The Prison Thread

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

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.

Charge 'em $25 EVERY time they get a visitor, EVERY visitor. Rights? Sorry, you committed a crime, you deserve to be punished. Found innocent? Take it up with the state.

In a time when jails are constantly overcrowded, underfunded, this is an awesome idea. It'll either discourage visitors (thusly lowering staff requirements) or raise funds (thusly easing the burden). Either way, win/win.

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.

Yeah it sucks if you want to visit a family member who committed a crime, but it's a one-time deal and honestly makes sense to me. Of course, I don't have any family members in jail so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

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.

And no, 25 dollars isn't almost nothing. That's enough to feed one person for more than a week. There are a lot of people in Arizona who live on the edge...and beyond any edge you've ever considered. And not surprisingly, a lot of those people are friends and family to people who are in prison.

People who hitchhike dozens of miles through the desert to go to the loving library because it's their only goddamned internet access, and thus their only means of seeking employment...they can't spare 25 dollars.

If you think 25 dollars is "almost nothing," you don't have a loving clue what poverty means, or how a lot of people in Arizona live.

I had a neighbor in Arizona. A 7 year old kid. His birth mother (whom he knew) was in prison. His adoptive mother (a family friend) was doing barely any better than those people. She and her son couch-surfed while she looked for work. I watched him sometimes. He has learning disabilities that won't be properly addressed because schools have no budget for it, and his adoptive mother has no time (nor, frankly, the ability). He's going to need glasses soon and probably won't get them soon enough. Most of the Christmas presents he got last year, I bought for him. The kid had more problems at 7 than I've had in my whole goddamned life, and odds are more than you've ever considered.

Do you think he should have to pay 25 bucks if he wants to see his mother?

# ¿ Oct 31, 2011 09:56

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 22:16

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

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?

# ¿ Nov 1, 2011 06:38

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

pokchu posted:

The United Methodist Church has put a screen in place barring any church that is a part of the UMC system from investing in "any corporation that has gross revenues of 10% or more from private prisons."

How many does that leave?

# ¿ Jan 12, 2012 14:39

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

Soulcleaver posted:

HidingFromGoro, you are a hero. You have brought the truth of America's horrific medieval prison system to my eyes and those of many others. I know you're not the OP, but your contributions to this and other prison threads have been immeasurable.

When I try to counter bullshit about prisons on other sites, I drop a few relevant statistics, and tell people to google "hidingfromgoro." He's so good, diligent, and prolific on this topic that his handle is a keyword that will find you pretty much everything you would ever want to know on the subject.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2012 06:38

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

It also puts public urinators in a class together with child molesters. Even if the particular registry identifies what the crime was, the people obsessing over those registries tend not to pay attention to details like that, and you still have to look at them one by one to get that information, from what I've seen.

Like you look at a map covered with dots showing where all the sex offenders live, and your blood runs cold, you're sitting there thinking "look at all those child molesters and rapists," and when you start looking at individual records maybe 1 in 4 is even anything the least bit frightening.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2012 12:21

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

Astrofig posted:

Doesn't it make sense to ask about criminal records for those who are going to be, say, working with children or the eldery/sick people, though?

Granted I suppose it's too much to hope that a child rapist would voluntarily report themselves as such.....

That's why

quote:

It's very few jobs that requires you to show a criminal record (mostly school or security job related) and an employer can only see the parts of it that are specifically related to that job.

You don't want the guy who jacked it in a playground full of kids working in an elementary school, but does it matter if someone cheated on their taxes or sold some pot if they want to change bedpans?

When you apply for a security clearance, they are really picky about criminal records. Having one makes it tougher to get a clearance (you'd better be able to explain yourself and convince them it won't happen again), and if you try and hide anything (and fail, I guess) it's impossible to get it. The reason I heard for this is they don't want anyone to be able to blackmail you with something you did in the past (though it still leaves the possibility of something for which you were never caught). Ironically, the obsession with criminal records and the consequences of having one...the identification forever of someone as a "felon" before anything else...makes it easier to blackmail people.

In a country where your criminal record is sealed once you're done with your sentence, and where having a criminal record doesn't carry the same stigma...if there are no consequences to people finding out about your record, blackmail is a lot harder.

VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jan 30, 2012

# ¿ Jan 30, 2012 05:03

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

Comments. Jesus gently caress the comments.

# ¿ May 18, 2012 03:19

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

They only have one fifth the US's incarceration rate.

If enough backlash happens to slow down the prison industry in the US, I see a bright future overseas for our prison companies. Sure, places like Honduras don't have money to pay for private prisons. But they don't have money to pay for weapons, either, and see how well that works out around the world.

# ¿ May 28, 2012 12:35

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

Fire posted:

I pointed this out to him and he just called me a marxist. I called him out for the name calling and he just said I was a perfect marxist.

I really, REALLY want to hear your friend explain what he thinks "Marxist" means.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2012 02:52

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

The problem with your idea is if you make that 30k a year contingent upon a criminal conviction, you'll get people committing crimes to get it...people who otherwise wouldn't...and it ends up costing more. If you just give everyone 30000 dollars, it costs a lot more than locking up a fraction of the population at 30k each.

Should money spent on prisons go to programs that reduce the need (real or deliberately manufactured) to send people to prison? Sure. But it is not as simple as you stated it.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2012 03:16

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

from that article:

quote:

For example, the plaintiffs allege that they were threatened by prison officials for their involvement in this case. "If you don't drop this lawsuit they will gently caress you over, trust me on this," one Supermax staffer allegedly told one of the plaintiffs.

How exactly could the plaintiffs be hosed over worse?

# ¿ Jun 19, 2012 04:33

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

The only Hell that exists is Maricopa County.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2012 02:49

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

nm posted:

Yes, Joe, I can see it now, wave of brown 6-year old girls running toward the AZ border.
Get bent, Jackass.

They'll never make it through the tire trench.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2012 05:57

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

nm posted:

What good exactly does this do over a 15 to life where if he grows the gently caress up and can be a honest citizen he gets out and if not he stays in?

It allows me to maintain an erection.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2012 07:54

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

Ratoslov posted:

There is political opposition to asking questions like 'Why do people commit crime?', because the answer- 'In many communities, the best choice for an ambitious hard-working upwardly-mobile youth is organized crime.'- doesn't fit into our national myth of egalitarian upward mobility through hard work. So the very idea of trying to understand social issues at all is demonized and ridiculed.

Not disagreeing, but do you think this is a conscious decision on anyone's part? Is there someone on the right who thinks about all the same elements of the situation that you think about, and decides deliberately to promote ridicule of this kind of inquisitiveness? Or is it just natural selection at work re: memes and organizations?

# ¿ Jul 8, 2012 10:53

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

There's an ask/tell thread from a prison guard in Texas. Someone's already been probated for threadshitting, so don't go there looking to pick a fight.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3504908

# ¿ Sep 7, 2012 17:15

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

Don't forget to look at the LF thread, and to google "hidingfromgoro," as he's written a lot of stuff elsewhere, and I'm not sure all of it is linked here.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2012 02:51

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

God what the gently caress is wrong with the Tucson school district?

# ¿ Nov 28, 2012 14:40

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

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/louisiana_is_the_worlds_prison.html

Louisiana is the world's prison capital

It's a long article, not much new for anyone who's read this thread or the LF threads, but the focus is specifically on Louisiana. It's a pretty good encapsulation of everything that's wrong with the US prison system, though, and has some good infographics.

quote:

Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly five times Iran's, 13 times China's and 20 times Germany's.

The hidden engine behind the state's well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.

Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.

# ¿ May 9, 2013 12:55

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

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

Why did his parole officer do that?

# ¿ May 16, 2013 09:56

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

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

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

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

Cole posted:

Cops don't convict people.

I think we need to get a definition of "do" for this one.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2013 17:45

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

I just stumbled across this little pair of factoids about the US Federal Witness Protection Program:

quote:

The program's operations are kept secret, but a few facts are revealed by the Department of Justice.[3] Witnesses are given 24-hour-a-day security while in a high-threat environment.[4] Money for housing, essentials, and medical care is provided to witnesses.[4] WITSEC also provides job training and employment assistance.[4]

quote:

Recidivism

Around 17 percent of protected witnesses who have committed a crime will be caught committing another crime, compared to the almost 41 percent of parolees who return to crime.[10]

Hmm...I wonder if these two facts have anything at all to do with one another.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 07:32

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

nm posted:

Our jail charges so much, the probation office won't take jail phone calls.

Is that a joke? Like "Your momma so fat..."?

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 02:50

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

Cold and Ugly posted:

Man, they're five feet from each other. There's no hallucination necessary.

Wow, you're really talented at missing the point.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 16:36

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

Obdicut posted:

He's being singled out because he's a member of the union, and it's the ethical duty of union members to look out for the direction of the union and speak up if they think it's off-course. Yes, it's possible that they'd shift him around or get him fired. It's true that standing up for something can have negative penalties. The combination of minimizing the ills of the system while weakly saying that he's just too lazy to try to effect change isn't going to engender sympathy.

He's also missing the point of every single post he replies to.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2013 15:40

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

anglachel posted:

Local judges win by EXTREMELY small margins. Grassroots organizing to get about a 1000 people to vote could destroy some of these "Tough on Crime!" judges. I mean gently caress I saw one polling place for a local election that said they got 30 people the entire day, all of them older, all of them very conservative.

Is there any existing resource for tracking the sentencing patterns of individual judges?

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 07:54

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

The Viet Cong were evil?

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 16:07

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

MechPlasma posted:

Wait, seriously? That's a tiny requirement! In my country, it's a minimum 10 years working as a lawyer (which itself requires a minimum of... two years post-Bar?), then hand-picked by the government, and then appointed by the president. 5 years on the Bar and win the people's heart and you get to be a judge? That can't be right!

It can.

Also, hardly anyone votes in local elections, and for judges in particular; so you only need to win the hearts of a dedicated minority of the people.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 01:09

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

While that is some gently caress the police poo poo right there, if true; that is about the least sympathetic narrator ever.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2014 10:47

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

Pope Guilty posted:

Who gives a poo poo? Why should that matter?

Because he's basically validating everything he claims the police said about him (some of which sounds a little STDH), if not what they did to him. It also means that this isn't something you'd want to show to someone who needs to be convinced.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2014 15:09

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

BattleMaster posted:

So did you mean to say "gently caress the police, but he totally deserved it?"

Did you mean to say "I have no reading comprehension?"

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 02:37

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

Just wait, the perverse incentives will make your "good eggs" go rotten.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 03:49

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

repeating posted:

More money for disenfranchised people! - No Politician Ever

At some point it had to have happened in Scandinavia.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2014 21:53

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

How many do they have in isolation for years at a time?

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 19:01

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

Vahakyla posted:

I've also heard the argument that not having life sentences and other insanely long sentences is one of the reason for the lack of "pulled over for taillight, has warrants, shoots cops"-type of blaze that happens in the United States.

Surprisingly, when you give people hope, they act better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=381Di8Cw0-I

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 00:03

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 22:16

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

His Purple Majesty posted:

So people don't choose to commit rape and molestation? "I'm sorry your honor I just had a strong craving for some rape today" doesn't sit well with me.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/317421-blame/

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 22:28

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

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