And my original statement is true, I think. Maybe I should have emphasized the certainty of punishment. Germany has many fewer murderers per capita, because Germans are far more rule bound than Americans are, Americans in general. The object is to security the public safety, and the judicial system works better because it is less arbitrary. The roles of officials are better defined, the personnel better trained. So I expect that the parole system works better than ours. The end result is that the average position is more secure in his persons and possessions than we are. At least this the case fifteen or twenty years ago, and even more so before the Wall came down. Whether or not the abolishment of the death system would work in the United States is an open question, but I think the Germans are managing their society quite well without it.
“And my original statement is true, I think.”
No, it was not. You said that murderers stay locked up. But the facts are that they don't stay locked up anymore than in the US.
“Maybe I should have emphasized the certainty of punishment.”
Here, too, despite the sensationalism in cases to the contrary, most murders in the US are solved, and the murderers mostly serve as much prison time as in Germany.
“The end result is that the average position is more secure in his persons and possessions than we are.”
I'm not sure this is a result of better training of judicial or law enforcement personnel, or that the judicial system has a somewhat different character.
“...because Germans are far more rule bound than Americans are, Americans in general”
This, I think, is closer to the truth. Germany's culture is different from ours, and is also more homogenous. A secondary effect of that may impact the efficacy and efficiency of the judicial system, but even if Germany had a less functional judicial system, I'd imagine that their crime rate (including violent crimes) would still be lower because, as you say, Germans are more rule-bound than Americans generally.
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