-[ Quoting Day Brown , to Dennis Menard ]-
 DM> Statistics can be creatively manipulated to show what the compiler
 DM> wishes them to show; how can we be sure that statistical facts really
 DM>  the "facts"?
 DB> Well for one, the *exact* same sort of statistics've been compiled
 DB> in Germany and Sweden with Gypsies and Lapps, who're just as white
 DB> as I am, but, like our Blacks, have different cultural values than
 DB> those of the larger 'white' community.
 DB> Is it 'justice' to try to get their men to treat their women with
 DB> the same degree of respect that WASPs do with theirs?  Or, do they
 DB> have a right to their cultural traditions of machismo, which are
 DB> at the heart of the high rates of assault for which we jail them?
Is the only acceptable definition of justice the WASP-ish understanding of
justice?  Are cultural conflicts to be resolved by imposing "foreign" values
upon traditional values?  Does the problem really reduce to machismo, or are
there any other factors involved here, like cultural disenfrachisement, or
disempowerment; cultural isolation; cultural inequities, and so on?  Again -
have the studies been done to rule out these arguments?  Are the facts we've
so often been provided  indisputable?  These are questions.
 DB> No matter what the state does, there is unintended consequences; I
 DB> don't ever expect to see 'justice' from a governmental structure
 DB> so permeated with lawyers.  We have been paying them all 50$/hour
 DB> forever, and I don't see that they have created much justice.
What, then, would be your ideal method of achieving justice in society where
the state's involvement is minimalized or eliminated?  We could assume that
all who are accused are guilty and lock them up; or we could assume that all
who are accused are innocent and let them go; or we could assume that our
human natures are often perverse, seek to discover the truth, award/penalize
the innocent/guilty, respectively; or we can close the case at any cost--so
long as the PUBLIC OPINION (vs truth) is satisfied with the result (ie, and
thus, linking the idea of "justice," irrevocably, with economic concerns , vengeance  and political ambitions  Are not their prisons stuffed to the gills? Seems to me like the
 DB> states started locking them up longer for less serious assaults
 DB> and the drug dealing that releases the passions that cause them.
 DB> The public may have been thinking of justice in longer prison for
 DB> social predators, but it has reduced the murder rate.
Granted.  In your view, do you feel it (ie, stuffing the prison system) has
SOLVED the problems which frequently  in murders (ie, drug-dealing)?
Rephrasing: Has it addressed the causes, or the symptoms, OF the problems)?
Will inmates be released -- only to find themselves confronted by those same
causes (ie, influences) which saw them to prison in the first place?  Do you
not think these issues deserve some consideration?  These are questions.
 DB> I am not arguing that execution reduced the murder rate among the
 DB> general public in any detectable fashion. I say that it reduced
 DB> the rate of *murder among the prison population*, which has had a
 DB> salutatory effect on the death rate for guards.
Understood.  In your view, do you feel there are any alternative methods of
achieving the same result short of execution?  Is it your understanding that
guards are immune from criminal acts or responsibility just because they ARE
guards?  See note, near end of post.  More questions.
 DB> The black may well face more severe sentences.  But in as much as
 DB> they cause greater damage to their community, I think that this is
 DB> appropriate.  The white criminal preys on a richer community that
 DB> can more easily afford it without fraying the social fabric.
In effect, then, what you are saying is that, one of the benefits of being
more affluent is that the richer criminal will suffer a lesser penalty for a
given crime for which the poorer criminal will suffer a greater penalty?  Do
I understand you correctly?  What if the money dedicated to the maintainance
of incarceration were redirected towards prevention (ie, reducing economic
inequities and disparate opportunities between cultures, say?)  Can the U.S.
conceive of itself WITHOUT capital punishment?  Does it want to?  And would
the U.S. (as a society) consider it preferable?  Yet more questions.
 DB> Cost to who? the accused? or the victim?  My justice measurement
 DB> is the only number I can count: the number of victims.  If policy
 DB> decreases that number, then it's as much justice as I can expect.
 DB> Calculated in that number of *victims* are those who falsely are
 DB> convicted by the state.
Do you allege to know, then, how many innocent victims have been convicted
by the State?  Are claims of the executed innocent followed-up?  What of an
ex-inmate, falsely accused, having served all his time ... what time can he
expect now from those who jailed him when they couldn't spare him the time
to verify his innocence before that costly prison term?  Questions.
 DB> If I have to kill one of them to prevent
 DB> a hundred guards and non-violent prisoners from being killed, who
 DB> is to say that it is not worth it?
Perhaps the innocent person who remains a victim because of judicial tech-
nicalities that make the review (and correction) of, frequently, very overt
errors and miscarriages of justice within the system ... impossible?  :(
I notice that the U.S.A. is mentioned a surprising number of times in those
bulletins published by Amnesty International (ie, at least, it surprised me)
For example, in 1997:
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A total of 45 prisoners were executed in 19 states. One state carried out
its first execution in more than 30 years. More than 3,150 prisoners were
under sentence of death in 34 states and under federal law. There were
reports of deaths in custody, police shootings in disputed circumstances,
and torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. Chain-gangs, which constitute
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, continued to be used and were
introduced for women for the first time.
In July, four men, two of whom had been sentenced to death, were released in
Illinois after they were proved innocent. One of them, Verneal Jimerson, had
had his 1978 conviction and death sentence overturned previously on appeal,
after the only witness connecting him to the murder withdrew her testimony.
However, in 1984, the same witness - in a deal with the prosecution to gain
a reduction in her own a prison sentence - had changed her testimony again,
and Verneal Jimerson was rearrested, tried and sentenced to death for a
second time. He was finally released on the basis of new forensic evidence
which showed that he could not have committed the crime.  ???
[ Interjection by me, here: Justice or Farce?  This summary, above? ]
Cases of deaths in custody, police shootings in disputed circumstances, and
police ill-treatment continued to be reported. Victims included Frank
Arzuega, an unarmed 15-year-old Puerto Rican, who was shot dead in January
by an officer from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) while sitting
in the back seat of a suspected stolen car; Hong Il Kim, a Korean man who
died in February after being shot several times by four California police
officers at the end of a car chase; and Aswan Watson, an unarmed black man
who died after being shot 18 times by NYPD officers while sitting in a
parked car in June. In April, a police video showed two sheriff's deputies
from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, California, beating Mexican
immigrants Leticia Gonzalez and Enrique Funez-Flores after a car chase. ???
In October, 11 guards were charged with beating prisoners in a punitive
segregation unit at Rikers Island prison complex in New York over a
three-year period from 1992 to 1994 and with filing false reports to cover
up their actions. The trial was pending at the end of the year.  ???
In June, Robert Norse Kahn began serving a 60-day prison term imposed for
violating an injunction prohibiting the group Food Not Bombs (FNB) from
distributing free food to the homeless in San Francisco, California.  ???
[ Interjection by me, here: Feeding the homeless for free is a crime? ]
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Now I do not know about you, Day, but these kinds of incidents would bother
me somewhat, were it up to me to defend the judicial/penal system and/or its
record.  In fact, associating of the term "justice," to those few instances
I've included here, leaves me feeling a little dizzy.  You?
--
... While the Lunatic dreams the Earth changes.
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