Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Dungeons with dark single occupant cages work and don't lean to fraternization.
I suppose it would never occur to you, that you could end up in one of these dungeons some day.
How so? To err is to be human! And? Accidents can happen to anyone!
I got a son who is a prison guard in a supermax. Trust me, for he most part, they all belong. The stories are frightening. Their crimes even more so. As it relates to lower security level prisons, you might have some valid points but, for the federal pens, state higher level pens, they are a very necessary and vital component of our judicial system and they get it right way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than they ever get it wrong. The discovery channel can make anyone cry over a few mistakes BUT,
Make no mistake, most belong there for a very, very, veeeeeeery long time.
My son says you have to see them to believe it. From shoving paper towel rolls up their rears for sexual release to stabbing other inmates with sharpened plastics, fence hardware, broom hardware, and needles made from god knows dipped in fecal matter (he says they are incredibly clever at weapons making) to jabbing another inmates eye out with two stiff fingers...for fun, ......you are all wrong. You have to watch them like a hawk.
As he puts it, "it's adult daycare except these adults can and might possibly kill you. No Shiite".
if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's USUALLY a.....duck. Don't feel sorry for them. The murderers are usually in there because they lost it at a family picnic or some other such nonsense (wife caught with another man, husband caught with another man, etc).....until one digs deeper. Then, you find out the signs of societal rage became apparent much earlier. They were just never identified when they were younger. Until one guy killed four relatives.....with his bare hands.......cuts everyone's hair now as a prison barber, is a nice guy but always so quiet no one is quite sure that he won't explode again.
At 2:30 in the morning he saw one just staring. Watched him all night making the rounds. He never made a sound. He sat for 8 hours watching the guards. Never moved. Just stared. He was as comfortable as a man in a lazy boy watching TV. Except, no TV, radio, magazine, nothing.
They are real. They do exist. They are deadly, They know it, and in quite a few cases are comfortable with the decisions they made in life. They simply do not care and they care even less, if possible, that anyone knows it. Some are so cold and lifeless they spook you (guy staring all night). Others are so whacked they hit on anyone and anything with a pulse. They would literally have sex with a broom or mop handle for hours if you let them and then beat somewone with it if given half a chance minutes later.
Some are simply terrifying to watch. Scary, scary types you do NOT want to meet on a street. It's not a shock that there are always openings for guards.
Prison has its place. We need it. It keeps people like this away from all of us. You don't want the majority of these folks on the street again. Ever.
I too worked in the joint but not as a guard. What you say is true (but you didn't need me to confirm that) and the stories are endless. Unfortunately, like the OP, there are many who have rose-colored glasses welded to their faces and refuse to see thugs for what they really are.
People who are doing illegal drugs do not need to be in a jail they need to be in rehab or somewhere else that can help them. Of course I am talking about the people who have only done drugs no other crime. What is being in jail where they can probably find someone to give them more drugs gonna do to help them?
People who are doing illegal drugs do not need to be in a jail they need to be in rehab or somewhere else that can help them. Of course I am talking about the people who have only done drugs no other crime. What is being in jail where they can probably find someone to give them more drugs gonna do to help them?
To be fair this statement absolutely applies to rehab also. Rehab tends not to work unless the person REALLY wants to be there.
65% are there for dope. Another 10% did what they did to GET dope or about dope debts, "turf', etc, cause dope costs 100x what it would cost if it's legal. Portugal has NO dope laws, hasn't had any for a decade and they are ok. We were ok before the 1914 dope laws, too. another 5% of prisoners are in prison for gambing, prostitution, guns, etc, no harm done to anyone. Stop locking them up and you'll have 4x as much room for the people who DO steal or harm others.
Anyone dealing in dope is hurting everyone in our society. Keep them in prison and throw away the key. I have zero tolerance for anything to do with drugs including alcohol. Both should be banned. The president thinks everyone did them but my husband and I have never had either. I know a lot of people who never did mind-alternating drugs. That's where most of the other crimes start. I am for putting them in prison before the robbing and murdering start. Once drugs get hold of you, your life is basically over.
To be fair this statement absolutely applies to rehab also. Rehab tends not to work unless the person REALLY wants to be there.
This is a misconception. The success rate is nearly equal for motivated upon entrance vs. unmotivated. ( Frankly, almost no one really is motivated upon entrance or at least vacillates.) You can check the figures. Start with Hazelden's studies.
People upon entrance to rehab still have so many central nervous system and physical issues from drug use that it can take a while before they are capable of rationally receiving the message.
But back to the subject. I wonder how many with strong opinions have actual experience with what they are discussing. Have you spent time around prisoners other than "dear" family members? Have you ever had access to prisoner's files or addict's charts? Do you understand the psychological nature of addiction or of criminal behavior?
I'm very skeptical of addressing this issue from an emotional point of view about what's humane for violators of social norms. There's a reason that all civilized societies throughout history have had a system of laws and punishments.
I would like the people in charge of making these decisions to have all the information and experience possible and not see it made by public opinion. It's actually a health issue.
Why does the current trend of thought place more weight on care for the lawbreakers than the law-abiding populace? Don't you think that may be self-destructive in the long run for society?
Anyone dealing in dope is hurting everyone in our society. Keep them in prison and throw away the key. I have zero tolerance for anything to do with drugs including alcohol. Both should be banned. The president thinks everyone did them but my husband and I have never had either. I know a lot of people who never did mind-alternating drugs. That's where most of the other crimes start. I am for putting them in prison before the robbing and murdering start. Once drugs get hold of you, your life is basically over.
#3 does not apply in today's world of idiocy. How do you rehab an idiot with no regard for anything but one's own wants and desires....to the point they will rob, steal, cheat or kill for it?
#1 would apply if the punishment was something like breaking rocks in the hot sun, working a road crew or repairing train tracks.
#2 Would apply if the death penalty was reinstated and followed through in the states which did away with it. It was the bleeding heart liberal thing to do.
#4 Some people needn't see society for the rest of their lives.
You addressed them as though I were taking a stance that they all had to have some validity (then you threw in some gratuitous political incontinence, thanks for that). Just to be clear, I did not. I didn't give much, if anything, about my own opinions, just commented on what we are currently doing and whether it seems to work. I was just clarifying that if we're going to evaluate the prison system, we need to start with self-honesty about our goals. That begins with articulation of the reasonable possible goals one might set.
If we bray that all four are the goals, that's fine, but that will always lead to failing in at least one of them, and then you'll have people pointing to that failed goal and braying back that the system has failed. Then you'll have supporters pointing to other goals and showing that they are met. Pretty soon it's a yes-it-does-no-it-doesn't debate where no one ever sat down and parsed the reasonable goals, cherrypicking suitable examples. Those are useless.
My own view is let's not lie to ourselves. Let's handle a prisoner according to a valid goal for his or her confinement. If we have decided we just want to make him or her suffer, let's stop lying to ourselves, and let's set out to do the job right. Let's ask ourselves whether we really believe in universal human rights, or whether our social tendency to jettison them whenever the media carps on a lurid crime hard enough suggests we're deceiving ourselves about that, too.
This is a very interesting discussion. I think almost everyone out there would like to avoid incarcerating people if there is a way to get them to stop anti-social behavior without putting them behind bars. If it would do nothing else, it would reduce costs to the taxpayer.
The problem is there is simply no quick or easy fix to this problem. If there was, we probably would have found it by now.
People who end up in prison for non-violent offenses usually fit into categories. Some committed drug offenses during the past and were charged in federal court. For a long time, mandatory sentencing guidelines guaranteed many of these offenders long years of incarceration even if they had a totally clean criminal record before they committed the crime. These people probably should be released. Some are repeat drunk drivers who have caused accidents involving injury to others. I'd be in favor of keeping them out of prison if there were someway to guarantee they never drove a motor vehicle again. Unfortunately, that's a virtually impossibility in our society. Others have committed crimes like embezzlement. These people almost never go to prison for any real length of time UNLESS their embezzlement is a large one. People should consider the case of Bernie Madoff. He never once used violence against any other person. Yet, he destroyed the retirement savings of literally hundreds of people. Don't try to tell me his crime is less serious than that of a bank robber. The truth is that its much greater than that of even a bank robber who held a gun to his victims. How about a sex criminal who is 35 years old and convinces a 14 year old girl to have sex with him? That doesn't meet the definition of a "violent crime" for some people. Yet, I would argue such a person belongs in prison for some period of time. How about a burglar who burglarizes businesses at night? He never harms anyone physically. However, he doesn't quit and he is an expensive nuisance that will keep on stealing and breaking things until he is incarcerated.
There are many complexities in our criminal justice system and it is easy to generalize. I submit that most of our judges are not idiots. The people who are incarcerated are there for a reason.
I think there are some things that need to be looked at. If drug and alcohol treatment can keep people from reoffending than it probably makes sense to have an offender, on probation, doing this treatment instead of serving time in prison. Remember though, that many such offenders who are in prison are there because they failed to cooperate when the court offered them the alternative of probation and treatment outside of a correctional facility.
My greatest concern is that the number of people in facilities is going to increase. In this "have/have not" world of ours, I expect the numbers of the poor to increase. As poverty increases, I suspect we'll see more property crime and drug crime. People will want these offenders "off the street" and "locked up". Building a "more just world" has connotations that extend outside of the criminal justice system.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
