Hacker News Reader

Comment by hkmurakami | Hacker News Reader

My good friend's gf is a psychiatrist at a bay area prison. She had taken a young man under her wing, who had been incarcerated via the three strikes rule. Without going into too much detail, his strikes against him was possession of firearms without a license, and protecting himself inside a prison vs gang related targeting thus giving him a disorderly conduct strike.

He was sentenced to life in prison and was being sent back from protection to where he "had a mark" on him and was going back into hell on earth.

The day before he was to return to the prison, he hung himself. He was 18.

The system is terribly broken.

View on HN

The system isn't broken, but rather that Californians are awful. The three strikes law, the most oppressive in the country, works exactly as designed. And California's voted for it by referendum by a 72:28 margin.

The system isn't broken, but rather...

Perhaps both propositions could be true? A system of government that brings out the worst in its citizens might not be the best one they could have.

Why do you think this law reflects the worst of its citizens?

Maybe people are sadistic at best.

If those people got their moral education from the system they then vote in, that would be a broken system...

In 2012 the 3 strike rule was changed such the final strike has to be due to a "serious" or "violent" offense:

http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_36,_Changes_in...

The entire thing, including the original story the parent comment, is Kafka-esque. We need massive prison reform.

Victim's rights are such a sham. I don't want to attack victims, it's not their fault most of the time, but nobody would think a court would be fair if the jury were comprised of victims because victims are inherently impartial due to their suffering. Victims are unreasonable, and punishment of the offender does nothing to undo the harm they've done so I think instead of considering victim rights we should consider what's best for society instead, which probably involves rehabilitation. I'm not sure that except in the most extreme circumstances someone should ever go to prison for 15+ years. After 15 years in jail, with focus on rehabilitation, I doubt most would go back to crime. No you wont get punishment and suffering out of the offender for the crime, but that's a stupid thing to want in the first place.

"it's not their fault most of the time"?

The people in this country most oppressed by crime are not well-off conservative white people. Crime is a scourge of low-income communities, and most of it is violent.

I was simply saying that victims are most often not to blame for being a victim. I didn't expect that to be a controversial statement.

We've not yet decided if the system exists for punishment or rehabilitation, until we the people decide, this sort of thing will be depressingly common.

Yes I was making an argument for rehabilitation I think. Also I made a typo, I meant not impartial.

It's not that Californians are awful, it's that direct democracy is awful. It's a noble idea that time and time again has proven to be a horrible idea.

California is the only US state where it's completely illegal to own an assault weapon. Something about that doesn't sit right with me, though you can take that with a grain of salt cause I'm from Michigan.

This is what happens when you replace judgement with rigid rules. The obverse is that you have good-old-boy networks that let friends and family off easy. There's always trade-offs when people are involved.

Sad that your gf had to go through that, I'm sure it must have upset her terribly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com