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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Savant" data-source="post: 176731" data-attributes="member: 546108">That's part of my point.. you had an opportunity.. believe it or not, that opportunity does not exist for all people in this country. People living in the ghetto all of their lives and depend on violence for survival have a totally different outlook on life. It's to be expected if you ask me.. "Life before society was brutish and short".. can't remember who said that.. Some Philosopher or Sociologist I believe.. I'm leaning toward Philosopher.. But, the point is, when you live in extreme poverty you aren't living in a 'society' like most Americans do.. it's a much more primal state of being..Like I've said time and again.. There are a LOT of people who aren't actively participating in the things that cause them problems.. Doing drugs and alchohol at 8 yrs old isn't someone participaing in the descisions that cause them problems.. Being part of a sub-culture that most people in this country doesn't want to know about isn't actively participating in your problems.. Is this a justification for poor behavior? Kinda.. but not entirely.. I'm saying (kind of like you are) that once they get to prison, we have an obligation to present them with the tools they need.. force them to look at them..  Our current system likes to pretend those tools are available (oh, we have free groups on Tuesday night.. we offer pamphlets on how drugs are bad.. we let poor people get a GED free at this or that community college..) but the information isn't really getting to who it needs to get to.. nor are they likely to care given their current environment (like I said, it's called the culture of poverty, they have totally different values than the rest of the country.. and with good reason, survival).. My point is, when someone gets to prison, don't sit them in a cell and expect them to 'think about what they did'.. as a condition of their release, force them to pick up the tools they need.. if they get out and chose not to use them, then they will end up back in prison.. nothing you can do about that.. but if you don't make sure you put the tools in their face, you can't say "tools exist for them" as many times they are hidden pretty well from the disenfranchised..No one is saying this isn't a great country.. I'm just saying that it's becomming more and more currupt which puts more and more if her citizens in conditions that aren't much farther up the ladder than 3rd world countries.. and that's sad.. for the richest country in the world (other than the Vatican City) to have so many people living like animals and not caring..I agree.. only, as I noted in my original post, most of the time that you come out of prison you aren't allowed to have a place in society (not decent society anyway).. they are branded as an ex-con and looked down on by just about everyone outside the culture of poverty (being a con there is a badge of honor)..Your example of the kid and purse is culturally biased.. Some kids will laugh and steal a purse again (or something bigger).. Then you bust them.. how is giving someone a second chance on something 'not serious' such a bad thing?  I was put on probation when I got busted for the stereo (Sorry about trying to make it seem like 'someone' dealing with a felony wasn't me.. it is me).. I paid the restitution and was let off probation as soon as it was paid.. I haven't even as much as thought about commiting a crime since then.. So how is it a disservice to give someone a second chance? Sometimes people actually use that to decide it's not worth it to do whatever again, knowing how close they came to jail or prison and knowing that next time there won't be any getting off easy.. Again, I think you are trying entirely too hard to relieve (at least part of) the blame from society.. I argue that you are seeing more and more crime because you are seeing more and more people getting the shaft by society so the rich people can get even more rich.. I agree completely that you can't force someone to want to be a better person.. and there is nothing you can do for them (other than keep putting them in prison for longer and longer terms, but that just wastes a lot of money.. why not remove their citizenship and deport them or something, or, if they have done something haneous, execute them).. But, as a society that forces harship on some of our citizens, we should make an honest effort to help them out... and the common place for that is prison.. Ideally, we would catch people before that, but again, our society doesn't even want to acknowledge what it's doing to a small section of our citizens and tosses 1/2 assed solutions at them and them blame them for not 'taking advantage of the opportunity' that was provided.. Given a blind man a match then saying it's his own fault for walking into a wall in the dark for not using the match is pretty stupid, but that's how a lot of these 'tools' are being presented to the population outside of prison.. in the streets.. things that make no sense to them and aren't gonna help them..You want to lower crime? Increase the resources spent on improving the quality of life for the bottom of our society... spend money on schools and parks and things they can do instead of sit around doing drugs and fighting and killing each other over a pair of shoes..To be perfectly honest, I'm getting damm tired of people who haven't lived a life of total oppresion and abuse saying all a persons transgressions are their fault alone.. Try to wrap your mind around where they are comming from and what their world view is.. Try to immagine that a pair of Nike Air's is more important than a human life.. That if someone flips you the bird that you have a right to kill them.. The mindset of these people is so forgein to most people that they can't even begin to immagine.. so they blame the individual.. that's the easy thing to do and doesn't imply that the rest of the people in America hold some of the blame so they can have their nice cars and nice homes and surpluss income..</blockquote>

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