[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Wed, Apr 02, 2014 at 11:08:51AM +0100, Paul Sutton wrote: > I am guessing it is a bit like knife crime, according to the law > carrying a knife gets you 5 years in Jail and yet, people have gone > to jail for just over that for stabbing someone, so clearly lets > say for sake of argument that person gets 7 years, that works out > at 5 years for carrying a knife and 2 years for stabbing someone. Assuming people are sent to jail for the ridiculous long time of five years for just carrying a knife, which they aren't. > Before you respond imagine it was a close family member who was the victim, I always do that. If a close family member was injured or worse, the least of my worries would be whether the perpetrator was punished severely. It wouldn't undo what was done. > One of the parents at the rugby club said that the prospect of the > cane didn't necessarily deter her at school, what did was the > prospect of her father with the belt when he found out about > something she was involved with. The argument here is NOT about > corporal punishment, but i think its like has been mentioned before > deterring people in the first place. If you want to deter killing people through drunk and/or dangerous driving, you should increase the punishment for those who do drive while being drunk and/or drive dangerously. Increasing the punishment for the very small minority who end up hurting/killing someone won't help, as people don't believe they are going to kill someone when they get into a car having drunk lots of alcohol. (If they do think that, they are beyond morally corrupt.) Very few people make a calculated decision, weighing in the potential punishment before committing a crime. For some reason, calls for tougher punishment tend to make the assumption most people do. > Either way I think what we need to do is BE CONSISTENT with > punishment, so drink, drive, mount the kerb and mow someone down, > WILL get you a set period in jail. and the same period regardless > of which judge you are in front of. Consistency is probably a good idea for the few cases where criminals do weigh in the potential punishment before committing a crime. (That's probably most typical for white-collar crime.) In other cases, we should hope judges acknowledge that circumstances of one crime are rarely the same as those of another crime, even if they might look the same. Martijn. PS as I understand it, driverless cars are already very safe. The problem is those 90-odd percent of cars driven by humans. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq