We all know that the Death Penalty is not a deterrent to crime. In the middle of committing some horrific act, which criminals actually stop to think that they could be executed years from now? It's such an amorphous threat, who really takes it to heart?
So it's good news that the government has finally found a deterrent that will work.
Jack Bauer is going to jail.
His sentence is 48 days. I'll bet the surviving prisoners are reformed within 30.
4 comments:
Getting caught for drunk driving and spending tiny bursts of time in the slammer seems to be the au currant thing for celebrities this season. And they're all sporting that cute "Oops, I'm a bad boy/girl" smirk as well. Such a naughty little boo boo, tooling around in a 2-ton machine without any control or judgment.
I'll hazard a guess that celebs are actually getting MORE time for drunk driving than normal citizens, considering the piss-poor record most states have for curbing it. First time = jail time and banned from driving for life. Second time minimum 5 years in prison. You gonna drive home now, Sparky?
I'll vote for that ahtitan. The driving age is too low. It's too easy and too cheap to get a licence and it's way, way too easy to hang on to it. There should be some intensive and long-term, thorough training before you even get into a car. You should have to be at the very least 18 before even beginning the training. It should cost a few thousand for training and graduated licencing and then one infraction (impairment of any sort, speeding or any other stupidity) and you lose the licence and have to start all over from the beginning after a suitable waiting period -- say 5 years?? I don't think driving is something everybody should be doing anyway and we need more viable alternatives.
Jack, of course, will foment a prison break, escape, rob a convenience store, and break into an embassy before enrolling in a 12-step program.
There are plenty of bad drivers that aren't kids as well. Just get on any interstate and try to drive in the left lane without going 180. But, generally, I agree, 16 is too young to be driving.
As for punishments, if you think about it, from a deterrence standpoint, it would make more sense to apply the harshest penalties to less serious offenses. As Bob noted, the death penalty probably doesn't really deter murder because people doing it are either insane, emotionally distraugt, or too stupid to realize the consequences. But if you applied it to things like, say drunk driving, that would have an effect. You wouldn't want to apply it to kidnapping or rape because it would create an incentive to kill the victim (which a lot of dopes I have read don't seem to understand). But it would have a great effect, I think, on littering, shoplifting, white-collar crime, etc, where the perpetrators actually have something to lose. Maybe even antitrust or securities violations. Those Enron guys might have thought twice if they thought they would get the needle.
And, Ann Coulter should be given the death penalty on general principle.
(By the way, I'm kidding. Except for the last sentence.)
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