Here's a new one I haven't seen before:
Jan. 5th, 2016 03:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyScrap goat for "scapegoat".
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Dr Zizmor, star of New York subways adverts, retires
One man's attempt to watch the entire 1990s dinosaur sitcom series in one day (That show had the most depressing ending of any sitcom ever.)
The Best Facts I Learned from Books in 2015
Never rains but it pours for guano-hit Rome
139 Old Norse Words That Invaded The English Language
When Americans Embraced the Bob, This New England Town Had To Make Something Besides a Comb. Enter the Pink Flamingo.
Tiny Chameleons Show Off Powerful Tongues
US Forest Service reviews Nestle California operation
‘What can we do better?’ Trying to make the nation’s food system safer in 2016.
How I Conquered My Fear of God and Got an HIV Test
As U.S. Abortion Case Looms, Both Sides Seek Personal Touch
California grants rare look inside largest death row
L.A. County jail inmates were handcuffed to a wall for hours on 'potty watch'
At 16, Taurus Buchanan threw one deadly punch—and was sent away for life. Will the Supreme Court give him, and hundreds like him, a chance at freedom?
30th Arrest: Transit Impostor Says He Needs Help Not Prison
The cognitive dissonance of conservative NSA hawks, in 1 telling episode
The War on Women Is About to Get a Whole Lot Worse
Pentagon: Hundreds of military kids sexually abused annually
ISIS in the World’s Largest Muslim Country
Mapped: The Taliban Surged in 2015, but ISIS Is Moving In on Its Turf
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Date: 2016-01-11 01:21 am (UTC)I didn't say it's not to society's benefit if people rehabilitate themselves, and leave prison to lead law-abiding lives. Obviously, when people do that, it's to their own benefit as well. But, equally obviously, people are not sent to prison "for their own good", because if they agreed it was for their good, the doors wouldn't need locks.
The idea that 'these people' are not functioning begs the question of what 'functionality' looks like in the world to which they're to be sent back. Sounds like Taurus Buchanen was functioning just fine in his world, till he was unlucky enough to commit murder when he only intended assault and battery.
Did you ever read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, or see the movie? (The book is better, of course.) Alex, the protagonist, is happily and successfully well-adjusted to his ultraviolent world, till he's unlucky enough to commit murder in the course of assault. The attempt to get him 'functioning' and back in the world doesn't go so well, because the world is the same one he left, only now he's prey rather than predator.
There's only so much damn a person can give, and I haven't got any to spare for bullies who beat children to death. Perhaps Taurus Buchanen's life sentence will serve as a cautionary tale to other teens: sucker-punch someone, and you might grow old behind bars, because "I didn't mean to kill him" is not a valid excuse.