[HN Gopher] How I survived a year in 'the hole' without losing m...
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How I survived a year in 'the hole' without losing my mind
Author : ysjodha
Score : 364 points
Date : 2022-10-30 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themarshallproject.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themarshallproject.org)
| [deleted]
| prpl wrote:
| The "File JIRA tickets" advice is ingenious. The system is so
| cruel and arbitrary - so finding the parts with any kind of
| process you can use to your advantage, it's just ingenious.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| I find it a bit disingenuous to have such stories without a
| mention of the original crime (not every murder gets one life
| without parole) and what got the author into isolation in the
| first place. Otherwise it's a bit like Godfather being a devout
| catholic. Nice, but are you fully following that faith of yours
| outside the church?
|
| Now, it's quite possible that Michael J. Nichols was wrongly
| convicted, unfairly sentenced and/or is thoroughly rehabilitated
| and deserving a resentencing with possibility of parole. Or else
| a minimum security prison with outside work and other provisions
| to let him live decent enough life while incarcerated. I am just
| skeptical of stories that omit context that is highly relevant
| one way or the other.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| His crime is not relevant to his story about incarceration
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| His current reflection on his crime and subsequent in jail
| violations is relevant to his claims of personal growth. I am
| willing to be open minded so long as the obvious subject is
| not ignored.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Nothing could be more relevant. It's just not politically
| convenient
| [deleted]
| bobmaxup wrote:
| I spent a month in the hole. It wasn't pleasant.
|
| - I stayed asleep for as long as I could, whenever I could.
| Chlorpheniramine was readily distributed to prisoners.
|
| - Exercise was difficult for me after the first week, as was
| motivation for basically anything.
|
| - I read anything they would bring down there.
|
| - We didn't have a choice in the books we had, so picking
| something to study wasn't really an option. Outside of the hole,
| I eventually had an outside person send me a biochemistry
| textbook though. However, being autodidactic is difficult with a
| single reference.
|
| - No one talked to me in the segregated housing unit, except for
| correction officers and during the 5-10 minutes I was able to use
| the phone a day.
|
| - I didn't experience any prison administrators attempting to
| provoke any inmates. Although, the grievance system was basically
| a journaling activity.
|
| - I found it very difficult to write anything longer than a
| paragraph to anyone my whole time in prison.
|
| - I was a known atheist in prison, due to some reading material I
| received in the mail. Outside of the SHU, people often tried to
| engage me about my beliefs, which I avoided.
| matttb wrote:
| > I was a known atheist in prison, due to some reading material
| I received in the mail. Outside of the SHU, people often tried
| to engage me about my beliefs, which I avoided.
|
| Did this cause any issues other than attempted conversions?
| bobmaxup wrote:
| Definitely -- bullying, off the cuff insults, etc. However,
| that seemed pretty common for most inmates regardless of what
| they did.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| So is prison meant to reform or punish? Life without parole
| clearly means the person will never renter society, so there's no
| point in reforming. It's just punishment. So why not allow the
| guy to read literature? Or is it because that would be enjoyable
| for inmates, and we want them to be punished? But the analogy of
| a tree falling in the woods and no one around to hear it is apt.
| I can't think of a single time I've contemplated how prisoners
| are punished and thought "man it's so great they're sitting in
| there bored out of their minds, this makes my life so much better
| and I feel happy about it." They're completely removed from
| society, they may as well be on Mars. It has no bearing on me or
| anyone else whether they're having a good or shit miserable time.
| They will never leave, they will die in there. Can't they just
| read a goddamn book if they want to?
| dpcan wrote:
| "So is prison meant to reform or punish?"
|
| I think it's meant to remove.
| stemlord wrote:
| Wouldn't the death penalty be a cheaper solution then?
| flerchin wrote:
| In the most charitable interpretation, prisoners misbehave, and
| the guards can ensure compliance by taking away privileges.
| There is no reduction in sentence for good behavior, so other
| tools must be employed.
| bombcar wrote:
| Segregation is basically prison-prison; there's not much else
| that can (legally) be done as a punishment once you're
| already in the can for life.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I'm sure the family of the people this guy murdered appreciate
| that he is not getting pampered with their tax dollars.
| cryoz wrote:
| It is designed to separate, to keep criminals away from the
| rest of society.
| Kamq wrote:
| > So is prison meant to reform or punish?
|
| Both, and some other stuff. Traditionally, the justice system
| is supposed to have 5 recognized goals, they are: deterrence,
| incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and restitution
|
| deterrence is about preventing others from breaking the law
| (this one is not about the incarcerated individual, but about
| currently law-abiding citizens outside of prison)
|
| incapacitation is about preventing harm to society by
| completely removing certain people from it
|
| rehabilitation is reasonably obvious. That being said, there
| are traditionally considered some people who are "beyond
| rehabilitation". From this view, that's not ideal, but still
| not the end of the world, as prison in these cases has value
| for several of the other reasons described.
|
| retribution is about making the victim (or victim's family)
| feel better by inflicting pain on the guilty. This is a
| combination of explicit revenge, and keeping buy-in from the
| local populace by making them feel like the system is just, and
| keeping them feeling secure/valued.
|
| restitution is just about financial payments to make up what
| the victim has lost. If someone steals your car, having them
| buy you a new car, plus pay some amount extra for your time is
| generally seen as a reasonably fair solution. This one doesn't
| necessarily involve prison unless the defendant refuses to pay.
| DavidWoof wrote:
| Are you considering penitence to be a subset of
| rehabilitation? There's a reason they're called
| penitentiaries, after all.
|
| Also, this is a nit but deterrence is usually considered to
| be about both the incarcerated individual and other citizens.
| Deterrence against re-committing the crime is an important
| part of incarceration, and I don't think it reasonably fits
| under rehabilitation.
| nabakin wrote:
| I think you hit it on the nose. I'm surprised by how many
| people here don't seem to know about these points
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Exactly. I think we discount just how horrible of a punishment
| it is just to be locked up for your entire life (or even just
| for decades). No need to also treat them like shit.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| >So is prison meant to reform or punish?
|
| As downtown SF is currently demonstrating, prison is also
| designed to separate. If you let violent criminals and the
| mentally ill sleep on the street and steal at will, it makes
| life much worse for everyone else than it makes life better for
| them.
| stemlord wrote:
| Do the mentally ill belong in prison?
| opportune wrote:
| Mental illness isn't a valid excuse for antisocial
| behavior. Free treatment should be made available, and if
| it isn't used or not enough on its own, they should be put
| in "inpatient mental healthcare"
| [deleted]
| gcanyon wrote:
| This is the part that kills me -- solitary is bad, solitary
| with no books is torture.
| [deleted]
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I hate the US penal system. I grew up a semi conservative
| individual. Good guys and bad guys. Three strikes and your out
| sounded great. Tough on crime. All of that.
|
| A couple years ago, I was asked by my faith congregation to serve
| as a volunteer at our local maximum security state prison,
| offering Sunday services to the inmates. I did so for 3 years. It
| changed me.
|
| We're there some truly troubled/warped people there? Yes. Do I
| kid myself that their "stories" weren't surely one sided? No.
|
| I was struck by how arbitrary the whole thing is. And how utterly
| ineffective it is. What troubled me the most is that we have
| outsourced this whole raft of problems, without sending it
| overseas. We want "problems" to just go away. And stay away. And
| so we outsource the existence of human lives to an alternate
| universe that exists right beneath our toes. And we maintain
| fascinating opinions about these people and their lives, with
| almost zero insight into what the existence we consigned them to
| was. When people heard I went to the prison every Sunday to visit
| with inmates, they would immediately wax their opinion about what
| it must be like. And I found over time that their imagination did
| not match my reality. Their can be no empathy in that scenario.
|
| I dream (pointlessly) about a world where a much higher
| percentage of lay civilians spent volunteer time in prisons.
| Awareness leads to empathy. And only then when we weren't
| outsourcing the issue, we might actually be moved to find
| something more effective.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I think it's possible to be "tough on crime" with respect to
| removing violent offenders from society while also reforming
| how prisons work on the inside as well as attenuating the
| problem from the frontend via social services and so on.
|
| I've always been a pretty moderate liberal, but seeing how
| "soft on crime" policies (reducing the amount of policing and
| catch/release prosecution) have dramatically harmed communities
| in Chicago (especially the minority communities that were
| "plagued by racist police") over the last ~decade has made me
| into a "hard on crime" person insofar as I think violent
| offenders should be removed from society first and foremost. We
| can work on tackling crime from the frontend and we can try and
| make prisons more humane, but I don't think these concerns can
| override the need to keep law-abiding people safe.
| bombcar wrote:
| Take the next step and hire on as a prison guard. Your opinion
| won't change _much_ but you 'll get a feeling for "why things
| are the way they are" and a substantial part of it can be
| attributed to outside (well-intentioned) meddling.
|
| My friend was a guard at a maximum facility and he said the
| best prisoners were the lifers; they had nothing to prove and
| were in it for the long haul; the worst were the ones doing a
| short sentence or had been transferred from lesser-security
| prisons.
|
| Part of the problem is we have prison stratification - instead
| of each suburb or neighborhood having a jail for the
| appropriate inmates from the area, we ship them all to massive
| processing facilities for "efficiency" which has all sorts of
| side-effects.
|
| It's entirely possible to have empathy for prisoners without
| desiring them to be released from prison.
| [deleted]
| warning26 wrote:
| I don't really understand what the purpose of prisons is, and I
| don't think anyone else really does either.
|
| Is it punishment? If so, then there are much more effective and
| cheaper ways we could punish people. Is it rehabilitation? If
| so, how does being locked into a room with a bunch of other
| criminals rehabilitate someone? Is it removing criminals from
| society altogether? In that case, there's a far more efficient
| way to do that.
|
| Because prisons don't have a clear role, they end up being a
| weird and ineffective mix that achieves virtually nothing.
| cmh89 wrote:
| >Because prisons don't have a clear role, they end up being a
| weird and ineffective mix that achieves virtually nothing.
|
| I think the role of prisons is really clear, we just have a
| common social lie we tell ourselves because the truth is
| really ugly. The prison system exists to provide slave labor
| to those willing to use it and as a tool to hurt marginalized
| communities.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| hjgjhyuhy wrote:
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Is it removing criminals from society altogether? In that
| case, there's a far more efficient way to do that.
|
| Such as?
| bergenty wrote:
| The point of prison to me seems like a place you can put
| people that are dangerous and take them out of the equation
| for society.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| But then how do you decide when to let people out again?
| Why do we have time limits on sentences?
| [deleted]
| alex_sf wrote:
| > I don't really understand what the purpose of prisons is,
| and I don't think anyone else really does either.
|
| It's to remove known criminals and violent offenders from
| society.
|
| > Is it removing criminals from society altogether? In that
| case, there's a far more efficient way to do that.
|
| It's also irreversible.
| [deleted]
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| It's manyfold. The reasons I can come up with are
|
| * Punishment
|
| * Retribution (yeah, it's different thing)
|
| * Protection (of society)
|
| * Time to think about your crime
|
| There are probably more.
| [deleted]
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I think the primary purpose is to act as a deterrent. You do
| bad things, you lose the most precious thing a person can
| lose...their power.
| [deleted]
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| My conclusion is that they are designed to bring maximum
| psychological trauma to individuals who have not learned to
| protect themselves from amygdala hijacking.
| bowsamic wrote:
| You should definitely read "Discipline and Punish" by
| Foucault. Probably the most famous philosophical text about
| prison
| rebuilder wrote:
| If prisons send a message, who is that message directed at?
|
| IMO prisons serve the functions of deterrence and
| rehabilitation - although not well - but they also serve to
| keep the public happy.
|
| We put criminals in prison to sate the public's need to see
| justice done. Even if we had the perfect rehabilitation
| regime that would just "cure" criminals, I think putting it
| into practice would be an uphill battle if it didn't entail
| doing some kind of serious harm to the convicted.
|
| People want revenge. Prison is a controlled method of
| providing that.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| I think you may be confusing "this thing doesn't work for its
| intended purpose" with "nobody knows what this thing is for".
|
| Prison would ideally do three things:
|
| 1. Act as a punishment and by extension as a deterrent to
| people who have functioning impulse control, but might
| otherwise choose to commit crimes, and to deter people who
| have committed crimes from committing more crimes after their
| sentence.
|
| 2. Segregate from the rest of society people who have harmed
| others through criminal acts so they can't continue to harm
| the public during their incarceration.
|
| 3. Rehabilitate people by addressing mental illness and
| unhealthy modes of thinking to reduce the chance that they
| will re-offend after their period of incarceration is over.
|
| In the US, at least, I think the system does a decent job of
| the first one, to the point that prisons are full of people
| who are mentally ill, drug-addicted, or just have such
| terrible impulse control that the idea of avoiding punishment
| never figures into their actions. I don't think prisons need
| to be horrible or sentences long in order to serve as a a
| deterrent, the idea of loss of freedom is enough to deter
| anyone who can reasonably be deterred.
|
| The second one is working OK, too, but it's terrible; people
| who are locked up somewhere are not out committing crimes, so
| crime goes down. So we give longer and longer sentences for
| smaller and smaller crimes, and it 'works', in the same sense
| that letting people starve to death reduces hunger.
|
| Finally, there's rehabilitation; on a scale of 0 to 100, we
| rate a -100. We could not reasonably get any worse at this.
| As you mentioned, spending years locked in a cage with other
| criminals just makes people better criminals. If you wanted
| to design a system that maximized recidivism, you could do
| little better than the US prison system. Prison makes people
| harder, more violent and more ruthless, and/or breaks them
| psychologically. People join criminal gangs, which they
| remain in after they leave prison, and beyond that it
| provides an opportunity to make contacts and generally
| 'network' to further a criminal career. Little to no attempt
| is made to identify or treat existing mental illness, which
| is of course exacerbated by the conditions in prison. So we
| eventually let these people go, and they re-offend, which
| takes us back to the second purpose, in a feedback loop.
|
| It's a huge mess. And the sad thing is, it's a problem that
| could be solved, but it would be expensive and politicians
| don't want to be seen as 'soft on criminals, so we just keep
| doing more and more of the same thing and it keeps costing us
| money and lives.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > We could not reasonably get any worse at
| [rehabilitation].
|
| Sure you could! Would you like some suggestions?
|
| Try adding classes on topics like lockpicking and
| marksmanship to the prison vocational programs.
|
| Make it illegal for any business to hire ex-convicts for
| any position whatsoever.
|
| Provide inmates with easy access to regulated amounts of
| prescription painkillers and other addictive drugs. Make it
| illegal for pharmacies to sell these to ex-cons.
|
| Formalize the prison gang system, and make regular calls to
| one's gang leader a condition of parole.
|
| I can probably come up with more if you'd like; once you
| give up on pretending it's not intentional, there's a _lot_
| that can be 'improved' here.
| Volatile-Rig wrote:
| We know the purpose of prisons; very cheap labor without
| oversight.
| worik wrote:
| An exemption to the prohibition of slavery.
| alex_sf wrote:
| UNICOR makes 61 million a year. Not exactly big business.
| JackFr wrote:
| The purpose of prisons is threefold: First incapacitation -
| that is at a minimum preventing incarcerated people from
| continuing their criminal behavior; Second, rehabilitation;
| Third, punishment.
|
| Those are legitimate and valid goals. However it seems in
| many cases we only succeed in the third. Criminal activity in
| prisons is rampant and rehabilitation more often than not
| fails.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| No, rehabilitiation is explicitly NOT part of prison. Stop
| spreading that myth. From Federal Title 18 SS3582.
| Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment:
|
| "recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means
| of promoting correction and rehabilitation"
| JackFr wrote:
| And yet 18 U.S. Code SS 3553 - Imposition of a sentence
| (referenced by 3582) says: the need for the sentence
| imposed--
|
| (A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote
| respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for
| the offense; (B) to afford adequate deterrence to
| criminal conduct; (C) to protect the public from further
| crimes of the defendant; and (D) to provide the defendant
| with needed educational or vocational training, medical
| care, or other correctional treatment in the most
| effective manner;
|
| D sounds a lot like rehabilitation to me.
| qznc wrote:
| If rehabilitation were a goal, the US could learn a lot
| from other countries how to do that. I don't see that
| happening though. So I conclude the system has other more
| important goals.
|
| The usual complaint about rehabilitation methods seems to
| be that they compromise the deterrence or retribution
| aspects.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > So I conclude the system has other more important
| goals.
|
| I think you are confusing "this system is bad at
| achieving its goals" and "this system has other goals".
| The goals of the prison system are really hard.
| Rehabilitating people is really hard.
| tejohnso wrote:
| And I think the punishment part has two aspects to it.
| Deterrence being one, and preventing vigilantism being the
| second.
|
| In cases where someone is wronged, they want to see the
| perpetrator punished and feel like they are getting what
| they deserve. It's not enough to have the perpetrator
| punished quietly. The victim wants to know it. And they
| want to feel as though it matches or surpasses their
| suffering. Eye for an eye.
| jessaustin wrote:
| The purpose of prisons is the same as that of any other large
| expenditure that doesn't go directly to the poor, in an
| inverted totalitarian state like USA. The purpose is to
| transfer public resources to private hands. That process is
| what drives every decision in a simulated democracy like the
| one to which we are subject.
| worik wrote:
| An effect, but not the purpose.
| avalys wrote:
| > achieves virtually nothing.
|
| The purpose of prisons is to remove people from society
| altogether, yes. They do accomplish this. Your complaint on
| that point is that they don't do this _efficiently_ (compared
| to what, killing the prisoners instead?)
| arcticbull wrote:
| The penal system generally solves along three axes, whose
| distribution varies based on the society in which they
| exist.
|
| 1) Segregation. Taking dangerous individuals and putting
| them in a separate area away from society.
|
| 2) Rehabilitation. Changing the behavior of these
| individuals to avoid recidivism.
|
| 3) Retribution. Just making these people miserable because
| it people outside prison feel good knowing the people in
| prison are having a bad time.
|
| The US penal system is designed principally around (1) and
| (3) and pays lip service to (2).
| ROTMetro wrote:
| It explicitly excludes 2. From Title 18 SS3582(a)
| Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment:
|
| "recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate
| means of promoting correction and rehabilitation."
| tyingq wrote:
| I wouldn't overlook the money angle either.
| Privatization, either outright, or in part via service
| fees for phones, books, commissary, etc, has changed the
| system.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's mostly money. The penal system is extremely
| profitable. Slave labour redefined.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's mostly money. The penal system is extremely
| profitable.
|
| source? Specifically, the claim that it's "mostly" money.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| CoreCivic and Geo both own and operate the majority of
| prisons in the US.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Slave labor _continued_ - the 14th amendment clearly
| spells it out : "Neither slavery nor involuntary
| servitude, _except as a punishment for crime_ whereof the
| party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
| the United States[...] "
| bobmaxup wrote:
| > the 14th amendment clearly spells
|
| The 13th*
| mafuy wrote:
| Is this true? As far as I know the penal system has one
| and only one purpose: deterrence. 1) and 2) are a
| practically-oriented bonus. 3) is, to my knowledge,
| explicitly not a goal.
| robocat wrote:
| > deterrence
|
| I think that is the innocent opinion.
|
| If it were for deterrence, then it would need to
| effectively deter better than it does. It does deter some
| people, but perhaps not others (especially in the US with
| its extremely high incarceration rate). And do life
| sentences effectively deter? It is possible to measure
| deterrence scientifically, because there is variation.
|
| Also for it to properly deter, many of us would need to
| experience it first. From the outside we "know" it is
| horrible, but experiencing it is the only way to
| bellyfeel just how horrible. And what about the people
| who like the scene, the routine, and zero
| responsibilities?
| hither_shores wrote:
| Officially, it's all of them. From title 18 section 3553
| of the US code:
|
| > The court, in determining the particular sentence to be
| imposed, shall consider ...
|
| > (2) the need for the sentence imposed--
|
| > (A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to
| promote respect for the law, and to provide just
| punishment for the offense;
|
| > (B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct;
|
| > (C) to protect the public from further crimes of the
| defendant; and
|
| > (D) to provide the defendant with needed educational or
| vocational training, medical care, or other correctional
| treatment in the most effective manner;
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3553
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Officially you are wrong. It is not intended to promote
| correction or rehabilitation. See SS3582(a). Imposition
| of a sentence of imprisonment....
|
| "recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate
| means of promoting correction and rehabilitation."
| winnie_ua wrote:
| If it's main purpose was deterrence, then why put in
| prison people who killed soneon by accident? Not murder
| but manslaughter. And person is really sorry for that act
| and would do anything to be sure it to not happen again.
|
| In contrast, serving sentence in prison may change their
| personality.
|
| So as I see it: it's revenge + lesson to people outside,
| to not commit crime.
| avalys wrote:
| We don't put people in jail merely for killing someone by
| accident. There needs to be an additional component of
| recklessness, carelessness, etc.
| falcolas wrote:
| Yeah, like smoking weed. Or a 3rd strike misdemeanor.
| avalys wrote:
| If you're smoking weed and you kill someone in a traffic
| accident - I'm okay with you going to jail.
| zuminator wrote:
| Deterrence doesn't only mean to discourage the
| perpetrator from recommitting the act, it means to deter
| the public at large getting doing so, for fear of
| punishment. So in the event of an accident caused by
| willful negligence, tyou would want to discourage others
| from being similarly negligent. For example, someone
| texting while driving who runs an intersection and causes
| a fatality. One reason to punish them is to impress upon
| others in your community to show care and awareness while
| driving.
|
| I'm not endorsing this practice, just stating how I think
| deterrence is alleged to work.
| rrdharan wrote:
| There's also deterrence.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Deterrence is a very legit reason. At least make the
| rational actor part evaluate if the crime is worth the
| risk and time spend in jail.
|
| Now part of this group should be able to reintegrate. If
| they are given a reasonable chance, but it feels that
| entire other part of system is build on this never
| happening.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Doesn't that become a transactional approach. "If I rob
| this bank I have a 50% chance of getting away with $1m
| and 50% chance of going to jail for 5 years, that means
| the value is $200k/year"
| Ekaros wrote:
| It is, just like fines are. I have x% chance of getting
| caught and the cost is xxx. Do I want to follow the rules
| or break them.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| I'd like a US criminal justice system that got this part
| - my hand hurts when I touch a hot stove - right. Instead
| what happens is that you touch the hot stove 20 times to
| no effect and on time 21 your hand is burned to a crisp.
|
| Worse still it's burned to a crisp the day after you
| touch the stove. Is my hand a blackened stump because of
| the stove? Maybe? Who can say for sure.
|
| My ideal would be that when you commit a crime the
| justice system finds you guilty or innocent extremely
| quickly and if prison time is the punishment you get in
| prison quickly, get out quickly and once done with that
| the slate is clean. I honestly think that would be more
| of a deterrent then the status quo.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| josephcsible wrote:
| > once done with that the slate is clean
|
| I don't agree with this part. If someone was convicted of
| embezzlement on three separate occasions, and served a
| year in jail each time, would that be someone you'd be
| willing to hire as your accountant?
| khazhoux wrote:
| > 3) Retribution. Just making these people miserable
| because it _people outside prison feel good knowing the
| people in prison are having a bad time._
|
| Do you reject the entire concept of punishment?
| arcticbull wrote:
| I wasn't really opining just observing, but it was an
| early American principle that losing your freedom is in
| and of itself punishment.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Don't forget (4) profit where forced labor is the norm as
| its refusal is tied to longer sentences. Also the cost
| per prisoner per day for us taxpayers is nothing short of
| obscene.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You could do this more efficiently by putting the
| nonviolent ones in a separate facility that is far less
| secure, more like army barracks. The incentive would be if
| they become violent, or escape, they go to the violent
| prison.
| ajb wrote:
| This is exactly the system in the UK, low security
| prisons for fraudsters and the like. Usually convicts do
| a stint in a high security prison at the start, to see if
| they are going to be a good boy, and to give them a taste
| of what it's like if they aren't.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I think you're describing the current system. There are
| multiple prison levels.
|
| https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-
| studies/blog/diffe...
| bnralt wrote:
| Indeed. Here's a case I happened across recently that go
| almost no media attention[1]. Got almost no media
| attention. Guy that stalked and assaulted a woman was
| released early on parole. Proceeds to stalk woman again, is
| arrested, prosecutors don't press charges. Assaults the
| woman again, is arrested again, prosecutors don't press
| charges. Eventually, the man kills the woman.
|
| There are dangerous individuals that need to be removed
| from society, and when they're not, they hurt and kill
| those around them. If there is a more efficient and
| effective way to do this, that would be great. But it's
| hard to have this discussion when people pretend these
| things aren't important functions that need to be addressed
| in some way.
|
| [1] https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/stalking-
| murder-...
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Guy that stalked and assaulted a woman was released
| early on parole. Proceeds to stalk woman again, is
| arrested, prosecutors don't press charges. Assaults the
| woman again, is arrested again, prosecutors don't press
| charges. Eventually, the man kills the woman.
|
| I don't understand what this is supposed to be a case of.
| Are you suggesting that if he weren't let out on parole
| and had served his full sentence that he wouldn't have
| murdered the woman, or that all people who commit crimes
| should be given a choice between a life sentence or
| execution to prevent recidivism?
|
| And do we make this decision without reference to the
| statistics, e.g. how many people were released from
| prison for assaulting a woman _failed_ to go on to murder
| that same woman? I suspect the proportion would be very
| high. So is it worth it to imprison or execute any number
| of offenders who would not go on to commit even worse
| crimes if it saves just one woman from being killed? Have
| we looked up the number of released felons who have saved
| lives, have raised well-adjusted, productive children,
| have contributed to the world? Are we sure that this
| number is vastly lower than the number that have gone on
| to murder women? Could we even boost this number by
| giving prisoners education and safety, and making sure
| they can find employment after release, or is that a more
| onerous prospect than paying $50K /year to keep them
| caged eternally?
|
| In fact, seeing as most women and children are murdered
| by their (male) loved ones, have we compared the
| likelihood of a man without a record to murder their
| partner to men who have a record of abuse? It may not be
| low enough to justify not imprisoning all men
| indefinitely, especially if citing a single murdered
| woman constitutes an argument.
|
| > If there is a more efficient and effective way to do
| this, that would be great.
|
| It's not effective at all, we have the worst violent
| crime rates in the developed world.
| jonahx wrote:
| > And do we make this decision without reference to the
| statistics, e.g. how many people were released from
| prison for assaulting a woman failed to go on to murder
| that same woman? I suspect the proportion would be very
| high.
|
| No need to suspect, or try to apply universal statistical
| arguments that _might_ be the case. This has been well
| studied, and recidivism rates for violent criminals are
| _extremely_ high, and incarceration is an effective
| strategy for preventing crime.
|
| There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of the penal
| system, but your speculation about its total inefficacy
| is incorrect. If you are interested in learning more, I
| found the book "Criminal Injustice" enlightening:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Criminal-Justice-Decarceration-
| Depoli...
|
| For less of a commitment, the author has done many
| interviews. Just search podcasts for his name.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > There are dangerous individuals that need to be removed
| from society, and when they're not, they hurt and kill
| those around them.
|
| A more insidious problem is that there are some guys who
| aren't as dangerous as killers/rapists, but who are
| nuisance to others (e.g. multi-recidivist non violent
| theft). Putting them away for years doesn't seem like a
| fair solution.
| hermanubis wrote:
| For privileged people theft is mainly an inconvenience.
| When my laptop got stolen I just filled out a form at
| work and got a replacement the next day. But for lots of
| people it's more than that. If you work on cars or houses
| your tools are your livelihood. Getting them stolen means
| losing your job or replacing them at retail prices which
| is out of reach for lots of people. Likewise at the
| community college I go to some people are barely holding
| on. If their laptop gets stolen they either drop out or
| don't pay rent that month. There are lots of people who
| would rather be violently assaulted than have their stuff
| stolen so the idea that theft is nonviolent has always
| seemed like a luxury belief to me.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| In general, the welfare of law-abiding citizens should be
| prioritized over that of criminals. But for certain
| crimes, I do thing short but harsh corporal punishment
| would be fairer and more effective than prison.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| Theft isn't a mere nuisance, it's an attack on one of the
| fundamental buttresses against chaos and violence.
|
| The cost of living in a low-trust environment is orders
| of magnitude greater than the value of the items stolen.
| Severe penalties for persistent defection against society
| are absolutely warranted.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Yes, that happens. But what percent of folks in the
| criminal Justice system are that guy? 5%? 95%?
|
| And what do we do to try to change those people so that
| they don't do it again when they are released?
| alex_sf wrote:
| 76.6% of US prisoners are 'that guy'. [1]
|
| [1] https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-
| progress/
| pessimizer wrote:
| Weird to cite an article citing the brutal non-
| rehabilitative nature of the US penal system as the major
| cause of recidivism in order to make that case.
| alex_sf wrote:
| I can disagree with the editorializing while looking at
| the numbers.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| The false positive vs false negative discussion in
| criminal justice is the whole problem. You cannot come up
| with a number that is satisfactory to everyone, and for
| every person you lock away forever because they will
| surely reoffend, how many should legitimately be over-
| punished for their actions?
|
| I personally think we should provide more productive
| activities for prisoners, so that it is not necessarily
| the end of their lives or contributions to society. But
| that is so ripe for abuse that it's useless to even start
| the discussion.
| goodpoint wrote:
| What are you proposing instead?
|
| A) Imprison every stalker for life or kill them
|
| B) Focus on rehabilitation and prevention. E.g. relocate
| the stalker to another city, monitor their movements etc.
| alex_sf wrote:
| These are intentionally bad choices.
|
| A) That's disproportionate.
|
| B) This requires an extensive police state.
|
| Much more simply: evaluate each crime based on the
| severity, likelihood of re-offense, and apply a sentence
| commensurate with the crime. We could make lots of
| efforts to make this a fair and impartial process. I
| wonder what we could name that?
| thefounder wrote:
| Unless there is way to test the likeabity for it to do it
| again I think imprisonment for most of its life is not
| that harsh if it's a second time recidivist. It's pretty
| obvious that person is not fit to live in a free society.
| dxhdr wrote:
| > I don't really understand what the purpose of prisons is,
| and I don't think anyone else really does either.
|
| Some people can't function in society. What do you do with
| them?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Lock them up with other maladjusted people for years, then
| let them loose on society with a hardened attitude,
| extensive criminal connections, and no ability to find
| employment?
| Ekaros wrote:
| The last part really leads to to question, what do people
| expect to happen? Them willingly starve or freeze to
| death?
| thefounder wrote:
| The main issue is that we have time based sentences only
| for most crimes. Criminals should never be left back in
| society unless they prove themselves fit/worthy to come
| back. Of course I don't mind a minumum time based
| sentences as punishment on top of that requirement
| either. However betrayed trust cannot be repaid in full
| just serving time locked-up.
| concordDance wrote:
| > Criminals should never be left back in society unless
| they prove themselves fit/worthy to come back.
|
| How could this be done in practice?
| cmehdy wrote:
| Mandatory minimums don't work.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/5-charts-show-
| mandator...
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-
| opinion/end-...
| thefounder wrote:
| Mandatory minimums should be used as punishments only.
| Obviously the release should depend by
| rehabilitation(mandatory).
| YZF wrote:
| Who/how determines rehabilitation? If the prison benefits
| financially from a prisoner staying in prison how is that
| going to work in practice?
|
| I goggled this: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/stat
| istics_inmate_offen...
|
| I think it's kind of interesting. The people one might
| concerned about are probably: "Homicide, Aggravated
| Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses" -> 3.2% of prisoners.
| "Robbery" -> 2.8% ...
|
| I think the first question is what % of all prisoners
| should probably not be there in the first place and how
| do you deal with the root causes of them getting there.
| Then we can worry about when we let them out.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Mandatory minimums do work. They don't work when they're
| draconian measures passed in law-and-order frenzies by
| reactionaries, but they work for decreasing sentencing
| disparities between sympathetic criminals and
| unsympathetic ones.
|
| The fact that the mandatory minimums for crack were so
| much higher than for powder cocaine was a good thing.
| They're an admission that the system is openly racist,
| and a target to aim at. Without them, we'd just have
| judges sentencing white snorters to probation and putting
| black smokers under the jail on their own discretion, and
| we'd need statistics that we wouldn't be given access to
| in order to make a case. It's better when racism is out
| in the open rather than buried in a judge's latitude.
| cmehdy wrote:
| Surely I must be misunderstanding everything you just
| said.
|
| > The fact that the mandatory minimums for crack were so
| much higher than for powder cocaine was a good thing.
| They're an admission that the system is openly racist,
| and a target to aim at.
|
| So you're saying the system is racist and we're seeing it
| in the value of mandatory minimums, therefore we should
| aim for more mandatory minimums to even out the racism?
| Do you believe the same thing when it comes to police
| shooting black men, i.e. that more white men should also
| get shot in order to live in a world that's more fair?
| Therefore making it a "good thing" that people get shot
| at all?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >The main issue is that we have time based sentences only
| for most crimes. Criminals should never be left back in
| society unless they prove themselves fit/worthy to come
| back.
|
| So if this was the strategy of the U.S until about 2010 I
| suppose it would have been morally justifiable as an act
| of self-preservation to kill anyone that saw you smoking
| pot - assuming of course that there is such a thing as
| personal rights and people had the right to smoke pot,
| but the government prevented them from doing so.
|
| on edit: perhaps I'm in a bad mood but I do find it
| astounding how often when one of these articles comes out
| about how inhumane the American prison system is, whole
| branches of the discussion devolve into conflicting ideas
| on how one can make it more inhumane.
| thefounder wrote:
| Why would you kill someone who sees you smoking pot? That
| may lead to a minimum life sentece as punishment
| regardless of your rehabilitation.
|
| If you were certain that you can never quit smoking
| pot/rehabilitate in prison then perhaps your action
| "could be" justifiable.
|
| You should be aware that drug use is not affecting only
| you. You also fund an international criminal enterprise.
| If you want to use drugs then take the hard, legal
| way(i.e political activism).
|
| As far as I'm concerned all drugs should be legal and
| served in hospitals unpon request at reasonable prices or
| free for those who cannot afford them. But I'm not making
| the laws so I'm not looking providing drugs to addicts at
| affordable prices either regardless of how ethical would
| be.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >If you were certain that you can never quit smoking
| pot/rehabilitate in prison then perhaps your action
| "could be" justifiable.
|
| If you have a right to smoke pot then you should not have
| to rehabilitate yourself, just as you should not have to
| love Big Brother or any other number of things.
|
| >If you want to use drugs then take the hard, legal
| way(i.e political activism).
|
| here I'm wondering if you are using 'you' to refer to
| people in general or to me? Either way it's sort of
| silly, hardly anybody is going to say I will do drugs
| after my political activism to make doing drugs legal
| succeeds! If it's to me I don't smoke pot, but I do
| believe people have the right to do it.
|
| So if you are going to be thrown in prison on an
| indefinite sentence for something you have the right to
| do then I would advocate extreme violence for anyone that
| was in danger of being arrested for smoking pot.
|
| In the end your indefinite time until rehabilitation
| proposal is more extreme than the current American
| system.
|
| >As far as I'm concerned....
|
| reading your last paragraph I get the feeling your view
| of 'drugs' is they are all somehow the same as heroin?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Well, we tried pulling back policing and slap-on-the-
| wrist prosecution policies and violent crime is surging.
| How long until friendship, positive energy, and rainbows
| kick in and bring crime levels down? There are more
| constructive solutions to the prison problem--notably
| solving frontend problems + prison reform, but locking up
| violent offenders _is_ part of "solving frontend
| problems" so we can't exactly stop doing that and hope to
| make up the difference by investing in after school
| programs. Any serious solution to crime has to be "lock
| up offenders and X" rather than "letting offenders run
| rampant and X".
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > we tried pulling back policing and slap-on-the-wrist
| prosecution policies and violent crime is surging
|
| Firstly, where is pulling back policing happening? I
| don't know of a single city that has actually reduced
| their police size to any real sense?
|
| Additionally, how do we know this isn't just correlation
| and not causation? Inflation is higher, more people are
| addicted to things, housing insecurity is rising.
| alex_sf wrote:
| > Firstly, where is pulling back policing happening?
|
| Most metropolitan areas. Seattle [1][2] and Minneapolis
| [3] have both established public policies of not
| responding to, citing, or arresting for a wide range of
| offenses.
|
| > I don't know of a single city that has actually reduced
| their police size to any real sense?
|
| Minneapolis has reduced the number of police officers,
| through various means, by 30%. [4]
|
| > Additionally, how do we know this isn't just
| correlation and not causation?
|
| Because we have multiple studies proving a causal
| relationship. [5][6]
|
| [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-
| watchdog/sea...
|
| [2] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-police-
| bellevue-oth...
|
| [3] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
| report/usa-poli...
|
| [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-
| supreme-cou...
|
| [5] https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rssa.
| 12142
|
| [6] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/426877
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| If this is true, then why are the places with the least
| crime also not the places with the most police? I'm
| genuinely asking out of curiosity.
| alex_sf wrote:
| Crime has multiple causes, and multiple solutions. One
| proven solution is increased police presence. It isn't
| required, though.
| YZF wrote:
| "Crime is surging" seems to be the current thing in the
| political discourse. That's how conservatives are
| attacking liberals these days in the US and in other
| places. It's mostly not supported by numbers (at least I
| checked where I live).
|
| (EDIT: I am not in the US but many here are, here's some
| stats:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-
| violent-...
|
| EDIT2:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
| )
|
| Crime rates have multiple causes to them, many go years
| back.
|
| Maybe we should try to address the root causes instead of
| locking up more people? We have tough times economically,
| many reasons for people to despair, endless incitement to
| violence as means of resolving disagreements or other
| problems.
|
| At the very least, a harsher approach to law enforcement
| has to be coupled with some path forward to address the
| other issues.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > That's how conservatives are attacking liberals these
| days in the US and in other places.
|
| Primarily as a completely organized and funded way to
| attack recently elected "progressive" city officials.
| After the enemy prosecutor/sheriff disappears, the crime
| wave evaporates as fast as the complaints about _kids in
| cages_ did when Biden took over.
| YZF wrote:
| You mean migrants at the border ;) Elections in the age
| of social media.
| alex_sf wrote:
| Sure, let's try to reduce the crime rate. Let's _also_
| not just ignore crimes and refuse to imprison people for
| them.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Currently the options seem to be prison or Congress.
|
| There are a lot of naive takes in this thread. Prison is
| objectively and disproportionately racist and classist.
| It's not so much about deterring crime as about terrorising
| and brutalising certain demographics.
|
| For the winners to feel better about themselves, the losers
| have to lose hard. It's essentially just sadism.
|
| This has nothing at all to do with preventing criminality,
| as the penal systems in other countries - notably
| Scandinavia - have proved.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Currently the options seem to be prison or Congress.
|
| This made me chuckle out loud, well done!
|
| > There are a lot of naive takes in this thread. Prison
| is objectively and disproportionately racist and
| classist. It's not so much about deterring crime as about
| terrorising and brutalising certain demographics.
|
| Yes, there are biases against various races and classes,
| but they absolutely don't override the bias against
| criminals. Our system is flawed, but it's far from "about
| terrorizing and brutalizing certain demographics". This
| kind extreme hyperbolic rhetoric isn't helpful, and
| insofar as it motivated the de-policing and catch/release
| prosecution policies which led to the violent crime
| surge, it has done far more harm to minority communities
| than the criminal justice system could hope to do.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > the de-policing and catch/release prosecution policies
| which led to the violent crime surge
|
| I don't actually know if this is true, intuitively. The
| highest-crime areas are not the areas with the least
| police. The lowest-crime areas are not the areas with the
| most police. Crime seems to respond as a phenomenon to
| other dysfunction of society, not because there is
| opportunity to commit them.
|
| So, I don't know, can you educate me more about the
| relationship between police presence and its causation
| statistically towards crime? [To be clear, I'm not asking
| in bad faith or whataboutism. I'm genuinely trying to
| become more educated in this as a layperson who doesn't
| study crime to any degree.]
| opportune wrote:
| Crime is not distributed evenly across society for both
| victims or perpetrators, that doesn't mean that we should
| all become subject to crime as a result. I do believe we
| should make sentencing more fair and not overly police
| people on the basis of race or class of course. If
| someone is caught doing X violent/antisocial crime
| (including things like burglary or redicivist theft) they
| should not be left to continue doing it even if they are
| in a disadvantaged group.
|
| A lot of crimes are not one-offs but something done over
| and over again until they're caught. This applies for
| both (sexual) assault and property theft. Laws against
| those need to be enforced even if the first X don't
| involve prison, because the people stealing hundreds of
| dollars of merch every week or picking fights are making
| their communities worse in systemic ways, and after a
| certain point separation from society is the only way to
| protect everybody else from the antisocial behavior (and
| serve as a deterrent).
|
| No, I am not affected by a single instance of someone
| taking candy from Walgreens. But I am when so much theft
| occurs that everything valuable is locked up, when prices
| are raised to account for shrinkage, or when retail
| operations close down. I am when I have to tell people to
| leave nothing in their car and not to park in certain
| spots with frequent breakins, or when I can't leave my
| bike locked up outside even for a few minutes, or when I
| can't get packages delivered to my address anymore
| because it will be immediately stolen if I'm not there.
|
| The victims in aggregate aren't just the people or
| businesses being stolen from, but all the other people in
| the community who subsequently have to live in a food
| desert, pay high prices, or can't even get deliveries any
| more because there is so much theft.
|
| Scandinavian countries have generous social systems which
| reduce the demand for crime in the first place. We could
| have that too.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| [deleted]
| rjbwork wrote:
| That's right. And that's why we put people who do things
| like smoke the devils lettuce or sniff a little columbian
| snow in there. To keep these menaces away from the rest of
| us.
|
| I mean, can you imagine? People just walking around doing
| what they please to their own bodies and not providing
| slave labor to the state or private prison corporations?
| The absolute horror!
| [deleted]
| JW_00000 wrote:
| Does this mean you think any criminal (that committed a
| violent crime) should be locked up for life? Or how does
| the length of prison sentences factor into this?
| jjeaff wrote:
| Around 40% of the prison population is there for violent
| crime. And for most, it's probably a very loose definition
| of "violent". Few would argue that you shouldn't put
| violent offenders in prison, but that's not the reason the
| majority of people are there.
| valdiorn wrote:
| 1. Protect the public.
|
| 2. Deter crime.
|
| 3. Rehabilitate.
|
| 4. Punish.
|
| These are the four pillars of incarceration. How different
| countries weigh the different elements varies greatly between
| cultures.
|
| Us system is basically 90 percent punishment, 10 percent
| protecting the public, and nothing else.
| ge96 wrote:
| For me it's fear, I don't want to be bad, because I don't
| want to be locked up.
|
| Anyway I've never really had the desire to act badly towards
| others eg. despite being into technology, not a
| hacker/scammer.
| uptheroots wrote:
| I believe prisons in part serve the purpose to keep us in
| check. With the threat of prison, society is encouraged to
| police itself. As another comment in this thread mentioned,
| Foucault helped to develop these sort of ideas and describes
| the motivations and development of the prison system in his
| work.
| [deleted]
| Tao3300 wrote:
| It keeps us in check but not like you think. At least for
| crimes with direct victims, prisons keep us out of _blood
| feuds_ by letting the state monopolize retribution while
| keeping the object of it out of reach.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| What do you think can be done to change the attitude of people
| who used to think like you? Nothing but a similar experience to
| the one you had, direct contact with it? I guess that's what
| you suggest at the end of your comment.
|
| That's great that your congregation did such a thing and
| reached out to you and you took the opportunity.
|
| Your comments about outsourcing human lives to an alternative
| universe invisible seems to me very observant. Have your
| attempts to talk about what you saw ever done anything to
| change the imagination of those who you are talking to?
| Snowbird3999 wrote:
| [deleted]
| adwn wrote:
| > _We can solve these problems in a month if enough people
| just thought with empathy about this topic for 10 minutes._
|
| How?
| hedora wrote:
| In most other countries, the prison system's job is to reform
| the prisoners.
|
| In the US, it is designed to be punitive, and there is a direct
| financial incentive to increase the percentage of prisoners
| that are sent back to prison after serving their time.
|
| The system is working as designed: the US has a much higher
| percentage of its population in prison than most other
| countries, and extremely high recividism rates.
| dahfizz wrote:
| You're really overplaying the financial angle. Only 8% of
| prisons are private. And even then, it's the government that
| has to pay the prisons. Imprisonment always costs tax money.
| flatline wrote:
| I don't believe in life imprisonment but for truly exceptional
| cases. It is needlessly cruel and a huge burden to our system.
| The prison industrial complex is dystopian.
|
| But what do you mean by "ineffective"? The purpose of prison in
| the US is twofold: punitive as a deterrent, and to keep
| criminals away from the rest of society. I have doubts about
| the effectiveness of the former, but the latter is super
| effective, we lock up more people than any other first world
| country! It's really hard to argue against that from a
| political standpoint.
| darig wrote:
| magic_hamster wrote:
| I am not entirely sure what to make of your comment. You are
| clearly a very compassionate person. And yes a lot of people in
| prison are not the "tough guy" stereotype. However, there are
| more than a few that will exploit your sympathy. Asking you to
| bring them stuff or to give them money. Sadly it's almost
| always the same thing. It's very easy to make friends with a
| person in need. What happens when they get out is a different
| story.
| giardini wrote:
| Since prison is "arbitrary" and "ineffective" then you're
| likely wasting your time by visiting prisoners.
|
| You should turn to a more productive activity perhaps. But to
| do that without regret you'll have to first ask yourself _why_
| you are willing to spend your time on prisoners.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| This is one of the things i hate most about our political
| system, is how it coerces people to pigeonhole themselves into
| an entire set of beliefs because it is made to seem that you
| have to embrace those beliefs once you accept the identity of
| "conservative" or "liberal." We should be expanding our
| experiences wherever possible (in beneficial ways) to expand
| our consciousness and to learn to see life through the
| perspective of others. I'm glad you were able to do that here.
| bm3719 wrote:
| Most of us have been the victim of some kind of crime at some
| point in our lives. The many times it's happened to me, I also
| considered the notion of empathy: namely that the criminal
| lacked it for me, the victim.
|
| Not saying the current system is in any way an optimal solution
| or even close to it, but one thing it does provide is a lot of
| time for those who have acted without empathy to reflect on
| their misdeeds.
| mozman wrote:
| It also puts a lot of money in the pockets of those who run
| private prisons. The incentives are perverse.
|
| It's also not about rehabilitation, it's about penance but
| that rarely materializes.
|
| Once you go to prison you learn how to be a better criminal.
| You can't get a job because of your record. Far too easy to
| turn back to crime and land right back inside.
|
| It's cruel. It has nothing to do with reflection. Inhumane at
| best.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Private prisons should be abolished. I cannot understand
| how we as a society accept the notion of a system that
| financially incentivizes incarcerating people. It's
| abhorrent. Does any other developed country do this?
| abfan1127 wrote:
| private prisons maintain costs far better than public
| prisons. The issue you implicitly refer to is prison
| contracts state "minimum payments when populations drop
| below [some] threshold". Its not the private prisons
| arresting people, trying people, and funneling them into
| their pocket books.
|
| The real issue is the concept of imprisonment _ought_ be
| about putting people who truly can not be trusted to be
| "at large". Prison shouldn't be a punishment. There are
| other alternatives.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I know of at least one case where a judge was being paid
| by a private prison system to send people to them. I
| suspect that was not and is not the only case of that
| happening. Big money has a way of worming itself into
| other systems and manipulating them for its own benefit.
| alex_sf wrote:
| One case is the definition of 'not systemic'.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > private prisons maintain costs far better than public
| prisons
|
| possibly, but the issue is not cost conservation; the
| problem is that there are shareholders who benefit the
| more people are sent to prison. This creates perverse
| incentives (lobbying for stricter/longer sentencing,
| bribing officials, etc.).
| mozman wrote:
| Private prisons shift the burden onto the inmates and
| often have subpar services such as food and cell hygiene.
|
| There's a lot of hyperbole and incentives for the
| narrative to sound better than it is.
|
| Unfortunately I have experience from a family member. See
| it for yourself if this is an issue you care about.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Private prisons only have lower costs if you exclude the
| eventual, and inevitable, intervention by the Justice
| dept to fix their inhumane conditions.
| muwtyhg wrote:
| > Its not the private prisons arresting people, trying
| people, and funneling them into their pocket books.
|
| Have you heard of the "Kids For Cash" scandal? Private
| prisons actively try to get more people incarcerated by
| bribing judges. The judges are complicit too, but the
| private prisons are absolutely trying to "funnel them
| into their pocket books"
| jonfw wrote:
| Any evidence that this continues to happen?
|
| Any system with any amount of scale will have bad actors.
| It's one very bad data point, but certainly not enough
| evidence that the whole system is corrupt
| alex_sf wrote:
| The private prison argument is mostly nonsense; between
| state and federal, only 8% of prisoners are incarcerated in
| private facilities. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-
| priso...
| goodpoint wrote:
| "only"? That 8% is enough to make very wealthy owners
| successfully lobby politicians.
|
| Not to mention all the private services revolving around
| public prisons.
| alex_sf wrote:
| Private prisons had 3.9B in revenue, and private prison
| services had 2.9B in revenue in 2021 [1].
|
| In contrast, this is:
|
| - Half of what the Car Wash Illuminati makes [2]
|
| - About the same as the Evil Door Handle Lobby [3]
|
| - Only 80% of the Portable Fire Extinguisher Cartel [4]
|
| - Only 4% of the Yoga Tourism Cabal [5]
|
| This is just nonsense.
|
| [1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money.html
|
| [2] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
| analysis/us-car-w...
|
| [3] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
| analysis/door-han...
|
| [4] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
| analysis/portable...
|
| [5] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
| analysis/yoga-tou...
| mwint wrote:
| How is this the first time I hear this stat? I feel like
| my angst toward the system has been misallocated for a
| very long time.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Because this is a recent development happening in part
| because it was a major agenda item for Biden. But note
| that they didn't close the private prisons, they just
| switched them to be used for ICE/Immigration
| incarceration because it's harder for those in that
| incarceration class to exercise their rights.
| https://www.geogroup.com/LOCATIONS
| alex_sf wrote:
| This is provably false. The private prison population has
| increased by 14% since 2000. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-
| priso...
| jjeaff wrote:
| Private prison services like phone and email systems are
| still able to take advantage of prisoners, even in public
| prisons.
| alex_sf wrote:
| It's like quite a few "horrible injustices"; they get
| piggybacked onto a few smaller and real issues, and then
| taken as gospel.
| mozman wrote:
| Harmful viewpoint. If true - that's still 8% of inmates
| living sub humanely.
|
| That report is on the first page results of private vs
| public prisons. I encourage everyone to go volunteer and
| talk to inmates.
|
| Look at unicore. Total scam.
| alex_sf wrote:
| > If true - that's still 8% of inmates living sub
| humanely.
|
| There's no objective measures showing that private
| prisons are somehow more 'inhumane' than government-run
| facilities.
|
| > That report is on the first page results of private vs
| public prisons
|
| It is, so there's no excuse to not have some actual data
| to go by, compared to anecdotal experiences.
|
| > Look at unicore. Total scam.
|
| UNICOR is ran by the BOP. It has nothing to do with
| private vs public prisons.
| tikhonj wrote:
| Far more than 8% of inmates live subhumanly _because
| public prisons are awful too_. Focusing on private
| prisons distracts us from how much of the problem is
| systemic and political--cruelty is built into the justice
| system top-down in the name of efficiency, being "tough
| on crime" and pure historical momentum. It's not a
| "follow the money" problem, it's a "politicians and
| voters" problem.
| alex_sf wrote:
| > cruelty is built into the justice system top-down in
| the name of efficiency
|
| And you would instead promote.. what? 'Rehabilition'?
| These arguments always show an absurd amount of empathy
| for the criminal, and little-to-none for the victims and
| (statistically extremely likely) future victims.
|
| There is a large number of people that simply cannot
| function in society. If they aren't violent, cool: I have
| no problem with anyone living how they like. If they are
| violent, then they need to be removed from potential
| victims.
| PeterisP wrote:
| While there is some proportion of people that simply
| cannot function in society, the experience of other
| societies which incarcerate a much, much smaller part of
| the population indicates that most people in USA prisons
| are not there because of this reason.
| alex_sf wrote:
| That's a common retort, and it's complete nonsense.
|
| > the experience of other societies which incarcerate a
| much, much smaller part of the population indicates that
| most people in USA prisons are not there because of this
| reason.
|
| This does not track. People like to point to Norway as a
| model for rehabilition and low incarceration rates, while
| completely ignoring the fact that their crime rate is one
| of the lowest on the planet.
|
| So, yes, if your crime rate (and anti-sociality) is near
| zero, I would expect the incarceration rate to be much
| lower, as well.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| It's also about keeping violent people off the streets.
|
| This guy killed someone. He mentions it so briefly it's as
| though he thinks it's a minor detail. That person he killed
| was a real human. They were someone's kid, someone's
| sibling, someone's parent perhaps, someone's friend.
|
| He also seems to behave poorly in prison, still, after 30
| years. He flippantly notes a "riot" as though it was
| something that happened to him. He brags about his abs. I'm
| not a psychologist but this guy reads like a stock standard
| psychopath. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
|
| For many people (including myself), it's not about rehab,
| it's not about penance, it's not about vengeance, it's
| about keeping someone like this away from everyone else.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| I actually felt some sympathy for the prisoner. He went
| into Prison at 19. Perhaps he was even younger when he
| committed murder. WTF does a teenager know about
| themselves or the world to kill someone?! What kind of
| awful childhood and upbringing environment did he
| experience, if any?
|
| Of course he could be a psychopath. Or who knows. I
| wouldn't presume anything. But I wouldn't be so righteous
| feeling good about myself for not doing what he did.
| We're all lucky we didn't have it so bad, be it nature or
| nurture, or both.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Agree with all of this - but the comment states that it's
| about keeping people like this away, not punishing them
| or feeling smug or anything of the sort. This guy causes
| real harm everywhere he goes.
| User23 wrote:
| And psychopaths are often quite charismatic, so plenty of
| people are taken in by them.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Case in point!
| kiba wrote:
| _For many people (including myself), it 's not about
| rehab, it's not about penance, it's about keeping someone
| like this away from everyone else. He's a killer - he
| doesn't care about anyone's rights but his own._
|
| I would put harm prevention above penance. Penance is
| just a tool that promotes caring, ideally before said
| harms become permanent.
|
| What we ultimately want is that people who don't murder.
| Also, as someone noted, you probably reading too much
| into it.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| "keeping someone like this away" = harm prevention.
|
| You just state it more concisely :)
| kiba wrote:
| It's about preventing someone from becoming a person who
| harm people.
|
| Prison isn't something we should want in a society, but
| actively reduce, even if we never realistically achieve
| it.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| There aren't endless resources. Actively reducing would
| take a lot of effort from a lot of smart people and I'd
| rather spend those big brains on improving math and
| reading skills amongst children, or cancer research, or
| diabetes research, or dementia research.
| kiba wrote:
| _There aren 't endless resources. Actively reducing would
| take a lot of effort from a lot of smart people and I'd
| rather spend those big brains on improving math and
| reading skills amongst children, or cancer research, or
| diabetes research, or dementia research._
|
| Believe it or not, a society with 300 million plus people
| can do many things at once.
|
| Human resources aren't really fungible. Big brains spent
| on improving education of children can't really be
| reallocated to spend on cancer research or other part of
| medical science, not without extensive training at least.
|
| So too we can spend on psychological, social services,
| and welfare which is what we probably need to reduce
| crime and overall human suffering to a more manageable
| level. Hopefully, the improvement to societal health
| means more resources are available that can be then
| reallocated to tackle the remainder of human caused
| suffering.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| On the surface this appears to say "we don't need to make
| tradeoffs", or "there are endless resources". Both are
| obviously wrong, but perhaps the intended message is
| something different?
| kortex wrote:
| That's reading quite a lot into an article which I don't
| believe supports those positions. We know nothing about
| the circumstances of the murder, nor of the riot, nor of
| his upbringing. There's absolutely nothing in this
| article to even suggest he's a psychopath.
|
| For all we know, he was in the wrong hood at the wrong
| time, and had to adapt to "prison life" because that is
| the culture that is foist upon him.
|
| I'm not saying he's _not_ a psychopath, but that 's not
| an evidence-based assertion here.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| >> I'm not a psychologist but this guy reads like a stock
| standard psychopath.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
|
| This isn't a strong assertion and hence doesn't need a
| water tight argument or strong evidence. It notes I'm not
| an expert in the field, and that I'm basing the judgement
| on the writing only. Not everything is an academic paper
| or a judgement from a jury.
|
| That being said, read the section on "core traits" in
| that link and read the article again. Lack of remorse...
| arrogance (the abs section?) and impulsive behavior (he
| murdered someone and is in and out of the hole for 30
| years....).
| tigen wrote:
| Agreed. The article displays a "me vs. the world"
| attitude and the whole thing aims to evoke admiration and
| sympathy in the reader. There's no evidence of any true
| human empathy. Who gives a flying f__k about his
| abdominal muscles?
| rjbwork wrote:
| Private prisons are a problem, but as other posters
| mention, a sub-double-digit percent of our prisoners are in
| them. One of the real problems, it seems to me, is that
| pesky little clause in the 13th amendment allowing slavery
| as punishment for crimes. The government leases out prisons
| full of people as a work force to private industry. There
| are many industries and companies in the US that are now
| dependent on what is essentially slave labor - and no, 16
| cents an hour doesn't somehow morally absolve us of the
| problem.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Yeah, they use the GEO facilities mainly for illegals
| now, because illegals have less ability to hold GEO
| accountable and navigate the overlycomplicated prison
| systems required to access your rights (and you must
| exhaust local administrative remedies through the Warden
| and then the BOP before you have access to the Courts).
| And that is considered progress in the eyes of the
| American system because it's all about appearances, not
| about actually following the Constitution.
|
| https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-93-number-5/ju
| ris....
| derekp7 wrote:
| I always felt that private prisons could work great, if
| specific incentive laws are passed. First, give the
| inmate a choice of which prison to attend, so they are
| competing against each other based on reputation. Second,
| if someone re-offends and ends back in prison, then the
| original prison housing them would be on the hook paying
| for their stay at the new prison. This gives private
| prisons an incentive to properly rehabilitate by making
| sure the prisoner comes out in a better situation than
| they went in (education, therapy, etc).
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Most of us have been the victim of some kind of crime at
| some point in our lives. The many times it's happened to me,
| I also considered the notion of empathy: namely that the
| criminal lacked it for me, the victim.
|
| Most of us have broken multiple laws without being aware of
| it (or casually aware of it) - the idea of separating
| citizenry between "criminals" and "non-criminal victims" is
| too binary, as root comment mentioned.
| [deleted]
| standardUser wrote:
| The current system is an anti-solution, causing more problems
| than it solves and failing to succeed at even it's most basic
| purposes. Unless someone is an imminent violent threat they
| should not be detained in any form for long periods of time,
| and those who are detained should be treated in a way
| intended to improve their situation and remove the need for
| incarceration.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| If it's a repeat problem, then the prison time isn't working,
| perhaps the best solution would be some other rehabilitative
| way to learn empathy...
| [deleted]
| kingkawn wrote:
| Or for those without empathy to find out that the society
| too, beneath it all, has no empathy
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| There's a bit of irony in the tone of this comment since it
| shows no capacity for empathy for those who commit crimes,
| most significantly in the sense that you clearly believe that
| prison is for others who are not you.
|
| I've been the victim of a range of crimes over my life
| including assault and robbery.
|
| I particularly remember the one case where I was robbed from
| a studio apartment while I was sleeping. I was, obviously,
| quite rattled. I remember looking for other stories of this
| happening to people and was surprised how many people viewed
| being robbed as an assault on their dignity and expressed
| incredible desire for revenge. I just couldn't muster these
| same feelings.
|
| While my day was ruined by the evening I could already feel
| my life coming back together: the lock had been changed, I
| cancelled all my credit cards, has a replacement license on
| it's way to me, and all in all was just out about $20 that
| had been in my wallet.
|
| I had a realization then that while my life was already
| coming back together the life of the person who robbed me was
| perpetually in the state of chaos that I had felt that
| morning. I high risk, low reward robbery like that is
| typically for drug money, and undoubtedly whatever fix that
| robber had gotten for my $20 was long faded and they were
| back putting themselves at risk.
|
| The key insight that hit me was that that momentary break in
| my sense of security that morning, that's what the person who
| robbed me constantly lives in. That person goes to bed with
| the same sense of insecurity I woke up in. But my security is
| only disrupted on these rare occasions where our lives our
| inverted, but my default is comfort and theirs is perpetually
| in that state baring that brief moment where they have enough
| money for that next fix.
|
| I earnestly felt no need for any vengeance as any desire for
| vengeance was already dealt out by reality. What more
| punishment could I wish on someone than for them to wake up
| every morning feeling the same as I did for just that one.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| >There's a bit of irony in the tone of this comment since
| it shows no capacity for empathy for those who commit
| crimes, most significantly in the sense that you clearly
| believe that prison is for others who are not you.
|
| If you believe that there are too many people already the
| death penalty for j-walking isn't a punishment it's a
| policy to keep the rest of us alive past 2100.
| atdrummond wrote:
| This is silly. I was robbed in the Tenderloin in December
| and had to spend days in the ICU. The cops won't do
| anything. I have permanent brain damage and have lost all
| progress I made working on my C-PTSD from childhood sexual
| abuse.
|
| The guys who attacked me don't live a life of chaos. It's a
| job for them and the market is the most lucrative it has
| ever been.
| mattzito wrote:
| Well it's possible for all these things to be true at the
| same time. I was mugged years ago by a group of high
| school kids - when the cops were able to track them down,
| they were all living in a shelter for kids in the foster
| system who had been unable to find a foster family,
| typically because of unmanageable behavior. They had
| often been the victims of sexual or physical abuse, and
| had lived on the streets.
|
| It's difficult to hear about that and not have some pity
| for those kids- yeah they got my phone, but I got to go
| home to my wife and kid and a high paying tech job.
|
| At the same time, I have a distant relative who will
| spend the rest of his life in jail for committing a
| serial string of crimes without apparent remorse over
| many years. Family members who know him describe him as
| "scary" and a "psychopath" - but he was also kidnapped
| and abused as a child. Are those things unrelated? Are
| some people just evil?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I suspect that almost all antisocial behavior, along with
| mental health and drug addiction issues, are in some way
| related to childhood trauma. Many people are able to heal
| enough that they don't go down the really bad roads, but
| many more are not.
|
| As a society we give parents wide latitude in how they
| raise their kids. And I suspect most people don't even
| realize how their parenting decisions might affect their
| kids down the line.
| robocat wrote:
| > are in some way related to childhood trauma
|
| I think that view has the risk of being damaging. In
| particular parents or partners are often misattributed as
| the "cause".
|
| 1: It leads to victimisation, where people blame their
| environment rather than fix themselves. We _all_ can find
| traumatic childhood incidents if we look for them
| ("repressed" memories can fill in if you didn't actually
| have anything obviously traumatic happen).
|
| 2: If you suspect trauma and then wonder "what did the
| parents do", that is rather unpleasant for the majority
| of loving parents that _didn't_ abuse their children
| whatsoever. All parents make honest mistakes, and any
| good parent has plenty of unexpunged guilt, usually for
| no good reason. Also we can be traumatised for entirely
| mundane events in our lives - where nobody is actually to
| blame for evil, yet we often look for blame in others.
|
| 3: we can't change our past, so acceptance of what
| happened is important. Whether we see ourselves as
| helpless victims or capable actors is critical I think.
| Creatinig a narrative of victims is unhealthy, in my
| experience. One of the worst abuses I have seen, was
| professionals getting a bunch of troubled teenagers
| together, letting them talk about their extreme trauma
| together, and then sending them home. Normalising abuse,
| and it was extremely damaging to the sensitive,
| empathetic teens in the group (who had their own problems
| to deal with, and didn't need to be loaded with other
| vile shit to process).
|
| 4: There are great parents that end up with fucked-up
| kids, for reasons beyond their control.
|
| I am concentrating on parents here, because although the
| people I know with your attitude might say they think
| about the wider picture, often the first thought I see
| from them is assuming the parents caused the problem -
| judgy people are very damaging IMHO. I am definitely not
| accusing you - but I am accusing others I see with a
| similar attitude. Disclaimer: not a parent, just old
| enough to have had the opportunity to learn a little from
| the hurt people in my life, and trying to be wise enough
| to know how innocently we can all make mistakes.
| atdrummond wrote:
| I lived on Chicago's south and west sides for years.
| Volunteered with youth at the Boys and Girls Club for
| much of that time - and did everything I could to raise
| money for that organization and more.
|
| I can have sympathy for the boys who are drafted into
| drug work, age 11, and I can personally want the legal
| systems' incentives to change while ALSO understanding
| that some people will choose to be rotten nearly every
| time. I'm not making an argument for the "carceral state"
| or one in support of the US' present prison system. Just
| making clear my observation that far from everyone is a
| "victim" of the system and acting like they are hurts the
| real victims on both sides.
| alex_sf wrote:
| It doesn't matter.
|
| We should take steps to prevent it, and the discussions
| are useful, but once someone is provably willing and
| capable of committing violent offenses, they have
| forfeited most forms of sympathy.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > Are some people just evil?
|
| Probably it is part genetic and part environmental, just
| like most other human traits.
|
| By the way, the fact that many criminals were abused in
| childhood has many possible explanations, and it is not
| obvious which one of them is correct. For example:
|
| * Maybe child abuse causes people to become criminals.
|
| * Maybe there is much more child abuse than we imagine,
| so a majority of criminals was abused, but also a
| majority of non-criminals was abused.
|
| * Psychopathy is heritable, which means that most
| psychopaths also had a psychopath parent, and that is why
| they were abused.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What reason did the cops give you for not doing anything?
| Was this in SF?
| atdrummond wrote:
| I was told there was no appetite to prosecute a robbery
| on a white male. They said the guys would be right back
| on the street within hours if they tried to pick them up.
| nazgulnarsil wrote:
| Rule of law de facto doesn't exist in other words
| [deleted]
| thefounder wrote:
| Some people prefer to put themselves at risk robbing
| someone for $100 instead to work hard for $100. I think the
| emphaty should be on people working hard for little money
| not really on risk takers that risk not only their life but
| their victim's life as well.
|
| A simple robbery can quickly end-up more tragic. I would
| like that person to be put in jail until it develops the
| skills and behaviour fit for society. The time based
| sentence is wrong. There is no point to let someone free if
| that person gets even worse in prison. The sentence should
| include time based punishment and mandatory rehabilitation.
| What's the point of catching criminals if rehabilitation is
| not achieved? It is just vengence? It's not unusual to hear
| convicted criminals that two-three-five or more years in
| jail is worth the risk rather than taking a stupid job.
| mattzito wrote:
| > It's not unusual to hear convicted criminals that two-
| three-five or more years in jail is worth the risk rather
| than taking a stupid job.
|
| Citation please? From my understanding, there are
| typically a wide swath of reasons people commit crimes,
| but I have never seen a stat suggesting that jail is
| preferable to a stupid job.
| thefounder wrote:
| I didn't say people prefer jail instead of stupid jobs.
| But the chances of getting away with crime is worth it.
| That's the reason they commit crime in the first place
| and it doesnt change after serving time in prison. It's
| not unusual for convicted criminals to seek new crime
| jobs as soon as they are out of prison. The fact that
| they were caught is seen either as a mistake or price of
| doing business. Many get new crime skills and new
| connections in prison. A stupid job is not even remotely
| present in their mind.
|
| Sometimes jail time is even priced in already, usually in
| financial crimes but that's a different story.
|
| My point is that people should not be left out of prison
| until they prove themselves worthy to live in a free
| society.
| KwisatzHaderack wrote:
| > key insight that hit me was that that momentary break in
| my sense of security that morning, that's what the person
| who robbed me constantly lives in
|
| Maybe for some, but for many it's a job or hobby. Some
| actually enjoy it. I grew up in a rough neighborhood and
| know people bragging about robbing just for the thrill of
| it.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > the state of chaos that I had felt that morning
|
| > high risk, low reward robbery like that is typically for
| drug money
|
| You found yourself in that state of chaos for reasons
| entirely outside your control. The robber freely chose to
| take the first hit of the drug that led to the addiction
| that led to the life of crime.
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| Yes I was going to make the same comment. The poster
| you're replying to seems confused in equating the two.
| tinbucket wrote:
| It's great for you that you can move on so quickly, but I
| think it's a mistake to assume others can or should. Your
| experience is not the same as others, and your situation
| isn't either.
|
| In my case, I have pets and a young child living with me.
| The dogs may get over the violated sense of safety quite
| easily, but my little girl likely wouldn't. It's imperative
| to her healthy development that I be able to provide her a
| safe, secure place to live that _also feels safe and
| secure_.
|
| Call me selfish but that overrides my concerns for the
| chaotic state of other peoples' lives: their problems do
| not entitle them to harm my family.
| bm3719 wrote:
| On the contrary, I wish my criminal aggressors had
| precisely the amount of empathy I have for them. Such
| crimes would not have occurred were that the case, nor
| would they even be possible (as I would never violate
| another fellow human being in such a way).
|
| Furthermore, you may have gotten off with a day of
| inconvenience, but consider those victims that have
| permanent scars from their encounters with those lacking
| empathy. Victims of sexual assault, those suffering
| permanent injury, and the relatives of prematurely deceased
| victims will never be the same. These are not hypotheticals
| (e.g., just the stats on sexual violence against women are
| appalling). All we can do as a society for such individuals
| is do our best to prevent some percentage of future similar
| acts. A better path for reformation may be part of that,
| but I'm not sure squeezing victims for more empathy gets us
| very far.
| [deleted]
| closeparen wrote:
| It's a beautiful experience, and thank you for sharing it.
|
| >We want "problems" to just go away. And stay away.
|
| We do. But the thing is, sharing public spaces with a fuller
| range of human misery and depravity each time you leave your
| home, is an option. I just don't see it accomplishing the sort
| of positive transformation that people credit it with. Instead
| it makes everybody miserable, afraid, and insular - avoiding
| public spaces, locking themselves in cars, moving to the
| exurbs.
|
| There are clearly people who don't morally deserve some kind of
| brutal punishment, and yet are the reason we can't have nice
| things. God damnit, I want nice things. But it's probably true
| that justice demands we accept a certain amount of spoilage.
| shakezula wrote:
| To your same point about empathy for prisoners- I have a
| similar point about how I think everyone should be arrested and
| booked overnight at least once in their life. People speak far
| too harshly and absolutely about "criminals" and how they
| behave in situations they have zero understanding of and
| support laws that uphold those institutions. Getting arrested
| changed me and my opinions on criminal Justice at a fundamental
| level. Having no control over your future in that environment,
| being stripped and searched, it makes you feel vulnerable in a
| way that nothing else does and I think the average person would
| come out of it with a drastically different base opinion of
| crime and punishment.
|
| Note: I'm not advocating for violence or violent crime; I was
| arrested for an overdue traffic ticket and just that experience
| alone was absolute shit.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > ineffective
|
| Get back to us if you ever have a loved one get murdered,
| raped, or assaulted.
|
| Justice is not solely about rehabilitation. It is very much
| about righteous punishment for doing evil. We can acknowledge
| that context and environment foster crime while also not
| tolerating crime.
|
| Personally, I don't give one care about the "why" of certain
| classes of crime. I have zero tolerance or empathy for the
| doers of violence. If you murder someone, your life is forfeit
| to me. If you rape someone, I hope you get locked away for a
| minimum of 20 years. If you seriously assault someone, you
| should have to do jail time.
| afandian wrote:
| Do you have the same amount of confidence that the legal
| system can tell innocent people apart from guilty people?
| gxt wrote:
| So because we're not perfect we should do nothing?
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I have seen false conviction estimates ranging from 1 to 5
| percent. All systems which involve any kind of
| classification will have a non-zero false positive rate.
| Does that mean we should do away with them? Of course not.
| We should simply seek to improve systems with better and
| better processes, while accepting that we might approach
| but never achieve zero false positives.
|
| What alternative would you propose? Doing away with
| criminal justice? Do you think murderers and rapists should
| be allowed to roam free? How about drug traffickers who
| knowingly distribute life destroying substances in their
| communities?
|
| Think of someone you really love. Maybe its your child,
| your parents, your partner, or a friend. Now imagine the
| pain and fear they would feel as they are murdered. What
| would they think and feel as they are choked to death? Or
| bludgeoned? The sheer terror. The pain. The senselessness
| of their life ending. Imagine that you find their corpse.
| Imagine the pain and horror you would experience. The hole
| in your heart. Really try to visualize this scenario. To
| feel it emotionally and with your senses.
|
| Now imagine the perpetrator going unpunished. Walking free.
| Or getting put on some cushy rehabilitation program to
| better their life. Does that seem right? Does it seem just?
| Does it seem fair?
|
| In my opinion, this discussion is way too academic,
| abstract, and one-sided. How about we focus on victims and
| their survivors?
| kiba wrote:
| _In my opinion, this discussion is way too academic,
| abstract, and one-sided. How about we focus on victims
| and their survivors?_
|
| It seems that victims and their survivors already have a
| wellspring of support, but not as much effort on reducing
| the number of perpetrators and victims in our society.
|
| We are focused on 'righting' the wrong rather than
| actually fixing it. Of course, you could incarcerate or
| execute these individuals, but that would not be a fix in
| the same way that starving people to death is a way of
| 'solving' the famine.
|
| Individuals, no matter how much 'free will' or 'agency'
| they have, are all subjected to cause and effect.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > I have seen false conviction estimates ranging from 1
| to 5 percent.
|
| I agree with the rest of your comment, but I think this
| statistics only means that 1-5% of convicts were falsely
| convicted _and could prove it_. So the actual number is
| probably much larger. I would guess something like 20%.
| com2kid wrote:
| So it is OK to inflict righteous punishment on the 5% of
| innocent prisoners?
|
| If we built a society that treated everyone with respect,
| we likely wouldn't have so much crime to begin with. If
| our social institutions were setup to remove children
| from abusive situations ASAP, if we lived in a world
| where baby formula didn't have to be locked up at grocery
| stores (seriously, that is very fucked up, anyone who
| needs baby formula should be able to go to a government
| provided store and get some no questions asked, no hoops
| to jump through), and if we lived in a world where
| parents didn't have to work multiple jobs with every
| changing shifts just to pay rent, maybe we wouldn't have
| to worry about crime so much.
|
| Instead we live in a world where minority children are
| treated worse in schools, where society assumes teenagers
| who aren't white are "up to some trouble", and in a world
| where those in power regularly show distain for life in
| general.
|
| We've had presidents go on TV defending torture, why the
| hell should some poor kid who has nothing in life start
| to feel empathy for anyone?
| alex_sf wrote:
| > So it is OK to inflict righteous punishment on the 5%
| of innocent prisoners?
|
| It's not OK, but it is inevitable.
|
| > If we built a society that treated everyone with
| respect, we ...
|
| Agreed. But it's irrelevant. You can build a better world
| and still punish criminals at the same time.
| afandian wrote:
| This conversation isn't in the context of the concept of
| prisons, or even crime and punishment in general. It's
| specifically about solitary confinement which, along with
| corporal punishment, is torture that does permanent
| damage to someone. If you're going to countenance torture
| (or capital punishment), the _very least_ you can do is
| is consider the likelihood of them being innocent.
|
| Yes, the scene you describe is appalling. And, from
| reports, not uncommon in the States. Would I be in the
| right state of mind to make effective policy or humane
| decisions after that trauma? No. Would a reasonable
| person want revenge? Probably. Would a systematic
| revenge-based system lead to more or less miserable
| outcomes?
|
| The US has the highest rate of incarcerations in the
| world. Is that working?
|
| Putting so much effort into punshiment and so little into
| _prevention_ smacks of revenge rather than wanting to
| actually improve things.
| cryoz wrote:
| The point of prisons is to keep criminals away from the rest
| of society and prevent them from doing further harm.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| That is _one_ reason to imprison criminals. It is not the
| only reason.
|
| - https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-
| purpose...
|
| - https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-
| library/abstracts/reasons-...
|
| - https://ua.pressbooks.pub/criminallawalaskaed/chapter/1-5
| -th...
| hashmap wrote:
| What you call "righteous punishment" is just revenge. You
| want revenge. It is a natural response to being wronged. But
| that is not justice. And it is no way to build a society. To
| be overly cliche, two wrongs do not make a right.
|
| The moral use of the penal system is to remove the danger
| from society, make restitution, and rehabilitate where
| possible. Those are not always possible. Torturing people
| held captive is its own crime, and one we are guilty of to a
| horrifying extent as a nation. To say nothing of the innocent
| people we subject to these horrors.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > that is not justice.
|
| This might be your opinion, but it is definitely not in
| keeping with any standard or common definition of justice:
|
| - https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-
| purpose...
|
| - https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-
| library/abstracts/reasons-...
|
| - https://ua.pressbooks.pub/criminallawalaskaed/chapter/1-5
| -th...
| hashmap wrote:
| This is not the argument you think it is - of course the
| people creating an unjust system will define their own
| system as just. We know that there are better ways, and
| appealing to tautology is just sort of burying one's head
| in the sand.
|
| https://www.wbez.org/stories/how-finlands-criminal-
| justice-s...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I am merely pointing out that your personal opinion of
| "what justice is" does not accord with the principles
| upon which the U.S. justice system is built (along with
| many others around the world).
|
| Any definition of justice is going to be arbitrary and
| subjective. I disagree with your definition. I see
| elsewhere in this thread that you take an absolutist
| stance with regard to your opinion on how justice should
| be done, one in which you're unwilling to acknowledge
| that it is possible to have differing opinions on what
| justice _should_ be. That 's fine. You're just out of
| sync with the majority opinion. And you will be
| ineffective in persuading a sufficient number of other
| people (see also Marjorie Taylor Green, AOC, etc). You
| also seem to be able to predict the future ("you're on
| the wrong side of history"). Again, that's fine (I'll
| take some stock tips if you can make those predictions
| too). I just disagree.
|
| I won't be replying further as your replies suggest to me
| an inflexibility and intolerance regarding this subject.
| hashmap wrote:
| > You also seem to be able to predict the future ("you're
| on the wrong side of history"). Again, that's fine (I'll
| take some stock tips if you can make those predictions
| too). I just disagree.
|
| It's not hard, since we see other countries already in
| the "future" where it's working. You're free to disagree
| and turn a blind eye. I'm hoping that the people reading
| will see that this kind of attitude about being resolute
| that the horrors we inflict on our prisoners both
| innocent and guilty are good, is itself its own kind of
| horror. That this attitude will perpetuate the suffering
| of our fellow Americans.
|
| Edit: you dont want my stock tips
| Amezarak wrote:
| I disagree. That's exactly what justice is, providing it is
| carried about by the state after a fair legal process and
| not by private feuds. This is also a great way to build a
| safe and free society, and the fact we've gotten away from
| this is one of the reasons we're less safe and free - to be
| "kinder" we've installed a surveillance state and horrible
| bureaucratic systems that provide neither justice nor peace
| nor freedom, but instead make a mockery of all of them.
| hashmap wrote:
| You are free to disagree and be in the moral wrong, and
| on the wrong side of history. There are good examples of
| much better humanitarian penal systems with far better
| outcomes in Scandinavian countries that demonstrate this
| reality well. Returning to the past as you seem to want
| is just reactionary and does not serve progress.
| Amezarak wrote:
| > You are free to disagree and be in the moral wrong,
|
| The reason I posted is because you seemed to be unaware
| other people have different moral value systems. This is
| the fundamental reason behind a lot of disagreements.
| Here's the root of it: you think I a morally wrong and I
| think I am morally right. There is no rational argument
| to demonstrate that either of us are correct.
|
| That's also why you're fundamentally unpersuasive. You're
| not convincing anyone by making bald assertions of your
| unsupported moral beliefs.
|
| > the wrong side of history.
|
| History will go on for a long time, and there is no arc
| of some sort of moral progress, just shifting social
| norms changing with historical accidents. This type of
| argument is particularly unpersuasive and tends to raise
| people's hackles immediately, because it's a declaration
| that you are (again, without evidence) so incredibly
| righteous that history itself will steamroll people who
| disagree with you.
|
| > There are good examples of much better humanitarian
| penal systems with far better outcomes in Scandinavian
| countries that demonstrate this reality well.
|
| The better outcomes may have nothing to do with the
| nature of the penal system itself, but wider cultural
| differences. In fact, this seems much more likely, given
| the extant differences in US subcultures and
| demographics. Slicing up the US crime data by economic
| quintiles and various demographics gives the lie to a lot
| of arguments. Even excluding the wider cultural
| comparison, talking about this without evaluating the
| commonalities between the crimes in questions and
| aggravating factors between the two countries makes this
| a really apples-to-oranges comparison.
| hashmap wrote:
| > The reason I posted is because you seemed to be unaware
| other people have different moral value systems. This is
| the fundamental reason behind a lot of disagreements.
| Here's the root of it: you think I a morally wrong and I
| think I am morally right. There is no rational argument
| to demonstrate that either of us are correct.
|
| I have no such illusions; I'm simply saying that this
| archaic one is objectively wrong from a humanitarian and
| historical standpoint. We both think we are right; the
| difference is you are wrong. There is no agreeing to
| disagree here, and it is quite cut and dried.
|
| Further, I am not saying these things to convince you of
| anything, and I of course don't think I will. I cannot
| convince someone to care about their fellow human being.
| I am saying these things for the sake of those reading.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Okay, so you can go ahead and lay out how I am
| objectively wrong from a humanitarian and historical
| standpoint? It's fine to assert that but so far you
| haven't actually explained it.
|
| I agree there is no agreeing to disagree about value
| differences. The key is to identify what outcomes we both
| want and, from that starting point, evaluate what
| historical and sociological evidence suggests can get us
| to those outcomes. Moral framing does not help.
| hashmap wrote:
| "Cite your sources as to why torturing prisoners is
| wrong" is simply shorthand for "I actually like the idea
| of this torture and you can't tell me otherwise". Like I
| said, I can't make an argument as to why you should care
| about your fellow human if you don't already. It's not a
| good faith question.
|
| We know that punitive measures do not act as a deterrence
| and in the case of more progressive countries that have
| wildly better outcomes we know what actually has good
| outcomes. If you're really interested all the literature
| is just a google away. Check out US incarceration and
| recidivism rates (which are the worst in the world) and
| those of more progressive countries. The data is all
| there for you, if you are curious. We've seen what
| doesn't work, and we've seen what does. It's not my job
| to educate you.
|
| Like I said, I'm not here to convince you of anything. I
| cannot change your value system, I can only make a public
| example of why it does no good to drag us into the past,
| and all the atrocities that entails.
|
| EDIT: sort of an afterthought, but for those reading I
| always find it hilarious that whenever a reactionary sees
| something work in another country the first instinct is
| to say "actually the US might exist in a bizarro reality
| where everything is opposite, and you can't prove that
| it's not so ha". As if the most scientific approach to
| seeing someone's repeated successful results is to
| absolutely refuse to try to replicate it yourself!
| Amezarak wrote:
| It has been my observation that the "humanitarian"
| experiments in the US have been a large net negative for
| everyone involved. It is not theoretical.
|
| It's not a bizzaro reality: peoples and cultures vary
| across geography in different ways.
|
| Contrary to being a reactionary, my fear is that the
| denial of these differences and the failure of well-
| intentioned policies is going to eventually lead to a
| draconian authoritarian backlash that could be prevented
| by having more sensible policies now. And as I said in my
| original post, many of the worst aspects of American
| culture and the legal system are already downstream
| consequences of failed "humanitarian" policies that are
| making a mockery of justice, civil rights, and
| peace/safety.
|
| All in all, I am afraid that you will not make much
| progress by assuming everyone who disagrees with you is a
| morally objectionable reactionary and refusing to
| seriously engage with them. You are making a religious
| argument and not a policy argument. I also don't think it
| does you service to conflate punishment with torture and
| make straw men.
| alex_sf wrote:
| > What you call "righteous punishment" is just revenge. You
| want revenge. It is a natural response to being wronged.
| But that is not justice.
|
| Says you.
| kiba wrote:
| Sounds like you're more interested in feeling good than
| actually fixing the problem that caused people to be
| assaulted.
|
| _We can acknowledge that context and environment foster
| crime while also not tolerating crime._
|
| Are you interested in having less victims and less
| perpetrators in the future, or is punishment you're
| interested in for its own sake rather than as a potential
| tool?
| next_xibalba wrote:
| You present a false dichotomy. We can walk and chew gum at
| the same time.
|
| What is your specific proposal? Do you think murderers and
| rapists should go unpunished or be allowed to remain free?
| kiba wrote:
| I am not interested in punishing beyond what is necessary
| to reduce harms. I think harms beyond shown benefit is
| cruel and arbitrary.
|
| _What is your specific proposal? Do you think murderers
| and rapists should go unpunished or be allowed to remain
| free?_
|
| I don't care about punishing them. I care about reducing
| and preventing harm to society.
| joshthecynic wrote:
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I like the Norwegian penal system's view on prison terms: the
| punishment is the loss of liberty itself; there's no need to also
| treat prisoners inhumanely as an "additional" punishment -- which
| is what the U.S. generally does (and a lot of Americans agree
| with it). In the U.S. there seems to be this idea that "the worse
| you treat people in prison, the more it will scare people about
| going to prison". And yet, statistically that doesn't work.
| Norway's rate of recidivism is one of the lowest in the world,
| and nearly half that of the U.S. (Granted, this has a lot to do
| with social conditions _outside_ of prison.)
|
| If the goal of prison was "change behavior" rather than "make
| miserable", it might seem unfair ("bad people are getting away
| with it" etc.) but better for society in general (all of us).
| Yes, it won't work for everyone and there are some people who
| will never change and are just evil. But we tend to laser-focus
| on those few instead of the many who are not like that.
| herbstein wrote:
| > the punishment is the loss of liberty itself
|
| Additionally, released prisoners might become your neighbor. Do
| you want a hardened criminal or a reformed citizen to move in?
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Do you want a hardened criminal or a reformed citizen to
| move in?
|
| That's not a choice you make regardless of who your
| government is. At least when Norway arrests someone, they
| seem to keep tabs on them instead of dropping them off across
| the street from the liquor store when they served their time.
| sbarre wrote:
| I think the major difference here is exactly what you point
| out: social conditions outside of prison.
|
| The US's general lack of a social safety net, and the "every
| person for themselves" attitude, means that life for a lot of
| Americans, in the world's richest country, is super miserable
| and hopeless.
|
| If US prisons treated people decently, I think many people
| would choose life in prison over their existing life outside of
| prison. Guaranteed meals, shelter, medical care, all paid for
| by the state? That's a lot more than many Americans have today.
|
| So for their social structures to have at least some paper-thin
| justifications, life in prison has to be worse than life
| outside prison. I am sure this is at least somewhat by design.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| > lack of a social safety net
|
| Also has an effect on how fair the conditions are, or at
| least the perception around fairness of the system in
| general.
| sbarre wrote:
| Absolutely.. when you believe in the idea that prison must
| be _relatively_ worse than everyday life, it can get pretty
| horrible pretty fast.
|
| And I will say the US is not unique in having horrible
| prisons, but they are uniquely the wealthiest country in
| the world, and actively choose to have that system.
|
| They could fix it if they wanted to.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >So when I passed through the prison gates, I took on the persona
| of a deadly gangster. I did things that landed me in "the hole"
| -- slang for administrative segregation -- over and over.
|
| while I am by no means a supporter of cruel punishment, the tone
| in a lot of prison inmate's writings mirrors that one in that
| they do not seem to take ownership of their own crimes. When you
| go to prison for literal murder, I don't think 'deadly gangster'
| is a 'persona' any longer. That's just a description of what you
| are.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| At 18, a lot of kids are a very mixed up bag of emotions and
| needs. Doing one heinous act is different than dawning a whole
| persona and comitting to it. It's possible to do something
| you'll regret with uncertainty and insecurity the whole time.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| At 18 not a lot of young adults (which are not kids), commit
| first degree murder. I really hope you're not intending to
| characterize intentionally killing another human being as
| "kids being kids ". That one heinous act snuffed out another
| life irretrievably, that victim doesn't even get to live in a
| cell or regret anything.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| The typical American believes in human sacrifice. We don't think
| of it that way, but that's what it is. A heinous crime,
| especially one that violates an individual, is a shock to the
| social fabric, and the prescription is that somebody must be
| harmed to purge society of the bad juju. Ideally, it's the
| perpetrator, but historically, it isn't that important. We're
| more than happy to let innocent people rot in prison and to let
| corrupt police and prosecutors off the hook for misconduct, as
| long as they continue to produce the human sacrifices we demand.
| It's not even necessary to solve crime as long as the state is
| able to inflict damage to the right sorts of people in response.
| It doesn't particularly matter that our criminal criminal justice
| system is woefully inefficient at solving or preventing crime.
| The cruelty of the criminal justice system and everything that
| follows is the point.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Has nothing to do with bad ju ju, and everything to do with
| finding a fitting punishment of sufficient unpleasantness as to
| deter even people with short time preferences from harming
| others.
|
| Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
|
| Remember the author, as cool as he sounds, murdered somebody.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| And how is that working? For all of the cruelty of our
| justice and carceral system, we still have high crime and
| high recidivism. It's catastrophically bad policy from a
| public safety standpoint, costing an immense amount of money
| for the outcomes we get. And yet, there's not much public
| motivation to demand better.
|
| I have concluded that the system largely does what the public
| wants. It inflicts tremendous harm and collateral damage with
| a veneer of plausible deniability that lets us tell ourselves
| that it's about crime reduction, justice, and/or
| rehabilitation.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| To add to the previous, where is our commitment to
| misconduct and abuse of power that causes widespread
| damage? If we actually cared about deterring crime, we'd
| take the same punitive approach to white collar criminals
| as street crime.
|
| I argue that white collar crime doesn't have the same
| psychological effect on society. It doesn't create the same
| demand for human sacrifice. Consequently, you've got no
| interest in taking a pound of flesh, combined with the same
| lack of actual care for safeguarding the public interest.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| It's not a human sacrifice, it's putting the criminal somewhere
| will they won't be able to hurt anyone ever again, therefore
| _reducing_ the expected level of killing.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| I'm 100% for keeping people safe, including physically
| separating dangerous people from the rest of the population,
| but
|
| 1) Way too often, we don't catch the killer or put people
| away on flimsy evidence.
|
| 2) We have murderers in prison way beyond the circumstances
| that led to them to commit murder. In other words, ones that
| likely pose no particular elevated risk.
|
| 3) The inhumane conditions of the prison system do nothing to
| enhance public safety. In fact, they make it worse by doing
| immense trauma to incarcerated people, leading to high
| recidivism and high violence and poor health within the
| prisons.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Life in prison without the possibility of parole reminds one of
| French oubliettes.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| bergenty wrote:
| This guy killed a person.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| no but he was responsible for severe injuries after a car crash
| due to his blood alcool level
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Not true. Rape and murder charges when he was already on
| parole
| i_like_apis wrote:
| Yikes. Here's a totally contrary opinion from someone who has
| also been to AggSeg -
|
| AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. I
| spent almost a year in AggSeg and it is lovely.
|
| - It's "single cell" meaning you don't have to live in close
| quarters with a random criminal.
|
| - You don't have to socialize with random criminals during your
| free time, so you don't have to worry about the constant violence
| and rudeness you find in General Population.
|
| Other than that, just read books, work out, and sleep. They bring
| you food 3 times a day. Honestly I would pay for this. There is
| nothing difficult or badass about it at all. Surviving in general
| population, _that 's actually difficult_.
|
| Everyone who wants to it sound like "THE HOLE" is just being
| dramatic. They are also playing into the corrections industry
| propaganda about the matter: The industry wants people to think
| of this setup as awful and barely-legal because the reality is
| that _all inmates would prefer to be housed in a cell to
| themselves_ and be _guaranteed to not encounter violence in the
| yard_ , but it would cost 2-3x as much to provide this type of
| housing to the entire population.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| > AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison. I
| spent almost a year in AggSeg and it is lovely.
|
| You do realize that most people would go insane from lack of
| social interaction?
| i_like_apis wrote:
| You have plenty of conversations in AggSeg if you want. Just
| with a small group of other inmates talking through your door
| while they are on individual free times.
|
| There's also usually an air vent people talk through. And
| that is the real torture, listening to 90IQ criminals talking
| 24/7.
|
| I was lucky enough to have a quiet vent and kept people away
| from the door. It was great and not anywhere close to
| torture.
|
| People act like this is "the hole" from some POW camp. That
| doesn't exist in the system.
|
| AggSeg is just a jail within a jail, for the violent and
| obnoxious troublemakers. Inmates are not allowed to be in the
| same space inside or outside of their cells because they are
| likely to be violent. It's amazing because you can really
| relax, eat your 3 meals a day and do time. You watch more TV
| in AggSeg, have more personal space and privacy, you still
| get to talk to people if you really want to ... the idea of
| calling it "the hole" and pretending it's psych torture is
| absolutely ridiculous.
| bombcar wrote:
| There are prisoners in the system _today_ that are in Seg and
| every time they get put back in genpop they immediately do the
| minimum required to get sent back to Seg.
| meowface wrote:
| I think I could see where you're coming from if not for the
| near-total elimination of stimuli. If I could have any book I
| wanted whenever I wanted I'd consider it over being with the
| general population. If I could have an internet connection I'd
| probably not consider it very different from my current life.
| But it seems neither are possible. In that case, I'd rather
| risk dying from attacks than dying of boredom and loneliness,
| unless it were a fairly short sentence.
| i_like_apis wrote:
| If it's loneliness that concerns you (whew lad), I would just
| say that being forced to socialize with the criminal
| population feels just like being alone, with the exception
| that you can really get stabbed.
| byecomputer wrote:
| You're part of the criminal population, though. You are in
| the group you're demonizing.
| bombcar wrote:
| The criminal population is as stratified as the outside
| population. The lifers often want nothing to do with the
| short term convicts, and none of them want anything to do
| with the violent or the child molesters.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > AggSeg is the VERY BEST place you can be in jail or prison.
|
| You sound like you're introverted. Most people do not want to
| be left alone with their thoughts with no human contact - it
| would just drive them up the wall.
|
| You also sound like you were focused on surviving your
| incarceration which end date. The author is in for life,
| without parole: he's the "random criminal" you didn't want to
| socialize with, because that was his survival strategy as a
| lifer, and it sounds like he can manage genpop just fine.
| byecomputer wrote:
| I like being alone and spend most of my days alone, but not
| having the _choice_ to socialize would make me itchy. Gotta
| sate the urge to boogie every once in a blue moon.
|
| Which leads into your point -- the author didn't/doesn't have
| that temporary notion of "This will pass; For now, just get
| me away from these people." He's in it for life-o and has a
| totally different set of realities to cope with than a
| transient convict.
| i_like_apis wrote:
| You shouldn't make personality diagnoses via online comments.
|
| The math doesn't change for introverts or extroverts. AggSeg
| is safe, easy living. It's nowhere near torture, or
| dangerous, or inhumane, no matter what TikTok says your
| personality type is. Genpoop on the other hand is dirty and
| dangerous and you are statistically guaranteed to be involved
| in violence at some point.
|
| But there are lots of people like him who will complain as if
| it's torture, because they like to complain, will say
| anything against the pigs, and they like to pretend they
| endured "the hole".
|
| Meanwhile he talked with other inmates every day and likely
| had a view of a TV, as is common in most AggSeg pods.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > You shouldn't make personality diagnoses via online
| comments.
|
| Going by what you said alone - you prefer the safety of
| isolation over the lack of human contact (regardless of
| your personality). Author of TFA weighs the tradeoffs
| differently.
|
| The author of article doesn't share your safety concerns,
| as they wrote that they adopted a gangster persona and
| probably resigned to the fact that they _will_ be
| repeatedly involved in violence, so they 'd rather do it on
| their terms. The calculus of a lifer is very different to
| yours
| i_like_apis wrote:
| I liked the part where you told me about he "calculus of
| a lifer".
|
| Anyway, that guy is misrepresenting what AggSeg is. It's
| not torture, he was not egregiously isolated, he still
| had contact with people. He ate better food and had more
| TV. He's just the type who will always complain about the
| conditions of the facility, and all the inmates like to
| LARP about "the hole" being hardcore, because that's
| where the violent folks are sent.
| bombcar wrote:
| People forget that anyone (let alone criminals) will use
| everything available to improve their situation; criminals
| in prison are well known to abuse every process available
| to them for their own ends.
|
| And that includes crying about how horrible everything is.
| Every guard and convict knows the ones that do it, and when
| it's real and when it's faked.
|
| But nobody "outside" can admit that happens.
| i_like_apis wrote:
| Exactly.
| bobmaxup wrote:
| You are downplaying this scenario in my opinion, or were in a
| much nicer prison than I was in.
|
| Getting out of your 8'x6' cell, wearing leg shackles and cuffs,
| for 45 minutes a day to walk in a concrete 15' diameter circle
| with a fence blocking the view of the sky or to take a shower
| in a box with a CO staring at you the whole time isn't
| something I would pay for.
|
| There were no televisions.
|
| There was a gigantic industrial fan, incessant screaming from
| people, automated lights, and food that barely passed as
| edible. It is not something I would call lovely.
| i_like_apis wrote:
| What state is that? I had the same experience in AggSeg at
| two different facilities.
|
| Automated lights? What's the torture there? It sounds nice.
| In fact the only real complaint I had (besides some behavior
| of the COs) was that in AggSeg, they don't turn off the
| lights at night. Something about safety and making their
| inspections easier. You have to devise something to cover
| your eyes to make it easier to sleep.
|
| Your story about leaving your cell for free time in shackles
| and cuffs is also a little suspect. These facilities have
| remote locking cell doors in AggSeg units. Even the older
| facilities have this with pneumatic locks. They let you out
| into an area and give you commands over intercom. You are
| almost never in the same room as a CO. There is no reason for
| shackles. Getting an AggSeg customer into shackles and cuffs
| is a whole affair, and dangerous, no one is doing it on a
| routine basis just for free time, when they have remote
| locking doors. Also, this is also your time to use the
| shower, so shackles? no.
|
| You're right about incessant screaming though.
| bobmaxup wrote:
| I was in a segregated housing unit in the early 2000s in a
| prison in the northeastern United States.
|
| We interacted with COs, were in the same room as them, and
| were often directly in front of them.
|
| There were no intercoms in the hole. In general population,
| these were only really used by inmates who were doing
| custodial tasks between units.
|
| To leave our cell, our hands were cuffed, through the door
| hatch before doors were released via radio, prompted by the
| CO. After, the COs secured our legs with shackles this
| happened whenever you left your cell.
|
| Shackles were removed to take a shower, hence being watched
| by a CO the whole time.
|
| What you are calling AggSeg is what they called the
| segregated housing unit, SHU, or "shoe". Having read
| others' experiences, this varies based on the prison.
|
| It is interesting to me that you assume that this is a
| fabrication over considering that things are different in
| other administrative areas of the United States.
|
| I have no reason to lie about my experiences while being in
| prison. Normally, I lie about ever having been there.
|
| > Automated lights? What's the torture there?
|
| I don't think I said it was torture, but it was incredibly
| annoying to me, having an abnormal sleep cycle. I slept
| with a shirt sleeve on my head, covering my eyes, which
| would leave me with acne, often.
|
| They went off at like 9PM and came back on at 6AM for
| breakfast.
| lma21 wrote:
| I wonder what penitentiaries look like in countries like Sweden
| or Denmark for people who are convicted of similar crimes. Are
| prisoners tortured like this fellow on a daily basis?
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I always found this podcast episode pretty interesting. I've
| read that Denmark has a similar system.
|
| https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17983456/futur...
| rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote:
| I sure hope those that did heinous crimes are.
| deltasevennine wrote:
| Why specifically Scandinavia? I mean obviously they're famous
| for doing something different. But you're asking a really
| specific question as if you didn't know.
| lma21 wrote:
| I'm not sure. I always heard that the most severe punishment
| in Sweden is 10-18 years (the latter for murder). Although I
| wondered how prisoners would be treated there, I mean you're
| serving life in prison for a crime done at 19 years old,
| surely the guards shouldn't make their lives a living hell
| right?
| amelius wrote:
| > Now I am a unicorn, the rare 50-year-old with a stomach that
| looks like a Spartan warrior's.
|
| This tells me that you don't really need to take those protein
| shakes everybody is raving about.
| symlinkk wrote:
| Maybe...but the rest of us have jobs, we can't work out all day
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| This isn't prison, this is torture. Absolutely disgusting.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I believe life in prison should exist. Some people simply don't
| fit in society. If you're caught the third time raping children,
| I don't think you'll ever be fit for society.
|
| However, such extreme sentences should only be for Big Crimes.
| Threatening the democracy of a country, murdering politicians for
| extremist ideals, sending hitmen after judges, lawyers and police
| officers, mass murders for whatever reason, those kinds of
| crimes. Done by the people who society should be protected from.
| The death sentence is too extreme (though I'd support opting into
| euthanasia if we could ever find a way to prevent the prison
| system from torturing people into suicide) because the legal
| system in any country is flawed and people's innocence sometimes
| comes out decades later.
|
| I don't know who this guy murdered and how to deserve life
| without parole, but I haven't heard of him and I can't find any
| news articles about him (assuming he's not using an alias) so I
| doubt he deserves this extreme a punishment. Even if he's in
| there for some kind of ritualistic baby murder, he doesn't
| deserve this. The captivity alone should be the punishment, the
| inability to have control over your life and do as you please,
| there is no reason to torture someone like this. The purpose of
| life in prison should be to protect society from evil or deranged
| people, not to torture people in some sick sort of entitlement.
|
| Inhumane prisons bring out the very worst in society. People
| think prisoners have it so easy, being given free food and a
| place to live, but when they can't go to the office and need to
| stay home for a few months because of a deadly pandemic they go
| crazy. That alone should be reason enough not to listen to anyone
| who wants excessively large punishments because they're affected,
| people underestimate the effects of being locked up in the same
| place for an extended amount of time.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| > Threatening the democracy of a country
|
| This would quickly become the primary political prison method.
| And you already don't trust the justice system ("I doubt he
| deserves this extreme a punishment") so why would you trust the
| justice system to correctly determine "threats to democracy"?
| clort wrote:
| Is "life without parole" in the USA actually a whole life until
| death sentence? Here in the UK I don't think it is, though I do
| think it would be preferable to have a name mean what it says.
| (ie if you want to give 20 years then call it that)
| lucb1e wrote:
| > Here in the UK I don't think it is
|
| The European Convention on Human Rights article 3 is being
| interpreted as declaring life imprisonment (without chance of
| parole) inhumane[1]. Assuming the UK is a signatory (fairly
| sure they are), it would be prohibited there, though it's up to
| the European Court on Human Rights to rule (iirc in Luxembourg)
| and then your own country to care about executing that
| judgement against itself. Russia is also a signatory to the
| ECHR which I find really interesting.
|
| There is also a right to privacy (article 8) and it doesn't
| discriminate whether the person happens to be an EU citizen.
| There are so many things in this convention, that seem like
| really basic human rights, that are just not a thing in the
| USA. Boggles my mind that we just accept all of that without
| blinking and continue treating it like an example, or that
| people (even people living in Europe!) want to move there[2].
|
| [1] I happened to be reading this page in Dutch on it
| https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenslange_gevangenisstraf so
| that's my source unfortunately. Feel free to ask for a
| translation if you want to know more and translation engines
| are not making sense or something
|
| [2] https://best-citizenships.com/2021/09/29/10-most-popular-
| cou... for example. Depending on the survey, the USA is
| typically still more than doubly as popular as the next-most-
| popular destination.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Yes. The U.S. does not have a maximum term of incarceration the
| way some other countries do. Life without parole is generally
| used as an alternative to capital punishment here.
| schizo89 wrote:
| I spent around 40 days int the hole from my 2 year sentence.
|
| I read the first time, but they only allowed 1 book at a time and
| I ended up re-reading same book a twice a day.
|
| Then second time they only allowed to read 1 hour a day. I ended
| up walking in circles and imagining various book plots and yc
| startup ideas.
| tlear wrote:
| And nowhere on the page is the name of the person he murdered.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| And raped apparently
| dbttdft wrote:
| > going huge amounts of time without physically seeing people
|
| That's how I've always lived. The problem is more that you're
| stuck in a small box with bad living conditions.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I find it really odd how many people abhor the death penalty and
| capital punishment as a whole, while also tolerating life in
| prison and solitary confinement. I don't view executing someone
| as worse than forcing them to spend their entire life living in a
| concrete cell, under the mercy of cruel guards, until they die.
| Especially if that process includes year long stints without
| seeing a single person.
|
| Perhaps we should have neither? I understand that many people are
| uncomfortable with having someone who committed a heinous crime
| walking free, but there should be some way of giving back one's
| freedom and one's humanity after a while. Someone who committed a
| crime at 19 is a wholly different person at 50. Even if we can't
| give them total freedom, there should be an opportunity to live
| in nice conditions, to earn a proper income, to cook one's own
| food.
| cmsonger wrote:
| I think there are two issues you don't address. Death is final.
| There's no later exoneration if you've killed someone and it
| seems pretty clear that this has happened. State and federal
| governments have executed innocent people.
|
| The second is that content of this article itself. The author
| does not sound thrilled to be in solitary; but the author also
| seems to have found meaning in life. Do you think that the
| author would choose death over the life he has forged for
| himself? I don't think so.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Oh agreed. Death is not a good option. I'm mostly saying that
| life in prison, especially in American prisons, is not a good
| one either.
| cmsonger wrote:
| Agreed. The US has some weird priorities in my estimation.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| nicoburns wrote:
| I can't speak for the author, but I would absolutely choose
| death over life imprisonment if given the choice (assuming a
| painless method of execution)
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Some people live most of their lives "imprisoned": maybe
| they're blind, deaf, paralyzed, have birth defects, chronic
| pain/illness. But even they value life within limitations.
| There is always a reason to keep going. Perspective is
| everything.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I don't think it's reasonable to assume that everyone
| will have the same perspective on this.
| usaphp wrote:
| I think It's one thing to be born blind/deaf and never
| experience life without it, but it's another when you
| were free and then went to prison for life/got
| blind/paralyzed
| ouija wrote:
| You sound like the banker in "The Bet" by Chekhov. I hope
| nobody makes a bet in this thread. :D
| Fidgeting0026 wrote:
| I'd take the pain anyway.
| [deleted]
| axiolite wrote:
| > Death is final.
|
| Years in prison can't be undone any more than death can.
|
| Would you in principle call torturing someone for years on
| end but eventually letting them go free, a lesser crime than
| a quick death?
|
| > State and federal governments have executed innocent
| people.
|
| Very, very few in modern US history, thanks to years of
| appeals and reviews. Meanwhile, a tremendous number of
| innocent people serve a large number of years of their life
| in prison.
| Ratanka wrote:
| thats because you dont have any clue about what you talking and
| how that works ... you miss the absolut basic facts on this and
| think you can argue about it ... sometimes i wonder how people
| like you manage to remember to breath ...
|
| you say "I don't view executing someone as worse than forcing
| them to spend their entire life living in a concrete cell,
| under the mercy of cruel guards, until they die. Especially if
| that process includes year long stints without seeing a single
| person."
|
| dude thats what death penalty is x 10.
|
| Death penalty doesnt mean u get shot tomorrow mate, it can mean
| 20-30 years of prison in a single cell with basicly no contact
| to the outside. you haave WAAAAy less freedom then anyone else
| in prison u have no contact to other prisoners your just
| waiting to die for DECADES ... thats why death penalty basicly
| is declared "torture" by every civilized nation on earth. You
| wait 25 years for the one sentences that you die in a few
| hours, because thats what they do, they dont tell you you die
| until a few hours before, you get a last meal and bam. BUT then
| sometimes it get postponed last minute which u then know
| minutes before so then u sometimes wait again for YEARS and
| then some day "you get executed in 4 hours" ... jaeh thats
| sounds SO MUCH BETTER then prison right ?
|
| the amount of lacking of knowledge in people like you make me
| so sick ... and its people like you voting YES for stuff they
| dont understand 1% of ... you sir make me SICK, not ur oppinion
| but ur lack of knowledge
| sahila wrote:
| Is the long waiting period a necessary condition for capital
| punishment, or can it be shorted to something more
| reasonable?
| Ratanka wrote:
| first of all you have to wait until the appeals are trough
| thats noraml but then alot of states in the us have the
| killings on hold for decades and then kill a bunch most
| often when some republicans are back in power. also the
| MAIN reason is that they are just missing the poison to
| kill people ... thats also why killing people in the usa is
| the most inhuman killing in the world, the people get
| injected by poison but its only created in europe and
| europe bans all delivieres to the usa as they not support
| killing of citizens with it. and thats why the usa uses a
| bunch of other stuff not rly working there was a case a few
| years ago where the person was struggeling with death
| screaming for 20+ minutes ... so humane ... so nice
| gus_massa wrote:
| IIRC the capital punishment is fast if the prisoner does
| not present court appeals, but most people prefer to try to
| use all the methods to avoid it.
| Ratanka wrote:
| no it isnt ... thats just stupid to say if u again have
| no idea what ur talking about. alot of states in us as
| example have all death penalties on "Hold" it can change
| every day and after 20 years BAM u get executed and also
| even if ur "lucky" its often 5+ years ... to say its
| "fast" is just again ... false
| bombcar wrote:
| It's a condition of the weird schizophrenic system in the
| US. There's nothing preventing a system where "I sentence
| you to death" is said by the judge and the bailiff
| immediately unholsters a desert eagle and executes.
| mind-blight wrote:
| I really like the Norwegian model where the maximum sentence is
| 21 years, and a judge has to actively intervene near the tone
| of release if they want to extend it.
|
| Requiring action to keep someone incarcerated rather than
| released makes it harder to forget about people and let them
| sleep through the cracks
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Even if you don't want to give up life in prison; it doesn't
| have to be as horrendous conditions as US prisons are.
| dazc wrote:
| > Someone who committed a crime at 19 is a wholly different
| person at 50.
|
| Not necessarily, some people are just bad or damaged to the
| extent that they can not live a normal life within society.
|
| I remember kids I knew as a child who were just evil, such as
| cruelty to animals, violence towards females, etc for no
| logical reason and these are all people who ended up in prison
| for some crime or another.
|
| There has to be a sanction for this kind of destructive
| behaviour and the remote chance that some random violent
| criminal has a potential to be to be some of saint, if only
| they have one more chance, is robbed of this opportunity is a
| price worth paying for the greater good..
| watwut wrote:
| > I remember kids I knew as a child who were just evil, such
| as cruelty to animals, violence towards females
|
| If they exhibit all of that as kids, they need intervention
| as kids. This sort of stuff happens when kids are abused by
| their families and don't get help.
|
| It may be unfixable at some point, but the original of it is
| adults in those kids lives.
| chki wrote:
| I wholeheartedly disagree. People can change and people do
| change. People can receive therapy. I was a very different
| person 5 years ago. I can't imagine how I will change in the
| next 20.
| rafaelero wrote:
| With a 40% reconviction rate after prisoners are released
| [1], I think it's reasonable to assume a lot of them will
| keep misbehaving.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/
| dazc wrote:
| People can change but mostly the don't. If someone let you
| down 5 years ago they will, most likely, let you down
| again.
| virgildotcodes wrote:
| Well they don't need to be a saint, as none of us are. They
| just need to learn how to function in society. I think
| rehabilitation is possible for the majority. Norway seems to
| show this in that they do not instate capital punishment or
| life imprisonment, yet have extremely low recidivism rates
| (especially compared to the US).
| bombcar wrote:
| If we set the criminally insane aside (a small portion to
| be sure) the majority remaining need training, motivation,
| assistance, and separation.
|
| 1. Training - many people in prison never learned how to
| "live productively" if you will - this includes things like
| job training but also basic life training, etc. Nobody
| should leave prison with anything less than an high school
| equivalent education, and training and knowledge on how to
| cook, clean, etc for themselves.
|
| 2. Motivation - the "why bother" needs to be shown and
| instilled - why bother doing a job when you can just do a
| crime or drugs instead?
|
| 3. Assistance - we shouldn't just dump people out of prison
| on the street - they don't know where to go or who to
| contact and it's likely the people they DO know are other
| criminals, which doesn't help. There should be "outpatient"
| assistance provided that gets them a job, housing, etc.
| Call it supervised release as part of the sentence and you
| could do quite a bit. Provide incentives and security for
| companies to hire ex-cons, and continue to assist as long
| as necessary.
|
| 4. Separation - it can be vitally important to help ex-cons
| separate their "con life" from their future life, whatever
| that may be. Many of the successful ex-cons were in prison
| for an "accident" (e.g, unintentional murder because they
| drove drunk, etc) and so their support groups are non-
| criminals, but the ones who only know other criminals may
| need to be moved elsewhere for a time.
| lisper wrote:
| > remember kids I knew as a child who were just evil, such as
| cruelty to animals, violence towards females, etc for no
| logical reason and these are all people who ended up in
| prison for some crime or another.
|
| Yes, but did you ever follow up to see if all of these people
| you knew as kids were still evil as adults?
|
| I did a lot of crazy shit when I was younger that I would
| never do today. People do change as they grow older. And even
| if there are exceptions, that is not a valid reason to
| imprison any particular individual with no hope of
| redemption.
| dazc wrote:
| > I did a lot of crazy shit when I was younger that I would
| never do today.
|
| Did you torture a hamster because it was funny, like
| throwing it hard against a wall to see if it would bounce?
|
| Did you beat the shit out of a 5 year old girl because
| there was no one around to stop you?
|
| No? There is crazy shit and there is just evil. And yes,
| those people did end up doing much worse things because
| society just kept giving them that chance to turn into a
| saint.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| what can you tell us about how they were parented?
| bequanna wrote:
| I really don't like this line of thinking.
|
| This is the kind of bullshit trick that many terrible,
| violent criminals like the Menendez bros try to pull when
| they get caught: "It isn't my fault I murdered/raped/etc,
| my upbringing was poor."
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| whoa there, you made a big jump. I didn't remove
| culpability from them. I'm just curious if there were any
| recognizable patterns between the parenting and the
| future bad behaviors.
| bequanna wrote:
| I hear you, and I simply stated that I don't like where
| that line of reasoning can go.
|
| I've spent plenty of time around people who have been
| incarcerated for serious crimes and many of them are
| life-long con artists who take no responsibility for
| their actions. Their profession seems to be manipulation
| and manufacturing endless excuses.
|
| The trouble is that there are far too many naive people
| in the world that believe their bullshit stories and end
| up feeling sorry for them. The most charismatic of them
| are usually the most dangerous.
|
| The saying "give them an inch and they will take a mile"
| applies perfectly to this type of criminal sociopath.
| rafaelero wrote:
| I believe I read a study showing how this relationship is
| not causal. It's actually the shared genetic code that
| makes both the son be violent and the parents neglectful
| and abusive, not the abusive parents changing the son's
| behavior.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Such information makes best sense in context. For
| example, if we learn that 40% of criminals were abused in
| childhood, we will interpret it certain way. But if we
| afterwards learn that 40% of non-criminals were also
| abused in childhood, now the previous interpretation does
| not make sense anymore.
|
| So we should start from the point "how many kids you know
| who were abused in childhood" and then ask "and how many
| of them later became criminals".
| lisper wrote:
| I really don't want to get into the details, but yes, I
| did things that horrify me today, including causing pain
| and injury to animals and other humans. This is why I
| don't want to get into details. These are exceptionally
| painful memories. I had some pretty serious anger
| management issues.
|
| Note BTW that what matters here is not whether I was
| actually evil (I don't think I was) but whether my
| behavior could lead someone to _think_ that I was and
| treat me accordingly. And the answer to that is an
| unequivocal yes. I got very, very lucky that the people
| around me were not inclined to seriously entertain that
| hypothesis.
| sy7ar wrote:
| And then there're people who commit robbery and serve time.
| Then not long after release they commit worse crime like
| murder, which could've been prevented if they're still in
| jail. It's not that simple man. Sure people can become
| better, or they stay the same, or they get even worse.
| lisper wrote:
| You need to watch "Minority Report".
|
| This is a form of argument that I call "Proof by horror
| story". It is a logical fallacy, a specific instance of a
| broader category of logical fallacies called faulty
| generalization [1]. To debunk it we only need to observe
| that just about _any_ behavior can be predictive of
| committing a serious crime if you are willing to ignore
| false positives. But I 'm not willing to ignore them. I
| think it's worse to incarcerate an innocent person than
| to let a guilty one go free.
|
| If you're willing to imprison a thief for life because
| there is a chance they might go on to commit murder, why
| not imprison their family as well? After all, they might
| have the same bad genes as the thief. For that matter,
| why not keep _everyone_ in solitary confinement? That
| guarantees that no one will be free to commit murder.
|
| People's behaviors are unpredictable. Having some people
| occasionally go rogue is just the price we sometimes have
| to pay to live in a free society. If you don't like it
| you might want to consider emigrating to North Korea.
| Very few guilty people go free there.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
| bombcar wrote:
| An individual's behavior is unpredictable, but in groups
| it's pretty predictable.
|
| Recidivism is a major issue and there are ways to address
| it, but they have to actually be worked on (and they will
| admittedly fail at times, people have to accept that).
|
| Many (most?) of the jail-to-good-citizen pathways have
| been closed down or restricted over the years.
| lisper wrote:
| Maybe the right answer is to reopen them rather than
| throwing more people in prison.
| bombcar wrote:
| I agree, but the people in general like to scream about
| "why did you let this happen" whenever something happens.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| I think this gets at the most important question implicating
| the death penalty: what do we we do with people who can
| presumably never be allowed back into society?
| bombcar wrote:
| This is a small portion of the prison population, and we have
| vast deserts and remote islands available; something could be
| done for them that is not freedom but is not perpetual
| solitary confinement, either.
|
| I feel that most of the death penalty support left is some
| weird form of virtue signaling; that if "raped to death by a
| cactus" was on the menu they'd be howling for that
| punishment.
| twelve40 wrote:
| on the other extreme, across the pond you have a guy who
| murdered 77 teenagers and kids, and is chilling in a hotel-like
| facility with a good chance to be out in 2033. I'm really not
| sure what's worse.
| ACS_Solver wrote:
| As someone from a neighboring country, I think that's a
| fantastic example of the justice system, justice at its very
| best. The murderer is absolutely the worst kind of criminal
| there is. He killed 77 people and he did so because of his
| Nazi ideology, to which he fully sticks a decade later. He
| got a fair trial. He got the conviction he deserved. In his
| desire to encourage violence and division, he failed
| completely and society did not for a moment fall to his
| level.
|
| And he's not walking free. For some reason conservative US
| media loved the "he'll be out after 20 years" idea, which is,
| in plain terms, a lie. Norwegian law mandates a court hearing
| after 21 years of a sentence to decide whether the sentence
| has to be extended. There's no question that it will be and
| the killer in question will most likely die in prison or
| perhaps be released in the final days of his life. Having a
| mandatory additional hearing seems like a great safety
| feature built into the law.
|
| Hotel-like facility? I haven't seen many hotels that lock you
| inside your room and don't allow a minute's unsupervised
| interaction with another person. We don't think it necessary
| to design prisons to be intentionally cruel to the inmates,
| we don't think torturing people accomplishes anything. The
| killer is provided with enough to meet basic human rights and
| that is overwhelmingly supported by public opinion. I've
| never been able to take anyone who says "Scandinavian prisons
| are like a vacation" seriously because nobody who claims that
| will admit to wanting to spend time in there.
| twelve40 wrote:
| Maybe. From what I understand, he's relatively happy about
| how it all turned out, and that makes me uneasy.
|
| He can also fake repentance any time he feels like it, so
| I'm not sure why you are so convinced about the outcome of
| some future hearing 10 years from now.
| watwut wrote:
| Except that it does not work the way you imply. He wont
| get out merely for saying "I repent". What you are doing
| amount to a lie - using caricature and exaggeration of
| theoretical possibility.
|
| Making rhetorical make points to make people outraged
| over shadows is harmful.
| twelve40 wrote:
| Take it easy with the accusations.
|
| If he has absolutely no chance to repent in the next 10
| years, what is the purpose of that hearing?
| bombcar wrote:
| Because it's a general rule for all of the criminals, not
| one especially for him.
|
| Even Treebeard eventually let Saruman go, so we can't
| predict what may occur in the future.
|
| However, in this case, since he likely sees himself as a
| "freedom fighter", he'll never try to admit wrongdoing to
| get out because that would ruin his image of himself.
| [deleted]
| googlryas wrote:
| How would the courts differentiate between someone who
| actually repented and was sorry vs someone who just
| convincingly went through the motions?
| ACS_Solver wrote:
| How do the courts differentiate between witnesses who are
| truthful vs those who are lying? How do parole boards
| evaluate whether someone repents?
|
| In such extreme cases especially, it wouldn't be a judge
| making their mind up after a two-minute statement from a
| convict. The hearing will have prison personnel
| testifying about years of interaction with the person.
| There will be psychologists providing their perspective.
| There could be a repeated psychiatric evaluation.
|
| Can that process be fooled? Certainly, as there exists no
| certain way to tell whether someone is being truthful.
| But successfully faking your way out of a continued
| sentence requires more than putting on a convincing act
| for a few hearings.
| googlryas wrote:
| Sure, I agree entirely. I just think the stakes are too
| high for him to ever be released. Not that it seems
| likely any time soon anyways.
| ACS_Solver wrote:
| Nobody in the country thinks it's at all a possibility
| for the foreseeable future. He won't be released - the
| man is behind the deadliest peacetime crime in Norway.
| Even if he sincerely repents at some point, he'll have to
| spend many more years behind the bars with perfect
| behavior for a release to be considered.
|
| If he repents the murders, if he renounces his ideology,
| and if he spends a couple decades as a repentful man
| would, he will, just maybe, get released when he's old,
| frail and not expected to live long.
| lucb1e wrote:
| If this were true, then you must be presenting a single-sided
| story. Even for one murder, people typically get ten years or
| more (presuming no mitigating circumstances). But the sibling
| comments already revealed that your claim of freedom in ten
| years is not true in the first place.
| twelve40 wrote:
| you are wrong, I did not say anything about sentence of 10
| years.
| lucb1e wrote:
| an assumption based on the only available information:
| 2033 is about ten years from now. For all I know, their
| life expectancy was until 2015 and they turn 100 years
| old in 2033, which could be reasonable. Since that made
| little sense as a sentence to be unimpressed by, I
| figured it was more likely a case you recently heard
| about and 2033-$recent=~10.
|
| Maybe give some more info about the case then? Such as
| why they 'only' (in your eyes) got the sentence they got?
| twelve40 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
| mikeyouse wrote:
| There's no chance he gets out in 2033 but the ability for
| level-headed decisions about continuing effectiveness on all
| prisoners is absolutely something we should emulate.
| chki wrote:
| > a good chance to be out in 2033
|
| Source needed. From what I've read he will probably never be
| free, which makes sense since he is actively dangerous.
| googlryas wrote:
| It seems wrong for him to ever get out of prison, even if
| he wasn't viewed as actively dangerous.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why? Being vindictive (wanting someone to suffer because
| they made others suffer) serves no practical purpose, as
| far as I can tell.
| googlryas wrote:
| The rational answer is because nothing in life is
| certain. Someone who decides to shoot and bomb and kill
| 77 people could decide to do so again. Certainly the odds
| seem much higher for that person repeating than it is for
| a random individual to do the same thing.
|
| No science we have can say a person won't do the same
| thing again.
|
| The emotional answer is that some people serve no
| practical purpose. I don't understand why society would
| care so much about the life of someone who values life so
| little that they can repeatedly kill dozens of people.
|
| We have no problem as a society putting down a deranged
| dog, even though we could totally lock it up in a cage
| and let it live out it's days there. Heck, maybe it won't
| be deranged when it is 9 years old.
|
| Let's consider this hypothetical: I am just really
| curious what it is like to kill someone, so I go out and
| randomly kill someone you love very dearly. After I do
| it, it turns out I don't like killing at all and never
| want to do it again. The rest of my life will be devoted
| to peace and love.
|
| How much jail time do you think I should serve?
| twelve40 wrote:
| If he repents, he can be free - after everything he has
| done. He currently chooses not to.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Citation needed. This does not match anything I've read
| about the situation.
| hither_shores wrote:
| It's not up to him. "Preventive detention" is still
| potentially a life sentence, it just has to be renewed by
| the court every five years after the initial 21 year
| sentence is up.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| cpsns wrote:
| I would rather death than life in prison, much less life with
| years of solitary mixed in. I don't understand how the inmates
| deal with it, or why many prefer to live such an awful
| existence compared to a quick end.
|
| Life in prison, especially an American prison sounds like its
| own form of hell. All of my energy would go into "checking out"
| if I found myself in that situation. It's not worth living at
| that point.
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| > I find it really odd how many people abhor the death penalty
| and capital punishment as a whole, while also tolerating life
| in prison and solitary confinement.
|
| This is a false dichotomy describing a fictional group of
| people. What many people really want is no death penalty, and a
| proper, effective carceral system. There's many countries who
| get this fairly right.
| krisoft wrote:
| > Perhaps we should have neither?
|
| There is a scifi concept in the Culture book series. It is
| called a slap drone.
|
| The society described in the books is a post-scarcity society.
| Nobody has to commit crimes out of economic desperation. Still
| there are some who hurt others (crimes of passion, mental
| disturbances, etc). They don't throw these people into a prison
| but assign a robot guardian to them to prevent them hurting
| anybody ever again. And that robot guardian is called the slap
| drone.
|
| There is an element of prevention: the robot is faster,
| smarter, and better armed than the convict is, therefore can
| prevent any further undesired behaviour. This is where the name
| "slap-drone" comes from. In most circumstances a convict never
| threatens anyone again. But if and when they do a simple slap
| is often enough to stop them.
|
| And there is an element of punishment: the drone hangs out with
| the comvict all the time and warns others about what you have
| done. (Either verbaly or by just its very presence.) Which
| results in others being more cautious around the convict.
| Perhaps the convict is then not invited to the best, most
| exlusive parties and so on. And this social stigma acts as a
| deterent for others.
|
| Clearly we are nowhere near able to produce such a robot. Many
| other things would be different about our societies if we
| could. It is not a practical proposal in any way, but I kinda
| like it as a thought experiment. Showing that there are
| possible ways we could handle crime more humanly maybe one day.
| petemir wrote:
| Well, perhaps they actually believe that executing them would
| relieve them from their punishment...
| Justsignedup wrote:
| I think neither is an important answer, but to reach neither,
| we have a lot to do:
|
| 1) we need a lot of counseling to the family. The ability for
| the family to feel safe and move on from the trauma is
| critical. Otherwise the cycle continues.
|
| 2) We need a lot of counseling and empathy training for the
| perp. The ability to understand what they did, and feel remorse
| past just the consequences faced is critical.
|
| The craziest thing I've seen is when a guy was part of an armed
| robbery, and due to technical reasons didn't serve any time. He
| ended up turning everything around and becoming a massive boon
| to the community. The point here is we need to do what is right
| to society.
|
| 3) We need to take a person-by-person approach to
| rehabilitation.
|
| 4) We need to invest a lot of time into rehavbilitation
| spychaiatrists and groups vs just criminalization. This works
| in many countries. The sweedish island prison where every
| prisoner there feels honored to be given a chance at a
| productive life rather than incarceration. There are no walls,
| guards, escapes. There is only rehab.
|
| This is an incredibly complex and nuanced problem that doesn't
| sound wonderful yelling from a podium for political points. But
| that's the point, real change is hard and nuanced.
| arbitrage wrote:
| You're focusing on justice for the person who committed the
| crime.
|
| What about justice for the person or people who were victims of
| the crime? What about justice for the society in which the
| crime took place?
|
| While the perpetrator may be a wholly different person now,
| what if not everyone agrees that a crime, or the consequences
| of that crime, can be expiated so easily?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Isn't that just revenge seeking and why America's criminal
| Justice system is so messed up compared to Europe? If we
| focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment, we would
| probably get better results for society, than focusing on
| punishment to appease the victim and their family's needs for
| punishment?
|
| How do we balance rehabilitation and punishment properly?
| Right now, the USA seems to do it very poorly.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Yes, the parent comment redefined "justice" to mean
| "revenge". It doesn't make any sense because "an eye for an
| eye ..."
| logicalmonster wrote:
| In many discussions of uniquely bad aspects to America that
| Europe has until now had a different and arguably better
| viewpoint on, there's one key fact that's always missing
| from many well-intentioned peoples' point of view: Europe
| has had a historically homogenous population within their
| different regions and America has not. This difference is
| massive for how life within prison actually works and what
| effects a different system might have.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| That isn't true anymore. Many Western European countries
| have more immigrants per capita than the states. We
| aren't as exceptional as we think we are, just inept.
| somenameforme wrote:
| In many places in Asia the penalties for crime, and
| conditions for inmates, make American prisons look like a
| resort. It's frequently little more than intentional
| sadism. For one commonly known example in Japan death row
| inmates are kept in absolute solitary confinement and never
| told when they're too be hanged until one day a guard walks
| in, and they're dangling from a rope a few moments later.
| Imagine hearing that gate swing open and the approaching
| footsteps, over and over and over. It could be your next
| meal, or the rope.
|
| There's also greater than 80% support for capital
| punishment, and implicitly this system, in Japan. Yet crime
| rates, especially violent crime, are practically zero. And
| what violent crime does exist is almost entirely inter-
| personal (argument turns violent, deal gone bad, etc) as
| opposed to random. The obvious explanation for all of this
| is simply that people are different. And consequently,
| mimicking the methods of a country with a meaningfully
| different population is highly unlikely to result in
| mimicking their results.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| what are you arguing? that the Japanese system is worse
| so united states should just suck it up?
| somenameforme wrote:
| Read the post I was responding to. The author
| hypothesized that "revenge seeking" is why US legal
| system has worse social outcomes than Europe. Yet "Asia"
| (and by this I include a large number of countries) is
| revenge seeking embodied and has significantly better
| social outcomes than Europe.
|
| So the hypothesis seems unlikely to be valid.
| watwut wrote:
| Germany has lower murder rates then Japan.
|
| Asia as a whole does not have nearly zero murder rates.
| It contains quite unsafe countries.
| bombcar wrote:
| Also I've heard (no proof) that Japan is more likely to
| characterize deaths as "accidents" or "suicide" to keep
| the murder rates down.
|
| Excessive punishments result in "missed" crimes - if the
| punishment for speeding was immediate death, cops would
| be much less likely to pull over speeders I feel.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| > significantly better social outcomes
|
| I think we have different ideas about what this means.
| For me, it is that crime ceases to exist because
| criminals integrate into society because of successful
| rehabilitation. For you it is that crime ceases to exist
| because criminals are scared.
|
| I will editorialize that your system has the population
| effectively coerced into compliance by the state (so not
| coming to these conclusions about how to be a good
| community member on their own).
|
| I hypothesize my scheme results in a
| better/happier/stronger community/society but I don't
| have data in either direction. With that said my system
| is more humane/humanistic and results in a positive
| outcome for the "criminals" too.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| The "what about" game will ruin any debate.
|
| The delivery of justice vs human rights is not a simple
| matter and anyone trying to discuss it in this type of forum
| is doing themselves and the subject a disservice.
| kiba wrote:
| What about preventing and reducing crime, and reducing how
| many people becoming perpetrators and victims?
|
| Ultimately, humans don't randomly make choices. It is up to
| us if we want to prioritize less suffering for everyone and
| fixing the problems in the first place, or prioritizing some
| sort of vengeance.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Humans really do have agency. Not all criminal behavior can
| be chalked up to bad policy or bad environment.
| kiba wrote:
| _Humans really do have agency. Not all criminal behavior
| can be chalked up to bad policy or bad environment._
|
| If cause and effect exists in human beings as they do for
| literally everything else, than claiming 'agency' as an
| excuse to do nothing is basically moral bankruptcy.
|
| Our science is not perfect, nor is our policies, and
| people will fall through the cracks, but we should keep
| striving and trying nonetheless.
| bombcar wrote:
| Some causal things society would likely be unwilling to
| give up; and so some portion of society being sacrificed
| to prisons is what we're willing to pay for it.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > What about justice for the society in which the crime took
| place?
|
| This for me is one of the strongest arguments against the
| death penalty. If the state can kill its prisoners and the
| state's government falls into authoritarian hands, one
| political faction, the authoritarian faction, can simply kill
| off those who oppose it. Did the accused commit a crime, a
| "crime", or do nothing at all? Well, too late to find out.
|
| Of course, an authoritarian government can bring back the
| death penalty, but at least make it harder for them to hide
| what they are doing. And the longer your nation goes without
| the death penalty, the more egregious it is when the
| authoritarians reinstitute it, the more obvious it is what
| they're doing.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Looking at history, I'm not sure this is a reasonable
| argument. Vast numbers of governments have gone down this
| path, and not only authoritarian ones. Yet there's no need
| for a 'bad' government to rely on the death penalty or
| whatever else. Disappearing people is the normal method
| operandi. It's faster and reduces the chances of somebody
| becoming a martyr.
|
| And incidentally, indefinite detention without trial or
| representation, of US citizens, was legalized in 2012 [1].
| An initial legal case against it managed to obtain a
| permanent injunction against indefinitely detaining US
| citizens. That victory was tossed out by a higher court who
| ruled that the plaintiffs lacked the standing for a
| preemptive challenge to the law. So they need to be
| indefinitely detained, then when released (if ever) they
| might be allowed to challenge the constitutionality of the
| law. Great system.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Author
| ization...
| Ekaros wrote:
| And the worst thing is that those who have been found as
| state actors to be murdering innocents are not punished.
| They are not treated like this or simply executed. And
| neither is the people who voted for them after this crime
| or part took to them with political funding.
|
| Really makes one wonder what would be just and working
| society.
| bombcar wrote:
| Authoritarian boogeyman governments aren't going to death
| penalty people out of nowhere, they'll have tools and
| abilities to remove inconvenient people much more quietly.
|
| After all it's much easier to "remove" someone who was
| "resisting arrest" than go through the bother of a trial.
| darawk wrote:
| The biggest reason I oppose the death penalty, but am less
| opposed to the other two is that the death penalty is
| irreversible. I think the death penalty is warranted for some
| crimes. I feel pretty good about executing someone like Jeffrey
| Dahmer, for example. What I don't feel good about is the
| certainty of our courts results. And until we have courts that
| produce perfect or near perfect verdicts, I wouldn't be
| comfortable employing an irreversible punishment.
| Maursault wrote:
| > The biggest reason I oppose the death penalty... is that
| the death penalty is irreversible.
|
| While true, there are better reasons to oppose the death
| penalty.[1][2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution#United_S
| tat...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_capital_punishment
| _in...
| darawk wrote:
| Isn't #1 the same thing as what I said? Irreversibility is
| a problem because of the fallibility of the courts.
| Maursault wrote:
| Wrongful execution is more specific. The term you've
| chosen is broad enough to include regret for the loss of
| possible defense or prosecution testimony for other
| crimes and suspects, as well as regret for the loss of
| any possibility of future pardon, which is a forgiveness,
| inappropriate for wrongful conviction. Though pardon has
| been used before to expedite release, forgiving the
| innocent doesn't make any sense. Wrongful execution is
| far more heinous than the loss of testimony or pardon.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Or the fairness or cost of the death penalties application.
| Xelynega wrote:
| How is sending someone to prison for 50 years "reversible"?
| PeterisP wrote:
| If you choose to send them to prison for 50 years, you can
| reverse the decision three years down the line if
| circumstances change (e.g. the real culprit gets
| identified), which is something that has happened.
| darawk wrote:
| You can at least let them out if/when you discover their
| innocence.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| 18 and life, you got it 18 and life, you know Your crime is time
| and it's 18 and life to go
|
| I wonder if life without parole should be reserved for people
| above 35 or 50 - at 19 unless you are serial killer, there is way
| too much time ahead of you, for someone to deem you irredeemable
| ...
| groffee wrote:
| Tell that to the victim(s) and their families.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| The criminal justice system should not be a revenge system
| for victims and their families.
| nlitened wrote:
| Why not?
| Tepix wrote:
| What good does it do?
| nlitened wrote:
| Victims rightfully desire revenge. If criminal justice
| system did not provide at least partial revenge, people
| would start searching for (and finding) other ways to
| conduct it.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| It's not just the people the murderer already killed, it's
| all his other potential victims, now that he has
| demonstrated himself to be willing and able to take
| innocent human lives.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| As someone who has known several people among my family and
| friends who have been murdered, I don't think the wishes of
| the victim's family should be the overriding concern. Many
| victims desire righteous retribution, but that doesn't mean
| we have to fulfill that wish. At some point, you're just
| outsourcing vendetta violence to the state, to give it a
| veneer of civility.
|
| The point of the justice system should primarily be public
| safety. Accountability is important, too, but there are many
| more ways to achieve that than inflicting damage on
| perpetrators.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Statistically, criminality decreases significantly with age.
| Particularly around middle age people's likelihood of
| committing a crime decreases drastically. It doesn't make a lot
| of sense in my opinion to have someone in prison at 50 for
| something they did at 18. But life without parole is currently
| the alternative to capital punishment.
| motohagiography wrote:
| This is torture and the people responsible for it must be held
| accountable for giving in to their sadistic urges. If not, there
| is no incentive for any inmate to not reoffend and keep doubling
| down on violence. It creates the dangerous conditions that reward
| the very tendency that causes it. This system preserves itself.
| It's as though people who don't believe there is a hell decided
| they should try to invent one.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| To put in programmerese what I've put elsewhere:
|
| The US penal system is the /dev/null of social justice. You don't
| know where things go. You just know you put stuff you don't want
| (error codes, annoying output, side effects) in there. It could
| be rerouted by your hosting platform of choice to an S3 bucket
| for all you know. You just know things go away. And that makes
| you happy.
|
| The abstraction of why an overuse of /dev/null or blind reliance
| on the penal system leads to problems down the road, is left as
| an exercise to the programmer.
| sanshugoel wrote:
| I'm trying to live alone within my apartment for a long time but
| it has become such a anxiety/depression sinkhole that it's
| impossible to live like that for more than 10 days.
|
| I have tried all the suggested things but all effects have
| mortality.
|
| Anyone has any suggestions on living in isolation.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Here is the author's inmate page (I think):
| https://www.inmateaid.com/inmate-profiles/michael-nichols-00...
|
| You can contact him through that, if you wish. I'm still looking
| for the circumstances of the original case.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Lots of people did a year of solitary in 202[?].
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Ascetics and monks voluntarily secluded themselves to holes in a
| remote mountain. When put in that perspective, solitary
| confinement may not be that bad, and even pleasurable for some.
| What is there to life anyway? It's all in your mind.
| gcanyon wrote:
| There is a huge difference, demonstrated through experiment,
| between things we choose and things imposed on us.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Sure, but if you were to find yourself in that situation,
| what can you really do? The best thing you can do is accept
| it and make yourself desire it and find pleasure in it. The
| alternative is a life of pain and sorrow. Your fate has been
| decided, now it's your choice what to make of it.
| nnopepe wrote:
| I don't mean to be snarky but for someone born and raised in an
| irreligious majority nation, this does read as if written by
| someone who's lost their mind
| O__________O wrote:
| How to Survive Solitary Confinement in Alcatraz
|
| >> What I used to do is I'd tear a button off my coveralls, flip
| it up in the air, then I'd turn around in circles, and I'd get
| down on my hands and knees and I'd hunt for that button. When I
| found the button, I'd stand up and I'd do it again.
|
| Source:
|
| https://bobyewchuk.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/solitary-confine...
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Sad to know there were circumstances that led to a 19yr old that
| was driven and astute...stuck in jail for so long. Sometimes the
| dice don't roll your way...
|
| It seems our destiny is set before we are even born. Our families
| (parents specifically) are a big part of it. Im thinking parents
| should have 1 lesson imprinted on them at the mat ward: your #1
| job in 15 years will be to steer your immature yet independent
| son/daughter away from life-altering decisions that have no
| "UNDO" button. Everything else is unimportant.
|
| EDIT: to be clear, this does not mean helicopter parenting or not
| allowing them to fail. It just means understanding when
| adolescents are playing russian rulette without knowing it, and
| letting them know about it.(ex. joining a gang)
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| My siblings and I all got the same upbringing, but they got up
| to some very bad things while I was hanging out in my dad's
| basement having LAN parties and going to college
| lucb1e wrote:
| Does make one wonder about the incidence of your case versus
| what I think most people presume to be the common case (bad
| environment leading to bad actions).
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| > Im thinking parents should have 1 lesson imprinted on them at
| the mat ward: your #1 job in 15 years will be to steer your
| immature yet independent son/daughter away from life-altering
| decisions that have no "UNDO" button.
|
| Unfortunately I think most parents don't support this and
| believe in vague hand-wavy styles like "I need to let my child
| have space to grow and be his/her best self!"
|
| While that's partly true, there's a difference between raising
| your child to become an adult and helicopter parenting.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| One thing I realized pretty quickly as a parent was how
| little control I have over my kid. Eventually, my kids will
| have space whether I like it or not. The challenge is giving
| the tools and experience to make good decisions within
| boundaries. They need to be able to think for themselves.
| It's anything but laissez faire nor is it authoritarian.
|
| It's frustrating to me that a lot of people only seem to be
| able to think in terms of whichever of those extremes they
| dislike the most.
|
| It's also important to understand that it's impossible to
| inoculate your kids against all possible life-altering bad
| decisions. Part of being a parent is always having a view
| towards how to support your children going forward, whatever
| their changes circumstances, without denial or enablement.
| That might make the difference between one bad decision and a
| years long chain.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > One thing I realized pretty quickly as a parent was how
| little control I have over my kid.
|
| Exactly. And we can all think of those parents in our peer
| group who haven't figured this out. They are making
| themselves crazy miserable either fighting with their kids
| or scheming to manipulate them.
| fdr wrote:
| I think most parents _do_ support this, but the amount of
| control you have over a fifteen year old seems pretty minor:
| you have to hope the emergent phenomena you get from years
| 0-10 plus circumstance won 't conspire against you.
| jayceedenton wrote:
| I'd say the #1 job you have as a parent is to make sure your
| child feels loved. This will create a sense of self worth,
| which is the best protection against bad decisions.
|
| Some parents get so wrapped up in the steering part that they
| come down on their kids like a ton of bricks whenever they make
| a bad decision. These are often the times when your kid needs
| some understanding. You'd be amazed how much it means.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I'm going to guess you are not a parent.
| lucb1e wrote:
| In more straighforward terms, what are you saying is wrong
| with their argument? Rather than beating around the bush by
| remarking upon what they are or aren't likely to be in your
| opinion
| shp0ngle wrote:
| How is Assange doing by the way.
| jkestner wrote:
| "Stay out of frivolous conversations with other captives. For
| example, discussions about government politics, street politics
| and prison politics only lead to arguments. Instead, focus on
| topics that sharpen others, like spirituality, history, business
| and legal issues."
|
| We're all captives.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| And we're all free. Fewer people see that than the captivity.
| RunSet wrote:
| In the same sense that every human on Earth is free to move
| vertically within its gravity well.
|
| It is nested prisons all the way to the top and bottom, but
| you'll find it much easier to descend than to ascend.
| manofmanysmiles wrote:
| Spending time in the non-dual I see.
|
| So you think we are entering a time period where more people
| see the self created prison and decide it is no longer a
| useful abstraction and internalize more authority?
| jessaustin wrote:
| We could be free. The fences and iron bars that stop us from
| taking our world back from the billionaires, are mostly in
| our minds.
| kuramitropolis wrote:
| Who put them there?
| manofmanysmiles wrote:
| This "spiritual" answer may not be a helpful answer, but
| "we" did. The government and billionaires hav no power
| when enough people said no.
|
| All the weapons in the world mean nothing if no one is
| willing to use them.
|
| "Solving" this problem will happen when enough people
| decide to live without violence and coercion. There
| likely will always be people that wish to use force to
| coerce, but if enough say no, the few violent ones will
| not be able to.
|
| Of course if one person has a button that can destroy
| everyone else, then they can hold everyone else hostage.
| Right now a few people have almost direct access to these
| weapons, but mostly the power exists through the belief
| in external authority. There are many that will follow
| the orders of a few.
|
| Pragmatically, I have no answers to how/if we can really
| get there. It's a hope and dream in my heart.
| groffee wrote:
| When you never move you don't notice your chains.
| [deleted]
| polio wrote:
| I think the guy in solitary confinement would politely
| disagree.
| jmyeet wrote:
| What really hurts my soul is how cruel, unempathetic and
| bloodthirsty the American population as a whole is. We do a lot
| of things we normally wouldn't when we're afraid. So guess what?
| There are plenty who are willing and able to manipulate us by
| simply stoking fear. I wish more Americans were adept at
| recognizing this.
|
| You see this with rhetoric about crime spiralling out of control
| (it isn't). Or that we need more police officers (we don't) or
| harsher sentences (we definitely don't). The US has 4% of the
| world's population but 25% of the world's prisoners. The US has
| the highest number of prisoners in the world (2.1 million) and
| the third highest (IIRC) incarceration rate as well as the
| highest incarceration rate.
|
| If locking people up was the solution the US would be the safest
| country on Earth.
|
| We treat prisoners as de facto slaves (eg [1]). Rape within
| prison [2] is effectively institutionalized as a means of
| systemic punishment. And of course we have examples of completely
| unjustifiable abuse of solitary confinement. Nobody should be put
| in solitary confinement (technically, administrative segregation
| or "ad seg"), as the author was, for a year.
|
| [1]: https://innocenceproject.org/13th-amendment-slavery-
| prison-l...
| kyleblarson wrote:
| If only there were a way to avoid being sent to a maximum
| security prison......
| tekno45 wrote:
| If you find the way to avoid that, this man would like to hear
| it.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/new-attorney-helped-clea...
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Apparently he raped and murdered someone when he was already on
| parole.
| BeautifulWorld wrote:
| I spent two weeks in "The Hole" in California, and my first
| thought was "no prob, I'll meditate and do yoga." Let me tell
| you, in three days I was at the brink of insanity and in tears.
| It broke me. Later, however, long after my incarceration and
| during the lock-downs, I was absolutely unfazed as a result. Let
| that sink in.
| simias wrote:
| I don't even know what to say after reading this, besides maybe
| that I would probably prefer dying over living a year like this.
| What an abhorrent way of treating a human being, or really any
| being at all.
| t-3 wrote:
| I don't think he even got close to adequately expressing what a
| horror it is. I've never been sent to the hole, but I've been
| to jail, and I know a lot of people who have been to prison.
| When they spend all day in a dark room with no outside contact,
| eat your "foodball" with no implements like an animal, and get
| beaten by guards without reason or recourse, people really do
| go insane. It's not legal, but _very_ common to even deny
| prisoners in the hole their one hour per day outside. That 's
| who-knows-how-long where the only light you see comes through
| the crack in the door and the only thing you hear is the
| demented howling of some crazy guy down the hall.
| jjcon wrote:
| I know what to say... how about... "don't murder people if you
| want to live a good life"
| 93po wrote:
| How about "don't be accused of a crime if you want to live a
| good life". There are countless innocent people in prison and
| even a single innocent person enduring this is one too many.
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Since the USA has more prisoners per capita than anywhere
| else in the world, I think we've pretty much failed as using
| jail as a deterrent. It really is all about punishment and
| removing those from society we don't think deserve to live a
| free life (see the failed drug war).
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| And how's that working as a deterrent?
| imiric wrote:
| We don't know what the circumstances were around the actions
| this individual did or did not do. The justice system can be
| as corrupt as any other government institution, where
| wrongful verdicts and convictions are made all the time. It
| takes years of costly uphill legal battles to dig yourself
| out of that hole, and many don't make it.
|
| That said, even if this person did commit the crime, I'm
| siding with GP here: what is the purpose of keeping a human
| being behind bars for life, if there's no chance they would
| eventually reintegrate into society? Solitary confinement in
| particular seems like a medieval torture device designed to
| drive people mad, rather than rehabilitate them.
|
| If the State wants to remove someone from society altogether,
| the death penalty is a more humane way of doing that. A life
| sentence makes no sense in this system, unless someone is
| benefiting from keeping prisoners alive. In many ways, this
| is just a modern form of slavery.
|
| Judging by this person's writing, they've somehow managed to
| rehabilitate themselves despite of their cruel living
| conditions, which is nothing short of remarkable.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The U.S. incarceration and recidivism stats show this clearly
| does not work as a deterrent (in general, not talking
| specifically about murder; only ~14% of prisoners are in for
| murder: https://felonvoting.procon.org/incarcerated-felon-
| population...
| deltasevennine wrote:
| You gotta take a higher perspective. Sure maybe those
| murderers deserve it. But what is the net benefit to society
| while those murderers are in prison and after those murderers
| are released?
|
| Ironically, research and actual events show that treating
| criminals with humanity actually yields a net benefit.
| xeromal wrote:
| I think excluding a murderer from participating in society
| is a solid choice for the safety of others. Not saying it's
| the most perfect solution to a problem, but it is a decent
| solution.
| lucb1e wrote:
| And keep them in cages indefinitely just in case the
| wrong person was convicted after all, or are you also for
| 'eye for an eye' at that point?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Now imagine you were an American soldier captured during the
| Vietnam War and lived like this (but in filth) for 10 years.
| And survived.
| xeromal wrote:
| That's what happened to John McCain (a 2008 US presidential
| candidate)
| jessaustin wrote:
| Every Vietnam vet I've spoken with has been mostly seething
| with righteous anger that our evil politicians lied us into
| that stupid evil war. It was supposedly to stop Vietnam from
| allying with "communist China", but the moment they beat us
| Vietnam went to war _against_ China. Our war actually delayed
| that war!
|
| Also it is pretty disgusting that CIA (or, as the latest
| agency-approved "conspiracy theory" has it, "rogue elements"
| of CIA) killed Kennedy to make sure we fought that stupid
| war. Then later they killed his brother because as president
| he could have done a real investigation. Why is Biden still
| breaking the law by not releasing all documents publicly? Why
| did Trump break the law and his own promises in the same way?
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| > Also it is pretty disgusting that CIA (or, as the latest
| agency-approved "conspiracy theory" has it, "rogue
| elements" of CIA) killed Kennedy to make sure we fought
| that stupid war.
|
| You got any good sources on this? I say this as someone
| who's not a skeptic but curious on good JFK sources as many
| are not.
|
| My mom actually knew David Lifton at UCLA and his book
| presents an interesting case. If my memory's right, he was
| a Cornell Engineering Physics graduate who was doing an
| advanced degree at UCLA. Which doesn't make him right of
| course but does at least lead you to think that he knows a
| thing or two about objective data and what not.
| jessaustin wrote:
| I haven't read Lifton's book, and I don't want to imply
| agreement with any particular claim, but he is certainly
| correct that there were lots of implausible details about
| the autopsy, and especially with the official summary of
| the autopsy. It wasn't a physician who came up with the
| "magic bullet" theory, it was Arlen Specter, a cipher
| whose later continuing political success is inexplicable
| except in reference to his role on the Warren Commission.
|
| The best book to read now is _JFK and the Unspeakable_ ,
| by James Douglass. If a book like that doesn't fit into
| your life right now, either of the recent Oliver Stone
| documentaries are great. I believe that "JFK: Destiny
| Betrayed", which I watched through tears, is a longer
| version of "JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass".
| deltasevennine wrote:
| The Scandinavians got it right in terms of how to create
| prisons.
| bombcar wrote:
| Can we pay the Scandinavians and send them prisoners?
|
| If not, why not?
| the_af wrote:
| One thing I don't understand (well, many, actually): why does the
| hole have a "one shower a week"? Is this strictly for torture?
| Not showering seems like a way to degrade and humiliate a person.
| I (sort of) understand isolating very violent prisoners from the
| rest of the inmates, but why is _torture_ necessary?
| bergenty wrote:
| Probably a combination of torture and it must be hard work for
| the prison guards to escort each individual to the showers. So
| torture and laziness that they can get away with.
| flerchin wrote:
| I suppose it's a manpower issue. I guess showers would only
| happen during the daytime, and outside of meal-times and
| supervised yard-time. I suppose they could get 3 prisoners per
| hour through the shower, and probably 40 hours per week
| shuffling them back and forth to showers. So a pair of guards
| would be fully occupied doing nothing but supervising showers
| for 120 inmates in solitary. These numbers my be wildly off,
| but not an order of magnitude off, and the manpower issue still
| stands.
| toddm wrote:
| This could well be a handout from HR at several jobs I've had.
|
| Aside from the dark humor, it is a shame that we do not recognize
| rehabilitation in this country and focus on punishment.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| One thing I think people often forget is the HUGE economic loss
| by having these people in prison. There are 5.5M people in the US
| correctional system. The vast majority of these are probably
| capable of contributing maybe $50k per year in productivity.
| That's $250B/yr in lost economic productivity! That's about 1% of
| GDP! HUGE!
|
| We would all have 1% more stuff, on average, if these people were
| working instead of in prison.
|
| This may not seem like a lot, but recall that in antiquity growth
| rates were much less than 1% annually, and in modern times we
| hope for ~2% growth, and might get zero or negative growth this
| year. 1% more would be a huge boost, especially after compounding
| that over many years.
|
| This also doesn't account for the cost of actually keeping them
| in prison, which is higher than the cost of them living as free
| people.
|
| All that to say, our prison system has an absolutely massive
| opportunity cost that must be taken into account. Obviously for
| some criminals this is a cost that must be paid. For most, it's
| probably not worth it.
|
| https://www.statista.com/topics/1717/prisoners-in-the-united...
| https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| And thinking about much better alternatives - I know this will
| seem wacky and ethically dubious, but hear me out: How about
| corporal punishment? That seems to me it would be a REALLY
| strong deterrent. It would also be very quick, then you're back
| to normal, hopefully the wiser for wear.
|
| I don't know what form it would take, but suppose it was
| lashings. I've heard that's pretty painful. Let's say for some
| crime you get two lashes or whatever, but then that's it -
| you're out. I know I'd prefer that to almost any amount of jail
| time - but paradoxically it might also be a better deterrent.
| And for those repeat offenders that aren't deterred, you can
| always fall back on jail time.
|
| Not sure what to do about the masochists though.... Um,
| withhold the lashing?
| agileAlligator wrote:
| > How about corporal punishment?
|
| For crimes not involving bodily harm/loss of life, sure, I am
| totally for corporal punishment. Public lashings/canings,
| with tarring and feathering for more serious offences to top
| it off
| 93po wrote:
| You're missing that more than half of the people in prison DO
| work. They're still contributing to GDP. They're just not
| getting paid for it (making less than a dollar an hour doesn't
| count).
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Are they contributing to GDP as much as they would if free? I
| really doubt it. I think most of this is busy-work, or work
| the prison system can sell easily to a private company for
| extra profit.
|
| But I'm sure (having done no research and having no
| supporting data, so I know it's true) that productivity
| inside can't be more than a tiny fraction of what it would be
| on the outside.
| Apane101 wrote:
| Inspiring. If you can stay positive in that environment, what
| excuse do we have? Get it done!
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