Prisons - Jail - etc.

[bbchris]

Worse than hospital food?

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[RonOnGuitar]

Hiya Chris -



re:some of your Qs about prison/jail in the US, I found a link where you can lurk/read the postings of people who have a loved one behind bars at PrisonTalk (forum) and get a pretty good idea of what's what. How sad for these folks to have to deal with it all.



Ron

[Rev9Volts]

YES I SPENT 2 DAYS SHOOTING VIDEO IN ONE. THE PRODUCER SAID DO NOT WORRY ABOUT FOOD THEY WILL FEED US. oops dang caps key... lunch was 1 small carton of room temperature milk, 2 pieces of bread, a slice of the cheapest grade balogna you never saw, 1 slice of processed plasticy cheese food product and something else i do not remember, but it was not fruit. having said that, at 25-40,000 dolars a year to house them using my tax dollars, i say cut their meals down to twice a day.

[RonOnGuitar]

<<i say cut their meals down to twice a day.>>



Actually, some states - including my own - are doing just that, at least on weekends. Of course, considering the (non)nutritional value of such haute cuisine as you've detailed, treating inmates for the resultant medical conditions will obviously entail more cost than would providing simple, but humane, healthy meals.



Ron

[questionnaire]

.... ignore our resident intellectually-challenged duo of Larree and MM - we can now add criminal justice and penology to the list of things they know @#%$ all about yet can blather about all night - and read Christian Parenti's book 'Lockdown America', a document of life in American federal penitentiaries.



BTW, the American prison population has risen from 200,000 in 1970 to 1,200,000 today. Young black males are disproportionately represented. The rise in violent crime has coincided precisely with the huge decline in the availability of North American manufacturing and agricultural jobs as capitalism goes 'global' and looks for manufacturing sites where labour and taxes are cheap, the expansion of the drug market, the refusal of the American government to introduce gun control, the fragmentation and dissolution of American working-class communities and the moral shift to competitive individualism, personal acquisition, conspicuous consumption and hedonism.



The idea that prison or even capital punishment is an efrfective deterrent is complete rubbish. In England 1790 - 1830 the crime rate rose 540% despite the existence of hanging, flogging, galley slavery, transportation and imprisonment in the filthiest, most brutal jails imaginable. The crime rate fell rapidly 1840 - 1880 when the economy picked up and the number of manufacturing jobs rose, working-class communties were stabilised by regular incomes, trade unionism became powerful and effective state policing was introduced. It rose again after 1880 when the economy again went into recession. The lowest crime rate ever experienced in British history was 1946-1986 during the post-war reconstruction years of full employment, high wages, strong community and moral values and a very small drug market.



The facts almost speak for themselves, which is why things might be a bit better if more people had this 'fancy edumification' that MM dismisses.

[DreamTone7]

Have to disagree with you on your example questionaire. Old England had living conditions that were deplorable compared to even what we in the US would consider poor, today. Totally different situation. The alternative to crime in those days was death, so what did they have to lose?



I do agree with most of your reasoning for the rise in crime here in the US, however. (Though I still believe that if you make it a crime to own a gun, only the criminals will have them. There just aren't enough cops by a long-shot in the US to make it work.) Those who don't live in the US shouldn't get too comfortable with the fact that it (rise in crime) is only here......it's comming your way, sooner or later. One thing about global expansionism.....it's global.



The people who do the most damage to our society are not the petty criminals......it's the "Enron" kind. Strip them of their money and ability to hold that kind of job in the future, along with a lengthy sentence with hard criminals, and I believe you would have an excellent deterent!

[questionnaire]

"Have to disagree with you on your example questionaire. Old England had living conditions that were deplorable compared to even what we in the US would consider poor, today. Totally different situation. The alternative to crime in those days was death, so what did they have to lose?"



Yes, DT, but the conditions in English jails were deliberately made markedly worse than even the poorest living conditions outside so that the flawed principle of deterrence could be brought into play. Read the accounts of 18th century reformers such as John Howard. The squalor and brutalisation were almost indescribable by today's standards. On top of that were the other more brutal punishments I mentioned. Deterrence is an idea concocted by European utlilitarians, who believed that humans were rationally calculating beings who constantly seek pleasure and avoid pain - a crude idea that does not take into account human irrationality and lack of consequential foresight. In philosophy, it's virtually obsolete.



As for the British working class having 'nothing to lose' at the time, this is a common fallacy. Despite the poverty, on the whole they were more hopeful, politicized and collectively secure than they are in today's highly individualised culture, as E.P. Thompson outlined in his classic work 'The Making Of The English Working Class'. They were the backbone of the English Chartist, Trade Union and Socialist movements that appeared in the 1820s after the Napoleonic Wars. They had the whole future of their communities to lose.



I do agree about the issue of white collar crime, although with the rise in violence from the 1980s in America 'petty' crime is no longer so petty - the murder rate in downtown Washington is 120 per 100,000, compared to the English rate of 2 per 100,000. White collar criminals and street criminals do different kinds of 'damage' to society, and on the whole most people would rather be swindled than shot.



As for it coming our way, you're right. The right-wing American commentator Charles Murray coined the phrase 'America reached the future first', and Britain's violence rate has become higher as it becomes more influenced by American culture and suffers similar economic problems. I have nothing against Americans personally, but I just don't want their culture taking over Britain, which is why I want to move closer to Europe. We have never experienced the degree of disruption that globalisation is causing, and it threatens to leave a permanent disenfranchised 'underclass' right across the Western world. The trouble has only just begun.

[memphis mike]

oh, insults mr. questionaire......look Mr. phd. Brit, we kicked your ass once, saved your bacon twice, it is your lot in life to be a lemming.......

[questionnaire]

... you are!! Your detailed knowledge of history leaves me breathless. Kicking ass and saving bacon. What stunning insight! I could tell you the real reasons why the US entered the latter stages of WWII but it's not worth the effort because you just wouldn't believe me. Sure, you kicked the Brits out of North America, which is one of the reasons why you ended up in the 19th century as the most lawless, punitive, trigger-happy country in the West, a legacy you still can't quite leave behind. A country with the the West's highest illiteracy and murder rates rampaging around the world telling others how to run their countries? It's a joke. Put your own house in order first, matey. Try starting with handgun control and raising the standards of your public education and stupefying brainless media output. Calling you a lemming would insult the creature's intelligence.

[NRKofOver]

Obviously, not many people here have been in jail. I for one think that even work release programs are horrible for the individual and I say that from someone who's been there. It's great to talk about how much people 'like' jail because it's cushy, but I think the real question has to be, why is real life so shitty that people prefer jail? The US has more people in jail than any other industrialized nation in the world. That's a problem that needs to be talked about.



My three days in jail were the worst three days in my life and why was I there? Because I failed to complete the terms of a plea agreement and didn't have the paperwork to show I completed community service.



And while we talk about the niceties of jail, here's the reality. Ask a question, if the deputy doesn't want to answer it in a real way, don't bitch, they'll throw you in a little cell (it happened). Don't ask for contact with the outside world other than the basic 'rights' like when your lawyer visits, your kids are of no consequence and you can't call them or talk to them when you want, only if they show up on visitation days. Want to read a book from the outside? Expect the jailers to peruse it and decide whether or not it's appropriate. I was on work release, so I got to leave everyday for work and when I came back, my bags and body were searched, I was breathalized and grilled with questions about my behavior fo the day. My boss was called three times a day to see if I was actually there. I was limited to $100 worth of possessions on myself and in jail and I had to clothe myself, but could only do laundry every other week, meaning I had to wear dirty clothes 75% of the time. I slept in a room with five other guys, the total space was about 100 square feet, so no privacy, you have to put up with spades being played at 4 am, you have no control or choice in life, you must deal with what's there.



Now maybe there are people who don't mind this kind of life, but it was absolutely horrible for me. I can only imagine that the people who would prefer to be in jail have such horrible lives on the outside that it does seem like a vacation. Maybe harsher conditions will only make people more comfortable with a horrible life of poverty and sadness. That seems like a positive tip for this nation.

Read all about ME!

[memphis mike]

you're a "ramblin'" kind of guy aren't you?

Edited by: memphis mike at: 7/12/03 4:48 am

[debbie mannas]

with the death penalty - there have been so many miscarriages of justices, so much planted evidence, so many cases of wrongful incarceration which DNA evidence has later overturned. Death is so final, that I would rather it was not carried out unless there was 300% incontrovertible proof of guilt, including DNA matches, no chance of a tampered evidence etc etc, if such a thing is possible.



I read that there are more black people in jails and on death row than anyone else. If a black guy commits a crime against a white guy there's an uproar, but if a white guy commits a crime against a black guy there's not such an outcry. Freedom and justice for all? somehow I dont think so.

[NRKofOver]

There is no inherent problem with black people making up a higher percentage of the jail population. The problems in the US stem from the fact that black people are sentenced to longer terms for the exact same crimes with the exact same history as their white counterparts. I always laugh when people say that racism isn't really a big problem in the US. The reality is that if you are a black man and you commit a crime, then you will spend more time in jail than a white man who commits the same crime. That's discrimination and racism.

Read all about ME!

[memphis mike]

I've never really heard many say that racism is not a problem, it is one of our biggest and most devastating problems..A lot also has to do with the socio-economic problems of the blacks. Their defense attorneys carry a heavy caseload and sometimes not much of a match for the self-employed defense attorney. Also due to the same socio-economic problems there is a tremendous amount of black-on-black crime. A poor defense will put you in prison quickly. I also disagree with the death penalty for pretty much the same reasons as Debbie. I also believe it is not a deterrent to crime.....

[Seismic Anamoly]

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE....UN-@#%$-BELIEVABLE...



My only wish is that they would give me 30 minutes in the cell with her....for little Michael and Alex....



A "celebrity" inmate?? God Damn...what is the world coming to...