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The real measure of civilization in any society can be found in the way it treats its most unfortunate citizens - its prisoners. As you can well see.
That claim is a stretch. I would suppose that the United States in Heaven on Earth for we treat illegals just as good or better that our citizens.
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That claim is a stretch. I would suppose that the United States in Heaven on Earth for we treat illegals just as good or better that our citizens.
I was just looking for a proper thread title Aretas; and that quote came to mind; has been attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr. Great men, but I do not necessarily subscribe to that point of view ... you miss the punch line though, check out the last twelve seconds of the video.
Finland treats prisoners very well, yet we have one of the highest suicide ratings in the world along with very gloomy and grim citizens.
I don't see how that makes us civilized. We're just sad.
Finland treats prisoners very well, yet we have one of the highest suicide ratings in the world along with very gloomy and grim citizens.
I don't see how that makes us civilized. We're just sad.
I wouldn't assume that either of those facts has any causal relation to the other whatsoever. There's a much more obvious hypothesis that explains the high suicide rate and tendency toward depression observed in Finland and the other Scandinavian nations: the excessively long nights during the winter months that close to (or in their northern reaches, actually inside) the arctic circle. Seasonal Affective Disorder, resulting from inadequate exposure to sunlight, may be the most common form of depression.
On the other hand, I do think that the human treatment of prisoners might have something to do with Finland's having both the lowest crime rate and the lowest recidivism rate of any industrialized country, at least the last time I looked at those statistics.
I might argue that a criminal's victim is more unfortunate, and often not treated half as well.
Yes! Think of those poor, unfortunate marijuana leaves! What did they ever do to anyone? And some evil criminal, totally unprovoked, lights them on fire and smokes them! (Look at the proportion of people in prison in the U.S. for nonviolent drug offenses, vs. almost everything else)
Finland treats prisoners very well, yet we have one of the highest suicide ratings in the world along with very gloomy and grim citizens.
I don't see how that makes us civilized. We're just sad.
Detailed and honest records of cause of death. Darkness. And, I believe, a rather homogenous gene pool that likely holds many different depression factors. You could also listen to a quote about the finns: We are not an optimistic people. But then, we never had much to be optimistic about.
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I might argue that a criminal's victim is more unfortunate, and often not treated half as well.
Yes! Think of those poor, unfortunate marijuana leaves! What did they ever do to anyone? And some evil criminal, totally unprovoked, lights them on fire and smokes them! (Look at the proportion of people in prison in the U.S. for nonviolent drug offenses, vs. almost everything else)
This is true: the statistical majority of inmates in 2011 were convicted on drug crimes that before the stricter penalties born of the 'war on drugs' would never have gotten them imprisoned.
Prisons are overflowing—bursting at the seams—because they’re full of small-time petty crooks locked away for 15 years over ‘possession’ of enough (of a naturally-growing plant) for three people and an afternoon.
Nonetheless, when most Americans say inmate, I daresay we imagine raping murderers.