The Prison Thread

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LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Powercrazy posted:

This is only surprising to people who engage in tribalism.

You got a point there, I guess monsters live everywhere.

# ? May 9, 2013 17:45

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# ? May 28, 2024 08:11

doug fuckey: Jun 7, 2007; hella greenbacks

That chart doesn't have my "favorite" Louisiana law fact: Max sentence for marijuana possession. Care to guess? eighty years

# ? May 13, 2013 02:06

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

What's the max sentence for marijuana possession while being white? How about while being rich?

# ? May 13, 2013 11:02

snorch: Jul 27, 2009

Orange Devil posted:

What's the max sentence for marijuana possession while being white? How about while being rich?

They make you share it.

# ? May 13, 2013 13:47

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/murder_is_our_national_sport_20130512/

Chris Hedges posted:

Murder Is Our National Sport

Posted on May 12, 2013

By Chris Hedges

Murder is our national sport. We murder tens of thousands with our industrial killing machines in Afghanistan and Iraq. We murder thousands more from the skies over Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with our pilotless drones. We murder each other with reckless abandon. And, as if we were not drenched in enough human blood, we murder prisoners�most of them poor people of color who have been locked up for more than a decade. The United States believes in regeneration through violence. We have carried out blood baths on foreign soil and on our own land for generations in the vain quest of a better world. And the worse it gets, the deeper our empire sinks under the weight of its own decay and depravity, the more we kill.

There are parts of the nation where the electorate, or at least the white electorate, routinely and knowingly puts murderers into political office. Murder is a sign of strength. Murder is a symbol of resolve. Murder means law and order. Murder keeps us safe. Strap the criminal into the gurney. Plunge the needles into veins. Haul away the corpse. It is our Christian duty. God Bless America! And one of the next on the list to be murdered in Florida�a state that has decided, under its new and cynically named �Timely Justice Act,� that it needs to accelerate its execution rate�is William Van Poyck. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. June 12 at Florida State Prison. He is a writer who has spent years exposing the cruelty of our system of mass incarceration. On June 12, if Gov. Rick Scott has his way, Van Poyck will write no more. And that is exactly how our political class of murderers wants it.

�Only God can judge,� Matt Gaetz, a Republican who sponsored the Timely Justice Act in the Florida House of Representatives, said during the debate. �But we sure can set up the meeting.�

Van Poyck, 58, knows what is coming. He has seen it many times before. He chronicles existence on death row in his blog, posted by his sister, Lisa Van Poyck, at deathrowdiary.blogspot.com, where there is a petition to Gov. Scott asking for a reprieve.

�I wasn�t really surprised when they showed up at my cell door with the chains and shackles,� he wrote his sister May 3. �For the last month or so I�ve had a strong premonition that my warrant was about to be signed, but that wasn�t something I wanted to share with you.�

�Sis, you know I�m a straight shooter, I�m not into sugar coating things, so I don�t want you to have any illusions about this,� he wrote. �I do not expect any delays or stays. This is it. In 40 days these folks will take me into the room next door and kill me.�
�After 40+ years of living in cages I am ready to leave this dead end existence and move on,� he concluded. �I leave with many regrets over the people I have hurt, and those I�ve disappointed, and over a life squandered away. My spirit will fly away hugging all the life lessons learned over 58 years on Schoolhouse Earth and with an implacable determination not to repeat these mistakes the next time around.�

Van Poyck, before the signing of his death warrant and his abrupt transfer to a cell next to the execution chamber, was one of the few inside the system to doggedly bear witness to the abuse and murder of prisoners on death row.

�Robert Waterhouse was scheduled for execution at 6:00pm this evening,� Van Poyck wrote to his sister in 2012. �In accordance with the established execution protocol he was strapped to the gurney and the needles were inserted into each arm about 45 minutes prior to his appointed time. Just before 6:00, however, he received a 45-minute stay which morphed into an almost 3-hour endurance test as he remained on the gurney as the seconds, minutes and then hours slid by at an excruciatingly slow pace, waiting for someone to tell him if hope was at hand, if he would live or die. Just before 9:00 he received his answer, the plungers were depressed, the syringes emptied and he was summarily killed.�

�Here on the row we can discern the approximate time of death when we see the old white Cadillac hearse trundle in through the back sally port gate to pick up the body, the same familiar 1960s era hearse I�ve watched for almost 40 years, coming in to retrieve the bodies of murdered prisoners, which used to happen on a regular basis back when I was in open population,� he went on. �I�ve seen a lot of guys, both friends and foes, carted off in that old hearse. Anyway, pause for a moment to imagine being on that gurney for over three hours, the needles in your arms. You�ve already come to terms with your imminent death, you are reconciled with the reality that this is it, this is how you will die, that there will be no reprieve. Then, at the last moment, a cruel trick, you�re given that slim hope, which you instinctively grasp. Some court, somewhere, has given you a temporary stay. You stare at the ceiling while the clock on the wall ticks away. You are totally alone, not a friendly soul in sight, surrounded by grim-faced men who are determined to kill you. Your heart pounds, your body feels electrified and every second seems like an eternity as a Kaleidoscope of wild thoughts crash around franticly in your compressed mind. After 3 hours you are drained, exhausted, terrorized, and then the phone on the wall rings and you�re told it�s time to die. To me this is cruel and unusual punishment by any definition.�

Van Poyck was convicted in the death of a corrections officer in 1987, although he insists he did not pull the trigger. But even if he did, it does not justify murder in the name of justice. Do we rape rapists? Do we sexually abuse pedophiles? Do we beat violent offenders? Do we strike hit-and-run drivers with a moving vehicle? And what if Van Poyck is telling the truth? What if he did not kill the corrections guard? He would not be the first inmate on death row to die for a murder he or she did not commit, especially in Florida. The state has sentenced more people to death than any other in recent decades. It has executed 75 since the death penalty was reinstated in Florida in the 1970s. There have been 24 death row inmates in Florida exonerated�one exoneration for every three executions. Not only might we kill the innocent, we have killed the innocent, as sadly illustrated by contemporary DNA tests that have cleared some of those who were put to death.

�When I heard from Bill�s lawyer about the warrant I lost it,� Van Poyck�s sister told me as she was driving Sunday from Richmond, Va., where she lives, to Bradford County, Fla., to see her brother. �I was on my lunch break. I broke down sobbing and crying. Gov. Scott signed warrants for prisoners who had committed heinous crimes, people who murdered children or serial killers. I thought Bill was safe for a long time. I still have visions of him walking out of there. And now he is in the death watch cell.�

�While he did commit a crime in trying to break a friend out of a prison transport van where his accomplice, Frank Valdes, shot and killed one of the guards, Bill never intended for anyone to get hurt, much less killed,� Lisa said. �I feel that 26 years on death row with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head has been punishment enough for the crime he did commit. I have received so many letters from people saying that his writings, especially his autobiography �A Checkered Past,� have changed their lives. He is not the man he once was. He underwent a profound spiritual conversion. He is a beautiful soul. He deserves [to live].�

In �A Checkered Past� Van Poyck describes his troubled boyhood, including the death of his mother from carbon monoxide poisoning when he was a year old. His father, who worked for Eastern Airlines and had lost a leg in World War II, turned the children over to a series of housekeepers, most of whom were neglectful or abusive. By 11 Van Poyck was in a juvenile home, along with Lisa, who was 12, and a brother, Jeffrey, who was 18. By 17 Van Poyck was in prison for an armed robbery. And then in 1987 he and Valdes attempted to free a friend from a prison transport van in downtown West Palm Beach. A corrections guard was fatally shot, apparently by Valdes, who a dozen years later died after eight prison guards beat him in his cell. Van Poyck�s brother, who is ill with lung cancer, has been in prison since 1992 for a series of bank robberies in Southern California.

Van Poyck has written two novels, �The Third Pillar of Wisdom� and �Quietus.� One of his short stories, �The Investigation,� will be included in an anthology of prison writing edited by Joyce Carol Oates.
�I started working with Bill [Van Poyck] in 2007 in the PEN prison writing program,� said Elea Carey, a short-story author based in San Francisco who was his writing instructor for two years. �There is a sense of isolation in his writing, as if he grew up alone in nature. He defined his experience without anyone around to help him understand it. He often appears as if he was dropped into a foreign land. His sensitivity to others, his compassion, his awareness and his empathy grew with his writing. He moved from his aloneness to grappling with the basics of human relationships.�

�People die every day,� Carey said when we spoke by phone. �I lost my dad in January. I am not afraid of death. I don�t think Bill is afraid of death. I am not shocked that Gov. Scott did this. But I want to do everything possible to stop this from happening. We are asleep as a society. We too do not know what it means to be fully human. This asleepness was once part of Bill�s life. He was asleep, in this way, when he carried out his crimes and committed the wrongs he knows he did. But this unconsciousness is not limited to people like Bill�it is part of all who think it is OK to do this kind of harm to other human beings. I want my government to be above murder.�

Van Poyck has an eye for detail, a terse, laconic writing style and a deep compassion for those trapped in the system. He explores the daily degradation of prison life, a Stygian world where some 50,000 people are held in solitary confinement in supermax prisons or special detention units and where hopelessness and despair threaten to overwhelm those inside.

(Page 3)

�Yesterday the prison was locked down all day for the standard �mock execution�, the practice run which occurs a week prior to the actual premeditated killing,� he wrote to his sister in February 2012. �For the mock execution they lock down the joint, bring in an array of big wigs, and go through a dry run to make sure the death machine is in working order, everyone on their toes. The big wigs are just voyeurs, here to vicariously kill someone while allowing themselves the bare moral cover of not actually pushing the knife between the ribs. Their minions do the actual dirty deed while they can go home with technically clean hands. These mock executions are as depressing as the real thing, in the sense that it�s dispiriting to watch an entire organization (a prison, with all its constituent parts) so seriously dedicate their time and energies to practice killing a fellow human being, as if this is a good and natural thing to do. It takes some peculiar mental (not to mention moral) gymnastics to justify this to oneself, but we humans have proven ourselves immensely adept at self-delusion and hypocrisy, especially when we bring religion into the equation. We are really, really good at killing others in the name of God. We are a strange species, aren�t we? To those who argue that the death penalty isn�t killing (or murder, which is merely a legal definition) because it is all done �according to the law�, I�d remind them that the Nazis did everything they did �according to the law�. The Nazis, for all their terrible deeds, were sticklers for following the law; they found their refuge in the law, meticulously following the letter of the law before they enslaved and/or executed their victims. �We were just following the law� is a lame excuse when you are the one writing the laws in the first instance. ...�

In prisons, he writes, time merges into a long, seamless monotony broken up by periodic and often explosive acts of tragedy and violence�an execution or death, a stabbing with a �shank,� beatings by the guards, mental breakdowns, rape and suicide.

�The search team came and tore up my cell last week,� he wrote in January 2012. �It was a surgical strike (they came for me alone) and I was later told that �someone� wrote a snitch kite on me claiming (falsely) I had a weapon in my cell. I�m fairly certain it was someone trying to get a DR (disciplinary report) dismissed by dropping a dime on me on the hope they’d shake me down and find something, any kind of contraband, and the rat would then get credit for it. But I had no contraband so the snitch struck out. If the administration had any integrity they�d write the rat a DR for �lying to staff.� I spent several hours putting my cell back in order; it looked like a hurricane came through, all my property scattered everywhere. This is the kind of bullshit you have to put up with in prison; it�s the nature of the beast. Hell, it happens on the streets, too, though. Informants are master manipulators and the police routinely play their game even though they know the rats often fabricate stories and evidence to their own ends. ...�

He wrote earlier this year about the rapid decline of another prisoner, Tom, who �just 4 months ago had a hale and hardy soul and �now [is] a mere envelope of cancer-gnawed flesh and bones.� He �was removed from his cell by wheelchair, too weak to offer anything but meager protest, and transferred to the one place he dreaded going to, our notoriously filthy, blood spattered clinic holding cell, consigned to die in pain-soaked isolation. The image of him, barely able to croak a few words, weakly waving goodbye to me, his sunken, lingering eyes reflecting his recognition that he was going to his death, will forever be imprinted on my memory.�

�I confess that it is tiring to be surrounded by so much death�the dead and yet-to-be-dead�these past two decades, a struggle not [to] be drenched in negativity, with precious little to mitigate my disappointments,� he wrote. �Each day requires an act of will to wake up and set myself with a purpose, to believe this mortal life is more than just a play of shadows in a shadow box. ...�
�My old pal Tom died on Friday, Feb 8th at 4:10 pm, alone in the clinic isolation cell at UCI,� he wrote to his sister a little later. �I hate that he died alone, locked in a tiny cell with no property (no radio, TV or anything to occupy his mind) and nobody to converse with, just laying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, waiting for his final escape. His loved ones, who were able to travel from Texas and North Carolina to visit him for three hours just two days before he passed away wrote and told me that he was very weak and gaunt, could not keep down any food or liquids, but was lucid enough for a meaningful visit, though just barely so. Although I know his death was inevitable and imminent, I�m surprised at how much it has affected me. I�ve seen an awful lot of death during my many years in prison (way too much death, in all its myriad variations), including some friends, but Tom�s has knocked the wind out of me. I still catch myself starting to call over to him when I read something interesting or see something on TV that would pique his interest, and I sometimes swear I hear his voice calling me. A part of me is happy for him because I know he�s finally free, but I can�t lie; I really miss him.�

# ? May 14, 2013 06:06

empty whippet box: Jun 9, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

gently caress me that was hard to read. gently caress everyone who thinks this system is a good thing.

# ? May 14, 2013 08:31

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Warchicken posted:

gently caress me that was hard to read. gently caress everyone who thinks this system is a good thing.

This is why pretty much every harsh punishment advocate will dehumanize them first. They're felons, convicts, dangerous, scum, etc but never humans.

# ? May 16, 2013 06:55

Son of Emhak: Sep 11, 2005; We say there's no parting for us, if our hearts are conveyed to each other.

My proxy experience with the parole system. I've been working at Wendy's for a year and a half now, one of my co-workers was an offender who committed his crime about ten years ago. He was forced to quit by some terms of his parole officer, and now he shows up at the store to keep in touch, and when I ask him how looking for other work is, he mentions how the question comes up 'Why did you leave your previous job?' when in interviews.

This seems incredibly hosed up to me. This man already had a job, but just because his PO decided he 'needs to move on', now he is out of work in a cutthroat job market, having to tell potential employers, 'Well my parole officer said so.' This seems like a deliberate move to sabotage his job prospects, and it pisses me off to no end.

# ? May 16, 2013 08:37

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Why did his parole officer do that?

# ? May 16, 2013 09:56

Son of Emhak: Sep 11, 2005; We say there's no parting for us, if our hearts are conveyed to each other.

I have not pried into the details, it's not something I feel comfortable pushing someone talk about. Apparently it was supposed to kick in earlier, but he was able to forestall it until the middle of March.

# ? May 16, 2013 13:19

Radbot: Aug 12, 2009; Can't post for 3 years!

Powercrazy posted:

This is only surprising to people who engage in tribalism.

Eh, I don't think so. If you look at many aspects of California law as they regard the poor (eligibility for SNAP benefits and tenant protection laws to name two significant ones) California is significantly more poor-friendly than, say, a state like Texas which asset tests for SNAP benefits, does not have a SNAP-like program for undocumented immigrants, and has virtually no protection for renters. Other aspects like the police and prison system are likely equally as bad in both states.

# ? May 16, 2013 15:31

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

A.S.H. posted:

I have not pried into the details, it's not something I feel comfortable pushing someone talk about. Apparently it was supposed to kick in earlier, but he was able to forestall it until the middle of March.

My wife works with parole officers (in county mental health services for offenders) and this is something she's never heard of. Apparently in her experience parole officers aren't even supposed to make you take any time off work to do parole-related stuff, let alone quit a job. Can anyone else's experience shed some light on what might have happened here?

EDIT: I could understand if some aspect of the job violated the terms of parole/probation, like the crime was DWI or something else alcohol-related and the person worked at a place that served alcohol, or maybe if a job required travel that was outside the supervisory area. But "it's time to move on" just seems so arbitrary.

Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 16:53 on May 16, 2013

# ? May 16, 2013 16:49

joat mon: Oct 15, 2009; I am the master of my lamp;
I am the captain of my tub.

BatteredFeltFedora posted:

My wife works with parole officers (in county mental health services for offenders) and this is something she's never heard of. Apparently in her experience parole officers aren't even supposed to make you take any time off work to do parole-related stuff, let alone quit a job. Can anyone else's experience shed some light on what might have happened here?

He had a positive uninalysis and told his PO he was using with or buying from folks from work?
He was in a welfare-to-work subsidised wage program and and the time/money ran out and Wendy's didn't want to be responsible for 100% of his pay?
Kinda stretching for these...

# ? May 16, 2013 17:03

ate shit on live tv: Feb 15, 2004; by Azathoth

Radbot posted:

Eh, I don't think so. If you look at many aspects of California law as they regard the poor (eligibility for SNAP benefits and tenant protection laws to name two significant ones) California is significantly more poor-friendly than, say, a state like Texas which asset tests for SNAP benefits, does not have a SNAP-like program for undocumented immigrants, and has virtually no protection for renters. Other aspects like the police and prison system are likely equally as bad in both states.

The point is painting with a broad brush and saying "the south is so bad" or "america is so bad" or "new york is so bad" is obfuscating the details with the intent to blind yourself and not have to acknowledge systemic problems. New York is considered one of the best ciites, and yet the NYPD has a huge number of problems in fact they are often ranked as one of the worst departments in the country.

Brushing that off and saying "But New York is so great" or "But Florida is so much worse" is stupid, even if the claim is technically true. Texas is great for Gun Rights for example, whereas New York State has a "states rights" chip on it's shoulder.

# ? May 16, 2013 18:48

Son of Emhak: Sep 11, 2005; We say there's no parting for us, if our hearts are conveyed to each other.

As he has reported it, his crime was that he was 22 and he hooked up with a 15 year old girl, that was 10 years ago. I've said this before but some woman with her young daughter completely flipped out when she saw him one time in the store on a day when he wasn't scheduled, apparently she was a watch dog who scans the Sex Offender registries. Suffice to say, I really want to tell that lady, 'He's paid for his mistake, I don't think he wants to hurt your daughter.'. Of course that's just how we label people for their crimes, it's like living on Koholint Island in Link's Awakening. You steal one stupid shovel and you're THIEF for life.

# ? May 17, 2013 09:48

Crazyeyes: Nov 5, 2009; If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.

BatteredFeltFedora posted:

My wife works with parole officers (in county mental health services for offenders) and this is something she's never heard of. Apparently in her experience parole officers aren't even supposed to make you take any time off work to do parole-related stuff, let alone quit a job. Can anyone else's experience shed some light on what might have happened here?

EDIT: I could understand if some aspect of the job violated the terms of parole/probation, like the crime was DWI or something else alcohol-related and the person worked at a place that served alcohol, or maybe if a job required travel that was outside the supervisory area. But "it's time to move on" just seems so arbitrary.

I have had cops showing up to my house looking for my brother because he missed meetings with his parole officer. Luckily my brother was smart enough to keep the government stationary showing that he got the notifications as much as a week after the scheduled meeting time. His PO basically got lazy and didn't send them out until after the fact in a fairly transparent attempt to screw my brother and lighten his workload. He as also forced him to quit jobs he has and, when my brother tried to take some classes at the local community college, his PO "coincidentally" scheduled meetings when he had classes.

Luckily he has since them gotten a new PO, but it has really left a lasting impression on our whole family as far as our dealings with the legal system (Not to mention all the other awful things they did to him for no apparent reason beyond spite)

# ? May 17, 2013 17:02

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

I think the best way to understand this sort of situation is to assume that the system is set up for people that end up in it to fail. Once you get in there is no getting out. Ever. No bettering yourself, no getting promotions, no going to school. You're treated as bottom rung filth your whole life and god loving drat it you will stay there.

# ? May 23, 2013 17:00

Oddhair: Mar 21, 2004

I have a friend who's an ex-con, and his PO is at least decent. His ex started calling his PO alleging he was drinking, drinking and driving, possessing firearms, etc. Luckily she's not crafty or cunning at all, so she calls his PO while he's meeting with his PO alleging these things. She also violates the poo poo out of his restraining order, diving by and yelling poo poo while he stands in the driveway filming her and reminding her of the 500' minimum. If he had a PO that wanted to see his rear end back inside, I don't doubt it could happen quickly.

# ? May 23, 2013 18:07

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

My friend's brother is an ex-con, and with the help of his brother trying to get his life back together. It's really sad how carefully he has to tiptoe around things. There's a weekly wine-tasting thing at a local grocery store we go to, and the brother came along for a chance to socialize and learn how to handle interaction. He couldn't actually drink the wine though, which I can only assume was because it violated parole, or he was afraid of losing control :smith:

He said he had a fun time though, and was amazed at the amount of food around. He's been working at a construction job and saving money, and since he's living with his brother until he saves enough for his own apartment he's out of the town that got him into a criminal lifestyle :unsmith:

# ? May 24, 2013 02:39

anglachel: May 28, 2012

VideoTapir posted:

Why did his parole officer do that?

As a probation officer (and I'm also a certified parole officer). The ONLY reason we tell people to leave a job is because there is alot of drug dealers AND that person has issues with drugs. (I'll let a guy on say Aggravated Assault charges work at a place with alot of drug users, though I'm not really supposed too) In my experience food service employees often use drug sales to help supplement their income, or use drugs because hell they work food service for a living.'

But even then I'd try to give the guy time to line something else first before making him quit.

# ? Jun 3, 2013 16:29

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

So basically, the kinds of jobs that would be most likely to hire a parolee, may be ones where they aren't allowed to work.

# ? Jun 4, 2013 09:02

anglachel: May 28, 2012

VideoTapir posted:

So basically, the kinds of jobs that would be most likely to hire a parolee, may be ones where they aren't allowed to work.

No. There are jobs out there who are willing to overlook it. Hell I just placed a guy who is now going to make as much money as me. Trade skills will often not care. The guy is now going to be an apprentice plumber in a union after doing 5 years in prison. But to be honest, most officers don't give a poo poo. I just decided I can't morally require people to pay money if I don't at least point them in the direction of a job.

The biggest hurdle is that people don't know where to look for jobs that might hire felons in my experience.

# ? Jun 4, 2013 16:17

PyRosflam: Aug 11, 2007; The good, The bad, Im the one with the gun.

anglachel posted:

No. There are jobs out there who are willing to overlook it. Hell I just placed a guy who is now going to make as much money as me. Trade skills will often not care. The guy is now going to be an apprentice plumber in a union after doing 5 years in prison. But to be honest, most officers don't give a poo poo. I just decided I can't morally require people to pay money if I don't at least point them in the direction of a job.

The biggest hurdle is that people don't know where to look for jobs that might hire felons in my experience.

I had an ethics class talk about this, and it was pointed out:

what is the likelihood of a girl with a single count of theft vs a girl who has never been found guilty of theft to steal from me?

Response: There is no statistical likelihood for the convicted thief vs the girl who's never been caught stealing to pick one over the other. In short, this bit of information is more or less worthless unless we make it out to something its not.

As such I tend to not care about this anymore, both people are just as likely to steal from me absent any additional information.

# ? Jun 4, 2013 17:20

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

PyRosflam posted:

Response: There is no statistical likelihood for the convicted thief vs the girl who's never been caught stealing to pick one over the other. In short, this bit of information is more or less worthless unless we make it out to something its not.

Uh, what statistics are you working off of there?

# ? Jun 4, 2013 17:33

klen dool: May 7, 2007; Okay well me being wrong in some limited situations doesn't change my overall point.

anglachel posted:

No. There are jobs out there who are willing to overlook it. Hell I just placed a guy who is now going to make as much money as me. Trade skills will often not care. The guy is now going to be an apprentice plumber in a union after doing 5 years in prison. But to be honest, most officers don't give a poo poo. I just decided I can't morally require people to pay money if I don't at least point them in the direction of a job.

The biggest hurdle is that people don't know where to look for jobs that might hire felons in my experience.

What do you mean by "pay money"?

# ? Jun 5, 2013 02:17

Gourd of Taste: Sep 11, 2006; by Ralp

klen dool posted:

What do you mean by "pay money"?

Do you not know about supervision costs? People pay to be on parole.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 02:22

Zeitgueist: Aug 8, 2003; by Ralp

Gourd of Taste posted:

Do you not know about supervision costs? People pay to be on parole.

We like to make it as certain as possible that crime will be one of the few realistic options available to you once you've been inside.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 03:15

ate shit on live tv: Feb 15, 2004; by Azathoth

Zeitgueist posted:

We like to make it as certain as possible that crime will be one of the few realistic options available to you once you've been inside.

While I agree I'm not sure how apt an analogy that is...

# ? Jun 5, 2013 03:20

Zeitgueist: Aug 8, 2003; by Ralp

What analogy?

# ? Jun 5, 2013 03:35

MechPlasma: Jan 30, 2013

PyRosflam posted:

I had an ethics class talk about this, and it was pointed out:

what is the likelihood of a girl with a single count of theft vs a girl who has never been found guilty of theft to steal from me?

Response: There is no statistical likelihood for the convicted thief vs the girl who's never been caught stealing to pick one over the other. In short, this bit of information is more or less worthless unless we make it out to something its not.

As such I tend to not care about this anymore, both people are just as likely to steal from me absent any additional information.

That must be a pretty ground-breaking study, if you can show me the actual source. I mean, I was always raised to think that a thief is more likely to steal from you than a presumably normal person.

MechPlasma fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jun 5, 2013

# ? Jun 5, 2013 11:27

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

MechPlasma posted:

That must be a pretty ground-breaking study, if you can show me the actual source. I mean, I was always raised to think that a thief is more likely to steal from you than a presumably normal person.

I'd hazard a guess and say that in like 95% of the cases the difference between a thief and a presumably normal person is that the thief got caught.

Opportunity makes the thief, after all.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 11:51

Amarkov: Jun 21, 2010

MechPlasma posted:

That must be a pretty ground-breaking study, if you can show me the actual source. I mean, I was always raised to think that a thief is more likely to steal from you than a presumably normal person.

I suspect that the ethics class was comparing the 5% recidivism rate of shoplifters to the 9% incidence rate of shoplifting. (These aren't actually comparable; the first one is subsequent convictions, while the first is raw incidence.)

Having said that, it's really lovely to try and claim that "thief" and "normal person" are mutually exclusive categories. Criminals are not some horrid unknowable other.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 12:06

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Amarkov posted:

Having said that, it's really lovely to try and claim that "thief" and "normal person" are mutually exclusive categories. Criminals are not some horrid unknowable other.

lovely but extremely common.

And when you increase the level of abstraction, going from "thief" to "criminal," that other automatically becomes the worst item in that larger category. If you talk about a prison full of 900 thieves and 100 murderers, people will think about it in those terms. If you say "1000 criminals," they're thinking "1000 murderers."

This goes double for sex offenders.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 12:13

Billy Idle: Sep 26, 2009

anglachel posted:

No. There are jobs out there who are willing to overlook it. Hell I just placed a guy who is now going to make as much money as me. Trade skills will often not care. The guy is now going to be an apprentice plumber in a union after doing 5 years in prison. But to be honest, most officers don't give a poo poo. I just decided I can't morally require people to pay money if I don't at least point them in the direction of a job.

The biggest hurdle is that people don't know where to look for jobs that might hire felons in my experience.

Are there really so many high-paying jobs that are willing to hire felons that working food service won't be the best option for many of them? I mean the only alternative is to find a minimum wage job that isn't food service, but why would people in that job be less likely to use drugs if the pay is the same?

In my personal experience it didn't seem to me that drug use was significantly more common among my minimum wage co-workers than among the general population, but that doesn't mean anything, of course.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 12:22

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Billy Idle posted:

Are there really so many high-paying jobs that are willing to hire felons that working food service won't be the best option for many of them? I mean the only alternative is to find a minimum wage job that isn't food service, but why would people in that job be less likely to use drugs if the pay is the same?

He said a lot of food service workers are dealing. It is a particularly well-suited industry to that. Lots of public contact and lots of legitimate transactions to cover for drug transactions. You'd never spot the drug dealer just by watching him from a distance.

That'd be my guess.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 12:26

Megillah Gorilla: Sep 22, 2003; If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.; Bread Liar

Gourd of Taste posted:

Do you not know about supervision costs? People pay to be on parole.

Unless you live in a civilised country.

Paying to be on parole is a loving monstrous idea. Is there any country besides the US that forces people to do this?

# ? Jun 5, 2013 14:37

Radbot: Aug 12, 2009; Can't post for 3 years!

I wonder about the rate of parolees that get minimum wage foodservice jobs versus those that become skilled tradesmen, just considering the difficulty of getting an apprenticeship these days.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 15:24

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

VideoTapir posted:

He said a lot of food service workers are dealing. It is a particularly well-suited industry to that. Lots of public contact and lots of legitimate transactions to cover for drug transactions. You'd never spot the drug dealer just by watching him from a distance.

That'd be my guess.

It's a mix of things but that's certainly part of it. The other part of it is that a lot of food service workers are USING and don't make enough to pay for their habits. Food service is a loving terrible job almost universally and you spend your time getting yelled at, talked down to, belittled, abused, mistreated, and you get paid nothing for it. You end up spending time working off the clock, it's stressful as hell, and management will hold your job (and your livelihood) hostage for petty reasons. Upper management will sometimes walk through the store and randomly fire somebody for no readily apparent reason. Some people have trouble keeping up with the pace so they start doing stimulants. Restaurants also often don't drug test new employees. The turnover rate is often pretty high so they don't. So, of course, you get a lot of drug users that can't find jobs anywhere else because they would never, ever pass a drug test. With that, of course, comes drug dealer contacts at the very least. It's pretty easy to get drugs if you know a guy that knows a guy.

Which is, of course, another reason that food service folks end up dealing. If you're the guy that knows the guy then employees and their friends are going to come to you. Restaurant employee friends are also generally in pretty terrible situations and want a way out. And hey, you can score, right? Me and some buddies are having a party this weekend, can you get me some [insert drug here]? Thanks, brah.

Gorilla Salad posted:

Unless you live in a civilised country.

Paying to be on parole is a loving monstrous idea. Is there any country besides the US that forces people to do this?

The American criminal justice system is literally set up to force you to fail. Like people don't have a chance. You get that scarlet letter of "I was in jail once" which makes it harder for you to find a job at all let alone a good one. There are a bunch of offenses (drug ones, mostly) that make you ineligible to get student loans, which of course means no education. No education, no skills, no good jobs. Sometimes you get restrictions on your activities after you get out on parole that are so vague there is no way to NOT violate them.

Sometimes you get restrictions on when you are and are not allowed to be out. This is most severe in house arrest but I used to work with a guy that was on something between parole and house arrest. He had a single drug offense and was in the system for years because of it (as an aside, he was Hispanic). He managed to get a job in a restaurant which barely paid what he was required to pay in court fees, parole, and for his ankle bracelet. Went back to living with his parents. He'd have been homeless otherwise. Now, as we all know, restaurant schedules are an approximation. If you close sometimes you get out at 11, sometimes 1. That's just how it is. His parole officer was demanding to know EXACTLY when he would get out every day and said that under absolutely no circumstances was he supposed to be out past 11. Get home by 11 or go to jail. End of story. He ended up quitting the job, couldn't pay what he owed, and went to jail.

The system set him up for a "go to jail, or go to jail kind of later" situation. Really was a false choice.

ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Jun 5, 2013

# ? Jun 5, 2013 16:28

PyRosflam: Aug 11, 2007; The good, The bad, Im the one with the gun.

Amarkov posted:

I suspect that the ethics class was comparing the 5% recidivism rate of shoplifters to the 9% incidence rate of shoplifting. (These aren't actually comparable; the first one is subsequent convictions, while the first is raw incidence.)

Having said that, it's really lovely to try and claim that "thief" and "normal person" are mutually exclusive categories. Criminals are not some horrid unknowable other.

That is more or less on the money,

It basically came down to this, if the job includes the opportunity to steal, and you are unwilling to pay enough that the theft would just be dumb, the convicted thief and the total unknown person have more or less the same likelihood to steal from me. This is mostly called into terms at places that pay min wage. Shoplifting is the same and internal employee theft at places like Walmart are actually calculated into the cost of business.

So from a hiring perspective the label of thief is meaningless, both employees are considered potential thieves, its just that one was caught.

As such, if a convicted criminal wants a job from me, and can do the job I need of them (Programming for example) I more or less ignore the conviction so long as I am told ahead of time that it will show up on the background check. (with in reason of course)

# ? Jun 5, 2013 16:46

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# ? May 28, 2024 08:11

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Don't forget that programs within prison to teach trades and skills have been closed so there's no real training going on in prison.

# ? Jun 5, 2013 16:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Prison Thread

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