Allegedly this guy’s entire real estate business was built on cheating seniors out of their retirment money, using it to pay for personal expenses and holding no actual real estate investments. This guy has spent the last 8 years living off of other peoples money, why should we now put him in jail to live off of taxpayer money for the rest of his life?
I’m probably alone in thinking the death penalty is appropriate…so I’m curious to know what an appropriate punishment is for this guy (if he’s guilty)
Yes. I really don’t understand the concept of providing food and shelter for someone like this for the rest of his life. This guy didn’t just casually break a rule, he’s a theif. If he was caught robbing a bank and got shot in the process, nobody would cry over his grave.
basicallly every criminal has some form of mental disorder. the fact they break social rules is pretty much the definition of antisocial personality disorder. the jail system was created to attempt to reform these people and get them help for their mental problems. this is why almost every Western country has no death penalty. most countries effectively treat every criminal as if they were unfit to make the decisions they made that led to their criminality. everyone can be reformed, potentially. humans aren’t the judges of who can and cannot be reformed.
I’ve always felt locking people up for life made no sense. These criminals screw society with murder, felonies etc. And then society screws itself again by paying to lock these people up, pay for their security, food, medical, wellness expenses. Makes no sense. Strangely enough, I’m not sure this deserves lifetime sentence. How about a raw hacksawing with 10 years jail time with known gay menalready in for life
If the purpose of prison was solely as a reformative measure, than there should be no such thing as a lifetime sentence. Clearly, the purpose of prison is also to be a deterrant or to just separate criminals from society.
Anyway, with this view, perhaps in the interests of resource conservation, we should move towards a punitive system that is shorter in duration but is more intense. Therefore, the overall use of the system as a deterrant would not be diminished. Think of Singapore butt caning as a model. Elementary school students should be required to watch that video.
You have to be mentally deranged to commit a crime? Sometimes people find themselves in situations where there are no real options in life. Was Jean Valjean mentally deranged?
I agree that there are plenty of crimes that are psychopathic, but there are also plenty of situations where people are squeezed into situations where doing something illegal is not necessarily deranged or irrational, and there are also legislatures that write laws to make some group’s actions illegal (e.g. vagrancy laws designed to make poverty illegal, laws to prohibit sleeping in cars, etc.)
There’s also a divide about whether the purpose of jail is for punishment or reform. The punishers want to make sure that jail is an unpleasant experience. The reformers want to make sure that jails are effective at preventing criminals from repeating crimes (or new crimes) after they are let out.
A more nuanced view is that some people can probably be reformed and others may not be. This is probably what the various levels of security and probation are all about.
I don’t understand when people say “Lock them up and throw away the key, because it’s humane to let somebody rot in a PMITA prison, but it’s not humane for them to die from nitrogen asphyxiation.”
And I’m a big proponent of punishing people. Scourging, hard labor, turning big rocks into little rocks, etc. Don’t know about cutting off a hand, though, because then they can claim disability.
its not about being mentally deranged. every single one of us is mentally “off” in some way. theft for one’s sustenance is not a crime. most modern societies would not penalize someone who stole some food. basically, all crime that is punishable today is committed for reasons of personal gain beyond that of sustenance. the fact that ASPD is DSM-IV recognized and the definition of it is the disregard of other rights (i.e. theft, assault, etc) shows you that almost everyone in jail has this disorder to a degree. the key difference between someone with treatable ASPD and someone with untreatable ASPD it is remorse and a willingness to stop the behaviour. some with ASPD can be managed, and others can’t, but basically everyone in jail today has a form of ASPD, or you wouldn’t have violated someone’s right for personal gain in the first place. you could argue that people who defraud entities (i.e. corporations, governments, etc) are in their own category as they are not violating someone’s personal rights directly.
the bottom line is that if i walk down the street and mug someone, i am antisocial. if i break into someone’s house and assault someone, i am antisocial. if i drive on the wrong side of the road, i’m antisocial, or potentially in the UK.
My step-brother pretty clearly has ASPD and he has done time for involuntary vehicular mansaughter, and also for skipping out on meetings with his parole officer (it was an interesting situation, he was given a year to live by his doctor so decided “what’s the point in going to parole meetings when I’m going to die shortly.” However his body miraculously healed itself and he is still alive, 7 years later. However, the police caught up to him and found he hadn’t seen his parole officer in years, so back to jail for something like 9 months.)
I have no doubt that ASPD contributes to a lot of behavior that puts people in jail, and a lot of the behavior for which we think jail time is appropriate, but it seems far-fetched to me to say that everyone in jail has ASPD. There is - at a minimum - plenty of people who are in jail for drug possession, drunk driving (which while worthy of jail does not require a personality disorder - I suspect most of us have had at least one time in life where we weren’t quite sure if we were over or under the limit).
Anyway, I get what you’re saying, I just think there are a lot of people who find themselves in jail who are not necessarily antisocial. Drug addicts may have mental problems related to what their brains are like when addicted to substances, plus social problems leading to the decision to risk getting addicted. And there are tax evaders too, who don’t necessarily have a personality disorder but just like money and love libertarianism too much.
okay, i expand my definition of criminals. people with ASPD, drug addicts and libertarians. though all of these groups exhibit antisocial behaviours or antisocial thoughts.