4 ms·

I'm not sure who the genius was that thought up "23 hours a day in a small cramped windowless cell, with 1 hour for TV or a shower (according to my friend, his

by codyb 11y ago

I'm not sure who the genius was that thought up "23 hours a day in a small cramped windowless cell, with 1 hour for TV or a shower (according to my friend, his brother can either watch TV for one hour, or watch for a half hour and then take a shower as well), that should rehabilitate these people and get them ready to be productive citizens when they're due for release into society." Prison needs to be about rehabilitation, not confinement. That means social contact, decent meals, exercise, job training programs, in the prison jobs (cook, librarian, etc), and educational opportunities. Solitary for confinement for a day or two as "punishment" for transgressions is perhaps acceptable, but to let people languish in 23 hour in/ 1 hour out situations for weeks, months, and years is absolutely inhumane. When we build our nation up (I'm American) from the bottom up, that's when we become stronger as a society. It's time for the richest nation in the world to stop letting people fall through the cracks and provide access to the opportunities and programs that produce so many of the entreprenuers, scientists, doctors, and inventors we so revere. Otherwise, fuck it, we may as well just kill 'em when they get there, no?

dev1n 11y ago
when are you running for president because I haven't heard one candidate speak as intelligently about any issue as you have so clearly spoken about this one.
- codyb 11y ago
  Ha, thanks. I'm only 25, so I've got about 10 years to put together a platform before I'm even eligible. Obviously, as some of the other posters have pointed out, there a few issues regarding my statements when it comes to habitual reoffenders who threaten the rest of the prison populace. I'd need to do some more research on the subject (look at other prison systems, look at occurrence rates, etc) to figure out a proper response to that. This is how I see it now though: when you learn to scuba dive, first they tell you the basics on dry land, then they get you into a pool with the proper supervision and equipment, then you go into the ocean. When it comes to rehabilitating prisoners so that they're able to interact with the ocean (society), we're not even giving them the on land basics much less the pool (which could be civilian roles inside the prison environment). Rewarding good behavior has been studied and shown to be far more effective than punishing bad behavior. So that's the route I propose. Of course, in a society where we don't provide a lot of people (generally the people who could use it the most) the in land basics, much less the pool, before they end up in prison, I'm not sure what we expect. I've been considering writing a book called "A Path Forward: A vision for a Prosperous America" which would include a lot of my views. Hopefully that will be coming out in the next few years. If you ever see it, you'll know it was me. My views are primarily based on a rational perspective, evidence based learning, and a very healthy dose of compassion. I've never understood how people could dismiss so easily a person with decades of experiences they've never had. Of course you can learn from them. Why aren't we? Cheers mate.
slapshot 11y ago
I'm totally with you in spirit. Solitary should not be used for long-term punishment for offenses in prison, or as punishment for what happened on the outside. But what do you do about an inmate who terrorizes his cellmates, his peers on the yard, his peers in the cafeteria, etc. You've tried solitary for a day, for a week, etc. If you leave this inmate in with general, he's taking away their rights to learn and rehabilitate. If you put him in with a bunkmate... well, that seems like punishment to the bunkmate. You end up creating a new ad-seg unit that looks just like the old one, but with a new name. I'm not meaning to say that solitary is used correctly in the US right now. Not at all. But it may be an inevitable result for a very small group of prisoners who would otherwise take away the others' right to rehabilitate. (Edit: replaced stray ? with .)
- mod 11y ago
  Give him a solitary bunk but without the lack of sensory input. Leave a TV and view to the outside and all of the things a normal cell has.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    So, these people get better treatment than the better-behaved prisoners? You don't foresee any incentive-related problems?
    - waterfowl 11y ago
      ADX(fed supermax in colorado) prisoners have TVs, I don't think people are trying to get sent there for the TV.
    - jdc 11y ago
      Please show me the evidence for confinement incentivising good behavior.
    - jsharpe 11y ago
      Why not let people opt into it? For a lot of people, even if there are some benefits, they aren't going to make up for the lack of social contact.
elipsey 11y ago
The object is for the prison guards to have a way control dangerous or non-compliant prisoners. The prison staff do not have a stake in what happens outside of the prison. It seems like many or most Americans believe that the proper mandate of justice system should only include punishment because: 1) rehabilitation is immoral because it would tend to reward and promote wrong doing 2) prisoners are morally inferior and therefore rehabilitation will be ineffective 3) moral and orderly persons needn't fear the justice system because they won't break the law and therefore 4) arguments for reform must be rooted in concern for the welfare of morally inferior persons, because reform can have no other utility I have heard these things from many people I know, and apparently most of us voted for the system we have. Also, I think we really enjoy punishing people, even if it's abstract, it's very satisfying to imagine dominating and tormenting people we don't like, and along with appeals to fear, this is an excellent way to appeal politically to citizens in order to forward one's interests. I really can't imagine that we will stop doing this as long as only a minority of people are concerned about being imprisoned themselves.
- pyre 11y ago
  > The object is for the prison guards to have a way control dangerous or non-compliant prisoners. Do you really believe that only those types of prisoners end up in solitary confinement?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    ...or that confining people in solitary makes them less dangerous?
    - pyre 11y ago
      Even on the premise that it is acceptable as a last resort for violent inmates, the way it's currently used fails to meet that bar.
      - elipsey 11y ago
        I totally agree.
fouric 11y ago
I agree that we need a better system, one that does better at either rehabilitation or deterrence through punishment, as our current system is bad at both. However, we can't let these types of offenses continue. Altercations in prison indicate a type of extreme stupidity and/or violence, given that the offender is committing a crime while in the punishment stage for another crime. Drunken driving kills ~10k a year (http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impai...) and gang violence kills about the same in Mexico (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10681249 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10681249). The numbers for drug overdoses (often indirectly caused by said Mexican gangs) are far higher. Do you really want to let literally tens of thousands of people in the United States and Mexico lose their lives every year because we were too soft on the offenders?
- dalke 11y ago
  > Altercations in prison indicate a type of extreme stupidity and/or violence Your list is incomplete. Altercations also occur when people are stressed. Push most people enough, strip away humanity and agency, and they will lash out. > because we were too soft on the offenders Being too hard on prisoners has its own downsides. As this essay demonstrates. The question is, had we treated Adam Morales, Angel Coronado, and the others more softly, would they still have gone on to the commit crimes that lead them back to prison? > we can't let these types of offenses continue There doesn't seem to be much in the way of evidence that the US style of being hard on prisoners has your desired goal of reducing the number of deaths due to drunk driving, as the case of Silvestre Segovia demonstrates. Therefore, it doesn't seem the hard/soft classification is really relevant.
- kaitai 11y ago
  Altercations in prison often indicate a desire not to be beaten or raped.
- yourepowerless 11y ago
  You need some perspective. Estimates for ME casualties are between 500,000 and 2 million plus, not including refugees, the injured, nor the complete economic gutting for those who remain experience. What should be done about that? Gonna let the US government get away with genocide? Prison, like most other institutions in America, is about power and control. It has nothing to do with morality, efficiency, nor opinion, those are manufactured lies and opinions to keep the status quo. You sound like another blood thirsty progressive calling for the wanton destruction of millions. Want to stop Mexican cartels, support drug legalization. Prohibition doesn't work, it has never worked, drug use declines in countries, like Portugal, which decriminalize drug use. Calling out for the powerful to continue their spree of murder and to continue to gorge upon the lives of young black men is utterly disgusting and farcical especially when you sight the drug war as what we must fear. No fear the ones who imprison millions and kill millions more. Get a heart.
Mz 11y ago
When we build our nation up (I'm American) from the bottom up, that's when we become stronger as a society. If we cared about this, we would be more supportive of parents, children, family. By the time you have a situation where we throw them in a dark hole and forget about them, things have gone very, very wrong and there are no easy answers. The guy profiled in the article is between a rock and a hard place because he would need to repudiate the Mexican Mafia to get out of solitary, something not likely to be good for his health. That doesn't mean I am okay with what is going on. But sometimes there just aren't nice/easy ways to handle something.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Solitary confinement as it exists in the US today is cruel and unusual punishment by any reasonable measure. The core problem here is that the criminal justice system is not about true justice, and it damned sure isn't about rehabilitation. It's about retribution. And that, frankly, is a barbaric notion of "justice" that our country should have left in the distant past. It's going to take a long long time to fix this problem.

by codyb 11y ago

dev1n 11y ago

when are you running for president because I haven't heard one candidate speak as intelligently about any issue as you have so clearly spoken about this one.

codyb 11y ago
Ha, thanks. I'm only 25, so I've got about 10 years to put together a platform before I'm even eligible. Obviously, as some of the other posters have pointed out, there a few issues regarding my statements when it comes to habitual reoffenders who threaten the rest of the prison populace. I'd need to do some more research on the subject (look at other prison systems, look at occurrence rates, etc) to figure out a proper response to that. This is how I see it now though: when you learn to scuba dive, first they tell you the basics on dry land, then they get you into a pool with the proper supervision and equipment, then you go into the ocean. When it comes to rehabilitating prisoners so that they're able to interact with the ocean (society), we're not even giving them the on land basics much less the pool (which could be civilian roles inside the prison environment). Rewarding good behavior has been studied and shown to be far more effective than punishing bad behavior. So that's the route I propose. Of course, in a society where we don't provide a lot of people (generally the people who could use it the most) the in land basics, much less the pool, before they end up in prison, I'm not sure what we expect. I've been considering writing a book called "A Path Forward: A vision for a Prosperous America" which would include a lot of my views. Hopefully that will be coming out in the next few years. If you ever see it, you'll know it was me. My views are primarily based on a rational perspective, evidence based learning, and a very healthy dose of compassion. I've never understood how people could dismiss so easily a person with decades of experiences they've never had. Of course you can learn from them. Why aren't we? Cheers mate.

slapshot 11y ago

I'm totally with you in spirit. Solitary should not be used for long-term punishment for offenses in prison, or as punishment for what happened on the outside. But what do you do about an inmate who terrorizes his cellmates, his peers on the yard, his peers in the cafeteria, etc. You've tried solitary for a day, for a week, etc. If you leave this inmate in with general, he's taking away their rights to learn and rehabilitate. If you put him in with a bunkmate... well, that seems like punishment to the bunkmate. You end up creating a new ad-seg unit that looks just like the old one, but with a new name. I'm not meaning to say that solitary is used correctly in the US right now. Not at all. But it may be an inevitable result for a very small group of prisoners who would otherwise take away the others' right to rehabilitate. (Edit: replaced stray ? with .)

mod 11y ago
Give him a solitary bunk but without the lack of sensory input. Leave a TV and view to the outside and all of the things a normal cell has.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  So, these people get better treatment than the better-behaved prisoners? You don't foresee any incentive-related problems?
  - waterfowl 11y ago
    ADX(fed supermax in colorado) prisoners have TVs, I don't think people are trying to get sent there for the TV.
  - jdc 11y ago
    Please show me the evidence for confinement incentivising good behavior.
  - jsharpe 11y ago
    Why not let people opt into it? For a lot of people, even if there are some benefits, they aren't going to make up for the lack of social contact.

elipsey 11y ago

The object is for the prison guards to have a way control dangerous or non-compliant prisoners. The prison staff do not have a stake in what happens outside of the prison. It seems like many or most Americans believe that the proper mandate of justice system should only include punishment because: 1) rehabilitation is immoral because it would tend to reward and promote wrong doing 2) prisoners are morally inferior and therefore rehabilitation will be ineffective 3) moral and orderly persons needn't fear the justice system because they won't break the law and therefore 4) arguments for reform must be rooted in concern for the welfare of morally inferior persons, because reform can have no other utility I have heard these things from many people I know, and apparently most of us voted for the system we have. Also, I think we really enjoy punishing people, even if it's abstract, it's very satisfying to imagine dominating and tormenting people we don't like, and along with appeals to fear, this is an excellent way to appeal politically to citizens in order to forward one's interests. I really can't imagine that we will stop doing this as long as only a minority of people are concerned about being imprisoned themselves.

pyre 11y ago
> The object is for the prison guards to have a way control dangerous or non-compliant prisoners. Do you really believe that only those types of prisoners end up in solitary confinement?
- DanBC 11y ago
  ...or that confining people in solitary makes them less dangerous?
  - pyre 11y ago
    Even on the premise that it is acceptable as a last resort for violent inmates, the way it's currently used fails to meet that bar.
    - elipsey 11y ago
      I totally agree.

fouric 11y ago

I agree that we need a better system, one that does better at either rehabilitation or deterrence through punishment, as our current system is bad at both. However, we can't let these types of offenses continue. Altercations in prison indicate a type of extreme stupidity and/or violence, given that the offender is committing a crime while in the punishment stage for another crime. Drunken driving kills ~10k a year (http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impai...) and gang violence kills about the same in Mexico (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10681249 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10681249). The numbers for drug overdoses (often indirectly caused by said Mexican gangs) are far higher. Do you really want to let literally tens of thousands of people in the United States and Mexico lose their lives every year because we were too soft on the offenders?

dalke 11y ago
> Altercations in prison indicate a type of extreme stupidity and/or violence Your list is incomplete. Altercations also occur when people are stressed. Push most people enough, strip away humanity and agency, and they will lash out. > because we were too soft on the offenders Being too hard on prisoners has its own downsides. As this essay demonstrates. The question is, had we treated Adam Morales, Angel Coronado, and the others more softly, would they still have gone on to the commit crimes that lead them back to prison? > we can't let these types of offenses continue There doesn't seem to be much in the way of evidence that the US style of being hard on prisoners has your desired goal of reducing the number of deaths due to drunk driving, as the case of Silvestre Segovia demonstrates. Therefore, it doesn't seem the hard/soft classification is really relevant.
kaitai 11y ago
Altercations in prison often indicate a desire not to be beaten or raped.
yourepowerless 11y ago
You need some perspective. Estimates for ME casualties are between 500,000 and 2 million plus, not including refugees, the injured, nor the complete economic gutting for those who remain experience. What should be done about that? Gonna let the US government get away with genocide? Prison, like most other institutions in America, is about power and control. It has nothing to do with morality, efficiency, nor opinion, those are manufactured lies and opinions to keep the status quo. You sound like another blood thirsty progressive calling for the wanton destruction of millions. Want to stop Mexican cartels, support drug legalization. Prohibition doesn't work, it has never worked, drug use declines in countries, like Portugal, which decriminalize drug use. Calling out for the powerful to continue their spree of murder and to continue to gorge upon the lives of young black men is utterly disgusting and farcical especially when you sight the drug war as what we must fear. No fear the ones who imprison millions and kill millions more. Get a heart.

Mz 11y ago

When we build our nation up (I'm American) from the bottom up, that's when we become stronger as a society. If we cared about this, we would be more supportive of parents, children, family. By the time you have a situation where we throw them in a dark hole and forget about them, things have gone very, very wrong and there are no easy answers. The guy profiled in the article is between a rock and a hard place because he would need to repudiate the Mexican Mafia to get out of solitary, something not likely to be good for his health. That doesn't mean I am okay with what is going on. But sometimes there just aren't nice/easy ways to handle something.

InclinedPlane 11y ago

Solitary confinement as it exists in the US today is cruel and unusual punishment by any reasonable measure. The core problem here is that the criminal justice system is not about true justice, and it damned sure isn't about rehabilitation. It's about retribution. And that, frankly, is a barbaric notion of "justice" that our country should have left in the distant past. It's going to take a long long time to fix this problem.