The Expense of Felonizing Our Populace

[swamprat]

Those arrested for drug usage should be treated as an outpatient offender monitored by Parol Officers.

 

Those dealing should be incarcerated.

 

Violent crime offenders of course need to be incarcerated.

 

Theft, and white collar crime should be procecuted like civil suites, with the loss of personal property, ie your car, your house, your bank accounts ect. rather then a jail term.

 

With the boom in GPS systems, we can monitor minor offenders from a service center a heck of a lot cheaper then building jail after jail after jail.

DD, I thought I'd never do this to a post of yours, but :thumb:

 

I couldn't agree more.

[ladiesbballcoach]

Can we change the conditions of the homes? I think not, so we have to take care of them at school, or we are destinying them for a rough life.

Understand the mindset but also you are expecting the schools to overcome what they are being taught at home and have been taught or the lack of being taught before they got to school.

 

In a lot of cases, not going to happen. You tell a student to do homework for their learning and the parents tell them they don't have to do it, what is the chance of it getting done. You tell them they have to read a book and pull out information and they parent tells them that reading that book is stupid, what's the chances of it getting done.

 

I understand the mindset but it is a losing cause to expect schools to overcome it all.

[HHSDad]

What do we do about drug-related crime? I don't mean the illegal use of drugs itself, but all the crimes commited in order to buy and sell drugs. Prostitution, theft, muggings, murder, etc.

[Diamond Dandy]

What do we do about drug-related crime? I don't mean the illegal use of drugs itself, but all the crimes commited in order to buy and sell drugs. Prostitution, theft, muggings, murder, etc.

 

I think you draw the line at violent crime. If you steal something from a store by putting it in your pocket and walking out, you get community service, which if you miss, then you do jail time for contempt. If you rob a store or a person, with or without a weapon, it's jail time. Drug abuse should require counseling, and jail time if you miss. A crime involving any weapon, gun, knife, club ect should be mandatory 10 years added to the original crime.

 

I like the idea od a DAY BOOTCAMP. One in the morning for those that work at night and one in the evening for those that work in the day. Nothing like forced physical exercise for a junkie. LOL And yes..jail time if you miss.

[The Professor]

Those arrested for drug usage should be treated as an outpatient offender monitored by Parol Officers.

 

Those dealing should be incarcerated.

 

Violent crime offenders of course need to be incarcerated.

 

Theft, and white collar crime should be procecuted like civil suites, with the loss of personal property, ie your car, your house, your bank accounts ect. rather then a jail term.

 

With the boom in GPS systems, we can monitor minor offenders from a service center a heck of a lot cheaper then building jail after jail after jail.

What are you going to propose if those "monitored by parole officers" continue to use drugs? In the majority of cases that is what will happen imo.

[The Professor]

What do we do about drug-related crime? I don't mean the illegal use of drugs itself, but all the crimes commited in order to buy and sell drugs. Prostitution, theft, muggings, murder, etc.

An individual using drugs hurts not only themselves (physically/mentally) but also those around them. and you have hit the nail on the head with your post. The crimes committed in order to buy and sell drugs is a huge problem. A friend of mine had his house broken into last week and had thousands of dollars of material stolen: guns, jewelery, money, etc. These items were probably sold for cash to buy drugs.

Does anyone have a statistic on what percentage of thefts/burglaries are drug related? I would think it would be fairly high.

[HHSDad]

An individual using drugs hurts not only themselves (physically/mentally) but also those around them. and you have hit the nail on the head with your post. The crimes committed in order to buy and sell drugs is a huge problem. A friend of mine had his house broken into last week and had thousands of dollars of material stolen: guns, jewelery, money, etc. These items were probably sold for cash to buy drugs.

Does anyone have a statistic on what percentage of thefts/burglaries are drug related? I would think it would be fairly high.

16% of all crime (as of 2002) is for the purpose of obtaining money to by drugs. 8% of all violent crimes and 26% of all property crimes are to obtain money to buy drugs.

 

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/duc.htm

[Frances Bavier]

Perhaps I am oversimplifying the situation, but I don't see a crime as being "justifiable" because it was committed to support someone's drug habit.

 

I'm all for the decriminalization (and state control) of drugs, but I fail to see why a crime (i.e. breaking and entering, robbery, etc.) should somehow be treated with less severity, because the person committing the crime is doing so to support their drug habit. If anything, I would be more lenient on the person that is stealing to support his family, rather than one that does so to support a drug habit.

 

Am I missing the point, somehow?

 

 

Frances

[ladiesbballcoach]

Perhaps I am oversimplifying the situation, but I don't see a crime as being "justifiable" because it was committed to support someone's drug habit.

 

I'm all for the decriminalization (and state control) of drugs, but I fail to see why a crime (i.e. breaking and entering, robbery, etc.) should somehow be treated with less severity, because the person committing the crime is doing so to support their drug habit. If anything, I would be more lenient on the person that is stealing to support his family, rather than one that does so to support a drug habit.

 

Am I missing the point, somehow?

 

 

Frances

And to add to that, is someone trying to say that people would be less likely to break into homes and get $$ to support their drug habit because it would then be legal?

[HHSDad]

Am I missing the point, somehow?

If we legalize narcotics, the price of drugs will go down and the druggies won't have to steal as much!

[Frances Bavier]

If we legalize narcotics, the price of drugs will go down and the druggies won't have to steal as much!

 

I fully understand that concept, but that wasn't what I was asking.

 

My question was geared toward what I saw as a question based in faulty logic. I was under the impression that someone would try to argue the point that if a person committed a robbery to support his drug habit, it should somehow receive a more lenient sentence than someone that robbed a store for any other reason.

 

 

Frances

[Frances Bavier]

And to add to that, is someone trying to say that people would be less likely to break into homes and get $$ to support their drug habit because it would then be legal?

 

Actually, I think the position is that if drugs are no longer illegal, the state will regulate their usage, tax it, and control will be much easier (as it is with alchohol).

 

 

Frances

[ladiesbballcoach]

Actually, I think the position is that if drugs are no longer illegal, the state will regulate their usage, tax it, and control will be much easier (as it is with alchohol).

 

 

Frances

Will the drug users somehow magically have income to purchase it legally when they do not now have the income to purchase it illegally and have to break into homes or rob people??????

[Frances Bavier]

Will the drug users somehow magically have income to purchase it legally when they do not now have the income to purchase it illegally and have to break into homes or rob people??????

 

I am sure that even today, some people commit crimes to support their addiction to alchohol (panhandling is a crime in many areas).

 

Legalizing drugs will not be some type of panacea, that magically removes all the ills associated with them. Over time, however, there will be a drop in crimes associated with drugs. If nothing else, the shootings that occur (daily) during drug deals gone bad will dissapear. The drug kingpins will no longer be financed by the mountains - and I do mean mountains - of money that currently flow through their pockets.

 

 

Frances

[HHSDad]

I fully understand that concept, but that wasn't what I was asking.

 

My question was geared toward what I saw as a question based in faulty logic. I was under the impression that someone would try to argue the point that if a person committed a robbery to support his drug habit, it should somehow receive a more lenient sentence than someone that robbed a store for any other reason.

 

 

Frances

I believe that leinency based on circumstances should be rare. This includes drug use, hate crimes, etc. Why you did it should have little to do with sentencing you for what you did.