With gay marriage decided, what will be the next big left-led social change?

I think we also have to look at recidivism. If locking people up for a short period would keep them from committing further crimes, then I'd be all for short sentences.

But, the criminal justice system already appears to be a revolving door.

Now, maybe there's some argument that the longer someone is incarcerated, the less likely they are to be successful on the outside.

The issue of bail is another hot topic right now. Lots of people are in jail simply because they can't make bail, and New York City is working on reforming that.

I'm not for criminalizing poverty, but how do you ensure people come back to face the charges against them if you don't require bail?

So, again, I'd be all for lowering bail if we had a system that in place to ensure folks didn't just walk away from their crimes.

 

Have you ever met with a prisoner?

 

Sounds like a leading question.

I'd just prefer for the argument in favor of prison/sentencing reform to be something other than an emotional argument about how many kids we could send to pre-K.

That's designed for simpletons. Make an argument that we can make reforms without making our cities and towns less safe. Make an argument that it will be good for these poor neighborhoods to have more folks who would otherwise be in prison, living among them.

 

I think that the next big push will be to rename the south point on the compass.

And, it's about time!

 

Isn't it just as important that the punishment doesn't fit the crime? Aren't the rights of these individuals just as important as their effect on the community?

 

Gotta be jobs for cons after they get out. And if there are jobs they have to want to work. And pay bills, the whole member of society thing.

 

How do you determine that?

If you want to make the argument that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, do it. Don't just give me raw numbers of incarceration rates so I feel bad about it, and agree to your suggested "reforms".

And, I think there is a balance between punishment, and protecting the community, isn't there?

And, if we see high recidivism rates, then doesn't it show, to some degree, that the criminal didn't learn his/her lesson, and that maybe the punishment did not fit the crime? Doesn't a fitting punishment have to be strong enough to serve as a deterrent?

 

All true, and there are now efforts to in place to not have potential employers, including government employers, ask job candidates about their criminal record.

Certainly, many employers, if they had a choice between to applicants with similar credentials, except that one was a felon, would go with the non-felon.

But, how do we increase jobs? By importing millions of low skill, low wage workers from Mexico, and points south? By making it more expensive to hire employees?

 

You mean like Rush Limbaugh? Then the answer is no.

 

Ha ha. Good one.

Of course, he has no children.

How about an honest answer to my question?

Single parenthood is very high in poor, urban areas. Is there some argument to be made that the folks we are locking up are great, involved dads, who serve as role models in their community (in a good way)?

 

I think there have been numerous examples of individuals -- let's use Johnny Cash for example -- who have been involved with drugs and/or been locked up who went on to do great things and been wonderful influences.

I would bet that many of the social workers who help run diversion programs to get users to stop are former addicts and maybe convicts.

 

So we're supposed to let all the hard-core drug criminals out because of the 1-in-5-million guy who went on to be a music star? What that will get us is maybe one more music star and probably a few thousand needless murders and thousands more kids hooked on drugs because "dealers gonna deal." Sounds like an Obama-Kerry negotiation. No thanks.