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Down Goes Silent Sam

In the context of this discussion, getting rid of prisons [and potentially police altogether]

I guess I’m interested to hear from MHB if that includes jails and mental institutions as well and if he supports some sort of alternative to prisons for clearly dangerous criminals (which probably account for less than 10% of the prison population).
 
Write a check.

In general there a 5 reasons to punish people for crimes: Deterrence, Incapacitation (preventing someone from committing more crimes), Rehabilitation, Restitution, and Retribution.

I think there’s a good argument that the 5th reason is illegitimate, prison doesn’t contribute to the 4th, and doesn’t really attempt the 3rd.

That would mean there are only two good reasons to lock people up: Incapacitation and Deterrence. However, I think that in most cases there are better, or nearly as good, ways to deter people from committing crime and I don’t think the criminal justice system is the best way to determine who does and doesn’t need to be locked up to prevent them from committing more crimes.

As someone who lost a brother, no one in our family would have accepted blood money from the killer for his death. Our #1 priority was to make sure that person couldn't take another life. If all he had to do was write a check, what's to stop him from doing it again immediately.

Here's another question- what about those who can't a check? Or don't have jobs that would allow them to have a place to live and write a check?
 
As someone who lost a brother, no one in our family would have accepted blood money from the killer for his death. Our #1 priority was to make sure that person couldn't take another life. If all he had to do was write a check, what's to stop him from doing it again immediately.

Here's another question- what about those who can't a check? Or don't have jobs that would allow them to have a place to live and write a check?

Money orders
 
Here is a pretty decent 101 on abolition.

https://www.thenation.com/article/what-is-prison-abolition/

Abolitionists believe that incarceration, in any form, harms society more than it helps. As Angela Davis argues, prisons are an obsolete institution because they exacerbate societal harms instead of fixing them. “Are we willing to relegate ever larger numbers of people from racially oppressed communities to an isolated existence marked by authoritarian regimes, violence, disease, and technologies of seclusion that produce severe mental instability?” Davis has written. Even if we were to greatly diminish the current prison population, even if we were to cut it in half but keep the prison complex intact, we would still be consigning millions of people to isolation and violence—and that’s a form of inhumanity that abolitionists can’t abide. Moreover, Davis contends, mass imprisonment “reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison.”
 
As someone who lost a brother, no one in our family would have accepted blood money from the killer for his death. Our #1 priority was to make sure that person couldn't take another life. If all he had to do was write a check, what's to stop him from doing it again immediately.

Here's another question- what about those who can't a check? Or don't have jobs that would allow them to have a place to live and write a check?

Didn’t read the article. I just assumed it was the state writing the check (I.e instead of spending money to keep someone in prison, give that money to the person or family wronged) and then seeking reimbursement from the perpetrator.

I don’t think I can get behind such a system for murder and other aggravated violent crimes, but it seems like that would be the way to go about it.

I certainly wasn’t suggesting that any amount of money can “make up for” or provide restitution for losing a loved one.
 

That makes me think “abolition” is a bit of a misnomer or extreme wishful thinking. I fully agree with the three strategies mentioned to reduce the prison population (stop building, release as many current prisoners as possible, and figure out ways to divert as many people (including violent offenders) away from prison as possible), but that seems to be more of a prison attrition movement than a prison abolition movement.

That article also fails to address what to do when prong 3 fails. When restorative justice doesn’t work.
 
UNC Student Government statement.

39846598_10217663909294879_7836228751368126464_n.jpg
 
UNC Student Government statement.

39846598_10217663909294879_7836228751368126464_n.jpg

Written by a child who knows nothing. There are few more poorly informed egotists in the world than university student government officers. All of the confidence, none of the experience. They are like mini-Trumps.

Whoever said that the Chapel Hill administration and alums failed by not moving the statue before this happened, yeah that's correct. It should have been moved to some rural private cemetery filled with war veterans, it had no place on the campus. That happened in Tampa thanks to donations; they moved a statue off the courthouse square and it was the right thing to do. There was plenty of money swirling around Chapel Hill to do the same, and the students and community should have protested to make that happen.

I have no issue with taking these statues off of public property. They don't belong there. They were erected in the early 20th century by people who wanted to revise history to breathe fire into a terrible "lost cause." But students patting themselves on the back for tearing public property down in mob fashion is wrong. It teaches the wrong lesson. Ironically, it's a very Trump-esque way to go about addressing an issue.
 
Whoever said that the Chapel Hill administration and alums failed by not moving the statue before this happened, yeah that's correct. It should have been moved to some rural private cemetery filled with war veterans, it had no place on the campus. That happened in Tampa thanks to donations; they moved a statue off the courthouse square and it was the right thing to do. There was plenty of money swirling around Chapel Hill to do the same, and the students and community should have protested to make that happen.

Except that the NCGA passed a law making that illegal.
 
Written by a child who knows nothing. There are few more poorly informed egotists in the world than university student government officers. All of the confidence, none of the experience. They are like mini-Trumps.

Whoever said that the Chapel Hill administration and alums failed by not moving the statue before this happened, yeah that's correct. It should have been moved to some rural private cemetery filled with war veterans, it had no place on the campus. That happened in Tampa thanks to donations; they moved a statue off the courthouse square and it was the right thing to do. There was plenty of money swirling around Chapel Hill to do the same, and the students and community should have protested to make that happen.

I have no issue with taking these statues off of public property. They don't belong there. They were erected in the early 20th century by people who wanted to revise history to breathe fire into a terrible "lost cause." But students patting themselves on the back for tearing public property down in mob fashion is wrong. It teaches the wrong lesson. Ironically, it's a very Trump-esque way to go about addressing an issue.

Yeah but they made a conscious effort to hide under the "community organizer" skirt of their dude to create a human shield and justification. I also really enjoyed the "Time and time again ..." sentence, shout-out to the AFAM department and those natties.
 
Written by a child who knows nothing. There are few more poorly informed egotists in the world than university student government officers. All of the confidence, none of the experience. They are like mini-Trumps.

Whoever said that the Chapel Hill administration and alums failed by not moving the statue before this happened, yeah that's correct. It should have been moved to some rural private cemetery filled with war veterans, it had no place on the campus. That happened in Tampa thanks to donations; they moved a statue off the courthouse square and it was the right thing to do. There was plenty of money swirling around Chapel Hill to do the same, and the students and community should have protested to make that happen.

I have no issue with taking these statues off of public property. They don't belong there. They were erected in the early 20th century by people who wanted to revise history to breathe fire into a terrible "lost cause." But students patting themselves on the back for tearing public property down in mob fashion is wrong. It teaches the wrong lesson. Ironically, it's a very Trump-esque way to go about addressing an issue.

No. It should have never been put up. It should have been torn down and destroyed the day after it went up. It should have been torn down and destroyed when the university admitted black students for the first time in 1951. It should have been torn down and destroyed after Charlottesville.

That statue, like all the statues like it, was a stain on the community, the state, the South, and the Country. I’m fine sticking the more prominent ones in museums as a reminder of how fucked up this country’s history of racism has been (and still is).

There are plenty of divisive issues in this country where reasonable people can disagree. This isn’t one of them.
 
the rule-of-law types who are more interested in decorum than just outcomes are some of the biggest donks this side of the Spurs thread
 
But students patting themselves on the back for tearing public property down in mob fashion is wrong. It teaches the wrong lesson. Ironically, it's a very Trump-esque way to go about addressing an issue.

The ends always justify the means and need no apology or explanation just as long as you are on the right side of social justice.
 
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