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Should people who have drug convictions NOT be put in prison?
Posted by lordiwanttobewhole • 10/25/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: drug, offenders, prison, unsafe
I've been watching the news at night with sadness and a very heavy heart. The news content is full of stories of children being abducted and killed.
The killers of these beautiful young children are repeat sex offenders who have a 'get out of jail free' card it seems.
The prisons are over populated and these sex offenders get out and offend again.
The streets aren't safe for children. We are living in fear as a society. Should the prisons not house people with drug convictions so there is room for sex offenders?
Your thoughts...........
User Comments
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I don't think the use or sale of any drug should be a crime period. I'm not an expert on the nature or habits of sex offenders. The impression I have of them is that they're very difficult to reform. -
The prisons are overpopulated, there needs to be a solution....this is a possibility.
Possibility of people who have drug convictions to take part in community volunteer projects...? Treatment centers? I'm not sure of the answer but sexual offenders can't be let out to reoffend over and over again. -
I'm not all that studied on the prison system except in a few cases. I know that putting people charged with victimless crimes in prison with hard core criminals seems to produce more hard core criminals. -
This is what I think.... sale or purchase of chemical substances is leading to someone or some familys demise. I think the punishment should fit the crime.
I think there should be a whole other system for violent offenders like the ones who just murdered somer. The system should be set up to strictly punish those monsters.
The sale of drugs leads to violent crime also. If and that's a big IF can be taught that there is another,better way to live and truly want to better themselves and break the cycle of "the game" for the betterment of their families and offspring....I'M ALL FOR REFORM....but it is something to be taken seriously and watched closely. -
But if we made room for pedophiles, we might have to let out black people... -
That's not even funny travelosity
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it was supposed to be funny. i was just commenting that there are a lot of people out there who would rather live next to or employ a white pedophile than a black person with a petty drug conviction. It is sad but true
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I know what u were sayin...I meant to say "haha" at the end.
It would be so much better if we could all skype in these forums -
i typoed there. I meant "wasn't"
thanks for the haha... i think.... -
ur tone in saying what u said was supposed to be sarcastic,and sarcasm is funny. Your stament however wasn't funny so u are welcome for the haha and you're not welcome at the same time....I think
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yes. You are correct.
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I know
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Besides that I hear gitmo is closing down. I say ship em over there and start the water boarding
Better than that let's do castration with no anestetic...yea much better. -
Cut off the sex offenders appendage and they will offend no more with it. This operant condition particularly a "Negative punishment" would result in deterring other possible sex offenders that once had the intention to offend. -
Even a murderer can be reformed to not murder again. Some sexual offenders may be able to be reformed. Many are plainly incurable.
There is a thriving prison-industrial-complex such that housing them really isn't the problem. The problem is that we don't acknowledge that child rapists do far more damage to society than someone who commits a single murder, because the damage continues generationally.
The reason for this disparity, is because the child rapist poses less threat to monied property and wealthy people than it does to the "lower classes" of society. It makes a rather revealing statement about our so-called "justice system"
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I don't think your statement is intirely true though. The ripple effect of a "single"
Murder is just as devistating and long lasting.-
I was thinking in regard to a repeat sex-offender. Some would say that someone who commits a single murder is worse. This is a defensable arguement, but in that a "justice" system can't really be perfect, it should be such that it serves society's needs rather than a moral system per se.
A single murder is surely devestating and long lasting, but my argument is that the serial rapist will cause the problem to perpetuate in some cases. -
Agit8r, you raise a good point. "Worse" isn't the only factor to consider--recidivism is a huge issue, and murderers have among the lowest rates of recidivism. Someone who has committed a single murder may well be less of a threat to society than someone who has robbed three gas stations. -
Well so does the serial killer
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It's definitely an unnecessary tragedy when a child (or anyone) is killed by a repeat offender who shouldn't have been on the streets. But I'm very puzzled by the notion that the news is "full" of such events. According to the Crimes Against Children Research Center, there are 40-50 child homicides associated with sexual predators each year. Of course, only a fraction of those are repeat offenders. When contrasted with the more than 16,000 murders that occur in the U.S. each year, or even the approximately 500 children killed each year by their own parents, it hardly seems like a systemic problem. By that, I don't mean that it's not a serious problem, but that we hardly have to make sweeping changes to our prison system in order to keep those (approximately) 20-30 people/year off the streets. There are a lot of other reasons to reform the prison system and our system of sentencing, but I think this one is less than a drop in the bucket on that scale.
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it is more often reported in the news, because it excites the viewer's imagination. "News" is, after all an entertainment medium
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Oh, to me even 1 murder of a child is too many. To me, one murder of a child means the news media is full. I've been hearing of too many since the beginning of the summer.
There seems to be no successful reform / rehabilitation for sexual offenders.
I'm not sure what the answer is but it needs to be discussed. -
LIWTBW, I think you missed my point entirely. Of course the murder of any PERSON (child or adult) is too many. The question is whether prison overcrowding has anything whatsoever to do with this issue. Given the fact that we're talking about 20 or 30 people a year our of millions in prison, it seems very unlikely that it does.
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Oh, I might have misread, my apologies. I am not just speaking of the child murders but the ones who sexual offend children. I'm really tired so my mind is not keeping up....
I just feel sexual predators are released and reoffend because the prisons are overpopulated and what is the solution. I'm not sure...
I copied and pasted this from Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal Offenders Statistics.
On a given day in 1994 there were approximately 234,000 offenders convicted of rape or sexual assault under the care, custody, or control of corrections agencies; nearly 60% of these sex offenders are under conditional supervision in the community.
The median age of the victims of imprisoned sexual assaulters was less than 13 years old; the median age of rape victims was about 22 years.
An estimated 24% of those serving time for rape and 19% of those serving time for sexual assault had been on probation or parole at the time of the offense for which they were in State prison in 1991.
Of the 9,691 male sex offenders released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, 5.3% were rearrested for a new sex crime within 3 years of release.
Of released sex offenders who allegedly committed another sex crime, 40% perpetrated the new offense within a year or less from their prison discharge.
Child victimizers
Approximately 4,300 child molesters were released from prisons in 15 States in 1994. An estimated 3.3% of these 4,300 were rearrested for another sex crime against a child within 3 years of release from prison.
Among child molesters released from prison in 1994, 60% had been in prison for molesting a child 13 years old or younger.
Offenders who had victimized a child were on average 5 years older than the violent offenders who had committed their crimes against adults. Nearly 25% of child victimizers were age 40 or older, but about 10% of the inmates with adult victims fell in that age range.
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm -
I think the prison system is generally a failure in this country. Sex offenses are basically not taken seriously by the law unless someone is seriously physically injured or killed. Drug offenders are put in prison because drugs have been made into a bigger crime then it needs to be. Most of the crime having to do with drugs is only committed BECAUSE drugs are illegal. I feel that there are very few crimes outside of murder that should be considered to be "crime" at all, and if the people in power would starting thinking more progressively perhaps prisons would be less crowded and everyone would be better off.-
Sex offences are treating with incredible disregard. Its appalling. Drug addiction is running rampant and I don't believe prison is helping the situation, in fact, making it much worse.
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Sex offenders cannot be changed. Killing them is the only solution. If i had a dungeon, i'd kidnap one by one and torture it to death.
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