[HN Gopher] Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor dru...
___________________________________________________________________
Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence
should be released
Author : rustoo
Score : 305 points
Date : 2021-01-11 16:16 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newkerala.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newkerala.com)
| hikerclimber wrote:
| i agree.
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| No.
| antattack wrote:
| Many of my colleagues and I voted for legalization of Marijuana,
| because law had vilified it to the point where actions against
| users did not justify the means at all. That, plus good outcome
| of drug decriminalization in Portugal.
| ativzzz wrote:
| Decriminalization works when you have many organizations
| provide high quality rehabilitation programs, and are non-
| profit. See [1].
|
| However, IMO the U.S. healthcare infrastructure and general
| profiteering culture will not allow any reasonable programs at
| high enough scale to operate.
|
| Ideally, instead of jailing drug offenders, we reintegrate them
| into society. This is expensive. Somebody needs to pay for it,
| and nobody wants to. Especially when you have the for-profit
| prison industry lobbying against it.
|
| Decriminalization without a comprehensive plan to deal with
| drug addiction will most likely not achieve the expected
| results. We'll probably get something like the opioid epidemic
| on a larger scale.
|
| The U.S. just does not do a good job of dealing with mental
| health.
|
| [1] https://craftsmanship.net/portugals-path-to-breaking-drug-
| ad...
| ge96 wrote:
| I got mad lucky in college, I was in a parking lot arrested for
| possession (was smoking) it was a tiny amount like a keyfob
| worth.
|
| It was reduced to a parking fine that I had to pay in court. That
| could have destroyed me (permanent label) if that was bigger.
|
| This was like 8-10 years ago. I am asian if it matters.
| jawzz wrote:
| Has the record of arrest (and charge, if you were initially
| charged with possession before it was reduced) affected you at
| all, to your knowledge?
| ge96 wrote:
| Well it was not recorded as that, it was just a "parking
| fine". What's why I'm saying I'm lucky it wasn't logged as
| substance possession. Also by arrested I mean handcuffed/put
| into a car, but I wasn't taken to a jail. I was just written
| a possession fine/piece of paper.
|
| I think the answer to your question is I was not affected. As
| I've taken jobs that had to do security checks to get in and
| I got through. I guess it depends what they're looking for.
| Ccecil wrote:
| There needs to be massive revision across society if this were to
| happen, jobs, housing, life...it is all burdened for the felon
| greater than the time in prison was. Many have trouble just
| adjusting to things like the choices in the supermarket...let
| alone navigating the troubles of finding housing.
|
| In the town I live in, (Inland NW, US), the majority of
| "affordable" rentals are all rented by a small number of property
| management companies which do not seem to be local and have 1-800
| numbers. This covers a very sizable portion of the apartment
| buildings...guess what...they DO NOT rent to people with drug
| felonies...burglar...sure. But if you sold marlijuana 20 years
| ago you cannot rent from them...period. So...combine that with an
| area which the average rent has tripled in the last 20
| years...with a massive shortage of for sale properties and what
| are these people to do?
|
| Work and other things are tricky as well...it isn't that a felon
| cannot get a job...but they are very likely to be manipulated by
| their employer. They will typically be paid less and be treated
| differently than their coworkers.
|
| Couple all that with the ineligibility for SBA loans if you have
| felony convictions...now what?
|
| You are likely to be able to get a passport and such...but most
| will never truly see these things go off their record
| permanently...unless you get a withheld judgement you are still
| required to say "yes" to the have you ever been convicted
| question. Employers being required to ask "in the last x years
| have you been convicted?" solves that issue...allows for the
| punishment to be served and forgiven. "have you ever been
| convicted?" assumes there is no retribution possible ever.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Kind of a funny moment in time we live in where some are
| clamoring to put people in jail for tweets/hate speech/mean words
| while simultaneously advocating for lower jail populations.
| greedo wrote:
| Incitement to riot/insurrection isn't "mean words."
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Were you on twitter at all during any of the protests of last
| summer? Vague "incitement of riot" charges are going to be
| used against a whole lot of anti-establishment groups that
| were active during that time (and now).
|
| If you think it stops at MAGA you are deceived.
| greedo wrote:
| Show me a "Vague 'incitement of riot'" charge being brought
| against anyone.
|
| And I wouldn't include the BLM protests of the summer as
| anti-establishment in the same vein as the Qanon/1776er
| crowd that wanted to overthrow the government.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > And I wouldn't include the BLM protests of the summer
| as anti-establishment
|
| Why not? because they only wanted to defund the police?
| greedo wrote:
| Defund the police wasn't a universal mantra for the
| entire BLM movement and protests. That was seized upon by
| some who wanted to paint the entire summer of protests as
| monolithic. Many protestors simply wanted the police to
| stop killing and abusing minorities.
|
| In my opinion, anti-establishment types are anarchists or
| revolutionaries who want to overthrow the existing
| government, not change it.
| oytis wrote:
| A study (if it's a real study) can't tell you what should be
| done, it should give you new knowledge about the state of
| affairs.
|
| (while I agree that drug offense should be decriminalized).
| quotemstr wrote:
| Exactly. Any form of science cannot tell us what should or
| should not be done. Science informs our choices. It doesn't
| make them.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| How the heck is this comment downvoted? The is-ought gap is
| unpopular here?
|
| HNs username must be Sam Harrises biggest fans...
| quotemstr wrote:
| It's not that the is-ought gap is unpopular: it's that the
| gap doesn't even make it into the debate. We're dealing
| with an epistemic regime in which it's acceptable to
| engineer desired "ought" outcomes by controlling who gets
| to make statements about what "is". That is, is no "is"
| independent from power dynamics, oppressor and oppressed.
| "Is", in this model, is just another form of narrative that
| serves the powerful.
|
| In this world, you should expect downvotes for arguing that
| science informs us about objective reality, because people
| of a certain mindset see scientific results that contradict
| their worldview as just another form of oppressive
| discourse intended to subjugate the powerless. To them,
| science is just one of many equal and arbitrary forms of
| rhetoric and power gaming.
| snet0 wrote:
| While I agree with the fundamental, the is-ought divide, I
| think this paper is basically saying "based on a load of
| measurements that are obviously goals of our society,
| criminalisation of drug offences is acting against our own
| interests".
| khawkins wrote:
| This is only a utilitarian ethical argument. If people
| approach from a deontological perspective, the measurements
| may not matter.
|
| Suggesting a policy prescription in the title of a
| scientific study puts the legitimacy of the study in
| complete question. The researchers must approach the
| question as one which can be falsifiable, else it's not
| science.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Suggesting a policy prescription in the title of a
| scientific study puts the legitimacy of the study in
| complete question.
|
| Does it?
|
| > The researchers must approach the question as one which
| can be falsifiable, else it's not science.
|
| Isn't that what this study was--they had a hypothesis
| which they wished to test: "We should do X." Then they
| did whatever they reported in their paper, and found that
| their hypothesis was supported by the evidence.
| khawkins wrote:
| A policy prescription requires weighing of values, which
| a scientist should avoid at all costs. It's quite
| literally the point of science, to understand how the
| world works without injecting your personal biases about
| how the world should work.
| mcphage wrote:
| The point of science is, ideas are tested by experiment.
| If you don't start your experiment with a hypothesis
| about the way the world works, then you're just
| p-hacking.
| quotemstr wrote:
| If the authors were striving for objectivity, they'd skip
| discussion of values and interests entirely and talk solely
| about what effect drug policies had on certain quantifiable
| metrics --- all in a factual and dispassionate way.
|
| A scientific paper is a report on the state of reality and
| should not contain a case for any sort of action.
| gowld wrote:
| That's fine, but it should say that (and probably does; the
| journalism is probably the one changing the story).
| i_love_limes wrote:
| Ehhh, most studies in this realm have a 'results' section and
| 'discussion' section. I disagree that experts in their field
| can't have an opinion laid out in the discussion section, given
| that it follows from the analysis and results from the previous
| sections.
|
| That being said, the page is currently timing out, so I can'
| even read the article...
| oytis wrote:
| 'Results' present the new knowledge gained in a short form.
| 'Discussion' is normally an invitation to scientific
| discussion, not a political one. But even if it has the
| latter, it's still not the result of a study, just a piece of
| opinion that authors saw appropriate to include.
|
| The paper [1] really seems more like a call to action from
| ethicists published in a scientific journal as a study for
| whatever reason.
|
| [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265161.202
| 0.1...
| mbbutler wrote:
| Yes, the authors published their article in the Journal of
| Bioethics, which is exactly where this type of
| article/argument is supposed to be published.
|
| What is your complaint exactly?
| oytis wrote:
| I disagree that the purpose of ethics as an academic
| discipline is to tell people what to do.
| i_love_limes wrote:
| You started off with the idea that research papers "can't
| tell you what should be done", which it seems like you
| disagree with now?
|
| > 'Discussion' is normally an invitation to scientific
| discussion, not a political one
|
| To think that those are so distinct is perhaps naive.
|
| Thanks for the link, it does seem to be a call to action as
| you said, but backed by many studies across many
| disciplines. Which would make it both a scientific and
| political.
| oytis wrote:
| It was more meant as an imperative, as in, "a president
| can't despise his own citizens", even though we
| empirically know it's not true, but...
|
| To me is a huge abuse of the authority of science. The
| results of science normally lie above any democratic
| discussion. No mater how you vote and what your values
| are COVID-19 exists, and global warming exists either. If
| you publish an opinion piece - even if it's a well-
| informed opinion - as a scientific paper, you are
| basically saying "here's what the policy should be, and
| you're not entitled to discuss it, because we know
| better".
|
| I'm not against scientists having an informed opinion an
| political matter, and I'm not even against scientific
| journals publishing opinions if they consider them
| important enough, but there should be a distinction in
| this case between the part where science is published and
| the opinion column.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Was about to comment this myself - totally agree.
|
| The single quickest way to make me suspicious of an empirical
| study is to give it a prescriptive title. I agree with this
| title wholeheartedly, but I want (1) studies that provide
| objective evidence and (2) position papers that recommend
| policies based on that evidence. Both are legitimate copes for
| researchers to publish within if they call it what it is. This
| is a position paper, not a study.
| greatgirl wrote:
| Eh, plenty of studies I've seen, from economics to
| environmental science, has some policy recommendations at the
| end. It's a problem but if you're going to discard this study
| you have to discard many others.
| gowld wrote:
| Title is misleading. _Authors of a study_ said that. A study can
| 't express an opinion; that's a category error.
| avsteele wrote:
| While I agree with the conclusion. People tend to overestimate
| the fraction of people incarcerated for non-violent drug
| offenses.
|
| It is only ~15%
|
| https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
| avsteele wrote:
| And I'm assuming they mean incarcerated (jail+prison) and not
| just 'jail'. Most of the people in jail are awaiting trial,
| people in prison have been convicted.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| The article linked in the comment you're replying to seems to
| include both jail and prison. The comment itself didn't
| mention either and just said "incarcerated".
| greatgirl wrote:
| > Only 2% of federal criminal defendants go to trial, and
| most who do are found guilty
|
| From pew research
| hwillis wrote:
| That's state only; in total it's ~20%.
|
| That still hugely misses the point, because sentences are not
| equal. Violent offenders serve on average 4.7 years while drug
| offenders serve under 2 years.
|
| ~40% of _people who are sent to state prison_ are sent with
| drugs as the most serious charge.
|
| https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/tssp16.pdf
| greatgirl wrote:
| That's about where i expected it to be actually, and that's
| about 200k people, so it's pretty bad.
| [deleted]
| coffeemaniac wrote:
| 15% of the US prison population is a huge number of people.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| The #1 issue in the USA beyond simple conviction and
| incarceration is rehabilitation. At the federal level, where I
| have personal experience, it seems like it's entirely retribution
| instead of rehabilitation.
|
| I was in a federal prison camp and it is primarily an exercise in
| leisure. The entire day was composed of well.. nothing. If you
| like reading, fresh air, and exercise you're in luck. If you like
| alcohol, drugs, and facetime you're in luck. There is very little
| programming activity to do. If you have the funds to support
| yourself you can get anything you want from the outside. You can
| have any book sent in or buy an illicit cell phone. There are so
| few guards to watch you and very little motivation to crack down
| on rampant offenses.
|
| The First Step Act is supposed to make programming uniform across
| all institutions and reward programming with sentence reductions.
| That's a fantastic idea and I hope that it works out well. There
| are very few levels to pull to incentivize people, but that
| should provide motivation.
|
| The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around
| forever. I count myself blessed to have opportunities when I came
| home. It was unpleasant to work as a laborer in block masonry,
| but it lead me back to the shipyard. That has lead me to a better
| opportunity in the shipyard. This was only afforded to me because
| I went to a university with name recognition in a field with job
| prospects. That combined with my previous maritime experience is
| the only reason I'm not still day laboring will praying for a
| better opportunity. If you have limited work experience and were
| accustomed to a high(er) level of living before incarceration it
| will be difficult to adjust to life after prison.
|
| There are so many thorny issues with the judicial system in the
| USA that reach into so many aspects of life.
| gowld wrote:
| Since it's HN, to clarify: When you write "programming", do you
| mean "writing software", "rehabilition activities", or both?
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| Programming in this context means activities that are
| available to better yourself. There are very little chances
| for education, skill training, drug therapy, etc. It varies
| wildly institution to institution.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around
| forever."_
|
| This is worse than it used to be, as companies of any size can
| now pull not just convictions, but arrests as well. And not
| just felonies, but misdemeanors too. Background checks used to
| be less accessible. They are now cheap, fast, and easily
| nationwide or worldwide.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Arrests? That surely is a clear violation of the principle of
| innocent until proven guilty?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Arrested people are not a protected class so employers are
| free to discriminate based on that criteria.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| Every one and their mother can run a background check or
| google your name to find your history. It's very accessible
| compared to even 10 years ago.
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| Why does it need to be just programming? I don't understand
| this attitude, whether in schools or jail, program, program,
| program.
|
| I program too, its my job so I get it provides a living but my
| God do we get myopic at times. Other careers, good ones too are
| out there.
| njovin wrote:
| "Programming" in this context refers to having rehabilitation
| programs in place for prisoners, not computer programming.
| mroset wrote:
| I believe programming in this context means "scheduled (often
| educational) activities", not coding.
| kace91 wrote:
| > The #1 issue in the USA beyond simple conviction and
| incarceration is rehabilitation.
|
| Don't you think one helps with the other? Honest question.
|
| As in, the less people in the system, the easier it would be to
| dedicate to each person the resources needed to rehabilitate,
| rather than just keeping them inside?
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| Yes. The smaller the population the more resources per
| person.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >The #1 issue in the USA beyond simple conviction and
| incarceration is rehabilitation. At the federal level, where I
| have personal experience, it seems like it's entirely
| retribution instead of rehabilitation.
|
| Do people generally want rehabilitation?
|
| I find that when I talk to people, they want rehabilitation for
| minor crimes and retribution for major crimes, but when feel
| comfortable enough with talking about it, they generally don't
| want the minor crimes to be illegal to begin with. Once you get
| them to discuss the group they actually want in prison, it
| tends to consist of people they retribution against.
|
| Try asking people what is a crime that deserve 2 years of
| prison, give or take a year. I find few are able to place
| crimes into that window, even though 2 years is plenty of time
| to rehabilitation people if one was actively working at it.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| There is also a large disparity between drug crimes and
| financial crimes. The mandatory minimum for 1 pound of heroin
| or cocaine was 2x-5x my entire sentence for securities fraud
| that caused substantial financial swings by even the most
| lenient of accounting.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| > The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around
| forever. I count myself blessed to have opportunities when I
| came home.
|
| I'm so happy to hear that you had that.
|
| A while back, a member of my community was not so lucky. He got
| caught with an ounce of pot, spent some time in prison. When he
| got out, he had no legitimate job prospects due to his criminal
| record. He did eventually a job, though, through networking. In
| this case, the network was some prison acquaintances -
| apparently the only people who would/could offer him an
| opportunity. A while later he got caught stealing cars for a
| chop shop. Rinse and repeat.
|
| I don't think I really understood it until I saw it with my own
| eyes: the US criminal justice system, by being so retributive,
| isn't just (wantonly, excessively) harming people who get
| caught. It's also a significant cause of US crime in the first
| place.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Why do these people stay in the US?
|
| In Europe if you say that you were imprisoned for smoking
| pot, people will just laugh at the situation, because it's so
| hard to believe.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| If you have a criminal record bad enough to cause
| employment problems in the US it's going to be as hard or
| harder to (legally) start residing in most first world
| countries, especially if you don't have a party in-country
| who's basically importing you to do some specific work.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| I love Cobra Kai, and the 3rd season was the first time I
| have seen a movie reference for this problem, which I
| think is a change in the good direction.
|
| At the same time even with non-violent crimes I make a
| huge distinction between stealing and marijuana use. I
| wouldn't want to trust my code base to anybody who has
| stolen anything in his life, as the downside for stealing
| the whole codebase is enormous.
|
| Regarding marijuana, who cares, it doesn't hurt anybody
| (except the passive smoking issues).
| the_only_law wrote:
| Not exactly the same, as I believe there were more than drugs
| involved, but several years ago, I met someone who had been
| through the system in his youth. I didn't really like the guy
| at first, as he was rather volatile and could suddenly turn
| aggressive (diagnosed bipolar, don't know if he was actively
| treated at the time), but as time went on we were mostly
| cool. Eventually he would tell me about his life, how he had
| gone to school for three years, but had to drop out for a
| variety of reasons. He would talk about his time spent
| homeless and the things he would do to get by or protect his
| stuff. It was pretty clear he wasn't ok mentally. He couldn't
| find good work, due to his record, and felt condemned to
| working a near minimum wage job to support him and his wife
| in the run down town we lived in. Eventually, he started
| getting erratic, confronting his managers about issues with
| his paycheck among other things. One morning, we heard he had
| crashed his car into a ditch and I didn't hear anything from
| or about him for several months until a mutual acquaintance
| had informed me he had committed suicide at 27.
| clairity wrote:
| thanks for relating your incarceration story. with the benefit
| of hindsight, 'tough on crime' was plainly power exerting
| itself on the populace to enhance its own esteem, not an
| exercise in creating a more just society.
|
| let's cut every sentence (and sentencing guidelines) by 90%
| right off the bat and use the savings for better rehabilitation
| programs (like more support systems, instructional content, and
| training programs). involve families and communities to
| integrate folks back into society.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| I will say that my sentence and incarceration was a good
| personal experience. I did actually receive every thing I
| needed to get it sorted out. I was in RDAP and had plenty of
| time for introspection. You get out what you put in, but for
| most there are not enough things you can put in.
| clairity wrote:
| yes, some folks (at certain points in their lives) need
| more guidance to find their way. hopefully that's what we
| can work towards, rather than just lock-em up for as long
| as we can.
| SubuSS wrote:
| I can sympathize with how this will work out for non-career
| criminals.
|
| How do you see this working out for repeat offenders? Seattle
| today has a mini-version of this FWIW: We have offenders who
| have 44+ counts of 'minor' arrests and a felony conviction on
| the street [1] getting involved in public shootings.
|
| Overall I like the part where folks who have paid their dues
| get their life back through a measured re-introduction back
| into regular society (from jail). Even over here, we will
| need oversight from professionals who have insight into both
| the worlds who can help with the transition. I don't think
| commuting sentences by 90% is the answer.
|
| [1] https://komonews.com/news/local/who-are-the-alleged-
| downtown...
| jsjsbdkj wrote:
| The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well
| as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets,
| and to steal bread.
|
| The very notion of a "career criminal" is driven by the
| lack of a social safety net and inability to secure a job
| on release. I can imagine if you're homeless and targeted
| by the police it would be very easy to rack up 50 arrests
| in a year.
|
| If it was possible for everyone to make a living wage the
| vast majority of "career criminals" would choose a less
| dangerous way to make a living.
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| Perhaps it would be as simple as making punishment scale
| with the number or recurrences? Maybe not even linearly.
|
| Not necessarily in a "received 4 counts of xyz" situation,
| but maybe increasing punishment nonlinearly in situations
| like "received a 4th count of xyz in the past 10 years".
| Chronologically/temporally separate incident #4 should
| carry more weight than #1, since the offender probably
| should've learned their lesson after #2.
| cubano wrote:
| > The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around
| forever.
|
| Tell me about it. Between my prison "stigma" and the
| discriminatory ageism that is very prevalent in the industry,
| and even though I have 30 years professional programming
| experience, I am currently finding it impossible to find any
| work.
|
| Can someone please tell me...what am I supposed to do at age
| 55? Find a new "career"...doing what?
|
| I know plenty of you reading this with your secure jobs and
| paychecks have done illegal things and not been caught...well
| what if you were?
|
| I mean I hear all day all the "protections" that this group and
| that group are getting recognized for, and meanwhile all I want
| _is an opportunity_ to work my ass off in the field that I have
| loved since I was a 13yo kid riding my bike to the local Radio
| Shack on weekends so I could literally sit-in the window
| display and program on the TRS-80 and save my "work" to a
| cassette drive.
|
| But no...hiring me (or anyone else in my situation) would
| apparently pose such an existential threat to companies so in
| need of people with my exact talent stack that I can't even be
| considered once it's discovered I went to prison some 20 years
| ago.
|
| I know this subject has been discussed _ad nauseum_ here on HN,
| so I don 't expect any new answers to my questions, but maybe a
| few of you with open ears and the ability to think outside the
| box when it comes to hiring could be a bit more understanding
| if a qualified candidate with past legal issues come thru your
| interview process.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Is getting records expunged not a option in your case or in
| many case? My understanding is that at least most non-violent
| offences could be expunged or sealed after N years of
| completing your sentence. I'm certainly not an expert so it
| would be interesting to know how that process can or can not
| apply.
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| To echo a sibling comment - an attorney once explained to
| me that, while it is illegal for background checking
| services to provide outdated/inaccurate data, there is no
| strict legal timeline requiring them to update their
| records. Meaning that, even post-expungement or post-
| sealing (and associated time + legal fees) there's still a
| non-insignificant chance that a potential employer might
| learn of your charge(s), even after taking legal action to
| clean up your record.
|
| Incidentally, I've also once been told by a Hiring Manager
| family member of mine that for minor charges it might be
| best *not* to seal them, since that would leave a potential
| employer guessing and likely assuming that it was something
| serious as opposed to something small or common, e.g. a
| marijuana-related misdemeanor.
|
| IANAL, obviously.
| ivan888 wrote:
| This seems to be highly variable depending on the locality
| that holds the records. It does not seem to be standardized
| in my experience.
|
| Even after expungement where possible, there can be
| problems with records being inappropriately cached by
| background check services, and a background check after
| expungement may still show the conviction. Yes, this can be
| appealed, but still puts an undue burden on the applicant
| and may ultimately be a deciding factor between similar
| candidates even though it should not be used
| aaomidi wrote:
| The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding
| is partially to solve this exact problem.
|
| I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal
| background check. I don't think background checks should be
| allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks.
|
| A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not.
| There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say
| anything:
|
| 1. Yes I am fine with previously convicted murderers living
| in the same building as me. Teaching my children. And being
| my co-worker. I want to be able to trust the "justice" system
| to allow people back into society when they're able to.
|
| 2. Yes I'm fine with sexual predators living in the same
| building as me. Teaching my children. And being my co-worker.
| For the same aforementioned reasons.
|
| 3. Yes. I'm fine with any person with any crime history that
| the courts and various other medical institutions have deemed
| that they can be a normal citizen to do what they want.
|
| For the group of people that "maybe they're safe but we're
| not sure but we don't want to keep them in prison". Then you
| need to give them a very good stipend and let them live in
| relative peace. Also, don't limit their housing. Housing
| limits should never be done. Think of this situation as a
| "disability payment", because it is a state induced
| disability.
|
| What someone did in the past shouldn't matter to anyone if
| that person has been rehabilitated.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| > A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not.
| There should NEVER be an in between state.
|
| Doesn't this contradict the whole idea of parole? My
| understanding is that people who are out on parole are
| deemed not safe to be fully left to their own in society,
| they often have not served their full sentence, but are
| given the chance to ease back into society earlier.
|
| Wouldn't a more hard-line approach of either 100% safe or
| unsafe result in even more time spent in jail?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I disagree with you to some extent, in that the world is
| shades of gray, and indeed, it is naive to think that
| either "someone is so dangerous we should deprive them of
| all liberty" or "despite past activities, we are so
| confident in their rehabilitation that no caution should be
| taken in their release to society".
|
| You do make an interesting suggestion that, if we do put a
| scarlet letter on someone for a past crime for which they
| are deemed "safe" enough to be in the public, that they
| should be compensated for that in some way. Shit, look at
| the movie "Heat" for one of many examples. If someone is
| trying to get their life together but can't find decent
| work on parole, or is abused and looked at as a criminal
| despite paying their debt, what motive might someone have
| to stay out of a past life?
| mmmBacon wrote:
| I used to feel that the stigma should follow you but I've
| changed my mind because I do not believe that stigma
| works, is overly punitive, and forces people back into
| crime.
|
| Now I believe that if you pay your debt to society, you
| should be square with the house and your punishment
| should stop including any ex-judicial punishment like
| denying people work they are otherwise qualified for. I
| think reasonable exceptions can be made for sensitive
| jobs involving money handling or children.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Here in UK I believe criminal records have a time limit,
| after which your crime is expunged from the record at
| leadt as far as employers, etc are concerned. The length
| of the limit will depend on the crime and may not apply
| at all the very serious crimes. But it means that there's
| much much less active discrimination against ex-convicts
| than I hear about in th US.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| You would trust the state to decide if a sexual predators
| is safe to teach your children?
| aaomidi wrote:
| > You would trust the state to decide if a sexual
| predators is safe to teach your children?
|
| I trust the state to test the medicine I buy from a
| pharmacy. The state isn't some __other__ machine. It's
| made up of people like you and me, trying to make society
| operate and people to generally get along with eachother.
|
| If I saw that we as a society are moving towards
| rehabilitation, and better social services for criminals,
| then yes. I would trust them. Just like I trust them with
| roads, with hospitals, with medicine, with food.
| bdamm wrote:
| The thing is... who else would decide? Isn't it the
| function of the state to make decisions based on
| information that is not available to the general public?
| Chris2048 wrote:
| No-one. No-one would decide. It's not a decision that
| needs to be made.
|
| Any history of sexual abuse -> be put on a register that
| prohibits ever working with children again.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| We currently have a registry for that sort of thing, and
| public urination can get you put on it.
|
| So your answer appears to be that the state decides,
| since they decide what constitutes sexual abuse.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dominotw wrote:
| > 2. Yes I'm fine with sexual predators living in the same
| building as me. Teaching my children. And being my co-
| worker. For the same aforementioned reasons.
|
| I am parent and I understand what you mean here and It
| makes complete sense to me. But I am having a little hard
| time with this, some part of my brain just wont' accept it.
| oldmaninsj wrote:
| I am a parent and I would have a problem with a sexual
| predator being anywhere near my kids.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > I am parent and I understand what you mean here and It
| makes complete sense to me. But I am having a little hard
| time with this, some part of my brain just wont' accept
| it.
|
| I completely understand, we need to "unlearn" what we
| know about policing and criminal justice. It's a hard
| process that takes generations, but at the end of the day
| it will lead to less offensive behaviour overall. As a
| society we're too "reactive" to problems. We don't
| provide the help for people before they turn to various
| forms of criminality.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| If we still have sexual offender registries, etc., then
| you might well know that this person was a sexual
| offender in the past. Also, if we as a society have
| better resources for counseling and so forth, we may
| actually be able to help teach these folks better ways to
| live in society.
|
| But it is a big mindset shift. If someone has paid their
| debt to society - their debt has been paid, and they
| shouldn't continue to be punished.
| remote_phone wrote:
| Child sexual predators have one of the highest
| probabilities of recidivism, so for the sake of your
| children I hope you change your mind on that.
| icefrakker wrote:
| Comments like this show you when the left finds its four
| year lunatic messiah like the reactionaries did, they are
| going to be just as bad if not worse.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > 1. Yes I am fine with previously convicted murderers
| living in the same building as me. Teaching my children.
| And being my co-worker. I want to be able to trust the
| "justice" system to allow people back into society when
| they're able to.
|
| I was talking to my friend over the weekend and a funny
| story came up. My friend is a chess player and made friends
| with an elderly gentleman at a local starbucks over a game
| of chess. They became chess buddies and played many games
| and my friend even visited his house to play a games after
| the man developed a severe joint disease and had difficulty
| moving.
|
| It turns out he was playing chess with Nicholas "Nicky No
| Socks" Facciolo a convicted mobster and murder who learned
| and fell in love with chess while in jail. My friend told
| me that after learning that he continued to play with Nicky
| until he could no longer play due to his disease. He never
| felt threatened or uncomfortable. As far as he was
| concerned Nicky paid his debts and was no longer the person
| he was.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| > A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not.
| There should NEVER be an in between state.
|
| I worked with my Dad growing up and going to school, and
| I'm fortunate enough to have worked along side people that
| had felony records.
|
| Some of them for some scary sounding crimes.
|
| I've learned just how much nuance is lost in our current
| "scarlet letter" system (as well as how a crime is judged
| changes significantly over time).
|
| I can see the notion that somebody should have some kind of
| re-integration or probationary period, but until we can
| have an objective and perfect means of conveying the nuance
| behind every crime, sentence, and rehabilitation (which I
| say facetiously, because I don't believe that's possible)
| then we should err on the side of not having any scarlet
| letters.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > What someone did in the past shouldn't matter to anyone
| if that person has been rehabilitated.
|
| That's just it though. The US prison systems, as a general
| rule, don't rehabilitate; they punish. There is no reason
| to trust that a person who spent time in prison is more
| safe after than they were before. In many cases, it's
| common for people to become more dangerous because of stay
| in prison.
|
| We need to work towards the prisons rehabilitating before
| we can trust the people coming out of them are "safe"
| (understand that a lot of people that get sent to prison
| _are_ safe... the term has a vague meaning the way I'm
| using it).
| aaomidi wrote:
| > There is no reason to trust that a person who spent
| time in prison is more safe after than they were before.
| In many cases, it's common for people to become more
| dangerous because of stay in prison.
|
| We can't effectively rehabilitate when we have so many
| people in prison.
|
| Our rates of re-offense are also messy because we
| literally don't give people another option other than
| returning to crime.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| I don't understand what policy you would want in regards to
| sexual predators. The recidivism rate for pedophiles is
| e.g. 14% after 5 years, 24% after 15 years.
|
| Does that mean we should just lock them up forever? Or do
| you really think having someone like that live next to
| children is a necessary gamble?
| aaomidi wrote:
| I think a free, and accessible counselling system should
| be funded with the money saved from not having so many
| prisons, and sexual predators should be required to go to
| mandatory meetings with their counsellors. But that's the
| extent of the "consequences" they need once they're in
| society. And the counselling shouldn't be seen as a
| punishment, rather a public service for them and the
| community they reside in.
| recursive wrote:
| > I want to be able to trust the "justice" system to allow
| people back into society when they're able to.
|
| Where should people stay before then?
| princevegeta wrote:
| imo the risk of convicted child molesters having a hard
| time finding jobs involving children despite being deemed
| rehabilitated by some beurocratic organization is
| preferrable to the risk of giving them ample oppertunity to
| molest more children, unless it could be scientifically
| demonstrated with great certainty that the rehabilitation
| program was completely effective in like at least 99.99% of
| cases (how would you even falsify this hypothesis given how
| many victims choose not to speak out?). Similarly i would
| not want people such as bankers or politicians convited of
| corruption/fraud or similar things being in positions where
| they have significant influence over the economic
| conditions of millions of people without proper supervision
| (which clearly is there is not) The strategies for dealing
| with criminals should really vary depending on the type of
| crime thats been commited i think, as others have pointed
| out i think your views on this are too black and white
| okprod wrote:
| For this to work at scale and sustainably, all people would
| have to be fully rehabilitated. I don't think that's
| possible with how people are currently. Maybe in some
| utopia 500 years from now society can overlook a convicted
| but "rehabilitated" sex offender raping someone's five year
| old daughter, but not today.
| cabaalis wrote:
| I think this black and white view is how the constitution
| was written, and in boolean logic would be how it is
| designed. But reality has many shades of grey.
|
| Would you trust your personal banking to an institution
| with history of leaking/mishandling/selling everything
| about you, or losing records of your balance?
|
| Would you trust your health information to a doctor with
| previous history of kickbacks, malpractice, lax HIPAA
| compliance?
| tomlagier wrote:
| > Would you trust your health information to a doctor
| with previous history of kickbacks, malpractice, lax
| HIPAA compliance?
|
| It's entirely possible that you do.
|
| An enlightening This American Life episode dives in to
| who gets to keep their medical license and how they may
| continue practicing after grievous ethical violations:
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/719/trust-me-im-a-doctor
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Was the institution reformed and executive board
| reprogrammed after it was caught?
| ativzzz wrote:
| No. They are most likely punished for their crime via a
| fine or a temporary license suspension with the only
| deterrent for future crimes being larger fines or longer
| suspensions.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > Would you trust your personal banking to an institution
| with history of leaking/mishandling/selling everything
| about you, or losing records of your balance?
|
| > Would you trust your health information to a doctor
| with previous history of kickbacks, malpractice, lax
| HIPAA compliance?
|
| Were the proper precautions taken so that this won't
| happen again? Then sure!
| princevegeta wrote:
| How would one ensure that it wouldnt happen again?
| jackthehammer wrote:
| Forget about "hiring", "secure jobs" and "paychecks": you
| sound like a _contractor_ , not an _employee_. Either hire on
| with a consulting firm or open your own.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I can 't even be considered once it's discovered I went to
| prison some 20 years ago_
|
| Is there any legislative push to seal records of non-violent
| offenders after N years of non-recividism?
|
| Seven years for most crimes, and fourteen for fraud and
| corruption would seem fair.
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| You can in some circumstances depending on the crime and
| age of offense. What can you convince a judge to do is all
| I know.
|
| My home town had a deputy that wanted to be a sheriff or
| had won the position. However, they had a minor record.
|
| Parents filed statutory rape charges because he was 18 and
| she was 17. They just didn't like him and they were
| eventually married later. Still, he carried they charge for
| 20 years.
|
| The sealing or removal was made public notice and of course
| everyone talks.
|
| In the grand scheme of things it was his wife and the age
| difference issue was amended in law. Because people
| recognize kids don't magically not socialize on 18.
| FpUser wrote:
| What you describe make my blood boil. I cant imaging what is
| the purpose of punishing people to the end of their days for
| old crimes however petty they were. Fucking prison planet.
| cgranier wrote:
| I have zero experience with this issue, but someone I met
| fundraising a few projects ago launched this, which is aimed
| at solving your particular issue:
|
| [70 Million Staffing](https://www.70millionstaffing.com/) -
| focused on hiring people with criminal records and its
| counterpart: [Commissary Club](https://app.commissary.club/)
| - a social network for ex-cons.
|
| Also, maybe now with the new emphasis on remote work, people
| with criminal records have a better chance at getting hired?
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| I'm getting out of tech by 55. Maybe I won't go insane in a
| smaller shop, but watching everyone without experience commit
| the same atrocities over and over is like hell.
|
| After a remodel I learned how lucrative cabinet makers have
| it. I started building my wood working shop a while ago and
| at some I'll transition to that.
|
| I've got some growing and I have a lucrative position, but
| this battery is about depleted.
| mirkules wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning the insanity of perpetually and
| badly reinventing the wheel.
|
| I'm in my 40s now, and I realized last year I'm utterly
| burned out. The passion for programming is just gone. I get
| home from work now and the last thing I want to do is look
| at code again. My garage is filled with Arduino projects I
| can't bring myself to finish or throw out.
|
| Unlike you, I haven't found another career path, but I did
| find solace in making music. At least it is much more
| permanent than software and something I can share with my
| kids.
|
| Art, in general, survives time, whereas it has become
| apparent that software does not.
| derekp7 wrote:
| One thing about woodworking is that parts of it are easier
| for someone who has had a career in thinking logically and
| several steps ahead. If you also have had experience laying
| out user interfaces, that can help too. However there is
| the flip side, in that a number of techniques in
| woodworking aren't easily discoverable unless you've been
| working in the field for a while, and it is all too easy to
| get hurt (even when not using power equipment). I
| personally love doing projects, but on every single one I
| end up getting some sort of injury (typically something
| small like a splinter under the fingernail, or a tool
| slipping causing an abrasion on my hand, but annoying none
| the less).
|
| But you are right, in that there can be a good bit of coin
| to be had with furniture building, especially if you can
| draw on some standardized design principles to output good
| customized pieces. Think things like a closet organizer
| that is "perfect" for a customer's bedroom. Or things like
| cranking out desks needed by students doing school from
| home.
|
| In fact, I probably could have made a killing in selling
| "pandemic" desks (there were absolutely no desks to be
| found at the beginning of the school year). I made a couple
| for family members, made out of real hard wood (no partical
| board) for about $130 in lumber and connecting hardware --
| nice 3-drawer desk units. I basically used rail-and-stile
| frames to make the back, sides, and drawer box using pocket
| screws, then 1/4 inch plywood tacked from the inside of the
| drawer box. Took about 3 hours to cut, drill, and assemble
| everything but the drawers themselves. If I was out of work
| I probably would have made a bunch and sold them for $350 a
| piece.
| macksd wrote:
| I would support treating ex-cons as a protected class where
| you can reject candidates for specific roles for specific
| reasons but can't just discriminate against anyone with any
| history. History of theft? Okay, let's not leave you alone
| with people's valuables. History of assault? Okay, let's not
| leave you alone with vulnerable people. But beyond that, if
| we're not willing to say that your sentence is finished when
| your sentence is finished, we're admitting a major flaw in
| our criminal justice system. And maybe that flaw is there,
| but then we should fix it. "Guilty for the rest of your life
| for ANY conviction" is just as bad as "guilty until proven
| innocent" in my opinion. I don't know what you were convicted
| of, but there aren't many things that would block me from
| trusting you to sit at a computer in an office and contribute
| to a software project as part of a team.
|
| Side note: are there really NO companies that let you in the
| door? I've had some larger corporate places ask me about any
| criminal history and have even run a background check. But I
| don't think it's come up at small and medium-size companies,
| where I'd also expect there's a bit more understanding and
| flexibility anyway. Maybe the ageism is more of an obstacle
| there? But then maybe I just don't notice because I don't
| have a conviction to tell them about. I certainly don't mean
| to minimize your problem, just wondering if it's really a
| complete deal breaker everywhere.
| iridium_core wrote:
| Just legalise all drugs and let the free market decide. We could
| create innovative new substances which are safer and less
| socially damaging, compared to the plants and fermented liquids
| we happen to have stumbled upon millenia ago.
| greatgirl wrote:
| I am for legalising drugs if the evidence suggests it works.
| I'm not for legalising drugs because of some free market
| ideology.
| cousin_it wrote:
| Right now people spend hours every day joylessly scrolling
| their phones because the free market has found a way to profit
| from that. I want fewer addictive industries, not more.
| 3131s wrote:
| The blood is on your hands then.
|
| Edit: The poster I'm replying to should be deplatformed
| immediately for inciting violence, specifically for
| perpetuating black markets that have devastated entire
| countries, for supporting raids of homes at gunpoint over
| possession of substances that are bought and sold without
| coercion, for the inconsistent doses and impurities and
| stigmatization that will continue to kill addicts, and for
| widespread incarceration which is targeted toward already
| disadvantaged minorities.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Did they change their comment? "I want fewer addictive
| industries, not more" doesn't sound like what you
| describe..
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| This is true. I don't think parent poster means it should
| still illegal. Just try to remove the "profit part".
| specialist wrote:
| How would Freedom Drugs(tm) address addiction, safety, abuse?
| If at all.
| SubuSS wrote:
| What do you think should be the government's role in protecting
| the gullible and easily seduced?
|
| Most of these drug laws are about this in essence: We are fast
| approaching a world where low level labor becomes more and more
| superflous. This is going to mean that there will be a growing
| portion of humanity on welfare in essence. How do you see that
| working out for humanity in a world with fully legal free
| access drugs?
| princevegeta wrote:
| I think the least bad option is to let allow people to make
| mistakes and learn from them. How would you feel about
| sending people to prison for eating junk food, smoking a
| cigarette, drinking a beer, wasting time on social
| media/watching netflix? And afaik countries that have
| decriminalized drugs and focused on harm reduction actually
| end up with less drug addicts. Its also worth noting that
| most cases of overdoses are caused by the drug either being
| cut with something stronger or the user just taking too much
| due to high inconsitinsies in purity with each purchase
| leetcrew wrote:
| > What do you think should be the government's role in
| protecting the gullible and easily seduced?
|
| it could start by being a trustworthy source of information.
|
| > Most of these drug laws are about this in essence: We are
| fast approaching a world where low level labor becomes more
| and more superflous. This is going to mean that there will be
| a growing portion of humanity on welfare in essence. How do
| you see that working out for humanity in a world with fully
| legal free access drugs?
|
| this strikes me as a particularly odd argument. if they
| weren't doing anything productive to begin with, why care if
| they get high?
| MajorBee wrote:
| Well, cigarettes used to be all "free market" right from
| marketing to technology for quite some time, and we all know
| how that particular industry ended up.
|
| There are certain things that just seem to be a net-loss to
| society, no matter how much it may clash on an individual's
| right to destroy themselves. Cigarettes, hard drugs (and
| possibly even alcohol) seem to be among them.
| jansan wrote:
| So you say the Opoid Epidemic in the US was a good thing?
| Because that is what you will get if you let the free markets
| decide, but with more marketing and even more addictive stuff.
| drran wrote:
| Just plant two electrodes directly into the brain.
| greedo wrote:
| Larry Niven's Ringworld series has a protagonist named Louis
| Wu who is addicted to a "tasp" that is pretty much a direct
| connection to the brain that provides stimulus. I fear that
| we'll end up with that as VR/AR get better and better.
| Combine that with Musk's neural stuff...
| dado3212 wrote:
| Locked In by John Pfaff does a great job of discussing prison
| reform, and the fallbacks of common mantras (such as this one).
| He observes that "setting every drug offender free would cut our
| prison population by only about 16 percent...still more than
| 200,000 people -- and that's a huge number by any measure."
|
| Because many offenses/crimes were dropped as part of plea
| bargaining, it's also hard to indicate how many would actually be
| characterized as "non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug
| offence". Pfaff tries to estimate this using Bureau of Justice
| Statistics surveying that asks inmates questions that go beyond
| their official convictions. According to this "about 1 percent of
| all prisoners...met that description".
|
| So yes, I think a lot of people would agree with the headline
| here, but it's not a panacea for the incarceration rate of the
| US.
| specialist wrote:
| What's your wishlist of reforms?
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Can't think of a better idea, that both sides of the aisle should
| be supportive of. Saves tax payer money for the GOP, liberalize
| drug laws for democrats.
| ralmidani wrote:
| Releasing people convicted of non-violent drug offenses is not
| enough; it's important that we provide a smooth ramp to re-join
| society.
|
| We should wipe their records clean, train them in useful,
| employable skills, and help them find decent jobs. (Edit: this is
| the bare minimum; I don't want to get into direct monetary
| compensation, even though I think it's worth considering.)
|
| I would imagine a lot of people formerly-incarcerated for non-
| violent drug offenses are (rightfully) resentful of society, and
| we should give them an alternative to committing crimes in order
| to survive.
| charlescearl wrote:
| Ruth Wilson Gilmore [1,2], Angela Davis [3.4] and many, many
| others have been making the case for decades that the entirety of
| the prison system needs to be abolished.
|
| Among the more profound cases that Gilmore makes is that the it
| is not just for-profit prisons and policing. Racialized exclusion
| of Black people from the economy has essentially created a
| captive class -- a pool of bodies for exploitation. Essentially
| the industry of incarceration at the state (that is both State
| and Federal level) create sources of income -- for the States,
| the companies that supply resources to prisons, as well as the
| private prisons.
|
| Further, Gilmore [2] makes the argument that we need to do away
| with the presumption that there are people who are "deserving" of
| prison. Is the very notion of prison consistent with a civilized
| society?
|
| Just a further note that the incarceration rate of Black men in
| the U.S. [5] is comparable to that of Uyghur population in
| Xianjiang [6] -- that rate was estimated to be 5% for Black men
| across the U.S. in 2009, 5% for Uyghurs in non-Muslim majority
| districts, roughly 10% in majority-Muslim districts. It would be
| interesting to understand how the adoption of capitalist economic
| practices in China correlates with the rise of the carceral.
|
| [1] Golden gulag: Prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in
| globalizing California
| https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242012/golden-gulag
|
| [2] Abolition Geography and the Problem of Innocence. In Futures
| of Black Radicalism, G. T.. Johnson and A. Loubin (Eds.). New
| York: Verso, 225-240.
|
| [3] Are Prisons Obsolete?
| https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213837/are-prisons-...
|
| [4] If They Come in the Morning ... Voices of Resistance, Edited
| by Angela Y. Davis,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_They_Come_in_the_Morning
|
| [5] https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-
| just...
|
| [6] https://qz.com/1599393/how-researchers-estimate-1-million-
| uy...
| elindbe3 wrote:
| It's an interesting idea. Can you give a TLDR of how it would
| work in practice? Cowboy justice?
| snet0 wrote:
| Full study link
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265161.2020.1...
| sam2426679 wrote:
| Biden and Harris are trendsetting experts in the field of mass
| incarceration.
| pcglue wrote:
| This is why porch piracy will increase. I suspect the
| intersection of people who are non-violent druggies and who are
| porch pirates is huge. I hate porch pirates.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| No victimless crime should ever be a felony. A felony conviction
| has so many knock on effects for the rest of your life.
|
| I could be talked into saying no non-violent crimes should ever
| be felonies.
|
| Looking at the categories of felonies on Wikipedia it is pretty
| obvious that some are not like the others. Murder is much
| different from copyright infringement.
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| I'm conflicted when it come to this idea, on one hand it does
| seem pointless to punish addicts but on the other, very few of
| the addicts that are incarcerated were not aware of the laws
| before they got caught. In many cases they traffic in "Minor"
| amounts to support their own addictions which just creates more
| addicts and spreads the sickness to other victims.
|
| In a perfect world, all drugs would be legal and more importantly
| free for anyone who wanted them. This could be possible while
| still requiring addicts to visit medical providers for their fix.
| This would quickly remove the profits from the illegal drug trade
| and keep the addicted from being exploited in order to feed their
| addictions.
|
| I have seen first hand the destruction caused by so called non
| violent drug offenders and can attest it is just as bad if not
| worse on the lives of those around them. In my case it started
| with small things disappearing from our household, like heirlooms
| and collectables but ended with a selfish addict telling lies and
| extorting money from myself and others. My particular situation
| finally ended with the addict overdosing and all the misery that
| came from that, being thrust upon those who still loved and
| depended on them.
|
| I bounce back and forth between being angry at myself, then the
| addict and sometimes the people working in law enforcement and
| the justice system(Who have managed to build nice little lives
| for themselves through policing and punishing the addicted under
| the guise of making the world a better place.)
|
| So IDK if freeing a bunch of drug users who were aware what they
| were doing at the time was criminal, is going to solve the root
| problems caused by drugs any better than the current system of
| keeping them locked away from the rest of us until they figure
| out how to toe the line.
| princevegeta wrote:
| Why is it important if they know it's illigal or not? Seems to
| me the important question is what harm they are doing to
| others.
| whiddershins wrote:
| First of all, I basically agree with this.
|
| Here's something I don't know: Sometimes I wonder whether some
| people in prison for non-violent drug offenses did a plea bargain
| down from a violent offense.
|
| And if that were the case, should this affect our opinion on any
| of this?
| TLightful wrote:
| Wouldn't that be held in the legal records? In which case, a
| judgement can be made?
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Compared to someone's record of convictions, that information
| is pretty inaccessible. You'd have to go all the way back to
| court records at the time of their conviction.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| They make it very easy on the federal level with PACER and
| in the majority of states with an equivalent.
| [deleted]
| Hello71 wrote:
| as implied in a cousin comment, I don't think this applies
| if they're currently incarcerated. at least at the federal
| level, the BOP should have records of who was sentenced
| with firearms or other violent sentencing modifiers in
| order to properly segregate them from non-violent
| offenders. that wouldn't work for the idea of purging their
| records, but for the OP argument, it ought to work
| reasonably well. for the rare cases where it doesn't, some
| burden could be put on the inmate to collect and submit
| their documents for approval, the same as if they were
| filing an appeal.
| mbbutler wrote:
| At this point, I really don't care if some people who plead
| down to non-violent charges get released along with the immense
| number of actual non-violent offenders.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I agree. It needs a little more nuance, especially the plea
| bargaining. And on top of that, prosecutors are known to pile
| on tons of only vaguely-applicable, probably-not-convictable
| charges just to get someone to plea bargain down, so that
| complicates even the plea bargain exception.
|
| I'll throw in another part where more fine-grained control
| would be nice: the _amount_ of said substances is measured by
| gross weight, baggie included, even if whatever the substance
| is has been "stepped on."
|
| Now, wave a gun in someone's face to take their money for
| drugs? Keep that charge. But otherwise we should not only free,
| but expunge the record, retroactively. Some kid with a dime bag
| ends up having to suffer for that decision for the rest of
| their life.
| azinman2 wrote:
| And what about trafficking 100kg of heroin? Everyone likes to
| pick the seemingly trivial examples to justify liberal values
| on jailing ("what if the 3rd strike is stealing a loaf of
| bread!") but the reality is there are a broad range of crimes
| by a broad range of people. That's why we have judges and
| give them latitude.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This is going to be unpopular, but I say legalize it.
|
| Watch "My 600 Pound Life." People can destroy their lives
| with food, they can destroy their lives with alcohol. One
| is merely legal, one is a necessity. People make terrible
| life choices _constantly_ and selecting heroin -- once
| prescribed for asthma -- as a no-go is just hating the
| newcomer versus giving traditional old alcohol, a
| civilizational favorite, a pass.
|
| We should spend the money from the war on drugs on instead
| trying to prevent the root causes of these kinds of
| disastrous decisions. We don't even have a great grasp on
| why people make some of these choices yet. I'm not saying
| we just set up a Needle Park or anything, but frankly we've
| lost the war on drugs. It's time to re-evaluate our
| priorities.
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| I think in there case of something like Acid the weight can
| be an incorrect measure of substance.
|
| I heard it was popular to use the old books of stamps. So
| five doses on a stamp book is a silly about of weight. Then
| over a certain weight it is considered distribution and
| boom the sentence is jumped. Thanks to the war on drugs I'm
| not sure how much can even be reasoned by a judge.
|
| Now, keep in mind, I'm not necessarily on the side of no
| more crimes. I do see the cracks in how the offenses wer e
| codified.
|
| Things like marijuana outside distribution should probably
| be ignored. I was horrified watching someone on a cop show
| get arrested for a roach they found nearby on the ground.
| This was also a person who was strolling through a walkway
| in the forest between residences.
| gowld wrote:
| > That's why we have judges and give them latitude.
|
| See "Mandatory sentencing" aka "Mandatory Minimums"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_sentencing#United_S
| t...
| leetcrew wrote:
| that's a good question, but I don't think there's a good way to
| distinguish between people who pled down from charges they
| likely would have been convicted on at trial and charges that
| were heaped on for leverage but had little chance of sticking.
| from a criminal justice perspective, I think we need to
| consider only the actual convictions. we might take into
| consideration whether there are any meaningful priors though.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| On the federal level in the USA that is not possible. Firearms
| and violence add on points to your sentencing and are often
| linked with mandatory minimums. Firearms in particular really
| tank your chances of a short sentence. Prior to the First Step
| Act you couldn't even participate in RDAP with a firearm linked
| to your crime.
|
| I outlined this in a different comment, but programming like
| RDAP should be developed and standardized to aide convicted in
| rehabilitation.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yeah but (almost?) nobody is in federal prison on drug
| possession charges, especially after the latest reform bill.
| There are a lot in prison on trafficking and sales, but not
| possession ("minor", per the headline).
|
| The vast majority of drug charges are in state prison
| systems, where plea bargains are absolutely a thing.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| I agree. A number of the ones in the federal system are
| also only in the feds because of career criminal charges.
| You can be convicted multiple times as a juvenile and then
| 1+ times as an adult and receive a federal sentence for
| something minor.
| Hello71 wrote:
| to clarify, since most people without personal experience in
| the US criminal system don't know: in the US, you can be, and
| usually are, sentenced based on crimes and/or facts you were
| not convicted or even charged for.
| [deleted]
| lallysingh wrote:
| Fear holds justice back.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| What would you consider a "violent drug offense"? Or, am I
| misreading your question?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It's easy to see how pistol whipping someone over a bad drug
| deal could be plead down to a non-violent possession/dealing
| offense because proving assault and battery is hard when the
| prosecution only has testimony and circumstantial evidence
| the prosecution's star witness is an addict with a mile long
| record. Possession is very easy to prove. A&B, DV, etc, etc
| are much harder to prosecute (and by "much" I mean "some
| work" vs "practically no work") so possession is a good
| offense to anchor a plea bargain for those other things to.
|
| Personally I say release them all and just wait for the bad
| ones to filter back into the system but I can see why some
| people are hesitant.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| But, neither assault nor battery are drug offenses.
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| The original charges are always shown in the judicial
| record even if they are later dropped from prosecution.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| True, now what happens when prosecution systemically
| throws the book for the purpose of securing better plea
| bargains? Maybe you didn't pistol whip that guy, maybe
| you just smacked him upside the head but you were packing
| when you did it so the prosecutor throws all the possible
| charges on the list.
|
| Both sides of the problem relate to each other. People
| plead from "real crimes" down to "petty crimes" but
| prosecutors know this so they charge people with "real
| crimes" that won't stick just to get better plea deals on
| petty crimes and pad their stats.
| BayezLyfe wrote:
| So how does one advocate for their state to move towards
| decriminalization?
| mulderc wrote:
| Should any non-violent criminal be jailed? Seems like there are
| better alternatives like house arrest, probation, etc.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted
| murder.
|
| Right now if you fish without a permit in the wrong place you're
| a felon and you will never be able to get a decent job for the
| rest of your life. The entire reason the American criminal
| justice system is like this, at its core is to punish minority
| groups.
|
| I don't ever see this changing, and it's a big part of why I want
| to make an exit by 40. I imagine if I do decide to have a family
| it would be in a more civilized country
| leetcrew wrote:
| > Society needs to have something between jaywalking and
| attempted murder.
|
| there is already a lot of gradation in the spectrum of
| consequences: fines, probation, house arrest, weekend sentence
| (free to work during the week, but need check into jail each
| weekend), different security levels for different offenses. not
| much "rehabilitation" occurs anywhere along the spectrum, but
| it's not like you go straight from a small fine to 25 years in
| supermax.
| jawzz wrote:
| True, but where there's less of a spectrum is in the stigma
| that follows you after the punishment. For many companies and
| landlords, anyone without a squeaky clean record is lumped
| together. Even for crimes that a significant portion of the
| population has probably committed at some point and were just
| never caught.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Almost all of those come with an arrest record which can stop
| you from getting a decent job.
|
| Just because you can get 3 months for a felony charge,
| doesn't mean you'll ever be able to work again. We need a
| system to get rid of most criminal records after a certain
| amount of time
| mrmuagi wrote:
| > fish without a permit in the wrong place
|
| Are these ecological concerns, ie. protected species or
| preventing over fishing, or trespassing concerns? I tried
| searching 'fishing' + 'felon' and I couldn't whip up any laws.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes, these situations are usually but not always tied to
| taking of species that are protected. This can be tied to
| poaching or recreational take.
|
| Taking fish or invertebrates which are undersized is often a
| misdemeanor. Repeat offense can turn into a felony and jail
| time. First time harassment or take of marine mammals can
| also be a felony.
|
| Source: I had a run-in where I was charged with a misdemeanor
| which was dropped after hiring a lawyer and making a
| substantial donation to a charity of the Judge's choice,
| which was a condition of the plea. Really informed my view on
| the subject.
| mnd999 wrote:
| Jaywalking doesn't even need to be a crime at all. In a lot of
| parts of the world it isn't and we do just fine.
| paxys wrote:
| It is called misdemeanor and several classes of it exist. And
| no, fishing without a permit isn't a felony anywhere in the US.
| offtop5 wrote:
| >And no, fishing without a permit isn't a felony anywhere in
| the US.
|
| Your 19 and you run, you get caught and the local DA adds a
| few charges.
|
| Life ruined.
|
| This of course depends on how rich your parents are. If your
| parents can bail you out next day, and get a good lawyer it's
| just a bad memory.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| And the root cause of the problem is as long as for-profit
| prisons exists, there is no incentive to free those non-violent
| criminals.
| neogodless wrote:
| Not disagreeing on incentive but for clarification...
|
| My understanding would be that freeing non-violent criminals
| would be a matter of legislation and the court system. The
| choice would not be up to the prison. But do you think the
| prisons _influence_ the legislation (or, horrifically, the
| judicial system)?
|
| To say that it's a the root cause is to say that for-profit
| prisons drive legislation on drugs, but I do not believe that
| is the root cause of that legislation.
| elric wrote:
| Looking at the history of slavery and prison labour in the
| US, I'm not sure I share your optimism. Many new (and
| victimless) crimes were introduced after slavery was
| abolished, and slavery was never abolished in prisons.
| Locking someone up for "vagrancy" and then forcing them to
| work for you does sound an awful lot like slavery.
| neogodless wrote:
| I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. Prisons and
| prison labor existing because of racism is what you're
| arguing, and I didn't say anything to disagree with it. But
| _root cause_ here is the same, assuming that laws against
| drug use are intended to catch more non-whites than whites.
| klyrs wrote:
| https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2015/jul/31/report-
| find...
|
| > In the Public Interest (ITPI), a Washington, D.C.-based
| research and policy group on public services, reported in
| September 2013 that it found so-called bed guarantees in
| around 65% of the more than 60 private prison contracts it
| analyzed, including contracts from Texas, Ohio, Colorado and
| Florida. The bed guarantees, or "lockup quotas," ranged from
| 70% minimum occupancy in at least one California facility to
| 100% occupancy at three Arizona prisons. The most common bed
| guarantee was 90%.
|
| > Public officials who agree to lockup quotas, according to
| corrections experts, become obligated - against their
| communities' best interests - to keep prisons filled to
| ensure that taxpayer dollars aren't being wasted.
|
| > "It's really shortsighted public policy to do anything that
| ties the hands of the state," said Michele Deitch, a senior
| lecturer at the University of Texas School of Public Affairs
| and an expert on private prisons. "If there are these
| incentives to keep the private prisons full, then it is
| reducing the likelihood that states will adopt strategies to
| reduce prison costs by keeping more people out."
|
| Horrific is the right word.
| elric wrote:
| There are countries without for-profit prisons where people are
| locked up for non-violent drug offences.
|
| To me, it seems important for the severity of punishment to
| reflect the severity of the crime (where severity is some
| function of outcome & intent). Clearly locking people up for
| smoking pot or snorting coke is pointless. Locking people up
| for victimless crimes in general seems strange.
|
| I think the idea is for these punishments to serve as course-
| correcting examples for the rest of society. But I'm having a
| hard time imaging a society that defines its mores based on how
| much jail time a given behaviour might incur. At least I can't
| imagine it being a good thing. If we want to reduce harm from
| drugs, we should work on reducing harm from drugs, instead of
| blindly banning all drugs and locking people up. But it seems
| that we, as a society, don't want to tackle the harder problem.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Absolutely. There's no reason to lock anybody up whose only crime
| is that they got high.
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