Dashcam recording of Castile's shooting released.

[seer]

only 7 to 10 years for murdering someone? That's insane. and unjust. You took someone's entire life and affected everyone's life who that person knew. You took them away from friends and family and children. Heck you prevented them from having children. And you only get 7 years?

At this point your outrage at the USA's handling of crime is dismissed as idiotic rantings.

I live in one of most liberal states in the union, and if you are convicted of 1st degree murder you will do 60 years - with no possibly of parole. Even here we would not stomach 7-10 years.

[Sparko]

only 7 to 10 years for murdering someone? That's insane. and unjust. You took someone's entire life and affected everyone's life who that person knew. You took them away from friends and family and children. Heck you prevented them from having children. And you only get 7 years?

At this point your outrage at the USA's handling of crime is dismissed as idiotic rantings.

Ah, this is another Starlightism. In fact the mandatory sentence for murder in New Zealand is LIFE with possibility of parole after a minimum of 10 years.

http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nzlc/pp/PP41/PP41-8_.html
138 NEW ZEALAND JUDGES CURRENTLY HAVE NO DISCRETION in sentencing a defendant who has pleaded or been found guilty of murder. The penalty for murder is mandatory: a sentence of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of at least 10 years.[207] Until 1961, the mandatory penalty for murder was death. The partial defence of provocation mitigated the harshness of the mandatory death sentence by reducing murder to manslaughter. Provocation and infanticide[208] now play this role with regard to the mandatory life sentence.

[Starlight]

obviously because the fascist government is rounding up the liberals and the unwashed minorities and putting them in death camps, Starlight.

Not quite, but Nixon's administration cracked down on drugs because it was something they perceived to be smoked by hippies and non-whites who both voted Democrat.

From articles here and here:


This article written years before the above quote resurfaced, insightfully discusses the history of the Nixon administration's stance on marijuana. Nixon appointed an expert committee to study the matter, and they thought it should be legalized, but Nixon was having none of it and demanded instead that there should be a "war" on marijuana. So his administration increased the rate of marijuana arrests to almost half a million a year.

[Mountain Man]

Ah, this is another Starlightism. In fact the mandatory sentence for murder in New Zealand is LIFE with possibility of parole after a minimum of 10 years.

http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nzlc/pp/PP41/PP41-8_.html
138 NEW ZEALAND JUDGES CURRENTLY HAVE NO DISCRETION in sentencing a defendant who has pleaded or been found guilty of murder. The penalty for murder is mandatory: a sentence of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of at least 10 years.[207] Until 1961, the mandatory penalty for murder was death. The partial defence of provocation mitigated the harshness of the mandatory death sentence by reducing murder to manslaughter. Provocation and infanticide[208] now play this role with regard to the mandatory life sentence.

So either he's as ignorant of his country's own laws as he is of US law, or his claim was intentionally deceptive.

[Sparko]

Not quite, but Nixon's administration cracked down on marijuana because it was something they perceived to be smoked by hippies and non-whites who both voted Democrat.

From articles here and here:


This article written years before the above quote resurfaced, insightfully discusses the history of the Nixon administration's stance on marijuana. Nixon appointed an expert committee to study the matter, and they thought it should be legalized, but Nixon was having none of it and demanded instead that there should be a "war" on marijuana. So his administration increased the rate of marijuana arrests to almost half a million a year.

sheesh Starlight. at least blame Bush like other liberals do. Going all the way back to Nixon? That's uncalled for.

So now the jails are just overcrowded with pot heads. OK.

[Mountain Man]

sheesh Starlight. at least blame Bush like other liberals do. Going all the way back to Nixon? That's uncalled for.

So now the jails are just overcrowded with pot heads. OK.

Liberals are desperately trying to create a link between Trump and Nixon on the basis that Nixon was the last president successfully run out of office because of a scandal, and they think if they can force a parallel then the same fate will befall President Trump.

[Starlight]

Star, we have, for instance, nearly 5 times more murders per 100,000 than you do. The numbers are probably similar with other violent crimes. It is not just about the number of crimes but the kind of crimes.

NZ has about 777 crimes reported to police per 10,000 people per year, where the US has about 371 crimes reported per 10,000 people per year.

The percentage of people who report being victims of a crime in NZ seems to be slightly higher than the US (~22% vs ~17%):



From looking up the stats in the past, I seem to recall that a higher rate of burglaries in NZ were largely what made the difference.

Ah, this is another Starlightism. In fact the mandatory sentence for murder in New Zealand is LIFE with possibility of parole after a minimum of 10 years.

This is another Sparkoism. In NZ, a "life" sentence as a term in the legal system is a historical term. It used to generally mean a 7 year minimum and then parole at the discretion of the parole board. Now it usually means a 10 year minimum and then parole at the discretion of the parole board.

The parole boards here have had a long tradition of being complete push-overs and rubber-stamping prisoner releases at the first opportunity as long as the prisoner said "oh yeah, I totally won't do it again, I pinky promise". Same with courts granting bail.

From here:

The longest minimum period of imprisonment on a [current] sentence of life imprisonment is 30 years, currently being served by William Dwane Bell. No person in New Zealand has yet been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

So "harshest penalty ever" here is a 30 year minimum sentence from the judge. I note the above link lists only 13 people here who have received more than 20 year minimum sentences this century.

Provocation and infanticide[208] now play this role with regard to the mandatory life sentence.

I went and read the infanticide law. The legal maximum is 3 years in prison for infanticide. This woman 2 years ago got "2 years supervision [probation] and 100 hours community work" as her sentence (courts here love community work and home detention as punishments). The article lists 9 previous cases of infanticide and as you can see the typical punishment was 2 years supervision [probation].

[Sparko]

Liberals are desperately trying to create a link between Trump and Nixon on the basis that Nixon was the last president successfully run out of office because of a scandal, and they think if they can force a parallel then the same fate will befall President Trump.

ah! it is all clear now. I wondered why there have been so many mentions of Nixon lately. Like focusing on the "tapes" and "obstruction of justice"

nice try Starlight. but no go.

[Mountain Man]

The parole boards here have had a long tradition of being complete push-overs and rubber-stamping prisoner releases at the first opportunity as long as the prisoner said "oh yeah, I totally won't do it again, I pinky promise". Same with courts granting bail.

From here:

The longest minimum period of imprisonment on a [current] sentence of life imprisonment is 30 years, currently being served by William Dwane Bell. No person in New Zealand has yet been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

So "harshest penalty ever" here is a 30 year minimum sentence from the judge. I note the above link lists only 13 people here who have received more than 20 year minimum sentences this century.

I went and read the infanticide law. The legal maximum is 3 years in prison for infanticide. This woman 2 years ago got "2 years supervision [probation] and 100 hours community work" as her sentence (courts here love community work and home detention as punishments). The article lists 9 previous cases of infanticide and as you can see the typical punishment was 2 years supervision [probation].

So like I said, other countries are more lax on crime than the US.

[Starlight]

ah! it is all clear now. I wondered why there have been so many mentions of Nixon lately. Like focusing on the "tapes" and "obstruction of justice"

nice try Starlight. but no go.

Seriously? This has nothing to do with Trump. We're discussion the US prison population.

Nixon started the War on Drugs and began the harsh sentencing laws in the US that led to a massive rise in the US prison population. The presidents that came after him were bad too on this, and actually Clinton was one of the worst for passing tough sentencing laws, with Hillary infamously saying they had to crack down on "superpredators". But at least the Clintons thought they were doing the right thing to address a spike in crime, even if in hindsight their choice of policy to address the problem was wrong. Whereas Nixon, who began the War on Drugs, did it for cynical and political motivations.

[Sparko]

NZ has about 777 crimes reported to police per 10,000 people per year, where the US has about 371 crimes reported per 10,000 people per year.

The percentage of people who report being victims of a crime in NZ seems to be slightly higher than the US (~22% vs ~17%):



From looking up the stats in the past, I seem to recall that a higher rate of burglaries in NZ were largely what made the difference.


This is another Sparkoism. In NZ, a "life" sentence as a term in the legal system is a historical term. It used to generally mean a 7 year minimum and then parole at the discretion of the parole board. Now it usually means a 10 year minimum and then parole at the discretion of the parole board.

The parole boards here have had a long tradition of being complete push-overs and rubber-stamping prisoner releases at the first opportunity as long as the prisoner said "oh yeah, I totally won't do it again, I pinky promise". Same with courts granting bail.

From here:

The longest minimum period of imprisonment on a [current] sentence of life imprisonment is 30 years, currently being served by William Dwane Bell. No person in New Zealand has yet been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

So "harshest penalty ever" here is a 30 year minimum sentence from the judge. I note the above link lists only 13 people here who have received more than 20 year minimum sentences this century.

I went and read the infanticide law. The legal maximum is 3 years in prison for infanticide. This woman 2 years ago got "2 years supervision [probation] and 100 hours community work" as her sentence (courts here love community work and home detention as punishments). The article lists 9 previous cases of infanticide and as you can see the typical punishment was 2 years supervision [probation].

yeah at this point I am not taking your word for anything. You love to massage the numbers and select the way you present information and data to make points that are not factual. Do you have stats on how long the actual murder sentences are? Just because someone is eligible for parole doesn't mean he gets it. They have parole for murderers here in the USA too. Doesn't mean they always get it. It also depends on the degree of murder, number of people murdered, motivation, etc. and varies by state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

[Sparko]

Seriously? This has nothing to do with Trump. We're discussion the US prison population.

Nixon started the War on Drugs and began the harsh sentencing laws in the US that led to a massive rise in the US prison population. The presidents that came after him were bad too on this, and actually Clinton was one of the worst for passing tough sentencing laws, with Hillary infamously saying they had to crack down on "superpredators". But at least the Clintons thought they were doing the right thing to address a spike in crime, even if in hindsight their choice of policy to address the problem was wrong. Whereas Nixon, who began the War on Drugs, did it for cynical and political motivations.

Nixon started cracking down on drugs because in the late 60's and 70's drugs became a major problem for the country. It was not just pot. It was cocaine, heroin, LSD, all of that. Pretty much started with the liberals, called "hippies" back then. Turn on Tune out. Kids were dropping dead from overdoses left and right. Criminals were moving in to the drug trade as it became profitable. I remember personally. You just think you know what you are talking about because you read some liberal blogs about a country you know nothing about and a time you never lived through.

[Starlight]

So like I said, other countries are more lax on crime than the US.

Other countries don't lock people up for absolutely absurdly long lengths of time like the US does.

1. It costs heaps of money to imprison people. Did you know you could pay for a person to go to Harvard for a year on a full scholarship for less than what it costs to imprison that person for a year in the US?

You conservatives pretend you care about wasting taxpayer money, but when it comes to wasting it and setting it on fire when it comes to spending it on criminals it seems like you just can't spend enough on them. And not only that, but every year they are in prison is a year they are not out in the workforce making a living and paying taxes and supporting their family financial, so it's lose-lose-lose to keep them in prison where you don't get their taxes and have to dish out tax-payer money to support their family and then have to foot the absurdly large bill for their prison costs.

2. Harshness of punishment has almost zero effect on people's likelihoods of committing crime.

This is one of the world's most-studied things, because everyone in every country wants to know how to reduce the crime rates, and so not only has data from every country, state, city etc been well and truly analyzed, but extensive interviews have been carried out with criminals etc to understand why they acted as they did. The thing that has an orders of magnitude higher effect on a person's likelihood of committing a crime is their estimation of the likelihood of getting caught. That is what is important, and harsher penalties simply don't deter criminals.

3. Most countries believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, and put a great deal of effort into restorative justice.

Since inflicting a gratuitously long penalty on the offender doesn't actually undo the offense, the important thing is instead to change the offender as a person to make them less likely to offend again in future and put them on the path towards living a good life.

[Mountain Man]

Other countries don't lock people up for absolutely absurdly long lengths of time like the US does.

I don't consider life imprisonment for murder to be an "absurdly long length of time".

[Sparko]

Other countries don't lock people up for absolutely absurdly long lengths of time like the US does.

1. It costs heaps of money to imprison people. Did you know you pay for a person to Harvard for a year on a full scholarship for less than what it costs to imprison that person for a year in the US?

You conservatives pretend you care about wasting taxpayer money, but when it comes to wasting it and setting it on fire when it comes to spending it on criminals it seems like you just can't spend enough on them. And not only that, but every year they are in prison is a year they are not out in the workforce making a living and paying taxes and supporting their family financial, so it's lose-lose-lose to keep them in prison where you don't get their taxes and have to dish out tax-payer money to support their family and then have to foot the absurdly large bill for their prison costs.

Yeah because most of the career criminals with these long sentences are making a living with an actual job supporting their families and paying taxes.