Anti-Trump is not anti-American, it's pro-American as far as I'm concerned especially after recent events — Baden

Recent events have blurred the line between the two.

Do you think your prison system could be improved? If so, how? — Baden

Our prison system would be improved if it was taken out of the hands of private- for profit companies managing the incarceration system. Why?

A for profit prison system is detrimental to both the incarcerated citizen and the state that has them incarcerated. For those incarcerated, there is no incentive for the company managing them to acknowledge good behavior because a full jail cell is a paying jail cell. When there is a need for more jail cells, more prisons are built, rather then trying to rehabilitate those incarcerated.

A for profit prison system encourages those who police the state to lean on illegal means of filling those cells by the use of profiling, discrimination and fabrication of facts to support their continued business.

Totally agree. My other major point was about retributive punishment and recidivism rates. That we should aim for lower recidivism rates as Nordic countries do because the ones who suffer most from high recidivism rates are the extra victims of the extra crimes of reoffenders. In other words, I would support better conditions in prisons even if that meant prisoners had an easier time there if they could at the same time be weaned off crime instead of schooled on how to do more because I'm less interested in hurting them than lowering the overall crime rate which is driven by re-offenders.

You need to lay off the Guinness. You sound like you just emerged from a bog caked in mud never having spoken to another human being in your life. So, the problem does (partly) lie in prisons. Higher recidivism rates = more crime, and crime is the major problem here, right? You are at about 70% and Norway at about 20%. So, don't you think this might go some way to explaining why their hardest streets are only partially aroused (to use your amusingly implicative Freudian lingo :100: )? Because they know how to reduce crime rates and they use their prison system to do it? Your reason then for not using changes in prison policy to reduce crime rates boils down to "because crime rates are high". See the problem. — Baden

You accuse me of being hopelessly sheltered, yet you wish to compare Norway to the US, as if it offers the US some direction, yet the US has never thought to consider it. A largely homogenous, educated society comprised of those with generally shared values is likely to get along quite well with or without any great innovation or leadership in the criminal justice context. I live in a relatively crime free area myself, and I'd suspect that the city jail is largely empty in a given week except for the occasional drunk. Perhaps I should call the folks in downtown Atlanta and have them tour my little town so that they can figure out how to bring their crime rate down just like mine. If only they would leave their four walls and venture out to the burbs, they'd see how to do it better.

You keep telling us how great America is, so why do you accept failure so easily? I'm starting to feel I'm more American than you and you really do belong in that quiet corner of the Irish bog you've just emerged from with only potatoes and sheep and some various works by Sigmund Freud for company. — Baden

America is a great big place, so it's not like every state does things the same. There have been plenty of innovations. I'm not just throwing my hands up and giving up, but I'm more just rejecting your claims that the answers are just sitting there before us in a Scandinavian ice field, but we're all just too stubborn to see it.

We need to transition from criminalizing drug use to offering government controlled rehab. Money needs to be channeled into inner cities for job creation and urban renewal.

There isnt any political will to do any of that at present. There's a socialist-democratic movement appearing among millennials. Maybe once they take over...

Can you deal with the point about retributive punishment and recidivism and stop going on about the fact that Norway is different from the US? Forget Norway if it makes you happy. How do you think you can reduce your sky-high recidivism rates?

Forget Norway if it makes you happy — Baden

Alright, I'll forget about it, but now I'm confused because there's a land mass without a name.

How do you think you can reduce your sky-high recidivism rates? — Baden

It's sort of like how do we get the inner city schools to perform as well as the suburban schools. If we swapped all the students and put the inner city kids in the suburban schools and sent all the suburban kids down to the city, the dropout rates and performance results would stay the same among the students. What this means is that the differing schools, each with all their wonderful ideas and teachers, don't really amount to squat. It's the students as formed by their parents, their upbringing, their values, and their families. The same holds true to the amazing results of non-recidivism achieved in that now nameless place with the breathtaking fjords. They were going to get those results regardless of what they did. It's like asking how do I coach a team in the World Cup with all the greatest players of all time. I just show up and the wins happen.

The way I fix the crime problem is by fixing the societal problems. The prisons can't fix them once they show up at the door. If your kid is a hellion in high school, the time to have fixed him done came and went as they say not where I'm from.