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Post by zebrarick on May 1, 2008 15:04:03 GMT -5
If you die early from smoking I wonder if the costs balance out to the onces we are keeping alive on such long lives?
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Post by zebrarick on May 1, 2008 15:06:18 GMT -5
I do not agree with an all out ban on smoking as far as your home and auto are concerned. But I will vote yes to keep it out of places I want to go to.
BTW Big Brother allready had you at income taxes.
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Post by italianlady on May 1, 2008 15:42:29 GMT -5
I do not agree with an all out ban on smoking as far as your home and auto are concerned. But I will vote yes to keep it out of places I want to go to. BTW Big Brother allready had you at income taxes. i certainly agree there are some public places that people should not be allowed to smoke. but i also think it is the owner's right if they want to allow smoking in thier establishment. BTW back.. we haven't even begain to see what "Big Brother' can and will do  |
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Post by zebrarick on May 1, 2008 15:55:48 GMT -5
How do you know he has not?  |
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Post by mattoid on May 1, 2008 21:55:58 GMT -5
Here's my biggest gripe, bars. The people of Oklahoma City actually had an intelligent thought (yeah, scary huh). When they wrote up their proposal, establishments that made more that %51 of the money on alcohol had the choice to go smoke free or not. And it passed. Something like that I will support. And we already have the signs posted at bars because of the concealed hand gun laws. But this cluster bomb concept, Nah can't support it. I don't smoke, hate it, but for some reason at the bars it doesn't bother me. Guess it's the massive amounts of alcohol that deaden the feel But trying to eat a nice dinner and smell it triggers William Wallace mode SO mark me down as a 'No' Vote....again |
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Post by petiepanzer on May 2, 2008 12:28:50 GMT -5
I don't support a smoking ban in bars. Many of the places that have passed these ordinances have had trouble with enforcement. The local police departments don't want to deal with one more law to enforce and the health departments usually don't have the manpower to go out and enforce this law, especially after hours when much of the potential violations of this ordinance would be taking place.
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Post by marked on May 2, 2008 13:04:17 GMT -5
I was going to vote against the ban until I got some stupid flyer from the speakout amarillo people saying we had lost too many of our rights like: seat belts, ten commandments and guns. What a moron. You don't have to wear a seatbelt. You can walk down the streets of Amarillo carrying a Browning Superposed and the Ten Commandments if you want.
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Post by west-texan on May 2, 2008 17:44:01 GMT -5
Rednecks are the only ones who think they shouldn't be wearing seat-belts.
They're the same morons who think it should be their choice as to whether they buckle-up their children.
If a child is injured in any way in a traffic accident...and the child was not buckled-up...then it should be a mandatory prison sentence for the adult driver for not buckling up the child.
>>> Don't buckle up your child...and that child is hurt in an accident...you should go to prison.
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Post by petiepanzer on May 5, 2008 10:03:59 GMT -5
Rednecks are the only ones who think they shouldn't be wearing seat-belts. They're the same morons who think it should be their choice as to whether they buckle-up their children. If a child is injured in any way in a traffic accident...and the child was not buckled-up...then it should be a mandatory prison sentence for the adult driver for not buckling up the child. >>> Don't buckle up your child...and that child is hurt in an accident...you should go to prison. We already lead the world in incarcerated individuals, both as a percentage of our population and as a total figure. I really don't think placing more people behind bars in this country is the answer. We have already devolved into enough of a Police State as it is. It costs, on average, around $35K to keep a person incarcerated in this country for 1 year. Those are resources that could be put to much better use in our society, especially considering most of the people currently serving time are non-violent offenders. At the same time, many of these people could be working and contributing to society, instead of rotting away in a jail cell. Somewhere along the line, we have decided to make corrections more about punishment and less about rehabilitation, which is not good for our society. Compare our prison system in this country with that of the Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, for example, there are no sentences longer than 10 years. During an inmates incarceration, they are required to obtain either a college degree or they are required to learn some type of technical trade. The logic here is that they will be much less likely to return to prison if they have an effective way to earn a living. Once they are released, they do not have any type of record that is available to a potential employer. They feel that a person is not going to be able to find a job if the employer realizes the applicant has a criminal record. Agree or disagree with their system, they have less than 10% of their people ever return to prison, which is a much lower number than we have in this country. We need a major shift in the way we look at correctional policy in this country. Many states are now spending more on corrections than they are on education, and that is the ultimate travesty. At the rate we are going, the words to the Star-Spangled Banner are going to have to be changed from 'the land of the free' to 'the land of the incarcerated'. |
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Post by petiepanzer on May 5, 2008 10:07:19 GMT -5
Report: 1 in every 100 Americans behind bars
02/28/2008 @ 12:35 pm
Filed by Associated Press
Report: 1 in every 100 Americans behind bars Total is far more than any other country in the world
Advertisement
By DAVID CRARY Associated Press
NEW YORK — For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.
The report, released today by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.
Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.
The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.
Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft on crime.
"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective."
The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.
"The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens," the report said.
While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed cautiously.
"We need to be smarter," said David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "We're not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes — but we're also probably incarcerating people who don't need to be."
According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.
The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state's inmate population has increased by 600 percent.
The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.
"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," said the project's director, Adam Gelb. "More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers."
The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.
"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."
The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails — a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.
The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.
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Post by zebrarick on May 5, 2008 10:25:22 GMT -5
We could digress more and just stone them on the square. It might make Amarillo dowtown more useful. Yes this is a scaracstic tone and not meant for insight at all.
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Post by sj on May 5, 2008 17:40:14 GMT -5
I vote no.
To find out why, send $10.00 to Post Office box 519.....79109
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Post by west-texan on May 5, 2008 22:26:13 GMT -5
I vote no. To find out why, send $10.00 to Post Office box 519.....79109 You can wish... ;D Too bad I don't have incriminating secret info on SJ...  Because if I did...I'd be demanding weekly payments of $100 in small un-marked bills...placed behind the 3rd bush from the left @ Southwest Park on Bell.  |
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Post by phantom on May 5, 2008 22:40:52 GMT -5
Hmmm, I'll have to start checking that bush when I'm in town. |
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Post by mattoid on May 5, 2008 22:59:13 GMT -5
Hmmm, I'll have to start checking that bush when I'm in town. I could say something, but I'll remain quiet... ;D |
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