h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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You hit the nail right on the head there; not with a crumpet either!

zdt

It turned out, according the news media, that Atlanta, Georgia city and police officials lied about their murder rate in order to get the Olympics there.

Many countries and states have a high unsolved murder rate. This makes the cases that they do "solve" seem all that much more suspect.

Kinda the "normally I poop in my pants, but this time I made it to the toilet" philosophy. And when they do have cases where there is a lot of "evidence", you gotta sometimes look around your own house and wonder what smokey could prove if he wanted to...

As famous real "forensic" officer once said,"You wouldn't believe how cluttered with unattributable trace evidence the world is. And half of it was left by the first officers at the scene..."

You see Smudge, I agree that prison costs us too much money as taxpayers, but then it is seen as a way of rehabilitating the criminal, rather than a way of *punishing* them. In reality it seems as though they are quite often criminal training grounds.

What needs to be done is to use a prison as, wait for it, a prison. Rather than training murderers and rapists for a life in the outside world, they should be left without privilidge to moulder and suffer as they themselves have caused the families of those affected to suffer. I agree that prisoners have rights, but I think that they do not extend to days out, TV, or priviledge. They do have the right to live in a clean environment with space and no overcrowding, but trips to the chippy are a bit too far.

Smudger I believe the cost argument has been proved wrong in the US. It may not hold true for other countries. The cost of jailing,lawyers for appeals and trials really add up.

Although I would be interested in seeing the ages they are dealing with these days. Seems like serial killers are older than many of the young teens that kill. Keeping someone in jail 60 years has got to cost a lot more than 20-30 years.

No matter the cost I am against the death penalty.
I do not think it will ever be fool proof or equal.

I would imagine there are a lot of different types of killers. I doubt most were well planned murders over a long time. I could certainly be wrong about that Smudger.

The funny thing is, I was watching a documentry on TV recently where they were on about the legal "space allowed" per prisoner, as per human rights ect
I had to when it worked out that you can fit 7 prisoners into the same space as one of us sailors
Smudger.

Theoretically I am for the death penalty, but from a practical point of view I have to admit the practical problem of getting conclusive proof. And as even the outside possibility of killing somebody innocent by mistake, or not so much mistake, is impossible to accept, i for one can see no way out.
The most frequently proposed way out of that moral dilemma seems to be to file away any likely murderer in prison for further reference. Ok.
It's been said here that imprisonment might be worse than death. Not for a murderer, I very much doubt that. That sort wants to live no matter what.
An innocent person though...
And to think that's the stuff Hollywood movies are made of!

Of course, the death row population boils down to two kinds of people:
1. The innocent
2. The stupid enough to get caught

just like the rest of the penal population.

If the truly guilty that we have behind bars are only the ones stupid enough to get caught, what does that say for the smart ones who don't get caught?

Of course, there is that bunch that continue to kill or learn to kill once they are in.
One of the most notorious multi-murder members of the Aryan Brotherhood was a fellow in for fraud. He had to kill to make his bones, to get his "shamrock".
At one point the Aryan Brotherhood were running operations in prisons and outside, dealing in drugs, extortion, prostitution and contract killings. Every time the State and Federal penal authorities split them up and sent them to different prisons, their notoriety made the spread of the virus easier. One member made a specialty of killing guards to get the population's attention. One he killed in front of other guards while shackled hand and foot, using a shiv that just came out of another fellow's behind. And many of these guys were in on consecutive life sentences, spending years in solitary.

On the whole, I'd rather be innocent and wrongly executed quickly than have to deal with these thugs.

My goodness I'd have to agree with your lesser of evils choice in the last line.

I forget how brutal life can be sometimes.
That was a very dark!

I cannot handle the thought of being locked up or restrained let alone all the rest that could come with being in prison.

The thing that causes me to cringe the easiest and hurt the most is being wrongly accused of something.

It is a real big thing to me.
It started before my awareness of racism but has a lot to do with prejudice of all types.

I am alarmed at the number of people that are confessing to crimes they did not commit. It seems the interrogations walk a fine line or go over. The weakest seem to be vulnerable to confessing when the interrogations are extremely long. It is very sad to think about a person that cannot tolerate that pressure, wrongly ending up in prison.

And there are still many places in the world where confessions are extracted through torture!

It happens here in Africa. In Zimbabwe a while ago there were a bunch of white guys who were 'framed' for treasonous activities. They were tortured with electrical shocks and a few 'psychological' tricks such as taking them out of the country and telling them they will be killed, as well as telling them their wives and children will be tortured and killed. A bit of such shocking treatment and they were willing to confess everything they were told to. Not only did they themselves confess to totally ridiculous charges but they were willing to name 'accomplices' as well and these 'accomplices' were in turn arrested, tortured and forced to confess. These people were actually all innocent but the government wanted 'fall guys'. Imagine being tortured and forced to name one of your innocent colleagues as an accomplice to a crime that carries the death penalty! That's what happened to those men. While this was going on the government kept moving them around from jail to jail to make sure they couldn't contact family and lawyers. But in the end the men won out and there were protests from Britain against the Zimbabwe government and finally the men were released. But they had suffered immensely ... not just from the torture but also from the conditions in jail where they were kept for more than a year. The food was almost inedible ... the jails unbelievably disgusting with urine and faeces on the floors and walls, flies and fleas and ticks and other biting insects not to mention cocroaches and rats, and having to sleep on the concrete freezing your ass off at night etc.

You know what those guys would have been executed was it not for the protests of their families and the governments of Britain and America.

There are many people in prisons who simply do not have this sort of recourse. For instance these guys met in prison a heck of a lot of local black people who were also framed, tortured and imprisoned, and executed. These natives did not have the recourse to the lawyers, politicians etc. that these white people had. They did not have a prayer in fact. We know of the few white people who were framed, tortured and so on, but what about the mass of black people? They had no voice.

There are lots of places in the world where innocent people are forced to confess through torture and then imprisoned in absolutely ghastly circumstances, or even executed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/national/19DNA.html?pagewanted=1&8br
Answers questions I had about dna , false convictions and false confessions


http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/04/16/wrongly.convicted.ap/index.html
An individuals story of false conviction. He may get 360,000 for his time.