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the fact you can earn your way out of the place ...is the only thing that makes the place safe to live and work in.
no rewards would mean utter chaos.
Things are a bit different over here in Ireland in that a guilty plea is taken into account in sentencing but there isn't an automatic reduction that goes on a sentence for it. Everybody serves at least 3/4 of the prison sentence but then gets out unless they have any added time from getting into trouble while in there.
TBH, the few 'comforts' that people have in prison are probably most useful for prison officers as they can be used to make sure people behave when they are inside. If you had 500 men locked up in the one place without being able to relieve the boredom by not being able to have a TV, music, abl eto smoke etc. you would have a lot more trouble inside prisons than you do at the moment. It's not a pleasant experience at all and you see the number of suicides by people who can't handle being locked up.
You can't. The paedophile may claim that they're alright and won't do anything like that again; but they may still end up committing that act (or a different one which is just as bad) again.
Exactly. But won't most people learn from their mistakes?
For people with severe mental problems we need secure mental hospitals. And to deter 'career criminals', people trying to make a living out of crime we need longer sentences and even tougher prisons. Meanwhile we need to create a separate charge of first degree murder - for which the guilty should be executed.
how about i go round the schools and tell the actual truth about my drug and crime experiences?
i have a feeling the truth would actualy encourage many to drop out.
how tough are british prisons?
you don't realy have the faintest idea do you dis.
yet here you are asking for tougher prisons.
uneducated or badly educated and couldn't caare less for most reoffenders in my experience.
getting chucked out the prison gate with no money and being homeless having lost a house flat etc whilst inside ...doesn't help either.
what can a person do in a situation like that?
So brutalising kids even further is going to stop them being criminals?
You get more and more extreme by the day.
He's getting further and further to the right with every post.
On political compass I'm a mild libertarian and slightly to the right, pretty much in the centre really. And in a partisan sense I generally support the Conservative Party, I also identify with the Republican Party...Moderate centre-right I'd say. I guess you're far-left?
Mild liberatarian? Yeah... :rolleyes: You're a free market fundamentalist and you know it.
He's in denial.
He'll be putting up posters of Franco soon
Ah well. Mine have gone left since I joined here.:eek:
Unless you are suggesting it is possible to be a moderate centre-right person and identify oneself with the very, very right wing Republican Party... which doesn't make much sense I'm afraid.
Mountjoy in Dublin. As far as I can make out it is similar to a Cat B jail over there - they don't have the same category stuff over here. The building is from the 1850s and not much has changed in it no toilets in cells etc just piss pots - they are talking about closing it down. A really depressing place.
The Republican Party and Democrat Party both encompass a very wide range of views. Among the 100 Senators there's a wide range of opinion. Arlen Specter, a Republican Senator for instance is pro-choice, supports gay rights and Lincoln Chafee another Republican Senator supports affirmative action and gun control. And among Democrats in the Senate there are people who have a pro-life voting record, Ben Nelson and Harry Reid for instance. And Zell Miller, a Democrat was one of the most vocal supporters of Bush in 2004...There's not really any distinctive single Republican or Democrat view, both cover a pretty broad range of opinion. I do however between the Republicans and Democrats generally identify more with the Republican mindset of smaller government and lower taxes. I'm generally fiscally conservative and socially liberal I guess...Republicans also generally have much more of an idea on foreign policy. Some Democrats are sounding pretty isolationist these days.
I think I'd hope that Republicans go for Rudolph Giuliani or Condi Rice in '08, I wouldn't really call either of them very right wing...Although there are some good Democrats, Joe Lieberman speaks a lot of sense.
ETA: 39% of the sentanced prison population have some form of mental health disorder (66% of remand population) - Institute of Psychiatry. Health Advisory Committee for the Prison Service. Research Review. The Stationery Office, 1998.
You might think that Republicans and Democrats are not that different... and perhaps you are right. But compared with Europe and indeed the rest of the world, the Republicans (and to a lesser extent the Democrats) are incredibly right wing. Far more than any mainstream political party you will find on this side of the Atlantic. They make even the Tories look like a bunch of lefties.
Structurally the Democrat and Republican parties are fairly undisciplined, whips in the House and Senate don't have anywhere near the power of their UK counterparts and I don't think whips even exist in the state legislatures. Hence it’s a bit vague really to talk of any 'official' Republican party policy on single mothers and gay rights. And most Republican politicans do not wish to persecute single mothers, ban anal sex and persecute gay people. (Lets also remember the Republican initiative seeking a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman would not rule out civil partnerships providing gay couples with equal rights to married couples. Perhaps not ideal, a constitutional amendment seems drastic and misguided - but hardly homophobic. It's not as if gay marriage even exists in Britain where we have civil partnerships instead).
Tbh I would say it is just as much a cultural difference as it is political. I don't think it's just about left/right. America is different; there's a greater focus on individuals freedom, private charity - taking self initiative, etc. Britain is somewhere between Europe and America but leaning towards America. If you contrast Blair and even Brown as centre/centre-left politicians they broadly support reform and free trade; they to an extent talk about opposing subsidies and protectionism - whereas Chirac by French standards is centre-right yet he seems to be to the left of Labour most of the time. Europe? Poland and Estonia have pretty solidly centre-right governments, as did Spain until the election upset in 2004 and Italy only very narrowly moved back towards the left. Costas Karamanlis in Greece is pretty centre-right too. (Australia and Canada have centre-right governments while we're at it). I guess the Republicans are more right wing, they're broadly more libertarian than most parties outside America but I think that's perhaps something really that is more ingrained in America culturally than anything particularly partisan.
The family I have in America I know generally vote Democrats for president, a mix for House and Senate depending on the candidate and Republicans at state level...There's some sense in that, from that time I've spent in America I can see why people vote Republican at state level. For instance New Hampshire's state legislature is solidly Republican and they have excellent public services and very low state taxes. New Jersey much higher state taxes and worse public services...Generalising I know but it’s the same in England generally. Conservative councils consistently bring better value for money and Labour councils usually overspend, are often badly run and deliver crap services.
Historically it was Southern democrats who were the extreme right wingers in terms of race, etc. The Republicans for years struggled to break in to the Southern strongholds and it was only with the civil rights movement that dixiercrats strangehold was broken.
To be fair comparing the US and UK (and indeed the any two countries) just shows the limitations of the idea of right/left. After all the US, has many states with smoking laws far to the left of what the UK has and it has a decentralised local democracy far in advance of anywhere in Europe (though I remain unconvinced by the idea we should elect law enforcement officials)