Why did this happen?

Overview: Man cuts throat of community activist in 1987 after the voices in his head told him that she was a witch. he then burned a deer carcass as an offering. he is found guilty and declared insane. a few years later, he escaped and assaulted a police officer before being locked up again. On thursday, he was permitted to go to the COUNTY FAIR. Before he left for that, he packed all of his possessions into a backpack. Why was he permitted to go where there would be a large number of people? In my opinion, the law enforcement put the entre state of washington at risk. How does something like this happen?

ridiculous, but i dont know if its fair to pin this on the criminal justice system in general. stupid stuff happens all the time - if you claim this is systematic you should have more to back up the claim.

ps: moved to serious side.

There are very serious problems with the police and general criminal system, but none of them are addressed here. This is just human love of opportunity of a second (third) chance, turned bad because this man clearly has psychological problems. Sad

If anything, the criminal justice system is very draconian (the three-strikes law in California comes to mind).

Yeah, CA's got a nightmare over there. To solve it, they may have to release 27,000 inmates early.

Don't even remind me. Approximately 27,000 of them are going to end up filing claims with social security dept for financial support too. Guess who's gonna have to deal with that?

the taxpayers. ugh. get a job, you felons.

In this topic: Dizzyizzy reveals that OCM is multiple people, summing to every taxpayer in Texas

I'm pretty sure that's what you meant...

In this topic: Dr. Roffles has an assumed margin of error of five states every time he mentions a state.

It's probably far more expensive to you if they're housed in a prison then if they're given federal aid.

I also work in the business of providing said federal aid, so I get punched in the face twice.

Increasing my work load while cutting my pay by 15% while releasing criminals onto my streets ain't pleasant.

You are making it sound like it's a felon's fault for not being able to find work right away. It's hard to qualify for certain kinds of federal aid (like public housing or food stamps) because of a conviction, and it's even harder to find a job when you have gotten in trouble for that kind of smurf.

If anything, you should be demanding a raise in taxes for the richest, and a scaling back of the prison system so more public dollars can be spent on infrastructure, housing, and on delivering welfare services to people easier (and so that state employees don't have to take a pay cut).

It actually is a felon's fault that they can't find work, because they committed a felony.

1. not always. the criminal justice system is not perfect, and innocent people are convicted regularly.

2. you're going to let the rest of the course of someone's life be determined (in many cases) by a single action in a single moment? i'm all about reform and giving people second chances. a person's punishment should (usually) end when they're released from prison.

That's reasonable, but at a time when jobs are hard enough to find for hard-working, law-abiding citizens, many would rightly look askance at their tax dollars being used for aid to convicted felons.

http://alcourtwatch.blogspot.com/2009/09/d...s-son-alex.html

"justice" system

It wouldn't cost so damn much if they canceled the cable and made them work all day.

how much do you think cable costs?

Bout $50 a month for mine.

If you deny someone food stamps, affordable housing, and welfare that allows them to purchase basic consumer goods, then you are indirectly encouraging them to go back to the lifestyle that got them into prison in the first place.

Ironically, a great deal of these people end up in jail again after being approved for these services. It's incredibly frustrating.

So would you argue that we already give released felons enough opportunity structures?

And for what? If over twenty-one percent of prisoner's in your state are there for drug offenses (and an even larger amount for property crimes) then maybe you should be looking for other alternatives for them (such as work that pays a living wage, decriminalization, and drug rehabilitation) outside of incarceration and harsher, longer sentences.

i'm, uh...i'm with tsjr on this one.

This is indeed a tricky balancing act, and I don't claim to know the right solution. I tend to think that more effective social policy for disadvantaged children - i.e., getting them on the right track before they end up in prison - is the way to go.

You live in the state now, Pat. You do it.

I don't hand out the prison sentences, I don't tell them how to live their lives and it's not up to me to help them find work. And I don't want to, either. I already got my hands full trying to help the people that weren't in jail who need financial support.

So you don't want more progressive social policies in your state because your workload will increase?

There is probably a more compassionate way to deal with this - without cutting pay and benefits for state employees, and without getting rid of social services - like increasing taxes on all households that earn more than $250,000 a year.

I'm not necessarily opposed to higher taxes on the rich, but for heaven's sake, they can't pay for everything.

I think you'd be surprised.

for whom is that compassionate?

certainly not for the people who, through no fault of their own except for their own high income-earning capacity, will now be expected to pay an even more disproportionate share of social services that will provide no direct benefit to them.

why should high earners have to subsidize this? is it because there is a moral obligation for people with more money to provide more for society? if that's the case, you want to tread very carefully. after all, putting morality into the law and tax system is what social conservatives do when they try to ban abortion and subsidize abstinence-only sex ed.

I didn't say they should.

A large source of the richest five percent's income comes from capital gains and dividends, which are historically not taxed that much. If we taxed the smurf out of that, we could have enough revenue to pay for stuff that matters.

I can't speak for TS, but my support for a progressive tax code isn't based on a "moral obligation", it's based on practicality. Rich people can afford to pay higher taxes than the poor. It's the same idea behind college financial aid. If rich people don't like the way their tax dollars are being used, then they have plenty of avenues through the democratic political system to address that grievance.


That's a subjective judgment.

Yes, because different things are valued by different people.

If you like to receive lucrative contracts from the federal and state government to build for-profit prisons, then you'd like for the budget to benefit you over, say, the Head Start program.

If you are a single mother with a four year old child, then you'd have different priorities.



I am not putting 'morality' into this, I just have a different analysis of how racism, privilege, class inequality and capitalism works than most people on this site.

In capitalist society, capital goods are owned by a class that buys the productive power of human labor so that they can engage in production and sales in order to make private profit for that class.

As so, if income is derived from property, then it's the surplus value produced by human labor itself. It's fine to tax it to me.

Haha, you should meet some of the business owners in my town...I doubt if you'd peg them as part of the "capitalist class".

But seriously, you did read the first half of my post, right?

If they own a business, then yes, they are 'capitalists', but that doesn't mean that they are bad people or that they are incapable of taking part in a movement against capital itself.

And yes, and I agree, but I don't see anything (politically and morally wrong) with taxing the superrich.

i would bet that banks actually own post of their capital, but i could be wrong.

Hey Tsjr, if you think you know a lot about capital, you should check this out.

I got 70 right, which is pretty embarrassing for me. There were at least five that I just couldn't spell (Reykjavik, Riyadh, Helsinki, among others), and other really dumb ones I should have had. I wanna take it again in a week, just sometime more conducive to thought than 1:30.

That was fun, though. Thanks for the link.