Picking Cotton Questions

[innocent_man]

1. What did you think of the format where the two switched off writing their own sections and then had the one combining the two? Did you find it effective?

Sure. I thought it was pretty seamlessly edited together, and their voices are distinct enough that it made for an easy read.

2. After reading Jennifer's section of the book, did you find

Comments

[chrisondra]

I honestly think there are more people in the prisons than actually deserve to be there. Guilty and deserving to be there are two very different things. There are several crimes you can be sent to prison for that I don't think people should be sent there for along with all the baggage that goes with it, even assuming they're guilty.

>>The idea is that you're innocent until proven guilty<<

Now, here's an interesting tidbit. I'm not 100% it's true, but I remember hearing/reading that, in England (or maybe Belgium, now that I think about it, I might have read it in my Deviant Sociology text and he visited Belgium), you're guilty until proven innocent. It sounds jaw-dropping at first, but the idea is that being guilty until being proven innocent puts the burden of proof on innocence rather than guilt. So the courts aren't there to prove someone's guilty, the courts are there to prove someone's innocent.

It's an interesting outlook, I think.

[innocent_man]

There are several crimes you can be sent to prison for that I don't think people should be sent there for along with all the baggage that goes with it, even assuming they're guilty.

Definitely agree. As a point of interest, I chatted with a trial judge some years back, and he told me it was his personal policy never to give jail time to someone who wasn't a violent offender, if he could avoid it. In particular, he said locking folks up for drug charges bugged him, because all jail time did was turn them into real criminals.

[chrisondra]

That's cool of the judge! And it takes away so much from them.. time in their lives, their right to vote, dampens their chance to get a job, etc. The unemployment rate of ex-felons is so bad that it's not even averaged into the US unemployment rate because it would take the percentage up an entire point or two.