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HidingFromGoro posted:Perhaps even more disturbingly, there is a movement to implement the kind of isolation and physical restraint used in these programs within schools- a practice which has provably resulted in the deaths of children as young as age 7. Wait, what? Are you talking about, like, school programs for disturbed teens or are you talking using prison tactics in the public school system? On non-criminal, children?
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 05:26 |
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# ? May 4, 2024 08:54 |
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nm posted:I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that these are first offenders, likely with low-level drug offenses. Or that they self-select those most likely to succeed (and fail those unlikely to succeed). Honestly that sounds right, time spent in prison easily ruins a person's life and makes them more criminal. I very much expect if the law was changed so if you stole you'd get your hand broken and then set free that it'd have a lower repeat offender rate than prison, NOT because of the brutal punishment teaching anyone anything, but because prison time is deadly poison and it takes a lot to make something worse than it psychologically. I wouldn't be surprised if just getting arrested and released the repeat rate was something like 20% and being inhuman to a person for 6 weeks raises it to 23% and 6 years to 32% more than anything, I wouldn't be shocked if their statistic was exactly right but for the wrong reason.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 05:30 |
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mew force shoelace posted:I wouldn't be surprised if just getting arrested and released the repeat rate was something like 20% and being inhuman to a person for 6 weeks raises it to 23% and 6 years to 32% more than anything, I wouldn't be shocked if their statistic was exactly right but for the wrong reason. However, I think that felony conviction on your record is just as damaging as prison time in re-integrating.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 07:13 |
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nm posted:That could be true. That wouldn't make sense. The felony conviction would be there either way so it would be exactly equally damaging in that respect but then prison also does thing like torture people, given them huge gaps in employment, integrate them into gangs, ect.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 13:25 |
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mew force shoelace posted:That wouldn't make sense. The felony conviction would be there either way so it would be exactly equally damaging in that respect but then prison also does thing like torture people, given them huge gaps in employment, integrate them into gangs, ect. Yeah, but where Prison puts you in a "prison mindset", the felony charge makes you unable to get out of the prison mindset, thus bringing you back to prison.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 14:42 |
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mew force shoelace posted:That wouldn't make sense. The felony conviction would be there either way so it would be exactly equally damaging in that respect but then prison also does thing like torture people, given them huge gaps in employment, integrate them into gangs, ect. And it doesn't just make it harder for them to pursue legal careers, it also makes it easier for them to be criminals. (prison being the best place to get criminal contacts and credibility)
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 14:43 |
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21stCentury posted:Yeah, but where Prison puts you in a "prison mindset", the felony charge makes you unable to get out of the prison mindset, thus bringing you back to prison. Huh? Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? I am saying that even a terrible program will have better results than a prison stay because prison is ruinous.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 14:46 |
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mew force shoelace posted:Huh? Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? I am saying that even a terrible program will have better results than a prison stay because prison is ruinous. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. I'm saying that prison is ruinous and worsened by the terrible programs already in place.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 14:53 |
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:And it doesn't just make it harder for them to pursue legal careers, it also makes it easier for them to be criminals. (prison being the best place to get criminal contacts and credibility)
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 15:09 |
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lonelywurm posted:This is the big one. I remember an ask/tell thread with a ~20 year old goon who'd spent a year and a half in jail in Texas for felony vandalism (apparently as a result of writing on his high school bathroom's wall) and couldn't even get a job making fries because of it. Simply put, felons are going to have a much harder time doing the poo poo that we expect of them - getting a job, apartment, and generally not committing crimes any more because of that felony on the ol' record. That's pretty much how the system is designed. It's kind of to say so but look at how the incentives are structured. A whole lot of people get paid a whole lot of money the more prisoners there are. These are the same people who are in charge of the prison environment. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to determine that this will result in harsh initial sentences to get people into the system, and almost impossible to surmount obstacles to getting out of it.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 15:51 |
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Rutibex posted:That's pretty much how the system is designed. It's kind of to say so but look at how the incentives are structured. A whole lot of people get paid a whole lot of money the more prisoners there are. These are the same people who are in charge of the prison environment. It isn't something from a history book either when people were saying "this is our new way to deny blacks rights" after civil rights. Like, it's not a conspiracy, it was stuff the people doing it were saying on record.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 16:26 |
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lonelywurm posted:This is the big one. I remember an ask/tell thread with a ~20 year old goon who'd spent a year and a half in jail in Texas for felony vandalism (apparently as a result of writing on his high school bathroom's wall) and couldn't even get a job making fries because of it. Simply put, felons are going to have a much harder time doing the poo poo that we expect of them - getting a job, apartment, and generally not committing crimes any more because of that felony on the ol' record. Just an FYI, that was all fake. The guy made it up. Doesn't make the prison stuff any less terrible though.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 16:29 |
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Kawalimus posted:Just an FYI, that was all fake. The guy made it up. Doesn't make the prison stuff any less terrible though.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 16:54 |
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21stCentury posted:Wait, what? Are you talking about, like, school programs for disturbed teens or are you talking using prison tactics in the public school system? On non-criminal, children? 153 Reps voted for physical restraint & solitary for schoolchildren Roll call "It’s hard to decide which is more shocking: the fact that 153 members of the United States Congress would see fit to vote against such a bill, or the fact that it was needed in the first place." This 7-year old special-needs girl in Wisconsin was pinned to the floor and killed because she was blowing bubbles in her milk. (PDF) http://solitarywatch.wordpress.com/...ry-confinement/ quote] On Wednesday afternoon, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 4247, the https://preventing (now being called the Keeping All Students Safe Act), by a vote of 262-153. In the final vote count, 238 Democrats and just 24 Republicans voted for the bill, while 8 Democrats and 145 Republicans voted against it. (Check out the full roll call here.) H.R. 4247 was introduced in December by Education and Labor Committee chair George Miller (D-CA) and Committee member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and bill passed out of committee with bipartisan support. Their goal, Miller and Rodgers wrote in a joint op-ed for CNN, was simply to “outlaw child abuse in schools.” The bill’s stated purposes include the following: quote:(1) prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools; It’s hard to decide which is more shocking: the fact that 153 members of the United States Congress would see fit to vote against such a bill, or the fact that it was needed in the first place. In fact, the bill’s findings state that “physical restraint and seclusion have resulted in physical injury, psychological trauma, and death to children in public and private schools.” The House Education and Labor Committee conducted hearings on the subject last spring, after the Government Accountability Office published a report that began with the following statement: quote:Although GAO could not determine whether allegations were widespread, GAO did find hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of these methods on school children during the past two decades. Examples of these cases include a 7 year old purportedly dying after being held face down for hours by school staff, 5 year olds allegedly being tied to chairs with bungee cords and duct tape by their teacher and suffering broken arms and bloody noses, and a 13 year old reportedly hanging himself in a seclusion room after prolonged confinement. Special education students were especially vulnerable to this kind of treatment, the report found: quote:For example, teachers restrained a 4 year old with cerebral palsy in a device that resembled a miniature electric chair because she was reportedly being “uncooperative.”….Teachers confined [a 9 year old with learning disabilities] to a small, dirty room 75 times over the course of 6 months for offenses such as whistling, slouching, and hand waving….In another case, a residential day school implemented a behavior plan, without parental consent, that included confining an 11-year-old autistic child to his room for extended periods of time, restricting his food, and using physical restraints. The child was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder as a result of this treatment. A report published earlier last year by the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) provided additional examples, including one in which a 7-year-old Wisconsin girl, who was diagnosed with an emotional disturbance and ADHD, died of suffocation after several adult staff pinned her to the floor in a “prone restraint” because she was blowing bubbles in her milk. A handful of earlier accounts also exposed the widespread use in schools of “seclusion rooms” or “time-out rooms”–basically, solitary confinement cells for difficult-to-control children. Mary Hallowell wrote about one such case in her 2009 book Forgotten Rooms. According to an article [in] the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: quote:Education researcher Mary Hollowell spent months chronicling an alternative high school in rural Georgia before she discovered the awful secret that continues to haunt her today. Walking with the principal down a hall, Hollowell heard a loud pounding. She followed the principal into a room and then through a connecting doorway that led to a solitary confinement cell double bolted from the outside. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: “Seclusion rooms are allowed in Georgia public schools provided they are big enough for children to lie down, have good visibility and have locks that spring open in case of an emergency such as a fire. In 2004, Jonathan King, 13, hanged himself in one such room, a stark, 8-foot-by-8-foot ‘timeout’ room in a Gainesville public school.” Jonathan was also a special ed student, who had ADHD and depression. He had talked about suicide to the school psychologist, but she concluded it was “an escape or attention-getting technique,” according to the Gainesville Times. A civil rights lawsuit brought by his parents was thrown out of federal court. These are the sorts of abuses that H.R. 4247 seeks to address. And the pressing need for federal legislation is clear from the GAO report: ”GAO found no federal laws restricting the use of seclusion and restraints in public and private schools and widely divergent laws at the state level,” it said. In addition, “GAO could not find a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that collects information on the use of these methods or the extent of their alleged abuse.” Yet 153 members of Congress chose to vote against a law that would expose and limit what can in some cases only be described as the torture of schoolchildren. Perhaps not so shocking after all: In a country that condones torture not only in its military detention centers, but in its state and federal prisons, immigration jails, and juvenile detention centers, it was only a matter of time before it trickled down, even into our schools. [/quote]
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 16:59 |
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HidingFromGoro posted:E: never mind An excuse to post this video. Awesome. These guys kick serious rear end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhF4Kpg6soc
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 20:39 |
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I'm relieved that the bill got passed. I was under the impression it was a bill to introduce solitary confinement in schools... But i don't know what's worse, that so many people were against making those illegal, or that they were used at all in schools... Are Americans really in the mindset that schools are prisons for kids first and educational second?
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 20:49 |
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21stCentury posted:I'm relieved that the bill got passed. I was under the impression it was a bill to introduce solitary confinement in schools... I hope no one misinterprets me as supporting the sort of things that have been done because it is raw and pure evil. But some of this stuff exists legitimately in special ed. There are autistic kids that do repeated behavior and one day will just get it in their head to scratch their eyes over and over no matter what and are not high functioning enough to get rationalized or even punished away from it, and the only thing that can be done is to physically keep them from it for the period until they move to another behavior. Clearly this stuff is misused, and it certainly is misused in special ed as well, but special ed can be a weird little universe sometimes, with some really absurdly extreme cases. A lot of children are getting education now where in the past they would have just been set to institutions and kept "chemically restrained" with drugs that made them lay in bed all day. This stuff has to exist for them, and has to be used properly, it's not a punishment and shouldn't ever be used as such. But yeah, special ed teachers do really learn how to restrain children, they need to do that. They need a thing to do when a kid with down syndrome starts slamming the edge of a metal ruler into another kid's face.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 22:29 |
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mew force shoelace posted:That wouldn't make sense. The felony conviction would be there either way so it would be exactly equally damaging in that respect but then prison also does thing like torture people, given them huge gaps in employment, integrate them into gangs, ect. That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that having a felony on your record alone makes it extremely difficult to "go legit." Hard to get a job beyond menial labor. This is just as damaging as the effects as prison. Obviously these two team up for a double whammy of being hosed.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 23:24 |
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nm posted:This is just as damaging as the effects as prison. Obviously these two team up for a double whammy of being hosed. I guess I agree, it's just weird to phrase it like that, it's just as damaging plus their is more bad effects can be rephrased as "more damaging" without implying either is not damaging.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 23:25 |
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mew force shoelace posted:I guess I agree, it's just weird to phrase it like that, it's just as damaging plus their is more bad effects can be rephrased as "more damaging" without implying either is not damaging.
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 23:33 |
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mew force shoelace posted:Clearly this stuff is misused, and it certainly is misused in special ed as well, but special ed can be a weird little universe sometimes, with some really absurdly extreme cases. A lot of children are getting education now where in the past they would have just been set to institutions and kept "chemically restrained" with drugs that made them lay in bed all day. This stuff has to exist for them, and has to be used properly, it's not a punishment and shouldn't ever be used as such. But yeah, special ed teachers do really learn how to restrain children, they need to do that. They need a thing to do when a kid with down syndrome starts slamming the edge of a metal ruler into another kid's face. The bill is meant to "ensure that physical restraint and seclusion are imposed in school only when a student’s behavior poses an imminent danger of physical injury to the student, school personnel, or others..."
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# ? Sep 12, 2010 23:48 |
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21stCentury posted:I'm relieved that the bill got passed. I was under the impression it was a bill to introduce solitary confinement in schools... Don't be too glad about it passing. It's dead in the Senate.
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# ? Sep 13, 2010 00:03 |
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mew force shoelace posted:I hope no one misinterprets me as supporting the sort of things that have been done because it is raw and pure evil. Yeah, I work in special ed and our most severe cases are something of a ticking liability time bomb. We got a kid who flips out and bites people when he does get what he wants but he's also double jointed so the physical restraint that we're allowed to use doesn't work. What he wants often includes digging in the garbage and eating what he finds or groping the crotches of female gen ed students he passes by on the way to lunch. His parents frequently also neglect him but see fit to collect his government checks, which is a big part of the problem. So either we're going to get sued for hurting this kid or sued by the parents of one of the gen ed students he sexually assaults. We used to have another kid who would flip out and attack other kids without provokation and when he couldn't that would bang his head against the wall. His parents refused to let him be medicated because of theatans despite paying other people to take care of him since their house was not set up to have an autistic child that breaks and throws things. He was non-verbal would also spend all day screaming like "AHH! AHHH! AHH! EEEE! EEEE! EEE!" for hours at a time. I also worked in a class where there was a girl who was completely non-verbal and would just dart lightning fast and snatch whatever she wanted, like other people's lunch and flip out when she didn't get it. Sometimes she would take her pants off and rub one off publically. Another guy did the same thing except he also liked to knock over containers and watch the contents spill out. He got his whole school banned from the science museum when he dumped out two enormous fish tanks. He was an escape artist, really good and getting out of the holds we're allowed to use on him. His parents were really sue happy on top of it, convinced he could do calculus in a gen ed class despite being non-verbal and not able to tell numbers apart, so no school wanted the liability of working with him. I will say I do like working in this business but we certainly have no shortage of "war stories." FIRE CURES BIGOTS fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Sep 13, 2010 |
# ? Sep 13, 2010 02:29 |
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Fire posted:Right but you're able to handle these kids without killing them. There's a difference between those war stories and what this bill is trying to prevent- and you know it. It even has an exemption to allow (sometimes fatal) restraint measures to prevent injury, and you could drive a bus through that provision. Look at what cops can do if they're "concerned for officer safety" or "thought he was dangerous," or all the rest. I'm not seeing much more reasons for the 153 reps voting how they did unless they either actually want this kind of abuse to continue (unlikely) or they knew it would pass anyway and used it to score some cheap points for "states rights" or some such, gaining "political capital" or whatever at the expense of dead children. Unacceptable in either case. Edit- I'll bring it back to prison: Even legit cops and veteran prison staff will tell you that if you're trying to control or contain a physically fit adult man who probably knows how to handle himself, and he dies, then you're doing it wrong. So it follows that if you are trying to contain a handicapped 7 year old girl, and she dies, then you're doing it wrong- way wrong. Personally I think if you are even capable of getting it that wrong, then you ought not to be anywhere near disabled children, but that's just me. Further, if it takes federal laws or video cameras or federal oversight (or whatever else) to make sure you get it right; then it's worth it at twice the price. HidingFromGoro fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Sep 13, 2010 |
# ? Sep 13, 2010 21:08 |
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mew force shoelace posted:I hope no one misinterprets me as supporting the sort of things that have been done because it is raw and pure evil. Seclusion, 'restraint' as either bondage and restraint, or pain-compliance holds (basically UFC bullshit against kids, if you want a visual) is used as a means of control, discipline and easy-way-out by a plethora of fly by night profit seeking institutions who call themselves therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment, emotional growth, alternative, or just a boarding or 'alternative' or charter school. Putting an end to particularly violent abuse is something we need to have done back when "Straight Incorporated" was pioneering the concept - thank's Mel Sembler! - but now it's become very ingrained in the entire concept of 'tough love'. Not to mention that very horrific psychological/mental/emotional/pick something abuse is par of the course as well. I helped make an article on a now defunct website called askquestions.org. It's a very good read, and I'll just go ahead and post it here: quote:Safe Choices for Troubled Teens The actual article in the archives has better formatting and a few links, but I wanted to get the gist of this through to D&D. I should make a more expansive post, or thread, about this subject, but I'm really short of time as of late and wanted to get the general idea out here and let people start discussing it. I should add that much of the really horrific poo poo from the past is hardly kept secret, but little has ever been done about it. I should add something else, that reading that archive of an article which was on foxnews of all places is not good for your mental health, is probably not work safe, and not a good idea for the faint of heart to try to read. I don't have a source with me, but even the government and organizations don't exactly know how many kids are in these places - estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000 at a time. Keep in mind that while we're reading about it, going to and from work, and screaming about nonsense, that the majority of american posters here have most likely driven by such places, and we've all done next to nothing about it. I'll be back in about 2.5 hours, if anyone has any further questions or wants a more expansive post about this let me know. Just do me a favor and don't start immediately going into rationalization mode, spewing bullshit about something you only learned existed when you read this post. I really cannot stand blathering bullshit about how they deserve this poo poo when Goro and everyone he's shown this to loses sleep over it. God knows I have.
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# ? Sep 13, 2010 21:52 |
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flux_core posted:Seclusion, 'restraint' as either bondage and restraint, or pain-compliance holds (basically UFC bullshit against kids, if you want a visual) is used as a means of control, discipline and easy-way-out by a plethora of fly by night profit seeking institutions who call themselves therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment, emotional growth, alternative, or just a boarding or 'alternative' or charter school I agree 100%, I really wasn't posting an argument.
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# ? Sep 13, 2010 21:55 |
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mew force shoelace posted:I agree 100%, I really wasn't posting an argument. I'm kind of trying to orient this thread towards the private for-profit prison industry which makes its money off of scamming parents, social services and mental health providers by commoditizing children and then torturing and brainwashing them for years. It kind of fits, and I was hoping to stir up discussion, not use it as a brick-bat against you. I'm sorry if you received it that way. I was also a bit amped up expecting someone to act like a complete Neanderthal about "tuff love" but I guess teenagers being raped, forced to soil themselves and brainwashed while being told it's for their own good scared away everyone from the thread.
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 01:17 |
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flux_core posted:I'm kind of trying to orient this thread towards the private for-profit prison industry which makes its money off of scamming parents, social services and mental health providers by commoditizing children and then torturing and brainwashing them for years. This isn't GBS and even there that crowd is a lot thinner than the general population. Post this thread on some forum where there aren't a lot of internet people or put this threads content in a youtube video and watch the endless comments of people who refuse to consider what they have seen, if they have even bothered reading saying things like "can't do the time, don't do the crime" or "I was a victim, hang them!"
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 02:10 |
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HidingFromGoro posted:Right but you're able to handle these kids without killing them. I wasn't posting an argument.
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 02:11 |
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I first read about the WWASP facilities in an article about it a couple years ago. I was completely horrified at the idea of putting children in what basically amounts to a jail without going through any legal channels. I was horrified at the thought that someone was actually making money off jailing and mistreating children, and that it was implicitly seen as a good thing in America. Back then, I wasn't aware of the state of the American Penal System, but i knew it was wrong to profit from it. The fact that these facilities exists is chilling because it sets a precedent: It's okay to jail non-criminals if you pay money for it. And yet not only is there an industry, but one that actually thrives off those poor rich people with out-of-control teenagers. Nothing screams "Rich People Problems are most important" more than the existence of the WWASP. An organization you can pay to abduct your children in the night and lock them away for a couple years.
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 02:33 |
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They masquerade as therapy all the time; they scam well-meaning but low-information (or just high panic) parents regularly and also scam the state, claiming that they're providing real therapy to kids who genuinely need it. They don't just abuse children and call it tuff love as a means of making lovely parents feel like they're the victims and spitting out child-robots.
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 02:41 |
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flux_core posted:I'm kind of trying to orient this thread towards the private for-profit prison industry which makes its money off of scamming parents, social services and mental health providers by commoditizing children and then torturing and brainwashing them for years. If that's an area you want to explore I feel the need to mention this jem: Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html quote:At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 07:47 |
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quote:“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center. Unstated implication: the adult prison system features adults with very minor infractions having their lives ruined and this is OK because we have to punish them.
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# ? Sep 14, 2010 09:50 |
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The only thing programs do effectively is make more drones for the corporate world, people who think the military is just structured enough to not make them scared but still like a vacation compared to a program, or think jail is just structured enough to make them not scared but still vacation like compared to a program. In short, jesus christ we are a third world nation on the inside and I hate how I don't always do a good job at blocking this out.
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# ? Sep 15, 2010 00:56 |
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HidingFromGoro fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Sep 17, 2010 |
# ? Sep 17, 2010 06:19 |
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mew force shoelace posted:nm posted:21stCentury posted:Well, that just depends so much on the individual, in addition to kind of time he did, and where he did that time. Luckily for me I did military time, which is vastly different from Lord of the Flies in state prisons. And when business was booming in 2003, I got a job even after saying "look I just got out of military prison." Then again, I'm white. I even worked my way up into a job with fancy clothes and making bank- one year over $50K (don't hate, that's seriously fat bank in my circles). Later, I'd get jobs that wouldn't bother to do any background checks other than in-state. These days it's a little differnt, times are tough and there's "labor flexibility" so they will spend that money and do a nationwide+federal check (although I always got turned down for my bad credit instead of convictions- but that's another thread I guess). Nowdays I do under-the-table landscaping and demolition work on a day crew- no credit or background checks in this field, although the pay sucks and there's no benefits. And you have to listen to "you, hey you- you speak Mexican right? Tell those Mexicans to do (x)." Whatever. Anyway, that prison mindset, it's a killer. Whole re-entry programs are designed around getting rid of that. I wasn't even in Lord of the Flies, and still it tripped me up once or twice. Things got out of hand, before reason kicked in and was like "whoa, let's think about this, let's not do this." This was 7 years ago, but still. For guys who go to state prison, the effect can be profound. Veteran cons, it's no problem, they've been through the wringer many times, in & out, they know the rules. They know the taxpayer doesn't know the rules (and in fact the taxpayer can't and shouldn't even be expected to). It's the first-timers that worry me, especially the younger guys. In prison, the younger first timer has a steep learning curve- especially if he comes in without a lot of upper body. Sink or swim, you know, so they learn it and learn it fast- and pain is such an elegant teacher. It reprograms your brain, that's just real. That's just survival and adaptation that humans are so good at, why we're top of the old food chain, and all that. And it manifests sharply in The World. You're talking about a guy who has spent years having to fight someone for taking the last chocolate milk, or else risk being considered a bitch and suffer severe consequences. What is that guy going to do to the taxpayer who cuts him off in traffic, or shoulders past him in the grocery store. This poo poo might not happen much in Our America (between like residents), but sometimes we go into Your America. It's that "friction" I talk about, when people from different Americas come into contact. And cops, this dude learned the hard way to say to a cop (guard) "man, gently caress you. I didn't do poo poo. What are you going to do, bitch?" because otherwise there are consequences. So what is he going to say to a beat cop and how is that cop going to react? So prison does have an effect on mindset, it's ludicrous to think it doesn't. Ever had a friend that went off to college, or Iraq, or whatever; and came back just a little bit different than before? It's our greatest strength, the ability to adapt to whatever is thrown at us, that causes the problem. And that's why I say bring on the boot camps. Yes I know they pick & choose to juke their stats, I know all of that. But the full-on 24/7 mind games they play prevent the "prison mindset" from taking root, and that gives offenders a huge leg up when they get back into their communities- my communities- your communities. They do need to be closely regulated and monitored by 3rd parties to prevent abuse, make no mistake.
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# ? Sep 17, 2010 06:21 |
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HidingFromGoro posted:[*]MA judge feels 'troubled' by JLWOP for autistic + mentally-ill 16 year old, but upholds the sentence anyway. She could have changed LWOP to straight life, making him eligible for parole as early as age 34, but said she didn't want to act as a "13th juror." There is some hope that the way she worded her (12 page) ruling will open the door for the sentence (and possibly others) to be appealed on Constitutional grounds. The criminal justice system, more than any other establishment in America, pays STARK attention to the principles and ideals of the our countries laws. Judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys recite SCOTUS cases from memory and honestly do think and argue in constitutional and statutory terms. To us it is not mental masturbation to argue constitutional theory; we live our lives applying it to people's lives. I've learned in the last two years to no doubt the sincerity of other prosecutors, defense attorneys and the judges who hear my trials. There are exceptions but when we go to a bar or out to eat we cannot put aside the shop talk because it permeates so much of how we live. When this judge says she doesn't want to be a 13th juror, that resonates with me. We spend so much effort and time getting people to serve on juries and then spend days and days educating them on the rules they have to follow it can be hard to poo poo on their decision once you've placed it in their hands. Is the system imperfect? Yes. But humans are imperfect. In America we see the level of good and the level of bad in people. Life without parole is a harsh sentence and especially so for juvenile offenders. But the legislatures have decided the potential threat to society outweighs the rights of individual offenders once they have been adjudicated. Blaming that decision on the courts is misapplication of fault. Personally, I've seen juveniles of all stripes and colors: stupid kids all the way to sociopathic monsters. The kids can straighten out. The other kind are so hosed up it is scary to contemplate releasing them.
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# ? Sep 17, 2010 14:55 |
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Domini Cane posted:When this judge says she doesn't want to be a 13th juror, that resonates with me. We spend so much effort and time getting people to serve on juries and then spend days and days educating them on the rules they have to follow it can be hard to poo poo on their decision once you've placed it in their hands. Is the system imperfect? Yes. But humans are imperfect. The judge's inaction resonates with me in a different way. Judges are granted special, almost unique powers of discretion under our rules; and she has specific discretion to mitigate sentences like this. She failed to exercise that discretion. Cop-outs like "I don't want to be the 13th juror" ring as hollow as "I was just following orders." "But the legislatures have decided the potential threat to society outweighs the rights of individual offenders once they have been adjudicated." is a slightly longer way of saying "I was just following orders." If you've been part of the system any time at all, you know that LWOP law wasn't the product of a rational, deliberative process, it was a misdirected knee-jerk reaction to something bad that happened, coupled with the fact that "get tough on crime" (no matter the cost) will always get you votes. e.g., What is the risk to society of a person who has 5 grams of crack (and two drug (even simple possession) priors) that justiifes making LWOP the only possible punishment? If that kid is still a sociopathic monster at 34 (pretty much guaranteed after being raised to adulthood in prison) he won't get paroled. Yes, people do get paroled and commit terrible crimes; but 99%+ don't. That balance of "how many errors on granting parole are acceptable vs. never letting anyone out of prison, ever" is another question that will not get a rational, deliberative hearing in a Legislature. That is why we give judges lots of money, lots of respect, lots of power, and lots of discretion. So they will use their discretion. If the judge was sure that in the remaining 50-60 years of that 16 year-old's life he could never be fit for release, she should have made that decision and stated her reason. That, too, would be an exercise of her discretion. If you're going to abdicate the discretion that is a judge's raison d'etre and fob off your responsibilites on "the legislature" you're in the wrong job.
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# ? Sep 17, 2010 15:43 |
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Domini Cane posted:In America we see the level of good and the level of bad in people. Life without parole is a harsh sentence and especially so for juvenile offenders. But the legislatures have decided the potential threat to society outweighs the rights of individual offenders once they have been adjudicated. Blaming that decision on the courts is misapplication of fault. Personally, I've seen juveniles of all stripes and colors: stupid kids all the way to sociopathic monsters. The kids can straighten out. The other kind are so hosed up it is scary to contemplate releasing them. Why is it that other countries seem to do fine with not putting "sociopathic monsters" away for life without parole? Every other first-world country does this, and NONE of them have huge crime waves because of it.
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# ? Sep 17, 2010 16:17 |
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# ? May 4, 2024 08:54 |
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Lyesh posted:Why is it that other countries seem to do fine with not putting "sociopathic monsters" away for life without parole? Every other first-world country does this, and NONE of them have huge crime waves because of it. Arguably because the US is unique in being able to create truely sociopathic monsters because of all it´s other problems. I completely agree we need to do away with lifetime sentences, but it needs to come with other things that prevent such situations. Social services, safety nets, narrowed income inequality, etc.
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# ? Sep 17, 2010 16:22 |