You couldn't be more wrong. Swedish drug laws are old fashioned and that is one time you will go to jail. Pot smoking included.

It's not remotely a debate; it's a well founded fact supported by rock-solid, irrefutable evidence. The recidivism rate in the USA is a whopping 44% after only 1 year, which is the highest in the world. In Scandinavian countries, it's only 20-25% after FIVE YEARS, and is the lowest in the world. Anyone who thinks there's still a debate in the face of evidence like that is just a stubborn grump who thinks criminals should be punished instead of rehabilitated, and is unwilling to change their view.

@Seth And it will never change until for-profit prisons are eliminated.

Sweden, where I lived for many years, has the lowest conviction rate in the world. There is a massive effort to keep people out of jail. That might sound amazing but come back to me and say that when someone close to you has been ra*ped and the prosecutor says the case won't go to court

I'd still chose the timeline where they're less likely to reoffend, rather than the timeline where they go to punishment summer camp, and only learn how to be a more successful criminal.

@Rainclouds Radio What was your experience?

Justice must not only be done, it must be *seen* to be done. This does not happen in Sweden

You make it sound like justice is first and foremost a spectator sport, and that the system should focus its attention on the theater of serving justice, rather than actually objectively reducing crime. When authority focuses it's effort on convincing people things are going well instead of actually producing a better result, it never ends well for the society they preside over. I'll take actual results over pandering any day.

You actually can force people in treatment here. We have four laws on involuntary treatment: treatment of viral infections that are considered dangerous to the public, treatment of severe substance abuse, treatment of severe mental illness or treatment of criminal children. The problem (not including the first one) is that they usually aren't effective, in many cases they make people feel worse.

5150'ing someone is a LOT of red tape. It's not just as easy as forcing them into treatment.

@Scrogginj Humans yes... Humans deserving of a another chance after raping and molesting children? Murdering innocent Men and Women? No. Imo keep that Human scum behind bars...

Man, I wish the USA had the resources to focus on violent offenders like you're talking about. I guess technically we *have* those resources, we're just wasting billions tearing nonviolent drug offenders out of the free work force and through clogged courts so private prison contractors can exploit these "criminals" exemption from the 13th amendment to make them work for slave wages. I'm not keen on freeing predators, but it would be nice if we could focus our limited resources on imprisoning "human scum" instead of institutionalizing every troubled youth caught with a little gigglebush... 4% of the world population, 20% of the world's prison population. Land of the free, right?

I didn’t say anything about letting them out but keep that hate in your heart. It’ll take you far in life.