• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Stolen smokes: Florida man gets 20 years for $600 cigarette theft

Agree with the sentence

  • Total voters
    35
JANFU said:
https://ottawasun.com/news/crime/st...heft/wcm/29b82bc5-4c0c-4613-9f01-311e331e1030


Average cost of prisoners, 19 K in 2015
20 years, no wonder the US has the highest incarceration rates in the world
Click to expand...

Not sure what you are saying. Are you saying we should let habitual felony offenders run around loose all the time? I mean, really, why arrest anyone for anything if we're just going to put a revolving door on the jail? Maybe we can give them keys like Otis Cambell on the Andy Griffith Show and let them come and go as they please. What costs a lot is having large size police forces to rearrest the very same people over and over plus we also have to pay for attorneys and judges, courthouses, etc for reprocessing the same people over and over again. We should just quit arresting people and let all criminals run around loose. There's no point in arresting all of these people if we're just going to let them right back out, especially when they have been arrested numerous times and letting them right back out numerous times.
 
Last edited:
Moderate Right said:
Not sure what you are saying. Are you saying we should let habitual felony offenders run around loose all the time? I mean, really, why arrest anyone for anything if we're just going to put a revolving door on the jail? Maybe we can give them keys like Otis Cambell on the Andy Griffith Show and let them come and go as they please. What costs a lot is having large size police forces to rearrest the very same people over and over plus we also have to pay for attorneys and judges, courthouses, etc for reprocessing the same people over and over again. We should just quit arresting people and let all criminals run around loose. There's no point in arresting all of these people if we're just going to let them right back out, especially when they have been arrested numerous times and letting them right back out numerous times.
Click to expand...

It's just another bash The United States thread.
 
JANFU said:
https://ottawasun.com/news/crime/st...heft/wcm/29b82bc5-4c0c-4613-9f01-311e331e1030

Average cost of prisoners, 19 K in 2015
20 years, no wonder the US has the highest incarceration rates in the world
Click to expand...

It's a miscarriage of justice. Yes, he has a lot of other convictions, but it still doesn't amount to a serious offense that requires such a long incarceration. At some point you have to stop the escalation of sentencing and realize that various incidents just don't qualify as anything serious.

I picked 1-3 years, but lean mostly towards about 1 year. I might actually just prefer some kind of mandatory community service over any jail time. That not only saves money from not incarcerating someone for a year but you can also get some labor on a job that most likely needs to be done anyways.
 
Helix said:
cigarettes are sixty bucks a carton now? FFS.
Click to expand...

Depends on state taxes. Around here the premium brands are 5.50 to 6.00 bucks a pack times 10. In California they cost around 8 bucks a pack. In New York they're over $10.00. It's becoming like prohibition.
 
hanger4 said:
Depends on state taxes. Around here the premium brands are 5.50 to 6.00 bucks a pack times 10. In California they cost around 8 bucks a pack. In New York they're over $10.00. It's becoming like prohibition.
Click to expand...

i see a lot of people buying roll your own and off brands at the boozery. i suppose that when they close that loophole, the black market will step in as it always does during times of prohibition. i'm glad that i'm out of that particular money suck.
 
gdgyva said:
How about we just chop his hands off like they do in other countries? :doh

I mean, 45 previous convictions...talk about career criminal
Click to expand...

I’ll bet there would be some ‘second thoughts!’........and many people answering to “Lefty!” :mrgreen:
 
Obviously he didnt get the sentence JUST for stealing cigarettes...which is bad enough...but as a habitual offender...someone that is bent on a life of victimizing others.
 
This guy didn't just get blind sided by this. He was warned, repeatedly. I've worked with people who are part of the criminal system and they know they are becoming habitual offenders. They are warned by judges that if this happens again - usually more than once. POs also warn them. Their defenders do. Not to mention it is fairly common knowledge. This man knew he would get locked up for a long period of time if he kept up his criminal ways and choose (knowing the consequences) to commit the actions.

And there is this.

He went into the Circle K in the 200 block of West Cervantes Street and took 10 cartons of cigarettes from a locked manager's office in the stock room.
Click to expand...

He broke into a locked office to steal the cigarettes. That is burglary. A felony. Not just petty theft.
 
Nap said:
How does one possibly have 46 convictions in 48 years, it seems apparent this person actually wants to live out the rest of his days in prison. I wonder if it isn't possible to come up with a work program within a prison system so that the prisoners can essentially work off their debt to society.
Click to expand...

One incident can generate any number of different felonies. Especially if the prosecutor is creative.
 
Jesse Booth said:
I'm firmly of the opinion that unless you pose a likely threat to other people, you should not be jailed. Community service and fines for his theft, jail time if he threatened anyone with a weapon or something similar.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. We put people in jail who do not represent a threat to anyone. They should be fined - heavily - forced to make restitution (2x, 3x whatever makes sense), community service etc. Prison should be reserved for those who are actually dangerous.
 
Habitual offender statutes are simply ****ed up.
 
The thief did not initiate force against the government nor the public. He did so against the owner of those cigarettes. It's up to the owner of the cigarettes to determine how this gets resolved. No one else has a rightful claim to it.
 
Barnacle said:
"... The Pensacola News Journal reports that Spellman had 14 felony and 31 misdemeanor convictions prior to the cigarette theft, which qualified him as a habitual felony offender. That led to the lengthy 20-year prison sentence imposed Friday by an Escambia County judge. ..."


Good grief, man; he didn't get 20 years for just stealing some cigs ...
Click to expand...

He’s also not a very good criminal.
 
Jesse Booth said:
I'm firmly of the opinion that unless you pose a likely threat to other people, you should not be jailed. Community service and fines for his theft, jail time if he threatened anyone with a weapon or something similar.
Click to expand...

Why would he bother doing community service or paying his fines?
 
Can't we just ship him off to Australia?
 
JANFU said:
Nope- In BN MSM must use the headline for the OP.

How are the poll questions skewed?
Keep on digging instead of accepting you made a mistake.
Click to expand...

Would you please vote in your own poll so we can see your opinion as the original poster?
 
Jesse Booth said:
I'm firmly of the opinion that unless you pose a likely threat to other people, you should not be jailed. Community service and fines for his theft, jail time if he threatened anyone with a weapon or something similar.
Click to expand...

Mmm...I don't know, bud...seems like he's a threat to people trying to run a business. House arrest at minimum.
 
Jesse Booth said:
I'm firmly of the opinion that unless you pose a likely threat to other people, you should not be jailed. Community service and fines for his theft, jail time if he threatened anyone with a weapon or something similar.
Click to expand...

You pose a threat to me if you're a thief, career criminal, and would break into my home to take my property.
 
Renae said:
Used to pay $0.25 a pack when deployed.
Click to expand...

I think a pack was like a buck twenty five when I started. It was up to three something when I quit ten years ago.
 
Helix said:
I think a pack was like a buck twenty five when I started. It was up to three something when I quit ten years ago.
Click to expand...

Well this was 99-03 and on board a Navy Ship, prices are not the same as the real world, but still.
 
Moderate Right said:
Not sure what you are saying. Are you saying we should let habitual felony offenders run around loose all the time? I mean, really, why arrest anyone for anything if we're just going to put a revolving door on the jail? Maybe we can give them keys like Otis Cambell on the Andy Griffith Show and let them come and go as they please. What costs a lot is having large size police forces to rearrest the very same people over and over plus we also have to pay for attorneys and judges, courthouses, etc for reprocessing the same people over and over again. We should just quit arresting people and let all criminals run around loose. There's no point in arresting all of these people if we're just going to let them right back out, especially when they have been arrested numerous times and letting them right back out numerous times.
Click to expand...

The Russians tried an interesting experiment shortly after the Russian Revolution.

What they did was to put criminals with little chance of reform and high risk of recividism into holding camps until they had a "sufficiency" and then they transported the lot off to an isolated location where they were provided with the materials to build their own housing and raise their own food (plus enough food to enable them to survive until the next harvest). Once on the ground, the group was left alone to work out their own social order and there was no guard force (because the location was well off (read as "several weeks walk away from") any transportation route.

The Russians figured that anyone who got their act together sufficiently to actually survive an escape attempt had most likely learned enough "work skills" to enable them to reintegrate with society (and anyone who didn't was probably dead) so no effort was made to track down escapees.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom