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So it looks like WNBA’s Brittney Griner’s 9-Year Prison Sentence Upheld In Russian Appeal Court.
One thing I find interesting about the whole ordeal is the similarities between her case and the Jan6 detainees, in both an hostile government dishes disproportionate punishment to a member of an opposing tribe.
While I feel for Ms. Griner I can't help, but chuckle at the parallels and remind myself that in the real world there aren't good guys, just your guys and theirs.
Jan. 6 detainees say a D.C. jail is so awful that they'd like a transfer to Guantanamo
Glossing over the performative nature of this gesture, you'd think the travails of the Jan. 6 rioters would engender a degree of sympathy for criminal justice reformers. Instead, the reaction seems to be outrage that Upstanding Citizens like themselves should be subject to the same conditions as common criminals.
If they were subject to the same conditions as common criminals, they'd have been released without bail and then had the charges quietly dropped.
If this is how common criminals are treated, how does the US end up with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world?
As someone involved in criminal defense you're aware the US incarceration rate has already plummeted due to such policies, and the advocates say they will not stop until it drops to zero.
So I'm curious why you asked the question, really.
You made a claim about "common criminals". Are you implying that the 2 million people currently behind bars are by definition "uncommon"?
The incarceration rate in state and local prisons has dropped to its lowest level since 1990 despite serious crimes such as murder increasing by 30-40%+ in the last few years. Are you suggesting that common criminals are still being jailed at the same rates, or do you acknowledge the enormous policy changes that have caused this?
bailey: "common criminals get released without bail and then have their charges quietly dropped"
motte: "the incarceration rate has gone down in recent years"
In fairness your original comment was rather ambiguous, but had you just claimed the latter I wouldn't have taken any issue.
The flow of new criminals into incarceration has slowed dramatically despite skyrocketing crime rates due to criminals now being released without bail even after multiple offenses
If crime was plummeting you could claim that the burden of proof was on me to prove the incarceration drop wasn't simply due to everyone becoming more law-abiding. But the "crime isn't going up, you're just imagining things" tactic failed back in 2021, and everyone responsible already swept it under the rug.
Actually, that's something I'd love to ask our local forum historians about, because I distinctly remember those claims being made even after the 2020 murder rate stats came out.
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