The state of the US prison system.

[Neonsilver]

You think that would at least cause people to hesitate when committing crimes, but no.

If the criminals accept that a prison sentence is their fate when they break the law, and they break the law anyway, do they really deserve anything less?

I agree with you on the basic premise. If you are fully aware that you are committing a crime and if you are fully aware what punishment you can expect, then there is nothing to argue about giving them said punishment.
The problem I have is mainly, because it's probably impossible to always be fully aware of all the laws concerning your current actions, let alone the possible punishments.
Can you claim to know every single law and what punishments are to be expected for them?

Besides that, it's something to argue about how just a punishment is concerning various crimes.

One guy defended the rape conviction of Genarlow Wilson because oral sex was "illegal" according to a 1995 law.

Fun Fact: The guy who wrote the law said it was never intended to be used to convict a teenager for having oral sex with another teenager.

I'm curious if he was actually aware that there is a law against oral sex, it certainly isn't a law I would expect to even exist. Going from your post it was a consensual act, rather sad that this probably ruined the life of someone.

 

[MonsterCrit]

I don't know ANYTHING about prisons or how they work outside of unrealistic TV prison shows.

But in my head, i think being alone is better than the risk of being beaten killed or raped by other inmates.

You've never been in isolation for a prolonged period of time then. Isolation can be more psychologically damaging than you might think. It's really just a sad state of affairs. prisons are over crowded because the system has never expanded allong with the population and let's face it, no one wants a new prison built near where they are..

So prisons also wind up being underfunded and well yeah, sometimes the easiest solution is isolation.

 

[Thaluikhain]

You think that would at least cause people to hesitate when committing crimes, but no.

If the criminals accept that a prison sentence is their fate when they break the law, and they break the law anyway, do they really deserve anything less?

I agree with you on the basic premise. If you are fully aware that you are committing a crime and if you are fully aware what punishment you can expect, then there is nothing to argue about giving them said punishment.
The problem I have is mainly, because it's probably impossible to always be fully aware of all the laws concerning your current actions, let alone the possible punishments.
Can you claim to know every single law and what punishments are to be expected for them?

Besides that, it's something to argue about how just a punishment is concerning various crimes.

Your last point is very important. Lots of people (far from all criminals, of course), commit crimes because they have little choice in the matter. Punishing people at the bottom of society (through no fault of their own) for not wanting to stay at the bottom or conveniently disappear isn't particularly just.

Now, how many people imprisoned fir that description, I couldn't tell you.

 

[CeeBod]

"The law is an ass." http://www.dumblaws.com/

Even ignoring the willfully stupid laws, the fact is that people are not rational automatons. We drink, smoke, do unhealthy and stupidly dangerous things all the time, both legally and illegally, and rarely do we appreciate it if someone holier than thou comes along and says "You drink? Then I hope you get cancer of the liver" or "Bungee jumping? It's your fault if you die then"

If the stupid shit we do happens to fall on the wrong side of the legal divide though (a divide which changes over time, from state to state and from nation to nation) it's somehow acceptable to be told "You commited a crime, so you deserve to be confined to a hellhole, have your life destroyed and be subjected to what in other contexts would be called torture." because an amazingly large amount of people have zero sense of proportion, when it comes to crime and punishment (and many other issues of course!) and seem to act entirely based on knee-jerk reactions, which loops back to my original point - people are not rational!

 

[Kopikatsu]

You think that would at least cause people to hesitate when committing crimes, but no.

If the criminals accept that a prison sentence is their fate when they break the law, and they break the law anyway, do they really deserve anything less?

I agree with you on the basic premise. If you are fully aware that you are committing a crime and if you are fully aware what punishment you can expect, then there is nothing to argue about giving them said punishment.
The problem I have is mainly, because it's probably impossible to always be fully aware of all the laws concerning your current actions, let alone the possible punishments.
Can you claim to know every single law and what punishments are to be expected for them?

I know all the relevant laws and their punishments, yes. I say relevant because I know know, say, the penalty for every single type of forgery- but I don't own or create any forged documents so it really doesn't matter. But as far as the basics go (Theft, robbery, burglary, assault, battery, sexual battery, etc etc) yes, I know all of the laws and punishments therein.

If someone doesn't learn the first time they will never learn. Most of the people who go on to commit really heinous crimes like rape and murder have a long criminal history before that point. If you can't follow simple rules that society has set forth, then you don't deserve to be a part of that society. It isn't any more complicated than that.

 

[Qizx]

You think that would at least cause people to hesitate when committing crimes, but no.

If the criminals accept that a prison sentence is their fate when they break the law, and they break the law anyway, do they really deserve anything less?

I agree with you on the basic premise. If you are fully aware that you are committing a crime and if you are fully aware what punishment you can expect, then there is nothing to argue about giving them said punishment.
The problem I have is mainly, because it's probably impossible to always be fully aware of all the laws concerning your current actions, let alone the possible punishments.
Can you claim to know every single law and what punishments are to be expected for them?

I know all the relevant laws and their punishments, yes. I say relevant because I know know, say, the penalty for every single type of forgery- but I don't own or create any forged documents so it really doesn't matter. But as far as the basics go (Theft, robbery, burglary, assault, battery, sexual battery, etc etc) yes, I know all of the laws and punishments therein.

If someone doesn't learn the first time they will never learn. Most of the people who go on to commit really heinous crimes like rape and murder have a long criminal history before that point. If you can't follow simple rules that society has set forth, then you don't deserve to be a part of that society. It isn't any more complicated than that.

I REALLY don't think you do.
Seriously. I HIGHLY doubt you understand the exact punishment you can expect from any crime you may commit unless you're a criminal lawyer and even then. Even ones every single person does, such as speeding, jay walking, etc... You'd be amazed at the extra things they can heap onto a seemingly minor crime.


To your point earlier though, no just because someone has broken the law doesn't mean they deserve to be treated like animals. To be tortured, to be destroyed completely, and to have NO GODDAMN HOPE. I know people who did their time for stupid crimes and still can't get a decent job. The American "justice" system is the most broken piece of shit in any first world nation.

EDIT: Not to mention our system has been proven not to fucking work, we have one of the highest re incarceration rates. We have a relatively high crime rate, and stronger punishments for crimes has been proven NOT to mean the crimes are committed less.

I'm not for giving people who commit crimes a free ride at all, but make sure we do what we can to make sure they don't do it again. WITHOUT putting them away forever (short of murderers etc..)

 

[stroopwafel]

If someone doesn't learn the first time they will never learn. Most of the people who go on to commit really heinous crimes like rape and murder have a long criminal history before that point. If you can't follow simple rules that society has set forth, then you don't deserve to be a part of that society. It isn't any more complicated than that.

Nobody is questioning that rape and premeditated murder shouldn't be punished with severe sentences, however you can question the fairness of incredibly harsh sentences for minor offenses. Espescially the slippery slope it brings the entire justice system on: judges constantly aiming for the highest possible sentence(even petty theft), increased police brutality due to their disproportionate responses and aggressiveness, incredibly harsh prison circumstances with inmates thrown in The Hole for sometimes years on end with the prisons themselves having a climate of near 'dehumanization' of convicts.

Also espescially when you consider its mostly a class issue as well. Those in prisons are almost never the economically priviliged, with their state-appointed lawyers lacking the means to make mincemeat of any allegations or work their way through the legal procedure until their is nothing left.

Like, you're poor and stole a bottle of booze 3 times? Put away for life. But if you're a rich banker or corporate leader of a financial institution that destroyed the entire U.S. economy and brought average people financial ruin in '08? With all your millions tucked away safely in offshore bank accounts? Sure, their law firms make them practically untouchable. If a prosecutor presses charges anyway, which they almost never do unless its easy prey. Like, all the politicians that are never held accountable no matter the grave crimes they might commit under their rule.

It's like, the Dark Ages.

 

[Roboshi]

the worst thing is that the US has effectively re-branded the slave trade. The prison system supports so many industries in america and paying pennies to each worker. This makes the huge black population behind bars all the more unsettling to think about.

 

[Thaluikhain]

the worst thing is that the US has effectively re-branded the slave trade. The prison system supports so many industries in america and paying pennies to each worker. This makes the huge black population behind bars all the more unsettling to think about.

Also, means that any attempts to change this will rather annoy lots of important people. Indirectly, the nation as a whole, as it'd be another economic problem the US could do without.

 

[Gorrath]

the worst thing is that the US has effectively re-branded the slave trade. The prison system supports so many industries in america and paying pennies to each worker. This makes the huge black population behind bars all the more unsettling to think about.

While there are significant problems with the U.S. prison system and law enforcement, claiming that it's a slave trade ignores that a slave by definition is a person owned as property. Prisoners aren't owned by anyone. Working in the various jobs in the prison system is meant to build job qualifications for the outside and allow inmates to make some small amount of legal money. To conflate this to slavery is to ignore the purpose of the jobs programs and to equate being imprisoned with being owned as property. This does not seem an apt comparison.

 

[maninahat]

snip/quote]

If someone has broke the law 3 times, then do they really deserve nice treatment? I would rather see them in maximum security shitting themselves in the hope that maybe they will stop breaking the law, because obviously more lenient treatment hasn't worked.

OT: You guys seem to have the exact opposite problem from the UK: We have to treat every scumbag like a golden child. The police themselves are treated more like criminals because of shit birds like the Daily Mail trying to hype up cases of 'police brutality' and all the softies in the political system insisting we need to treat everyone 'equally', not matter if they have never broken a law in their life or been a gang member for 10 years.

If someone broke the law three times, I think the prudent thing to do would be to look at what laws they broke, and decide whether it is worth sending them to a maximum security prison with a minimum sentence of 25 years, rather than just automatically doing it. If the whole "punishment as a deterrent" thing didn't work back in the medieval ages (hanging for theft, first offence), it sure as shit won't work these days with a custodial sentence.

Also, prisoners are not treated like golden children in the UK, and the Daily Mail is the last rag you will find defending criminals. The Daily Mail is all about depriving criminals of basic rights like voting and oxygen ("hangin's too good for 'em!" etc.). The British prison system has very much the same problems as other prisons, in that they primarily operate on humiliating and demeaning their inmates. Rather than make them fear or respect authority, it just encourages criminals to resent them even more for their arbitrary, bureaucratic and unfair practises. It then ejects these prisoners out into the world, mostly unprepared to become a productive part of society, and shrugs its shoulders at the high recidivism rates.

 

[Thaluikhain]

the worst thing is that the US has effectively re-branded the slave trade. The prison system supports so many industries in america and paying pennies to each worker. This makes the huge black population behind bars all the more unsettling to think about.

While there are significant problems with the U.S. prison system and law enforcement, claiming that it's a slave trade ignores that a slave by definition is a person owned as property. Prisoners aren't owned by anyone. Working in the various jobs in the prison system is meant to build job qualifications for the outside and allow inmates to make some small amount of legal money. To conflate this to slavery is to ignore the purpose of the jobs programs and to equate being imprisoned with being owned as property. This does not seem an apt comparison.

That is one strict interpretation of the word, in a loose sense it seems valid.

Also, the purpose you mention is only the nominal purpose. Prisons are still run for profit, after all.

 

[Gorrath]

the worst thing is that the US has effectively re-branded the slave trade. The prison system supports so many industries in america and paying pennies to each worker. This makes the huge black population behind bars all the more unsettling to think about.

While there are significant problems with the U.S. prison system and law enforcement, claiming that it's a slave trade ignores that a slave by definition is a person owned as property. Prisoners aren't owned by anyone. Working in the various jobs in the prison system is meant to build job qualifications for the outside and allow inmates to make some small amount of legal money. To conflate this to slavery is to ignore the purpose of the jobs programs and to equate being imprisoned with being owned as property. This does not seem an apt comparison.

That is one strict interpretation of the word, in a loose sense it seems valid.

Also, the purpose you mention is only the nominal purpose. Prisons are still run for profit, after all.

I use the strict interpretation because slavery is that specific thing. To call other things that do not fit that definition "slavery" is to water down the core concept. American football players have compared themselves to slaves. Some complain that low wages are slavery. Some claim that wages period make slaves of us. None of these instances have people being owned as property at their core and so all of these comparisons fail to address the primary immorality of slavery. That's not to say that de facto slavery cannot exist. Indeed company stores combined with debtors prisons really were akin to slavery. But to call a guy who gets paid a dollar a day for spending ten minutes a day cleaning the windows in the cafeteria a "slave" misses that core concept by a mile in my estimation.

 

[Erttheking]

So when someone breaks the law and California, and it's their third strike, they're gonna be surprised when their minor crime lands them in maximum security.

Oh, and most of the people in max are there for stupid shit like drug possession, because of stupidly puritan laws.

Yeah. You know how you fix that? Stop committing fucking crimes. 'Oh, the crimes they committed aren't that bad!' No. Don't commit crimes in the first place. The end.

Or, and here's a a novel little thought, we unfuck the justice system so people don't have their lives destroyed over the most arbitrary of stupid bullshit. If there's a hole in the bridge, to you tell people to avoid the hole and tell them it's their fault if they fall through...or do you fix the hole? The prison system in this country is broken, because when people get out of prison, they're so hardened by the experience that they're commit crimes again. Oh, and America has the most heavily populated prisons in the world. This happened after it became possible for owning a prison to be profitable.

 

[chocolate pickles]

snip/quote]

If someone has broke the law 3 times, then do they really deserve nice treatment? I would rather see them in maximum security shitting themselves in the hope that maybe they will stop breaking the law, because obviously more lenient treatment hasn't worked.

OT: You guys seem to have the exact opposite problem from the UK: We have to treat every scumbag like a golden child. The police themselves are treated more like criminals because of shit birds like the Daily Mail trying to hype up cases of 'police brutality' and all the softies in the political system insisting we need to treat everyone 'equally', not matter if they have never broken a law in their life or been a gang member for 10 years.

If someone broke the law three times, I think the prudent thing to do would be to look at what laws they broke, and decide whether it is worth sending them to a maximum security prison with a minimum sentence of 25 years, rather than just automatically doing it. If the whole "punishment as a deterrent" thing didn't work back in the medieval ages (hanging for theft, first offence), it sure as shit won't work these days with a custodial sentence.

Also, prisoners are not treated like golden children in the UK, and the Daily Mail is the last rag you will find defending criminals. The Daily Mail is all about depriving criminals of basic rights like voting and oxygen ("hangin's too good for 'em!" etc.). The British prison system has very much the same problems as other prisons, in that they primarily operate on humiliating and demeaning their inmates. Rather than make them fear or respect authority, it just encourages criminals to resent them even more for their arbitrary, bureaucratic and unfair practises. It then ejects these prisoners out into the world, mostly unprepared to become a productive part of society, and shrugs its shoulders at the high recidivism rates.

To be honest, prisoners don't deserve the vote. Why should scumbags who make society worse get to decide its future. I sure as hell don't considet it a basic right.

The problem with the UK is that we can't encourage fear or respect because that would be a beach of their poor 'rights', and the papers would have a field day. We are too lenient, giving people way too short sentences or not even imprisoning them at all for crimes. Maybe if the UK would actually allow officers to be intimidating, things would be different. Instead, we give them a playstation and nice treatment in the hope that we can make them happy enough to not start riots. A lack of prison space and resources sure doesn't help.

The fact we don't have a police 'force', but a 'service' now, says it all to me.

 

[Maze1125]

To be honest, prisoners don't deserve the vote. Why should scumbags who make society worse get to decide its future. I sure as hell don't considet it a basic right.

If someone is in prison for an unjust law then they deserve the right to vote for a party that would repeal that law.
Everyone deserves the right to vote. If a person's opinion is wrong they their voice will be overwritten by the majority. That's the whole point of the system.

 

[chocolate pickles]

To be honest, prisoners don't deserve the vote. Why should scumbags who make society worse get to decide its future. I sure as hell don't considet it a basic right.

If someone is in prison for an unjust law then they deserve the right to vote for a party that would repeal that law.
Everyone deserves the right to vote. If a person's opinion is wrong they their voice will be overwritten by the majority. That's the whole point of the system.

How do you decide what an 'unjust' law is? That's an entire matter of opinion.

Why should someone have the right to vote who has actively ruined the country for their own selfishness? They don't deserve the right.

 

[spartan231490]

Frankly, the abuses in the system regarding who ends up in prison are far worse than the abuses once they are there.

 

[Cowabungaa]

To be honest, prisoners don't deserve the vote. Why should scumbags who make society worse get to decide its future. I sure as hell don't considet it a basic right.

The problem with the UK is that we can't encourage fear or respect because that would be a beach of their poor 'rights', and the papers would have a field day. We are too lenient, giving people way too short sentences or not even imprisoning them at all for crimes. Maybe if the UK would actually allow officers to be intimidating, things would be different. Instead, we give them a playstation and nice treatment in the hope that we can make them happy enough to not start riots. A lack of prison space and resources sure doesn't help.

The fact we don't have a police 'force', but a 'service' now, says it all to me.

Because lord knows the way the US does it works so well, doesn't it?

Except it doesn't. At all. This brutish appeal to some kind of reveng against criminals that ends up in mass incarceration sucks at reducing crime [http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/the-many-causes-of-americas-decline-in-crime/385364/], something we've known for a while now. Even Bill Clinton apologized for the toughening crime laws, among them the three-strikes nonsense, he got through in the 90's when he was president.

Yet people still wish for it, and that is not only illogical, it's also uncivilized and anti-moral. Hell, both Democrats and Republicans are becoming increasingly aware of how much the system you seem to want in the UK sucks donkeynuts in their own country and are increasingly aiming towards reform away from mass incarceration. Like Clinton himself said:

"And we wound up ... putting so many people in prison that there wasn't enough money left to educate them, train them for new jobs and increase the chances when they came out so they could live productive lives,"

[small]Source. [http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-crime-bill/][/small]

How do you decide what an 'unjust' law is? That's an entire matter of opinion.

No it's not, we have all kinds of principles in play in our society that guide our collective views about justice. And even assuming it's completely a matter of opinion, why should we follow your opinion then? Why would it be 'the right one'?