oh did I need to spell out "The Nile" in order to properly convey the double meaning?

11/18/2009 3:53:49 PM

Quote :

"Murderers should only be killed if killing them is in the act of self-defense. Once they're in custody they should be detained."

What if it is pre-emptive self defense? Like in defense of all the young children they raped who can't defend themselves? Furthurmore, in some cases, prison is worse than death. If you are arrested and "detained" as a pedofile, you're being put into a locked cage to have every orifice of your body poked and prodded by the mentally unstable who are also being detained there.

Doesn't seem too passive to me.

When I went on a tour of the prison downtown, they didn't have tv and internet and unlimited phone calls. It seemed like a terrible place and in no way rehabilitating.

If someone is mentally unstable and you stick them in a prision where they have nothing to do but think about how they got to where they are, it's going to make them more crazy. If they are put into a mental hospital and receive treatment, perhaps you are rehabbing them...but how does one decide they are "well"?

11/18/2009 4:31:30 PM

^ Agreed.

In the vast majority of cases, putting hardened and serious criminals (murderers, rapists, gang members, etc) in prison is far more inhumane than killing them. Not only does prison not reform them, it also makes a lot of them worse, and when they get out, they continue with crime. Stats are out there, look them up.

Killing such people is actually far more humane than locking them up, whether with others, or in solitary.

11/18/2009 4:36:30 PM

Quote :

"What if it is pre-emptive self defense? Like in defense of all the young children they raped who can't defend themselves? Furthurmore, in some cases, prison is worse than death. If you are arrested and "detained" as a pedofile, you're being put into a locked cage to have every orifice of your body poked and prodded by the mentally unstable who are also being detained there."

Boy if only there were another logically possible option

Quote :

"When I went on a tour of the prison downtown, they didn't have tv and internet and unlimited phone calls. It seemed like a terrible place and in no way rehabilitating."

This is a completely separate problem. It's not like the only options are "put them in jail to get raped by other prisoners", "set them free", or "kill them".

Quote :

"If they are put into a mental hospital and receive treatment, perhaps you are rehabbing them...but how does one decide they are "well"?"

This is a wholly different issue. In some cases the person would have to be detained indefinitely, obviously, just like we do with certain schizophrenics.

Quote :

"In the vast majority of cases, putting hardened and serious criminals (murderers, rapists, gang members, etc) in prison is far more inhumane than killing them. Not only does prison not reform them, it also makes a lot of them worse, and when they get out, they continue with crime. Stats are out there, look them up. Killing such people is actually far more humane than locking them up, whether with others, or in solitary."

Man if only our prison system in its current form wasn't the only possibility

[Edited on November 18, 2009 at 4:41 PM. Reason : .]

11/18/2009 4:41:31 PM

Quote :

"Man if only our prison system in its current form weren't the only possibility"

Quote :

"It's not like the only options are "put them in jail to get raped by other prisoners", "set them free", or "kill them"."

Those ARE the only options. We live in this world, and we need a solution now. You can come up with as many better theoretical solutions as you wish, but if they can't be implemented, what's the point?

11/18/2009 4:45:02 PM

Quote :

"Those ARE the only options. We live in this world, and we need a solution now. You can come up with as many better theoretical solutions as you wish, but if they can't be implemented, what's the point?"

Obviously they can be implemented, as we've reformed how we deal with the mentally ill (historically).

11/18/2009 4:45:53 PM

And what if the rapist/pedophile is not mentally ill? Then what? Throw them into jail to be raped, tortured, and possibly murdered? And come out as a useless human some 20 years down the road, and be dependent on cash handouts?

11/18/2009 4:47:38 PM

Quote :

"And what if the rapist/pedophile is not mentally ill?"

So I'm suggesting these sorts of behavior are only the products of mental illness

Unless you know perfectly normal people that touch little kids' privates and dump body parts into garbage bags

11/18/2009 4:48:42 PM

So you're saying that people cannot just be inherently BAD without mental illness coming in to play?

You're automatically linking a harmless kid with downsyndrome alongside a sexual deviant who likes to rape little girls. I see.

What are these proposed solutions that you think would work?

11/18/2009 4:53:57 PM

Quote :

"So I'm suggesting these sorts of behavior are only the products of mental illness"

So instead of doing research to see who is and who isn't mentally ill, you have just come up with your own assumptions? What about murderers? Hiway robbers? Soccer hooligans? Where will you draw the line, and who will decide?

You are just going to the other extreme. Some are saying that such people should be killed because they did such horrible things and they (the posters) don't believe people with mental illnesses could do such things. And you are saying anybody who does such actions is mentally ill. Both stands are unscientific.


[Edited on November 18, 2009 at 4:55 PM. Reason : Let's leave it to experts to decide who is mentally ill, on a CASE-BY-CASE basis.]

11/18/2009 4:54:51 PM

Quote :

"So you're saying that people cannot just be inherently BAD without mental illness coming in to play?"

I'm suggesting people do things for reasons. People are physical systems.

Quote :

"You're automatically linking a harmless kid with downsyndrome alongside a sexual deviant who likes to rape little girls. I see."

You could classify these people together if you want but I don't see how it's useful.

Quote :

"What are these proposed solutions that you think would work?"

What granularity are you looking for in a proposal? I should ask up front because I could always be called out on being "too general/hand-wavy".

Quote :

"So instead of doing research to see who is and who isn't mentally ill, you have just come up with your own assumptions? What about murderers? Hiway robbers? Soccer hooligans? Where will you draw the line, and who will decide?"

On the other hand I AM suggesting we do research to see who and who isn't mentally ill. You act as if we've really cracked mental illness and behavior, and that we really understand why people do what they do. We don't know yet.

I think plenty of crime has causal/physical explanations that don't reduce to mental illness. Poverty is a cause of theft, for instance.

Quote :

"Some are saying that such people should be killed because they did such horrible things and they (the posters) don't believe people with mental illnesses could do such things. And you are saying anybody who does such actions is mentally ill. Both stands are unscientific."

Why do you say that?

I'm suggesting people don't have any radical "free will" and aren't removed, rational, moral agents that have a firm grasp on what they're doing at all times. Some people have weird shit going on with their brains that predisposes them to certain behaviors. I think understanding these processes and treating them is an important step in dealing with criminal/harmful behavior.

11/18/2009 5:04:15 PM

So no one who commits serious crimes is guilty, because their brains are messed up. They can't be held accountable, so all serious criminals should be dumped into a mental hospital.

11/18/2009 5:07:20 PM

Quote :

"So no one who commits serious crimes is guilty, because their brains are messed up. They can't be held accountable, so all serious criminals should be dumped into a mental hospital."

Ideally yes. Again, unless you think a "normal" person is capable of chopping a person into pieces and putting them in a bag or something equally fucked up.

Here's a good metric for what I'm saying: take anybody you would call "evil" and try to really figure out what's wrong with them instead.

11/18/2009 5:08:30 PM

Aggh well I can tell that this ship is not going anywhere. Mike has put down his anchor in the sea of pacifist and will not be visiting untamed waters anytime soon. I understand your position...I respect it...but I cannot agree with it. I just think some people cannot be helped and do deserve to get the punishment that is laid out by the law for them.

11/18/2009 5:17:57 PM

Quote :

"Mike has put down his anchor in the sea of pacifist and will not be visiting untamed waters anytime soon."

It's not pacifism, it's trying to deal with criminal behavior scientifically. We could just pretend criminals are tainted with metaphysical evil though and punish them with moral righteousness on our side. Then again I'd like to think we learned something post-Enlightenment.

11/18/2009 5:20:13 PM

So you are saying every murderer and rapist out there should be in an institution.

And so should McVeigh, Osama, Saddam, KSM, Kim Jong Il, etc.

11/18/2009 5:23:46 PM

In a perfect world, maybe they should

But thats not relevant, since the world isn't perfect and never will be

Whats the practical way to deal with these people?

11/18/2009 5:25:25 PM

"practical" isn't a word worth typing on the internet

11/18/2009 5:28:00 PM

Look you fucking dopes

"Ideally" the justice system shouldn't ever convict an innocent man. This is an ideal worth shooting for, yes? Even though it's not "practical" to build a system that's dedicated to this end to the full extent possible, this is something we'd like.

It may not be practical to administer actual rehabilitation to every criminal. I guess in that circumstance you just detain them, like we do now.

11/18/2009 5:30:14 PM

You guys are dopes for thinking in practical terms instead of idealistic terms

11/18/2009 5:33:21 PM

Quote :

"I guess in that circumstance you just detain them, like we do now."

And turn them into worse criminals and expose them to horrible prison violence and drug/sex culture.

11/18/2009 5:35:57 PM

The question is how we should be dealing with violent crime

The money is there to do some of these things, it's just we're blowing it on bombs to be used on browns in the third world instead

11/18/2009 5:38:46 PM

^^Prisons still have that whole "solitary confinement" thing that they can do, right? That shit is still considered perfectly legal?

If so, you seem to be ignoring its existence entirely.

[Edited on November 18, 2009 at 5:39 PM. Reason : .]

11/18/2009 5:39:40 PM

Largely the question is whether our legal system and prison system should be a deterrent, a punishment, a way to rehabilitate, or some mixture of the 3. I'm largely of the belief that it should be a deterrent and a punishment since rehabilitation has been largely ineffective since pretty much forever (not that it can't be at some point down the road).

Even if there was a way to rehabilitate a serial rapists I'm not sure that he should ever be released because frankly the just thing to do would be either to execute him or to cut him off entirely from society.

11/18/2009 5:48:14 PM

Well if we're looking at things ideally, positive reinforcement is the most influential means of rehabilitation to any human...so keep on rewarding people who do the right thing by not throwing their ass in jail. If you want to walk around to all your poor criminally insane murderers, pedos, serial killers and stick little starzies on them when they don't bludgeon/rape/chop up and put in bags, then go right ahead but don't call those who disagree with you fucking dopes because they hold a different viewpoint.

I believe someone said something about not letting their emotions come into play and name calling is an emotional response and yadda yadda yo gabba gabba.

11/18/2009 5:56:12 PM

bitch is pregnant again?

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/17/crimesider/entry5682136.shtml

Quote :

"NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Antoinette Nicole Davis, the woman accused of selling her 5-year-old daughter, Shaniya Davis, into sexual slavery before the girl was murdered, has got an unnerving surprise. She's pregnant again and carrying the baby while sitting in a North Carolina prison and awaiting a potential trial. "

11/18/2009 10:56:43 PM

No worries, just set her up with a shrink and convince her what she did was wrong, that will be sure to work...

11/18/2009 11:05:47 PM

Quote :

"I believe someone said something about not letting their emotions come into play and name calling is an emotional response and yadda yadda yo gabba gabba."

flappin them gums

11/19/2009 12:05:05 AM

Man, I feel really bad for the father in this situation. I can't even imagine the amount of regret and guilt he has right now.

11/19/2009 12:47:15 AM

I apologize to the residents of chit chat, but I cannot help myself.

Quote :

"A mugger violates your liberty insofar as now you have less resources with which to do things."

Presumably one has the liberty and autonomy to have shit. If you want to argue that prevention of physical harm is the number one priority, I can go back to old posts to offer compelling evidence that the elimination of certain individuals fulfills that goal quite nicely. If liberty and autonomy are equal to one's physical integrity, I don't understand why you're putting it in a separate category.

Quote :

""Because they do sick things, they must be sick" I think is a decent assumption. How many sane people would saw a perfect stranger into pieces?"

I freely admit that the technical term for this style of argument escapes me. But here you argue that a person who does thing X must have a quality from set Y, and I don't see much basis for that. Regardless of your no doubt substantial background in MRIs (which you didn't mention to me, bastard ), your familiarity with mental illness is, at best, peripheral.

"A person must be insane to kill another person" is a statement that (and I don't feel unreasonably for saying it) requires some proof to back it up.

Quote :

"Some forms of help require the person to be completely removed from society. "

Historically we are not very good at this. We are, for better at worse, pretty good at killing people. I, at least, prefer permanent removal to some of the alternatives you present.

Quote :

"Good thing we're training computers to detect mental illnesses based on neuro-imaging data. Not that this obviates the need for psychologists/psychiatrists."

And here you dodge the point and look to an ambiguous future to make it irrelevant.

Quote :

"The people saying these things are probably more likely to vote in "tough on crime" (read: punishment platform) politicians into office to do the dirty work for them."

While we're throwing around statements that can't be proven with any current statistics, I'll put forward that most of the people who aren't currently espousing a desire for blood in this case also support "tough on crime" politicians. Turns out that "tough on crime" is very frequently a platform on which people can win.

11/19/2009 3:51:38 AM

Quote :

"If you want to argue that prevention of physical harm is the number one priority, I can go back to old posts to offer compelling evidence that the elimination of certain individuals fulfills that goal quite nicely. If liberty and autonomy are equal to one's physical integrity, I don't understand why you're putting it in a separate category."

Eliminating certain individuals is tantamount to self-defense. I don't see much of a difference between disposing of a violent dictator (or somebody enacting laws that are directly causing death, suffering, etc) and killing a murderer who's about to off you.

You're right in saying that a mugger's affecting your autonomy and liberty insofar as he's coercing you into giving your stuff. I still see a large difference between that and chopping a person into pieces though; one's explainable pretty easily in terms of "poverty" or "greed" and the other in terms of mental illness. Some people are off in the sense that they think they can take other peoples' shit even when they don't need it. Some people are off in the sense that they think they can rape another person whenever they want to. There's a large difference between these two things; one of which more urgently requires psychiatric treatment, the other that doesn't (in the case of a kleptomaniac though, the person and maybe society might benefit).

Quote :

"I freely admit that the technical term for this style of argument escapes me. But here you argue that a person who does thing X must have a quality from set Y, and I don't see much basis for that. Regardless of your no doubt substantial background in MRIs (which you didn't mention to me, bastard ), your familiarity with mental illness is, at best, peripheral."

It has more to do with what I think a person is. The person is that physical system encapsulated by the brain and its wiring to the body. Physical systems act in determined ways due to physical factors.

Quote :

""A person must be insane to kill another person" is a statement that (and I don't feel unreasonably for saying it) requires some proof to back it up."

Don't you understand that "insane" is not something you can zoom closer and find in a brain? The extension of "insane" depends on the definition we grant it. This is a purely semantic issue, but not a trivial one, because it determines how we approach the problem of handling violent crime. I think that, for the most part, violent crime falls into two fuzzy categories of "sick" and "not sick". If somebody robs you and it goes wrong, resulting in your injury or death, I wouldn't call the mugger "sick" because the killing was ancillary and perhaps unplanned. If the person got pleasure from and planned to kill you, however, then I think we have a clearer case.

Quote :

"Historically we are not very good at this. We are, for better at worse, pretty good at killing people. I, at least, prefer permanent removal to some of the alternatives you present."

Yeah and murdering every last person related to you would decrease health care costs. Doesn't make it a good fucking idea now, does it?

Quote :

"And here you dodge the point and look to an ambiguous future to make it irrelevant."

It's happening now. Your desktop computer could better predict schizophrenia from an fMRI scan than a doctor.

Quote :

"While we're throwing around statements that can't be proven with any current statistics, I'll put forward that most of the people who aren't currently espousing a desire for blood in this case also support "tough on crime" politicians. Turns out that "tough on crime" is very frequently a platform on which people can win."

Yep.

11/19/2009 9:16:01 AM