(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

[Lee Berman]

>Gwern Branwen: crimes are generally committed by people one knows. This is true for
>murder
 
Good point. We think of the prison system as monocultural but it isn't. I once had the
assignment to teach a cultural anthropology course in medium security prison. On my 
first day I was told that my students would be almost all murderers. This was because
the typical thief or thug in medium security was too stupid to get into college courses.
And the hardened criminal murderers were all in max or supermax. The students I had were
all the normal guys who caught their wife with someone or something like that and snapped,
but otherwise had led crime-free lives. There is a very intense caste system in operation
in prison.
 
>David Stockhoff: that argument that the death penalty is cheaper 
>than incarceration was debunked ages ago. I once believed it too. But 
>the long years of incarceration PLUS appeals before anyone is executed 
>are far more expensive than simple incarceration
 
Ditto. The only way to make executions cost-effective is to become like China, Iran and
Iraq:  do it quickly, do it often and do it without the possibility of appeal.
 
(FWIW the prison I worked at did have an electric chair. After an execution there was a
general sense of gloom among all, prisoners and staff, for a week or so)