Is it me, or has the whole world gone mad?

[UncleRico]

I keep seeing incidents in the news of Cops shooting civilians and civilians shooting cops. Has it always been like this, or is this a spike in Cop related shootings?

Here's the latest....
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/08/wisconsin.shooting/index.html


Maybe we should ban guns and do it like they do in the U.K.

[Fox17]

if they ban guns, they will get the ammo first from me. 

[UncleRico]

if they ban guns, they will get the ammo first from me. 

You would actually shoot another human being?

[Joedirt]

if they ban guns, they will get the ammo first from me. 

easy Kid 

[yunt2ride]

The only good that has come out of this is that they killed the shooter. Now our taxes won't be going to house and defend him. Now the cops that pulled the trigger will have to be investigated to make sure there was no way to keep from killing him. I say give them a reward.

[UncleRico]

The only good that has come out of this is that they killed the shooter. Now our taxes won't be going to house and defend him. Now the cops that pulled the trigger will have to be investigated to make sure there was no way to keep from killing him. I say give them a reward.

Sad as it is, housing and defending criminals is a huge boost to the economic cycle of the United States. I wish it weren't the case, but it is. 

Politicians use the cliche' that it costs "X" amount of dollars to house prisoners, but in reality, from a purely economic stand point, crime benefits the economy.  I know, it's not what you want to hear, and the logic sounds backwards, but it is what it is.

Intersting fact: The United States has roughly 5% of the worlds population, yet it has 25% of the world's incarcerated population.  The United States is the world leader in incarcerating it's own people. (That's kind of strange when you think about how we tout ourselves as being the world leader in Freedom)

"America ain't as free as she use to be."

But I digress...

[atvrob]

live and let die,more room for me to ride

[Smoknbanshee]

The only good that has come out of this is that they killed the shooter. Now our taxes won't be going to house and defend him. Now the cops that pulled the trigger will have to be investigated to make sure there was no way to keep from killing him. I say give them a reward.

Sad as it is, housing and defending criminals is a huge boost to the economic cycle of the United States. I wish it weren't the case, but it is. 

Politicians use the cliche' that it costs "X" amount of dollars to house prisoners, but in reality, from a purely economic stand point, crime benefits the economy.  I know, it's not what you want to hear, and the logic sounds backwards, but it is what it is.

Intersting fact: The United States has roughly 5% of the worlds population, yet it has 25% of the world's incarcerated population.  The United States is the world leader in incarcerating it's own people. (That's kind of strange when you think about how we tout ourselves as being the world leader in Freedom)

"America ain't as free as she use to be."

But I digress...

I am confused on this theory.  Can you explain in more detail.  The only way I can see that crime benefits the economy is that it increases the work force, but the employees that it takes to support housing criminals can be used elsewhere in a more economic manor.  From the way I see it, we are paying this work force to house criminals (reactive), instead of paying this work force to be on the streets or in schools helping prevent the crimes (proactive).

I would rather see it like this, you murder someone, you get convicted of the crime in a TIMELY manner, you get 1 appeal that is done in a timely manner, then you get murdered yourself.  You steal something from somoene, same punishment.  In my opinion this would reduce crime rate, and we could use the work force to house criminals in a product fashion, by reducing jobs that are not needed and spending tax payers money on the school system, which I think needs a makeover.

[digginfool]

Let me think about this for a few minutes.  Hmmmm.  Do I want to jump into the fray....?  Rico, I think you might have a winner here.

[Smoknbanshee]

Let me think about this for a few minutes.  Hmmmm.  Do I want to jump into the fray....?  Rico, I think you might have a winner here.

I am not saying Rico is wrong, just want him to clarify, because I might agree in the end, I have just never looked at it that way.

[yunt2ride]

I would also like to see that if there is viable evidence that you did a crime and you admit to it. There should be no trial or no trying to change your guilty plea. You kill someone and admit to it and there is evidence that you probably did it. No trial, no jail, straight to the electric chair. We may get some innocent ones but most of them would at least know something about the crime so they were probably guilty to some extent anyways. I believe that if criminals saw the punishment then crime would go down. Now the first thing that a crimnal says is I wanta see my lawyer and then call insanity, racial profiling or some other garbage. You do the crime then be prepared for the punishment.

[UncleRico]

The only good that has come out of this is that they killed the shooter. Now our taxes won't be going to house and defend him. Now the cops that pulled the trigger will have to be investigated to make sure there was no way to keep from killing him. I say give them a reward.

Sad as it is, housing and defending criminals is a huge boost to the economic cycle of the United States. I wish it weren't the case, but it is. 

Politicians use the cliche' that it costs "X" amount of dollars to house prisoners, but in reality, from a purely economic stand point, crime benefits the economy.  I know, it's not what you want to hear, and the logic sounds backwards, but it is what it is.

Intersting fact: The United States has roughly 5% of the worlds population, yet it has 25% of the world's incarcerated population.  The United States is the world leader in incarcerating it's own people. (That's kind of strange when you think about how we tout ourselves as being the world leader in Freedom)

"America ain't as free as she use to be."

But I digress...

I am confused on this theory.  Can you explain in more detail.  The only way I can see that crime benefits the economy is that it increases the work force, but the employees that it takes to support housing criminals can be used elsewhere in a more economic manor.  From the way I see it, we are paying this work force to house criminals (reactive), instead of paying this work force to be on the streets or in schools helping prevent the crimes (proactive).

I would rather see it like this, you murder someone, you get convicted of the crime in a TIMELY manner, you get 1 appeal that is done in a timely manner, then you get murdered yourself.  You steal something from somoene, same punishment.  In my opinion this would reduce crime rate, and we could use the work force to house criminals in a product fashion, by reducing jobs that are not needed and spending tax payers money on the school system, which I think needs a makeover.

Sociologists theorize that in order to investigate, prosecute, and punish criminals, it takes a lot of man power. Police, Judges, Attorneys, Probation Officers, Parole Officers, Prison Guards, Court Employees, Bondsmen, Skip Tracers, Police, Law Enforcement Support Personel, clerical personel...the list goes on and on. Without crime, we wouldn't need a large portion of that previously mentioned personel.

The tax dollars that are spent are rising, not because prisons are expensive or bologna sandwiches are a high cost item. The cost attributed to housing people convicted of crimes is due to the cost of the man power related to support the system to control crime in conjunction with government spending on the latest and greatest in crime fighting technology (another source of economic benefit).

Obviously, we'd be far better off as a society, if there were no crimes. However, it would be dishonest to say that crime does not have a positivie economic impact on the job market and the businesses associated with supporting law enforcement and criminal housing/monitoring.

I like your idea of being proactive rather than reactive, I'm merely pointing out what no one really likes to talk about. If crime were to end tomorrow and no one committed a crime for the next 5 years, think of how many people would be out of work. It would have a huge impact on the economy.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

[Smoknbanshee]

I agree with you.  Totally agree with you.  I just wonder what all those people did back in the day when there was no judicial system?  REALLY SCARY.

[UncleRico]

What scares me..(well not really scares me as much as it captures my attention) is the spike in violent crime this year. The numbers haven't been fully analyzed, but when they release the new numbers, I suspect a media frenzied approach to the reporting.