[HN Gopher] Joe Ligon: America's 'longest juvenile lifer' on 68 ...
___________________________________________________________________
Joe Ligon: America's 'longest juvenile lifer' on 68 years in prison
Author : gmays
Score : 84 points
Date : 2021-05-15 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| midhhhthrow wrote:
| He didn't even know how to read or write. I can't imagine how
| little guidance he got from his parents growing up. No wonder he
| ended up with the wrong crowd
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| It's worth noting that the black illiteracy rate at the time he
| was growing up was around 10% [1]. Desegregation didn't happen
| until he had had already been in prison for close to a decade.
|
| There's a substantial chance his parents may not have known
| themselves. Not because of any fault of theirs, but because
| they may literally have not had the opportunity to. In fact,
| there's a high chance that he had relatives who literally were
| _not allowed_ to learn - not only was Jim Crow still in living
| memory, there were people alive at that time who had been born
| into slavery.
|
| People forget how relatively recently the fight for (obvious)
| civil rights was.
|
| [1] https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's worth noting that the black illiteracy rate at the
| time he was growing up was around 10%
|
| Nationally. Alabama's general illiteracy rate around that
| time was close to double the national average (4.2% to the
| national 2.4% in 1960, for example [0]), so if the
| black:general ratio was similar to the national average (and
| I'd suspect it more likely was higher in the Deep South),
| you'd expect black illiteracy in Alabama to be near 20%.
|
| > not only was Jim Crow still in living memory
|
| "Living memory" suggests it was in the past, but there were
| people alive who had experienced it. Jim Crow was still a
| thing in Alabama for more than a decade _after_ the time of
| his crime. And not just as some kind of neglected relic; not
| only were Jim Crow laws vigorously enforced, but new ones at
| both state and local levels were being adopted in Alabama
| into the 1960s.
|
| _Now_ Jim Crow is "in living memory", then it was an ongoing
| crime against humanity.
|
| [0] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1963/demo/p23
| -00...
| paulpauper wrote:
| damn,that is a long sentence.
|
| always be as nice as possible, never get mad.
| daenz wrote:
| For people digging into what young Joe Ligon was a part of which
| landed him in prison:
|
| >"We started asking people for some money so we could get some
| more wine and one thing led to another..."
|
| >He trails off. But he admits the night ended in a stabbing spree
| in which he was involved, violence which left two people dead and
| six injured.
|
| He goes on to say that although he admits to stabbing someone,
| the person survived, so he didn't murder anyone.
| polartx wrote:
| >he admits the night ended in a stabbing spree in which he was
| involved, violence which left two people dead and six injured.
|
| >he has since accepted in an interview with US broadcaster CBS
| that he stabbed someone who survived
|
| >"I didn't murder anybody."
|
| I wonder if there's some very simple investigative work that
| took place, but the article doesn't mention it, as the author
| attempts to portray the convicted murder in a way that would
| foster empathy.
|
| For instance, did the wounds suggest more than one knife was
| used? If not, that would mean they were handing the knife off
| to each other. It would be pretty unrealistic that a group of
| inebriated youngsters could rack up 8 stabbings and 2 murders
| with 1 knife before the streets were completely cleared and the
| police were on the scene.
|
| As he's been convicted, he's a murderer unless proven
| otherwise, and deserves his original sentence.
| JshWright wrote:
| "Deserves" is a pretty loaded word there...
| polartx wrote:
| I'm not sure I get your meaning? "Deserve" is a consequence
| of action, whether it's a reward or punishment depends on
| the action. The scope of the consequence is usually clearly
| defined, and a person or group is empowered with delivering
| that consequence (reward or punishment). So just as
| "injustice" exists when someone _deserves_ a reward, (some
| consequence predicated on their actions), but does not
| receive it, the same must also exist where someone
| _deserves_ a punishment but does not receive it.
| tgflynn wrote:
| In a democracy what such an action "deserves" is decided
| by the people and the people are not of one mind on what
| a person like this "deserves". It seems quite likely that
| in a different jurisdiction or at a different time a much
| lighter sentence would have been imposed for this crime.
| aksss wrote:
| Perhaps worth pointing out for general awareness that
| trial by jury has nothing to do with democracy, per se.
| Not all democracies do it, and it was (is) a pretty
| unique thing about the American system of checks and
| balances at the time it was enshrined in the sixth and
| seventh Amendments of our Constitution. Jury trials can
| exist with or without democracy.
|
| To your point about different time and place, yes, but
| that's the system: the jury you get, absent a mistrial,
| is the jury you get and their opinion is what decides
| what you deserve by definition (absent new evidence,
| appeals, etc, within the confines of sentencing
| regulation, etc.).
|
| Perhaps what you're after is that there's no universally
| objective standard of what a person deserves for their
| actions, given all the myriad influences and conditions
| that lead to a particular moment in a person's life, and
| which may lessen that persons agency. Therefore the
| judgement of society is imperfect in the sense that it
| cannot adequately grasp all these attributes, and may
| give attributes differing weight based on something as
| small as whether their eggs were over cooked that
| morning. So for a person to use the word "deserves" with
| authority is flawed because a person or people cannot
| render a perfectly objective judgement.
|
| I think you'll find that this is an argument as old as
| time, but whether by birth or immigration, people living
| in a system operate by its rules, and the word "deserve"
| reflects the authority of a society to bring down
| punishment on scofflaws. Like when I tell you something
| is "cold" we need not debate the true principle of what
| cold means, you assume to context. So should you assume
| context for the word "deserves". Society has never
| achieved perfection in balancing agency and justice but
| herein lies a predictable truism - if you run around with
| a band stabbing others so severely that some die and by
| luck some don't, society will determine ya dun f'd up.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Perhaps worth pointing out for general awareness that
| trial by jury has nothing to do with democracy, per se.
| Not all democracies do it, and it was (is) a pretty
| unique thing about the American system of checks and
| balances at the time it was enshrined in the sixth and
| seventh Amendments of our Constitution.
|
| It was adopted directly from the British system;
| Americans had some recent experience with and anger about
| being subjected to fairly novel (at least in their
| breadth of application in the colonies) _exceptions_ to
| the norm of trial by jury and the guarantee reflected a
| reaction against that experience, but trial by jury
| _wasn't_ an American innovation.
| aksss wrote:
| Comment you're replying to never said trial by jury _was_
| an American innovation. Simply that it was pretty unique
| at the time to have that right enshrined in the country's
| constitution, and that the right is not a requisite
| feature of democracies. For instance, the right to a jury
| trial for serious crimes in England has existed longer
| than England could seriously call itself a democracy.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Simply that it was pretty unique at the time to have
| that right enshrined in the country's constitution
|
| Having a set, non-nebulous constitution at all, was
| unique but the claim that trial by jury " a pretty unique
| thing about the American system of checks and balances"
| is false, it was a well-established basic right in the
| common law system and the deprivation of it in the
| colonial administration was a fundamental grievance of
| the American independence movement not because they had
| some novel ideas about basic right but because they
| sought it as a deprivation of the rights they saw
| themselves entitled to _in the British common law
| tradition_.
| tgflynn wrote:
| I wasn't referring specifically to juries. The ranges of
| punishments that are prescribed for crimes are done so by
| democratically elected legislatures in most modern
| nations, including the US, though judges and juries do
| have varying degrees of discretion in the matter.
|
| My main point is that in a democracy one shouldn't take
| the law that exists in a particular place and time as
| some absolute that cannot be questioned because those
| laws can and do change through political action, as has
| recently been happening with drug laws and mandatory
| sentences for drug crimes.
| aksss wrote:
| Murdering multiple people will always be highly
| unpopular, particularly in the local community where it
| happens and when it happens, but I take your point.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Would you use the word "deserves" to describe a child
| hanged for stealing food, which was an expected legal
| penalty in some times and places? To most people it
| carries the connotation that the speaker agrees with the
| appropriateness of the penalty.
| iratewizard wrote:
| A life sentence for participating in a cold-blooded murder
| spree is something I imagine most members of society would
| see as just.
| Arainach wrote:
| For a mentally capable adult, perhaps. We have plenty of
| research to show that the brains of juveniles are wired
| differently. That doesn't mean no punishment, but it
| means that a life sentence is excessive and
| rehabilitation should be tried.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| So, "Deserves" still applies here, just less.
| iratewizard wrote:
| The overwhelming majority of juveniles do not commit
| cold-blooded murder like this. Do you believe that this
| person is not a psychopath? Has any real ground been
| broken to take violent psychopaths and "cure" their
| condition? I've seen no evidence of this, and I don't see
| rehabilitation as anything more than a tool that is
| useful in certain circumstances.
| alogray wrote:
| Most of us on here are in tech rather than psychiatry and
| not fit to make a call on whether someone is a psycopath,
| especially from a single article about them that doesn't
| really focus on their mental state.
| thrwhizzle wrote:
| He went on a robbing and stabbing spree that ended up
| with six critical injuries and two deaths.
|
| Maybe you don't think he deserves his punishment. I
| certainly do. The type of person who would go on a
| stabbing spree for wine money is not the kind of person
| who has any place in society I want to live.
| daenz wrote:
| Furthermore, if this is the type of thing that someone
| has to "learn" not to do at 15, what other horrible
| things do they still need to learn not to do? It is not
| worth having these people live around others while they
| learn these lessons at the cost of innocents around them.
| polartx wrote:
| When you think about it, there was enough complex
| decisions taking place to point towards a developed
| (albeit devoid of conscience) mind in control.
|
| A childs reasoning would more likely follow this kind of
| path: Child wants alcohol->storekeeper has alcohol->child
| capable of coercion by force (ie stabbing)-->child gets
| alcohol from storekeeper
|
| However, instead he did this: Young man wants
| alcohol->storekeeper has alcohol-->alcohol costs money
| that young man does not have-->innocent passerby's have
| money--> young man capable of coercion by force (ie
| stabbing)-->young man stabs innocent passerby's for
| _their_ money-- >Evaluate whether amount stolen is enough
| for alcohol, if not, repeat previous steps, if
| so--->young man gets alcohol from storekeeper
|
| _Good_ decisions are not proof of brain development,
| however complex ones are. Given the evidence I would say
| he was rightly judged as an adult.
| daenz wrote:
| You make a good point, but I think there is a simpler
| argument for why he was rightfully tried as an adult:
| murder is an adult action.
| alogray wrote:
| Are there crimes that are "juvenile actions"? Would
| adults who commit them be tried as juveniles given that
| it is a juvenile action?
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| IIRC, empathy isnt fully developed until the early
| twenties. Even if you are capable of having sophisticated
| trains of thoughts you might not realize the scope of
| consequences from your actions.
|
| Life without parole seems like it should be reserved for
| those who are beyond saving. Not sure a 15 year old boy
| would classify as such. It all depends on your view of
| retribution vs rehabilitation though.
| taneq wrote:
| Aww he's just a kid... no need to get upset about him
| _stabbing a bunch of people to death_ now is there?
| alogray wrote:
| That is not what the person you replied to what the
| person you replied to said and you know that.
|
| Intentionally misconstruing what others say is something
| best left for Reddit.
| [deleted]
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Society is rarely for lower sentences.
|
| I find that leftist wokes tend to live in their own
| bubble. They are painfully reminded of it when there is a
| survey about the death penalty. Luckily the justice
| system doesn't operate on the whims of the people like in
| that story of Jesus' trial.
| JshWright wrote:
| lol, I work as a paramedic. How many fatal stabbings have
| you been to? Especially ones where it was your job to try
| to save the victims life? Unless your number is higher
| than mine, save your "woke leftist bubble" argument.
|
| My position is that no 15 year old deserves a life
| sentence _without parole_. Are there 15 year olds who
| commit crimes that truly reflect their irredeemable
| nature? Perhaps. I expect they are in the minority
| though, and that's the whole point of a parole board (as
| flawed a system as that is).
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| Historically, "society" has been huge fans of corporal
| punishment, elaborate executions and torture. Not sure
| you wanna go down that road, buddy.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Not to mention slavery, lynchings, and the consequence-
| free murder of gender and sexual minorities. There are
| many things that are today considered barbaric that were
| once popular, and this is almost certainly a trend that
| will extend into the future.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| I don't think anyone deserves that long for something done at
| 15. Remember that the potential range of failure (how hard
| you can fuck up) for a 15 year old is kinda arbitrary as much
| of it is based on who your parents are.
|
| I'm not saying he doesn't deserve punishment but that seems
| like a very long amount of time to sentence a minor.
| aksss wrote:
| Arguably (though not certainly) a better punishment than
| death, which would have been a frequent consequence in most
| of human history for taking the lives of others (plural).
| Life imprisonment is simply an alternative to the state
| killing you.
|
| You can die (so we don't have to worry about your exposure
| to society) or you can stay in this institution (so we
| don't have to worry about you). What do you prefer? ..aaand
| arguably you can revisit the decision on your own accord
| later if you choose the latter.
|
| "Time head all wounds" refers to the lessening sense of
| gravity of experiences over time. This is a function of
| memory and the healing power of forgetfulness. Life
| sentences are therefore liable to re-evaluation and pity by
| their nature, whereas if death was meted out as the
| sentence, that too would be forgotten in time. I find that
| interesting, and perhaps it says that we should not trust
| such emotions in either direction (for or against a
| punishment) when figuring out how to manage people who
| systemically murder others.
| prepend wrote:
| It's definitely pretty hard to determine how long someone
| should be punished for multiple murder. I expect the most
| capable would be the judge and jury, so it's hard to
| improve on that decades later with minimal information.
|
| So life for multiple murder by a 15 year old doesn't strike
| up my curiosity for optimizing the sentencing. Unless
| there's lots more info. This article didn't provide any and
| since the journalist would likely research to make a good
| article, I expect there's not any compelling narrative.
| juskrey wrote:
| Most countries treat organised crime episodes as severe
| aggravation - this is to deter participation in organized crime
| and avoid "you can't prove who did the actual stabbing"
| situations
| asveikau wrote:
| But Mr. Ligon claims he was a bit of a loner and didn't know
| any of the people that he was with at the time very well. It
| sounds like "we rounded up a bunch of black people, and we're
| going to call it a gang". Which I bet was absurdly common.
| Probably a bit less so now in most places, but certainly the
| late 20th century had a lot of that sentiment that I can
| remember, and maybe there is a bit of a resurgence lately in
| some circles, "tough on crime" and "anti-gang" rhetoric that
| can be seen as veiled racism.
| secondcoming wrote:
| what sort of person goes on a stabbing spree with total
| strangers?
| asveikau wrote:
| The article says he was a 15 year old kid (read:
| underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) out underage drinking,
| the group asked somebody for money for booze and it
| escalated into a fight.
|
| This is not saintly behavior but also not worthy of 68
| years in prison.
|
| And yeah, it's conceivable that he was out doing this
| with people he didn't know very well, and that nobody
| expected or wanted a knife fight to break out.
| daenz wrote:
| >the group asked somebody for money for booze and it
| escalated into a fight.
|
| You are seriously downplaying what is described in the
| article as a "stabbing spree" with 8 different victims, 2
| of them killed.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think you may be missing something too. You don't see
| how a non-stabbing fight could escalate into a stabbing
| fight, even a deadly one, and the participants can have
| (1) not set out to do it, (2) rather not have done it and
| (3) not be irredeemable people?
|
| And that some participants were escalating more than
| others, and it not to have been a "gang" conspiracy?
|
| This is I think what I am complaining about. So eager to
| see perpetrators as irredeemable villains, rather than
| possibly at a wrong place at a wrong time, with the wrong
| company, and/or they just messed up. There's often a
| racial thing at the root of that too.
|
| Don't get me wrong, the event sounds like a tragedy. But
| so is spending 68 years in jail for a 15 year old's
| tragic mistake. And make no mistake, a white person who
| did the exact same thing or worse would get off easier.
| secondcoming wrote:
| The event sounds like an outrage.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| One thing I wonder, though, is how accurate his memory is at
| this point one way or the other.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| There are things you forget as time passes, Stabbing people
| isn't one of them. Unless you're a psychopath.
| silexia wrote:
| The guy admitted to murder at the time. His claims otherwise
| now are both conflicting with other statements he makes now,
| and conflict with his admissions at the time.
|
| He says himself he has no friends inside or out and that he
| was better off in prison... Which also means society was
| better off.
| lowercased wrote:
| "...Which also means society was better off.".
|
| Citation needed.
| contriban wrote:
| I think such a grave accusation will bring you to _write_ a
| story into your permanent memory due to how many times you
| have to repeat it and go over it. If you go to prison, it's
| also the last story of your free life. Once inside, your
| brain will probably be stuck in a loop over what you could
| have done differently that could have avoided your current
| situation.
| trothamel wrote:
| A bit of googling finds the name of the men that were murdered
| that night, Charles Pitts, 60, and Jackson Hamm, 65.
|
| He admitted to murdering them. (Which is what a guilty plea
| fundamentally is.)
| ced wrote:
| _He admitted to murdering them. (Which is what a guilty plea
| fundamentally is.)_
|
| Isn't the accused sometimes advised to plead guilty
| (regardless of the truth of the matter) because he has little
| chance of winning a plea of innocence? Or is that just in
| fiction?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| No, it's true. 95% of felony convictions in America are
| from plea deals, not trials.
| https://www.cato.org/commentary/prisons-are-packed-
| because-p...
| nradov wrote:
| Under US criminal law, defendants can often be found guilty of
| murder due to participation in a group criminal activity even
| if they didn't directly attack the victim. For example, if bank
| robbers kill a security guard the get-away driver will often be
| charged with murder even if he never physically entered the
| bank.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| My guess is that if a pair of robbers hit a liquor store and
| the liquor store clerk killed one of them, the other can be
| charged with some form of murder.
|
| edit: easy enough to find.
|
| https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2019/12/16/robber.
| ..
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/missouri/articles/20...
| ipaddr wrote:
| That's a recent law so it shouldn't apply to this timeperiod.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Felony murder rule is old and well established in common
| law, dating centuries back.
| DiffEq wrote:
| How far back...well there is a scripture in the Old
| Testament that essentially says if you are party to a
| crime then you are just as guilty as the one who
| committed the crime...so this common law practice
| actually dates back at least 4000 years. Also Japanese
| law held the same types of practices for thousands of
| years and Is m sure many other ancient cultures.
| cko wrote:
| Felony murder? I was on the jury of one case. I kinda felt
| bad for the defendant - he was 18 and some juvenile in his
| group pulled the trigger. Probably accidentally.
| eplanit wrote:
| From what I understand, with murder generally all who
| participate can be charged equally.
| atkailash wrote:
| This is one reason I support abolishing the death penalty.
| Sometimes the processes weren't followed or were applied
| incorrectly. Sometimes we decide "maybe trying a juvenile as an
| adult was not so good an idea" and such. And then there's
| innocent ones who got screwed. Or this situation where he
| admitted to charges that weren't actually applicable. If he had
| the death penalty, it's just be ignored or they'd go "oops" to
| the family. At least now he can enjoy his life
| nsonha wrote:
| when I read about the model of prison they have in Denmark, I
| wondered if it's feasible to have that everywhere. Cost might be
| the biggest problem.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| i can tell you that in the united states we have an abundance
| of money, so cost isn't the problem here.
| gumby wrote:
| Abundance for punishment, yes. Little for helping others.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| If you ask an American expert in punishing and hurting
| people, here's what they say:
|
| https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-
| room/news/424263-tru...
|
| >Trump supporter complains shutdown is 'not hurting the
| people he needs to be hurting'
|
| >A prison employee in Florida who voted for President Trump
| argued that Trump is to blame for the current government
| shutdown.
|
| >"I voted for him, and he's the one who's doing this,"
| Crystal Minton told The New York Times in an article
| published Monday. "I thought he was going to do good
| things. He's not hurting the people he needs to be
| hurting."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/florida-government-
| shu...
|
| >Though Mr. Trump said on Twitter over the weekend that
| "most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats," that
| is far from true in places like Jackson County, Fla., where
| Marianna is the county seat. It is a Republican bastion so
| deeply conservative that it was illegal to sell liquor by
| the drink until November 2017. The president and his plan
| for a wall along the border are popular here, as they are
| across much of the state, which might explain why Florida
| Republicans in Congress have done little to pressure party
| leaders in the Senate to put an end to the shutdown.
| Lev1a wrote:
| Or this talk about one of Denmarks neighbours (Germany) by an
| American, Jewish, (grand-)son of Holocaust survivors visiting a
| German prison with a bunch of other Americans ("60 Minutes"
| reporter, some Governor, a DA, a convicted murderer etc.). A
| bunch of stats and comparisons to underline the effects of
| different prison systems:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtV5ev6813I
|
| And the related segment from "60 Minutes":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOmcP9sMwIE
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Dane here. It is a system where I could rape somebody and be
| out quicker than they would have time to heal.
|
| i don't think that is something to emulate.
|
| By al means have the space for people to fuck up. But some
| people are not suitable to live in society again.
| kergonath wrote:
| Cost not going into the pocket of big companies might be an
| even bigger problem.
| bubbleRefuge wrote:
| Money is not a problem at the Federal level. We just spent
| around what, $6T, on Covid inspired programs and we are gearing
| up for an infrastructure bill on the order of 1 to 2T more.
| There are no true money/affordability constraints. The real
| constraints are on capacity to produce. Its not can we afford
| things, its can we build or buy the things we want.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Cost per year of incarceration isn't the only metric; if more
| humane and expensive jails lead to reductions in reoffense
| rates, it can pay for itself quite handily.
| cercatrova wrote:
| But then how are those poor, poor private prisons going to
| make any money?
| Jabbles wrote:
| Total monetary cost to society isn't the only metric; there
| is intrinsic value in having a more humane prison system.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > there is intrinsic value in having a more humane prison
| system.
|
| Not if you're a believer in "harsh punishment", "law and
| order!!!", "eye for an eye" and similar Evangelical
| barbarism like way too many Americans are.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Many see prisons as a way of punishment. Providing any
| comfort will makes some people upset. Society must be
| educated to the purpose of prison before any of this is
| possible.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Prisoners themselves can use the usual sentence "I paid
| my debt to society" with different meanings.
|
| Personally I see great benefits in locking up people
| guilty of violent crimes, shielding society from the
| consequences of their actions. Then the system can - as
| soon as the person is incarcerated - begin to work on
| rehabilitation.
| slibhb wrote:
| "Society" can't be "educated" because there's simple a
| disagreement here. Some people indeed see prison as a
| punishment and others see prison as a means of improving
| society.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Indeed, and I suspect that the fundamental factor in how
| people view prison is based on their personalities.
| Conservative people are fundamentally more risk averse
| than Liberal people.
|
| "Educate" me all you want about rehabilitation, but when
| I hear that a man murdered two people with a knife and
| slashed six others, I'm going to think that man needs to
| be locked up for life because he's too much of a risk to
| innocent people.
|
| Conversely, I can lecture a liberal person all day about
| how dangerous these people can be and they'll think that
| these people deserve a _chance_ at being let back into
| society.
| slibhb wrote:
| I'd frame it in a different way.
|
| Conservatives argue for punishment as deterrence and to
| keep society safe from criminals. Liberals argue for
| punishment as rehabilitation and are happy to abandon
| punishment if it is shown to not rehabilitate. Both of
| these are utilitarian arguments.
|
| A third position is: criminals deserve to be punished in
| proportion to the crime committed because a society that
| does not punish criminals is not worth living in. The
| definition of a crime is a transgression that must be
| punished, whatever the consequences.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Why not enforce a quick death penalty. Putting someone
| away for 2, 5, 10, 20 or 30 years and just letting them
| back into society seems more dangerous compared to trying
| to change those behaviours before letting them go free.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I agree entirely, but the cost arguments are useful for the
| folks who see improved prisoner well-being as a neutral or
| even _negative_ aspect.
| colordrops wrote:
| Cost would be a problem because we put too many people in
| prison.
| caddybox wrote:
| While the article confirms his acceptance of his circumstances, I
| still find it hard to understand how a man who went into a prison
| at 15 and came out at 83 can see anything as positive. An entire
| life spent behind bars. Maybe he really tapped into a sense of
| contentment and acceptance that I'm missing or am too young to
| understand.
| hluska wrote:
| I worry about a 15 year old going into an adult system without
| even understanding his sentence. Prison guards aren't known for
| being kind and prisons are full of people who belong in
| prisons. What did he learn? What did he experience? And how
| incredibly scared could that man be to raise hell now that he's
| out??
|
| I hate to put it so bluntly, but prison takes people who made
| mistakes and breaks them, sometimes beyond repair. Somehow, I
| feel like that's a greater crime than many prisoners are
| sentenced for.
| swman wrote:
| I've been stopped at knife point at dark by two people. It
| was traumatizing and I have no sympathy towards bad actors.
| What am I supposed to do? Just get stabbed and be thankful
| that the criminals were nice enough not to kill me?
|
| I was going to night class and getting harassed by people my
| age. Lock them up and maybe they become rehabilitated but
| there's something seriously wrong with people who are willing
| to go right up to killing someone over a few possessions. I
| personally will always vote strongly against crime. You can
| keep having sympathy for criminals I hope you're never afraid
| of going outside after dark.
| holoduke wrote:
| You argument is very egocentric. It's proved that a light
| penalty system leads to much lower crime numbers. Too bad
| that so much people look at it from an individual
| perspective and not from a society one. The great danger of
| a individualistic society
| ibrahimsow1 wrote:
| Although I don't doubt the traumatic nature of your
| experience and I am genuinely sorry. Surely it would make
| more sense to diagnose why we have bad actors and seek to
| rehabilitate them as opposed to dehumanising them and
| tossing them into a dank cell.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Won't somebody please think of the humanity of those who
| rob others at knife-point?
|
| At some point, people need to realize that some human
| beings are just born bad. Psychopathy and Sociopathy are
| real things that have a genetic component.
|
| And, while we can try to rehabilitate those who score low
| on measures of psychopathy and sociopathy, we need to
| recognize that some people really do just need to be
| locked away from society at large to preserve the lives
| of innocent people.
| hluska wrote:
| Psychopathy and sociopathy are defined as antisocial
| personality disorder. There are treatments, unfortunately
| modern prisons are nowhere near conducive to the types of
| treatments that are effective. And the spiral
| continues...
| hluska wrote:
| I obviously agree, but can you do me a big favour?? Let's
| just love the hell out of swman and let them believe what
| they believe.
| hluska wrote:
| I'm very sorry that happened to you. If you'd ever like to
| talk to someone, my Dad was a police officer and I bet he
| would open up his network to you. My email is in my profile
| and nobody ever even has to know your name.
| dash2 wrote:
| I completely sympathize with you. I hate criminals, I'm
| tough on crime.
|
| But... 68 years?
|
| At that point, I almost think it's kinder and more honest
| to execute people.
| sokoloff wrote:
| In the case of non-violent crimes for drug possession and
| distribution, I entirely agree with your second paragraph.
|
| In the case of armed robbery with accompanying multiple
| murders, I'm much more concerned for the victims than the
| perpetrators (beyond taking steps as needed to ensure they
| won't do it again in free society).
| hluska wrote:
| I agree completely - some people deserve cages. My Dad was
| a police officer and one of his good friends was heavily
| involved in Victim Services - I grew up hearing about the
| need for reform in that area and am in complete agreement
| with you.
|
| It gets tough when you look at entire systems. On one hand,
| you've got some brave dedicated people who work with
| asshole criminals. We need a carrot of freedom and parole
| to keep those people somewhat safe. On the other, if
| prisons make people worse, that carrot of freedom is
| dangerous to everyone else. When I look at recidivism
| rates, I don't think that North American prisons make
| people better so what the heck do we do??
| saagarjha wrote:
| Fix North American prisons?
| hluska wrote:
| That's the best/most obvious solution but at this point,
| things are so messed up and have been so messed up that
| that's practically a 'rent bulldozers and start over'
| situation. I'd give my right arm if we did that, but
| honestly, I feel pretty safe knowing my right arm will
| stay intact with that bet.
|
| I know that sounds cynical but in the last year, the
| 'shining lights' of my city's youth offender program
| 'quit' for sexually harassing the young people they were
| charged with. That's Canada's Young Offender system and
| that is one heavily scrutinized system. If that kind of
| evil can hide for a decade in our young offender system,
| we're passed the point of draining the swamp and need to
| bring in heavy earth movers.
| kiba wrote:
| Fix the system and reduce the number of people in
| exercise. Then fix factors in society that leads people
| to jail.
|
| Preferably doing all the above at the same time.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| People can find acceptance and happiness in their less than
| ideal circumstances. Maybe it is just a mental trick to keep on
| living. I've heard similar things about how after a few years
| paraplegics report happiness higher than their happiness before
| their paralyzing accident.
| kergonath wrote:
| You probably end up with a skewed moral compass if everything
| you've seem since you were 15 was through prison bars. People
| are very good at believing that they deserve whatever situation
| they're in.
| luftbbb wrote:
| Are you sure about that last sentence.?
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Most humans just adapt and accept their circumstances.
|
| Contrarians and discontents are actually uncommon.
| taneq wrote:
| You're fed and clothed your whole life. Plus 60+ years is a lot
| of time to build some robust rationalisations as to why it aint
| so bad.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You're fed and clothed your whole life. Plus 60+ years is a
| lot of time to build some robust rationalisations as to why
| it aint so bad.
|
| And compared to being a black youth in Jim Crow Alabama--
| Ligon's only pre-prison experience--"ain't so bad" is a
| pretty low bar to clear.
| khalilravanna wrote:
| Could also be a function of age. People mellow out with age.
| You learn to take more things in stride without getting in a
| huff. This topic actually came up in another HN post this week:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27117142
| 6510 wrote:
| Some westerners tried to help very young kids living on a
| garbage heap. Most didn't have a shirt or still had to find
| shoes. They put one in a foster home and send him to school. He
| ran away back to the garbage heap. He just wanted to play with
| friends all day, this school stuff was like prison to him. The
| thing that surprised me the most was how happy they were. Kids
| will just be kids regardless apparently and people get used to
| anything.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _The nation's oldest juvenile lifer, Joe Ligon, left prison
| after 68 years_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26113062 -
| Feb 2021 (81 comments)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-15 23:02 UTC)