I remember being incensed when reading about the Willingham situation, and, well, I'm still incensed. This is why the death penalty needs to be abolished.
Actually, our whole penal system needs to be radically restructured from the ground up. On top of the many questionable executions, the whole thing is a huge, huge shame. With 5% of the world's population, we've got 1/4 of its prisoners. We have the highest percentage of minorities imprisoned of any nation in the world, I believe. We have tens of thousands of innocent people imprisoned because they plea bargained rather than facing ridiculous mandatory minimum sentencing after being loaded with charges and given inadequate, if any, legal representation. Recidivism rates are extremely high; it seems our prison system does more to create criminals than to reform them, and it certainly does nothing to help them rejoin mainstream society once they've served their time. The Supreme Court has time and again quashed anything that demonstrates the unjustness of it all and therefore might necessitate reform rather than more of the same -- the whole thing is so out of control that even our highest court can't even allow themselves to admit the injustice of it for fear of actually having to do something about it, because they know that any steps to clean up this terrible mess would have to be large and radical. And politicians feel they have no choice but to shriek "hard on crime" and join the madness. It's insane and awful all around.
no subject
Actually, our whole penal system needs to be radically restructured from the ground up. On top of the many questionable executions, the whole thing is a huge, huge shame. With 5% of the world's population, we've got 1/4 of its prisoners. We have the highest percentage of minorities imprisoned of any nation in the world, I believe. We have tens of thousands of innocent people imprisoned because they plea bargained rather than facing ridiculous mandatory minimum sentencing after being loaded with charges and given inadequate, if any, legal representation. Recidivism rates are extremely high; it seems our prison system does more to create criminals than to reform them, and it certainly does nothing to help them rejoin mainstream society once they've served their time. The Supreme Court has time and again quashed anything that demonstrates the unjustness of it all and therefore might necessitate reform rather than more of the same -- the whole thing is so out of control that even our highest court can't even allow themselves to admit the injustice of it for fear of actually having to do something about it, because they know that any steps to clean up this terrible mess would have to be large and radical. And politicians feel they have no choice but to shriek "hard on crime" and join the madness. It's insane and awful all around.