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Originally Posted by FoolThemAll
Sure. Let's just replace the judges with prison guards, then, since ideally the sentences judges hand down are just polite suggestions to be ignored.
If you want revenge, elect like-minded judges. Don't support the usurping of democracy just because it suits your agenda. That's not just an attack on incarcerated criminals, that's an attack on the right of everyone to have a say in the judicial system.
Prison guards have NO right to alter a prisoner's sentence through dereliction of duty. If it's a matter of limited resources and an incident innocently slipping past the guards' watch, fine, but intentionally looking the other way deserves disciplinary action, if not loss of job.
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Who said a word about guards altering anything? I'm not sure where you're getting that idea or that judges should be replaced with prison guards....funny how we cull something when not a word was said about it.
What I said was they are fair game once inside. Being tattooed on the forehead by other inmates clearly shows that. To think that democracy is at work once inside prison walls is wishful thinking when it comes to the hierarchy of prison life for these guys and so be it. The judges are more aware than any layperson would be of what goes on and sentences accordingly. Do you think for a minute that Robert Downey, when sent to serve his drug sentence, got put in the same block as rapists and child killers? Or that white collar criminals do? If you read newspaper articles about people being held in custody for various crimes, there are times when it's prudent that certain people be isolated for their own protection-child molesters, crooked cops, etc.-because of the hierarchy/code of behavior that goes on.
Guards are the only law they have and I know I for one couldn't do that job; they don't have one guard/one prisoner ratios anywhere that I ever heard of and while we are certainly lightyears removed from the 'Turkish prison' mentality, to think for a minute that there's democracy at work inside is altruistic. Democracy ends when the gavel comes down for the one it came down for.