It’s kind of like the perfect engine which would take no fuel. An infinitely efficient engine. Thermodynamically impossible yes, but it is still what increases in efficiency move towards.

It’s more like a carrot on a stick then an actual finish line.

Keep the hundreds part, lose the thousands. The view count on that video is only 2,000. BB is significant within its chosen niche, but sadly not in the greater population.

Many of the cases – parole violations, small street crimes, etc., are not prosecuted because we don’t have time to conduct a jury trial or the room in prison. Nor do the DAs and judges have the will to put petty drug addicts in jail for decades because of a small crime.

If we are sending people for a week or two, this allows certain crimes to be fast tracked. Something like a parole drug test failure wouldn’t need a full-blown jury trial.

Every person I’ve ever heard advocate corporal was someone who was corporally punished. I don’t notice people who were disciplined by their parents by other methods saying it’s the only way people listen. What I saw was that kids who were treated violently by their parents became violent to their parents when they grew up, because that was how their only model for dispute resolution.

It is possible to have respect without fearing violence.

trickle down

Additionally, in the United States an inmate’s sentence does not end once he has left the prison. The American system is intentionally manufactured to allow convenient tripwires to reacquire prisoners or place pressure as needed on former inmates, friends, and family.

Once a prisoner of the US, a prisoner for life.

What if shoplifting was just 1 night in jail – or even just a few hours, but everybody that shoplifted ALWAYS got caught, and ALWAYS went to jail immediately afterwards. Is a chocolate bar worth the rest of your day? – of course not.Shoplifting would go down for sure! It’s a petty crime and most people who do it (apart from some weird addiction cases), do it because they know they won’t get caught. But by changing the getting caught part rather then the punishment part, the reduction would be a lot more effective.

The point here is not that he KNOWS what alternative sentencing protocols should be immediately switched in, but rather what kind of design criteria they should be written around (and that the current ones are the polar opposite). That’s valuable too.

1) Um, ever see the movie “Brazil”?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/

2) Then there’s no incentive for society to improve/change, er, societal conditions so that less crime happens in the first place, no?

Why are crime rates so high in the US in the first place? Income disparity? Lack of humane social norms? General disregard of the value of human life?

I’d argue against that. The Gini Co-efficient in Canada is on par with most of western Europe, where as the US Gini co-efficient is closer to that of latin america or Russia. (Go Canada). If the argument is to be made that inequality leads to violence (and violence possibly but not always to incarceration), then the argument stands solidly.

(Don’t get me wrong, there are A LOT of thing the yanks out do us on, A LOT – economic disparity isn’t one of them)

So ya while we’re similar in a lot of ways, the single biggest difference could very well be seen while measuring economic inequality – which is exactly what’s being theorized about here.

We actually used to do that in the US. What happened was, innocent people (usually innocent black people) would get arrested on some BS charge for no other reason than somebody needed to fill out a road crew, or chain gang. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface. It was bad. There are reasons why it was stopped. And considering how corporatized the US prison system is now, re-adoption of that policy would be tantamount to selling people into slavery. I don’t think some kid deserves to be sold into slavery because he got busted with some weed. I’d think the restriction of freedom, constant threat of physical violence, and institutionalized rape would be excessive as it is.

And is China really the country we want to look to for new prison policies? Really? The human rights abuses that go in some of their prisons can only be described as epic. Leaving out the selling of prisoner’s organs on the black market and the torture, I find the thought of being forced to pay for the bullets used in my own execution deplorable in every possible way. I would sooner cut my own throat.

The US prison system is huge business. Not just the cost of building, running, and guarding all those prisons and prisoners – but the actual industrial production provided by the exceedingly cheap labor of (mostly black and Hispanic) inmates.

“the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289

He’s talking about Judge Dredd, right?

I mean you don’t have to go as far as decriminalizing and taxing – although frankly I think that would go far in increasing the US tax base – and probably solve some of the problems in Mexico with the Cartels; and perhaps even stem illegal immigration by creating a good base of agricultural jobs in Mexico…

Although I do like the Judge Dredd idea…

Maybe my thoughts on this are influenced by my Army time. I can attest to the virtue of swift punishment aimed at molding behavior in the public sphere as opposed to culture shocking folks and risk making their behavior even worse after a short trip through the draconian legal system. I think its a compelling argument.

This is already being done.

Many states present prisoners with a bill for jail time upon discharge that resembles an invoice one might receive when checking out of a hotel. For food, accommodations, and miscellaneous expenses.

It is common practice to impose a fee in the thousands of dollars in addition to jail time. That’s what happens when for-profit corporations control the “justice” system. So, one might typically serve a week in jail, pay $2,000, and do “community service” which is really just free prison labor for companies who are part of the nepotistic network of “partners.”

But it gets worse. Because if that allowed the taxpayers to transfer the financial burden to the prisoners, it might make some sense. But the states and their corporate partners are double and triple dipping by charging prisoners *AND* taxpayers.

Most Americans have no clue whatsover as to the shenanigans of their prison system. It’s shocking, vile, and irreparably broken.

The criminals who run the prison system of the US will never serve time.

that is the true essence of any corporal punishment.