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Arglebargle III posted:I've never had the opportunity, but I've been thinking that you could challenge the common prison rape acceptance/joking by suggesting that you and the people talking to you go rape the inmate right now. Describe in graphic detail how you would rape this person and talk like you really mean to go find them, hold them down, and anally rape them, then when the people you're talking to are horrified try to drive home the point that this is what they are laughing about. You've never had the opportunity? Ever since I read the Ask/Tell thread that HidingFromGoro started I've been a changed man when it comes to prison policy in the US. I was never the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" type really, but now that I know what I've gotten from all these threads I'm shocked how often prison rape jokes come up in normal every day conversations. They're almost the ultimate throw away line, but I've stopped playing along and allowing prison rape to be used as a joke around me because once you find out anything about it, it's the least funny thing ever. Now if someone mentions the old "Haha, he's going to get raped in prison, haha" canard I jump all over it as an opportunity to have the same reaction as if someone told me a similar hate based race joke and I stop and just tell people that prison rape is Not loving Funny and what I've learned. I'm on a one man mission to make prison rape jokes as socially acceptable as telling jew jokes and black jokes.
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Jul 26, 2010 22:57
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I know someone who was a prison guard in Arizona for some time, in a level 4 yard (mostly convicted rapists and violent assault, very few murderers). He was stationed in this prison as his first assignment after 3 months of training. He found the state of the prison's management disturbing in general, and he told me every night during the time he worked there about his shift and this is the story that left him the most shaken: An inmate (call him steve) owed a prominent mexican gang in his yard a drug debt of about $10,000. He was due to be released on probation in about 5 months which put him between a rock and a hard place. He was a pretty average guy for the most part, that is to say he wasn't known for being outrageously muscular or violent. He was a gang member on the outside, probably got arrested for assault at which point all of his warrants caught up with him and he had to do his time, a few years. Having run up this debt of $10,000, for whatever reason, meant he had to pay before he got out. It's not unusual to acquire this level of debt on the inside because: where would you go? You're stuck there, and you're going to pay, one way or another. Word got out that his sentence has been reduced, which made him a marked man. The gang to whom he owed $10,000 would give him 3 choices- 1) Perform a dirty deed (most likely murder) which may or may not clear the entire debt but would definitely create the possibility of a life sentence. 2) Become a sex slave (again, in 5 months this may not pay the whole debt plus you would be forfeiting any protection that any other inmates may provide you in general), and almost guaranteeing the contraction of a host of STDs including HIV. 3) Die as an example of what happens when you try to escape your debt (probably at the hands of another debtor) He could tell the prison counselors that he owed a drug debt and his life was in danger, in which case they would try to move you to another yard or facility, but that would take time and most likely the gang would make it's move by then. So he decided to kill a guard. Killing a guard would get him moved immediately to a solitary holding facility where the gang could not get to him. Most likely his crime would make him eligible to move to another facility designed to handle his new status as a murderer and he would likely be able to negotiate and transfer that would put him out of range of the gang he owed money to. Even if he got a life sentence, he would have a rep for assaulting a guard and would have his debt effectively cleared. Steve chose a 60 year-old guard that was left alone with 5 'trusted' inmates that were cleaning the facility's kitchen. It took 30 seconds. Steve slammed the guard against the wall, knocking the wind out of him and let him fall to the floor. Steve then began stomping on his face as hard as he could. The other inmates, knowing they would all take the blame for the assault surrounded the guard and began kicking him viciously until another guard heard the commotion and emptied a can of mace in their faces. The guard has been in a coma for 6 weeks and is not likely to recover, as his skull was cracked in multiple places during the attack. He leaves behind a wife, a son and daughter and 5 grandchildren. Last we heard Steve was still waiting for his court date, but multiple guards indicated that they would be letting the gang he owed know where he would be staying for the rest of his natural life as retaliation for the 50 year old guard.
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Jul 26, 2010 23:02
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DynamicSloth posted:Yes this was pretty much the definition of a Bill of attainder against Homolka and really should have been disallowed. Homolka certainly shiouldn't have been walking the streets after 5 years but that was a function of her original plea bargain, destroying the pardon system and making it impossible for many parolees to find employment for a decade or so after there release is just a nasty side effect. You're kidding me, right? They're really trying to fix the "statistics make us look bad" thing by making it harder to get statistics? Please tell me this is a joke.
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Jul 26, 2010 23:03
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Zeitgueist posted:Yep. It's unnecessary to do all these fancy experimental prisons when other countries don't have near the problems we do, though they also don't have the centuries of institutionalized racism. Sure they do. Thats why they had all those World Wars and poo poo. But seriously there is plenty of racism in Europe, though its more ethnically based than simply the color of your skin. French-Algerians and whatnot. EDIT: Hell its the year 2010 and random enclaves in the Balkans still cant play nice together.
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Jul 26, 2010 23:11
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Sylink posted:Sure they do. Thats why they had all those World Wars and poo poo. I knew this would be a response to that post, but I still stand by it. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in those countries. I'm saying that it's not as pervasive and institutionalized as it is in the US. The US is the one that is incarcerating more people than anyone ever.
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Jul 26, 2010 23:14
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21stCentury posted:You're kidding me, right? They're really trying to fix the "statistics make us look bad" thing by making it harder to get statistics? The PM has against all advice decided to scrap the data collected in the Census in favour of much more expansive (and useless) voluntary surveys. The dirty little secret behind the campaign is that the Conservatives hate Stats Can.
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Jul 26, 2010 23:15
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DynamicSloth posted:Would that I could, the Head of Statistics Canada just resigned in protest last week. This country of mine seems worse and worse to me every day. 
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Jul 26, 2010 23:21
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Zeitgueist posted:I knew this would be a response to that post, but I still stand by it. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in those countries. I'm saying that it's not as pervasive and institutionalized as it is in the US. I think it's really the opposite, it's so institutionalized over such a long period of time it's worked itself out more. Europe has a lot of ethnic fights heading towards the one or two thousand year mark and things have long since settled into well defined regions and even countries by now so things don't even come up much these days.
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Jul 26, 2010 23:36
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Sylink posted:Florida has since changed their policy. Yes, the system was changed from asking the republican governor if you can please vote again to applying to get your right to vote back and wait for them to process your application. My mother was released 8 years ago and she checks on her application every few months and is always told there's a lot of people applying so it will take awhile.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:14
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21stCentury posted:Seriously, though, anyone remember that Greyhound beheading case? It made me pretty angry when the mother of the victim went on the news and tearfully asked why the government didn't lock up every schizophrenic permanently. I think in general people need to stop going to the families for any kind of reasonable response. They're pretty much (and maybe understandably) just on the look out for vengeance against anyone they can find. You can see this in particular when someone who is blatantly innocent is acquitted and the families say "This is a slap in the face for us and a desecration of our loved one's memory". Generally speaking they care about someone suffering for what happened, not getting actual justice.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:39
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The New Black posted:I think in general people need to stop going to the families for any kind of reasonable response. They're pretty much (and maybe understandably) just on the look out for vengeance against anyone they can find. You can see this in particular when someone who is blatantly innocent is acquitted and the families say "This is a slap in the face for us and a desecration of our loved one's memory". Generally speaking they care about someone suffering for what happened, not getting actual justice. But the American justice system is entirely built about revenge for the family and all, I mean we still have viewed executions as a common thing. So really it fits the general mood of America well.
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Jul 27, 2010 01:25
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HELLO THERE posted:Holy loving poo poo! Everybody already knows. You ever hear a white boomer say "they ought to do something about those people" or words to that effect? Well, "they" did something, and the Machine is what they did.
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Jul 27, 2010 01:42
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I've re-hosted most of my relevant links from the last thread here on this site that I share with LF superstar dm.
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Jul 27, 2010 01:43
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Zeitgueist posted:I knew this would be a response to that post, but I still stand by it. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in those countries. I'm saying that it's not as pervasive and institutionalized as it is in the US. Racism is still a huge problem. And while the prison system in the US system holds more minorities than whites, I think that has to do with the long standing poor economic treatment of nonwhites. There has been a resurgence in ethnic bias and racism in recent years actually http://www.globalissues.org/article/165/racism#RacisminEurope For example quote:Greece has one of the worst records in the European Union for racism against ethnic minorities, according to the BBC. Anti-immigrant sentiment has long been high, especially against ethnic Albanians, who form the largest minority. Until the 1990s, the BBC notes, Greece had been an extremely homogenous society. With the fall of communism many immigrants from Eastern Europe came to Greece. Albanians especially have been targetted by a lot of racist sentiment. Some hostage taking by a few Albanians in recent years has not helped the situation. Europe hates the Balkans and black people still and it leads to more outward violence and riots than it does in the US. I think both the US and Europe are hard to compare since they have different histories and different ways of institutionalizing their bias. US bias is more homogeneous in implementation but Europe still has just as much. Look at what towns in Italy are doing and how politicians are much more openly racist than any in the US.
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Jul 27, 2010 02:47
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Sylink posted:Racism is still a huge problem. And while the prison system in the US system holds more minorities than whites, I think that has to do with the long standing poor economic treatment of nonwhites. I don't know that would be better but if you read about the prison system, especially in the south a ton of systems we use explicitly were started with racism intentionally in mind.
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Jul 27, 2010 03:11
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DynamicSloth posted:Yes this was pretty much the definition of a Bill of attainder against Homolka and really should have been disallowed. Homolka certainly shiouldn't have been walking the streets after 5 years but that was a function of her original plea bargain, destroying the pardon system and making it impossible for many parolees to find employment for a decade or so after there release is just a nasty side effect. Was there even a significant chance of her getting the pardon? quote:This is the thing that most worries me about the Conservatives. The "lets get tough on crime" approach sells incredibly easily but is patently unnecessary when this is the status quo: I hate the Conservatives "tough on crime" bullshit. And the Liberals vote for every one of their awful laws because they're afraid of an election. Just last week there was a story about how crime dropped again this year! And yet the comments were all "we treat criminals with kiddie gloves! back in the day they threw em in the slammer and they straightened up!" I think modern media has a big effect on this. Every day on the news crimes are reported, creating the perception of a constant crime wave, even though the actual rates are dropping. Maybe once a year that will get reported, amid a deluge of crime stories.
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Jul 27, 2010 03:33
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HappyHippo posted:Was there even a significant chance of her getting the pardon? The problem here is that ther word pardon carries a connotation of absolution when that isn't why they are needed (or granted routinely).
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Jul 27, 2010 03:47
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HappyHippo posted:Was there even a significant chance of her getting the pardon? Yep, she stayed out of trouble for 5 years after doing her sentence without a hitch. There was no reason to withhold the pardon. That's why they got that law passed. It was literally just to gently caress her over because she's an infamous murderer/rapist. A murderer/rapist who repaid her debt to society by all all means, but we can't let that get in the way of justice. Let me reiterate. They passed a law to prevent offenders convicted of violent or sexual crime from getting pardons because they had no way to prevent a notorious ex-criminal from getting a pardon if she applied. 21stCentury fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 03:48
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So I just read through the Joe Arpaio site, and I have to ask: how is he still sheriff? I can see how he gets elected time and again, but after the multiple suspicious deaths and violent assaults in his custody, how has there not been some kind of proper police investigation into him? Or do I not understand how the US system works? I mean, surely at some point he's got to be held accountable?
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Jul 27, 2010 04:13
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The New Black posted:I mean, surely at some point he's got to be held accountable? Holding Law Enforcement accountable for the deaths of criminals is being soft on crime.
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Jul 27, 2010 04:17
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21stCentury posted:Holding Law Enforcement accountable for the deaths of criminals is being soft on crime. Well, I'm aware of all the cops who shoot random unarmed people, taser protesters to death and so on and get away scot free, but this seems of a different order to me - systematic, deliberate and horrific abuse over a long period of time. I just figured there had to be a line somewhere even cops can't cross.
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Jul 27, 2010 04:23
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The New Black posted:So I just read through the Joe Arpaio site, and I have to ask: how is he still sheriff? I can see how he gets elected time and again, but after the multiple suspicious deaths and violent assaults in his custody, how has there not been some kind of proper police investigation into him? Or do I not understand how the US system works? Killing non-whites is pretty largely what the people that vote for him want. He's doing his job as intended. He is being held accountable. Scared old white people love what he's doing and no where has more scared old white people than rural Arizona.
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Jul 27, 2010 04:24
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Except Arpaio is sheriff of an area that contains Phoenix and most of its metropolitan area, so we're not exactly talking about rural white Arizonans here. Either way, I hear that the Justice Department is biding its time.
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Jul 27, 2010 04:40
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Y-Hat posted:Except Arpaio is sheriff of an area that contains Phoenix and most of its metropolitan area, so we're not exactly talking about rural white Arizonans here. I still don't think he's exactly slipping anything by anyone. He writes books about the crap he does and people love it, he's a terrible person and the people vote for him because he is not unknowing that he is. I think it comes down to 'who the heck votes for sheriff" and the answer so far is 'people that are wicked scared of Mexicans and want someone to go shoot them"
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Jul 27, 2010 04:54
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The New Black posted:So I just read through the Joe Arpaio site, and I have to ask: how is he still sheriff? I can see how he gets elected time and again, but after the multiple suspicious deaths and violent assaults in his custody, how has there not been some kind of proper police investigation into him? Or do I not understand how the US system works? They love him. They eat his poo poo up. They swing from his balls. This is why people poo poo on Arizona so hard. There's enough people there to reelect a monster like Arpaio forever. Demographically, enough scared, old, racist, white, mid-to-upper class people have concentrated to the point where it becomes an echo chamber, and having someone like him doesn't seem insane. The reason that places like NY or SF are more liberal is that you get enough people with different live-paths that you can't concentrate the stupid so well. Arizona in general, and Phoenix in particular, doesn't have that problem. Zeitgueist fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 05:00
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Zeitgueist posted:They love him. They eat his poo poo up. They swing from his balls. Yeah but thats sort of my point - I can see how his electorate loves him, but isn't there some kind of mechanism for dealing with this from higher up in the chain of command? Or is he answerable to nobody except the people in his county? E: I mean, can't the FBI or the justice department do something? E2: understand I don't really know much about the specifics of organisational heirarchy in US law enforcement. E3: According to wikipedia: In March 2009, the United States Department of Justice notified Arpaio of that they were investigating him for civil rights violations, in unfairly targeting Hispanics and Spanish-speaking people.[39] In October 2009, it was reported that the FBI was investigating Arpaio for using his position to settle political vendettas.[44] In January 2010, it was reported that the Department of Justice has impaneled a grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse of power by Arpaio.[45] In March 2010, it was reported that an investigation into Arpaio is "serious and ongoing", according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.[46] So thats some good news I guess, though whether it ever comes to anything, we'll have to see. The New Black fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 05:10
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mew force shoelace posted:I still don't think he's exactly slipping anything by anyone. He writes books about the crap he does and people love it, he's a terrible person and the people vote for him because he is not unknowing that he is. Personally, I think it's partly xenophobic attitudes towards latinos regardless of their legal status in this country. I think the other part of it is that people want to believe that Arpaio's tough attitudes toward crime result in lower recidivism. However, according to Arpaio himself, the recidivism rate is about the same as the rest of the rest of the country. So what it really amounts to I think is xenophobia, vengeance, and an illusory sense of effectiveness. Favorite Arpaio quote: Sheriff Joe Arpaio posted:I'm tough, but humane.
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Jul 27, 2010 05:12
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The New Black posted:E: I mean, can't the FBI or the justice department do something? They are. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/08/politics/main6071928.shtml Not sure where it has gone, though.
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Jul 27, 2010 05:16
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Zeitgueist posted:They are. Eric Holder himself commented on it back in March and he says they expect to "produce results" though what that means and what exactly they'd have on him is anyone's guess. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/03/eric_holder_on_sheriff_joe_pro.php
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Jul 27, 2010 05:31
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The US black incarceration rate is higher than that of apartheid South Africa. Four times higher. and a document http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/ACF4F34.pdf
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Jul 27, 2010 06:25
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haterade posted:The US black incarceration rate is higher than that of apartheid South Africa. Four times higher. See? Proof that...those people...are just rotten!~Every right winger reading that. Don't get me wrong this is a great thread to have and awesome to have more people learn about how inherently evil our justice system has become but just a heads up to people just now finding this, be prepared to be even more depressed when you find people unironically going 'heh guess crime DOESN'T pay, huh?' about this. Americans are loving savages when it comes to our 'justice'.
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Jul 27, 2010 07:26
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haterade posted:The US black incarceration rate is higher than that of apartheid South Africa. Four times higher. Was Apartheid known for its prisons especially? I mean you dont need prisons when you just segregate the population and make society your prison anyway.
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Jul 27, 2010 14:24
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Goro, Fire, thanks for this thread. I read the LF version, but it's good (in a horribly soul-crushing way) to see it posted more widely. Repudiating the US half of my citizenship sounds better every day. DynamicSlot posted:Conservatives gut Stats Canada ...then again, it looks like Canada might be headed the same way within my lifetime. 
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Jul 27, 2010 15:34
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Qublai Qhan posted:I could always be wrong here, but I'm almost positive that mandatory convict labor is non-existent in the US. It's true that convicts are not paid particularly well for optional labor, and maybe there are reasons to pay better, but I think comparing it to slavery is probably going several steps too far. It seems a pretty fair comparison considering that abolition was specifically never granted to convicts. Consider that even for paid labor, convicts can be punished for refusing to cooperate.
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Jul 27, 2010 15:52
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I would think that making black people pick cotton on slave plantations run by decedents of slave owners makes it require a few mental gymnastics to try and pretend this isn't modern slavery.
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Jul 27, 2010 16:10
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The New Black posted:Yeah but thats sort of my point - I can see how his electorate loves him, but isn't there some kind of mechanism for dealing with this from higher up in the chain of command? Or is he answerable to nobody except the people in his county?
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Jul 27, 2010 18:38
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Article in the Economist about this last week. http://www.economist.com/node/16636027 Didn't see it posted. I'd be hard pressed to find something more legit than the Economist. From the article: Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. Why aren't the 'make the gubmit smaller and spend less' tea party assholes trumpeting about this as a means to reduce the deficit and the debt? I mean, they're not racist, so putting black people behind bars shouldn't be a sufficient motivation. olylifter fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 21:30
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olylifter posted:Article in the Economist about this last week. I guarantee that solution that would come out of this would be to spend less per prisoner by cutting any meager program that does anything humane or beneficial for any prisoner in any way.
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Jul 27, 2010 22:11
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21stCentury posted:Thanks to the GBS Prison thread, I got interested in the whole Criminal Justice System issue. Since then, i often steer the conversation when i talk to my dad about the Criminal Justice System. We live in Canada, but it's no reason not to talk about America. Especially when every 2 week or so, there's something in the news that's great proof of how ridiculous punishment-based Criminal Justice is. Those of us who were actually incarcerated at some point tend to have a different viewpoint. That's one reason why some people try to make sure we're disenfranchised. But, money talks and bullshit walks: I vote with my wallet now a lot more than I used to when I was younger. Still, keep it up.
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Jul 28, 2010 00:00
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olylifter posted:Why aren't the 'make the gubmit smaller and spend less' tea party assholes trumpeting about this as a means to reduce the deficit and the debt?
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Jul 28, 2010 00:09
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