Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #150109

Re: OT: efforts to repeal strict public safety laws

Show all headers | View raw

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> The NYT had an article about efforts to repeal stricter public safety laws of hte 1990s.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/politics/joe-bidens-role-in-90s-crime-law-could-haunt-any-presidential-bid.html
>
> Advocates say reduced crime eliminated the need for such laws.  But,
> in my own humble opinion, we have reduced crime because dangerous
> offenders were taken off the streets as a result of these laws.  I
> well remember high street crime of the 1970s and 1980s, and I don't
> want to return to those days.
>
> ob comp: There were several programs in those days to train prison
> inmates to become computer programmers.  I don't know how well those
> programs worked out; unfortunately, I can't find any literature on it.
> I don't know what kind of inmate training, if any, exists today.  (One
> prison has a culniary arts program and the inmates run a restaurant
> under supervision; which is open the public.  The food is good.)

the scenario from Freakonomics is that they were expecting big uptic in
crime in the 90s ... but it didn't happened ... in fact the reverse
(crime dropped).  they claim it correlates with legalizing abortions
... that major factor in crime was unwanted children growing up
http://freakonomics.com/

the other side was that the new crime laws resulted in enormous upsurge
in non-violent, frequently victimless crimes to populate the for-profit
prisons (low-cost low-overhead prisoners) ... turning the US into the
largest per-capita prison population in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

... and for-profit prisons have become the largest lobby that you never
heard of.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison
https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/06/private-prisons-profit

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Back to alt.folklore.computers | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

OT:  efforts to repeal strict public safety laws hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-21 09:48 -0700
  Re: OT:  efforts to repeal strict public safety laws Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-08-21 11:24 -0700
  Re: OT:  efforts to repeal strict public safety laws Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-08-21 19:54 +0200
    Re: OT:  efforts to repeal strict public safety laws Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-08-22 09:21 -0700

csiph-web