I never understood American obsession with consecutive life sentences and triple digit prison terms. If I remember correctly, in the USSR the top sentence was 15 years, which in many cases meant a slow death sentence. I’ve heard that one of the reasons for multiple sentences is to make sure that justice still gets served even if one of the convictions gets overturned on the appeal.
However, in the current economic situation is it wise to spend the taxpayer many on multiple convictions of the same person who is already convicted and sentenced to death once or twice. In the recent local case of the evil murdering and raping couple :
A Jackson County jury convicted Davis in … murder in August. He has been sentenced to death in that case….Riley avoided a potential death sentence, but she’ll spend the rest of her life in prison.She received nine life sentences — to be served one after another.
Now the bloody couple will be tried in Clay county where they are accused in killing and torturing another victim. Aside from emotional aspects of another conviction and sentencing, what exactly is the point of piling on more prison terms and additional death sentences. Can the charges in Clay county be satisfied with the sentencing in Jackson county due to inability to physically administer additional punishment?
I always thought that this country should outsource the prison system to Russia where there is plenty of room and experience of “re-educating” large numbers of people. There will not be many survivors after the first prison term and the need for outrageous sentences will go away.
I would venture to say that if American prisons were in any way similar to Russian prisons, one life sentence would suffice, and we’d be happy to see the slow demise of yet more convicted scumbags.
However, with American prisons being bastions of progressive thought, well equipped with gyms, televisions and other amenities, and our aversion to cruel and unusual punishment, they have to keep the aforementioned scumbags in there just so they don’t enter back into society!
yes, i used to know some facts about the difference between jackson and clay counties … for murder i don’t know that it matters, but everyone knows that if you are stealing cars or selling drugs, you “want” to be caught in jackson county because the population density means that prison has less room for nonviolent offenders. in clay, they put you away.
there’s a whole conversation about the parole system, too … american prison is only a deterrent for people with regular lives they don’t want to ruin. the whole system is based on fake second chances, corruption, and, let’s not forget, profit.