We need this guy to run the country.

[TheDaddy]

From the C4 documentary Torture: America's Brutal Prisons

The British documentary showed that the number of prisoners in the county jail system had doubled since Arpaio took office.

Corrections researchers at the Arizona State University: Arpaio spent over $10,000 to have Arizona State University study recidivism in his jail system. The 1998 ASU study tracked 4,800 released Maricopa County inmates and showed no evidence that harsh treatment reduced recidivism. Arpaio discounted this study as false and continues to claim that his jail program has reduced crime in the valley.

Still if revenge over rehabilitation is your bag, vote Joe

[Xaccers]

Anyone got information on the likelihood of actually getting caught for committing a crime in that area?
If the punishment was to have your legs removed, if the chances of getting caught were zero, then the punishment wouldn't be much of a deterrant.
Course if the chances of getting caught are on a par with other areas which don't have such a harsh prison regime, then it's fair to say it's making no difference to recidivism.

Having said that, if the prisoners are more productive and it costs less to run, then that would be a benefit that could be repeated elsewhere making other prisons more cost effective, the savings could then either be pumped back into the community to reduce crime by improving people's lot, or into ways of rehabilitation that work better.

Well i would vote for anyone that promised me criminals would actually pay for their crimes and i don't much care about rehabilitating them.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

This the second time l have heard a story of this kind of person from USA,` There is a judge in America, that even if you have commited a first offence, you go straight to prison, no messing, if the courts in this country did, that, you would cut half the crime overnight, he believes that if you commit a crime, you don't deserves the luxuries of life - your freedom.

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

This the second time l have heard a story of this kind of person from USA,` There is a judge in America, that even if you have commited a first offence, you go straight to prison, no messing, if the courts in this country did, that, you would cut half the crime overnight, he believes that if you commit a crime, you don't deserves the luxuries of life - your freedom.

I wonder why crime is rampant in the US then? they have a very strict penal system as you mentioned but it hasn't worked there. The answer in my opinion is not just the lock em up theory because it obviously doesn't work, listening to what the Tories were proposing the other day makes a lot of sense, in that as soon as a person leaves prison he has to go straight to the job center and register with a personal advisor. He/she will then be coached in interview tactics and generally projecting themselves in a positive way for the job market, ex-cons are not going to be allowed to come out of prison go straight onto the dole and fester, I think the Tories are on to something here.

As a society we don't want prisoners being habitual recidivists for the rest of their lives, so we need to rehabilitate them for all our sakes, this means more than just banging them up and ignoring them, otherwise as I said earlier we all suffer and nobody wins.

Look at it from another point of view Froggie go to america and ask a victim if they feel justice was done by their system and then come back here and ask a brit. It isn't always about the actual figures that get given out most of which are complete and utter BS serving the agenda of someone or some group. How can you put a figure on a perception and the perception in the UK is that the justice system is a complete pathetic joke that favours the criminal not the victim. Until that changes and is backed up by experience for most that have to enter the criminal justice system as a victim i am not interested in the rights of criminals or how hard their life maybe because they chose to commit a criminal act. You don't have to break the law or resort to crime, i and the vast vast majority of people in this country manage to avoid breaking the law so people that do break the law sod em.

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

This the second time l have heard a story of this kind of person from USA,` There is a judge in America, that even if you have commited a first offence, you go straight to prison, no messing, if the courts in this country did, that, you would cut half the crime overnight, he believes that if you commit a crime, you don't deserves the luxuries of life - your freedom.

Again ignoring the deaths of some of the people in his system, or the beatings.

---------- Post added at 20:31 ---------- Previous post was at 20:25 ----------

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

Look at it from another point of view Froggie go to america and ask a victim if they feel justice was done by their system and then come back here and ask a brit. It isn't always about the actual figures that get given out most of which are complete and utter BS serving the agenda of someone or some group. How can you put a figure on a perception and the perception in the UK is that the justice system is a complete pathetic joke that favours the criminal not the victim. Until that changes and is backed up by experience for most that have to enter the criminal justice system as a victim i am not interested in the rights of criminals or how hard their life maybe because they chose to commit a criminal act. You don't have to break the law or resort to crime, i and the vast vast majority of people in this country manage to avoid breaking the law so people that do break the law sod em.

You don't need to go the other extreme though...

Maybe not Damien but some movement towards the victims would be a bloody start for too long the victims have been treated like dirt and it has to stop.

[frogstamper]

Even though I don't want the likes of that ego-maniac self promoting sheriff in the UK, I do agree our sentencing policy needs an overhaul. To many people are losing faith in our justice system, firstly the sending to prison of people for non payment of fines should stop, it's pointless, non fine payers can be dealt with via community service. This would free up places so people who needed to be in prison stayed there, when a judge hands down a sentence, eg two years, you serve two years, if while inside you behave and make an effort to reform you could get up to 10% of your sentence commuted, not 50%.

Friends of mine work in a category A prison, and one of their many gripes is that the youngsters can miss breakfast and lay in bed till 10am or 11am, the youngsters especially should be made to attend breakfast and have some structure brought into their lives. Where as apparently most of the older prisoners want to work, so as to combat the boredom and earn a few bob very few of the younger ones are interested. I think some sort of work or education should be compulsory, laying on your bunk watching telly shouldn't be an option, in a lot of cases this is what a lot of them do whilst at home I suspect, so when they are released nothing has changed.

As most people have probably noticed from my previous posts I'm quite liberal in my views, but that doesn't mean I want these poor little lambs to have an experience equal to a holiday whilst in prison, I'd like to see something done that's not only beneficial for the prisoner whilst inside, but also for society. The punishment in prison is loss of freedom, it makes no sense to go the American sheriffs route by basically humiliating them, all that does is breed contempt, so as when its time for release your putting another angry young man on the streets who according to statistics will go back to crime. It may make Daily Mail readers happy in the short term, but the goal has to be turning these mostly young men into worthwhile contributing members of society.

No i think it is fine to humiliate them i have no problem with that whatsoever and given how image obsessed many are today a public humiliation might be just the trick. Personally if i had my way all prisons would be run like colchester military prison that would sort the lazy ***** out nice and fast and quickly instill in them a respect for authority.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by frogstamper

I wonder why crime is rampant in the US then?

Possibly because they have a far greater population. If you look at the crime rate per 100,000 population the UK crime level is far higher.

Have a quick skim through this link for various facts and figures.

http://wheelgun.blogspot.com/2007/01...ime-in-us.html

*The usual disclaimers about how facts and figures can be spun to back up your argument apply*

Glad you put the "usual disclaimers" thing in.

A little investigation (of wheelgun's sources) shows that

US definition of violent crimes (which are counted in the figures) are link1
- Murder & Non-negligent manslaughter
- Forcible rape
- Robbery
- Aggravated assault

UK definitions include link2
- Common Assault
- Wounding
- Robbery
- Snatch theft

All sources are from original link provided by Derek.

Some interesting points link from section 5.

- The majority of recorded violent crimes were other offences against the person, the least serious grouping (84 per cent of violent crime in 2005/06).
- There were 765 homicides in 2005/06, a decrease of 12 per cent from the previous year. The homicide figure of 765 includes 52 homicide victims of the 7 July London bombings.

Violent crime is a very diverse crime grouping

. It contains the full spectrum of assaults, from murder to pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm, as well as sexual offences and robbery. In addition, the degree of violence varies considerably between incidents even within the same crime classification. A large proportion of violence results in no injury (see Section 5.5).

From Section 5.5

In just under half (49%) of all BCS violent incidents there was no injury (BCS 2005/06).
This has remained stable since 2004/05 interviews (46%; the apparent difference is not statistically significant). The majority of robberies (64%) and common assaults (62%) reported to the 2005/06 BCS involved no injury (Table 5.02).
There was also no injury in at least 47 per cent of all recorded violence against the person in 2005/062 (Table 2.04).
The most common injuries incurred in BCS-reported violence were minor bruising or a black eye (30% of incidents). Seventeen per cent of incidents resulted in severe bruising, 11 per cent in cuts and ten per cent in scratches.

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by Derek S

Possibly because they have a far greater population. If you look at the crime rate per 100,000 population the UK crime level is far higher.

Have a quick skim through this link for various facts and figures.

http://wheelgun.blogspot.com/2007/01...ime-in-us.html

*The usual disclaimers about how facts and figures can be spun to back up your argument apply*

You surely cannot be serious Derek, even if you take population size into account of 60,000,000 for the UK and 230,000,000 for the US its about a ratio of 4 to 1. The murder rate in the US in 2006 was 17,034, for the same period in Britain it was 765, that is just over 1% of the US total.

The link provided is hardly unbiased, if you look in the title it quotes being a supporter of the 2nd amendment, aka the gun lobby.I grant you in certain areas like burglary that is higher than in the US, but violent crime against the person is much higher over there. Have a look at these two links.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page6.asp

[Vlad_Dracul]

The Police in the US make a refrshing change to our emasculated bunch of hoody huggers. True they are not perfect but they are in charge,they take charge and they deal with criminals. They don't ponce around making friends with street yobs and being touchy feely with criminals. I suggest that we subcontract the Policing of the UK and put it out to tender to any US force that wants to apply for it.