Hungary’s main opposition Fidesz party will immediately introduce a “three strikes law”, or stricter sentences for repeat offenders, if it forms the next government, the party’s MEP Pal Schmitt said during a campaign tour in west Hungary on Friday.
While crime in general has not risen over the past few years small-scale theft is on the rise, Schmitt said, adding that criminals should be severely punished.
Order and public safety are key elements in Fidesz’s “national governance programme”, Schmitt said, adding that hiring 3,000 new police officers is among the plans.
If this is not connected with active reforms to remove the reason why people tend to become repeat offenders, then it will just increase the constant prison-population in a time, to Schmitt’s own words “While crime in general has not risen over the past few years small-scale theft is on the rise”
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Maybe we should ask for an analyse to why “small-scale theft is on the rise”?
Maybe there would be a cheaper solution, in total, to get down these numbers if the reason why “small-scale theft is on the rise”
It sound like a poverty-related crime
Viking:
You’re right. While ‘three strikes’, ‘zero tolerance’ and ‘tougher sentences’ laws are politically useful in the short-term in that they satisfy prevailing social moods at the time, and sometimes temporarily reduce crime in some cases, in the longer term they create much bigger and more complex problems to deal with.These include (but not limited to) significantly increased prison populations, overcrowding and worsening conditions, which in turn leads to a hardening of criminals, deeper entrenchment of the hatred towards society and the sharing of criminal experience between a greater number of prisoners (the ‘crime school’ phenomenon)
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Social solutions require more political will, require investment with little in terms of ‘bricks and mortar’ evidence, and generally take longer than a single election cycle to institute and show results. Furthermore, they often don’t offer much in terms of satisfaction for the ‘sense’ of justice or ‘justifiable retribution’.
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The bottom line is that social solutions ultimately do produce better results, cost less in overall investment and increase tax revenue. (people who don’t become criminals become tax payers)
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Access to education is one of the key factors here. In simple terms, the higher a person’s education, the lower the chances they will become involved with crime in the first instance, and for those educated in prison, the lower the chances of recidivism.
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As before, I can offer a lot of sources on this if required.
I thought I should add that depending on how ‘three strikes’ rules are applied, they can actually be a good thing. For instance, for ‘low value’ thefts and such, when the first strike is a community based sentence eg: probation/community service, the second is diversionary eg: compulsory activity/restorative justice/part-time detention, and the third strike eg: custodial sentence etc. Such programmes, do work to some extent and at least show the public some sense of ‘justice being seen to be done’. I still think though, that social programmes should come first.
Cinaed
@Cinaed
Have you ever considered the amount of violence from Hollywood, Media, Drugs, Porn and mainstream Music that influences people to turn into violent disfunctional Human beings?
Who control the Media, Hollywood and Music industry? Don’t you think these people who control these sources of social conditioning have abused their free will?
Tarintino directed movies are the worst and amongst western youth he is a hero, you name any movies by this guy and I bet you that they mimic all the psychotic words off by heart, instead of years ago people especially in Hungary from my relatives where very familiar with literature poetry and had real role models to look up to like Saint Laszlo, P.Sandor, King Mathias and Jesus Christ.
@ Farkas Laszlo
All due respect to your continuous Hollywood and capitalistic pragmatic approach but I believe your Hollywood is a huge part of societies problem and slowly the creeps behind this industry do have a strategic plan to keep people divided, and it’s so obvious when you see the propaganda movies over the last 60 years especially the WW2 lies.
We need radical change by Jobbik because your elite system has made changes in a progressive but sly way, bit by bit chipping away at peoples minds and hearts.
Hi Law: Actually, yes, I do consider a lot of what passes for entertainment (not just movies but music as well) as unadulterated, degenerative crap…and yes, I think the effect of a lot of this crap is really negative. Tarantino is a good example because to me it is just gratuitous violence and gore that does little more than desensitise people and trivialise the seriousness of losing our humanity.Believe me, I am the first to express my frustration that so few people enjoy or value classic literature from all around the world.What little Hungarian literature I have been able to get a hold of, I think is easily among the best in the world.
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Having said that, not every movie or song produced in the modern age is ‘guilty by association’.Many movies and songs touch people’s hearts, remind them of forgotten times and challenge them to think in ways they hadn’t considered before.Sometimes it is good to confront people with a story told from the ‘other’ point of view (certainly for those of us from western backgrounds).I don’t object to FL’s love of movies and even though I am not familiar with most of what he posts, I respect and admire his passion, just as I respect your passion for Hungary.
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So perhaps 3/4 of what clogs our airways and movie screens is unmitigated rubbish, and I do agree that a lot of people abuse the right of ‘freedom of expression’ but we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Law (cont): You do raise a good point about the influence of modern media such as music and movies.It’s a complicated thing to examine the chicken and egg relationship of whether such work is a cause or a symptom.I think it can be both, and I think that those who are already living in unstable contexts are more susceptible to suggestion.The influence of capitalism also has a similar relationship.If there wasn’t so much demand for rubbish, it wouldn’t be produced.I often question what we hope to expect when we have let our culture become guided by the value of commercial transactions and why are we surprised at mass murders etc…this is especially a problem for ‘young’ nations like Australia that don’t have as long a literary and cultural tradition as older European cultures.
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As to whether or not such media can be blamed solely for the degradation of society is less clear.Plenty of people actually do grow up in this ‘decadent’ society to become good, hard-working, honest people rather than serial killers or rapists.So for me, I think there is a lot to be said for community development, for encouraging social cohesion, for instilling in children the importance of taking responsibility for their actions and for reminding them that it is not that hard to switch the TV off.
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What I fear is that to go too far the other way, to reduce freedoms and increase censorship risks putting us on a track towards state manipulation of the people; something I think none of us really wants.
So does Law now advocate censorship ?
I thought he was for “free speech” ?
Also there is something about “Change of TV programs” in the English Jobbik programme …
Sounds strange to me …
btw-I don’t think Law was talking about censorship in this thread. I just raised it as part of the discussion on what to do about the production of potentially harmful media.