I guess I can't just cleanly extricate myself from this one.
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Originally Posted by Buk_A_neer
The fact that jails are full of repeat offenders ? ... do I need to prove that point with statistics ?
I have a niece in social work and a few police officers in the family ( both immediate and extended family ) and their statistics seem very different from yours ( albeit anecdotal as they actually deal with these people on a daily basis and not from the comfort of a classroom  ) |
Of course the jails are "full" of repeat offenders - repeat offenders are more likely to be incarcerated. The jails are also disproportionately full of aboriginals... in short, jail populations do not tell us much about crime in the real world.
For what it's worth (nothing), my uncle is the head of the City of Calgary's Social Work Department. I know numerous prison guards and police officers, and both of these groups are about the most biased out there in respect to beliefs about crime. Guess what social group is more likely to engage in child and spousal abuse than the general population... not really the most objective information source if you ask me. Like asking a Haliburton executive if Bush should allow oil extraction in Alaska's nature reserves.
Marijuana is only illegal because Emily Murphy decided at the turn of the century that it was a tool of "the yellow man" (her words; see "The Black Candle") to seduce young white women. She went off to Ottawa, petitioned the boys in the houses, and they banned it in short order. Personally I am in favour of legalization of all banned narcotics.
Cptn, ah right, as I said before though, if like me you believe that greed under our definition is always adaptive, then you could say that any hoarding/resource storing behaviour is greedy...