What public policies should be sought to address conditions that foster crime?

I have to disagree. Unless a person has some sort of genetic mental disorder it can be entirely attributed to external circumstances.

Parenting, wealth or lack of, schooling or lack of, the neighborhood, their friends, their teachers, their job, their home, their government, their social standing, all this and more shapes a person.

Take a drug dealer from NYC and raise him in the hamptons and he most likely won't be one.

Or take a drug dealer from the hamptons and give him more responsible parents, and he most likely wont be one.

Take an Enron exec and give him different parents and he would most likely not have stolen from his employees, probably wouldn't even be an enron exec.

Take a lower-class woman from the inner-city and raise her in a district with more funding and higher standards and she would most likely be middle-class.

Take one of those terrorists that flew planes into our WTC, and raise them with middle-class american's and he never would have done that.

Get what I'm saying? Who you are, and wether you become criminal, is almost always about external circumstance.

 

In other words, criminal behavior cannot be entirely attributed to external circumstances.

So Huck what are the ‘internal’ reasons for criminal behaviour and where did they come from?

 

Sera and Balbus,

Are you both basically denying the concept of human freewill?

 

Yes I am, to a very large extent. I am not denying that a person is capable of making choices, but their choices are going to be completely different depending completely on their external circumstances.

Who their parents are, their social standing, where they grew up, what school they went to, who their friends are, etc...


Do you not have an answer to Balbus's question?

 

I can understand people who have trouble forgiving violent crimes, I have trouble with that as well. But those that cannot forgive people for being poor should probably do some deep thinking in a cave somewhere without food or hot water.

Frankly, I think it is criminal that even one child lives hungry or homeless in the richest country in the world. We could end it with the money we give rich people as tax write-offs. Aarrrgghh! I know children who have been homeless several times, do they deserve to be punished for the crime of being poor?

 

Welfare is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. It makes you think you did something, but in the long run it isn't really going to help. Besides, why should my tax money go towards funding the existence of someone who refuses to work? There are plenty of people who abuse the welfare system, I shouldn't have to pay them to watch tv.

If you really want to reduce the number of people living in poverty, you need to promote policies that improve the economy, improve education, create jobs, and improve worker's rights. Giving out free money just makes people think they can get something for nothing and discourages them from working.

I am a strong believer in personal responsibility. It isn't my job to look out for you or anyone else, it is my job to look out for myself and your job to look out for yourself. And if you decide to fund your existence by victimising others, then you have no right to complain when society steps in to put an end to it.

Yes, the root causes of crime need to be addressed. But in the meantime, if someone robs me or anyone else, they deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. When someone takes my rights (the right to enjoy the fruit of my labor, to be secure in my home and person, and to be free from violence) from me, they forfeit their own rights.

 

NO one here said criminals shoulcn't be punished.

And lets not get into this "welfare reciepients are lazy" thing. It was addressed pages back.

 

I never said welfare reciepients are lazy, I said that the system is abused. Besides, even if we addressed the abuse of the system, it is still just a band-aid on a bullet wound.

 

If that was not what you meant to say then I might edit my post if I were you-Because that is how it translates.

Besides, you are just borrowing the rich man's argument that is meant to distract attention from coorperate welfare. I could turn it around and say "Why should my tax dollars go to rich businessmen that don't deserve it, while I will have to live on the street and starve if I lose my job and can't get another one."

Those are my tax dollars, why are they going to Enron and co while a thirteen year old girl I know has been homeless at least 3 times?

 

Who said your tax dollars should go to corporations?

As far as tax dollars are concerned, I think that if it isn't going to a public service it should stay in your pocket.

 

Sorry Huck maybe you missed it.

(It's OK Sera don't worry I think he just missed it)


In other words, criminal behavior cannot be entirely attributed to external circumstances.

So Huck what are the ‘internal’ reasons for criminal behaviour and where did they come from?

 

Monkey

So let me get this right you want the community to help you when you need it but you are not going to help anyone else in your community if they need it. Isn’t that hypocritical and selfish behaviour?

You said earlier that the causes of (at least some) crimes were stupidity, poverty, laziness and selfishness which were caused by genetics and or upbringing. The only way to address these would be to execute all the poor or execute all the poor parents and have the children brought up by the middle class.

So lets see so far you have shown signs of selfishness and stupidity….. and you also seen to have an unhealth fixation on guns and bullet holes…..

**

But seriously

You talk of policies to “improve the economy, improve education, create jobs, and improve worker's rights” could you expand on that?

 

jesuswasamonkey- I might agree with you about many things, but it IS our job to look out for each other, and it has been that way for most of the 200,000 thousand years that we have lived on this earth.

 

I believe in something that philosophers have long referred to as freewill. Are you totally unfamiliar with the concept? If you're asking me why people from very similar socio-economic backgrounds exercise this moral capacity in different ways, I'm not sure that anyone can definitively answer that question. I don't even think any mere mortal fully understands his own inner being, let alone that of others.

What about you? Do you think we are nothing more than complex machines driven solely by mechanical and chemical processes? On what basis do you decry the greed of white collar crooks?

 

People look out for their friends and families if they are wise, butt there is a difference between looking out for people and giving away free money, and a difference between friends and families, and everyone in the country. Providing police protection, healthcare, education, roads, etcetera is looking out for people, welfare is like giving handouts.

 

Free will is the ability to choose but ask yourself why do you take the choices you do? Why choose A over B or C or D and so on? When you make a choice are you free of all past experiences and all other concerns, do choices take place in a vacuum? If you act without knowing or understanding why you have acted that particular way, is that free will or is it just the belief you have it?

 

People ultimately must make value judgments in deciding between A, B, C, and D. These values are influenced by external circumstances, but not determined by them. Everyone ultimately chooses his own heirarchy of values. If this choice is not free, then it is not really a choice.

 

lol what a republican concept... cut taxes to stop crime... so fucking stupid.

 

If you ask me, freewill is a moot point to discuss. Fact of the matter is, your situation affects your judgement and decisions. Discovering and doing our best to distinguish and abolish these paticular situations is what is going to help us reduce crime.

It is always better to be proactive about a problem than reactive. We can sit and arrest criminals all day every day, but until we stop making the criminals we are just going to get more of the same result: more criminals.

Not to say people shouldn't be punished for their crime, but when trying to put a stop to criminal actions the best result would be to take a proactive stance and stop the crinimal actions before they start. Right now I think that the US focuses more on stoping criminals after the fact, and that is made obvious by our overpopulated jails and our much larger amount of crime than in other industrialized nations like our own. We are never going to see an improvement using that method.

 

Step one would be to end the drug war. 60% of our prison population is in jail for victimless crimes.

Yes, I know that a prevention is better than a cure, and I made suggestions along those lines, but I don't think giving out free money will accomplish anything.