> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gord Sellar [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 2:07 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: discrepancy between Presidential polls
>
> At 1:00 AM -0400 06/11/2000, Tarr, Kevin wrote:
> > You want a national standard for a local issue. Right to council,
> >isn't that a given already? Procedures for appeal? One state gives ten
> >avenues for appeal and another only eight, that's a moral outrage? Here's
> a
> >411 for criminals: Stop committing crimes!
>
> Ahem. Look at the demographics for who's punished for crimes and who's
> convicted for crimes. Over-representation of specific racial groups in the
> USA and Canada is a fact of life. It goes so far that I once had a
> character in a story I abandoned declare that crime in the West is simply
> a
> form of class struggle where bourgeois declare "proletarian" theft as
> "crime" and "bourgeois" theft as "business" or "politics". A bit extreme,
> but hey, who set up the rules, and were they set up retroactively? I don't
> think so.
>
> Besides which there's a difference between complaining about 8 appeals vs.
> 10, and complaining that one state gives the death penalty while another
> doesn't.
> Gord
I had said this before: if two people are convicted of the same
crime with the same circumstances and the only verifiable differences
between the sentencing is their race, or income, then there is something
wrong with the system but setting up a national standard won't fix that
problem. How can it?
I have yet to see one report that separates these facts: one
specific crime, percentages of people considered for the crime, arrested for
the crime, and the sentences broken down by severity vs. all the ways to
break down the population. All I ever heard is the general, 'the population
breaks down this way, while the inmate population breaks down that way'.
Try and argue against this: Instead of saying, 'I got this sentence
because of my race/income/background,' say 'I got this sentence because I
committed a crime'.
Yes there is a big difference between the two complaints. But if New
York or Illinois decides that there should be no death penalty then it
should be their choice, while if Texas or Pennsylvania decides the other way
it should be their choice. If at the state level enough people decide that
capital punishment is wrong or right then they will elect people who will
write laws that way, which is much better then the federal level deciding
for us, without the democratic process.
Kevin
Sorry for the tone, it's a Monday. How's the book search?
