On Apr 4, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
> Why would we prempt the right of a future socialist democracy to
> decide
> whether it wanted to abolish prisons or not? This is NOT presently
> a demand
> arising organically from the people, least of all poor people, for
> whom the
> incarceration of criminal offenders is widely seen as a necessary
> means of
> protecting their personal safety and private and public propery.
No kidding. E.g., the differences by race in answering the question of whether courts are too easy or too harsh on criminals are surprisingly small:
<http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t247.pdf>.
E.g., in 2002, "not harshly enough" got 69% white approval, and 60% black. Also, little difference on income.
Doug