Zero the hero
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 24, 2003
- Messages
- 1,540
Footloose said:so all people in prison are "hardcore criminals" and "dickheads"?
Yeah, well, sorry to say, but I've known/know MANY people that are either doing time now or have done time (including two who are serving life sentences at present) in the past they usually (though not always) fall into either one or the other or both of those categories...
i can't remember the percentage, but it was something like 1/4 of our prison population is inhabited with non violent drug offenders. Some real murderers there, eh?
Your point is...?
What does "non-violent drug offenders" include? What does that really mean? What's the average sentence for the people convicted of these crimes? What percentage are doing state time as compared to those doing federal time? What percentage of these people were caught with minor amounts of drugs used for personal use compared with those caught dealing or moving serious weight? What percentage of these people had previous priors? How many and priors did they have on average before they received any type of jail sentence? List the seriousness of these priors (possession, murder, assault, etc...) in relation to incarceration. I could go on...
Footloose said:My friends dad is getting out in 5 years. He got a 10 year sentences because of a DUI, a third heroin posession charge, and because he was poor and mexican.
Let's see, he's been caught with heroin (which, like it or not, is illegal) THREE TIMES previously! Then, he got a DUI, and to everyone’s shock and surprise he got time! What other priors does this guy have? He's obviously a junkie and most long term junkies will have previous convictions for things like theft, break and enter, etc. I'd be very curious to know what this dudes sheet looked like. That said, did he get a dime for simple possession and a DUI (which I'm not saying couldn't happen in a country where you can get life for stealing a pizza)? I don't know for sure. Did his race have anything to do with his sentence? It’s a reasonable possibility that it may have. My point is that the severity of the sentence suggests that chances are there’s more to the story than you’re aware of.