This program's alright. But what I do find a little dim is that, more often than not, the people who are knowingly doing things illegal are represented as the victims, and the people who get them behind bars are shown as thugs of some kind.
Well its not always black and white. One woman I think it was in Barbados decided to smuggle so she could get money for her kid. I think some of these people are victims, victims of yes, thugs, and a corrupt government.
But some are more annoying than others.
So the crime is justified if you have a good reason for committing it?
9 out of 10 times in the interviews in this show the people seems distressed about getting caught.
No i didnt say that, but doing it for a good reason like to feed your kid, kind of lends more sympathy to your cause. That all. Not justified but I can see why they are cast in a sympathetic light.
HOWEVER, Many of these people strike me as idiots...there was this one guy I think it was Columbia who did it with his friends, and he said that he was hoping that they would catch his friends and he could leave!
But imagine being stuck in a jail in a developing country, away from all your friends and family. Youd want sympathy too.
9 out of 10 times in the interviews in this show the people seems distressed about getting caught.
Well its not always black and white.
Actually, it is. You smuggle/deal/take illegal drugs, you are breaking the law. If you get caught, you pay the price exacted by that country's criminal justice system. It's pretty black and white. You just have to hope you're caught in a country with relatively lenient penalties.
What I would disagree with is any inhumane treatment (withholding food/water, etc.). I have no problem with any country enforcing their rules in other manners as they see fit.
However, when you disobey the laws in a friggin' middle eastern country which ties their criminal justice system to their devout and harsh religious beliefs, that takes a special kind of stupid that deserves punishment regardless of the reason I chose to break the law (e.g. money for my child).
-Jane
Well its not always black and white.
Actually, it is. You smuggle/deal/take illegal drugs, you are breaking the law. If you get caught, you pay the price exacted by that country's criminal justice system. It's pretty black and white. You just have to hope you're caught in a country with relatively lenient penalties.
lol so what if coffee was illegal in Pakistan? Is that still black and white?
shareIf it were illegal to smuggle coffee in to Pakistan you could add sugar, tie a pink bow around it and you would still deserve to go to prison. WTH difference does it make what you smuggle in, illegal is illegal no matter what the product is or what country.
shareWhenever I watched this show, I was always left wondering the same thing. Sure, there's may be the occasional episode about someone who actually was a victim because they were kidnapped or forced to do it. Of the ones I've seen though, it was 100% the persons own fault.
Sure, sometimes it's worse conditions than they would have if caught for the same thing in their home country. Sure it sucks to be somewhere that they are away from family and may not speak the language. But that doesn't change that they knowingly committed a crime in another country and are being put in jail in that country. Maybe they feel they aren't treated with the same rights they would have in their home country - but thats what you get for committing a crime in another country.
I agree that this show tends to present these people as victims, and I never understood it myself. The show presents it like it could happen to anybody. Any normal person isn't stupid enough to even bring a serious drug into an airport - let alone try to smuggle large amounts of it to another country. I don't care if they were given a free vacation or whatever. I don't care if the people paying for it told them it would be easy. I would love a free all expenses paid vacation, but have enough common sense to know that something like that is a bad idea and I'd probably get caught.
Hell - if I wanted to make enough money for a vacation and was willing to risk my freedom for it, I'd be better off selling drugs locally, or even breaking into people's houses. These people acted without thinking, committed a crime in another country, and 99% of the time deserve exactly what they get.
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Agreed, most people aren't even stupid enough to buy timeshare let alone attempt to smuggle drugs over borders in parts of the world where it is a very real possibility you will be executed for it.
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*beep* Gauls - Agron
Seriously, I like this show, but the Brazil one im watching is just ridiculous. The guy had the nerve to yell at his lawyer about how w/all the money they used to bribe them, they should be walking away free. Free? WTF? They committed crimes! They went from 25 yrs to 4 1/2 w/their help. SMH.
Am I a criminal? No. I consider myself to be a person who made a very wrong decision. What a bitch. If someone is being attacked by someone, and they defend themself, and the attacker falls and cracks their head and dies. That's a very wrong/complicated situation. Smuggling drugs for money is pretty damn simple. If he got away w/it, he wouldnt have even thought twice.
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Go D Woods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dd23un9m6s
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Well, by definition, they are criminals. They broke the law of the country they're in.
Now, you and I might not necessarily agree with those laws, but I'm not after testing them out for a quick buck or a cheap high.
These people need to open their eyes and realise that they're not in the UK or US.
Also, I find myself doubting some of the stories that these people are telling after the fact. I think that some of them knew, and were part of what they were doing, and then changed their stories when the sh!t hit the fan, and also for the show.
Are you dense? How are they hardly criminals? They are knowingly breaking STRICT laws regarding drug smuggling to receive goods. These drugs that are smuggled out of the country KILL PEOPLE. They kill young KIDS. They destroy families and cost governments mass amount of money. These are criminals doing these things and deserve everything they get.
The OP is correct. This show is great and all but most of these people are criminals, they are not the victims.
Listen to these people as they describe the situation. They all want to make money and they are generally unhappy with their life and want to make this money illegally because it's fast and easy. Never once do they think about anyone else but themselves.
They know what they are doing. They know it is wrong. The only part they regret is getting caught.
Anyone who agrees to smuggle drugs out of a foreign country deserves to be sent to jail. How are they victims? Victims of their own stupidity and greed.
Well, the jerk store called... they're running out of you!
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The program's alright. It has some strong production values. I just wished it's theme wasn't so overly sympathetic towards these people, who really are criminals.
And to make matters worse, there's always an odd episode where they really have people who get caught in a carppy situation (kidnapped and stuff). OC these people deserve sympathy of the viewer, but it's just criminal to bunch together the remaining lot with them.
Are you dense? How are they hardly criminals? They are knowingly breaking STRICT laws regarding drug smuggling to receive goods. These drugs that are smuggled out of the country KILL PEOPLE. They kill young KIDS. They destroy families and cost governments mass amount of money. These are criminals doing these things and deserve everything they get.
Are you dense? How are they hardly criminals? They are knowingly breaking STRICT laws regarding drug smuggling to receive goods. These drugs that are smuggled out of the country KILL PEOPLE. They kill young KIDS. They destroy families and cost governments mass amount of money. These are criminals doing these things and deserve everything they get.
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That's another point of contention with this program. They bunched people who've actively participated in drug trade/smuggling and people who've gotten kidnapped or coerced into committing these crimes. I mean, the later two do deserve the sympathy of the audience, but drug smugglers do not.
Um, yeah. But I'm thinking that some of these stories about being coerced are made up. Sometimes they talk about some guy who made them do it, or put the drugs in their bag, etc. But then you never see or hear about the guy again, and he's never arrested or anything.
shareYou're missing the point.
You might not consider these people, or yourself, to be criminal. But when abroad, you're subject to their laws - and you are a criminal to them, and will be treated as such.
Regarding the drug episodes, I personally feel all drugs should be legal and regulated. The U.S.'s War on Drugs is a joke.
As for making drug smugglers being treated like victims, I think people should be treated with a modicum of respect, and many of them are treated so abysmally for really something that shouldn't be a crime.
"I personally feel all drugs should be legal and regulated."
"The U.S.'s War on Drugs is a joke."
Ron Paul says we don't need the government telling us to do or not do heroin.
shareMost of these people are political prisoners as the war on drugs is a show war designed for maximum societal control No government has now or has ever had the right to tell you what you can put into your own body Think of this In Muslim countries alcohol users are considered some form criminal so if are quick to judge drug users remember you are being judged also If it's OK for you to judge ergo it's OK for them too Sorry for the formatting Opera mobile is acting up
shareYou are a dope. The only crime these people committed was infringing on the big boys, the establishment that runs and has always run the drug trade and who also run the prison-industrial complex so that they can profit further on the misery they create. Why don't you crash one of those beer mugs into your head, might knock some sense into ya.
Welcome to Costco, I love you...
Just because something is against the law doesn't mean all sympathy has to be thrown out the window. If someone genuinely needed money to feed their children or something, and they get caught, of course I'm going to feel bad for them. Its not like they became hitmen for hire. They smuggle drugs that the dealers are going to get and then sell, and the users are going to buy, regardless or whether or not that one person smuggles the drugs themselves. I don't care what unjust infringement of individual liberty the government has in place, in some instances these people deserve sympathy, yes...
shareI agree with both viewpoints..a lot of these people broke the law thought they were invincible didn't realize the stakes and then ended up in hellacious prisons that make the US look like Club Med...I don't think they're lily white but from what it seems the majority of the people got the sh!t scared out of them and would never in their lives put themselves in that position again
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Formerly qoa2
AUNTIE TAIWO RIP
Those foreign prisons in 3rd world nations seem nasty, harsh and very dangerous. It would not shock me people locked up there contract Hepatitis and parasite infections from contamined food and water as a matter of course. Regardless of what a person did, prison should not be like that anywhere. Prison should not be a Club Med vacation either. So in a way these drug mules who get busted are victims. But that is where it starts and stops.
Regarding the episodes where people get locked up for drug traffic, I think this series sends a cautionary message of what not to do no matter how desperate your life gets.
Some of the prisons featured in the show didn't look all that bad, actually. The one in South Korea, for example...that guy had way more space than he would've had in an American prison cell. (A window, too.)
It seems like prison systems range from prisons where the inmates are just confined to a generalized area but are otherwise free to do pretty much whatever they want (like in Los Teques prison in Venezuela), or the other kind of messed up prison, where the guards regulate inmate life down to how one can sit in their cell (like some prisons in Japan and Russia).
The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot - Andre Breton
Yeah. Heaven forbid people who need money to feed their kids get, you know, a legitimate job. That would be dreadful. Let's go on a pretend vacation to smuggle illegal drugs instead.
shareOi vey.
Lots of retards responding, some more than likely with a drink or ciggie in hand. Hippocrites.
Lots of drug users have victemless lives. Take me for example, 8 years on high dose narcotics, more than a street junkie would take, and yet no victim in my life. How is that? I bet many junkies live good productive lives as well.
The longer a country incarderates a drug user/smugglers the further down they are in the third world.