It's a crying shame. Normally that's an empty phrase, but it describes this.<p>I can't imagine reading this and not feeling tears well up.<p>No sense of what I would call humanity. From what perspective does this make the world a better place?<p>What am I missing about being human that this fits into that I don't understand?
My thoughts on the best and the worst:<p>> Anthony Jackson has a sixth-grade education and worked as a cook. He was convicted of burglary for stealing a wallet from a Myrtle Beach hotel room when he was 44 years old. According to prosecutors, he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security guard and ran away. Police arrested him when he tried to use the stolen credit card at a pancake house. [...] <i>Because of two prior convictions for burglary</i>, Jackson was sentenced to mandatory life without parole under South Carolina's three-strikes law.<p>Emphasis mine. I can't get too worked up about a system that sentences this guy to life in prison. What would be the point of letting him out? He knew he wasn't supposed to walk into other people's hotel rooms and take their wallets. At what point does society get to tell people "you know what, knock it off"?<p>> After serving two years in prison during his mid-twenties for inadvertently killing someone during a bar fight, Aaron Jones turned his life around. He earned an electrical technician degree, married, became an ordained reverend, and founded the Perfect Love Outreach Ministry. Years later, Aaron was hired to renovate a motel in Florida, and was living in an employee-sponsored apartment with two other workers, one of whom had a truck that was used as a company vehicle by all the co-workers. Jones decided to drive this truck home to Louisiana to visit his wife and four children. When Aaron's co-worker woke up to find his truck missing, he reported it stolen. Aaron was pulled over by police while driving the truck.<p>I don't understand this one at all. Shouldn't the truck owner have testified on his behalf? Declined to press charges?<p>I made a cursory effort to look up the case itself, but I have no idea how to do that.
I think at the root of this is a very prevalent attitude among a many people in America toward "not letting people get away with things"<p>I don't think you can look at this in a vacuum - you need to see these punishments as simply another manifestation of this attitude. This is not a "this group vs. that group" thing; you may find this among "fire and brimstone" Democrats just as often as your "Limburgh Republicans".<p>I've often said the difference between these groups is: given 100 people asking for a free meal, the liberal will take satisfaction in feeding 99 hungry ones; this type of conservative will fret over the one person who "got away with" getting a free lunch he could have afforded himself.<p>(Side rant: these people tend to be among the loudest Bible-thumpers, and think "the Good Lord helps those.." is an actual biblical passage.)<p>Rehabilitation as a way of dealing with miscreants doesn't work in the US for the main part because there is too large a segment of the American populace who feel that these various programs equate to giving them a reward for bad behavior. Why should they (the convicted) get a free hand with job placement when no one else is "being coddled"?<p>(The wonderful quote "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple" always comes to mind here.)<p>So you see, Americans understand perfectly well all the logical and economic aspects of this issue. The fact is, it is built into our culture to punish people. We get satisfaction from it. We're not after what's best for the country, we're after revenge.<p>It's ugly, but I've been around for many years & I stand by that statement.
Am I the only one here not seeing this as propaganda with nicely worded articles masking a lot of the reality here? Some of them seem a little unreasonable I'll agree, but lets go through a few of these:<p>"taking a wallet from a hotel room" - we blame it on the court appointed lawyer. He's already been convicted and sent to jail twice for burglary and he continues to break into other peoples places and steal their stuff. Poor guy just took a wallet from those rich vacationing golfers. Screw that. If I was there I'd be scared to death. How many times do we let him keep doing this. Stop doing it stupid.<p>"stealing tools from a tool shed" - oh he was just riding along. sure he was. already been convicted multiple times for burglary. The fact that he desperately misses his children does not make him less guilty of continuing to break into other peoples places and taking their things. Stop doing that stupid.<p>"borrowing a co-workers truck" - i think there is clearly more to this story. generally speaking, people don't normally drive other people's trucks 3 states away without letting them know. If it really was harmless, i'd expect the other guy to not press charges or testify on his behalf. Hey guys, it was just a misunderstanding I thought someone else took it. Also, "inadvertently killing someone" is a really nice way of saying he beat the shit out of someone in a fight and the guy died.<p>Perhaps some of these don't deserve life, but I don't really have that much of a problem with it. Maybe we could lower it to 20-30 years, but I have no problems with escalating penalties. If you are a productive member of society this isn't a problem. These mini-articles are all worded as if these people didn't do anything wrong and just made a tiny mistake this one time and now they are in prison forever. Not the case. Most of them made pretty big mistakes, and they made them repeatedly.
The three strike laws make some sense as long as people conflate "felony" with genuinely serious crimes like rape or aggravated assault. If someone commits three consecutive rapes...well, who would complain about locking him up forever?<p>The problem is in the increasing meaninglessness of the term "felony". If they limited it to grievous crimes, there wouldn't be much controversy.<p>Also, it's weird to have something presented as "news" when <i>The Simpsons</i> covered it satirically about 15 years ago:<p><a href="http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v1656836867c" rel="nofollow">http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v1656836867c</a>
The U.S. and Canada have very similar cultures, so comparisons here have some meaning. The U.S.'s per capita incarceration rate is 6.28 times Canada's [1] and the per capita number of police officers is 1.26 times higher in the U.S.[2]. However, the intentional homicide rate of the U.S. is 2.94 times that of Canada[3]. Certain types of offenses (e.g. drug offenses) are higher in Canada, but the violent crime rate is lower.<p>It's worth asking what is going on here. I'm no expert on law and punishment, but it seems like the U.S. is throwing more resources at the problem (perhaps prodded by for-profit prison lobbyists) and getting poorer results. The cultures are too similar to explain this away by saying Canadians are inherently less violent. As Canada considers harsher prison sentences and expanding prison capacity, it's imperative to understand if this will produce the intended results.<p>[1]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...</a><p>[2]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...</a><p>[3]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...</a>
One thing that disturbs me, after reading the comments here, and after hearing attitudes expressed by people in general: I think normal citizens massively underestimate how harsh these sentences are. Look around at your life and picture how much damage might be done by just a 6 month stint in jail. You would likely lose your job, you might lose your house, your kids. Even a month in jail would be a serious bummer for most of the people posting here.<p>Now, think, really picture, what a 3 year sentence would do. How hard it would be to recover from losing those years.<p>Now picture a 5 year, 7 year, 10 year, 15 year sentence. There is a reason Norway generally restricts its sentences to 21 years for even the most heinous crimes. The sentencing here in the US is truly draconian. It only seems proportional because we are measuring relative to what is already going on, so in context this stuff seems "not that bad."<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway</a>
There is so much injustice with our prison system right now. There are countless people being locked up for their entire lives over petty crimes -- the same crimes that relatively comfortable white boys like me could easily get away with because I can afford a decent lawyer. It's racism and wealth discrimination disguised as justice.<p>The US is leading the world in incarceration and the privatization of prisons is a big contributor to the problem. Corporations have a financial incentive to incarcerate more people and lobby to keep strict drug laws.<p>Meanwhile we make jokes and laugh about things like prison rape. I believe we will look back at prison rape the same way we look back at slavery. How barbaric are we that we think that's somehow okay?<p>For things to change, we’re going to have to change public perceptions and start demanding change. I wish we were a little less eager to deprive people of their most basic right to freedom.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...</a>
The UK in comparison:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_in_England_and_Wales" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_in_England_and_Wales</a><p>I understand that we don't have the kind of problem that a8da6b0c91d mentioned here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6743406" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6743406</a> however I really don't understand the common sense of the US judicial system.<p>If I were to be caught breaking some computer misuse act against a UK company it's more than likely a slap on the wrist would be handed down to me. Abuse a US corporation and I would expect extradition and 10 years or more in one of your comfortable prison cells.<p>Also compare the US and UK prisons themselves.<p>UK: <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+prison+cell&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=hOeGUqbPDIaLswbktoHACg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=798" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+prison+cell&espv=210&es...</a><p>US: <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+prison+cell&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=hOeGUqbPDIaLswbktoHACg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=798#es_sm=93&espv=210&q=american%20prison%20cell&revid=1513913037&tbm=isch&imgdii=_" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+prison+cell&espv=210&es...</a>
This is pathetic. What country that claims to be a leader in human rights can justify this kind of justice? I'm American, and am continuously appalled to hear these types of stories. these stories are sadly not isolated either, and have come to almost be accepted. We are nearing a tipping point where we need to stand up for a better America. Screw the prison industry, and screw lobbyists, screw bipartisan squabbles. We need to stand up for ISSUES that matter to us.
This is poorly focused. I'm absolutely against 3 strikes sentencing laws and mandatory sentencing escalations that can put petty criminals in prison for life.<p>On the other hand, I'm perfectly OK with <i>some</i> criminals dying behind bars, such as the recently sentenced Whitey Bulger, and so are most other people. By making the headline about the undesirability of custodial life sentences in general, they'er losing a large chunk of their potential audience straight out of the gate.
As an European citizen, I think such "sentences" are more resembling China, Russia or any other dictatorship, but not a first-world country.<p>Do human rights actually mean something in the US?
From the map it seems like all the cases are in the Southeast. Is the Southeastern United States sort or a 3rd Word Country within the U.S. ? It seems like every time I see something like this it is in the Southeast. It seems to me like the rift from the Civil War has never completely been resolved. Just an observation, does anyone else feel the same way?
In England, especially in the eighteenth century, we had a somewhat similar, though harsher regime where one strike against you on a charge of petty larceny could lead to imprisonment in HM prisons. Of course the prison population swelled as hangings became less fashionable, and the temporary prison ships were unmoored to sail to places like Australia. Transportation for the theft of a loaf of bread.<p>Ironic that that country, along with its New World cousin the USA, claimed ideals of freedom so strongly. Much more so in the USA. Mandatory sentencing has it's place it can be argued. This seems antithetical to first principles however.
Wait, are we actually supposed to get worked up over this? The ACLU so clearly tip toed while writing the descriptions of these cases as to clearly walk a line between lying about the case and giving us the context needed to understand why these people are in jail for life.<p>"Patrick had no violent criminal history and had never served a single day in a Department of Corrections facility" - Right, but he obviously had a drug problem since he did NA in prison and probably got in trouble previously, just not enough to go to the Department Of Corrections facility (what his crimes and punishments were are left as an exercise to the reader)<p>The other stories have similar issues. Blame it on the abusive and threatening boyfriend, not the previous drug convictions and a three strikes law. Life in prison for borrowing a truck from a friend that accidentally reported it stolen?<p>Look, innocent people get in trouble for things they didn't do. Not innocent people get in trouble for things they didn't do, but were just in the wrong place at the wrong time due to the other things that they did do. It's an unfortunate part of the system and I'm all for things that minimize overcharging and punishing innocent people.<p>But anyone who can't read between the lines on these is either a sap or just believing what they want to. They even led into it with a statistic about race to soften you up. There are three strikes laws for a reason. There's massive amounts of context missing from these. It's a shame, I generally like the ACLU and what they do, but this is awful.
A throwaway thought: one of the (many) problems with 3-strike sentencing laws may be that the escalation curve is too quick to have the desired curbing effect.<p>It is obvious (to me) that some kind of exponentiation would be more effective. 2x - 3x elongation <i>per offense</i> would be plenty harsh, harsh enough for the offender to understand it's going to be much worse each time, without it having to be life in prison.<p>EDIT: On second thought, formulaic sentencing is bad. Sentencing is hard, consistency is hard, but to remove human judgment and discretion from the sentencing process seems obviously wrong.
I have no words. None. At all.<p>I'm going to be honest and say that in general I am anything but a compassion. I have every bit of sympathy, however, for (relatively) innocent people being victims of things like bureaucracy, human stupidity, laziness, or sheer scumfuckery. It's hard for me to imagine what was going on in those judges' heads, but chances are it's something I despise.<p>This one was the worst for me:<p>> When he was 22-years-old, Lance Saltzman was charged with breaking into his own home and taking his stepfather’s gun, which his stepfather had shot at his mother and repeatedly used to threaten her. He was convicted of armed burglary and sentenced to prison for the rest of his life.
I think an effective way to frame this issue is:<p>Would you consider these people so dangerous that you would personally build a small concrete box and forcibly keep them inside for many hours a day for the rest of their lives? Or, is that how you would treat your children if they committed some minor, nonviolent, kinda-maybe-bad act?<p>No reasonable person would - the moral decision above is clear. Would you pay for someone else to do this?<p>We are brothers and sisters in humanity, and we elect people who write these laws and treat fellow people like this (and/or refuse to reform the US Sentencing Commission). We are to blame.
If the judge simply orders a sentence below the minimum, what happens? While the Government can appeal the sentence, then it comes to the next judge up the line to stand up for justice.<p>For example, California's 3-strike law counts non-violent felonies, which sweeps up a lot of criminals into 25 year sentences that they don't deserve.<p>"The California law originally gave judges no discretion in setting prison terms for three strikes offenders. However, the California Supreme Court ruled, in 1996, that judges, in the interest of justice, could ignore prior convictions in determining whether an offender qualified for a three strikes sentence." [1]<p>But these so called "mandatory" sentences are not actually that, it's just that most judges simply don't have the guts to stand up for justice. A judge can use their discretion in setting sentences, but then can be challenged if Government can show the sentence is unreasonable. While following the guidelines is presumed reasonable, simply not following the guidelines is not presumed unreasonable.<p>Lois Forer was a judge in Philadelphia facing just such a decision, and he explains the process better than I can [2]. In the end, the man he tried to save was resentenced by another judge to serve the balance of the "mandatory minimum" five years. This is a system which is ultimately perpetuated by the judiciary.<p>I don't blame the legislature for enacting laws that get them re-elected. I do blame the judges for letting a sentencing law unjustly destroy some peoples lives.<p>[1] - <a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Three+Strikes+Laws" rel="nofollow">http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Three+Strikes+...</a>
[2] - <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Justice+by+the+numbers%3B+mandatory+sentencing+drove+me+from+the+bench.-a012129669" rel="nofollow">http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Justice+by+the+numbers%3B+mand...</a>
Well, we seem to be going all out defending the other amendments these days. I guess its time to add the 8th to our efforts.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_...</a>
Obama is pretty stingy on pardons:<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/08/15/barack-the-unmerciful-drug-warrior-why-doesnt-obama-pardon-more-drug-offenders/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/08/15/barack-th...</a>
If there are filters like archaic three strikes laws to take out human decision making on repeat offenses, there should be sanity filters on the other end. Laws that say noone, ever, should serve more than X amount of years for non-violent crimes and that is probably or should be a low number, single digit. Life for non-violence is very sad as a society.<p>I am against prison or jail for any non-violent offense beyond fines or 'outpatient' like corrections, they cost much less and might actually help. They keep the individual contributing and don't subject people to a further life of crime locking them up, especially drug offenses when it is really most likely an illness or a non-issue.<p>If, when they gave a sentence, they reported the projected cost of that sentencing maybe some of this would change?<p>Things to try to help this:<p>1) Create common sense filters for sentencing so non-violent criminals or repeat offenses serve no more than x amount of years for a crime or remove jail/prison for non-violence altogether.<p>2) When sentencing is handed down, the projected cost of that sentence should also be read with the sentence except in extreme cases of violent sentencing. All non-violent sentencing should have a price right next to it so people understand what it really means. i.e. caught with a small amount of drugs = 10 years * 30k per year = 300,000 to put this person away for nothing. Right after that it lists their projected income and loss in taxes. Then a net benefit total which in this case is probably around 500k of economic value for this one offense.<p>Stupid events like this wouldn't happen if we changed this: <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/video-shows-man-dying-jail-cell-food-allergy-guards-article-1.1509408" rel="nofollow">http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/video-shows-man-dyi...</a><p>Technology changing society is another side to this. In the past, laws were not only there to dissuade people from doing undesirable behavior but were also more lax and harder to get caught. Nowadays everything is tracked and aggressive laws are now problematic because it isn't just a dissuading factor anymore it is a certainty. If there is something that probably shouldn't be illegal but is based on this past we could be in trouble. So all laws or things like this with non-violence being locked up and a private prison industry run amuck, we need to change drastically soon. People are human and they can mess up, our systems for corrections sometimes mess up the rest of their lives for one momentary lapse of reason.
This bothers me.<p>I know this is a bit of a 'libertarian fantasy', but I think the constitution ought to be amended to contain something like the following:<p>1) No person shall be subject to any criminal penalty exceeding one year of incarceration or $300 in fines for any non violent offense relating solely to the possession, sales, distribution, manufacture, or purchase of an intoxicating substance.<p>2) The purpose of this article is to limit the scope of criminal penalties that may be applied to "non violent drug offenders". It's provisions shall be interpreted with such intent in mind.<p>3) This article applies to all jurisdictions with the Several States, the United States, and any territories or possessions thereof<p>4) Any forfeiture of assets resulting from the conviction of a "non violent drug crime" must be limited to:<p>a) The intoxicating substances constituting the "core element of the crime"<p>b) Any asset materially and predominantly used for the manufacture, production, and possession of such substances.<p>Provided that such seized assets do not also have reasonable, fundamental, predominant, and legally authorized uses. In such case any seizure must be subject to the provisions of "eminent domain".<p>5) Congress, or the states, acting within the provisions otherwise authorized by this constitution, may adopt measures to ensure assets actually used in the commission of a "non violent drug crime", when not seized in accordance with this constitution, are only used in accordance to lawfully authorized purchases.
It says that there is no hope for these individuals.<p>... Why? Why can't they be brought out of their situation? I know some have been in there for 22 years already; but, why can't they be helped from this? I just... it doesn't make sense to me
ACLU doesn't understand the difference between burglary and theft, apparently. Breaking into an occupied hotel room and stealing a wallet is hardly best described as "taking a wallet".<p>Burglary is a terrifying experience that can leave the victims with life long PTSD. This man is lucky he wasn't immediately shot to death by the occupants. Every day he spends in prison alive is still a gift after that.
I would encourage anyone who hasn't already, to watch the brilliant documentary 'The House I Live In' by Eugene Jarecki. It's available on Netflix (in the UK at least).<p>It follows the War on Drugs in the USA. As an outsider (Irish living in London) I found it genuinely eyeopening on a topic I knew next to nothing about. For example did you know that the only difference between cocaine and crack cocaine is the addition of baking powder and heat. Although the later will get you 100 times the sentence of the former. There are 19 year olds being put away for the rest of their lives for the possession of a few grams of this stuff.<p>I don't care what stand you take on the legalisation/criminalisation of drugs, that is insane!<p>Instead of trying to reduce the rate of reoffending once released, it seems many states go out of their way to marginalise convicts so that virtually no law abiding avenues of employment remain for them. Talk about a vicious circle. That's not evening taking into account the effect of incarcerated parents has on the generation that follows.
I came across a web forum thread in which the escalation of criminal sentencing laws is compared to the Milgram experiment:<p><a href="http://www.isthmus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=58211" rel="nofollow">http://www.isthmus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=58211</a><p>Of course no analogy is perfect, but this one gave me pause.
It's pretty disappointing to see so many comments praising what most people here would describe as "absurdly disproportionate sentences" and "probably something out of North Korea". Especially when the same people were up in arms not long ago about Aaron Schwartz.
"(...) we found out that seven out of every ten black men behind jail, and most of the men behind jail are black<p>Seven out of every ten black men never went to the ninth grade<p>Didn't have 50 dollars and hadn't had 100 for a month when they went to jail<p>So the poor and the ignorant go to jail while the rich go to San Clemente"<p><pre><code> -- We beg your pardon America, Gil Scott-Heron
from the album The First Minute of a New Day (1975)
</code></pre>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCfEkopryo" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCfEkopryo</a>
The 3 strikes law system seems beyond ridiculous. Not being a US native, does this mean that I can get three tickets for shoplifting and go to jail for life? What about 3 speeding tickets?<p>/genuinely curious
From a European perspective some of these things might not even being custodial. European countries don't suffer higher crime rates because of their more lenient punishments.<p>I think the problem is that on a manifesto a three strikes proposal looks very good especially for those concerned about law and order, the reality is these horrible injustices..
"After serving two years in prison during his mid-twenties for inadvertently killing someone during a bar fight, Aaron Jones turned his life around ...". To be honest, at that point I kind of wondered whether I was reading a parody piece or not. The 3-strikes laws are not totally irrational provided the legislators carefully decide what counts as a "strike". Even so, "inadvertently" killing someone during a bar fight should count as a strike in my book. Granted, having such laws in a legal environment where almost everything is a felony or can be charged as such, results in great many wasted lives and a huge societal cost. But it's the felony character of some of those underlying offences that should be questioned, not the three-strike principle per se.
> <i>He did not want to sentence her to die in prison, but his "hands [were] tied" because of her prior convictions for minor drug offenses three years earlier</i><p>This part struck me. There was grellas' comment on the Google vs Authors Guild thread were the judge decided to go against the 'mechanical' application of the law and took time to come up with a sensible interpretation to handle the case. It's crushing to think about a mother of two in prison for life for a crime the judge itself thought wasn't worth the sentence, potentially leaving her kids in the hands of an abusive husband (I hope they got sheltered at least)
I don't understand how mad those judges should be to send those people in jail for life... Life imprisonment for that... It's like the ultimate punishment (because death penalty isn't worth it) for evilest people. Or is it mad laws? I understand when two adults are sentenced for life because they were torturing and killing random homeless people just for fun (real example from my city). They are very dangerous to the society and should be kept away forever, that I understand. But I don't see how driving a company's truck is an immense menace for the society.
This really shows the unjustness of "three strikes" laws. There is nothing magical about committing three crimes. In my opinion, sentences should reflect the crime you actually committed an not much else.
Here's a woman who was sentenced to life in prison for having a 13 year old touch her breast.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-xEdbEubjs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-xEdbEubjs</a>
In an effort to be more civilized we have inadvertently come up with more barbaric punishments than the past. Locking someone away for life for stealing is worse than cutting off a hand or tattooing the forehead.
I think the interesting discussion point here is this..
In the US the prison system is a huge, profitable and influential industry. As the pharma industry will encourage doctors to prescribe their medicines the prison industry will encourage and lobby the legal system to increase the amount of prisoners.
I felt like the title here was misleading. They weren't sentenced to "death," as in, given a death sentence, they were sentenced to life in prison, which in some cases means they will die in prison, this is pretty different, though no less a tragedy.
I hate to say it but: Don't go to the Southern parts of the US. Don't go to Texas. Don't go to Florida. Don't go to the Carolina's. Certainly don't go to Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana. If you live there now, leave.
Wow. This is incredibly fascinating and frightening. I didn't believe that things were <i>nearly</i> this bad in the US...and that's saying something, seeing as I am very critical of lots of things that go on these days.
Am I understanding this right? These people have been given extreme sentences because the law requires it? If that's true why are the judges in these cases not being called out for not protesting these kinds of convictions?
Because of that anchors bar I first thought, watching that video is what got someone behind bars for life - 'what, has America come this far already?'.
This is sad, put your self in their shoe. It's hard to imagine a life like this. I wish things could change in this world and humans cared for one another.
three times you have been caught doing something we don't like.
you will now be banished from the planet and into this concrete and steel facility.<p>a facility whose operation is a business and the more residents the more the business makes.<p>tell me.<p>why would a business ever want to not have a guaranteed permanent paying member?
If I had to choose from facing life in prison (and maybe being raped there) and sharia punishment for stealing someones wallet I'd probably prefer having my hand amputated.<p>That's how irrational and absurd this law is, the Taliban look like humanists compared to that.
I'm blown away by this. I really thought three strikes laws only applied when the earlier crimes were extremely serious (basically murder or close).<p>Really drives home the idea that in some ways, America really isn't like the rest of the western world.