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Not that inmates shouldn't be allowed to vote (because everyone should) but prisoners voting brings up a whole new variety of gerrymandering. Can't draw the district lines where you want them? Just move 10,000 people across the line!
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Oct 18, 2011 18:25
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CellBlock posted:Not that inmates shouldn't be allowed to vote (because everyone should) but prisoners voting brings up a whole new variety of gerrymandering. This already happens. Prisoners count for census and thus for allocation of proportional representation, regardless of the fact that they cannot vote. Votes from citizens of prison towns (who have the most direct economic incentive to support higher rates of incarceration) receive higher weight in elections as a result.
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Oct 18, 2011 18:54
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Prisoners absolutely should not be allowed to vote. Incumbent politicians would have so much more incentive to incarcerate as much as possible. It's bad enough that the prison-industrial complex makes money off of prisoners. If they could farm votes from them then any slim chance of stopping them would evaporate.
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Oct 18, 2011 21:52
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The Rooster posted:Prisoners absolutely should not be allowed to vote. Incumbent politicians would have so much more incentive to incarcerate as much as possible. It's bad enough that the prison-industrial complex makes money off of prisoners. If they could farm votes from them then any slim chance of stopping them would evaporate. You're going to have to expand on that because it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
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Oct 18, 2011 21:56
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Orange Devil posted:You're going to have to expand on that because it doesn't make a lick of sense to me. It isn't obvious that prisoners will be coerced and or tortured into voting exactly how the prison authorities want them to? What sort of politicians would then be the natural choice for whom these prisoners end up voting for?
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Oct 18, 2011 21:59
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The Rooster posted:Prisoners absolutely should not be allowed to vote. Incumbent politicians would have so much more incentive to incarcerate as much as possible. It's bad enough that the prison-industrial complex makes money off of prisoners. If they could farm votes from them then any slim chance of stopping them would evaporate. How will they be able to force prisoners to vote one way or another*? Hell, if I was incarcerated under Governor Bob's "operation lets enslave cannabis smokers" pretty sure Bob wouldn't be my first choice on election day. *when we say "prisoners should be allowed to vote" we mean in a free and fair way, obviously if there's widespread fraud and voter intimidation that goes out the window.
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Oct 18, 2011 21:59
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Fatkraken posted:*when we say "prisoners should be allowed to vote" we mean in a free and fair way, obviously if there's widespread fraud and voter intimidation that goes out the window. How could any other voting system in prison exist? I mean ideally yes, obviously, but realistically I find such a thing inconceivable.
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Oct 18, 2011 22:00
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Fatkraken posted:How will they be able to force prisoners to vote one way or another*? Hell, if I was incarcerated under Governor Bob's "operation lets enslave cannabis smokers" pretty sure Bob wouldn't be my first choice on election day. But you see contraband could be snuck into and out of prison via the ballot boxes, so they must be inspected prior to being removed to be counted. Obviously! Ignore the unseasonably large number of adseg admissions
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Oct 18, 2011 22:04
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The Rooster posted:How could any other voting system in prison exist? I mean ideally yes, obviously, but realistically I find such a thing inconceivable. Off the top of my head, an external vote taking team that comes in. Takes prisoners one at a time, gives them their ballot papers, they go into an unmonitored booth, make their mark and put it in a box, then leave. Sign them in and out so you don't double up. Attendance is compulsory (to avoid people being intimidated out of their rights) but if you don't want to vote you are allowed to leave the ballot blank and it is counted as a non-vote. EVERYONE votes, including people in solitary, hospital ETC to prevent politicized gangs trying to skew the vote.
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Oct 18, 2011 22:06
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I think the most exploitable aspect that comes to mind is that prisoners have no control over what district they live in and vote from. Even if their votes can't be controlled directly, it takes the existing prison gerrymandering problem and adds new wrinkles. That said, if prisoners (or anyone else) don't vote, they shouldn't count when drawing districts.
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Oct 18, 2011 22:22
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Killer robot posted:I think the most exploitable aspect that comes to mind is that prisoners have no control over what district they live in and vote from. Even if their votes can't be controlled directly, it takes the existing prison gerrymandering problem and adds new wrinkles. That said, if prisoners (or anyone else) don't vote, they shouldn't count when drawing districts. There's also the restriction on reading material that most prisons place on inmates. Yes. No magazines. No papers. No books. Some places (Maricopa County [Sheriff Joe Arpaio]) only allow bibles. That's it. How are prisoners going to be informed enough to vote. To allow it, we'd have to remove many restrictions on inmates that authoritarians cherish that it would never actually be allowed. Add in the disconnect prisoners feel from their hometowns. How do you give adequate franchise to a man whose been locked up in 6 different prisons in 4 different states? Where's his home district? Which political race does he vote in? What about voting for county court seats? Etc. I am disgusted by the census crap. I'm disgusted by disenfranchising ex-cons. But I'm particularly disgusted by the factors of living in a prison which make convict voting almost impossible to implement without vast abuses or widespread disenfranchisement even with the right to vote.
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Oct 18, 2011 22:27
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UberJew posted:But you see contraband could be snuck into and out of prison via the ballot boxes, so they must be inspected prior to being removed to be counted. Obviously! Other countries manage just fine though. I have no doubt the US would be capable of loving it up, but the problem in that scenario is the US, not the idea of prisoners voting.
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Oct 18, 2011 23:36
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Orange Devil posted:Other countries manage just fine though. I have no doubt the US would be capable of loving it up, but the problem in that scenario is the US, not the idea of prisoners voting. I agree with you! The problem is simply that prisoners not voting but counting to gerrymander population away from inner city districts and towards prison town districts for the purpose of representation is just one symptom and all of the symptoms of the system work to protect each other. There is no feasible solution to it until the greater problem of our entire justice system has been confronted.
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Oct 18, 2011 23:41
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So we can't have prisoners voting because we'd have to work to eliminate intimidation and violence? I refuse to acknowledge as legitimate any argument in the form of "We can't make things better, because then we'd have to make things better!"
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Oct 19, 2011 02:55
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Pope Guilty posted:So we can't have prisoners voting because we'd have to work to eliminate intimidation and violence? I think it'd be a great idea to let prisoners vote. I think your time and dollars are better applied to restoring the franchise to ex-cons, right now, if your priority among the many facets of our prison issue is the damage to our political freedom, in specific. More generally you need to prioritize what aspect of reforming the system you find most important! In my case I find our prison's lack of healthcare most disgusting, largely as a result of working directly in the field, so that's where my efforts are aimed. By no means am I suggesting we ignore the problem until the magical revolution just happens! Simply prioritize based on what is actually feasible to accomplish first. atelier morgan fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Oct 19, 2011 |
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Oct 19, 2011 03:00
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Dingleberry posted:Generally the previous arrests are under some sort of probation or parole; they get a new charge(and conviction) and can end up serving time on the older charge. Nobody generally serves a full sentence on a conviction. I.E., gets 14 months for car theft, serves 7 months, out on supervision, gets popped for car prowl, and has meth on them. Pleads to the meth, gets 6 months for the meth, plus say 2 months for the previous charge. If the judge is nice(out here they usually are) they get it concurrent, so they are serving the two months at the same time as the 6. Of course 6 with good time at county is actually 4 months. Is this a response to me re: controlling for previous charges in studies of sentence disparities? If not, disregard.
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Oct 19, 2011 03:42
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eSports Chaebol posted:You should be able to, but it's too easy to imagine prisons implementing not-so-secret ballots.
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Oct 19, 2011 03:55
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It seems so unimaginably...petty to deny prisoners the right to vote. In Canada, prisoners in each and every level of incarceration have been able to vote since Sauvé v. Canada in 2002, and yet convicted felons in the US, who are out of jail mind you, are denied this right? It's tiny, but it just reflects the dehumanization that's forced upon them.
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Oct 19, 2011 07:20
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Dwarf posted:In Canada, prisoners in each and every level of incarceration have been able to vote since Sauvé v. Canada in 2002, and yet convicted felons in the US, who are out of jail mind you, are denied this right? If you count current inmates we deny the franchise to 5,266,206 people (obviously more than that since these figures were collected, since we imprison people every day). 2.4% of the adult population. Institutional racism of course means the share of the African American adult population barred from voting is 8.3%. atelier morgan fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Oct 19, 2011 |
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Oct 19, 2011 08:09
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Dwarf posted:It seems so unimaginably...petty to deny prisoners the right to vote.
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Oct 19, 2011 17:10
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Dwarf posted:It seems so unimaginably...petty to deny prisoners the right to vote. In Norway no one, not even the most conservative parties, have even suggested to deny prisoners the right to vote. The idea is just to absurd to be taken seriously here. You can litterally be criminally sane and yet you will be able to vote.
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Oct 19, 2011 19:01
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So a lot of people heard how after the Lawrence Brewer execution last month Texas stopped honoring the old tradition of letting death row inmates choose their final meal. This is apparently part of a larger operation though of just finding ways to not to feed inmates. Currently, apparently at least 3 dozen prisons in Texas now only serve two meals a day on the weekends http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/10/21/141592391/as-cost-saving-measure-texas-prisons-cut-lunch-on-weekends quote:The state of Texas already made waves in September when it decided to stop honoring death row inmates' final meal requests. The decision was prompted by the huge meal requested by white supremacist Lawrence Russell Brewer. Jesus they're not even honoring the time tested tradition of three squares a day anymore. Texas your state perpetually depresses me.
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Oct 22, 2011 01:43
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I was reading an article about that on CNN and wanted to start actually crying when I read the comments (why did I do that?). How can people be so cruel to other human beings? Like, how can you call for the execution for all prisoners, or only serving bread and water, or solitary for every inmate with no AC/heat and not only not be called out for being a callous piece of poo poo, but actually applauded and supported. What the gently caress.
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Oct 22, 2011 15:38
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Salmon, the Wise Fish posted:I was reading an article about that on CNN and wanted to start actually crying when I read the comments (why did I do that?). How can people be so cruel to other human beings? Like, how can you call for the execution for all prisoners, or only serving bread and water, or solitary for every inmate with no AC/heat and not only not be called out for being a callous piece of poo poo, but actually applauded and supported. What the gently caress. They believe in a world of black and white, "good people" and "bad people", where the "good people" are upstanding God-fearing middle-class-and-up homeowners with 2.5 kids and a car. Meanwhile, the "bad people" are scum wearing a human face, idiots and psychopaths who cannot function in a civilized society and can never change their ways because they're just too dumb or crazy or disrespectful. Someone who incurs society's displeasure enough to be convicted of a crime is revealed to be a "bad person" whose life isn't worth living, vermin that will never be able to fit into society and live without drugs and theft like a "good person" does. So why bother locking them up for a while and then letting them out? After all, "everybody" knows that "those people" will never amount to anything in life! In addition, as I alluded to in that last sentence, that worldview tends to integrate with a person's prejudices - including racial prejudices and other discrimination. Puts a new spin on the phrase "one of the good ones", doesn't it? This is a big factor in judicial racism, as well - everyone from cops to juries are willing to give a free pass to a middle-aged white guy because he's clearly a "good" person who just maybe made a mistake, but a young black male gets railroaded straight to jail because "just look at him, he's obviously guilty of something". People seriously perceive others as "good" or "bad" just because of negative stereotypes or skin color, and that feeds right into the views described in the previous paragraph and leads to some pretty appalling results. When a person is convicted of murder, of killing another human being in circumstances society has not deemed to be acceptable, they aren't "a person who did a bad thing", they are a "murderer". Think about that. Not "someone who committed a murder", but "a murderer". For the rest of their life, they're a "murderer" - or, to use the Merriam-Webster definition, "one who murders". The implication is clear: they're not a person who once committed an act of murder, they're a murderer who lacks respect for human life and could kill again at any time, forever tainted by their evil act. Likewise, someone who commits rape is a "rapist" for the rest of their life. Society doesn't really believe in rehabilitation right now; even when someone's out of prison, their peers will expect them to reoffend until the day they die. This is most obvious in our treatment of sex offenders - even after they serve their time, they're a sex offender for the rest of their life, and subject to significant restrictions on their daily life forever. There's no allowance for rehabilitation there. Once someone commits a major crime, there's a lot of people who think that the convict was just that sort of person and will almost certainly reoffend eventually, a menace to society who can never be truly reformed. It's a nasty worldview, and a difficult one to combat. It builds on a lot of natural assumptions humans tend to make, combined with current society and culture, and there's no easy way to get rid of it. But it really explains a lot about the conflicts in the modern criminal justice system - as well as a lot of historical stuff.
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Oct 22, 2011 17:30
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I'm curious if anyone has statistics on felon unemployment rates? I've been digging around and 70% seems to pop up fairly frequently but it's never sourced to anything so I'm suspicious that it's one of those situations where someone grabbed a number that sounded good and it became 'general knowledge.' I just spent some quality time with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and they frustratingly track every demographic EXCEPT felony status. The best I've found is a study claiming felons drive up the general unemployment rate by 2% or so, but it's (a) ten years old, and (b) not really what I'm looking for. My apologies if this is too off topic.
HashtagGirlboss fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Oct 25, 2011 |
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Oct 25, 2011 04:38
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Resurrecting this topic, I guess. Skyworks posted:What kind of deranged brain even comes up with the idea of charging someone to visit their loved ones in prison, let alone implements it. That is disgusting. How the hell can anyone even attempt to defend that in a serious way. Might I suggest you put away any sharp objects so you don't stab yourself with them: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/arizona-is-charging-for-prison-visits-innovative-or-inappropriate/question-2139793/ quote:More power to them. I think that they should be able to get anything that they can out of them . . . For as long as they can. I remember that it wasn't that long ago when prisoners were expected to work . . . I can recall seeing Prison Farms that grew and cultivated and harvested several different kinds of beans, corn, squash, etc., and the vegetables were absolutely gorgeous . . . I am not sure . . . Do Prisoners smoke fertilizer now? . . . Do they shoot-it-up? . . . Is it against the Law to make Prisoners adhere to the Laws of the State? . . . What? . . . quote:BAH, ONE TIME? Seriously, these people are IN PRISON (not jail), which means they've been convicted of a crime , or are on trial for a crime LARGE enough to warrant higher incarceration levels. quote:Why should tax payers, who abide by the law, have to continue paying higher and higher taxes for those who broke it? I think this is an innovative solution and I hope they use the money wisely. quote:They have to pay for the upkeep of these dregs of society somehow, and better the family of the crook then the tax payer who has never met them or the victim's family. Me pissing on a pile of burning poo poo posted:Arizona doesn't have "good weather." It has loving hot, parched weather punctuated with occasional bouts of equally hellishly hot rainy weather. And most Arizonans live in one of the hottest parts of the state.
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Oct 31, 2011 09:56
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Call me naive/ignorant, but theoretically, what would happen if you made all non-violent/environment damaging crimes a fine-able offense only, and not a jail-able one?
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Oct 31, 2011 22:19
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Mister Macys posted:Call me naive/ignorant, but theoretically, what would happen if you made all non-violent/environment damaging crimes a fine-able offense only, and not a jail-able one? But the point of hyperincarceration isn't to make society a better place, it's to keep poor people poor and disenfranchised.
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Oct 31, 2011 22:23
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Mister Macys posted:Call me naive/ignorant, but theoretically, what would happen if you made all non-violent/environment damaging crimes a fine-able offense only, and not a jail-able one? The entire private prison industry wouldnt let that happen. Realize non-violent offenders make up ~50% of those in prison and ~20% of those are drug charges. This is from a 1999 report so those numbers have probably risin, but you get the idea. http://www.cjcj.org/files/americas.pdf Our prison system isnt there to do anything but make money and the way they get to do that is by destroying the lives of Americans.
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Oct 31, 2011 22:43
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HELLO THERE posted:Not much, the criminal justice system already excludes the wealthy from jailtime for most offenses, and the world hasn't ended. Not that I don't agree with you to some extent, but what would you suggest as a means of punishing people for non-violent crimes if we take fines and jail off the table? Scaling fines with income is one means of removing many of the harmful effects, but there is still a fair amount of people who cannot reasonably afford to pay any amount as a fine. Even options like community service hit the poor harder than the rich, since it might take away time they need to work to put food on the table and pay the rent. Should we do as Singapore does and cane the offenders? Certainly that punishes the rich and poor equally, but brings with it a whole host of problems on its own. I'm not so sure that some form of incarceration for certain non-violent offenses is such a terrible thing, it is only made so by the appalling conditions in our prisons and jails and unnecessarily long sentences, and the inequality in sentencing between rich and poor.
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Nov 1, 2011 01:03
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PT6A posted:Not that I don't agree with you to some extent, but what would you suggest as a means of punishing people for non-violent crimes if we take fines and jail off the table? Scaling fines with income is one means of removing many of the harmful effects, but there is still a fair amount of people who cannot reasonably afford to pay any amount as a fine. Even options like community service hit the poor harder than the rich, since it might take away time they need to work to put food on the table and pay the rent. Should we do as Singapore does and cane the offenders? Certainly that punishes the rich and poor equally, but brings with it a whole host of problems on its own. Well, why is someone who can't afford any fine committing crimes? Either they're mentally ill and should be sent for treatment, or they're just that desperate and should be given proper public assistance to help get their life back together. Punishing people isn't as important as fixing the problems that drove them to crime.
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Nov 1, 2011 01:25
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PT6A posted:Not that I don't agree with you to some extent, but what would you suggest as a means of punishing people for non-violent crimes if we take fines and jail off the table?
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Nov 1, 2011 01:31
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Main Paineframe posted:Well, why is someone who can't afford any fine committing crimes? Either they're mentally ill and should be sent for treatment, or they're just that desperate and should be given proper public assistance to help get their life back together. Punishing people isn't as important as fixing the problems that drove them to crime. This would be great if it wasnt for the fact that being a felon makes getting a job basically impossible so most turn to crime because they need a form of income. I am also pretty sure felons cant get public assistance. Our policy on felons is they are scum and our courts can never be wrong or convict someone who isnt truely evil scum of the earth. So they can go gently caress themselves, thatll teach them to be black in new york.
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Nov 1, 2011 02:44
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HELLO THERE posted:Should the point of the criminal justice system be to punish people? Who does incarceration for non-violent crimes help? There are non-violent crimes which society nonetheless has an interest in deterring, such as drunk driving. The solution is to structure society in a way in which it's impossible for a person to be too destitute to afford a fine.
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Nov 1, 2011 06:05
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Main Paineframe posted:Punishing people isn't as important as fixing the problems that drove them to crime. Well then how am I supposed to maintain an erection?
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Nov 1, 2011 06:38
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PT6A posted:Should we do as Singapore does and cane the offenders? Certainly that punishes the rich and poor equally, but brings with it a whole host of problems on its own. Hey, Singapore has low crime rates (they also execute people for trivial offenses).
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Nov 1, 2011 15:37
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Edit:flawed logic.
Thunder from Down Under fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Nov 1, 2011 |
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Nov 1, 2011 16:09
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If poor people only commit non-violent crimes out of desperation (which could be fixed by fixing the problems which force them to commit these crimes), then why do non-poor people commit them? So, there must be some set of people who commit non-violent crimes out of motivations other than desperation, and there is no reason to suspect that poor people don't make up any part of that set. Better enforcement of the laws is almost certainly necessary, as it's already been established in this thread that criminals consider only the likelihood of getting caught, not the severity of the punishment they will receive; however, I believe that this supposes there is some sort of punishment/deterrent. Often the example of speeding is used -- you wouldn't speed if you knew you'd be caught, would you? But I can say that, if the punishment were inconsequential enough, I almost certainly would continue to speed. Likewise, if the result of being caught shoplifting was merely that the shoplifter had to return the goods, there would be no reason to avoid shoplifting beyond one's personal sense of morality. Thus, as I see it, the justice system needs some form of punishment/deterrence. It is inescapably clear that it goes far overboard on that right now, but that does not mean that it cannot be useful and just in more measured amounts.
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Nov 1, 2011 16:22
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PT6A posted:So, there must be some set of people who commit non-violent crimes out of motivations other than desperation, and there is no reason to suspect that poor people don't make up any part of that set. The presumption that there is a segment of the population that is a priori criminal is the key assumption at the heart of our national approach to crime and punishment. It is very attractive since it posits that all we have to do is find and imprison or kill 'those people' to solve crime forever and we're very good at doing both. Unfortunately criminals are made, rather than born, and have parents and siblings rather than springing full grown from the head of Zeus who are also punished when we imprison or kill them out of proportion to what serves as a socially useful sentence. atelier morgan fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Nov 1, 2011 |
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Nov 1, 2011 16:31
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UberJew posted:The presumption that there is a segment of the population that is a priori criminal is the key assumption at the heart of our national approach to crime and punishment. It is very attractive since it posits that all we have to do is find and imprison or kill 'those people' to solve crime forever and we're very good at doing both. My statement does not presuppose that criminals are born that way, merely that there exists criminals, who I fully agree are nothing more than products of their environment, who commit crimes which are not necessary to guarantee their survival. Certainly we should address these issues as best we can when these people are caught committing a crime, and any incarceration should be focused more on rehabilitation that punishment, but some threat of punishment is necessary to deter those who have not yet committed crimes from doing so.
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Nov 1, 2011 16:52
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