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nessin posted:Nope, but apparently neither have you. This started over a reply I made about what is to be expected of a person who has suffered such treatment. I'm saying the idea is that if someone has done something worth of prison then their shouldn't be an expectation that they'll learn their lesson regardless of cushy or horrendous the prison or their stay is. No, I read this thread just fine. You're making the assumption that people who go to prison are brutal monsters who deserve to go to prison and be treated horribly, and it's totally unfounded. We have a racist justice system, draconian three-strike laws for drug misdemeanors, and a for-profit prison industry, my question to you is "how can you assume that someone who goes to prison deserves to be there at all?"
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May 26, 2011 22:11
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Slack Motherfucker posted:No, I read this thread just fine. You're making the assumption that people who go to prison are brutal monsters who deserve to go to prison and be treated horribly, and it's totally unfounded. We have a racist justice system, draconian three-strike laws for drug misdemeanors, and a for-profit prison industry, my question to you is "how can you assume that someone who goes to prison deserves to be there at all?" Wow, would you care to quote where I said that? I could care less how prisoners are treated, as long as they're not sitting in relative comfort. Seriously, all I did was point out (in the post you originally quoted of me) how life isn't fair and you took that to mean somehow I'm an evil bastard and feel prisoners should be treated like dogs? Furthermore, I already pointed out earlier that if you're going to bring specific crimes into my argument then the question is why is that crime punishable by jail time? I'm open to the idea of people not going to prison for something, depending on the severity of the crime. Once again, you've proven you haven't read any of my posts on the last page. Edit: Or, if you did read them, you were making your own assumptions about what I was saying and taking it beyond the context of my original point. Edit #2: Looking back on the replies, does anyone even understand that? The treatment of prisoners thing came up directly against me several times, yet my point was specifically taking the treatment of the prisoners outside the equation. You simply shouldn't expect someone is going to reform their ways in prison just by treating them differently, be it better or worse. nessin fucked around with this message at 22:27 on May 26, 2011 |
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May 26, 2011 22:16
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nessin posted:Wow, would you care to quote where I said that? nessin posted:To counter-point, how could anyone be surprised that someone who does something bad enough that we'd want to stick them in a cage for 23 hours a day, fed food that barely registers as nutrition, and treated like a wild rabid animal goes out and reoffends immediately? Seriously? You're literally assuming in your original question that they deserve the punishment they receive. nessin posted:I could care less how prisoners are treated, as long as they're not sitting in relative comfort. Seriously, all I did was point out (in the post you originally quoted of me) how life isn't fair and you took that to mean somehow I'm an evil bastard and feel prisoners should be treated like dogs? Okay define "relative comfort", because I have literally never heard someone bitching about how good prisoners have it, who wasn't advocating for locking them up in kennels like they're pets at the humane society or something. Do you think "relative comfort" includes "having everything you do dictated by the prison guards and prison warden"? Because honestly that sounds pretty bad to me, even if I have a mattress to sleep on and food to eat, and that's without even getting in to the whole "prison is a violent, unpleasant place to be even if you get to go to woodshop or lift weights sometimes" thing. And while you're at it, let me ask you another question: What is the goal of prison? Is the goal of prison to punish criminals? Or is the goal of prison to take criminals, and rehabilitate them? Should we be concerned with beating every possible ounce of justice out of prisoners, or should we be working to keep them from turning back to crime when they leave prison? If you literally believe that the purpose of prison is punishment and should only be punishment, then yeah your question is a fair one. Of course we shouldn't mollycoddle prisoners, they are there to LEARN THEIR LESSON it is exactly like a time-out in kindergarten, but with shower rape and beatings. The problem with this approach is, what is your endgame? If we don't execute every prisoner then eventually they are going to be released. And then what? Well they've been in prison, associating with criminals, for months or years, maybe joined a gang to stay alive, and now they have no skills, no money, and a criminal record. Crime is starting to sound pretty good to them, because the alternative (especially with American social safety nets the way they are these days) is starving to death on the street. On the other hand, if you'd like prison to not drive people further into crime, then yeah it needs to be rehabilitative. We need to teach people skills, and feed them, and keep them from joining gangs. We need to make them better than when they went in, because we want them to be good productive members of society. We want them to look back on their crime and go "I can't believe I was ever in such bad shape that I would have done such a horrible thing, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to move on with my life." We want prisoners to pay their debt to society by going out and rejoining it and making it better. I don't think you're an evil monster or whatever, for what it's worth, I just think you're naieve and have no idea what prison is like or about, and thinks that if someone goes to prison then they deserve whatever they get even if it's horrible because they're prisoners, man. And that's sad, but you can learn to see past the knee-jerk "MUST GET REVENGE" reaction and think about how prison can be a place to take people who do bad things, and make them in to people who do good things instead. Edit: btw I am LMBO at the idea that someone who has his bed, the times he sleeps, the food he eats, his recreational activities, his job (not "what he does at work" but "where he works"), and basically every single aspect of his life micromanaged by a prison beaurocracy that doesn't really give a poo poo about him is living in "relative comfort", that's an all-new definition of "comfort" to me! Slack Motherfucker fucked around with this message at 22:35 on May 26, 2011 |
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May 26, 2011 22:30
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nessin, are you trying to make a general argument that environmental conditions have no effect on human behavior, or are you more specifically arguing that criminals constitute a special class of humans who are inherently doomed to violate societal norms and whose behavior cannot be modified by changing their environment for better or for worse?
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May 26, 2011 22:43
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Slack Motherfucker posted:Seriously? You're literally assuming in your original question that they deserve the punishment they receive. Yeah, and if you'd read the post I'd actually quoted in that you'd see it was almost word for word what the person above me said. Which says what about the comment? On top of that, how does that quote in any way say I think prisoner's should be treated poorly? Edit: Even if you take it literally rather than the satirical reversal that it was, its a general question with no qualifier. Whose to say I think there even is a crime worth that treatment considering I've never stated (until the previous post) what my stance on prisoner treatment is? quote:Okay define "relative comfort", Relative to the definition of comfort to the average American. Unrestricted access to the internet, cable TV, access to any sort of reading material they wish, so on and so forth. quote:nessin, are you trying to make a general argument that environmental conditions have no effect on human behavior, or are you more specifically arguing that criminals constitute a special class of humans who are inherently doomed to violate societal norms and whose behavior cannot be modified by changing their environment for better or for worse? No, I'm saying that someone who has already broken the law isn't going to decide to stop breaking the law in the future just because they were treated differently in prison. Of course people are influenced by their environment, and "criminal" is no more a classification of the human race than hillbilly, but (in general, obviously false positives do happen) I'm saying that someone who has made a decision isn't going to suddenly decide that decision was wrong in the face of how they're treated in prison. It might make someone decide not to do it in the future to avoid prison, but that isn't the same thing. Edit #2: quote:On the other hand, if you'd like prison to not drive people further into crime, then yeah it needs to be rehabilitative. We need to teach people skills, and feed them, and keep them from joining gangs. We need to make them better than when they went in, because we want them to be good productive members of society. We want them to look back on their crime and go "I can't believe I was ever in such bad shape that I would have done such a horrible thing, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to move on with my life." We want prisoners to pay their debt to society by going out and rejoining it and making it better. The problem is that they could have avoided that before going to prison. If someone didn't know gangs and drugs were bad in societies eyes before going to prison, then they're pretty much clinically insane. If they didn't want to be part of that lifestyle then they willingly ignore their options to get out of it, extreme as they may be (usually I'd imagine it would require getting the hell away from where they live really quickly and starting from practically nothing in the middle of nowhere). Admittedly I can't say I know many gangsters, but I do know a couple guys who were involved in drug trafficing but now live within the bounds of the law after a stint in jail. Each one of them fondly remembers the days when they had lots of cash due to their criminal activities and honestly scare me that they'd jump back into it, but they haven't as of yet because they don't want to go back to prison or don't want to destroy their families like it did last time. nessin fucked around with this message at 23:47 on May 26, 2011 |
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May 26, 2011 23:36
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nessin posted:No, I'm saying that someone who has already broken the law isn't going to decide to stop breaking the law in the future just because they were treated differently in prison. Why do you believe that when someone commits a crime they are doomed to do nothing but commit more crimes?
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May 26, 2011 23:47
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Solkanar512 posted:Why do you believe that when someone commits a crime they are doomed to do nothing but commit more crimes? My god, do you people always have to cherry pick my statements? I never said that. In the very sentence after the paragraph you took that from I squash that idea.
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May 26, 2011 23:49
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nessin posted:The problem is that they could have avoided that before going to prison. quote:If they didn't want to be part of that lifestyle then they willingly ignore their options to get out of it, extreme as they may be (usually I'd imagine it would require getting the hell away from where they live really quickly and starting from practically nothing in the middle of nowhere).  quote:No one deserves to be murdered because some nutjob with a gun wanted to kill someone. No one deserves to be mugged. Need I go on? Edit: Everything you post reeks of childish revenge fantasies mixed with a bit of just-world theory.
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May 27, 2011 00:16
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nessin posted:
I know you've said you've read the thread, but did you see the cite on the statement that a white person with a criminal record is more likely than a black person with no record with equal experience and education to get a call back for a job interview? Are you saying that low level offenders who have more liquor stores and check cashing places in their neighborhoods than libraries and parks are clinically insane? Even the "rich" shotcallers like Rick Ross went into the drug game because of inadiquate education and business opportunities. He says a big part of the reason he got into drug dealing in the first place is that he was illiterate. (He learned to read in prison.) These criminals are "insane" to you? Particularly in the face of sweeping cuts to health and human services departments across the nation?
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May 27, 2011 00:23
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E: Nah, never mind, it's not worth it.
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May 27, 2011 00:41
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Eat This Glob posted:I know you've said you've read the thread, but did you see the cite on the statement that a white person with a criminal record is more likely than a black person with no record with equal experience and education to get a call back for a job interview? Are you saying that low level offenders who have more liquor stores and check cashing places in their neighborhoods than libraries and parks are clinically insane? Even the "rich" shotcallers like Rick Ross went into the drug game because of inadiquate education and business opportunities. He says a big part of the reason he got into drug dealing in the first place is that he was illiterate. (He learned to read in prison.) These criminals are "insane" to you? Particularly in the face of sweeping cuts to health and human services departments across the nation? Actually I said I hadn't read the full thread. Also you, like NonEuclidean, conviently ignored the part where I pointed out I'd only consider them clinically insane if they honestly don't know that crime (or, specifically "gangs and drugs" in my post) was frowned upon by society before going to prison. But, despite the fact that I'm sure Pope Guilty probably wrote something along the same lines as you, its not worth trying to argue with people who constantly mis-quote people and add completely unrelated factors to the core argument. All I made an assertion on was how much you could trust someone to reform in prison based on how their treated. How they got into prison, whether they were successfully before getting to prison, their race, the economic policy of the United States, everything you two mentioned is completely pointless to that argument.
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May 27, 2011 01:22
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BattleMaster posted:Slavery might be coming to my province. Ontario provincial Conservative leader Tim Hudak wants to put provincial inmates to work picking up garbage and cleaning graffit. 40 hour work weeks, no word on pay. Tim Hudak is a colossal rear end in a top hat who wants to drag Ontario back to the glory days of Mike "I killed seven people" Harris. Doing this is a two-stroke dick move. First, you're re-instituting slavery, second, you're giving an excuse to get rid of government employees who are currently performing those tasks. It'd be a matter of time before the Ford brothers here in Toronto figured out how to do the same with people locked up in the Don, thus stopping the 'gravy train' of CUPE 416 people who currently do those jobs. Guy is so far out of wack that he makes Dalton look like a viable alternative, and Dalton's a dimwit who could gently caress up a cup of coffee.
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May 27, 2011 01:56
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nessin posted:All I made an assertion on was how much you could trust someone to reform in prison based on how their treated. I think it's a fair assumption that a prison that focuses more on rehabilitation, removing prisoners from a violent and criminal environment and teaching them skills that will help them be productive members of society will have fewer repeat offenders than the violent and gang-ridden prisons our system currently uses. Unless you believe some prisoners are completely beyond any chance of reform. I'm sure there are some who are, but I think the "complete monster incapable of functioning in society" makes up a fairly small minority of the prison population.
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May 27, 2011 02:19
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nessin posted:No, I'm saying that someone who has already broken the law isn't going to decide to stop breaking the law in the future just because they were treated differently in prison. Of course people are influenced by their environment, and "criminal" is no more a classification of the human race than hillbilly, but (in general, obviously false positives do happen) I'm saying that someone who has made a decision isn't going to suddenly decide that decision was wrong in the face of how they're treated in prison. So how do you explain the many prisoners who work their programs and are eventually released to become ordinary law-abiding citizens, or the criminals who suffer in prison and become more dangerous and violent as a result? Both outcomes occur routinely, although the prison environment in America today is so negative that the second seems more likely. Take Clyde Barrow of "Bonnie and Clyde" fame as a negative example. Barrow was a mere petty thief when he was sent to Eastham Prison Farm, where he was repeatedly raped by an older inmate whom he probably murdered in revenge (though it couldn't be proven at the time). He wasn't a killer when he went in, but after his release he was certainly not shy about shooting people. He eventually killed 12, who might have lived full lives if the guards had been more hands-on about preventing rapes. As to a positive example, what about Jimmy Boyle? He was a Glasgow-based gangster serving a life sentence for murder (served 15), but while in prison he participated in an art program that unlocked an unexplored creative side. He became a sculptor and writer, and at the time of his release in 1982 was apparently fully rehabilitated and he has been in society for 29 years without re-offending. Is he only pretending to be reformed to avoid serving another stretch in prison?
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May 27, 2011 02:32
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EvanSchenck posted:So how do you explain the many prisoners who work their programs and are eventually released to become ordinary law-abiding citizens, or the criminals who suffer in prison and become more dangerous and violent as a result? Both outcomes occur routinely, although the prison environment in America today is so negative that the second seems more likely. Are you kidding me?! I know I said I was through but I couldn't let this pass. You're using two individual stories as a baseline statistic for millions of prisoners, really? Even your examples are bad! Was it prison that brought out Boyle's creativity? If he'd bothered to explore alternate paths than crime would he have unlocked that side of himself and become a productive member of society without murdering someone first? Also, how is him finding an alternative relate to his treatment in prison? From your short write-up it seems he found out himself through a method he could have easily used outside of prison. And Clyde? You actually mentioned rape and don't see the conflict? Unless rape is a sanctioned activity in modern prisons (which as far as I'm aware, it isn't in the US) then that hardly counts as a reference for how the prisoner was treated. Instead it was a crime in and of itself perpetrated by fellow inmates and not stopped by the prison. I'm not doubting that it probably changed him, but how in the hell does that relate to the argument if it was a failure of the system to protect the prisoner?
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May 27, 2011 03:01
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nessin posted:And Clyde? You actually mentioned rape and don't see the conflict? Unless rape is a sanctioned activity in modern prisons (which as far as I'm aware, it isn't in the US) Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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May 27, 2011 03:09
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nessin posted:And Clyde? You actually mentioned rape and don't see the conflict? Unless rape is a sanctioned activity in modern prisons (which as far as I'm aware, it isn't in the US) then that hardly counts as a reference for how the prisoner was treated. It pretty much is, actually.
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May 27, 2011 03:10
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Yeah, rape's pretty much encouraged at this point. That you're not horrified just reveals your ignorance and inhumanity.
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May 27, 2011 03:12
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http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-show-widespread-prison-rapequote:According to the report, released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), “Sexual Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2007,” 4.5 percent of the state and federal prisoners surveyed reported sexual victimization in the past 12 months. Given a national prison population of 1,570,861, the BJS findings suggest that in one year alone more than 70,000 prisoners were sexually abused.... Rape is a tolerated punishment that is regularly encouraged by prison guard staff in the US and it is totally rampant, very similar to the (at first) tacit approval of gangs in prison as a way to control riots. Seriously nessin how can you be this ignorant, especially in a thread as full of information as this one?
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May 27, 2011 03:21
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Pope Guilty posted:Yeah, rape's pretty much encouraged at this point. http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/prison/report1.html#_1_5 Despite some strong language, they're actual recommendation (granted, from 2001) is that less than 15% of the US prison population has been raped while in prison. On top of that, their findings go on to show that prisons that have a high level of vigilance suffer from practically no problems. 1) Yeah, rape isn't sanctioned. It may happen, maybe even often in some prisons, but on a large scale its rare. 2) It still has nothing to do with my original statement. Edit: Cut out the last part, it was stupid and exceptionally immature, even for me. Edit #2: Fixed my goofed percentage nessin fucked around with this message at 03:37 on May 27, 2011 |
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May 27, 2011 03:23
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nessin posted:http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/prison/report1.html#_1_5 How could you misread an article this badly? quote:Prison authorities, unsurprisingly, generally claim that prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse is an exceptional occurrence rather than a systemic problem. Prison officials in New Mexico, for example, responding to our 1997 request for information regarding "the 'problem' of male inmate-on-inmate rape and sexual abuse" (the internal quotation marks are theirs), said that they had "no recorded incidents over the past few years." The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services informed Human Rights Watch that such incidents were "minimal." Only Texas, Ohio, Florida, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons said that they had more than fifty reported incidents in a given year, numbers which, because of the large size of their prison systems, still translate into extremely low rates of victimization. I ctrl +f'd for any combination of 2, two, % and percent and couldn't find the statistic you mention here to go along with your link.
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May 27, 2011 03:32
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nessin posted:http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/prison/report1.html#_1_5 Uh, from your source: quote:"Yet prison authorities' claims are belied by independent research on the topic. Indeed, the most recent academic studies of the issue have found shockingly high rates of sexual abuse, including forced oral and anal intercourse. In December 2000, the Prison Journal published a study based on a survey of inmates in seven men's prison facilities in four states. The results showed that 21 percent of the inmates had experienced at least one episode of pressured or forced sexual contact since being incarcerated, and at least 7 percent had been raped in their facility. A 1996 study of the Nebraska prison system produced similar findings, with 22 percent of male inmates reporting that they had been pressured or forced to have sexual contact against their will while incarcerated. Of these, over 50 percent had submitted to forced anal sex at least once. Extrapolating these findings to the national level gives a total of at least 140,000 inmates who have been raped. That's a minimum of 10% as reported by prisons or much higher if reported by prisoners. Could you quote the part that says that less than 2% of prisoners have been raped?
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May 27, 2011 03:35
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Finktron posted:How could you misread an article this badly? That was my fault, it should be 15%, although by todays numbers its probably closer to 20% (although I'd assume rape cases would go down if prison population went down). http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus09.pdf I think I was originally going to 20%, but then reduced it after looking at the numbers and never made the change before I hit the post button. nessin fucked around with this message at 03:48 on May 27, 2011 |
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May 27, 2011 03:36
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nessin posted:That was my fault, it should be 15%, although by todays numbers its probably closer to 20% (although I'd assume rape cases would go down if prison population went down). The fact that you're dismissing 15% of prisoners being raped says a lot about what a terrible person you are.
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May 27, 2011 03:51
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Piell posted:The fact that you're dismissing 15% of prisoners being raped says a lot about what a terrible person you are. Its pretty easy when you look at everything else. Like for example the US Census Bureau estimated (forgot the exact year) that 2.5 million people died per year in the United States. Completely unrelated to the topic? Yep, but so was prison rape to my original point.
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May 27, 2011 03:54
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That's not an insignificant mistake, that's flubbing a statistic by a factor of ten. That's going from one in fifty experiencing rape in prisons, to one in five. Your arguments earlier in this thread seem to shrug off prison conditions as a factor in human development--especially as regards the anecdotal examples that were posted--because there are so many other factors that could have precipitated change. If you honestly held that 2% figure as gospel, I could see why this would seem to be a reasonable perspective, even if it were still honestly repugnant. But in the face of the facts, is it really reasonable for you to defend your worldview when a huge number of people are being introduced to traumatic, life-changing experiences specifically based on their prison stays? Does this count as a victimless crime? this site states that 34.4% of the federal prison population in the U.S. consists of first time, non-violent offenders. Even if you hold what is again a seriously repugnant and blindly retributive view of justice and believe that violent offenders either deserve this, or you feel for some reason that they are going to continue to be violent in the wake of their stay since they entered prison because of their violent, anti-social actions, how do you account for the experience of the non-violent offenders and their post-incarceration experience?
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May 27, 2011 03:56
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Finktron posted:That's not an insignificant mistake, that's flubbing a statistic by a factor of ten. That's going from one in fifty experiencing rape in prisons, to one in five. Your arguments earlier in this thread seem to shrug off prison conditions as a factor in human development--especially as regards the anecdotal examples that were posted--because there are so many other factors that could have precipitated change. If you honestly held that 2% figure as gospel, I could see why this would seem to be a reasonable perspective, even if it were still honestly repugnant. But in the face of the facts, is it really reasonable for you to defend your worldview when a huge number of people are being introduced to traumatic, life-changing experiences specifically based on their prison stays? A) It was a typo mistake, not a OMG I can't do math mistake. See, the only difference between 2 and 20 is a single character. B) I'm seriously done. Absolutely last post, I promise, cross my heart and all that. I never made any attribution to violent or non-violent, to what they were put in for or not. Everyone else did that for me by making all sorts of ridiculous assumptions. My point is this: "A person who gets sent to prison should be expected to always have that element which sent them to prison." Simple as that. A person who does something which we have deemed worthy of prison (ie, long-term seperation from society), assuming we're not talking about a false positive, has made that decision deemed it worth the risk to break the law. Simple as that. It isn't a behavioral issue, it isn't an environment issue, it isn't anything except they decided that prison was a risk they were going to take and there is nothing saying that they're going to suddenly decide that it wasn't worth the risk while in prison. For whatever reason they may decide it won't be worth the risk ever again, and that is great. Maybe they found god, or a new hobby, or just got scared to all hell. But they're not suddenly law abiding citizens who wouldn't commit such an act, because they committed it. To claim that the experiences of prison life will change a person enough to go straight also implies that by terrorizing them further you could also get results, thereby defeating the whole purpose of saying it could also make them better people by treating them better. Violent or non-violent criminal, doesn't make a difference. Rape would probably make a difference (simply because I acknowledge that it is a traumatic life-changing experience), but the problem is prisoners are supposed to be protected from rape, so if you're talking a system wide issue then it shows that the system isn't working, not that my conclusion is invalid.
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May 27, 2011 04:12
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nessin posted:No one deserves to be murdered because some nutjob with a gun wanted to kill someone. No one deserves to be mugged. Need I go on?
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May 27, 2011 04:52
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The Moon Monster posted:I think it's a fair assumption that a prison that focuses more on rehabilitation, removing prisoners from a violent and criminal environment and teaching them skills that will help them be productive members of society will have fewer repeat offenders than the violent and gang-ridden prisons our system currently uses. Well, if you're interested in having fewer repeat offenders; just skip the prison sentence altogether and put the offenders in a book club. No, seriously. quote:Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 36 (6%) had their probations revoked and were sent to jail. Note the guy they mention in the beginning (Mitchell Rouse) was facing a 60 year prison sentence for a nonviolent drug offense, and note the quotes from the program opponents. Also look at the language Rouse uses. Reading a good book and talking about it with supportive friends and mentors was "a miracle," it "changed the way I look at life," it "made me believe in my own potential" - even, "[I learned that] your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's," etc. Reading a book and talking about it, having support, considering the opinions of others, believing in your potential- aren't these things that most of us here in D&D have to one degree or another? What differences might there be between our lives and Mitchell Rouse's life such that they are miraculous revelations instead of something he grew up with? Could those differences help explain how one man ends up college-educated and discussing social issues on a pay-to-join forum, and another man ends up hooked on meth and staring down the barrel of a life sentence?
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May 27, 2011 04:52
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nessin posted:B) I'm seriously done. Absolutely last post, I promise, cross my heart and all that. I had a nice post with more detail about Jimmy Boyle and Clyde Barrow by way of explaining how your reasoning was incoherent, but I guess there's no point since aside from you the thread is basically in consensus and you've promised to leave. All I'll say is that you have an inaccurate view of criminal behavior, and a really reductive understanding of how the prison environment is constituted. The real problem is not just the effect that the prison environment has on an individual man--the problem is the kind of society that is created by packing thousands of men into that environment and leaving them to interact with each other under the slimmest kind of supervision.
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May 27, 2011 04:58
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nessin you don't have PM's, but if you so choose, I'm available for non-confrontational one-on-one discussion (contact info in profile). I see where you're coming from, and I believe you are making an obvious (to us) logical conclusion that many offenders don't; which could help explain for you why so many people keep offending and offending, even when they know how bad prison is. For other readers, here's my take that goes a little into the decisions (such as they are) surrounding the commission of crime, deterrence, cost/benefit, and the like. And a note about me and other prison-reform advocates/activists like me: Generally speaking, reform of prison conditions is (or at least can be) disconnected from how or why the inmates got there, when we have on only our prison-reform hat. Of course a reformer can and often does wear many hats, and most are like me and take a "holistic" approach when criticizing (or attacking) the Machine as a whole. On the specific subject of prison conditions, think of it as the medic patching up a guy who crashed his motorcycle. The concern is sewing him back together, all-the-kings-horses style. The biker's helmet use and drinking need to be addressed, but on the roadside that is not the immediate concern, you know. Simplified, but you get the idea.
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May 27, 2011 06:55
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nessin posted:
Pics of a Norwegian prison      A piece Michael Moore did on Norwegian prisons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4beUC3-ckw Turns out that treating people better is the best way to make them better.
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May 27, 2011 15:14
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Let's take nessin's assumption that certain people deserve to be treated like animals and ask what would happen if we treated them like human beings and focused on rehabilitation. Would they be just as animal-like as after a stay in a supermax hell? There is no direction you can approach that argument from that doesn't make it fall apart at the slightest touch. This is because there is no argument, just a revenge fantasy.
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May 27, 2011 16:27
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Did all of you completely miss Nessin's point? His claim was that offenders' moral convictions about committing crimes wouldn't be changed by better conditions in prison, not that a stay in prison won't affect their actions or that prisoners deserve to be raped 24 hours a day. I don't agree with him, but a lot of you are completely mischaracterizing what he's saying. Just because someone has a different or wrong idea about this stuff doesn't mean they're a generic prisoner-hating zombie, and you're only doing yourself and your argument a disservice by attacking him like he is. Fitzy Fitz fucked around with this message at 17:45 on May 27, 2011 |
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May 27, 2011 17:42
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Did all of you completely miss Nessin's point? His claim was that offenders' moral convictions about committing crimes wouldn't be changed by better conditions in prison, not that a stay in prison won't affect their actions or that prisoners deserve to be raped 24 hours a day. But the facts show that better conditions do, in fact, lead to a lower chance of reoffending in the future. And to be honest, everyone is willing to commit a crime. In fact, you probably commit several crimes a day! The idea that criminals are somehow morally different than "normal people" is wrong.
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May 27, 2011 17:48
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I'm pretty sure he touched on both of those points. I wasn't trying to defend his argument. I was commenting on how everyone was responding to him like he'd advocated rape or something.
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May 27, 2011 17:55
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nessin posted:Nope, but apparently neither have you. This started over a reply I made about what is to be expected of a person who has suffered such treatment. I'm saying the idea is that if someone has done something worthy of prison then there shouldn't be an expectation that they'll learn their lesson regardless of how cushy or horrendous the prison or their stay is. Assueming an ideal justice system with no bias and fair laws, and also assueming that it is impossible to rehabilitate people (both of these aern't the case, but whatever) This still doesn't justify cruelty, only isolation from the public. Hypothetical situation: A study proves that giving every inmate a netbook and internet access in their cells reduces security risk and therefor security staff needs by lets say 50% (we are assuming it is a cost savings in the end, with the reduced staff costs more than making up for the costs of the computers and net access). Should such a program be implemented? If you think it shouldn't because this would be better than what the average american gets for working 60 hours a week than I suggest you check out the socialism thread.
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May 27, 2011 19:01
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Did all of you completely miss Nessin's point? His claim was that offenders' moral convictions about committing crimes wouldn't be changed by better conditions in prison, not that a stay in prison won't affect their actions or that prisoners deserve to be raped 24 hours a day. I think his point would be better characterized if he used some variation of the phrase "bad people with a bad moral compass will continually do bad things." Whether or not those bad things deserve prison is totally unrelated to the point. I don't agree with it, but I think that might be his point.
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May 27, 2011 19:09
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May 28, 2011 04:55
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| # ? May 30, 2024 14:25 |
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Ever wonder where the hormone-free fish sold at Whole Foods comes from?  What about the goat's-milk cheese?  That's right- prison.
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May 28, 2011 04:56
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