> Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat).
"eviscerate" it? That surely couldn't happen - courts are bound to reasonable jurisprudence. So clearly we'll either end up directly fixing the problem, or we'll have to modify the constitution, which is serious business, and would clearly have to be done right.
Except we already know what will happen:
> The Supreme Court ruled that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Two unquestionably wrong decisions for the purpose of expedience - what's a third? Of course courts grant themselves ever-more power! But NYT spins it as if this system were actually accountable to the poor soles [sic] caught up in it, perpetuating the false hope that it's possible to swing for the fences and change the government from within its rules.
The punishment for theft historically was (1) execution, (2) then whipping, the stockades, or some other physical abuse, and (3) more recently, imprisonment.
Consequently, in the historical scheme of things, imprisonment is considered humane under the Constitution.
More recent SCOTUS decisions are starting to swing toward more humane imprisonment terms, but it may be a long time before SCOTUS actually rules on this issue. Progress will come from the state and local levels.
You know, whipping and stockades might have been more immediately abusive, or cynically speaking, more visible to the outside world, but at least they were brief. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out the psychological and physical harm of long-term incarceration was actually worse. (It might be more effective, on account of the criminals being physically restricted from committing crimes in the outside world, but it might also be more damaging.)
> Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat).
"eviscerate" it? That surely couldn't happen - courts are bound to reasonable jurisprudence. So clearly we'll either end up directly fixing the problem, or we'll have to modify the constitution, which is serious business, and would clearly have to be done right.
Except we already know what will happen:
> The Supreme Court ruled that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Two unquestionably wrong decisions for the purpose of expedience - what's a third? Of course courts grant themselves ever-more power! But NYT spins it as if this system were actually accountable to the poor soles [sic] caught up in it, perpetuating the false hope that it's possible to swing for the fences and change the government from within its rules.