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Proposal for UK Prisoners to be Given RFID Implants
Raisey-raison writes "There is a proposal in the UK to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders in an effort to free up more space in British jails. The article states that uses are being considered both for home detention, as a means to enforce punishment, as well as for sex offenders after their release. Many view this as a slippery slope leading to much wider use; starting as a purely voluntary act and gradually becoming more compulsory, it would endanger human rights and privacy. There are also health questions involved, given that long-term studies have linked similar implants to cancer in lab mice and rats. Ironically, the same technology has been proposed for medical purposes as well. In the USA, some state agencies have already made decisions about this issue.
Today.
Tomorrow children. In a generation or 2, everyone will have them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But does no one think that Prisoners might be inclined to remove their tracking chips? I'm just saying I can't imagine most of them are losing any sleep about breaking the law...
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
You all would have bombed the tags with "1984" "Orwell" "PoliceState" "facism", etc. I love the double standard. Then again, I must be new here.
How long does it take till this spreads to all criminals, then slowly spreads into the population. The privacy issues are obvious, today dogs can get chips under their skin to help if they get lost, tomorrow the government may use them to find a "person of interest". Thats not to say there are not benefits to the idea. Namely, being able to tie personal identification to the chip (no more REAL ID), and being able to tie personal bank accounts to that chip as well. That's not to say its a good idea, but there are some positive impacts if applied to the whole population.
My chums and I were discussing this very news at the pub last night. One of my friends said fiddlesticks to this, and proposed a much better idea. He said that instead of tagging these criminals with RFID implants, we ought just to force them to walk around all day with their penises hanging out. He said that way we'd all know they're criminals, and if they ever got unruly we could just throw objects at their vulnerable cocks. Trust me, a beer mug smashing against your penis spout is not a feeling one wants to endure!
given that the respective governments of the United States, England, Russia, China and the other major powers would never think of using implanted RFID in a way that would negatively impact the rights and quality of life of their average citizens, I'm all for it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Mark of the beast?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
California is suffering from a huge budget crunch. the Governator is talking about prisoner releases there. and with the state employees (free people. or are they?) there already under threat of implants, i'd say Ahnold will be calling Brown soon for the chip vendor information.
"To stop the terrorists."
Seems like Trent Reznor was ahead of the rest of us... http://www.ninwiki.com/Nerochip
Jeez those fucking ACs can get disgusting, eh. I think they make a point: a lot of people are going to think this is a good idea, because they are stupid and believe that their fears need addressing. This is a major plot point in a dystopian screenplay that I'm working on BTW, and I actually think it is an inevitable feature of our future lifestyle.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
... cancer.
What Would Jesus Do? But in this case, I think "What Would Hitler Do?" would be more appropriate.
Let's get real. If these RFID chip or multiple chip implantation policies become widespread so will chip mods.
/. readers will be in the front of THAT revolution.
If your ID chip accesses your credit line - how long before Warren Buffett/Bill Gates' ID becomes the hot new fake ID?
It is well known that all manufacturing processes produce a some number of defective products. How do we deal with those?
RFID can be zapped with a static charge - anybody for Van DeGraff generators?
Retasking, rewriting, forged, hacked and destroyed RFID is all that this policy will lead to. AND,
That's been already worked out for them: One on the forehead, and another on the right hand.
I am officially gone from
This makes perfect sense to me!
After all, it's not like RFID chips could be swapped, erased, removed and as we all know, relying on technology to enforce behavior has never failed. That's why DRM is so popular and electronic passports are completely unhackable, and even if they were hackable, it's not like people get used to the new systems and forget to do the most basic of checks.
Also, the social repercussions for putting these in inmates raises no problems, all you need to do is look at the great success the US has had with the sex offender registry in rehabilitating people.
I can't find a single reason not to do this. Go Britain!
WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? It took me a whole 2 seconds to think of all of these, how has this idea made it this far?
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This country has surveillance and tracking that's gone beyond anything the Nazi SS and the KGB could ever dreamed of having. So much for living in a free democracy.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
I am totally against this completely unconstitutional, unreasonable and illegal search and seizure. The current trend for DNA storage is a perfect example of why. Most, if not all US states, require a DNA sample from felons convicted of some or all felonies. Arkansas requires a DNA sample for ALL felons regardless of the crimes. The purpose of this is to compare to an existing database for past crimes and to monitor for FUTURE crimes that have yet to occur. How is THAT purpose constitutional when it is not related to the ORIGINAL convition? That is putting us one generation from mandatory DNA samples for ALL US citizens. That opens the door for many set-ups and wrongful convictions. As things stand, all I have to do is take hair out of a felon's hairbrush and put it in a ski mask, commit a crime, and leave the ski mask behind so that the authorities has a known felon for a perpetrator that seems a perfect Defender. Rock solid DNA evidence and a slam dunk conviction. How is that for justice? Now, we add RFID chips to those felons so we can ID them and/or locate them quickly. I see lots of benefit from that. Don't you? Okay,now let's say I have a friend with the police dept and I want to locate a person. All I have to do is have them jump online....Just like having a friend at a cell phone company look up a phone number so I can call or harass someone whom did not feel it necessary to give me the number. Where does the line begin and end on the privacy issue in today's modern world. The RFID chip idea is one like that does not need to be crossed involuntarily.
Things like this don't need to be legally mandated - only socially. When it becomes the 'next big thing' and you can buy a sixpack just by waving your hand next to a reader, it'll catch on and people will voluntarily do it - after which point, in a few years, it would be as odd to be without one as it would be odd to be without a cellphone today. I'd plan on mitigating the effects of everyone having the implants as opposed to trying to stop them.
Ever consider that, Mr. Paranoid Slippery-slope-fallacy Man?
I think this is an example of where technology, or at least people's visions for the technology, is outpacing common sense. RFID-like tags are a great idea for identifying lost pets or livestock, but they absolutely suck as a criminal monitoring device compared to existing systems for enforcing home detention. RFID is a passive system - a tag moves by a reader, it's energized and sends its data to the reader. As I understand it, the ankle bracelets currently used are active systems - the bracelet and the monitoring station are in constant communication, and when the link between the two devices is severed, the authorities are notified. I know that part of the "chipping" proposal is to detect when an offender shows up near a school or other "forbidden" area, but couldn't the same type of thing be done with the existing equipment? For me, government-mandated microchip implants cross the line into "cruel and unusual punishment" territory.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
I for one welcome our RFID-implanting overlords!
The government will expand laws.
The government (i.e. US) needs to be realistic about what it wants to make a crime (say minor drug use) or how severe it wants to make the penalty (life sentence restrictions for being caught being a peeping tom in your 20's).
This approach hides the cost of enforcing so many laws on society and encourages more laws.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"The goal is to get everybody in this world chipped with an RFID chip"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7se4gFTCys
Pile them all on to ships and send them to Australia!
you had me at #!
I think all that you're missing is the scope of the plans, which are technically achievable, but are also science fiction of the David Brin variety. This is belied by the disparity between what is actually needed (a way to enforce house arrest - existing solutions are adequate) and what we are told is needed (RFID everywhere). The vision is a nationwide network combining RFID with existing surveillance technologies such as CCTV and the automatic number plate recognition system (ANPR). The problem with ANPR is that it only recognises number plates, and the problem with CCTV is that it is no good for automatically recognising anything. RFID is the answer: the tiny chips uniquely identify their carrier. So with the help of RFID you can both (1) record everything and (2) tag each recording with the people featured in it without any human intervention. A database with a record of everyone's activities is the eventual goal. Modern technology makes it possible, if unethical and expensive.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Stalin and Beria must be singing in their graves to hear their old adversary Brits screwing themselves with this. The have all those cameras already, and face recognition software. Why not bypass the process by putting in sensitive receivers for all those RFIDs that will detect them at overlapping ranges with neighboring cams in a tight network so that nobody can move without being detected, even in their homes. Now I can see the verrry interesting Brit Maury Povich shows. Mr Bean was detected over Mrs Holmes with both signals vibrating. Said signals used for their respective fornication trials and the later stoning of Mrs Holmes and flogging of Mr Bean.....by that time unrestricted muslim immigration into Britland has now made a change of name to Britistan and the adoption of Sharia as the law of Britistan. Not to mention the dethronement of the Olde Bat with her replacement by newly appointed Saudi immigrant King Mahmood. Damn useful new technology, eh? Howdja like new tech now ya Brit wankers. How much freedom do ya want to lose before saying enough? Know ya got some spirit, the Europeans seen enuf of that on the soccer fields. Let Manchester United be your new leaders! Tear all those spycams down before the guv equips them with machine guns or lasers, and before the RFID chips come with remote activated cyanide doses.
Let me get this straight...
You keep the shitty food and the shitty weather and we get the Great Barrier Reef and lobsters the size of canoes?...
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I'm Jack the Ripper! --No, I'M Jack the Ripper! We're all Jackthefuckingripper!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Once electronically eartagged, UK "subjects" will become cattle and treated as such. But isn't that just what sheeple deserve?
"Not another one of the Nineteen Eighty-Four/Brazil/Logan's Run/Farenheit 451/Blade Runner/Soylent Green/12 Monkeys shitfests, please!"
Actually, the situation is peripheral to the plot. I like to imagine that the story will stand on its own. Shitfests are a lot easier to sell to the suits though.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Why is there such a high prison population? Are all of these people behind bars dangerous persons who would damage society if left free? I don't think so. Perhaps only a few of them are really dangerous. Most of them would probably do no further damage if released, so I see no point in spending tax money in feeding people who would do no further damage to society. Punishment? Does anybody still believes that punishment is the right approach to crime? We should focus on changing people, not punishing them. In most of the cases people shouldn't be punished. Locking people behind bars only costs taxpayers more money, there is no point in doing it. For non-dangerous guys, helping them become respectful citizens again would be a better approach.
Locking someone behind bars for punishment or revenge has no logic. If somebody comes and does something bad to me, I gain nothing by doing something bad to them, except in cases of self-defense (in which cases it is ok to use a gun, if someone is in a country allowing guns, to deal with physically threatening criminals). Let's say for example that someone comes and steals my property. I have the option of suing them and get them into prison. Why should I do this? What I seek is to get my property back, inform all fellow citizens of the potentially dangerous thief, and ensure that the thief does not re-offend, and of course I should also take into account that the criminal is also a human being and should be treated as such. The best way to make thiefs citizens again would be to require them attend some educational courses. If they get locked behind bars, they *will* reoffend after release, and even if they get locked up for life, society gains nothing. Quite the contrary, the whole society pays for their nutrition etc (even if it's of low quality, the fact is that society still pays for it). It really is ridiculous. It really seems counterproductive to me to collect taxes from citizens and use them to pay for criminals.
For me the perfect scheme would be to attempt to change the criminal's life outlook through compulsory education. If they cannot change themselves, then they should go in exile. So, if a member of a community offends the community's customs, they will have to leave that community. This way they cannot re-offend, and nobody pays for them. We could even have internationally designated places to send criminals from every country there, and let them alone out of our societies. Of course this should be done only for criminals who cannot become lawful citizens again.
So, my recommendation is: Stop paying for prisons. Give criminals a chance of becoming lawful citizens by attending educational courses and changing themselves. If they fail to change themselves, get them out of the society that they offended. There are so many uninhabited places on the planet, and it really makes no sense to pay tax money for prison populations and destroying people who have done no real damage. Those of criminals who have done excessive damage and are likely to reoffend should be dropped in an uninhabited place, together with a few survival books and a few days of food resources. Then let them there do as they think best. And I am sure that if an exile system was in place, there would be very few people who would offend a society's laws.
It shouldn't be too hard to make a IPod sized device that could broadcast thousands/millions of fake RFID numbers if it picks up that one is being scanned nearby. Or just have it on the whole time, filling the scanners with noise. Websites could have extensive lists of other peoples RFID numbers all uploaded, thereby providing a kind of digital alibi, if you will. I'm sure that someone will make cracking type of programs, that can produce valid RFID numbers, or hack into legitamite databases that have RFID numbers for other products.
..........FULL STOP.
Oh yeah, that's why cellphones were invented.
how long until secret service agents start putting nano RFID chips into the food or cars of political enemies and tracking their movements?
Hey, I've got an idea!
Let's put one in all the kids! We don't want another Maddy McCann, and we all know babysitters are far too expensive and can't be trusted anyway.
Or else put them in criminals like they're planning, but then only real criminals. There will be some access control so reading the tags will be hard to do (they *are* planning to include the prisoner's wrap sheet along with all his personal details), but someone will invent a tag presence detector soon enough. Someone can make a bucket of money selling those to shops, pubs and other public places so they can keep them out, and at the same time we increase the public safety by making sure they all get lynched for showing their faces on the streets.
There is a reason that tagging devices such as ankle bracelets have anti-tamper measures. What's to stop these criminals just digging these RFIDs out, deactivating them, or otherwise messing with their proper function?
This may happen in the UK, but sense the US is run by religious fundamentalists, it will never happen here. Too many fundy's would be screaming mark of the beast at the top of their lungs before we would get anywhere close to this.
If the democrats tried to do this, then the Republicans, (the ones who believe in the second amendment) would revolt. Seeing that the military goes toward Republicans, we would be looking at a military coup.
Given that criminal only refers to a person whose broken a *law* - We are all criminals... It's only a matter of them deciding to apply the label...
If everybody has RFID implants then "we" have them and "they" have them. What's the huge issue for abuse? It's not like government people will be exempt from everbody else. Also the goverment changes on a regular enough basis. Potential for abuse isn't any more huge here than anywhere else, but abuses will occur, just not of the magnitude some predict. I have fundamentalist friends who are paranoid of any potential "marks of the beast" and that's a whole other story. There are all kinds of idiots who jump the gun on this one.
to use the RFID chip will be the infamous villan Simon Pheonix. Researchers say his next arrest will mean cryogenic stasis..
Why not tattoo a number on every prisoners' arm?
Oops, we had that before.
Nevermind...
Yeah, I hate criminals. Some should never be let out.
But they are still humans. Not cattle.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Go read up on the history of prisons, penal laws and human nature. Then go read up on the history of Australia. Actually, read The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes who goes into all of these things and many more. Hopefully you'll end up a tad wiser. Hint: Your idea doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of working.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Depends on the particular subject. In this case, it's somewhat clear to me that gradual acceptance might occur, and that we should thus not accept it.
First, we tag criminals, maybe even only those who accept it. After a few years, there are some success stories, and it becomes mandatory, it's just criminals after all. People see that nothing bad seems to happen, and a few well-publicised cases occur where the tags prevented a crime from happening. So then people start using them as batches, for entry in clubs and similar stuff. It's cool to get a tag, you get to feel a bit like a criminal, you impress your friends (did it hurt? wow, let me feel!). Next, some people tag their children. After all, it makes them save, and you can always remove it later, and it didn't do anything bad to all those cool people. But of course, you don't remove it later, it's convenient to just leave it in. Then, some kid gets rescued because of his tag, and next thing you know, you get some kind of tax reduction if you tag your kid. Some more years, and it's mandatory with the option to remove it when you reach a certain age. Then, that option disappears.
One huge step will not be accepted by the people. A ton of small steps which all seem logical and inconsequential very well might be.
Dude, that already occurs. Did you go to any kind of club recently?
Fully legalizing drugs would at least regulate advertisment and control quality.
They dont fully understand what legalizing it means.Depends on the drug in question. In some countries, there are plans to legalize ownership and growing of cannabis (within defined limits), while selling it remains illegal. "Legal" doesn't necessarily mean that you have to allow companies to produce and supply the product. Might as well just mean you aren't going to criminalize the users.
Australia was used for penal labour. I didn't suggest to have criminals work for free. I suggested to attempt to educate them, and if they don't change, then to let them *alone* in a designated uninhabited place, completely free, but out of the community they offended.
Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat in - Santana.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If the potential to misuse a tool is your main criterion for allowing a government the use of a technology, what right does any government have to do anything IYO?
So, the suggestion is that in order to defray the cost of their incarceration, criminals be forcibly involved in an experiment that is not only technical but medical in nature too. Wonder where we've heard all about that before.
Society may have the right to take away another's freedom but it has no right to take away another's human rights or dignity (unless you support capital punishment). No doubt tagging prisoners would make the life of prison warders easier, but then so would gassing or shooting their charges. There is really nothing more to say.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The Nazis!
I know TFA mentions it being put under the skin, but for some reason or other, it reminds me of the scene from Total Recall when Arnold has to remove a tracking device (about the size and shape of a lime) from his nose. *shudder*
My idea is based on my belief that people do not belong to their societies, that people stand as free individuals. Participation in a society happens as a necessity of birth (until people grow) and as a privilege (after people become adults). So I see society as a set of individuals who have all agreed to stay in the same place and adhere to some common rules of behaviour. Now if some individual violates the social customs or laws, they should be made to attend some custom educational programmes and given an opportunity to restructure themselves. If they don't cooperate, I see it as natural to revoke their privilege of staying within the society they offended. Of course exile should not mean penal labour or anything else. Exile for me means being made to get out of a society and keeping away from it. If another state is willing to take criminals that's ok (for example, being gay in Iran is a crime but it's not in EU, so Iranian gays who are otherwise lawful people of good morals could very well be sent to live here instead of being tortured or killed by Iranian authorities if they allowed them to go into self-exile). If no state wants them, then unfortunately for them they should stay in some uninhabited place. Anyway, that's my idea. It could very well be wrong. And there is a high probability that it can be wrong because I haven't studied social topics a lot (I have read many books, but not really studied... and in fact in my daily life I think in terms of computer science and mathematics so naturally social topics is not the area where I can excel, at least not yet). Unfortunately social matters is not an exact science so you can't take a few equations and prove that an idea is right or wrong. I will read the book, though, thanks for recommending it, from the reviews it looks good.
I'm certainly not a fundamentalist, probably not insane and not even particularly worried about whether or not this is used to track people.
If I was a criminal in any country under the crown and a government agency tried to implant an RFID tag in me, I would insist that the government agency be dissolved and all the members of said agency involved in my implant be charged. Just following orders is no defence.
As I said, I'm not fundamentalist, in fact I believe that we evolved to our form and guess what? We did it without RFID tags. According to my understanding of evolution, if I were implanted, I would not develop any biological relationship with the tag within my lifetime.
It would take generations. And what for? So that a bunch of control freaks can track everything because they are motivated by fear. Fuck them - actually no, fucking's fun. Spit at them, publicly ridicule them and if they get into a position of power, humiliate them, bring them down and have them charged.
My objection has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with the ideology of people who support such things. People like yourself who appear moderate but apologise for these sorts of things and allow fear mongers to gain a hold and people like Hitler who actively pursued such technology.
It is absolutely disgusting.
I don't therefore I'm not.
You successfully created a divsion putting yourself as "us" and me on the "against them" side, an exact mockup of the division people like to create whether you're coming at it from a religious or pragmatic approach. Nice going. When you draw lines like that people will see them and start to abide by them. Your attitude is indicative of the problem.
You seem to have reinforced my concern.
I am not part of the hive. I do not always think the current fashionable thoughts. That is good, as far as I'm concerned.
My post responded to your question, specifically, "What's the huge issue for abuse?". The huge issue for abuse is that the act of implanting an RFID tag in someone against their will is abuse. The reasons of the objector are irrelevant.
Your original post seemed to make the assumption that there is no harm in having the tags implanted, although there is some evidence to the contrary, and that the only reasons people might have for objecting are religious or to do with privacy. I presented another. I don't see why I should have to fucking well have a foriegn object implanted under my skin. I see that as abuse. I think it is criminal. If they can already track me, good. That's all they fucking need then, isn't it?
Maybe I am creating an "us and them" situation here, but sometimes that happens in a world where we are not all livestock.
I don't therefore I'm not.
Why not just kill them after their prison term is over ? It's just like sadistic death by thousand cuts after they released anyway. Can't live, can't work and anyone is welcome to kick them. Are they so much more dangerous than murderers ?
Great, so rather than bothering to deal with the criminals here in the UK we can just ship them over to the US then can we, and you'll all be fine with that. A lot of criminals are simply criminal scum and should be locked up, education is wasted on such people.
If it were ever the case that this became government policy then you could all for agencies to be dissolved all you liked but it would make no difference at all, if you fell into the category of criminals needing to be tagged you'd be tagged just like all the rest and there would be nothing that could be done about it.
Personally though I can't see anything like this actually happening in the UK anytime soon, this is simply a diversionary tactic to make it appear the government is actually addressing the real problem of having no room left in the prisons without actually doing anything about it.
15 He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
For the knowledgeable, it is getting easier to break the law. This will only help to wipe out the more intellectually challenged layer of the dark side. Good times ahead.
I think all sex offenders and their ilk are scum and should be locked up for good, but tagging is so very wrong. As has already been said, a very slippery slope to "1984". What of the criminal who has it removed and forcibly reinserted into an innocent? That innocent cannot protest, the chip is and server are all seeing and cannot be wrong, they cannot lie. Next thing, we have the latest version of a Guildford Four style case. Innocents locked up to 20 years when they did nothing wrong, their word against the "justice computer".
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
or maybe, I only read the top 20 comments...
you break the law, you pay the price. You loose your rights the day you pull the trigger, force the clothes off... Criminals have too many rights as it is. Now I see TV commercials for some "behind the bars" TV show with prisoners complaining "there's no privacy, people are all over, separated by race". Well if ya wanted privacy you shouldn't have done the crime.
I'm sorry to go against the modern grain and thought process but things have gotten too soft. Prison's are punishments. They're not recreational resorts. No TV, no visits, nothing. You're cut off from the world you wronged. It's harsh, it's painful, it shouldn't be pleasant. Sure it affects the family of those who didnt commit a crime, but they too need to understand that the person is there to be punished.
I'm all for Deeply implanted RFID tags, implant them directly into a bone to avoid removal. It'll help track down escapees, repeat offenders, everyone. If you want privacy, dont pull the trigger.
And for those "it'll trickle to non criminals and everyday people"... that is where you draw the line, and fight that battle. I dont want government mandated implants in me as a law abiding citizen.
For children: I sure as heck support this implant in children. I dont have one of my own yet though. But I could only imagine a parents fear and worry when their child is abducted, or heck, comes home 1 hour late from agreed curfew. At 18 they can willfully have it removed. But kids, they dont have the right to privacy, as a parent it's your job to keep your kids safe and educated. I know i dont want to find my kid 2 years later dead in a roadside ditch somewhere because "privacy" advocates forbade me from implanting a chip in my kid.
You've been arrested overnight for "political dissent"! You get a free RFID chip implant/rape of your intrinsic human rights! Have fun with that. I bet you'll think twice about... Thinking, next time.
Internet: Serious Business
Frak chips. What we need is Branding or company tattooing....so not only will the state save money, they'll make some money back. I can just imagine the McD's golden arches on someone's right cheek.
Seriously, I can't help seeing all these stupid ideas as the effects of gobalization. The more we are connected and influenced by others around the world, the more a single bad idea will spread.
On the whole the new world order isn't bad...for the majority. It just sucks not to be in power...or be powerless...criminals are the easy targets. Protecting children is another easy target.
The next thing is to make sure there are more criminals....make drugs illegal, make certain sex acts illegal, make intellectual thought a terrorist activity....poof...a ready made market to exploit...to enslave.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
> in an effort to free up more space in British jails.
Wait a minnit! I thought kinder Europe, without guns, laxxer drug laws, and more sympathy to sociological causes of crime, had much smaller prison populations, per capita. Therefore they should have plenty of prison space while still spending just a fraction of what the US spends, per capita.
Unless...unless government always drags ass everywhere it exists, barely doing the minimum in order to spread cash around to as many places as possible, to gain re-election via as many votes as possible.
That could be the case but...
Hey! Lookee! American Gladiators is BACK ON TV! I'm gonna, whoa. WHOA WHOA! There's a Terminator TV show now? ZOMG, I am so there!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You have a good general thesis but some of the details are lacking as ColdWetDog pointed out.
Excising people who cause social disruptions does not solve our issues, it only forces them onto others (those outcasts and society who could be affected by the outcasts). I do think we need to look more at treatment (for drug users), reform, re-education, and reintegration into society in order to evolve socially as humans and society at large. This would very likely result in a better society and help to solve many of our social ills.
People who can become functioning and productive members of society benefit the society, people rotting in jail drain society. I do think it will always be necessary to lockup a small minority of people who either cannot be reformed or are beyond our ability to help. People like sociopathic serial killers need to isolated because of their damage to society. Even if they could be reformed I don't think it would be a good idea to release them back (baring some major breakthroughs in psychology in which we could be 99.9% positive that the person would not re-offend, and even then I'm not sure I'd be ok with it). However, because a lot of the really bad people are a great minority it should be possible to only really have a handful of prisons in the idyllic society I have described.
*We also need to decriminalize drugs in this country but that's for another discussion
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.