there are a lot of wrong prejudices about americans
@ Csaunders: as Gerd, i really admire yor views
but u have to consider that criminal law considers a lot of (very) different situations.
for example, u won't ever see a drug addicted in an italian prison. we've got special rehabilitation programs for them (some of them pubblic, others private). the same goes for lil thieves (social works) and a lot of other lil crimes (actually being a drug addicted, is not even considered a crime here, of course).
but murder is the worst crime in every civil legislation, and the same goes for riots (wich represent an offence to the pubblic order that a state HAS to preserve to protect his citizens).
each organised community establish a system of rules based on the principle of cause. action - reaction.
if i may, i suggest u to read Hans Kelsen (especially "the general theory of law" and The democracy") This man was the greatest jurist of the last century, and he is the father of the liberal-democratic theory of law.
I'd really like to explain u his theory, because it contains all the replies to your statements, but it's really too hard to put it in english, and it would take the whole afternoon (and a couple of pages
). believe me mate, his theories are illuminating... u won't be disappointed
in the meanwhile....
Incarceration has not to be a deterrent. thet deterrent is that moral suasion i talked before. U could say that the deterrent is the rule itself.
incarceration an rehabilitations acquit 2 different needs.
rehabilitation acquits the need to "reintroduce a man into the society"
incarceration acquits the need to preserve "the rule of law" (wich is the most important principle in every democracy in this world.......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law
Both of them (incarceration and rehabilitation) HAVE to walk toghether, but they actually don't (coz, as i said before, we don't wanna support the cost of a REAL rehabilitation).
So, as i said before, we might think that incarceration is the problem. but it isn't. the real problem is that incarceraction never walks together with reeducation.
let me make silly example. if u turn on your pc but don't do the same with your monitor, u won't see anything. but this doesn't mean that your pc doesn't work anymore. if u wanna see something u just have to turn on your monitor too.
exactly as a pc and a monitor, incarceration and rehabilitation acquit different purposes. (u turn on your pc to let it start, u turn on your monitor to see what your pc is doing and to operate on him). But both of them have to walk together, coz without incarceration, u won't live anymore in a state of law, in a rule of law, in a rechtsstaat; without rehabilitation prisons will just "brutalize" people........(wich is what actually happens)
yep, i meant "probation"
i'd say that a riot is a very violent crime.
me too. but most criminals, not all of them. those ultras who start a battle like this
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well those sure aren't "petty" criminals
