Are our laws too lenient?

Victor

Deleted User wrote: »

Is it true that a prisoner automatically has 25% of their sentence removed due to good behaviour even before the enter prison? If yes, that is one of the first things I would remove!

Its crazy that is some gets 4 years for assault etc, they automatically get 1 year suspended for good behaviour even before they start their sentence.

Also, I would more likely blame the judges and the overcrowding in our prisons and not the laws for the petty sentences for some crimes which deserve harsh sentences (such as house burglary etc)

No remission would mean prisoners would have no reason to behave.

Indricotherium

The whole idea of locking people up is medieval. It was conceived 100's of years ago by a community that had no access to analytical psychology, or concept of social welfare and rehabilitation.

In this day and age we should be able to come up with something better. Every criminal that is not suffering from a mental illness should be rehabilitated.

Setting someone up with an apartment and a job would cost a lot less than locking them up and also remove a lot of the social cause for crime.

Even the notion of spending millions and millions building a bricks and mortar prison seems ridiculous to me.

Nermal

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

prisons as they are in use today have totally failed

On the contrary, very few crimes are committed by people locked up in prison. The only downfall with prison is having to let people out again.

We routinely hear of people convicted with staggeringly counts of previous offences. How many chances does someone need? How much does our society have to waste picking up after their crimes and on the legal system repeatedly trying, convicting in pointless attempts at rehabilitation?

I agree with a three strikes policy. Three crimes of a sufficiently serious nature (and believe me, burglary would be well within that range) deserve a full life sentence without parole, remission or any possibility of release. Once the hard core of repeat offenders were wasting away in prison, crime would plummet.

Nermal

Nermal wrote: »

We routinely hear of people convicted with staggeringly counts of previous offences. How many chances does someone need? How much does our society have to waste picking up after their crimes and on the legal system repeatedly trying, convicting in pointless attempts at rehabilitation?

You are making a serious mistake with regards to cause and effect here. Saying that rehabilitation doesn't work therefore we shouldn't have rehabilitation assumes that rehabilitation can not work, which is incorrect.

The answer isn't longer prison sentences, it is better rehabilitation.

MagicSean

Indricotherium wrote: »

The whole idea of locking people up is medieval. It was conceived 100's of years ago by a community that had no access to analytical psychology, or concept of social welfare and rehabilitation.

In this day and age we should be able to come up with something better. Every criminal that is not suffering from a mental illness should be rehabilitated.

Setting someone up with an apartment and a job would cost a lot less than locking them up and also remove a lot of the social cause for crime.

Even the notion of spending millions and millions building a bricks and mortar prison seems ridiculous to me.

Your seem to be working under the impression that people are inherently good and want to change. This is not correct. I would hazard a guess that you deal very little with real criminals or their victims.

The_Minister

MagicSean wrote: »

Your seem to be working under the impression that people are inherently good and want to change. This is not correct. I would hazard a guess that you deal very little with real criminals or their victims.

Go down the courts some day and listen to the backgrounds of the people being convicted in the District Court.

Most of them never stood a chance.

Nermal

Deleted User wrote: »

Saying that rehabilitation doesn't work therefore we shouldn't have rehabilitation assumes that rehabilitation can not work

I have seen many times news stories discussing a conviction where it is mentioned that the criminal has 20, 30, 40 or more previous convictions. How many chances does he get, before society says enough? At any stage in this litany of offences, perhaps one more chance might rehabilitate him - but there's no 'might' about prison, locking someone up for ever guarantees they will never commit another crime.

The_Minister wrote: »

Go down the courts some day and listen to the backgrounds of the people being convicted in the District Court.

Most of them never stood a chance.

Am I supposed to regret this or feel sorry for them? I feel more sorry for their victims, who are disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds also. On their third offence, lock them up forever, to drastically reduce crime and stop them breeding another generation of criminals.

christmas2012

Problem is law is too lenient,yes i agree...If cases of crime can be simply argued away by the defence or deals being made such as reduced sentences and appeals,then it does appear the law is too lenient,and the victim or the dead victims relatives are always the outsiders in these instances,which is unfair..

Jail aswell is no deterrent,theres state of the art gym,rehabilitation,medical,libraries,they even run courses and training so they can get back to work the minute they leave..

Another thing aswell,the criminal pasts of jailers is not now as acessible as it used to be,there is some new law alan shatter brought in to get rid of it,so the employers now do not know of criminal pasts which i think is a big shame..

Crime and doing time should mean punishment not a walk in the park and a degree for a job afterwards,remember some of these people are rapist/paedophiles/and murderers who committed 'manslaughter'..

MagicSean

The_Minister wrote: »

Go down the courts some day and listen to the backgrounds of the people being convicted in the District Court.

Most of them never stood a chance.

How about you go talk to their victims. They didn't either.

Jogathon

I know a local guard who says that if he could lock up 8 people in his area the crime rate would be negligible. There would still be a few car related tips, maybe some young kids acting the maggot, but there would be no crime as such. Wouldn't that be great? I'd love it.

The amount of previous convictions in some of the "poor lads who never stood a chance with their background" is a joke. 67+ previous convictions, robberies, violent assaults and these people are out and back in the court again with more bloody crimes! Where is the logic in that? Three strikes and you're out cleaned up New York pretty quickly - can we please try it here?

Nermal

Nermal wrote: »

I have seen many times news stories discussing a conviction where it is mentioned that the criminal has 20, 30, 40 or more previous convictions. How many chances does he get, before society says enough? At any stage in this litany of offences, perhaps one more chance might rehabilitate him - but there's no 'might' about prison, locking someone up for ever guarantees they will never commit another crime.

You have completely missed my point. If we rehabilitate them properly the first time then they don't get to 20/30 convictions.

As for the poster who suggested that it would be great if their local Garda could lock up the 2 or 3 local criminals he knew were the cause of it all: I hope you never get what you wish for. Nothing in the law scares me more than that idea.

Indricotherium

The_Minister wrote: »

MagicSean wrote: »

Your seem to be working under the impression that people are inherently good and want to change. This is not correct. I would hazard a guess that you deal very little with real criminals or their victims.

Go down the courts some day and listen to the backgrounds of the people being convicted in the District Court.

Most of them never stood a chance.

100% this.

Locking people who cant conform to a community standard behaviour away from society has been in practice for thousands of years. Crime rates are only steady.

What's more people harking back to the days of old when people were locked up for life or hanged for serious crimes are chasing some sort of idyllic crime free society that never existed.

Social inclusion and education is the only long term way to address crime levels.

Indricotherium

MagicSean wrote: »

The_Minister wrote: »

Go down the courts some day and listen to the backgrounds of the people being convicted in the District Court.

Most of them never stood a chance.

How about you go talk to their victims. They didn't either.

They didn't. But that is not a reason to lock someone up.

Indricotherium

Jogathon wrote: »

I know a local guard who says that if he could lock up 8 people in his area the crime rate would be negligible. There would still be a few car related tips, maybe some young kids acting the maggot, but there would be no crime as such. Wouldn't that be great? I'd love it.

The amount of previous convictions in some of the "poor lads who never stood a chance with their background" is a joke. 67+ previous convictions, robberies, violent assaults and these people are out and back in the court again with more bloody crimes! Where is the logic in that? Three strikes and you're out cleaned up New York pretty quickly - can we please try it here?

Fear of jail is clearly not a deferent to people who build up that many convictions.

MagicSean

Indricotherium wrote: »

They didn't. But that is not a reason to lock someone up.

Yes it is. To stop the next person from being their victim.

Indricotherium

MagicSean wrote: »

Indricotherium wrote: »

They didn't. But that is not a reason to lock someone up.

Yes it is. To stop the next person from being their victim.

The logic to the lock people up for long time side of this argument is that the only thing separating society as it is in Ireland from some sort of mad max style every man for himself is fear of jail.

I just don't think that's the case.

MagicSean

Indricotherium wrote: »

The logic to the lock people up for long time side of this argument is that the only thing separating society as it is in Ireland from some sort of mad max style every man for himself is fear of jail.

I just don't think that's the case.

You don't seem to understand. I don't care about wether they rehabilitate or not, or wether they fear jail. They make their own choices. All i care about is seperating them from the rest of us who want to live our lives without fear.

Farcear

MagicSean wrote: »

You don't seem to understand. I don't care about wether they rehabilitate or not, or wether they fear jail. They make their own choices. All i care about is seperating them from the rest of us who want to live our lives without fear.

But if you don't tackle the causes of crime, someone else is just going to stab you.

Safer bet would be to lock yourself up?

MagicSean

MagicSean wrote: »

You don't seem to understand. I don't care about wether they rehabilitate or not, or wether they fear jail. They make their own choices. All i care about is seperating them from the rest of us who want to live our lives without fear.

There's nothing you can do to eliminate crime. You can reduce it and the single most effective way that's ever been found to do that is rehabilitation.

We have been locking people up for thousands of years, killing them, cutting off body parts and in all that time crime has never gone away. It's about minimising and that cannot be achieved through locking them up as there are always more criminals.

jimmycrackcorm

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.

Indricotherium

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.

Lol.

Even the pro prison crowd are shouting from the rooftops that they believe people reoffend when they leave prison.

Maybe you get some sort of visceral feeling of satisfaction from the thought of the person who wronged you being locked up; but it does nothing to address the situation that caused the person to act in the first place.

Prison as it is doesn't work.

It also costs a fortune.

Indricotherium

MagicSean wrote: »

Indricotherium wrote: »

The logic to the lock people up for long time side of this argument is that the only thing separating society as it is in Ireland from some sort of mad max style every man for himself is fear of jail.

I just don't think that's the case.

You don't seem to understand. I don't care about wether they rehabilitate or not, or wether they fear jail. They make their own choices. All i care about is seperating them from the rest of us who want to live our lives without fear.

More directly. I would rather a world where no crime was committed than one where all criminals were locked up away from society.

jimmycrackcorm

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.

Does the fact that the best criminal justice system in the world, arguably, has prisons that are like 4 star hotels and has the lowest recidivism rate in the developed world in comparison with the US, which has sentencing and prison conditions along the lines you outline, has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the world's prisoners and has a higher or crime rate and substantially higher homicide rate than Ireland not make you realise that what you are suggesting wont work.

We should be looking to Norway, not the United States for our exemplar. This righteous anger and looking tough on crime is really quite pointless and utterly counterproductive.

Nermal

Deleted User wrote: »

Does the fact that the best criminal justice system in the world, arguably, has prisons that are like 4 star hotels and has the lowest recidivism rate in the developed world in comparison with the US, which has sentencing and prison conditions along the lines you outline, has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the world's prisoners and has a higher or crime rate and substantially higher homicide rate than Ireland not make you realise that what you are suggesting wont work.

If the US and Norway were identical in every respect other than their prisons, then you might have a point.

Farcear wrote: »

But if you don't tackle the causes of crime

Indricotherium wrote: »

but it does nothing to address the situation that caused the person to act in the first place.

Handwringing. People are not forced to commit crime in Ireland due to economic necessity, so the only 'cause' of crime we need to be tackling is the perpetrator.

MagicSean

Indricotherium wrote: »

More directly. I would rather a world where no crime was committed than one where all criminals were locked up away from society.

We don't live in that world.

The causes of crime are the choices made by criminals. Their choices may be influenced by their upbringing and circumstances but they still have the ultimate decision and they choose to hurt people.

Nermal

Nermal wrote: »

If the US and Norway were identical in every respect other than their prisons, then you might have a point.

I said they were exemplars, not comparators although it certainly reads that way.

Regardless the point stands: one system works better than the other and is indicative of a general social attitude to crime and other social problems. Which should we be aspiring to?

Nermal

Deleted User wrote: »

Regardless the point stands: one system works better than the other

Norway's system cannot be divorced from circumstances peculiar to Norway, and the same applies to the US. It's not possible to make an evidence-based comparison of one aspect of this society in this way. How can you prove that applying the US system in Norway would not decrease crime still further, or that applying the Norwegian system in the US would fail?

The self-evident facts of the situation are that committing crime in the past is a good predictor of propensity to commit crime in the future, and that it's very difficult to commit crimes while incarcerated. Both point to the value of a three-strikes policy.

valleyoftheunos

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.

Farcear

Nermal wrote: »

People are not forced to commit crime in Ireland due to economic necessity, so the only 'cause' of crime we need to be tackling is the perpetrator.

Social background is relevant.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/david_r_dow_lessons_from_death_row_inmates.html

(and TED talks are always interesting.)

Zambia

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.