29 February 2012

Crime and punishment


Found at Criminal Wisdom.

14 comments:

  1. Sorry, to be a wet blanket, but I think this has been shown to be of dubious origin.

    Having said that, the message is still legitimate. Many Wall St. oligarchs should be in prison, meanwhile many regular citizens fill our prisons for otherwise trivial crimes.

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    Replies
    1. If anyone can confirm the dubious nature, I'll delete the post. As noted, there are other examples that could be assembled instead.

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    2. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/roybrown.asp

      As I mentioned, I agree 100% with the sentiment.

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    3. I'm glad to see the KTBS link now. When this first made the rounds a few years ago, the only proof was that "digital journal" article so a lot of right wing folks to the opportunity to dismiss the message by discrediting the source.

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  2. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/roybrown.asp

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/mortgage-fraud-ceo-prison-paul-allen_n_881946.html

    http://www.ktbs.com/news/23350821/detail.html

    don't know if the homeless man's article is authentic or not but was as far back as anyone could track it. So far it seems legit.

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  3. Snopes validates it for me.

    Think about the pain and suffering that Wall Street fraudsters cause on a "mass destruction" scale. In so many ways, this country does not represent the rule of law, let alone equal justice.

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  4. Most of us would do almost anything if sufficiently tempted. That's why entrapment is a crime. If you truly can imagine no circumstances under which you would lie/steal/cheat/kill, you must not be very imaginative. People who are grievously tempted are not AS responsible for their crimes, as those who went out of their way to seek out temptation. The real crooks here are the lawmakers who left $3 billion where a mere mortal had the option of stealing it. If you must park a Ferrari in Harlem, don't leave the keys on the hood. Especially if it's not your Ferrari.

    Good people can be expected to set up their lives to remove temptations that they are afraid of succumbing to; that's what makes them good. A hungry enough person will steal food; that's why you should either make sure you have money for food, or don't hang out in restaurants. But if someone deliberately taunts you, you're not entirely to blame for your weakness.

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  5. Yeah, people with prior conviction usually get longer sentences. Doesn't matter the severity, if its your third felony you WILL go to prison for a long time.

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  6. The Caging of America by Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker describes how we came to this place.
    http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all

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  7. Roy Brown had 8 prior convictions, and was committing armed robbery.

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  8. While Allen received 40 months, Lee Farkas the chairman and majority owner of TBW received 30 years.

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  9. Argh, it's sh*t like this, American Justice System. (Even if this is not totally accurate, the sentiment rings true.)
    You could do a blog post showing how cocaine users get lighter sentences than crack users - same drug, but rich people use cocaine so they don't have to go to jail for as long.

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