|
MechPlasma posted:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10165360/All-prison-places-for-teenage-girls-axed-to-save-money.html I don't see how this is minor sexism, holy poo poo. That's blatantly saying that they don't consider boys who commit crime capable of being reintegrated into society.
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 12:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 22:33 |
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:I don't see how this is minor sexism, holy poo poo. That's blatantly saying that they don't consider boys who commit crime capable of being reintegrated into society. I say minor but it could be major. I don't know how many "young men"'s places are left, I'm just presuming it's low.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 15:32
|
|
|
What is a "secure training centre?" It certainly doesn't sound a whole lot better than a prison, but I could be wrong.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 15:41
|
|
PT6A posted:What is a "secure training centre?" It certainly doesn't sound a whole lot better than a prison, but I could be wrong.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 15:45
|
|
|
MechPlasma posted:The title's very misleading. As the article says, "More than 300 places for young men [7.5 times that of the women's] at two prisons are also to be scrapped".
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 15:46
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:Women make up less than 5% of the prison population of England and Wales, so assuming that scales for young offenders and places available (which is a large assumption) they'd have to cut the places for young men by 19x, not just 7.5x. Could it also be that men are committing the majority of the most serious crimes, like murder and rape, especially as juveniles? I see your point, I'm just trying to play Devil's Advocate and try to come up with an explanation which doesn't involve blatant sexism.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 15:52
|
|
|
There is undoubtedly a massive gender bias in the British justice system (in addition to that of many other countries). That 5% figure (for all offenders, not just juveniles) comes not just from the number of serious crimes committed by gender, but also the discrepancies in the likelihood of being reported, arrested, charged, prosecuted, found guilty, and given custodial sentence by gender. I'm not sure whether to call it sexism though, because that wanders into the territory of blaming a secret cabal of evil feminists for the discrepancy. It seems more like a the system using old stereotypes that men and boys are either mindless brutes or calculating agents (or both at the same time) while women and girls are helpless victims, and playing that to poo poo on a bunch of largely poor and minority men. Black people are overrepresented 4.5x in the prison population of England and Wales, that undoubtedly gets even larger when gender is factored in. I can't find a breakdown by socioeconomic class, but only 3% of the prison population has a university/college degree, 64% had received some form of welfare or unemployment benefits in the previous 12 months, and 35% have some form of disability. Ukip leader Nigel Farage provides us with an excellent example of taking the wrong thing from this though, implying that the solution is to punish both male and female offenders more harshly, instead of reducing both the gender bias and looking at outcome based solutions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 16:22
|
|
|
It sounds like they're cutting back on imprisoning young people (or at least cutting back on calling it that, but let's give the "secure training centres" the benefit of the doubt) generally. Sure, they could cut the same percentage of men's and women's spots, but from the sounds of it, that would result in cutting back the capacity for women to the extent that maintaining the infrastructure just isn't worth it for whatever small number would remain. They're getting rid of the women's part of juvenile prisons altogether to save on overhead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 16:47
|
|
|
Well if Nigel is against it then there's a pretty good chance it's a humane policy but prisons are complicated so I looked a little deeper. Secure training centres are privately operated so it's basically just a way of lowering apparent public cost of maintaining prison units but really just transferring money to the private sector. Of course since they're now being kept with people closer to their age and with staff more used to dealing with that age group, as well as offering more tailored services to their need there is a slight chance of improving outcomes with this move. Time will tell I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 20:00
|
|
|
As a reminder, Guantanomo inmates are still being forcefed. Yasiin Bey(formerly Mos Def) has allowed himself to have this done to him to raise awareness to the issue. Be warned, the video is graphic: http://gawker.com/mos-def-undergoes-horrifying-guantanamo-force-feeding-p-705432085 Apologies for Gawker, but it has a bunch of useful links in there so I'll just link to them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 20:45
|
|
|
More atrocities against the subhuman scum known as prisoners! Yay! 
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 21:25
|
|
|
Speaking of hunger strikes... http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-ff-california-prison-officials-acknowledge-hunger-strike-20130708,0,3234974.story LA times posted:California prison officials say 30,000 inmates refuse meals Oh and don't read the comments
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2013 04:47
|
|
|
^^^^ Wow. I'm not a fan of the isolation/segregation that is indefinite, I wonder what will come of this? My uncle is in prison in Virginia and is in a somewhat unique situation, along with a number of fellow inmates. Before Virginia got rid of the 3 strikes/parole - just before - there were a number of people sentenced in ways that would enable them to be paroled. The laws then changed and these guys, supposed to be grandfathered in, had their parole removed and the DOC has said they're able to look at indictments and modify sentencing from that. For instance, if a person commits 3 crimes, 2 of which are eligible for '3 strikes' and 1 that isn't, the DOC has said they can classify all 3 as falling under that and remove parole eligibility. There were a few high profile cases of people with access to more money or publicized cases where they were released or had things overturned, but there are many more in there with no recourse. I've tried to find attorneys to represent him and they've said it will cost ~25k to get him released. I had heard stories, but until I was immediately affected like this, I had never realized how crazy it is and had never had any insight into really how this ruins peoples lives at the whims of people who never have to interact with the system.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2013 14:57
|
|
|
Solaron posted:My uncle is in prison in Virginia and is in a somewhat unique situation, along with a number of fellow inmates. Before Virginia got rid of the 3 strikes/parole - just before - there were a number of people sentenced in ways that would enable them to be paroled. The laws then changed and these guys, supposed to be grandfathered in, had their parole removed and the DOC has said they're able to look at indictments and modify sentencing from that. Interesting - this is my first post in this thread, but my Uncle is also in prison in Virginia, doing the maximum sentence due to the "three strikes" thing. It kind of drives me crazy that he's ineligible for parole ever, when he's only scared people (armed robbery) but someone else can rape and murder a person and then eventually get out. He's 50 now and has been in for the vast majority of his adult life. Last time he went in (for good) was '93 or so. He's recently reached out to me to get in touch again, and it's made me more aware of the general prison situation and wanting to know more.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2013 17:51
|
|
|
Transistor Rhythm posted:Interesting - this is my first post in this thread, but my Uncle is also in prison in Virginia, doing the maximum sentence due to the "three strikes" thing. It kind of drives me crazy that he's ineligible for parole ever, when he's only scared people (armed robbery) but someone else can rape and murder a person and then eventually get out. He's 50 now and has been in for the vast majority of his adult life. Last time he went in (for good) was '93 or so. He's recently reached out to me to get in touch again, and it's made me more aware of the general prison situation and wanting to know more. Very interesting - haven't met anyone else in a similar situation as me. I've met a few other inmates when I visited him who were also in the same boat as him, but no family or anything. How much longer does he have? My uncle has another 12 years before he gets out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2013 18:17
|
|
|
Some heartening news from VA: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime/article/In-Va-bid-to-restore-rights-to-nonviolent-felons-4666182.php quote:RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The door opened Monday for tens of thousands of nonviolent felons in Virginia to regain the right to vote, with state officials outlining the steps each will have to take to recapture their basic civil rights. Interesting to see this from a Republican governor in Virginia of all places. Anyone familiar with the politics of this?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2013 20:52
|
|
|
Killmaster posted:Some heartening news from VA: Nice. A good start.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2013 21:59
|
|
|
Solaron posted:Very interesting - haven't met anyone else in a similar situation as me. I've met a few other inmates when I visited him who were also in the same boat as him, but no family or anything. I'm not up on his current numbers - we've been out of touch for about 10 years - but last I heard it was something like 40+ years remaining, which feels absurd.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2013 22:33
|
|
|
It's going to take so loving long for humans to treat other humans like humans. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2013 22:41
|
|
|
I never got why most places don't give former criminals back their voting rights. If you're taking an approach that anyone can become reformed, and you want to encourage reformation as much as possible, then why prevent them from having basic civil rights? That's not going to make people feel welcomed back to society at all!Imapanda posted:It's going to take so loving long for humans to treat other humans like humans. Except for those few "Can't let an innocent person die to save yourself" laws. I get the concept, to make people try save everyone even if they don't see a solution right away, but that just isn't what people will do in that situation. (Actually, do those laws still exist? I remember the US having them a good while ago, but I haven't heard of anyone getting affected by one in recent years.) MechPlasma fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jul 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 21:21
|
|
|
MechPlasma posted:I never got why most places don't give former criminals back their voting rights. If you're taking an approach that anyone can become reformed, and you want to encourage reformation as much as possible, then why prevent them from having basic civil rights? That's not going to make people feel welcomed back to society at all! At least in the US, there has never existed a law that requires a person to risk their own death to save another. In general, in the US, there is NO legal duty to do ANYTHING for someone else. (in the absence of a specific duty of greater care, like parent/child) The closest 'law' in the US to what you quoted is that you can't commit murder to save yourself. (Which itself is an exception to an exception - There is something called a necessity defense, where one in essence says, "I'm not guilty of this lesser crime because I was compelled to commit the crime to avert a worse crime by someone else." You can't use a necessity defense for murder, because murder is already the greater crime)
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 22:01
|
|
|
Imapanda posted:It's going to take so loving long for humans to treat other humans like humans. Fun fact: because of how your brain works you can have a pretty limited number of people that you think of as actual people. People that are outside of that circle don't register as PEOPLE they register as THINGS. If you dehumanize an entire group or category of people enough your brain has about the same response to mistreating them as you would smashing a rock. This is what makes war possible but also makes a lot of people feel like real assholes after the fact. America has done a really good job of dehumanizing the poo poo out of criminals to the point that you have people advocating literal torture for anybody that's in jail at all for any reason. Things are not people. Things do not have family. Things do not have friends. They are things. Totally inanimate, no feelings, no wants, no needs. Just things to be used and discarded when no longer useful. They are beneath your consideration. It can take a lot to make somebody realize that all people are just that; people. It isn't prison-related but a very interesting story I heard came from a WW2 vet that was fighting in the Pacific theater. The guy killed a Japanese soldier and was so extremely proud of his first kill that he ran over to the still warm corpse and started rifling through pockets looking for a trophy. He found the guy's wallet and thought to himself "yeah, I'll even get money!" He found his trophy, all right. The first thing he saw when he opened the wallet was a photograph of the guy with his wife and children. It's one of the things that can lead to some nasty brutality in the system too. A police officer that becomes convinced that all people that are NOT law enforcement people are inferior scum that are all guilty of SOMETHING is going to view the world as divided between "people in police uniforms" and "things that get punished." It's certainly possible to have some level of compassion for strangers and an understanding that people you don't know are still people. The problem is that takes effort and the brain isn't necessarily wired exactly that way. It's kind of a thing that's learned. Pretty sure the entirety of human history is a good indicator of that, as are how laws came into place in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 16:28
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Fun fact: because of how your brain works you can have a pretty limited number of people that you think of as actual people. People that are outside of that circle don't register as PEOPLE they register as THINGS. If you dehumanize an entire group or category of people enough your brain has about the same response to mistreating them as you would smashing a rock. This is what makes war possible but also makes a lot of people feel like real assholes after the fact. America has done a really good job of dehumanizing the poo poo out of criminals to the point that you have people advocating literal torture for anybody that's in jail at all for any reason. Cracked has a surprisingly good explanation of this process - What is the Monkeysphere? (Based on Dunbar's number)
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 17:35
|
|
|
If you actually believe that all people are created equal, that no one deserves to be tortured and murdered, combine it with knowledge of all the horrible injustices and atrocities in this evil world, you can start to go crazy. But giving a drat is the first step towards fixing things, including the abuses suffered by prisoners, those we are trained to think of as the lowest members of any society. Having a friend or family member ruined by the brutal and uncaring prison system (as HidingFromGoro has explained in fascinating and revolting detail over the years) can go a long way towards humanizing the victims of the Machine.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 19:01
|
|
|
Seeing as most of these are privately own prisons, there is a lot of work done to dehumanize prisoners and actually pushing them have a higher chance of getting put back in. There will never be any change so long as people are making money from other people getting locked up, its modern day slavery.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 23:03
|
|
|
Zezary posted:Seeing as most of these are privately own prisons, there is a lot of work done to dehumanize prisoners and actually pushing them have a higher chance of getting put back in. There will never be any change so long as people are making money from other people getting locked up, its modern day slavery. It's in fact worse than slavery in some ways. Slaveowners only benefit from the labour of the enslaved; private prisons also get paid by the government to imprison people, in addition to making money off their labour. The main improvement is that you can theoretically get out of prison, and the guards can't legally whip or beat you.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 00:33
|
|
|
Zezary posted:Seeing as most of these are privately own prisons, Zezary posted:Seeing as most of these are privately own prisons, there is a lot of work done to dehumanize prisoners and actually pushing them have a higher chance of getting put back in.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 05:02
|
|
|
Zezary posted:Seeing as most of these are privately own prisons, there is a lot of work done to dehumanize prisoners and actually pushing them have a higher chance of getting put back in. There will never be any change so long as people are making money from other people getting locked up, its modern day slavery. If you want to talk bullshit it's probably a good idea to back it up with facts. Most prisons aren't privately owned. They are owned by the state. The real problem is the Sheriff's and the jails. Jails are the ones who get the sweet checks for body counts and manipulate the system to keep the bodies in. Prisons for the most part just need a critical mass of bodies and don't care once they get that and WANT people out. Afterall most prisons are way overcrowded as is. It's the local county Sheriff who has to justify running his very expensive jail in what may be a county of only tens of thousands of people. Not the Wardens of most general population prisons. I hate private prisons, the people who work there are idiots and scum. Think about how easy Correctional Officer Academy has to be, now realize that people FAIL IT, 95 percent of the academic fails were private prison people. (about 20 percent of people fail overall, but that's cause of firearms) Fun fact! Prisons are actually getting tons of college grads and pretty good ex military due to the poo poo economy. So maybe things will slightly improve with a higher quality of people? Of course the impact of that will take decades to kick in. And that would require these qualified people to stay in the Prison system and not get out ASAP which gently caress is what I did and anybody worth a poo poo did. People who wanted to stay were kind of hosed up in head in my experience.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 15:53
|
|
|
anglachel posted:Fun fact! Prisons are actually getting tons of college grads and pretty good ex military due to the poo poo economy. So maybe things will slightly improve with a higher quality of people? Of course the impact of that will take decades to kick in. Memo grammar will improve and more creative euphemisms for prisoner death will be discovered. I'm guessing that will be about the extent of the effects.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 15:58
|
|
|
SedanChair posted:Memo grammar will improve and more creative euphemisms for prisoner death will be discovered. I'm guessing that will be about the extent of the effects. I found this one last week: After being taken to crisis, [client] continued to verbally threaten security. As they were trying to verbally de-escalate [client] he told them ..." "crisis" = solitary confinement "verbally de-escalate" = SHUTTHEFUCKUP SHUTTHEFUCKUP
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 16:13
|
|
|
anglachel posted:Fun fact! Prisons are actually getting tons of college grads and pretty good ex military due to the poo poo economy. So maybe things will slightly improve with a higher quality of people? Of course the impact of that will take decades to kick in. And that would require these qualified people to stay in the Prison system and not get out ASAP which gently caress is what I did and anybody worth a poo poo did. People who wanted to stay were kind of hosed up in head in my experience. Yeah about that bolded bit, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 16:15
|
|
|
LP97S posted:Yeah about that bolded bit, I wouldn't get your hopes up. It's cool how you can cite Pysch 101 stuff from college with no real world experience about what things are like to back it up. The experiment is fatally flawed when it comes to actually modeling how the guard/prisoner interactions works in prison for most people who have to assume the guard role. The big flaw is that it assumes 1 guard for every 1 prisoner. That's not how it works. It's 1 guard for about oh every 100 prisoners. And the guard will typically be unarmed except for a radio. And the prisoners? Armed with shanks, some make loving swords (yes you read that correctly). If you don't see how that creates a vastly different power dynamic than what was in the Stanford Prison Experiment I don't know I can help your reasoning skills. But to break it down. The CO/Inmate relationship is that the Correctional Officer only has as much power as the inmates allow him/her to have. The CO has the power of retribution on his side, but can't actually do anything immediate. Furthermore the power of retribution has to be used sparingly, because the CO looks bad if it is seen that he can't control the unit on his own. This creates a kind of negotiaed position with the prisoners where it will be understood that certain things will be overlooked (such as trading commissary good or gambling with them) and in return the inmates make sure the building is clean for inspection and won't perform any egregious acts in front of the Officer. And if the entire building units bucks on the CO (which DOES happen if the guards act like the kids in the Stanford Prison experiment did) well that's gonna fall on the CO for losing control. The inmates might get punished, but collective punishments on 100 people at once is hard. There's not that much room in Solitary. They might take away the TV, search their rooms for contraband, whatever, but to most inmates undermining and making what they feel is a problematic CO go away is a reasonable compromise. The idea of "guards beating the poo poo out of inmates" is a bit overblown. It does happen. But it's nowhere near a regular occurrence. I've seen prisoners curse out Wardens and only get solitary, and the most egregious example I can think of for a beating was when a prisoner spit on a Captain, and that Captain had his personal goon squad beat the poo poo out of the guy. Good squad all got demoted and Captain got fired. Oh also all Investigators would come to the prison all the time checking on allegations of abuse. And people did get pay reductions, demotions, and get fired occasionally for what happened. I think it's telling that one of the first things every person is told during training is that the prison is the inmates if they ever want it, it's just that the majority of them don't and want us to keep the peace rather than a rival gang or some rear end in a top hat. At least we are predictable. My experience is that the Jails are the worst abusers. They have a monetary incentive to have swollen populations (the State gives them money per body), the Sheriff's have little accountability for their actions sense they are elected officials who typically stay in for life. This creates solidification where everyone who works there is either tight with the Sheriff or understand that their job is doing what he wants more than it is doing what it is legal or morally right. While Wardens in my state are assigned to a prison for 2 to 3 years and forced to move to another one so their is not too much solidi cation, and they have a poo poo ton of people over them who can fire or demote them whenever they want. anglachel fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Jul 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 18:30
|
|
|
While this is a frightening and sobering thread, I would like to thank you all because throughout my years I have never seen a thread full of a more human group of people. Where I live, when I rail against the Prison Industrial Complex I get looked at very disapprovingly. Sadly, I think fair and equitable treatment of prisoners is something far too few people care about because they are so insular they could give a toss about their fellow human beings, and do not see the social reasons and circumstances behind crime. Thank you for posting a plethora of fascinating information that sheds light on this malicious meat-grinder.
NurhacisUrn fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jul 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 18:47
|
|
|
NurhacisUrn posted:While this is a frightening and sobering thread, I would like to thank you all because throughout my years I have never seen a thread full of a more human group of people. Where I live, when I rail against the Prison Industrial Complex I get looked at very disapprovingly. Sadly, I think fair and equitable treatment of prisoners is something far too few people care about because they are so insular they could give a toss about their fellow human beings, and do not see the social reasons and circumstances behind crime. Thank you for posting a plethora of fascinating information that sheds light on this malicious meat-grinder. Only bad people go to prison. I am not a bad person so atrocious prison conditions will never affect me. My friends and family are also not bad people or I would not associate with them. Nobody I care about will ever be at risk of spending 20 years alone in a 10x6 cell so I don't give a poo poo. Everybody that goes to prison is obviously a baby-eating monster and deserves every bad thing that happens to them. Poverty only causes crime because the poor are just too goddamned lazy to go out and get real work.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 23:23
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Only bad people go to prison. I am not a bad person so atrocious prison conditions will never affect me. My friends and family are also not bad people or I would not associate with them. Nobody I care about will ever be at risk of spending 20 years alone in a 10x6 cell so I don't give a poo poo. Everybody that goes to prison is obviously a baby-eating monster and deserves every bad thing that happens to them. Poverty only causes crime because the poor are just too goddamned lazy to go out and get real work. Satire like this is why I feel honored to post here.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 23:27
|
|
|
anglachel posted:While Wardens in my state are assigned to a prison for 2 to 3 years and forced to move to another one so their is not too much solidi cation, and they have a poo poo ton of people over them who can fire or demote them whenever they want. Which state is this? Judging by your description of the limits on the violence COs can inflict and presence of oversight for wardens it certainly isn't CA.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2013 04:04
|
|
|
anglachel posted:
It is pretty common in CDCR. This is the highest profile incident, but not uncommon in CA http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/staged-fights-betting-guards-gunfire-and-death-for-the-gladiators-1310849.html Oh and the guards walked. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/10/us/guards-acquitted-of-staging-gladiator-style-fights.html
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2013 06:09
|
|
|
UberJew posted:Which state is this? Georgia. The fact that the deep south state of Georgia has a more humane treatment of prisoners than California boggles my loving mind. There seems to be a clear pattern of abuse too. California, California, California. The Feds need to take control of the entire prison system of California ASAP anglachel fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Jul 19, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2013 16:36
|
|
|
nm posted:
I've been through one of those Domestic Violence/DV classes you mentioned (in Texas, not California), and I'm just wondering why you call them "bullshit." And I guess I can answer questions about the course if others want info.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 17:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 22:33 |
|
|
BelgianSandwich posted:I've been through one of those Domestic Violence/DV classes you mentioned (in Texas, not California), and I'm just wondering why you call them "bullshit."
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 01:50
|
|