Why do they have any rights at all ?

Question

Every crime has, on some level, violated someones rights. Yet we coddle these criminals with special meals, cable tv, and supply " 3 hots & a cot " and countless other benefits. Most of which their victims don't even have. However, we can't make them do anything like maintain highways, paint / repair govt. buildings etc. Oh No ! That would be " violating their rights ". It seems simple enough to me, drive drunk, you lose the right to drive, if you commit a crime and violate the rights of others..YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS ! ! But it doesn't work that way. Can anybody explain this one to me?

It 's not cheap to support these criminals, there is no reason why they can't save us some money by working. Don't we all have to work to support ourselves? Why do we have to work to support criminals too? And this is not about "revenge". Revenge would be wanting something horrible to happen to them. I don't think it's horrible to want criminals to do something productive instead of sitting on their butts watching TV and thinking of ways to make us "serve " them.

Answer 1

You forget an important fact....we have bleeding heart liberals that insist that even cockroaches have rights. My philosophy is much like yours but perhaps more extremist....castration for sex offenders, death for death, and HARD labor to others. They violated rights of others, so let's violate theirs...tough times ahead. I spent seven years in the service of the US in Vietnam and hot meals were a luxury...and often a cot was too. I do like China's attitude on drug dealers....death...no stays, no prolonged court battles....here and now.

Answer 2

"Why do they have any rights at all?"

The quick answer to your question is "Because without the guarantee of certain rights for prisoners, the effectiveness of American law enforcement, jurisprudence and the penal system would be eroded, and that deterioration would result in significant negative impact to American society."

You're right to say that the American penal system isn't perfect. But that said, there are actually some good reasons why prisoners get "special meals, cable TV, and 'three hots and a cot.'"

What we do in America is take criminals off the streets and put them behind bars. Some of the people that end up there are violent and dangerous. Some have life sentences and will probably never be free to return to American society outside of the prison system. What does a person who has a life sentence with no parole have to lose? Nothing. What does someone being starved or tortured have to lose? Nothing-- and they might even gain some semblance of humanity by striking out against their captors under such conditions. A person who has nothing good to lose is very dangerous to prison guards, prison health care workers, other prisoners and himself.

So, let's start by taking "three hots and a cot" off your list. If you're going to keep prisoners in humane conditions, then you have to provide them a place to sleep and feed them. This isn't really a perk; it's a necessity-- the absence of which is torture.

And, sure, prison wardens could force prisoners to work-- put them in irons and whip them or deprive them of food until they do some hard, distasteful labor. But it turns out the resources required to do that outweigh the benefits. It generally costs prisons more money to conduct forced labor programs than it's worth. It's also slavery. And that's an immoral institution that Americans rejected many years ago.

You might not like it, but the experience gained from operating penal systems in America over the past two hundred years show that forced labor programs and torturous conditions generally make prisons much harder-- and more expensive-- to operate.

If you want criminals to be kept off the street, then prisons have to feed them, and cloth them, and provide them with health care. And if you want prison guards to be able to control prison populations without even more danger than they already have, then you have to accept that prisons provide inmates with privileges like "cable TV" and "special meals." That way, prisoners have something to lose if they fail to follow the standards of conduct and something to gain if they are well behaved.

Would you rather live in a country where people are tortured, enslaved and killed by the government because they've been convicted of a crime-- sometimes wrongly so? There are a lot of other countries where that happens. And-- despite the financial cost to society-- that such barbarous and uncivilized things don't usually happen in America should make you proud.

Answer 3

It's because our laws and the people who administer them are all messed up. The problem starts with your local and state governments, and runs all the way up to the Congress and the Supreme Court.

Personally, I think that people who drive drunk and cause an accident that results in a fatality should received a mandatory death penalty. But no. They kill someone, get a couple of years in jail (with cable TV and all the free benefits, and get PAID too!) and then are released to go out and kill someone else. Criminals are rewarded for their acts because our lawmakers sense that way back in the darkest recesses of their brains they want to make sure that if THEY ever drive drunk (which they DO) that there will be a nice, cozy, country club jail they can go to for a couple of months or so. That rat-bastard Ted Kennedy never paid anything for killing Mary Jo Kopechne, and this was a case of drunk drving if there ever was one. So this is why the laws are so lenient: to protect the ones who make they laws in case their chips are ever called in.

The answer is vigilante justice. You see the same problem right now at the Mexican border. Congress REFUSES to do anything real about it, and even considers the idea of a "VIRTUAL" fence...good GOD! what have we come to? What's wrong with machine gun posts every 300 yards and orders to shoot to kill? Very simple. Just do that and it's over. But NO!

Citizens need to take the law into their own hands and do the things Congress refuses to do. Wimp bastard politicians are just in it for the pensions.

Answer 4

You can thank the liberals for all of these freebies.
They don't want to offend or violate their civil rights. What they violate are the victim's rights.

It is time for the American people to put a stop to this. Elect hardcore politicians who are not afraid to say no to liberals. Who are not afraid of taking the right stand. It is a long process, but if we ban together we can change the laws that affect us. It is time to stand up for people who obey the law. Give them the tax credits. Make jail a horrible place to be so people don't want to keep going back.

Answer 5

It sucks doesn't it? But I met someone about 4 years ago, he told me he went to jail for a short time for beating someone up for doing something to one of his family members, he told me that while he was there, justice is normally served by the inmates, depending on the crime which they find out by watching TV. There is a lot that goes on that the authorities turn a blind eye to, and we on the outside never hear about...so in some aspects it can be good, but in the lot of ways it really is unfair when so many on the outside go without.

Answer 6

For the most part, it's bleeding heart politicians who grant rights to prisoners and have lost track of the fact that prison is supposed to be punishment. Their excuse is "Rehabilitation"--well, the best rehab would be learning a job skill, but you can't make them work unless you pay minimum wage. I know personally of one California prison that had a working dairy and farm, supplied most of its own needs, worked by prisoners until the local farmers decided it was unfair competition and convinced the legislature to shut it down...

So we continue to give education, and cable television, and a fully equipped gym...

Answer 7

that's a good question. and you are absolutely right. that is one of the things that really tick me off. like when they let child predators back out on the streets, or when they don't even give them any jail time at all. i just don't understand it sometimes, it does not make any sense. alot of poor people cant afford cable or medical care or heat in the winter etc, and all these losers in jail get it all for free all because they broke the law in some way. they even get a free education if they want it, now you tell me how fair that is. that is b.s.

Answer 8

Convicted felons do not have full civil rights (they are entitled to basic human rights and guaranteed under the U.S. Constitutution, "No cruel or unusual" punishments (which means they get fed.) However, in every state a convicted felon is disenfranchised, that is they lose their voting rights, rights to serve on jury or run for office. Some states allow felons who have served their terms and paroles to reapply for their civil rights, others do not. At this site you can find a state by state list of disenfranchisement laws:
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/usvot98o.htm#P167_8143
So in fact, if you are convicted of a major crime you do not have any rights.

Answer 9

I think the system tries to show some restraint so that when some of these convicted criminals get released they don't feel like instantly turning on the rest of us non-incarcerated citizens when they do get to the outside. They can't all fit in our prisons forever and we can't kill them all.

Answer 10

I agree with you too but at the same time, if we allowed them to come to the outside and work then the next W(b)itch would be that there are no jobs for the ones who actually have a house and have a mortgage or rent to pay by working.