[HN Gopher] 25 years of evidence for repealing the Prison Litiga...
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25 years of evidence for repealing the Prison Litigation Reform Act
Author : nickysielicki
Score : 35 points
Date : 2022-07-30 19:57 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.prisonpolicy.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.prisonpolicy.org)
| tomohawk wrote:
| btilly wrote:
| I consider every part of our jail system a travesty.
|
| We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, have an
| abusive plea bargain process to more efficiently railroad people
| in, avoid oversight of our prisons, and once prisoners get out
| they are often unemployable.
|
| Just to offer one example, until 1970 plea bargaining was
| generally considered unconstitutional because it offers such
| large incentives for innocent people to not even attempt to
| defend their rights, no matter how flimsy the evidence against
| them. Today over 95% of cases are decided by plea bargains. The
| rate varies by crime. For drug offenses it is around 97%. And yet
| in most cases the actual investigation is no more than a faulty
| field test that is inadmissible in court. See
| https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/magazine/how-a-2-roadside...
| for verification of that.
|
| Whatever your opinion on our war on drugs, it is clear that a lot
| of people going to jail for drugs are actually innocent.
|
| See https://innocenceproject.org/an-end-to-plea-bargains/ for
| more.
| [deleted]
| phpisthebest wrote:
| This is my primary reason for supporting drug legalization. I
| am not sure why more people do not see the massive damage done
| to society over all, and the massive risk even non-drug users
| have to being abused. I can point to countless cases where
| people have been arrested for legal activity, one case where a
| family was harassed because they visited a garden store, and
| had loose leaf tea in their garage that triggered one of those
| field tests.
|
| When ever this issue is debated the supporters of the drug laws
| often claim only people that want to get high support
| legalization, I have no desire to use drugs, I want to have my
| rights protected, and not be railroaded by a flawed legal
| system or have my house raided under flimsy "evidence"
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| This is depressing. I've always thought plea bargains should be
| disallowed for all these totally obvious reasons, but I can't
| believe they actually used to be before being allowed in.
| Hopefully plea bargains will someday once again be illegal.
| TedShiller wrote:
| omginternets wrote:
| What were the arguments in favor of this in the first place?
| Reading the article, it seems like an absolute travesty -- and it
| may well be -- but still, I like to understand why the fence was
| installed before advocating its removal. What problem was this
| legislation trying to solve? Can anyone provide context?
| getcrunk wrote:
| Second paragraph:
|
| "When the PLRA was being debated, lawmakers who supported it
| claimed that too many people behind bars were filing frivolous
| cases against the government."
| omginternets wrote:
| Sorry, I should have been clearer. This is a rather
| superficial explanation. I'm curious about the details of
| political discourse around the law when it was signed.
| LinkLink wrote:
| Lawmakers really used to, and still do, just blatantly disregard
| the interests of the people for the interests of the state.
| [deleted]
| btilly wrote:
| Don't forget that for many decades "tough on crime" was an easy
| ticket to reelection for politicians.
|
| The same era saw the 3 strikes law. Which saw relative
| progressives like Hillary Clinton giving speeches about how it
| was needed to get "black super-predators" off of the streets.
| And if you were accused of being soft on crime, well,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton demonstrated that a
| Republican could win in 4 out of 5 states (despite starting
| behind in the popular vote) by harping on that enough.
| sarchertech wrote:
| Clinton never said "black" super predators.
|
| > "But we also have to have an organized effort against
| gangs," Hillary Clinton said in a C-SPAN video clip. "Just as
| in a previous generation we had an organized effort against
| the mob. We need to take these people on. They are often
| connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of
| kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are
| called superpredators -- no conscience, no empathy.
| btilly wrote:
| Fair point. She didn't use those words. But everyone
| understood her to mean that.
|
| Which is why
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince-
| pri... calls this claim mostly true.
| sarchertech wrote:
| Regardless of what she meant, my issue was with putting
| it in quotes.
|
| I also doubt she was targeting black kids consciously.
| Even if many people (including herself) tended to think
| of gang members as young and Black.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > I also doubt she was targeting black kids consciously .
| Even if many people (including herself) tended to think
| of gang members as young and Black.
|
| If she thought gang members were predominantly young and
| black and she talked about combating them like the mob,
| labeling them as super predators with no empathy or
| conscience etc... what do you think she was consciously
| imagining? This is a weak defense if ever there was one.
| tunesmith wrote:
| What's funny is that this feels somehow related to when she
| later referred to the "basket of deplorables". Like in some
| way she tried to carve out room for common ground in a
| group of people she disagreed with, by slicing them into
| two groups, one of which could be disregarded in her view.
| And in both cases it backfired.
| tiahura wrote:
| My understanding is that most judges use their clerks (not the
| real ones, the unpaid ones) to handle (ie deny) these.
|
| It seemed unfair that a 3L was dismissing habeas petitions
| without the underlying case file, but the alternative didn't seem
| real workable either.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| When the status quo and all alternatives aren't workable, the
| only option is to zoom out a level until there is something to
| change.
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