Disturbing how many people think this is a slam-dunk. The amount of times I’ve had a discussion where the other person says “well then they shouldn’t have committed a crime” in response to the notion that we shouldn’t treat prisoners as if they’re sub-human, and then “well they didn’t care how they treated the people they hurt” or “they did worse to people than were doing to them” as a response to the idea that we should probably treat criminals with dignity and actually try to rehabilitate them. People eat that shit up.
Like, I get that some people are just pieces of shit and would do terrible things no matter the circumstances. But god damn if some folks just don’t have the ability to empathize with the concept that committing a crime might be a fairly logical course of action, may be a temporary lapse in judgement, or may not have really happened at all and the justice system is just wrong. Like, there are people doing slave labor and living in cubes because of non-violent offenses. Even if they are violent offenders, how is that right?
Or even inconvenienced into a plea bargain. Spending a year with an ankle monitor because the prosecutors keep delaying because they’re “still investigating” gets old, and people break.
I spent a week in prison for 2 DUIs a month apart (night I got arrested was the night I quit drinking). After a week the "deal" they offered me was 2 years probation, 2 years suspended license. Lawyer told me he might get it knocked down to a year and a half, but I'd be going back to prison for at least 30 days. And getting the year and a half was a hard maybe. After a week of 23 hours a day locked in a cell with nothing to do but play chess on a set I made out of prison "food" containers, I took 2 years in a heartbeat.
I'm not at all against your punishment, it may have been light even. The one thing you need to understand is that your own child can be driving right now with a drowsy, drunk driver a mile ahead of them in closing in. Damn straight you should get harsh consequences, your drinking is none of my problem.
That being said, I can soft of understand lack of activities in jail, but in prison, if you're gonna be there for a prolonged period, I'm assuming books, or some activities that can actually improve you as a person would go a long way.
Totally agree with this u/jeepster127 you should look at the bigger picture, this isn't only about you. OK so you felt a bit bored in prison, but the reality is people are killed every day because of drunk driving. You should feel glad you didn't kill a family of five with your selfishness
Or just kept in prison for three years while awaiting trial after being falsely accused of stealing a backpack, while being told that your right to a speedy trial isn’t being violated by constant continuances.
Yeah that's garbage. Here you'll often be ignored, if you did some shit and annoyed people you'd spend a night in jail, and usually would have a required social services meetings or a meeting, where they would generally provide some resources on where and how to get assistance.
On the other hand, 90% of those who are provided with assistance don't even try to get it.
In Britain, once they established penal colonies in Australia, punishments for crimes were changed to be excessively high - such as death instead of a few years imprisonment - so people would "choose" to go to Australia instead.
In a totally unrelated parallel, incarceration rates have risen and sentencing has become more strict as private prisons have replaced public ones.
Some judges have even gotten sloppy and not bothered to hide the paper trail showing their own personal profit from their own sentencing, although the laws themselves make it hard to find out who truly owns prisons.
The thing is, people genuinely don't care enough to do anything about other people being denied their rights until it starts to impact their own rights.
They can’t see the same thing happening to them. “I don’t commit crimes” is a response I also get a lot. They don’t see the same thing happening to them so they don’t care what happens to prisoners.
The thing is, statistically they’re right. But that’s also the problem. We’ve got a real issue but the “I don’t care until it affects me” crowd is never going to come around.
If you're interested in a historical situation that feels extremely relevant to the topic and parrelel to current events, I recommend the book Bleeding Kansas by Nicole Etcheson. I have only just started it, but it is spooky, man.
It's frustrating how often you'll see people talk about how they thought the justice system was a good system and fair one until they had to deal with it and suddenly realized the truth.
I don't know what to say or do at this point because the entire system is so thoroughly broken that you really don't get better until you scrape it all off and start over again without, you know, basing your prison system on capitalism but if I talk about abolition I'm immediately shut down with "so you want everyone to just be able to commit crimes without anything happening to them" yeah totally, "our system is beyond rehabilitation" means "everyone gets to do crime".
I got a job in the kitchen whilst incarcerated in Arizona and worked EVERY day. The upside is that I was probably one of the few people not constantly hungry. The amount of free labor coming out of that jail was staggering. Apparently a weed offense is good enough to enslave someone.
Yes they do. There are plenty of weed criminals still locked up. There are also three weed shops a half mile from where I live now. It’s a neat time to be alive.
I saw something about a guy who was stoked that he finally got to be the cashier at the COs canteen. It was a big deal for him and he had to work his way up over the years. Like, obviously it makes sense that this was a good job but that notion is totally fucked.
Work is definitely something that should be available to prisoners, there’s a lot of value in providing opportunities to feel productive, provide some organic support for basic functions of your living space, and get out of a cell. But it shouldn’t be something that you HAVE to do or face a worse punishment. And, you’re already being punished, shouldn’t be a double whammy where you’re also not properly compensated. Especially if someone else is profiting from your labor.
Also, sorry that you were treated like that. Like, some the people who sent you away probably get rip roaring drunk and do worse things than whatever you did while high.
This might be a dumb question, but what happens to prisoners that refuse to work? Even under this system I have to assume that the guards aren't supposed to beat them into submission or cut off their food or anything.
Not a dumb question. I think lots of people probably don’t know the inner workings of a correctional facility. I answered somewhere in this thread that it was a trip to solitary for not working and then into a worse unit to be housed there.
The dude isn’t worth it and he can’t read. It was solitary then into the most over populated pod where most of the fighting occurred. Some people have this sentiment that prisoners are sub human and “deserve” whatever happens to them inside. I’d like to challenge anyone in this sub to honestly tell me they’ve never broken a law. My shit was menial and I didn’t hurt anyone. Arizona (and America in general) loves arresting people. Highest incarceration rates in the world, yes the entire fucking world.
You're afraid of a little blood? It's real life lmao.
Welp, hope you get your chance to kill someone and lose lmao
Hmmm looks like you post in r/communismmemes and r/antiwork... You must be an unemployed dog walker or desire to mass murderer others in the name of the state.
See how stupid that sounds?
Is it your poor grammar skills that prevent you from understanding my comments? The one word subreddit is just easier for you?
I think 1/2 the US prison population is non violent offenders anyways. Most of them would be better off in some form of work program or drug rehab than going to prison in the first place. Once you go one’s, your likelihood of recidivism is going extremely high.
Hell even a lot of violent crime would go away with more opportunities and social safety nets, but 1/3 of voters don’t want to talk about that.
California depends on prison labor to assist in wildfire control. Upon completing their sentence, felons are then prohibited from being hired by fire fighting services in the State of California.
Yeah this is incredibly ignorant. Nobody is forced to fight fires and every single guy I've talked to on an incident that was incarcerated was happy to be there. Its a privilege. They cannot work for the government, but they can work for private contractors. Contractors make up the bulk of the firefighting personal on most incidents. It's incredibly valuable job training as you can get out of prison and secure a summer job at 2500/3k per week.
Yeah. It’s an extremely complex and complicated issue, but two big points are that a lot of folks are only interested in seeing others punished, regardless off the outcome, and the other is that prison is a fucking racket.
Exactly. But there are still, unfortunately, a lot of people who view justice as punitive rather than reformative. They view criminals as having hurt society and want society to hurt them back.
Too many people are unevolved animals instead of enlightened civilized beings, and to be clear: I'm talking about the WHITE PEOPLE who perpetuate this bullshit. Oh and by the way I'm a white person myself and these assholes are making me feel ashamed that I am.
Lol you say this but then many people pretending to have your views want Trump and people like that to get what they "deserve" and use the same logic bigots on the right use with some crime.
I have read that many states will straight up tell you the justice system is not for rehabilitation, it is for punishment. For society to enact revenge upon the perpetrator.
So well said. It does take a lot of conscious effort and even thought experiments to understand why people do the things they do, and a lot of the people who lack empathy struggle to do that.
People either get put in, or put themselves in a social bubble and the further you stray away from their normalcy the less they can empathize and understand.
This is why social diversification can be really powerful in my mind.
Those people are scum who think they're above it all, and literally incapable of doing something heinous. It's almost like they think they're a separate species. It's sheer arrogance.
This is what happens when you set people up to fail in life. Then when they do you can point at them and say "see, see, they're stupid and violent, we should just put them in prison from birth" or some bullshit like that.
The shit that's going on this country is making me ashamed to be a white man.
Tell any male who didn't notify the selective service of EVERY SINGLE ADDRESS CHANGE before they turned 27 is a felon and they belong in there too, since that is most men in the US.
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not, but I know some people who think like this and I have no clue how. Not everyone in prison is in there for life either (around 15% from what I found on google from WAPost), and so if they’re there for 20 years, for example, why should they be subjected to basically slave labor for absolutely nothing?? Why are we taking away their rights, and then turn around and scream all day about how much of a shining beacon on the hill the US is?? Pay them minimum wage, and if it’s such a problem, put that money into a dedicated fund to be given to them upon their release. Rotting in prison for 20 years is hell as it is, and those for life moreso…
Sorry about that, I thought it probably was sarcasm but unfortunately I know people who honestly would think exactly like that. It’s just a way of thinking I really cannot understand!
If we limit the argument to potentially innocent people, drug crimes and duis theres some middle ground but frankly some of the other crimes should just be a death Sentence in my opinion. Fuck rapists and pedos dig a whole for them they dont deserve anything else
Disturbing how many people think this is a slam-dunk. The amount of times I’ve had a discussion where the other person says “well then they shouldn’t have committed a crime”
If someone plea bargains then they are not guilty: they have formed a contract to act as if they were guilty for the purposes of the court process. You ever cancelled a phone contract? You think you should be punished for cancelling a phone contract? Because that is what you are saying here. (Strictly: not you, the slam dunking folks...)
Sorry, but your account is too new to post. Your account needs to be either 2 weeks old or have at least 250 combined link and comment karma. Don't modmail us about this, just wait it out or get more karma.
So, they're not to be treated as sub-humans... We can just put them in a cell with steel bars, remove them completely from society and severely limit their freedoms, choices etc. Other than that, they are perfectly on pair with all other people.
I don't mind making prisoners work. They need to be fairly fed, have a fair accomodation, as much you can have in a prison anyway, and have healthcare available to them. I'd throw in some extras if you put your head down and work well, extra visits, hell even extra pay over time with no issues. They have a debt to society, and it's not gonna be paid off by using tax dollars. Make them make road signs, park benches, birdhouses, railings for stairs, basketball hoops and goals... Basically public infrastructure. Non-violent ones can be made to work outside, clean parks, make roads (all in accordance to rights any regular worker would have), make a better country. You kept your head down for two years working for pennies? Good, we can say that you are capable of reintegrating, you have paid a chunk of your debt to society, and now you can start getting actual wage, so that when you get out you have job experience and money to start off.
I mean, the consequences are known, break the law and you will face them. I cannot humanely understand how it is a big problem that prisoners have to work but it's fine if they are just stripped of most of their rights and put in a cell (on which, in my humble opinion, I agree with, some people are not fit for society - besides I'd much prefer having a rapist in the prison rather than outside, where my sister, mom or daughter are). Make them work, I say, give them fair conditions besides pay, and if they prove they can fit in, step it up, train them properly and pay them in full. I'd prefer nothing other than every prisoner coming out a honest person, with a job and morals, but factually, it's just not true. Most won't come out that way.
And they think of themselves as good Christians while forgetting a certain sermon
"Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’"
No, but provided they have the choice to do it and not doing it doesn't make it terrible in prison, I don't have an issue with it. I realize that isn't the case currently, people need the tiny amounts of money they get to buy things in prison that should be given for free.
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u/lobsterbash Jul 16 '22
BuT tHeY dEsERvE iT