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Something has to be done about American prisons.

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All unnecessary lines and waiting times need to get rid of.
When someone sits in jail to be judged for a year there's a problem.

Also dead row is ridiculous, why someone sits and spends money for 10-20 years before he gets his/her shot?
Next saturday from judgment should be good enough, one can write and arrange will within a day.

When you get the unnecessary people out the problem should get slightly easier, then you might look what else is wrong.
 
I think the obvious problem with the prison system is that nearly its entire focus is on captivity and incarceration, and not education. (And the word "rehabilitation" is just a fat fucking joke, just like Redd said.)

I think, at its core, this issue is about education and who has access to it.

I also think that at last check the government spends about six times as a much money on prisions than on education.

I say instead of being institutions of captivity prisons should be a hybrid of military-style disciplinary training systems - martial arts teachers, yoga instructors, professors, social scientists, anthropologists and philosophers; athletic trainers, lifestyle coaches, and therapists should be employed there, as they are who prisoners should be exposed to on a daily basis; not a bunch of 250-pound buldogs dressed like police.

Teach them Tai Chi, Nietzsche and Lau-Tzu.

People sentenced to more than fifteen years are mandated to produce a PhD equivalency.

Ex-cons Graduates are all of a sudden re-entering society with degrees in Accounting, Computer Programming, Philosophy, black belts in Kung Fu, and MAs in World History.

People who spend 20 years or more start coming out like fucking monks - devoted to every single breath, and to every living thing on earth, packing four PhDs, a JD, and finding themselves among the national leaders in political theory and analysis, having published seven books while "inside," (also given a percentage of the sales revenue upon graduation).

Graduates are also immediately qualified for employment within the prison system - which is now a modestly lucrative job.

Ain't nobody going back to slangin crack rock after something like that; nor are they forced to look at manual labor jobs and fucking McDonald's; they literally emerge qualified for at minimum middle-class wages (say anywhere from $35k for the guy who coaches chess and the guy who teaches Remedial English, to $250k for the Tai Chi masters and the professors of computer science, NASA types, whatever).

Basic prison concepts like repeat offenders getting 10 extra years, 50+ year sentences for heinous acts, etc., wouldn't really change. But nonetheless, "criminals" would be forced into a system of higher education and therapy, life-coaching, athletic training and the lot of that, instead of into a system of rigid incarceration.
 
NEOPARADIGM said:
I think the obvious problem with the prison system is that nearly its entire focus is on captivity and incarceration, and not education. (And the word "rehabilitation" is just a fat fucking joke, just like Redd said.)

I think, at its core, this issue is about education and who has access to it.

I also think that at last check the government spends about six times as a much money on prisions than on education.

I say instead of being institutions of captivity prisons should be a hybrid of military-style disciplinary training systems - martial arts teachers, yoga instructors, professors, social scientists, anthropologists and philosophers; athletic trainers, lifestyle coaches, and therapists should be employed there, as they are who prisoners should be exposed to on a daily basis; not a bunch of 250-pound buldogs dressed like police.

Teach them Tai Chi, Nietzsche and Lau-Tzu.

People sentenced to more than fifteen years are mandated to produce a PhD equivalency.

Ex-cons Graduates are all of a sudden re-entering society with degrees in Accounting, Computer Programming, Philosophy, black belts in Kung Fu, and MAs in World History.

People who spend 20 years or more start coming out like fucking monks - devoted to every single breath, and to every living thing on earth, packing four PhDs, a JD, and finding themselves among the national leaders in political theory and analysis, having published seven books while "inside," (also given a percentage of the sales revenue upon graduation).

Graduates are also immediately qualified for employment within the prison system - which is now a modestly lucrative job.

Ain't nobody going back to slangin crack rock after something like that; nor are they forced to look at manual labor jobs and fucking McDonald's; they literally emerge qualified for at minimum middle-class wages (say anywhere from $35k for the guy who coaches chess and the guy who teaches Remedial English, to $250k for the Tai Chi masters and the professors of computer science, NASA types, whatever).

Basic prison concepts like repeat offenders getting 10 extra years, 50+ year sentences for heinous acts, etc., wouldn't really change. But nonetheless, "criminals" would be forced into a system of higher education and therapy, life-coaching, athletic training and the lot of that, instead of into a system of rigid incarceration.
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...So what am I doing racking up student debt when I can just hold someone up at gunpoint, and get rent/education for free?
 
NEOPARADIGM said:
I think the obvious problem with the prison system is that nearly its entire focus is on captivity and incarceration, and not education. (And the word "rehabilitation" is just a fat fucking joke, just like Redd said.)

I think, at its core, this issue is about education and who has access to it.

I also think that at last check the government spends about six times as a much money on prisions than on education.

I say instead of being institutions of captivity prisons should be a hybrid of military-style disciplinary training systems - martial arts teachers, yoga instructors, professors, social scientists, anthropologists and philosophers; athletic trainers, lifestyle coaches, and therapists should be employed there, as they are who prisoners should be exposed to on a daily basis; not a bunch of 250-pound buldogs dressed like police.

Teach them Tai Chi, Nietzsche and Lau-Tzu.

People sentenced to more than fifteen years are mandated to produce a PhD equivalency.

Ex-cons Graduates are all of a sudden re-entering society with degrees in Accounting, Computer Programming, Philosophy, black belts in Kung Fu, and MAs in World History.

People who spend 20 years or more start coming out like fucking monks - devoted to every single breath, and to every living thing on earth, packing four PhDs, a JD, and finding themselves among the national leaders in political theory and analysis, having published seven books while "inside," (also given a percentage of the sales revenue upon graduation).

Graduates are also immediately qualified for employment within the prison system - which is now a modestly lucrative job.

Ain't nobody going back to slangin crack rock after something like that; nor are they forced to look at manual labor jobs and fucking McDonald's; they literally emerge qualified for at minimum middle-class wages (say anywhere from $35k for the guy who coaches chess and the guy who teaches Remedial English, to $250k for the Tai Chi masters and the professors of computer science, NASA types, whatever).

Basic prison concepts like repeat offenders getting 10 extra years, 50+ year sentences for heinous acts, etc., wouldn't really change. But nonetheless, "criminals" would be forced into a system of higher education and therapy, life-coaching, athletic training and the lot of that, instead of into a system of rigid incarceration.
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Is this for real? Please tell me this post is a joke.
 
foodtaster said:
Is this for real? Please tell me this post is a joke.
Click to expand...


It's less of a joke than our current prison system. His goals may be too lofty, but it's better than our disaster of a prison system. What we do now turns out worse people than we put in and has only resulted in the highest incarceration rate of any society in history.
 
EnderWiggles said:
The prison system is fine, if you make them too comfy people will want to go to prison!
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EnderWiggles
No
(Today, 11:38 PM)


Seriously, if you wanted to create a permanently disenfranchised underclass, the combination of the drug war, racial profiling and our prison system is just about the best structure you could devise. Except for actual slavery, I guess, but apparently that has political problems.

But I would hope for better from our society. Our current prison system just shows that America would rather give up the contributions of millions of people, and any moral claim to rightness, than to admit that criminals are not inherently evil.
 
Barrage said:
...So what am I doing racking up student debt when I can just hold someone up at gunpoint, and get rent/education for free?
Click to expand...
If you feel you can cope with the loss of your freedom and a criminal record, go nuts.

The point of a prison should be to rob the criminals of their freedom, not to be a torture chamber. Giving them education or something productive to do will most likely make them better people when they get out.
 
MagniHarvald said:
But not all of them do. Some come out. I don't understand why so many people don't get that. If you're OK with them coming out at some point, shouldn't we be making an effort to make sure they come back out better than they went in, that they come back out with the capability of contributing to society?

And that's not even mentioning wrongly imprisoned people.

Two main passages of the video for those who didn't watch it dealt with a county jail (Phoenix), so small crimes and people not even convicted yet, and a JV facility in Cali.

This isn't just about serial killers and rapists.
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Yeah, a lot of people were in tent city for things like traffic infractions. They literally let people die out there in the Arizona heat. Really disappointed to see Arpaio back in office every election.
 
Prisons as a deterrent don't work everybody knows how bad they are and yet there is still crime. There needs to be a whole rethink over punishment for people who break the law.
 
Something about this just seems slimy somehow.

Goldman Sachs will invest nearly $10 million in a New York City jails program, using an innovative financial instrument in which private investments fund public social services, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Thursday.
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The four-year program, in which private non-profit groups will provide education and intensive training and counseling to at-risk incarcerated youths, must reduce the recidivism rate by at least 10 percent for Goldman to recoup the investment.

If the recidivism rate drops further, Goldman could profit up to $2.1 million beyond its original investment, according to Samantha Levine, a spokeswoman for the city. If the program fails to reduce recidivism by 10 percent, Goldman could lose $2.4 million.
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I could easily see more abortions of justice like this coming from these types of deals.
 
I'm kinda amazed that no one (or rather more people) seems to realize that this ain't nothing but modern day slavery.
 
Jay Sosa said:
I'm kinda amazed that no one (or rather more people) seems to realize that this ain't nothing but modern day slavery.
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Its that they don't care. There is too large a contingent of people in this country that feel anything that happens to prisoners whether it be rape, slavery, getting shanked, etc. that its too good for them.
 
But criminals aren't humans, at least that's what GAF told me.

Seriously: Two minutes in and WHAT THE FUCK at that crawling around naked stuff. Now I'm even more glad for cushy European prisons letting murderers watch tv and play table football, because my government would likely demand my extradition.
 
Pkm said:
One of my best friend in Highschool became an arrogant steroid abusing douchebag...which basically meant becoming a CO was his calling.

He would bring his thick neck ass out with us and shower us with stories of abuse laced with racist terms the whole time.
An inmate would say something about him, he would go back later to "beat that n***** up in his cell"

He made so much god damn money...bought a house 3 times the size of my own, mutiple cars, etc...

But after few years and a ton of steroids later his body started to break down..
He let himself "take a trip" down a flight of stairs...

He now is medically discharged due to neck and back issues do to his "fall", rakes in a bundle from his pension, and is getting paid to go to school to be a youth probation officer.

Bad guys do finish first..
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how much money could you possibly make as a prison guard? Not that much I'm guessing.
 
Rockandrollclown said:
Its that they don't care. There is too large a contingent of people in this country that feel anything that happens to prisoners whether it be rape, slavery, getting shanked, etc. that its too good for them.
Click to expand...

It's crazy how people don't realize they're one bad day, one case of mistaken identity or clumsy police work from joining those they so want to dehumanize.
 
nerdy1 said:
how much money could you possibly make as a prison guard? Not that much I'm guessing.
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Compared to other jobs that require zero specialized education? A decent amount. Couple that with the fact that prisons are generally near places with low cost of living anyway, and you're pretty set.
 
There is actually a significant difference between jail and prison. It always bothers me when people treat them as being the same. There can also be differences between state and federal prisons although the differences are a little more subtle.
 
Nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated
In the prison system, prison system
Prison system of the U.S.

...

All research and successful drug policy shows
That treatment should be increased,
And law enforcement decreased,
While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.

Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world,
Drugs are now your global policy,
Now you police the globe,

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood.



Will watch.
 
Required reading on the US prison system:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik

It's a fuckin disgrace

"The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed... In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. Ours is, bottom to top, a “carceral state”...
The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life."
 
What the hell?

Seriously what in the HELL?
At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years.
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Dark, miserable, savage days are ahead I'm afraid.
 
This is sort of unmentioned common knowledge. It's sad, and frightening, and it should be changed, but where do we start to fix it?
 
Agreed. Though I am also personally of the opinion that the whole Justice System in the US is in need of a major overhual.

Odoul said:
The sad thing is no politician would touch this or even give a shit.

Ex-felons can't vote.

And most NIMBY's enjoy imagining prisoners getting brutalized anyway.
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What's a NIMBY?
 
pigeon said:
Seriously, if you wanted to create a permanently disenfranchised underclass, the combination of the drug war, racial profiling and our prison system is just about the best structure you could devise. Except for actual slavery, I guess, but apparently that has political problems.
Click to expand...

BZWs8.gif


Do the crime, do the time.
 
IceCold said:
The 3 documentary's that Louis Theroux did on Americans prisons and jails really showed me how messed up the system is in the US.
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I came in to post this, and it's a way more fair and better quality video on the subject.

Things could be better, obviously, but most American prisons are better than a lot of them around the world. There is no question about that. That still doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve things here though. I do not think things should be soft and comfy for people though, especially for the violent prisoners. To be honest, for those types of people I'm also one of those that don't have much sympathy for them anyway.

My problem is more with the non violents in prisons who end up having it far worse than deserved, and as a result possibly turns them into future violent criminals.
 
EnderWiggles said:
The prison system is fine, if you make them too comfy people will want to go to prison!
Click to expand...

That's actually been a problem here in Danish prisons. Criminals from the more poor areas of Eastern Europe "don't mind" getting thrown in jail in Denmark for commiting crime because the prison conditions here are often better than the living standards from where they came...
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
If the judges are caught sending people in prison to make more cash the answer is simple...fire them. The country already locks up more people than anywhere else in the world, there is no where to go but up from there.

As an individual it is my right to decide what conditions my loved ones are treated in when they are being rehabilitated.
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IF they get caught... IF the people prosecuting them aren't also corrupted...

Profitable prison systems are exactly why so many people get sent to jail in the U.S. as it is. A similar situation with military contractors is the reason U.S. is invading 2 countries right now. It is a terrible idea.
 
I wonder how much of this is due to the system, and how much of it is due to the type of people working in a prison would attract? No amount of corporate back scratching and private greed would make a prison guard, with nothing personally to gain, want to taser a disabled person posing no threat at all. Why do they do this? Is there some psychology going on in the hierachy there, some form of propaganda, some form of white-lab-coat-scientist stuff? Is it the same sort of phenomena that allowed ordinary German's to work as prison concentration camp guards in WW2 (I appreciate this is not the only situation in which this has occured - it's just an obvious example) with the full allowance of their consciences?

I'm worried that these sorts of issues won't just disappear because of private prisons. These issues occur the world around, sometimes in private prisons, sometimes not. Maybe it's like being a politician - the type of person that having power over defenseless people attracts are precisely those that shouldn't have the job. But, then, who is going to do it?
 
Nothing's changed really in all these years. America continues to choose punishment over rehabilitation and it's very sad. Prisons should NOT be privately owned.
 
CyclopsRock said:
I wonder how much of this is due to the system, and how much of it is due to the type of people working in a prison would attract? No amount of corporate back scratching and private greed would make a prison guard, with nothing personally to gain, want to taser a disabled person posing no threat at all. Why do they do this? Is there some psychology going on in the hierachy there, some form of propaganda, some form of white-lab-coat-scientist stuff? Is it the same sort of phenomena that allowed ordinary German's to work as prison concentration camp guards in WW2 (I appreciate this is not the only situation in which this has occured - it's just an obvious example) with the full allowance of their consciences?

I'm worried that these sorts of issues won't just disappear because of private prisons. These issues occur the world around, sometimes in private prisons, sometimes not. Maybe it's like being a politician - the type of person that having power over defenseless people attracts are precisely those that shouldn't have the job. But, then, who is going to do it?
Click to expand...

A lot of COs are in it to be bullies. I know I dealt with a lot of them, but I managed to stay out of the bad ones' ways. There ARE good COs, sometimes you don't realize it until it's too late that not all of them are good.
 
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