5 ms·
This read to me like Stockholm Syndrome more than anything. I've spent time in a similar environment, and there is a unique bond you form amongst the people ar
by l33tbro 11y ago
This read to me like Stockholm Syndrome more than anything. I've spent time in a similar environment, and there is a unique bond you form amongst the people around you. But I think the author takes it a little too far when he starts projecting his outside experience onto his fellow inmates, and all but bestowing them with the entrepreneurial instincts of Marc Andreessen.
Yes prison sucks, with prisoners becoming better prisoners. But there are a lot of genuinely bad people in prison that belong there, and not on the outside starting companies and exploring there entrepreneurial lust.
This is why it is the criminal justice system, not prisons, that is at crisis point. Instead of decarceration the author pleads, we need to focus attention on making sure that less people end up inside in the first place.
- lhc- 11y agoSo these genuinely bad people, you feel the solution is to lock them up for life? Whats the threshold to indicate when they should no longer be allowed to participate in society? A lot of "bad people" succeed in the outside in politics, banking, venture capital, and frankly every industry. A lot of "bad people" in prison could easily be leading much different lives if they were born into different circumstances. How do you expect these people to become productive members of society and transition from "bad people" to useful citizens if you deny them any help or any tools to do so? If your only choice for survival is to sell drugs, then you're probably going to sell drugs. If there are better options, most people will take them.
- l33tbro 11y agoThis is the exact dialogue we need. I was referring to a certain strata of the incarcerated such as serial rapists and repeat murderers. Thankfully, that's a very small portion of inmates - so I retract my comment on there being a lot of them. Sure, the term "bad people" cannot be quantified and really comes down to outlook in life, but I truly believe these folks cannot be rehabilitated and do not belong in our society.
- yarou 11y agoMembers of the Roman Imperial Legion were known to engage in serial rapes and murders in the lands they occupied. There is a calling for this type of skill set, and the exact role is that of a soldier. As there haven't been many wars in recent years, it's only logical that you'd find these types in prison. Relevant to this discussion is Foucalt's concept of "disciplinary institution". [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplinary_institution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplinary_institution
- jschwartzi 11y agoAre you suggesting that soldiers are called up out of a desire to harm others?
- Karunamon 11y agoHare-brained theory: Less "harm", more "impose their authority on". It takes a certain mindset to become an officer/soldier/etc. Those professions are how society channels those kinds of impulses in a semi-constructive way.
- chillwaves 11y agoWould hardly call what a professional soldier does the same as what a murderer, often a crime of passion, does. Same with rape. I do not need raping soldiers in any capacity.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoAll soldiers rape the conquered women. That's what soldiers do.
- noir_lord 11y agoThat's a shitty generalisation, historically true but far less so amongst modern professional non-conscripted standing forces.
- Retra 11y agoHe does seem to think that America is worse off because we're containing these prisoners' "entrepreneurial spirit," which is something I'm pretty solidly convinced we could live without quite comfortably, actually.
- Karunamon 11y agoThis comment exemplifies what was being mentioned in the article. "Bad people" as a thought-terminating cliché - well obviously they're bad people, therefore we shouldn't care about the conditions inside. That may not be what you meant to say, but that's the way your comment reads.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]