Inmates using cellphones

[quadraphonics]

Killing someone doesn't punish him, because he's dead and doesn't even remember that you did it, much less regret the things that motivated you to kill him.

Punishment is about more than instilling regret - it's also about extracting a price. I would certainly consider the prospect of being killed as "punishment," even though I wouldn't be subject to any suffering once it was over with.

Moreover, justice is about more than punishing the perpatrator. There's also repayment/satisfaction to the victims, deterrence of future offenders, and rehabilitation of the offender. Obviously, captial punishment doesn't play will with that last one, but it does frequently jibe well with the first two. The danger of the family of an executed criminal pursuing revenge for such must be balanced against the danger of the family of that criminal's victim pursuing revenge.

I can't believe that modern technology can't build a prison that blocks cell signals. Somebody just isn't trying.

I think the issue is more that guards and other non-inmate people at the prison need to have their cell phones work, for business and safety reasons. The inmates aren't supposed to have phones to begin with, so it becomes counterproductive to prevent the guards' phones from working because the guards aren't able to perfectly enforce that prohibition.

Studies show that the majority of men in U.S. prisons had violent, abusive fathers.

Studies also show that the majority of rape victims in the U.S. are male prison inmates:

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/prison/report1.html#_1_5

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

How did it work out? I think it worked out just fine, since we survived the Bronze Age.

As a matter of fact, we almost didn't. Look up the Bronze Age Collapse. Civilization went into a backslide that took about a thousand years to recover from.

By the way applying your logic, we should be harder on orphans and people without close relatives/friends, because their punishment doesn't hurt others.

There's some logic to that. But whom do you trust when people tell you he's unloved and won't be missed?

I am sure this guy's son and daughter are very earnest to visit him . . . .

Yes of course. But the next bad guy has family members, teachers, pastors, scoutmasters, counselors, coaches, old friends and neighbors who tried to help him and who have already been punished enough by having to live with that failure. They don't need the government to punish them even further by killing him and leaving that on their conscience. I wonder how much you would appreciate having even a tiny fraction of the responsibility for someone's decline into that abyss weighing on your head for the rest of your life. "If only I hadn't blown him off that morning when he came over in tears because I was late for a stupid meeting."

As I mentioned earlier, certain normal rights in life are used in prison as incentives.

I can't pretend to know the secret to prison reform. Many of those men are there to be rehabilitated, yet we virtually ensure that they will be dragged down into a level of unspeakable horror by the lifers and the genuine sociopaths.

The victims' families disagreed with this decision.

Bereaved people are irrational, selfish and consumed by revenge, the most evil and uncivilized of all human emotions. They must never be allowed to make policy.

 

[gracyjamming]

Different from other electronics, cell phones have become the necessity of every one's daily life. If someone still has no idea of mobile phones, you must say that "Out!" of course except the senior citizens. To be honest, cell phones really bring us lots of benefits. We use it for talking, sending and playing. With it, our life can be modern one, without it, we will be live in the Mars, you know, know nothing about each other. But do cell phones have no disadvantages? Of course not, more and more people are using cell phones at the cost of other interests. Noises are everywhere, especially the one of mobile phones. What should we do, throw them away? It is a stupid behavior. Have you ever heard cell phone signal booster? It is a new kind of device to solve this problem, effective in blocking the signals of your cell phone and its nearby base station. one side, the mobile phone really benefits us a lot, but another side we also benefit from its noises for a long time, so the fight between the cell phone and cell phone jammer--jammerall has been a hot topic in society now. Which side you stand by, jamming or not, it depends on you.