Libertarian International Organization

Death Penalty: Blue and yellow mean abolished or only special circumstances; light brown is not in use, brown is judicial murder still legal. As the death penalty-which kills inmates often abused children, rights workers,  or those with clear mental problems in cold blood-- is abolished, murder goes down  assisted by  a less coercive atmosphere and focus on prevention and environment.

A review shows that since 1969 the LIO effort to promote dialogue towards more focus on rights not wrongs, prevention not punishment, anti-death penalty and increasingly anti-punishment has spread worldwide:

1. Authoritarian countries have moved to democracy and abolition of the death penalty and life in prison…

2. Many countries are at least in theory moving to containment, rehabilitation, and preventative models…

3. The US, despite a commitment to rehabilitation, by promoting the drug war and other morally repugnant lifestyle interferences has developed a shockingly large prison population while yet reducing many factors. In states such as Arizona, cynical crony capitalists and prison labor unions have used pretended privatization or passing a barrage of petty prohibitions including anti-immigrant statutes in hopes of filling up their prisons—and emptying apartments that rented to immigrants, contributing to defaults and hence the economic crisis.

LIO has sponsored workshops and colloquia since 1971; and especially encourages prison abolition and limited rehabilitative sentences discussion with attention to environmental factors: Minimizing unwanted births in at-risk families, lead and other environmental contamination affecting behavior, recognition that so-called criminal behavior is a mental dysfunction from a variety of factors from stress to genetic problems; and spread of versions of the pledge to diminish e.g. bullying and violence towards children that start a cycle of coercion, including the punitive practices and disrespect to children and women in some religious environments. In addition, a general atmosphere of cultural tolerance, educational correction of religious violence, and focus on officialized violence in prisons is making headway. Above all LIO encourages dialogue towards a proactive and citizen-driven voluntary atmosphere of successive Pareto-type 20/80 problem identification and reduction, not out-of-context reactions in a self-fulfilling punitive atmosphere.

Some countries--such as the Netherlands which have embraced elements of the approach--are now finding their correctional facilities are becoming vacant as violent and other offenses diminish—even renting inmate space to less advanced countries. Libertarian legal approaches alert courts to ban child executions in the US and elsewhere.

Many at LIO Friends are involved in sharing support, info and their work in spreading interest in tools such as volunteer community patrols and at-risk youth mentors, prison and prison violence abolition, sentence reduction, harm reduction policies, decriminalization, domestic and spanking violence reduction, LGBT rights, and other activities. Projects range from stopping police violence towards homeless in the USA, prison privatization, to essentially co-op/intern-run rehab in Belize that is slashing recidivism, to anti-domestic violence workshops in Pakistan, to weekly information on improper sentences in Iran.

These are often shared or highlighted at the LIO Friends Facebook (  http://www.facebook.com/LibertarianInternationalOrganization ). LIO invites you to share your work and get inspired by the positive voluntary atmosphere with concrete how-to models and tips.