Solitary Confinement

I feel very differential about the topic of Solitary Confinement. Although it does do some good, sometimes it can cause more harm. I would still like to keep solitary confinement in the prison systems, but it would be more regulated.
I would draft a law regulating the use of solitary confinement. In my law, there would be a 6 week maximum time limit, that way no one would be in solitary confinement for a super long time because if they are in there for a really long time then they might go crazy and become phsychaotic. Also, when they are in solitary confinment, they should have at least an hour outside in the sun, not in the halls. They should also be able to interact with other prisoners for an hour os so too. Also, the rooms should be bigger and have at leat one window and maybe some fun things so that the prisoners have something to look at. And if you let them paint their cell then it will make the room look brighter and will make them hapier and not as mean and crazy.
I would restrict the prison officials discretion because they seem like they would lie a lot and really don't care about the prisoners in solitary confinements welfare or well being. The prison officials seem like they would just want the inmates to be out of their way so that they can just sit ther and watch the inmates. I would give a 6 week maximum time limit in solitary confinement because i had a hard time being quiet for a minute, so it must be horrible to be in a room by yourself for a really long tiime. Plus, it would make the inmates more happier.
I would probably not allow prisoners to go to court and challenge their solitary confinment because it is only 6 weeks or less, so they should just act good. I would let them challenge this if it seemed unjust or if they are not menatlly ready to handle isolation. If they were not menatally or emotionally ready to handle solitary coonfinement then i wouldn't let them do it because they can go crazy and i wouldn't want that because i would feel bad. Or if the prison officials were mean (but i would make sure that all the prison officials would be nice to the inmates). But my solitary confinement would only be 6 weeks at the most, along with inmate interaction time, outside in the sun time, a bigger room, and then they could customize and paint their room. So soiltary confinement wouldn't be so bad.

GANGS! :)

Yeah, i do believe that gangs will always exist. Gangs are powerful, and a lot of people, especially younger kids and teenagers. Gangs are in almost every state, so there are tons of them right now, so they will probvably always be there. Also, sets are formed, and there are a lot of those too. Gangs are a source of power, money, safety, love, belonging, discipline and other things. This is appealing to young adults because they want to have an identity and feel that they belong there.
I dont know if anything will work. The witness protection program seems promising because the people move away ang get a new identity, but it doesn't last forever and you cant talk to your family, so that sucks. Since gangs are not afraid of the police, that won't work very well either. I personally will just try to saty away from gangs and their members, but if i am approached i will either run, or just tell them that i am anti-gang. Or i would just talk to them until they realized that i'm a nice person! :) Overall, gangs will probably always be here! Theres way too many of them for them not to exist!

Death Penalty- Is it Right?

I do believe that in most cases death penalty is a deterrent to crime because if a person kills a whole bunch of people(on purpose) then they deserve to die because they will probably just end up doing it again. So for the public safety, serial killers and really horrible murderers can get the death penalty. When serial killers are killed they will never be out in public again, killing innocent people.
The biggest weakness is that if someone does receive capital punishment but they are innocent, the an innocent person just died for no reason! It's not fair if an innocent person dies in place of someone who is guilty and out in public still.
However, the biggest benefit of death penalty is that it would take serial killers and murders off of our streets forever. This is a big benefit because it makes the public feel safe and it is a great deterrent as well.
I cannot beleive that it costs so much money to keep a prisoner in jail for one year, and how much the death penalty is. It is a lot of money. I think that they should use death penalty when they really need to, and to incarcerate super serious crimes. And if possinble to use rehab more often because its less money and it is beneficial to the offender!

Insanity

I believe that the insane law can be a good law at times. I think that it is necessary to have this law because if someone really is insane then they have to plea it (like the Yates case). But a lot of people take advantage of the insanity plea because they want a lesser punishment. I think that doing that is messed up becasue you can't fake at being insane, so its just a waste of time faking it.
I believe that insanity should be considered in criminal cases because some people really are insane and don't know right from wrong. If you severely punish an insane person they will not understand why they are getting punished so harshly. So i think that a good punishment for an insane person is for them to be placed into a mental facility where they will be locked up and would not be able to leave the campus/mental facility.
I believe that a person is insane when they don't know the difference between roght and wrong. Like Andrea Yates, she was insane because she killed her 5 young kids because satan told her to. She thought that she was being a bad mother and that by killing her kids she was actually saving them. I think that Yates should be in a closed mental facility, not an open campus because she can potentially be a harm to society because if she killed her own kids, what would stop her from killing complete strangers. She loved her kids so killing them would be a lot harder and more emotionally painful then killing complete strangers. She deserves to be in a mental facility/psychiatric ward forever.

My thoughts on US crime

I think that a good way to reduce crime in the United States is to put up stronger borders around the United States. With stronger borders there will be less illegal aliens and less convicts and terrorists coming into the United States. But in class we also learned that Media, Genetics, and poverty also play a huge role in the causes of crime.
I think that stricter law enforcement will help reduce crime along with putting up stronger borders around the United States. With more law enforcement, criminals will get harsher consequences. By putting up borders around the United States illegal aliens and criminals will have a more difficult time getting into the United States, if they can get in at all. With media, i think that by making sure that parental advisories on movies and videogames are set, making sure that the people who are watching the mature movie or playing the violent game can handle it.
There are some limitations though. Of course, many criminals will slip through the cracks, and some will not get caught by law enforcement when they do something wrong or illegal. Also, even though putting up borders around the United States is a great idea and a good way to keep unwanted illegal aliens and criminals out of the United States, it will cost a lot of money that we can't afford to spend. There would be a lot of borders to put up, which would take a ton of time and money.