Victimless Crime

[1stwahine]

Re: Victimless Crime

I understand both are serious offenses but I still fail to see what jail time does except give these offenders free room and board, time to work out on weights, and make connections to far worse characters.

Financial penalties, community service, and a beating is more fitting. Or how bout old school, cutting off the hands? I think that sends the message that their offenses were serious.

Have you spoken or do you KNOW of a Prisoner or of one who has just been released? I have. From the stories of wat I have heard, it is far from being a juss FREE Room and Board, Lifting Weights and making connections, etc. place. Their Freedom is taken away because of wat they did to SOCIETY. They are told when to sleep, to wake, eat, bathe, have visitors, yes even to do the "Gorilla Walk" when told.

Your way is Barbaric.

Auntie Lynn

[tikiyaki]

Re: Victimless Crime

As for drinking and driving, if a cop wants to stop a drunk driver, all they have to do is station themselves at the exits of all sporting events and bar parking lots. Or Timkona's driveway

Oh, you didn't just say that.

Duck everyone !!!!

[Mike_Lowery]

Re: Victimless Crime

Comparisons can be made of anything that can kill directly or indirectly. But if you successfully argue your point, alcohol will be next on banishment.

As for drinking and driving, if a cop wants to stop a drunk driver, all they have to do is station themselves at the exits of all sporting events and bar parking lots. Or Timkona's driveway

Shots fired. I repeat, shots fired.

[joshuatree]

Re: Victimless Crime

Have you spoken or do you KNOW of a Prisoner or of one who has just been released? I have. From the stories of wat I have heard, it is far from being a juss FREE Room and Board, Lifting Weights and making connections, etc. place. Their Freedom is taken away because of wat they did to SOCIETY. They are told when to sleep, to wake, eat, bathe, have visitors, yes even to do the "Gorilla Walk" when told.

Your way is Barbaric.

Auntie Lynn

The last joking suggestion of cutting off the hands is barbaric but that was an exaggeration. However, I see nothing barbaric about financial penalties, community service, and/or a beating like caning. Considering these offenders are "petty" criminals, sending them to jail is a waste of system resources and ineffectual punishment. I say petty because these are not murderers, rapists, or molesters. They do not need to be kept behind bars because they pose a minimal danger to society (non-life threatening).

And yes, I actually know of a prisoner so I know of the limited freedoms. But limited freedoms can be very painless to some. Without getting into detail, I myself have experienced limited freedom, not jail but in a very similar form. I found it very frustrating but it was rather painless to me as I can deal with solitude pretty easily. So I see sending offenders to jail like those in the articles as a very weak form of punishment.

[1stwahine]

Re: Victimless Crime

The last joking suggestion of cutting off the hands is barbaric but that was an exaggeration. However, I see nothing barbaric about financial penalties, community service, and/or a beating like caning. Considering these offenders are "petty" criminals, sending them to jail is a waste of system resources and ineffectual punishment. I say petty because these are not murderers, rapists, or molesters. They do not need to be kept behind bars because they pose a minimal danger to society (non-life threatening).

And yes, I actually know of a prisoner so I know of the limited freedoms. But limited freedoms can be very painless to some. Without getting into detail, I myself have experienced limited freedom, not jail but in a very similar form. I found it very frustrating but it was rather painless to me as I can deal with solitude pretty easily. So I see sending offenders to jail like those in the articles as a very weak form of punishment.

Granted, the last part was BARBARIC. These so called "petty" criminals are not "PETTY CRIMINALS!" They are CRIMINALS PERIOD!! They committed a Crime and broke the LAW. No and's, if's or butt's about it. Das why we have a Judicial SYSTEM. There is no EXCUSE whether one is High or not on DRUGS! When you break the Law you must Pay if you get CAUGHT. Too bad.

You don't know the offenders in the articles and neither do I. But both Men are FATHERS. Spending years in Prison will not be a WEAK FORM of PUNISHMENT for them. Yes, many can stand being incarcerated and taking the crap that goes on in Prison but there are those who can't. Many suffer and there have been attempted as well as suicides completed by prisoners who were weak.

Auntie Lynn

[joshuatree]

Re: Victimless Crime

Granted, the last part was BARBARIC. These so called "petty" criminals are not "PETTY CRIMINALS!" They are CRIMINALS PERIOD!! They committed a Crime and broke the LAW. No and's, if's or butt's about it. Das why we have a Judicial SYSTEM. There is no EXCUSE whether one is High or not on DRUGS! When you break the Law you must Pay if you get CAUGHT. Too bad.

You don't know the offenders in the articles and neither do I. But both Men are FATHERS. Spending years in Prison will not be a WEAK FORM of PUNISHMENT for them. Yes, many can stand being incarcerated and taking the crap that goes on in Prison but there are those who can't. Many suffer and there have been attempted as well as suicides completed by prisoners who were weak.

Auntie Lynn

Well if you think all criminals are criminals period, why would you object to a caning and fines? I'm not saying criminals shouldn't pay. I'm saying the current judicial system is broken. The method of payment is always jail. And I think jail only works for certain crimes. Other crimes, jail is just a waste of time, doesn't properly punish the offender, and wastes tax money.

Because I don't know either offenders in the articles, they could be bad fathers too. Keeping them away from their children might not make them sad, they might be happy in not having to deal with their kids. Who knows?

But let's play devil's advocate. Let's say they are good fathers (tho I find that hard to believe since they're ice users), how does keeping them in jail away from their kids properly punish the guy who stole money and the guy who stole from tourists? If anything, you're just setting up some kids to grow up fatherless and may end up having daddy issues. Rather, wouldn't it make more sense to pass fines on them to recoup the money they stole? Then a caning to instill some pain in them so they know if they do it again, they get more pain coming their way? And they can still have time to be fathers to their kids.

[timkona]

Re: Victimless Crime

My driveway.....sheesh you ding dong....I'm always sober when leaving.

If you want to catch me, you gotta stake out a couple driveways down the road. I always miss mine.

[Adri]

Re: Victimless Crime

Going back to the original case that started this thread, one odd thing is that the same people having sexual intercourse would have a lesser penalty than them having oral sex in that state. Having sexual intercourse wouldn't have made him a registered sex offender but oral sex does? I suspect this has to do with archaic laws that make anything other than straight sexual intercourse an "obscenity" and "unnatural" and therefore subject to harsher penalties. I suspect he was jailed and she wasn't because most (maybe all, I haven't checked) states have the option to treat people close to the age of 18 as adults. In some states, people as young as 14 years old may be tried and convicted as adults. Perhaps in that state, 15 was too young to be treated as an adult but 17 wasn't. and, of course, the traditional view that in these situations, the younger person is the victim (barring a significant difference in mental capacity).

It's easy to look at one particular case and say that the outcome is outrageous but it's very hard to draft laws that work flawlessly in all situations. The age difference in age of consent or statutory rape laws is often built in to prevent older people from preying upon young people and to try to exclude peers from being convicted (say, if they were both 15). I don't know how this state came up with 3 years as the defining age difference but I guess they decided they had to draw a line somewhere. The basis for age-of-consent/statutory rape laws is that children (as with mentally incompetent people) cannot form consent to have sex due to their lack of maturity so the law can't be based upon whether the sexual act was consensual or not. I'm not saying it can't be improved but it's not always an easy thing to come up with a balance for a law that effectively deters victimizing people in need of protection (like children) with the flexibility to determine when that protection does not need to apply.

<b>joshuatree</b>: You said, "I'm saying the current judicial system is broken. The method of payment is always jail. " Again, I don't disagree that the judicial system can be improved but I find myself thinking that people are going to jail less and less these days. I don't mean for so-called "victimless crimes". I mean the cases where people do serious harm and seem to wind up with community service or anger management classes. I may be wrong, but I attribute it to the prison overcrowding situation.

[1stwahine]

Re: Victimless Crime

There's a very good article in the StarBulletin this morning:
http://starbulletin.com/2007/02/01/news/story10.html

Dance teacher faces more assault charges

By Debra Barayuga

"A former Aiea dance teacher who denies having any sexual contact with two female students is now facing a second trial.

Daniel Jones went on trial yesterday in Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall's courtroom, charged with two counts of first-degree assault and four counts of third-degree assault involving a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old girl.

Jones, 22, was acquitted last year of 12 other sexual assault charges involving three other minor girls, also students at the Rosalie Woodson Dance Academy on Moanalua Road. They also accused Jones of touching them improperly."

Victimless Crime? Our Judicial System found him Innocent of the first charges. Yes, like everything in Life nothing is perfect. Things need to be fixed and I hope for these girls it is.

Auntie Lynn