Shall we just stop incarcerating?
United Nations voted against life sentences w/o parole for teenagers---USA is lone dissent.

Will life w/o parole for adults be next on the block?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/us/17teenage.html?ei=5090&en=3eb5e3baa2f61e76&ex=1350273600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

JAS

[This message was edited by JAS on 10-17-07 at .]

i just read this story about a mexican serial killer who not only butchered one of his girlfriends, but ate her as well. yes, that's right. dismembered her, fried her up with a splash of lime. (i'm starting to sound like lance henriksen in the first terminator movie, "i remember this guy who smoked his afghan, f***ed it first . . . )

this guy wrote horror novels that his other girlfriend would hawk on the streets for him. he had previously killed and dismembered other girls. (i don't think the article referred to him as a "serial killer", but he actually aspired to be hannibal lecter, so you say tomato, i say serial killer.) in any case, the part about the article that stuck out for me was that the maximum sentence this guy faces is 50 years. hey, i've seen prison break, so i know foreign prisons are no cakewalk, but still. this seems a little light to me given this fellows appetites.

this is the enlightened voice of foreign nations? 50 years for strangling and eating his girlfriends?

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Originally posted by David Newell:
this is the enlightened voice of foreign nations? 50 years for strangling and eating his girlfriends?

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It would have been life but he didn't have chianti and faver beans like Hannibal.

is it mitigating evidence if he's listed in zagat's?

David,

In answer to your question: I think it is.

Its my impression most countries have far lighter sentences than we have. For that matter, most states seem to have far lighter sentences than we do.

But there are some states that are tougher. In Louisiana, they sometimes give out sentences in great excess of 99 years. One guy, I recall, got about 360 years in prison, which, of course, is considerably longer than Louisiana has been a state.

In Zimbabwe, when I was a public prosecutor, the maximum prison sentence anyone seemed to get was 25 years, and, as I recall, 25 strikes with a cane. This was for a couple of especially sadistic rapists. This was considered a very heavy-duty sentence.

I asked one of my fellow prosecutors about this. He explained, "we figure, if a fellow needs more than 25 years, we ought to just go ahead and hang him."

Even so, only 4 men were hanged during the 2.5 years I lived there. Since Zimbabwe has a pop. of about (I think) 17 milllion, you can see capital punishment was not as popular there as here.

The Chinese sense of justice is a little tougher than the US. Executing for financial and health related crimes. Saudia Arabia is also rather tough-adultery gets a death sentnce. How about Malaysia with its punishment for drug runners too? The US need not feel so alone nor yield to the liberal European viewpoint.

JAS

But is 50 years there the same as here ? Here 50 could mean only 25 even in a 3G case and considerably less in a drug case or a non-3G case.

What is the percentage of actual time served in Mexico/Zimbabwe/China ?

I am positive that, if the death penalty were ever abolished, we would almost immediately begin seeing claims that life without parole is cruel and unusual punishment.

I am interested in hearing a reasoned explanation of what the enlightened view is regarding what the consequences should be for intentionally causing the death of another human being. Lest this devolve into the vitriol of so many other debates, I am less concerned with hearing impassioned pleas about what's wrong with the current system than with hearing actual, constructive ideas on what the ultimate rectification should be. In the United States of America, not Europe.

just for clarification: you want to know what the arguments are that support the UN's determination that teenagers that commit murder should be offered some form of parole?

The more we know about brains, the more likely it is that defense-oriented types can blame criminal behavior on a person's physical attributes rather than their moral or ethical attributes. I.e., science can now "prove" that lack of maturation, frontal lobe development, etc. is caused by something beyond the control of the defendant, so he should not be punished, but rehabilitated.

Problem is, I don't see science offering any solutions on how to fix these problems in the brain. Just scientific studies looking for excuses.

[This message was edited by KSchaefer on 10-18-07 at .]

David: For clarification, my answer to you is "yes."

Touching on your earlier, insightful observation, I don't find anywhere in Conde Nast that touts the fact that one can kill and eat one's significant other and get 50 years or less as a five-star reason to visit our neighbor to the South.

As for the (correct, I believe) observation about science, are we approaching Thomas Dolby jurisprudence (you know, "she blinded me with science.")?

good heavens ms. yakamoto.

is there a scientific consensus on lobal warming? (not a typo.)

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Originally posted by David Newell:
good heavens ms. yakamoto.

is there a scientific consensus on lobal warming? (not a typo.)

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Yes, in the case of convicted killers, a high velocity lead injection (stolen from another thread) has been proven to absolutely cure all lobe problems.