It seems that whenever something like this crops up on Accy Web, people toss their intellect and common sense out the window; they seem to confuse intelligent and creative response with a spasmodic, ill-thought-out reaction. One sensational new report sends people scurrying for their cat o' nine tails and their nooses. Simple solutions will not work ... Is anyone going to present any stats showing that there has been a massive increase in crime? If someone does, then they may form a basis for a set of reasoned arguments. Perhaps if one looked not at deterrents for crime, but at the incentives, one may get a clearer picture. There is no simple equation: harsher punishment = less crime ... just doesn't work that way. Look at the example that the US gives us, esp. a US governed by right wing republicans. Some of the toughest laws in the world; the only developed Western nation still to have capital punishment; some really tough drug laws .... and what do we get: crime rate in general thro' the roof; murder rate .... well, the city of Detroit has more murders in a year than the whole of the British Isles .... more drug addicts, and most drug related crimes amongst developed nations .... And take a look at the prison population in the US; don't you notice a preponderance of blacks and hispanics? Mmmm, niggers and spics must have a greater tendency to crime than white folks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And in Canada, it's the First Nations people who are over-represented in the jails. I wonder if poverty and the unequal distribution of wealth and justice might have something to do with it? O. J. Simpson literally got away with murder, because he could afford millions of dollars worth of legal aid; Tyrone and Jesus go to the chair. I'm not wandering off topic; I'm offering a thumbnail of a model lots of you guys seem to want to follow. Maybe the answers your government(s) are coming up with are not the right ones; maybe they won't work all that well; but that shouldn't stop the search for solutions that will work ... rather than go back to solutions that have been proven not to work. I've expressed these opinions before, with little success .... and I don't expect much change this time around.
I guess I should throw up a wall .... nah, I have the Atlantic.
