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I think we as a society need to reevaluate what constitutes cruel and unusual. And the way people justify all this cruelty because they "broke the law" shows that they have entirely lost all empathy. America has effectively dehumanized the idea of being a criminal, no matter how trivial or dumb the law is, to the point where anything is justified, including slavery of those people.

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I disagree. It's not about her ignoring her obligation for doing her schoolwork, it's about her not following the court's order. Law may be harsh and fair in the same time. Being ordered to do her homework was a weak sanction, she ignored it, so she needs a stronger stimulus. So law isn't dumb, it's just consistent.

You should read the article. In short, she didn't actually ignore the court's order to meet her academic obligations.

A law could be harsh, but fair, sure. However, an excessively harsh law is not fair, nor is an inconsistently-enforced one. This situation ticks both of those boxes.

> Being ordered to do her homework was a weak sanction, she ignored it, so she needs a stronger stimulus.

This simple-minded, old-fashioned line of thinking is out of touch with contemporary scholarship and a major contributor to the US criminal justice system's inefficacy.

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