I don't know why you and others can't see or allow yourselves to see that the people in our countries ARE NOT the same. That baffles me- the fact that Canada doesn't have the same incarceration rate means that Canadians aren't as violent and if I'll recommend checking the stats, rather than showing them. WRT death penalty, I wouldn't want to be on a jury that imposes it- I don't think we need to get into the 'they don't deserve to live after killing 20'- I would rather not pass judgement. The 3 strikes program- I think that some criminals have a very hard time with living a peaceful life and find it hard to not stop being incredibly violent. What should be done with them? Three pot busts or other minor crimes shouldn't land anyone in prison.
Cases aren't dismissed if a speedy trial can't be held, but many effectively end with the accused being arrested and convicted for another crime, which is what happened in the case I mentioned. The reason for the delay in the first was due to the main witness not being willing to testify against the accused. No witness, no prosecution. If a witness signs an affidavit before the trial and refuses to testify against, they're guilty of perjury but the accused ends up being freed. This is part of your example of collapsed cases and it happens frequently. In some US locations, the courts went to a 'no cash bail' system and that bit them on the butt, hard. Letting people out on their own recognizance often is the last thing that should be done- bail is supposed to cause someone to show up at the trial but when they have nothing at stake, why would they? Then, bail jumping is added to their other crime(s) and they need to be found. No cash bail is losing support, as it should. The complaint against cash bail is that it's racist and places a hardship on the accused and their families. The guy who drove through the Christmas Parade near Milwaukee was released on $500 bond, paid my his mother, whose vehicle was used for this attack and also, to run over the mother of his child and that was the cause of the case before the parade. He claimed that he had no money, so the judge lowered the bond from $10K to $500.
Should past criminal history have any bearing on a case? Here, it's not supposed to, but I would ask- what should be done with someone like this guy, if you read about his past (in the link)? Because of this, 6 are dead and more than 60 injured.
en.wikipedia.org
Some prisons have programs for education and rehabilitation, others just let them sit and rot but like drug abusers, they need to WANT TO be educated or rehabilitated in order for that to work. Instead, many prisoners come out worse than they were before being confined, with a greater number of more dangerous contacts for the outside world.
Some people are mentally defective, some got into trouble by associating with bad people but some are raised, well, they AREN'T raised, they're more feral than that. One parent 'families' that don't fit the definition that are effectively parent-less, lack of education (whether it's by the parent's lack of care, student's decision to stop going to school, peer pressure, etc) and being part of the culture of terrible behavior, crime is inevitable. Parents aren't doing their job, people are having kids without any care for their well-being, violence in the home and at school, abuse of all kinds, trafficking, early use of drugs- where does it stop? What do we do about kids stealing cars, committing armed robbery and other major crimes when they're as young as 9-10 years old?
The link is from the NIH and shows that exposure to lead and its impact on criminal/anti-social behavior is not negligible. It includes Milwaukee in this study and it's not surprising, do to the lack of effort by the city to eliminate lead pipes feeding homes from the water supply system. The city leaders have done nothing, aside from kicking that can down the road, in hopes that someone (Federal Government) will pay for the removal and installation of an alternative. As I have posted, crime is rampant here and while it has periodic decreases, it's trending upward anyway.
Prior research has demonstrated an association between lead exposure and criminal behavior at the population-level, however studies exploring the effect of lead exposure on criminal behavior at the individual-level have not been reviewed ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I'm a big fan of parents doing their job, raising their kids to respect the parents, themselves and others. There's not enough of that now and I don't mean 'respect' in the sense where someone attacks another person when "they disrespected me", as if they deserve total respect just because they exist. Basic respect, sure, but to a large degree, respect is earned and it can also be lost, very easily. I think the prison systems need to rehabilitate, not just let prisoners rot, only to die outside or return, after more and worse crimes have been committed.
There's so much more to this that we don't have space to address it but IMO, parents have really dropped the ball, in all levels of income, class, whatever it can be called.
