The criminal justice system is very expensive, especially the prison system.

In fact, some evidence might support the premise that the harsher the penalty, the higher the murder rate: Canada has no death penalty for murder, and the U.S. has the death penalty in, I believe, 38 states (three quarters of the states). Yet the U.S. has the higher murder rate.

So the way to save money is to decriminalise all activities in respect to which there is no proof that criminalizing an action is a deterrent.

There is no evidence that punishiong the crime of murder acts as a deterrent.

So if we simply took it off the books, and released all those now in prison for that 'crime', we could save government money, and thus lower taxes.

And - a great coup, propaganda-wise -- we could then announce to the world that North America has a murder rate of zero per 100,000 -- a rate which no other country now claims.

"... a murder rate of zero per 100,000 -- a rate which no other country now claims."

Except for the Vatican City, assuming you don't count John Paul I.

I think if every person carried a gun, that would reduce the murder rate.

I think that the purpose of punishment is to punish and judge and get revenge, not to lower the crime rate. Therefore, we should enact the worst possible punishment we can think of for murderers. First we should put them in jail and be celebrate if they are beated or raped there and do as little as possible to protect them, then we should take them out of jail and take a branding iron and brand a giant "M" across their face and then let the public do as they wish.

Note: it appears that this thread was made in jest and therefore all should understand that all responses made here by Sarai do not reflect the actual views of said poster.

I was serious.

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Except for the Vatican City, assuming you don't count John Paul I.

Wow, does this ever open a can of worms.

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Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
"... a murder rate of zero per 100,000 -- a rate which no other country now claims."

Except for the Vatican City, assuming you don't count John Paul I.

And if you read 'county' for country then Cambridgeshire, whence I post this, has zero per hundred thousand (population 708,000) on the latest figure. (We are much better at sex crimes and burglary than murder). Perhaps if we had people standing inside the county boundary shooting people dead in the next county we could claim a negative per hundred thousand ?

The vatican hasn't had a murder since 1998.

Flipping the point on its head (assuming points have heads) and risking doing what I abhor, namely hijacking a thread, I'll tell you what I did that was pretty much the opposite of what Babs proposes:

As head of our medical staff's surgical Q/A committee, I received the report of an inspection that criticized our lack of surgical indications monitoring. So we put in place a requirement that surgeons include in each op note the reasons for doing the particular operation, listing the indications, which would then be cross-checked with a list by people in the records department. When the inspectors returned 6 months later, we were informed our system wasn't working. In what way, we asked. Because it's not finding unnecessary surgery. Well, is it possible we're not DOING unnecessary surgery in this town, we asked. Who are you kidding, was the answer.

So my writing career was born. I wrote a piece which I sneaked in to the hospital mailbox of every doc in town, in the name of the Surgical Utilization Committee (SUC.) I stated the problem we faced: not enough unnecessary surgery being done, and solicited input, namely choosing among various solutions: declaring certain operations always unnecessary, such as left inguinal hernia repair. Or designating one surgeon each month to do only unnecessary surgery. Couple others.

Next morning I sat in the doctors' lounge (the note was anonymous) and observed reactions. Internists, seeing the word "surgery" at the top, tossed it without reading it. Surgeons got a good laugh. A family doc read it, turned blood-red, and said "they can't do this. This is awful. They can't do this..."

The SUC committee reappeared over the years at opportune times. One of its notes was so inflammatory as to have been taken from most boxes before it saw the light of doctors' eyes. But that's another story. The author, far as I know, was suspected by some, but never revealed.

There were none in my county last year, either. Nice change from Charlotte.

OK, so if the Vatican outlaws freemasonry and decriminalizes murder, the murder problem is solved.

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left inguinal hernia repair

lol

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I think if every person carried a gun, that would reduce the murder rate.

"The Alberta Centre of Injury Control and Research has pointed out that while the province ranks first nationally for the percentage of homes owning guns, it also has one of the highest death rates from firearms in the country.

Alberta's children die by gunshot at almost twice the national average. In Alberta, a home with a gun is five times more likely to be the scene of a murder than is a home without guns." Today's 'Vancouver Sun'

Yeah, because who ticks us off more than our spouses and relatives? They are very important to us because we are so close to them; so criticism or infidelity or any other injury, which we would ignore in someone with whom we are not intimate, hurt us very deeply. Now, as is often said, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

But a furiously angry wife, having noticed her husband sneaking around and making a covert phonecall, listens and overhears , "You are my only love," and in the first flush of rage, deciding the faithless one must die, roars and runs to strangle him. He fights her off, or turns and runs outside, she chases him, but when she gets outdoors and sees other people she becomes self-conscious and stops for a moment and asks herself, 'Do I really want to spend the next 20 years in jail, or should I just divorce him?'

But if she grabs a gun instead, she just points and shoots, and if he runs, well, heck, he can't outrun a bullet.

Here in Canada, a gun permit carries rules;
1. Gun must be in a locked cabinet or have a trigger lock; the keys must be stored in another area of the home.
2. Ammunition must be stored in a locked box. The ammunition must be stored in an area, such as another room, away from the firearm. the key must be stored in yet another area.
3. Gun must be stored unloaded, both magazine and chamber.

(This is for hunting ("long") guns. Handgun rules are much, much stricter.)

So when she hears his sweet-talk, she must
- think "first I need the gun cabiner key", and fetch it
- think "next I need to unlock the cabinet", so she does, and gets the gun
- think, "now I gotta go get the ammunition box key", so she does, carrying the gun with her
- think "now I gotta go unlock the ammunition box, remove the cartridges, and load the gun", so she does
- think "now I gotta go kill my &%$*#@ husband", and then it occurs to her that it may not be worth it. The interval in which her brain was engaged in planning has allowed the homicidal emotional rush to dissipate.

So she goes to show him what a close call he had, just in time to hear him say, "Yes, and the engraving on the bracelet must be done in time for our anniversary, just a week away."

So this is one reason why we have fewer gunshot deaths per capita than, for example, Americans. Fewer guns. (Even if we include our gun-happy Albertans.)

It's just too much hassle. We're not intrinsically 'better', really we aren't. We just have fewer guns. So murder is personally riskier and more labor-intensive.

Simply follow the Bush doctrine and launch a pre-emptive strike. Take out all potential murderers before they strike.... Problem solved.