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From: preece@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Missing Handgun - (nf)
Message-ID: <3094@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Oct-83 23:08:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3094
Posted: Mon Oct  3 23:08:50 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Oct-83 12:15:05 EDT
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#R:ccieng5:-14700:uicsl:4300087:000:2608
uicsl!preece    Oct  3 09:32:00 1983

Oath of Fealty requires a level of surveillance I wouldn't like. You
really have to trust the watchers' dedication to your freedoms for
that to work.

I can't believe that guns are much help against street crime. The guy
who jumped you from behind and put a knife to your throat is going to
let you get your gun out of your purse?

Maybe we'll all have implants that let us talk via cellular radio to
a real worldnet and will be able to ask for help no matter what the
attacker does (links to metabolic sensors would trigger a call for
help even if you were knocked unconscious), but that's a little way
off yet. Radio-linked panic buttons could help, but still require
some obvious motion to trigger, which might trigger the attacker.

My own theory of penology is transportation, as practised by the
English in the last century. I can't support capital punishment and
I think current prisons are counter-productive. I'd like to see
serious or repeated offenders, those felt by a jury to be a likely
future threat to their fellow citizens, moved to a separate place,
wherein they could lead reasonably normal lives, with their families,
earning normal wages at a full range of jobs, under strict supervision.
Specific supervision would be tailored to the individual's proclivities
(the embezzler might still be allowed to be an accountant, but would
be observed more carefully, the rapist would be subject to more 
movement control). Within this context the transportees would be
subject to stricter monitoring, likely including radio position monitors.
The problem is, the lifestyle might be nicer than that of many people
on the outside. There are a lot of people who wouldn't mind having
people watching over their shoulders as in Oath of Fealty. The idea
of permanent sequestration should make 'free' society safer for
the rest of us without the idiocy of the current system that equates
the embezzler with the murderer, the rapist with the tax evader.
There's no reason the prison colony has to be run by corrupt or
inept administrators (as in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress).

I'm not sure, though, that I'm quite as depressed as laura about the
quality of life, even in cities. The vast majority of people who live in
Toronto have not been mugged, raped, or murdered. I know people who
have been burglarized, but I know many more who haven't. I worry about my
five-year old walking to school, but I also know that no kids have been
abducted or molested in our neighborhood in living memory. Perhaps reality
isn't quite as threatening as our perceptions of it.

scott preece
pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece