What's more productive for the country where they committed the crime 1) Serving the local community in a variety of needs that it desperately needs, as this country is a prime example of the third world or 2) Rotting in a local overcrowded jail stitching knickers?

The crime they committed was non-violent, they didn't attempt theft of a person's assets etc. they were basically just carrying a product that people desire and want, but it just so happens that this product is highly illegal and for that reason it carries a ridiculous street value. If it were legal and in decent supply, then it probably wouldn't cost that much more the cigarettes and booze.

Not directly anyway.

lol at community service, trafficking 1.5m of a class A drug (which carries a life sentence here) but you're suggesting community service. If it's anything like it is in England it'll be a barrel of laughs. I can't imagine many young mules thinking about trafficking for large amounts of cash being deterred by the prospect of 5 years living in Peru and learning new skills ffs :D.

5 years living abroad and learning sounds like a dream to me.

The 1.5m is a price created by the market, in reality it's just 11 kilos of white powder that is potent and not worth anywhere near that, but people are willing to pay inflated prices for it because it's illegal.

I wasn't comparing it to community service here, which is a joke I agree but the community service there would be anything but a holiday, we're not talking about sticking them on Copacabana beach for 5 years.

Five years living abroad for some would be a dream but how much of a dream would five years be when you work an 8 hour day 5 days a week for no or little pay, with no family or friends around. Also Your days off wandering around a picturesque shanty town or a back of the beyond village in an alien environment, does this sound great to you? This is a working punishment and hardly the stuff of dreams and it makes far more sense than just chucking people into jail to rot.

Can't be arsed to get into a discussion about the legality of drugs, the market and so on.

Doesn't intimidate me, no. My mom's family come from Belize (not too far from Peru), they live in a shanty town, I have actually considered living there myself.

Spending years in prison would intimidate me far more. Even a British prison would make me sh1t myself.

If I were to consider smuggling drugs and I knew my punishment would be community service abroad then I'd be far less worried about being caught and more likely to go for it.

See, this is the same argument that people spew when others get locked up for drugs that would be used for recreational purposes. It's usually a small amount but they get locked away regardless. The amount alone warrants them to rot in an overcrowded jail stitching knickers because the crime may be non-violent but it's funding violent crimes. When you are carrying that much product it usually has different means that it is going for like paying off weapons etc.

They're about as close as the UK is to Mali.

That's a minority opinion in every sense, some people might see living in a shanty town as romantic notion, personally I don't.

Good luck if you choose to live somewhere like this. Does the one in Belize that you thought about living in look like this?
http://images.travelpod.com/users/da...th-of-lima.jpg

I think if you asked the two girls which option they prefer, I reckon there's a good chance they choose doing their time in British prison over the community service far from home. At least in a British prison, they'd be on home soil and would have visits from family and friends. Also it's ludicrous to compare the British penal system to a Peruvian one, there's no comparison.

You might, but a lot wouldn't

That might be true concerning the dealers and drug barons, but the mule carriers who we are concerned with here, by and large would have no notion of the bigger picture that you're painting.

Mali is further away and the two countries are closer in terms of culture than the UK is to Mali.

Yep I accept this to be fair but you asked me the question so I answered it. And plenty of students volunteer to work in these shitholes. Never seen any who'd volunteer to serve a prison sentence.

No because it's not on a hill.

I didn't say that, I just pointed out prison would intimidate me more, even somewhere as cushty as Britain.

I would much rather do community service abroad than spend time in a British prison.

No way of proving this so could only answer from my own perspective. But yes I think if these mules knew beforehand they'd only be getting 5 years community service as opposed to 20 in prison if they get caught you'd see an increase in people attempting to smuggle illegal drugs.

I purposefully put that example in, as I knew you'd answer like so. It wouldn't overly phase you out because you are from or have a knowledge of the culture of Belize and therefore could adapt more easily to a Peruvian culture (language aside unless you have Spanish knowledge) For the girls concerned though, Peruvian culture is about as far from the UK as you can get.

Yes they volunteer for a set period of time and they are free to leave it any time they want, that's why they volunteer to do it. Volunteering for something with freedom of liberties, is non-comparable with stringent coercion for a set time period.

That picture looks on a hill to me and also what has a shanty town on a hill got to do with it anyway, unless you're into panoramic views.

That's because you're basing this on an easy British community service system, which would not be comparable to a lot of countries. Just take the example of the old Soviet work camps, which could be deemed as community service in hindsight. I'm just suggesting something similar, but with more dignity for the inmates and a greater benefit to the local community. And it would also tackle the atrocious overcrowding that exist in these places that pass for prisons.

Unsubstantiated, simply because the 15 to 25 years in most Latin American countries has been in force for a long time now and there has been no real increase or decrease in the amount of trafficking that goes on. Empirical evidence would suggest that lengthy prison terms are really no real deterrent at all.

They are a link in the chain though and if they can't get the big drug barons at the top they might as well make examples out of the mules to discourage other people from doing it especially if with your idea they wouldn't be punished as harshly.

You know how many people would get into muling with your punishment if they knew that there wasn't any real risk to it? Woohoo if we get caught then all we have to do is community service.

That's right, just because you can't get the really big fish there due to corruption, let's hang the little fish out to dry and make a good and proper example of them.

As I said before, empirical evidence suggests that regardless of whether there are 25 years punishment if caught, people will still knowingly smuggle and the drugs will still arrive in Europe to meet the demand. So without tackling the root cause here, which are the drug barons, corrupt customs officials and police officers who enable certain mules to get through, it seems hardly ethical to slap a 25 year prison term on a mule, when the judiciary system there is fully aware of what is really going on.