Qublai Qhan posted:

I could always be wrong here, but I'm almost positive that mandatory convict labor is non-existent in the US. It's true that convicts are not paid particularly well for optional labor, and maybe there are reasons to pay better, but I think comparing it to slavery is probably going several steps too far.

Arglebargle III posted:

Fortunately U.S. legal precedent classifies forced sterilization as a violation of constitutional rights... right? Tell me it still does?

21stCentury posted:

How can slavery not be considered "Cruel and unusual punishment"?

Sylink posted:

Yet another factor in the rising prison population is the increase in imprisonment of those with untreated mental illnesses.

Instead of care we just lock them up.

Sylink posted:

You could probably get similar results just by comparing prison systems in the United States with Western Europe/Scandinavia and their recidivism rates.

Sylink posted:

Sure they do. Thats why they had all those World Wars and poo poo.

But seriously there is plenty of racism in Europe, though its more ethnically based than simply the color of your skin.

French-Algerians and whatnot.

EDIT: Hell its the year 2010 and random enclaves in the Balkans still cant play nice together.

The New Black posted:

So I just read through the Joe Arpaio site, and I have to ask: how is he still sheriff? I can see how he gets elected time and again, but after the multiple suspicious deaths and violent assaults in his custody, how has there not been some kind of proper police investigation into him? Or do I not understand how the US system works?

I mean, surely at some point he's got to be held accountable?

The New Black posted:

E: I mean, can't the FBI or the justice department do something?

HidingFromGoro posted:

It happens, it's not super common, but it does happen. There's even a name for it: "doing life on the installment plan."

HidingFromGoro posted:

Rutibex posted:

Michigan school children don't get access to libraries, computer labs, roofs, or the internet? Is this a mistake or is it really that bad?

Mister Macys posted:

You know how you always read about states cutting Education budgets? Specifically, California and Florida?
I've been hearing/reading that for like, ten years.

How can they have been cutting them every year, if they never increase them? Shouldn't at least one state have hit zero for its Education budget by now?

Woozy posted:

It's an even more complex issue than that because even the "legitimate" avenues of participation in democracy preferred by reformers and liberals bring you face to face with the carceral system and it's defenders. It was bad enough being an anti-war protester the way the police behaved I can't imagine what it would be like to be an anti-prison/anti-police state protester.

Gourd of Taste posted:

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

AlexG posted:

Compensation for Daniel Chong, who was forgotten in a DEA holding cell for four days.

PT6A posted:

So, what's the general consensus on Orange is the New Black? It was mentioned above in terms of women's corrections being a good starting point for selling reform to a wider audience, but I'm interested what people think of the show itself. Does it gloss over the nasty bits too much? Does it play too fast and loose with reality? Or is it perhaps even too sensationalized? Might it actually cause a backlash, sort of like the CSI effect, where people begin to believe what they see on TV is an accurate reflection of reality and then base their opinions off it?

I think the way it humanizes all of the prisoners is an obvious step in the right direction, but I still don't know that it'll be beneficial when all is said and done.

zoux posted:

OK, Orange is the New Black:

I have no idea what this show is trying to say. One one hand, it seems to be trying to be about a priviledged white girl coping with prison and how it changes her, but the message that comes across is that priviledged white girls are just as tough as anyone from the wrong side of the tracks. The show has no tension, everything is either immediately resolved for no reason or solved with some Pinterest arts and crafts bullshit from Piper. The racial divide that the show sets up in the beginning is quickly melted away and Piper is able to make friends and connect with just about everyone in prison. The characters are flat, aside from a few straight up villians, all the inmates have hearts of gold and everyone is wiling to come together to solve problems. It's extremely patronizing to minority and class issues, and shows all the depth on these issues that you'd expect from a few tweets, not a real exploration of these complex problems. Piper never feels alienated, abandoned, threatened or afraid, even though the show's dialogue tells us that she does. The whole thing smacks of white-people tourism, a quick drop into the slums that the person tells her friends at a later party gave her a real perspective on how the other half lives. The real drama and conflict is relationship drama, which is an odd choice for a show set in a prison, which offers a much more rich source of conflict and drama than a love triangle. This is a brief sketch of my issues, and I can cite examples if challenged, but I wanted to be broad so that this whole post wasn't spoiler text'd. But I do have to mention one scene, from the finale, that is among the worst I've ever seen: The loving Christmas pageant. This gets beyond just white patronizing minorites, it's just cliched bad TV. It had not one, but two "wow she turns out to be a great singer" moments. The mute character, who you knew would say something meaningful and important at a critical time, turns out to have a beautiful voice! and starts singing in the pageant for NO reason other than it is mandated that at some point a mute character say something meaningful and important. Three black women sing gospel versions of carols, because that's what white people think black people do. The whole thing is just so condescending and twee that I loving hate it. Look, people get all over Girls for ignoring minority issues entirely, but if this is what happens when priviledged white girls try to write about poor, black people, I'd rather they just kept on ignoring minority issues. The tone is also weird, it's just too upbeat a comedy for such a bleak setting. Either the comedy needs to be alot blacker or it needs to stop trying to be serious about issues.

The show's not all bad though. It's generally very well acted, and the characters are mostly likeable, if not realistic. Sophia, the transsexual inmate, in particular is a very interesting character, and the episode where they explore her backstory is probably the closest the show says to saying something meaningful. It's medium funny, the pacing is fine and as long as you don't think too deeply about it, it's fine. On the whole I'd give the season a B-, and will probably watch season 2.

Cold and Ugly posted:

Sorry for disrupting your torture porn narrative with my white hot reality, dog.

Cold and Ugly posted:

I don't think they are, no.

Cold and Ugly posted:

See, because... this is what I was saying earlier, i'm not sure what's meant by "solitary". The picture I posted, Christ... it may even be two pages ago now, shows that the SHU units in Pelican Bay consist of eight cells to a pod. In my experience, inmates have no trouble speaking to each other through doors constructed like that. And... I guess I feel that if they can talk to each other then it isn't really "solitary". When I think of "Solitary", I think of those scenes in OZ with the thick metal door in which only a small slot opens twice a day for the meal tray to pass through and the inmate spends his whole time just pacing or sitting in a corner contemplating his sins. As I said earlier, the hunger strike in California was orchestrated by a group of inmates in the SHU. If they were able to talk to each other often enough to come up with a collective manifesto, how can that be considered solitary?

Cold and Ugly posted:

Dude, nobody in the article you quoted claimed that inmates in California were being tortured. The closest it came was: "Méndez was particularly concerned about California's Pelican Bay maximum security prison, which has more than 400 prisoners who have been in isolation for over a decade, with an average time in solitary of 7.5 years."

quote:

"Even if solitary confinement is applied for short periods of time, it often causes mental and physical suffering or humiliation, amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and if the resulting pain or sufferings are severe, solitary confinement even amounts to torture," Méndez said in a statement.

quote:

And the only way you could come out with "Cold and Ugly loves torture!" is by a deliberate misreading of my posts.

quote:

The point I was making is that I don't understand how the SHU unit at Pelican Bay, ostensibly the center of California's torture program, can be considered solitary confinement, given that the inmates held within are able to communicate with each other. If you are able to talk to your neighbors, how can it be considered solitary?

Cold and Ugly posted:

The argument that the SHU is torture is dependent upon the fantastical conception that you are in true "solitary", in that you cannot communicate with other people, which is not the case.

quote:

What I mean is that when a writer says a person is in "isolation", and then quotes a bunch of links about the negative effects of being in "isolation", is that relevant to what we were originally talking about, which is the state of the inmates held in California's SHU program.

Cold and Ugly posted:

Alright, man. I'm reading through this link you posted, and it's interesting. Despite what i've said about the SHU i'm not a huge fan and I think sometimes we go overboard in handing out indeterminate terms. But just to get a baseline, is there any sort of behavior that you'd find worthy of a SHU term?

UberJew posted:

The original intent was actually to break the leadership structures of the prison gangs and the links between prison gang leadership and the gangs on the outside.

Unless there's been some huge turnaround since I was last at an institution it's still a spectacular failure at that. It doesn't work and, as long as COs can be bought (no offense, Cold and Ugly, I don't think you're bent but we both know there are enough bent COs) it can't work.

Cold and Ugly posted:

Man... we have some terms we might have to work out, because it sounds like you consider even normal non SHU prison to be torture.

anglachel posted:

So what is your opinion on what we should do with severally mentally ill people who have committed violent crimes and are at high risk to commit new violent crimes?

Cold and Ugly posted:

You're probably right. At the bottom I can only argue that the one prison I work at is a decent place for criminals to be held where nothing really bad happens. But I am open the idea that my experience may be unusual.

Cold and Ugly posted:

I'm more of a puckish rogue. Come on, dude. The fact that I disagree with the tone of the thread doesn't make me a troll. I'm trying to contribute to the conversation.

Cold and Ugly posted:

Man... you don't have to scream through the walls. You yell through the crack in your door to a person who is listening through a crack in their door about five feet from you. I agree that the concept of solitary, complete isolation in which you have no contact with any other human being for days on end is probably torture. What we've been discussing though is what that is. I've been offering my experience and perspective, and you say subhuman filth and I say California Correctional Peace Officer, please at least try to engage the conversation rather than rage crawl up your own rear end in a top hat.

Cold and Ugly posted:

It could be, man. Personally, I think that the California Department of Corrections is the most professional Correctional agency in the country, and the constant scrutiny we endure ensures that we continue to be so.

quote:

And the good wages we're paid and the constant threat of administrative oversight and potential punishment ensures that no CO has any reason to physically abuse an inmate, no matter how good a reason he might think he has.

Cold and Ugly posted:

What happened to your avatar, dude? I'm having trouble recognizing you without it. Anyway, the tone that I perceived from the thread before I joined it was a bunch of folks quoting Wikipedia articles and despairing of the awful torture camps our state and local goverments operate in an environment largely devoid of what I consider real experience and/or knowledge of the day to day realities of prison life. If nothing else I hoped that this one humble man's experience could at least shed some light and give some hope to those California posters that their state employs at least a few human beings.

Cold and Ugly posted:

"These guards got convicted of setting up inmate attacks." It sounds like an example of the system working, man. Clearly you're going to have people who get lost in the small amount of personal power being a prison guard grants you. But I have to be honest and say that to me, a story involving a couple of assholes who abused their power being arrested and taken off the line reinforces my point that the system works to some extent.

Cold and Ugly posted:

Okay, the point where I'm having trouble is that the stories i've read have said that the concept of solitary is physically and mentally and emotionally harmful, but they always seem to stop short of explicitly saying that those conditions exist in the California prison system. I'm sorry, i'm willing to acknowledge that lack of physical stimulation and contact with the outdoors probably fucks some dudes up but the use of the word "solitary" seems to me to conjure up ideas of conditions that just don't exist in the modern prison system.

Cold and Ugly posted:

Yes, dog. But amazingly, when I read them I had different thoughts than you did. And talking about my dad isn't going to change that. And if I was incurious I would have just posted a couple paragraph long manifesto like that CISNAZI WEED HITLER guy did and told you all to gently caress yourselves. It's called a conversation man.

anglachel posted:

How are they being mentally tortured again? Mental health inmates only get put into segregation if they are shown to be an active threat to themselves and others, and if they stayed in a "state of crisis" for more than a few days we had to ship them out to a specialized prison. Sense the level of the prisons funding is based on maintaining mental health offenders, they aren't going to want to ship them out for shits and giggles. When they are in crisis intervention they get daily checks by a licensed Mental Health Counselor (which requires as minimum a masters in counseling) who reported directly to a licensed psychologist and psychiatrist. I mean gently caress I saw one guy with mental retarded beat the poo poo out of my supervisor so bad that he had a minor skull fracture, and he got out of crisis intervention in 3 days and back into his living unit. (where he is allowed to associate with other inmates and watch TV, and play games, and participate in social and other activities)