We need more prisons.

[alexava 6,973]

http://limestonecountynewsnow.com/2015/07/19/breaking-homicide-investigation-on-copeland-rd-in-east-limestone/

This happened about a driver and a 3wood from my front yard. i was on a bike ride this morning about 9am when the second LCSD vehicle responded then the ambulance a few minutes later. at 6:30 still 6 or 7 LE vehicles investigating. there is no justice in this country.

[aujeff11 6,243]

If you say so......

[Weegle777 78]

They arrested the guy. What's your issue?

[Weegle777 78]

Not you Jeff, I was talking to ava.

[alexava 6,973]

They arrested the guy. What's your issue?

did you see his record? just released from prison. serving less than 3 years for a 10 year sentence. SOB should have been locked up.

http://www.waff.com/story/29581792/man-arrested-in-limestone-co-murder-investigation

[Weegle777 78]

He was locked up.

[AURaptor 1,122]

We just need more jobs for these people . Like with ISIS. Give them more schooling, better paying jobs, and they'll put down their guns and butcher knives and stop raping women.

Problem solved.

[aujeff11 6,243]

They arrested the guy. What's your issue?

did you see his record? just released from prison. serving less than 2 years for a 10 year sentence. SOB should have been locked up.

So...are you arguing for more prisons or more minimum mandatory sentences?

[alexava 6,973]

We just need more jobs for these people . Like with ISIS. Give them more schooling, better paying jobs, and they'll put down their guns and butcher knives and stop raping women.

Problem solved.

prisons will bring more jobs.

[alexava 6,973]

They arrested the guy. What's your issue?

did you see his record? just released from prison. serving less than 2 years for a 10 year sentence. SOB should have been locked up.

So...are you arguing for more prisons or more minimum mandatory sentences?

Both. they let these a**holes out because the prisons are full.

[aujeff11 6,243]

They arrested the guy. What's your issue?

did you see his record? just released from prison. serving less than 2 years for a 10 year sentence. SOB should have been locked up.

So...are you arguing for more prisons or more minimum mandatory sentences?

Both. they let these a**holes out because the prisons are full.

Ok man...

[JoeBags7277 734]

We need to create fewer criminals, so there is more room for the hardened criminals in the prisons we already have.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

LIke this woman that was a first time offender, in a nonviolent crack cocaine deal where she was the middle person. She is serving a life sentence.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-a-first-crack-cocaine-offense-led-to-a-life-sentence/ar-AAd2iDh

Yet you have the father of the 7 year old that killed in Chicago that has been arrested 43 times and still on the streets.

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

Btw, I totally wanna do like a thing where you take like a old ship or oil rig. Do a Death Race/Running Man bit on it with violent criminals and put it on pay per view lol.

Who is with me? We would bank so much money.

[WarTim 3,456]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

[aujeff11 6,243]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Enjoy this moment, for once I wholeheartedly agree with you.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

Minor property crimes. Non violent crimes. Minor drug offenses. Mandatory minimums on crimes that don't warrant it such as things under the Gun Control Act of 1968 which under a 1986 revision by Congress, makes it illegal for a user of a controlled substance to own a gun. This creates silly scenarios like a person who occasionally smokes marijuana and buys a .22 rifle for use at a target range being given a minimum 5-year prison sentence.

Here are a few actual situations that illustrate this. Note, I'm not saying these people were innocent of a crime or of bad judgment. But putting these folks in prison for years makes no sense and just puts a massive strain on our resources.

Brenda Valencia, a 19-year-old with no prior convictions, or even any evidence of involvement in drug sales, drove her aunt from Miami to a drug dealer's home in Palm Beach County.

For that she was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison

, which the sentencing judge, Federal District Judge Jose Gonzalez, Jr., termed "an outrage."(61)

Michael Irish was a 44-year-old carpenter in Portland, Oregon. Irish had no criminal record, but he did have a wife, two children, and no money, because his savings had been wiped out to pay for his wife's cancer treatment.

One afternoon he was asked to help unload a cargo boat of hashish onto a truck; he did so and ended up sentenced to 12 years in prison without parole.(62)

Gary Fannon, a 19-year-old with no prior convictions, worked to set up, but then became too fearful to complete, a sale of a large quantity of cocaine to an undercover Michigan police officer.

Fannon was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole.

(63)

Christian Martensen, a young fan of the Grateful Dead, followed the band on tour. When his van broke down, he needed money to fix it, and another fan offered Martensen $400 if Martensen would find him someone who would sell some LSD. Martensen accepted the fan's offer; the fan turned out to be an undercover federal agent, and

Martensen is now serving a 10-year mandatory minimum. He has no prior record.(64)

These aren't hardened criminals. Putting them in prison for more than a decade to life doesn't make us safer and you can bet the ones who will get out in 12 years aren't going to be better equipped to be productive members of society. They are serving hard time and will come out behind the 8-ball employment-wise AND be scarred from their time in prison. That's not the way our prison system and sentencing should work.

Prisons are things that should be used to keep people who are violent or dangerous away from the rest of the citizens, not showy ways for politicians to act tough.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Enjoy this moment, for once I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I shall savor it, sir.

[WarTim 3,456]

The prison system is for Punishment.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

Nearly half of the federal prison population are serving sentences for drugs, with marijuana being the most common. The only reason why the prison population exploded like it did was because of the failure of the "war on drugs" program and the minimum mandatory sentences that started in the 1980s. I have no problem with the latter but the former has done more bad than good.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

The prison system is for Punishment.

Well, not just punishment. Because like all punishment, it should be something that corrects behavior, not merely hammers a person for it with no greater purpose. And it should be proportional in effect to the damage of the crime. I punish my kids, good teachers and principals punish unruly students. But the goal of it is one of discipline and correction - you choose punishments that have not just a deterrent effect, but that are appropriate to the level of offense and hopefully are combined with an effort to put a person back on a good path going forward. You don't want to have to revisit this again later.

Punishment and correction can take many forms. There's nothing God-ordained about prison time being the only or primary mode of punishment. Our prison system is (or should be) used to keep people who are a danger to the rest of us from causing further serious harm. And it we have finite resources to accomplish this task. If you're locking people up for extended amounts of time, or locking folks up for minor offenses that could better be handled with alternate sentencing, you are straining limited resources that hinders us from effectively keeping the ones who most need to be locked up on the inside. Our prison population is simply too high for a country our size.

[Strychnine 1,802]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

That alone should tell any rational person that we are doing something terribly wrong in our criminal justice system.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

That alone should tell any rational person that we are doing something terribly wrong in our criminal justice system.

One would think.

I mean, we have a population that is 1/4th the size of China, but we have more people incarcerated than they do. Simple logic should tell you there's no way those numbers should even be close and the fact that we have more people in prison tells you we need to fix our system. Because it ain't like the Chinese are soft on crime.

[JoeBags7277 734]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

I'd say the easiest way to define the term would be the kind of stuff you could be guilty of and still hope to have a second chance at a college football career under Gus.