My view on how to stop crime? Cut down the array of penalties to just three: $100 fine. 1 year in prison, life in prison without parole.
It's ludicrous to think as people ponder sentences: "Oh, we give 42 months for this", as though there is any reason behind it.
My view: let people know going in, if they display repeated criminal tendencies, or they seek to perpetrate a heinous crime, first offence, result might be prison for the rest of their life.
Right off, the smart, scheming would be criminal will think twice: "Hmm, I could go all in on this one."
Second, the habitual criminal won't be able to game the system effectively. They're won't be any sentencing guidelines, the judge and jury deciding: Nah, he'll just get out and do it again. Life."
as a mental health provider; I completely agree with all of this. The closing of the long term hospitals for the chronically mentally ill only made all of this worse. We have locked care facilities for dementia and alzheimers patients but not for schizophrenia patients who likewise cannot adequately care for themselves in the community. Both are lifetime illnesses that require lifetime treatment.
I agree with this take, ESPECIALLY as a human being who is on Social Security Disability for mental health reasons. Little bit of a personal bit here, I had ECT(electro-convulsive therapy, shock therapy, whatever you want to call it) in 2010 for severe depression with psychotic symptoms(I honestly thought my parents and/or the government was spying on me, no it doesn't make sense, but it did at the time, and I also thought I heard things that weren't there).
Fast-forward 13.9 years and I..... sometimes forget I have these issues and really go in hard on myself when I can't handle all the things a normal(whatever that may be) person in their later 40's should be able to handle. My partner also is on disability for similar, yet slightly different reasons. I'm the more functional one of us because even though we both have Medicare, I'm the only one who has a therapist because there are literally NO therapists with openings who take our insurance in our area(in Central Maryland). There used to be options. There aren't any more. This is really bad. Or mental Healthcare system is CRUMBLING, and it's going to take quite a few of us down with it before something is done.
I too am on Social Security’s Disability for severe, treatment resistant depression. ECT didn’t work for me :-( I am very lucky to have found a private therapist who sees me on a sliding scale (slid ALL the way down, lol, SSDI isn’t generous). When I had insurance through United Healthcare I couldn’t usually get a psychiatrist that stuck around. It was a revolving door, with months between one doctor leaving, and getting assigned a new one. When I switched to Kaiser, I was able to be assigned a psychiatrist right away. I love the one I have now, she’s very responsive. I know I’m lucky. But my private therapist has literally saved my life ( not sure I’m really grateful, lol). I wish you luck navigating the system. I feel for you.
Also, could "deprogramming", by way of not allowing access to the media sources that warp rational thought process, while incarcerated be an option? The psychological warfare that has been perpetuated by "Q, et al" should be eligible for prosecution, as the National Security Threat that it is. IMO.
What makes me furious is that republicans will use our piss poor mental health resources as a way to avoid talking about our gun problem. But they don’t want to do anything about improving mental health care either. So all they’re doing is pointing fingers without offering a solution for anything.
Meanwhile, people who desperately need help aren’t getting it and the gun carnage continues.
I suffer from mental illness. One of the first things I thought is that the disable are accustomed to our bodies and minds failing us, for lack of a better word. Its the ones who've never dealt with that in their life, both body and mind, that are going to be the most negatively impacted by the entirety of COVID. Then I came across a term that seems to describe it best describe what happened. Institutional betrayal. Not simply the disease or even mostly the disease. It was the reaction or lack of reaction by the institutions (mostly the Presidency) to the disease that would cost the most in terms of mental health.
I think mental health is too hard to fit into a box. One of the saddest things that happened during the crisis was the mockery of people that may have been in the midst of crisis rather than being the latest "Karen" to come along. It's no excuse but it should be no surprise what such a crisis might lead people to do and I'm certain that in some of those "Karen"-cases I watched I saw someone in the midst of mental health crisis.
Pelosi comes from I would call the "actual" Catholic church. The one that church doesn't like to talk about because it involves being fair and reasonable with the hows and whats and wheres and circumstances of your forgiveness. It occurs to me that she might be the one to ask but I don't think she's the type of person who would think that a man's falling down a rabbit hole in the midst of COVID is an unreasonable mitigating factor.
And yes, everything else you said about mental health and prisons.
A very thoughtful response! As the term "mental illness" is now understood in the good old U. S. of A., it's a blanket label for anything from temporary anxiety to hard-core schizophrenia. Unfortunately for our legal system, precedents don't change as quickly as the culture does. So defense attorneys can claim their clients were not legally responsible for their actions because they spent too much time on Truth Social, while prosecutors can point out that the accused knew that what he was doing was wrong, so he met the criteria for legal responsibility. I frankly don't know how to resolve this ambiguity, but I am sure that our current Supreme Court majority definitely won't resolve it!
I agree that our prisons should not be used to deal with mental health cases, that our system is geared more to punishment than rehabilitation, and that for the public good, we really need to get out of the revenge justice.
But idk if there is a difference between believing conspiracy theories about someone's politics, and being against someone's politics. Seems somehow that those more likely to get into these conspiracy theories do it because they want to believe the nefarious against those they do not like. Kind of a horse before the cart deal.
Still, the fellow clearly needed, and still needs, some mental health services and he is not likely to get it in jail.
I can confirm what was said about hospitals being bad places. When there was a support forum at prisontalk.com, people said that the "forensic hospitals" where violent and m.i. people went were grim.
Y'all know I've told you many, many times that a whole lot of the QAnon Cretins want you dead. They want me dead. They want all of US dead.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present David DePape. He is only one of many, many more out there that believe EXACTLY the same thing he does but haven't acted on those beliefs.
Yet.
You may recall that DePape's only regret in this is that he "didn't get more of them".
Keep your head on a swivel. Be alert. If you fly banners or wear things that identify you as a "liberal", you might very well be a target. This is not a joke.
It sucks big time that liberals can't feel free to wear an insulting t-shirt, or put up signs in their yards, as opposed to, well, I don't think you need the details. We all know what I mean.
The shirt wouldn't need to be insulting, it would just have to promote a Democrat. It could be as innocent as can be, but if the wrong QAnon Cretin is around, it'd set them off.
What I am talking about is that there a lot of QAnon Cretins that think all Democrats and/or "liberals" should be killed. Like, REALLY killed. Right now, they're counting on the military rounding us all up and killing us.
But a lot of them are getting impatient. Some are taking matters into their own hands, like David DePape did. So when you're wearing that shirt, my advice is to keep an eye open for anyone that looks like they're offended by your shirt.
We've done yard signs for Democratic candidates before and never had a problem in our predominantly-red suburb. But my son worked for a candidate and one day, a drunk Republican came in and said he was going to blow up the office and kill everyone. The fool told the staffers who he was and where he worked.
I called his employer, who was a guy I knew, and I think the dude lost his high-paying stock broker job, or at least got suspended. Not a good look for a drunk, divorced Republican pushing 70 but he made his own bed.
A computer is the AR-15's of the cyber world. It can be a very useful tool. But in the wrong hands it can also do a tremendous amount of harm and even destruction. Allowing a computer to be in the hands of anybody who wants one, without comprehensive licensing and training control, is a serious problem. We don't allow people to operate automobiles on public highways without a license. How is that we allow people on the public cyber highways without an ounce of attention to safety? How ironic that we will end up having the first amendment be our downfall.
Good article.
My view on how to stop crime? Cut down the array of penalties to just three: $100 fine. 1 year in prison, life in prison without parole.
It's ludicrous to think as people ponder sentences: "Oh, we give 42 months for this", as though there is any reason behind it.
My view: let people know going in, if they display repeated criminal tendencies, or they seek to perpetrate a heinous crime, first offence, result might be prison for the rest of their life.
Right off, the smart, scheming would be criminal will think twice: "Hmm, I could go all in on this one."
Second, the habitual criminal won't be able to game the system effectively. They're won't be any sentencing guidelines, the judge and jury deciding: Nah, he'll just get out and do it again. Life."
The Eigth Amendment and the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people who turned their lives around after being incarcerated have entered the chat.
It is useful to thought-experiment different theories on crime and punishment, but those theories are rarely tested or implemented, because, obvious.
as a mental health provider; I completely agree with all of this. The closing of the long term hospitals for the chronically mentally ill only made all of this worse. We have locked care facilities for dementia and alzheimers patients but not for schizophrenia patients who likewise cannot adequately care for themselves in the community. Both are lifetime illnesses that require lifetime treatment.
I agree with this take, ESPECIALLY as a human being who is on Social Security Disability for mental health reasons. Little bit of a personal bit here, I had ECT(electro-convulsive therapy, shock therapy, whatever you want to call it) in 2010 for severe depression with psychotic symptoms(I honestly thought my parents and/or the government was spying on me, no it doesn't make sense, but it did at the time, and I also thought I heard things that weren't there).
Fast-forward 13.9 years and I..... sometimes forget I have these issues and really go in hard on myself when I can't handle all the things a normal(whatever that may be) person in their later 40's should be able to handle. My partner also is on disability for similar, yet slightly different reasons. I'm the more functional one of us because even though we both have Medicare, I'm the only one who has a therapist because there are literally NO therapists with openings who take our insurance in our area(in Central Maryland). There used to be options. There aren't any more. This is really bad. Or mental Healthcare system is CRUMBLING, and it's going to take quite a few of us down with it before something is done.
*SIGH* sorry 🤦🏻♀️
I too am on Social Security’s Disability for severe, treatment resistant depression. ECT didn’t work for me :-( I am very lucky to have found a private therapist who sees me on a sliding scale (slid ALL the way down, lol, SSDI isn’t generous). When I had insurance through United Healthcare I couldn’t usually get a psychiatrist that stuck around. It was a revolving door, with months between one doctor leaving, and getting assigned a new one. When I switched to Kaiser, I was able to be assigned a psychiatrist right away. I love the one I have now, she’s very responsive. I know I’m lucky. But my private therapist has literally saved my life ( not sure I’m really grateful, lol). I wish you luck navigating the system. I feel for you.
Wise. And well said.
I'm afraid we're not nearly as kind as we think.
Also, could "deprogramming", by way of not allowing access to the media sources that warp rational thought process, while incarcerated be an option? The psychological warfare that has been perpetuated by "Q, et al" should be eligible for prosecution, as the National Security Threat that it is. IMO.
As someone living in the real world, I just want this guy behind bars, where he can't do it again.
What makes me furious is that republicans will use our piss poor mental health resources as a way to avoid talking about our gun problem. But they don’t want to do anything about improving mental health care either. So all they’re doing is pointing fingers without offering a solution for anything.
Meanwhile, people who desperately need help aren’t getting it and the gun carnage continues.
I suffer from mental illness. One of the first things I thought is that the disable are accustomed to our bodies and minds failing us, for lack of a better word. Its the ones who've never dealt with that in their life, both body and mind, that are going to be the most negatively impacted by the entirety of COVID. Then I came across a term that seems to describe it best describe what happened. Institutional betrayal. Not simply the disease or even mostly the disease. It was the reaction or lack of reaction by the institutions (mostly the Presidency) to the disease that would cost the most in terms of mental health.
I think mental health is too hard to fit into a box. One of the saddest things that happened during the crisis was the mockery of people that may have been in the midst of crisis rather than being the latest "Karen" to come along. It's no excuse but it should be no surprise what such a crisis might lead people to do and I'm certain that in some of those "Karen"-cases I watched I saw someone in the midst of mental health crisis.
Pelosi comes from I would call the "actual" Catholic church. The one that church doesn't like to talk about because it involves being fair and reasonable with the hows and whats and wheres and circumstances of your forgiveness. It occurs to me that she might be the one to ask but I don't think she's the type of person who would think that a man's falling down a rabbit hole in the midst of COVID is an unreasonable mitigating factor.
And yes, everything else you said about mental health and prisons.
A very thoughtful response! As the term "mental illness" is now understood in the good old U. S. of A., it's a blanket label for anything from temporary anxiety to hard-core schizophrenia. Unfortunately for our legal system, precedents don't change as quickly as the culture does. So defense attorneys can claim their clients were not legally responsible for their actions because they spent too much time on Truth Social, while prosecutors can point out that the accused knew that what he was doing was wrong, so he met the criteria for legal responsibility. I frankly don't know how to resolve this ambiguity, but I am sure that our current Supreme Court majority definitely won't resolve it!
He needs help and should be confined to a place where he will receive the medical care he needs.
and then serve his sentence in whatever facility is safe and rehabilitative. Like any criminal.
And there I go talking crazy. What is this, Denmark?
Historians are going to look back on this period and figure we were all slowly being poisoned by lead from our dinner plates
lt has always seemed to me that people have been getting dumber and crazier. I thought it must be some illusion of old age. But I'm reconsidering.
I agree that our prisons should not be used to deal with mental health cases, that our system is geared more to punishment than rehabilitation, and that for the public good, we really need to get out of the revenge justice.
But idk if there is a difference between believing conspiracy theories about someone's politics, and being against someone's politics. Seems somehow that those more likely to get into these conspiracy theories do it because they want to believe the nefarious against those they do not like. Kind of a horse before the cart deal.
Still, the fellow clearly needed, and still needs, some mental health services and he is not likely to get it in jail.
He won't get it on the outside, either. For our sake, I'd prefer he be somewhere he can't hurt me or you.
Exactly what mental illness would DePape be treated for?
I can confirm what was said about hospitals being bad places. When there was a support forum at prisontalk.com, people said that the "forensic hospitals" where violent and m.i. people went were grim.
Y'all know I've told you many, many times that a whole lot of the QAnon Cretins want you dead. They want me dead. They want all of US dead.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present David DePape. He is only one of many, many more out there that believe EXACTLY the same thing he does but haven't acted on those beliefs.
Yet.
You may recall that DePape's only regret in this is that he "didn't get more of them".
Keep your head on a swivel. Be alert. If you fly banners or wear things that identify you as a "liberal", you might very well be a target. This is not a joke.
I’m a black woman I don’t have to announce my political leanings. My person is always in danger just by existing.
It sucks big time that liberals can't feel free to wear an insulting t-shirt, or put up signs in their yards, as opposed to, well, I don't think you need the details. We all know what I mean.
The shirt wouldn't need to be insulting, it would just have to promote a Democrat. It could be as innocent as can be, but if the wrong QAnon Cretin is around, it'd set them off.
What are you talking about? I weary my Clinton Gore tshirt all the time!
What I am talking about is that there a lot of QAnon Cretins that think all Democrats and/or "liberals" should be killed. Like, REALLY killed. Right now, they're counting on the military rounding us all up and killing us.
But a lot of them are getting impatient. Some are taking matters into their own hands, like David DePape did. So when you're wearing that shirt, my advice is to keep an eye open for anyone that looks like they're offended by your shirt.
I realize and respect your apprehension. take whatever steps you need to feel safe.
I apologize for my flippant remark.
I honestly feel no physical threat from anyone. But that may be due to my unearned privilege.
My wife and I in fact have decided not to have political bumper stickers and we're in a blue area.
We've done yard signs for Democratic candidates before and never had a problem in our predominantly-red suburb. But my son worked for a candidate and one day, a drunk Republican came in and said he was going to blow up the office and kill everyone. The fool told the staffers who he was and where he worked.
I called his employer, who was a guy I knew, and I think the dude lost his high-paying stock broker job, or at least got suspended. Not a good look for a drunk, divorced Republican pushing 70 but he made his own bed.
A computer is the AR-15's of the cyber world. It can be a very useful tool. But in the wrong hands it can also do a tremendous amount of harm and even destruction. Allowing a computer to be in the hands of anybody who wants one, without comprehensive licensing and training control, is a serious problem. We don't allow people to operate automobiles on public highways without a license. How is that we allow people on the public cyber highways without an ounce of attention to safety? How ironic that we will end up having the first amendment be our downfall.
We have been a free society with less expansive views of 1A. Brandenburg is the law, but it's looking more and more like a mistake.
Talk about healthcare costs...I got a $895 bill today, after "insurance", for a nosebleed ER visit. Ri-Goddamned-diculous.
holee shit