I don't believe it for a second. I've not personally been to jail, but I have a less than clean and sober background, so I know a large variety of dodgy characters. One of my oldest friends just went to jail for armed robbery. I'm sitting with his latest letter in front of me. No... nobody thinks jail is worth it. It may be easy, but it kills the soul. He's gay and in his jail they've got a club for gay convicts. Funny. I just can't picture how they look. At his jail there's two other gay guys apart from him and they're both convicted murderers. Being a gay murderer just goes against all my preconceptions. I do like having my preconceptions challenged. But this is very difficult for my brain to wrap itself around.