RE: Moscow surplus and seized weapons policy

[Marc <cram3813@uidaho.edu>]

At 10:19 AM 9/20/99 -0700, you wrote:
>At 02:27 PM 9/18/99 -0700, Marc wrote:
>>As a token of our community's commitment to reducing ANY violence, I think
>>we should lock up violent people.  I realize this is a somewhat
>>old-fashioned approach, but it does seem to work. 
>
>Actually, I've never seen evidence of this in broad terms.  The U.S. has
>one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, but this has not
>reduced our crime rate (although there are mild, periodic fluctuations in
>crime rates).  High rates of recidivism indicate that jail time is no
>deterrent against repeat offences.  Our entire penal system begs for
>justification.
>
And why is the incarceration rates so high?  It is because of our useless
"war on drugs".  It is not because they are keeping violent criminals in
for a longer period of time.  

(Do not take my stance on the "war on drugs" to be my stance on drugs.  It
is just that under the guise of preventing drug usage in our society, the
government has made criminals out of a good percentage of the society.
There is little evidence that this "war" is doing anything other than
abusing the citizen's rights, e.g., seizures with assumed guilt, searches,
etc.  If the government would have taken just a portion of the funds spent
and put them into rehabilitation programs, then I think there would be
marked improvement.  Not to mention the crime that the illegal trade in
drugs causes.)

Marc