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One of the things wrong in this society is that we punish people severely for meaningless crime (smoking pot) and allow murderers to walk free after a few years of incarceration. It's a backward system however, not unlike the inquisitions of olden times.

My brother committed a heinous crime when he was 19. It involved kidnapping, robbery and the use of a gun. He spent 8 and 1/2 years in prison and it is my opinion that he should have spent the whole 23 years. Why? First of all the use of a gun. This is and always has been a life threatening tool used to scare someone into submitting to another's will. Second, there were children involved, a trauma that they will live with for the rest of their lives. Thirdly, each person had to see what the other one was going through. How horrible!

When my brother was released those that stood by him, he rejected and turned his back on. Those who supported him by keeping him in monetary funds were left in the cold and he spoke to no-one even though his profession of getting out was his new found relationship with God.

Had my brother committed murder and I new then what I know now on how to keep him in prison I would have waged a war against him getting out before his time was finished. My brother still won't speak to me, he hated his mom until she died and she stood by him faithfully by visiting him each two weeks and the drive was 5 hours each way.

I don't believe my brother was rehabilitated, he was hardened even worse than when he went in but it was his own fault, choices and consequences. He made the wrong choice and he should have endured the entire consequence.

What is needed is a true system of punishment. Stop letting out the criminals who murder, rape, abuse others and the ones that should be released let them go. What good is it to lock up a person for life because he smoked a joint 3 times and now he's a lifer. It makes me sick and makes no sense. Until the government decided in the seventies that pot should be a schedule 3 drug it was legal and those who used it were docile. Because the government can't control it and instead makes money on marijuana then we arrest people. Why not arrest drunks with the same vigor. Lock them up for life for the third offense it makes more sense because these people kill other people without any thought for anyone but themselves.

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