so you concur that it is indeed a luxury to have the option of
being able to philosophize about the death penalty, rather than use
it as a real tool to deter serious crimes ? ...
I was arguing generally for harsh punishments, of which I think the
death penalty is an effective and integral component ... and I can
assure you, that it's not the incompetence of the police force that
was the problem ... let me give you a real life example ... from my
canadian years again
My landlord there was a manager at safeway, a large hypermarket
chain ... at his workplace, near a crime ridden part of the city,
they get an average of 100 to 120 shoplifters caught in a MONTH !
... go work out the math ... he says it's usually one before lunch,
and the rest around the evening peak rush ... some of these
shoplifters are so serial that he's on a first name basis with the
officers on the beat ... and the police officers are on a FIRST
NAME BASIS with these shoplifters, you know why ? ... two
reasons
1.) the court system is so backed up, that for a public persecutor
to charge a petty shoplifter, it'll take more than 10 months for
the case to come to trial ...
2.) the penalty is often nothing more than a slap on the wrist or
an admonition ... the judges often being unwilling to administer
heavy punishment, whether believing in giving people second, third,
fourth, fifth, ad infinitum chances, or simply doesn't want to
further choke up the over flowing penitentiary system, I don't know
....
so there you go ... the turn over for floor walkers (store
detectives) is also very high ... these petty crims know that the
law is on their side, so when cornered they'll often get violent
with the floor walkers, and because the floor walkers and the
police officers are the law, they cannot get physical in turn with
these low lives ... my landlord tells me that floor walkers and
police officers regularly get whacked, spat on, clawed, bitten
(yes, bitten !) ... by these low lives .... he got it a few times
himself as the manager whom cornered shop lifters were brought to
....
this degeneration of society is something I've witnessed first
hand, and I'm not going to get into the pot dealers, biker
gangsters, those little twats that scratched my car, stole my
wipers, and broke into it ... this is real, not some detective
novel or drama stuff ...
some of my older friends there spoke fondly over beers of an
earlier, simpler time, where it was okay to leave your doors and
cars unlocked, okay for the kids to play outside after dark, okay
to take a bus and get around on foot downtown, where crimes were
low and the police were respected ... I am convinced that hard
punishments is an effective measure to preserve the security of a
society ...
