Prison Nation

[Freak Out]

Crazy numbers in this report...almost 2.5 million people in State and federal prisons in the US.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p06.pdf

Who needs to be locked up? Who needs to be executed?

[Kiwon]

Crazy numbers in this report...almost 2.5 million people in State and federal prisons in the US.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p06.pdf

Who needs to be locked up? Who needs to be executed?

What? Are you offering to save the taxpayers some money on executions? Idle is the Gun Rat.

[the_idle_threat]

I may be the gun rat, but I don't hunt people unless they're huntin' for me. :P

This "prison nation" is the main reason I'm in favor of capital punishment. Deterrence and retribution are secondary factors to me.

For those who are sentenced to life in prison without parole, why not clean out the warehouse a little bit? After all, a life sentence without parole is a sentence to die in prison anyway ... it just drags things out for a couple more decades while the state or federal gov't pays to keep 'em locked up and guarded for a generation or two. And really, how much more "humane" is it to cage the person like an animal for decades, never to be released, rather then execute them? Execution is no bed of roses, to be sure, but neither is the alternative.

Of course, the counterargument is "what about those 'lifers' who are later proven innocent?" Well, for one thing, the vast majority of them aren't. And for those that are, I suspect that a decade or more in prison is soul-deadening enough that they can't deal with the freedom. The person's "life" in society is over anyway. I'll admit I don't have statistics, but Steven Avery is a case in point, and I believed this even before the Avery case happened.

Of course, I realize that a lot of these prisoners aren't lifers, and I certainly think we could get this number down if we examine some of our drug laws. But that being said, if some people are too dangerous to be on the street, you gotta get 'em off the street. And if they're too dangerous to ever be on the street again, then why keep 'em around at all?

[swede]

This is a very important topic. Last night a pizza delivery guy was murdered in Milwaukee and ten people have been arrested for shooting the driver, ramming the car into a tree and starting it on fire.

I don't think the problem of a dysfunctional and violent underclass is a problem that can't be solved.

I think the political hacks that exploit fear, loathing and class envy in order to get re-elected represent the problem that begs for a solution. I can't think of an exception to the statement that there are no local, state, or national politicians with the drive or intellect to conceive and carry out an effective plan to fight the growing problem of violence in our urban areas.

[Freak Out]

Something is desperately wrong in a society when we feel the need to lock up this many of our citizens. It's not like some countries where many political prisoners make up a sizable portion of the prison population... these are all people that have committed a crime and we the people have decided the punishment should be jail time. Many things need to change but sentencing reform for non violent crimes has to be way up the list. "Paying their dept to society" needs to mean much more than just sitting in a jail cell for years.

I completely agree with Swede when he says that the problem with a violent criminal underclass can be solved...but many in the nation have given up.

This should be one of the central questions in all the upcoming local and national elections.

[Joemailman]

Any politician who tries to suggest a remedy other than tougher prison sentences is liable to be tagged as "soft on crime" by the opponent. As long as the American people continue to elect the same kind of politicians we've been getting, it is unlikely anything will change.

[Freak Out]

I'm sure some of these women deserve a reduced sentence. If you were a 13 year old horn dog are you going to say no to Pamela Rogers Turner?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11zern.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

May require a login...sorry.

The Siren Song of Sex With Boys
By KATE ZERNIKE

WHEN Sandra Beth Geisel, a former Catholic schoolteacher, was sentenced to six months in jail last month for having sex with a 16-year-old student, she received sympathy from a surprising source.

The judge, Stephen Herrick of Albany County Court in New York, told her she had "crossed the line" into "totally unacceptable" behavior. But, he added, the teenager was a victim in only the strictly legal sense. "He was certainly not victimized by you in any other sense of the word," the judge said. The prosecutor and a lawyer for the boy's family called the judge's comments outrageous. But is it possible that the 16-year-old wasn't really harmed?

The last few months have produced a spate of cases where women are prosecuted for having sex with boys: Debra LaFave of Florida, another teacher, faces trial for sleeping with a 14-year-old student; Lisa Lynette Clark of Georgia was impregnated by her son's 15-year-old friend, whom she married a day before she was arrested; Silvia Johnson of Colorado was sentenced to 30 years for having sex with teenagers and providing drugs and alcohol.

Certainly no one doubts that a teacher who has sex with her students should lose her job. Or that a 37-year-old mother should not find herself pregnant by her son's 15-year-old friend. Or that a 41-year-old mother who provides sex, drugs and alcohol to teenagers so she can be cool among her daughter's friends is troubled.

But when the women face prison, questions are raised about where to set the age of consent. And because many of those named as victims refused to testify against the women in what they said were consensual relationships, not everyone agrees that the cases involve child abuse.

"We need to untangle the moral issues from the psychological issues from the legal issues," said Carol Tavris, the author of "The Mismeasure of Women" and a social psychologist. "That's the knot." She added: "You may not like something, but does that mean it should be illegal? If we have laws that are based on moral notions and developmental notions that are outdated, do we need to change the laws?"

Though it might seem that way from the headlines, women having sex with teenage boys is not new. A federal Department of Education study called "Educator Sexual Misconduct," released last year, found that 40 percent of the educators who had been reported for sexual misconduct with students were women.

Charol Shakeshaft, the author of the study and a professor of education at Hofstra University, said that even when the woman is not a teacher, the relationships are not healthy. "A 16-year-old is just not fully developed," she said. "Male brains tend to develop the part that can make decisions about whether it is a wise thing to do later."

Prosecutions of women have been rising slightly in the last several years, said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Mr. Finkelhor says he believes that the scandal involving sexual abuse by priests called more attention to cases with teachers and other authority figures. But the cases also reflect a decline in the double standard applied to men and women, brought on, he said, by increasing numbers of female prosecutors and police officers who may not buy into the traditional notion that a boy who has sex with an older woman just got lucky.

But several studies have raised questions about whether the recent cases should be filed under child sex abuse.

The most controversial study was published in 1998 in Psychological Bulletin. The article, a statistical re-analysis of 59 studies of college students who said they were sexually abused in childhood, concluded that the effects of such abuse "were neither pervasive nor typically intense, and that men reacted much less negatively than women."

The researchers questioned the practice, common in many studies, of lumping all sexual abuse together. They contended that treating all types equally presented problems that, they wrote, "are perhaps most apparent when contrasting cases such as the repeated rape of a 5-year-old girl by her father and the willing sexual involvement of a mature 15-year-old adolescent boy with an unrelated adult."

In the first case, serious harm may result, the article said, but the second case "may represent only a violation of social norms with no implication for personal harm."

They suggested substituting the term "adult adolescent sex" for child abuse in some cases where the sex was consensual.

"Abuse implies harm in a scientific usage, and the term should not be in use if there is consent and no evidence of harm," said Bruce Rind, an author of the study and a psychology professor at Temple University.

This view could prove a hard sell, politically and legally. The article in Psychological Bulletin was roundly criticized by prominent conservatives and denounced in Congress, as was the judge in Ms. Geisel's case. In 2003, Bruce Gaeta, a New Jersey judge, was reprimanded by the state's highest court for characterizing an encounter between a 43-year-old female teacher and a 13-year-old boy who had been a student as "just something between two people that clicked beyond the teacher-student relationship."

Pamela Rogers Turner, a Tennessee teacher, was sentenced in August to nine months in jail for sex with a 13-year-old boy.

Thirteen? Professor Rind and others agree that that is too low to set the age of consent, making 12 truly out of bounds - the age of Vili Fualaau when he began having sex with the most infamous of the teachers in sex scandals, Mary Kay Letourneau. (The fact that a decade later the two are married and even registered for china at Macy's has not changed anyone's mind.)

But Professor Rind and others point out that Canada and about half of Europe have set the age of consent at 14 after recommendations by national commissions. To set it much higher, as most states do, they say, ignores the research, and the hormones.

Even those who argue for more protection of children agree that the laws in this country can be arbitrary. In Ms. Geisel's case, she was caught first with a 17-year-old student, but because he was of legal age, she was charged only after his 16-year-old friend came forward and said they had taken turns having sex. Can a few months make such a difference?

"I'm torn, I don't know," Professor Shakeshaft said. "Teachers are always wrong. And it would be my belief that people aren't formed by 16. On the other hand, my mother married my father at 16 and they were married 65 years."

Professor Finkelhor agrees that there is variability among cases and teenagers but says it's better to err on the side of safety.