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Kadath and ubertuber,
The general consensus among criminologists (and sociologists, for that matter) is that increasing penalties for crimes will not lower crime rates--in fact, the evidence strongly suggests increasing penalties leads to an increase in crime.
Politicians have used the public's fear and ignorance as a platform and now the link between intensifying punishment and higher crime rates is an untenable and unfathomable position in the public sphere.
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann
"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman
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