5 ms·

There's a simple solution to that, set people free. We don't need to build more prisons, we already imprison more of our population than any other country in t

There's a simple solution to that, set people free. We don't need to build more prisons, we already imprison more of our population than any other country in the world, we have too many prisons and too many people in them. We need to imprison less people. Release all inmates who committed victim-less crimes, if more room is needed, release all inmates who committed non violent crimes-there are better ways to deal with them than prison. Prison should be for violent criminals only. Release all drug users, release all drug pushers, none of those people belong in jail.

XorNot 11y ago
You miss the point. It's easier to stop prisons being built then to set people free. But it would probably be easier to deal with the whole problem if in fact we were a lot stricter about ensuring proper prison capacity, construction and staffing were followed. But then again, doing any of that is a lot harder then egging on the narrative that prison is actually meant to be a mad max wasteland, and pretending we're totally not responsible for turning a blind eye to the rape, murder and gangs we let happen there.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  No, I don't miss the point, I just don't agree that building more prisons is acceptable.
zanny 11y ago
> victim-less crimes I think I found the double-think. But absolutely, incarceration is used as a tool of suppressing "undesirables" according to the writers of law. The co-conspirator of Watergate is making waves online again this past week for having talked about how the Nixon administration planned the war on drugs as a means to destroy hippie and black communities through mass incarceration and prosecution.
rtpg 11y ago
I agree that we should have less people in prison. In order to be lucid about the situation though, it's important to realise that a very large part of the prison population is in there for violent offences. Even knowing this, I still believe we should be reducing sentences (I have a hard time justifying putting anyone in a cage for 15 years as a punishment...) but there probably needs to be some alternative things going on too.
- lkbm 11y ago
  To put some numbers on the part of the prison population there for violent offenses: * Bureau of Justice Statistics says 53% of state prsionsers and 7% (what?!) of federal prisoners (2014): http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf * Federal Bureau of Prisons says 46.5% drug offences (no specification on violent v. non-violent) and 9.2% immigration as the third largest group. Second largest is more violent sounding, though: Weapons, Explosives, Arson 16.9% (2016): https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen... I don't think non-violent crime should always mean no prison, but I suspect there are better ways of dealing with the majority of them. Also, since you mentioned shorter terms, here are the BOP's numbers of sentence length: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_sentences.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_sente...
  - MajorLOL 11y ago
    Heres something to consider; Drawing such a sharp distinction between violent and non violent crimes omits many real-world factors. What kind of criminal is this person is different from what was this criminal convicted of. I can be a part time drug dealer, shooting rival gang members, robbing houses and pimping whores. But land myself in prison for 10 years due to my 6th possession charge. If you draw a hard distinction statistically, I fall into the 'I can't believe we imprison people for having a little pot' Additionally, what is a non-violent crime? Looks like good chunk of prison inmates are property crimes, larceny, burglars, thief. What percentage do you suspect of these non-violent offenders were armed during the commission of their crimes? What percentage would have turned violent if confronted during their crime? I suspect that these people who steal your car, break into your home and business and steal your things are effectively violent offenders.
    - kazagistar 11y ago
      > I can be a part time drug dealer, shooting rival gang members, robbing houses and pimping whores. But land myself in prison for 10 years due to my 6th possession charge. If you draw a hard distinction statistically, I fall into the 'I can't believe we imprison people for having a little pot' "You" are a strawman invented to support strict drug laws. How about we jail people for crimes we can actually prove they did, rather then assuming that if you sell pot, you must be "pimpin hoes" and "shooting rival gang members". > What percentage would have turned violent if confronted during their crime? I suspect that these people who steal your car, break into your home and business and steal your things are effectively violent offenders. I suspect not, but either way, I don't particularly feel like throwing them in prisons helps things at all. Read up on the gang presence in prisons: its its not like giving someone 10 years for stealing cash from your car is going to rehabilitate them very effectively, and certainly not with the state of prisons being what it is.
omegaham 11y ago
According to this site[1], felons incarcerated for drugs comprise 16% of the total prison population. 64.8% are incarcerated for violent offenses and property crimes, both of which have victims. The most interesting part, to me, is the "public-order" criminals. When my girlfriend worked corrections, she noted that at the state level, the vast majority of prisoners were in for violent crimes - rape, robbery, murder, arson, etc. At the county level, however, a large number of prisoners were in for what she termed as "criminalized insanity." They're too mentally ill to function, so they live on the streets until they get arrested for doing some small crime - loitering, public urination, trespassing, etc. They get locked up for a few days, get a court date, and get released. Then they go right back to the streets, miss their court date, get arrested again for a bench warrant next time they have a run-in with the law, get sentenced to a slightly longer stay, get released on probation, violate probation, get arrested again the next time they have a run-in with the law... Wash, rinse, repeat. All of this is really short-term... and yet they're forming 13.8% of the incarcerated population. We're spending an enormous amount of resources on what amounts to impromptu, ad-hoc, half-assed mental healthcare, and none of it works. But eliminating it entirely and saying, "Go forth and sin no more" is going to do absolutely nothing unless there are corresponding programs that can actually help such people. That kind of coordination - saying, "Okay, we're going to have to spend $x million extra dollars extra for a few years until the mental health benefits start to decrease the cost of jails and prisons" - is extremely difficult, if not impossible to accomplish. Regarding drug pushers and prison - I constantly swing back and forth on this issue, mostly because they are morally degenerate for exploiting human weakness for profit. If you google Whiteclay, Nebraska and go to images[2], you'll find a whole bunch of pictures of wasted Indians lying in alleyways right outside the (white-owned) liquor stores. It's created an enormous amount of frustration in the community, and the response from the government is "Well, it's not illegal to sell alcohol to alcoholics." I give pause to the folks who demand unrestricted drug use for everyone, (which is what decriminalization is - if something's restrictions have no teeth, namely incarceration, it's unrestricted. Same exact reason why financial laws are flouted so often - no teeth) because this is the natural result - businesses that exist solely to profit off of human pain and despair and create it on an industrial scale. The real question, and one that I can't even begin to unravel because there's so much goddamn bullshit on the Internet from agenda-pushers on both sides, is "Is this state of affairs, where a large portion of the population is incarcerated for vice, preferable to a state of affairs where vice is openly permitted?" Personally, as someone who lives in a relatively affluent suburb, I'd say that legalizing everything would be a massive boon to me. My taxes will go down, and more importantly I'm insulated from the consequences by a lack of public transit and vigilant cops who are, er, unfriendly to the lowlives who occasionally wander away from the city. The folks in the city and poorer towns, who actually get to deal with the massive consequences of widespread addiction, might beg to differ. [1] http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004339 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=whiteclay+nebraska&client=ubuntu&channel=fs&biw=1920&bih=901&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjf666Lzt7LAhUC1WMKHSmNDEAQ_AUICCgD https://www.google.com/search?q=whiteclay+nebraska&client=ub...

XorNot 11y ago

You miss the point. It's easier to stop prisons being built then to set people free. But it would probably be easier to deal with the whole problem if in fact we were a lot stricter about ensuring proper prison capacity, construction and staffing were followed. But then again, doing any of that is a lot harder then egging on the narrative that prison is actually meant to be a mad max wasteland, and pretending we're totally not responsible for turning a blind eye to the rape, murder and gangs we let happen there.

gnaritas 11y ago
No, I don't miss the point, I just don't agree that building more prisons is acceptable.

zanny 11y ago

> victim-less crimes I think I found the double-think. But absolutely, incarceration is used as a tool of suppressing "undesirables" according to the writers of law. The co-conspirator of Watergate is making waves online again this past week for having talked about how the Nixon administration planned the war on drugs as a means to destroy hippie and black communities through mass incarceration and prosecution.

rtpg 11y ago

I agree that we should have less people in prison. In order to be lucid about the situation though, it's important to realise that a very large part of the prison population is in there for violent offences. Even knowing this, I still believe we should be reducing sentences (I have a hard time justifying putting anyone in a cage for 15 years as a punishment...) but there probably needs to be some alternative things going on too.

lkbm 11y ago
To put some numbers on the part of the prison population there for violent offenses: * Bureau of Justice Statistics says 53% of state prsionsers and 7% (what?!) of federal prisoners (2014): http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf * Federal Bureau of Prisons says 46.5% drug offences (no specification on violent v. non-violent) and 9.2% immigration as the third largest group. Second largest is more violent sounding, though: Weapons, Explosives, Arson 16.9% (2016): https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen... I don't think non-violent crime should always mean no prison, but I suspect there are better ways of dealing with the majority of them. Also, since you mentioned shorter terms, here are the BOP's numbers of sentence length: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_sentences.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_sente...
- MajorLOL 11y ago
  Heres something to consider; Drawing such a sharp distinction between violent and non violent crimes omits many real-world factors. What kind of criminal is this person is different from what was this criminal convicted of. I can be a part time drug dealer, shooting rival gang members, robbing houses and pimping whores. But land myself in prison for 10 years due to my 6th possession charge. If you draw a hard distinction statistically, I fall into the 'I can't believe we imprison people for having a little pot' Additionally, what is a non-violent crime? Looks like good chunk of prison inmates are property crimes, larceny, burglars, thief. What percentage do you suspect of these non-violent offenders were armed during the commission of their crimes? What percentage would have turned violent if confronted during their crime? I suspect that these people who steal your car, break into your home and business and steal your things are effectively violent offenders.
  - kazagistar 11y ago
    > I can be a part time drug dealer, shooting rival gang members, robbing houses and pimping whores. But land myself in prison for 10 years due to my 6th possession charge. If you draw a hard distinction statistically, I fall into the 'I can't believe we imprison people for having a little pot' "You" are a strawman invented to support strict drug laws. How about we jail people for crimes we can actually prove they did, rather then assuming that if you sell pot, you must be "pimpin hoes" and "shooting rival gang members". > What percentage would have turned violent if confronted during their crime? I suspect that these people who steal your car, break into your home and business and steal your things are effectively violent offenders. I suspect not, but either way, I don't particularly feel like throwing them in prisons helps things at all. Read up on the gang presence in prisons: its its not like giving someone 10 years for stealing cash from your car is going to rehabilitate them very effectively, and certainly not with the state of prisons being what it is.

omegaham 11y ago

According to this site[1], felons incarcerated for drugs comprise 16% of the total prison population. 64.8% are incarcerated for violent offenses and property crimes, both of which have victims. The most interesting part, to me, is the "public-order" criminals. When my girlfriend worked corrections, she noted that at the state level, the vast majority of prisoners were in for violent crimes - rape, robbery, murder, arson, etc. At the county level, however, a large number of prisoners were in for what she termed as "criminalized insanity." They're too mentally ill to function, so they live on the streets until they get arrested for doing some small crime - loitering, public urination, trespassing, etc. They get locked up for a few days, get a court date, and get released. Then they go right back to the streets, miss their court date, get arrested again for a bench warrant next time they have a run-in with the law, get sentenced to a slightly longer stay, get released on probation, violate probation, get arrested again the next time they have a run-in with the law... Wash, rinse, repeat. All of this is really short-term... and yet they're forming 13.8% of the incarcerated population. We're spending an enormous amount of resources on what amounts to impromptu, ad-hoc, half-assed mental healthcare, and none of it works. But eliminating it entirely and saying, "Go forth and sin no more" is going to do absolutely nothing unless there are corresponding programs that can actually help such people. That kind of coordination - saying, "Okay, we're going to have to spend $x million extra dollars extra for a few years until the mental health benefits start to decrease the cost of jails and prisons" - is extremely difficult, if not impossible to accomplish. Regarding drug pushers and prison - I constantly swing back and forth on this issue, mostly because they are morally degenerate for exploiting human weakness for profit. If you google Whiteclay, Nebraska and go to images[2], you'll find a whole bunch of pictures of wasted Indians lying in alleyways right outside the (white-owned) liquor stores. It's created an enormous amount of frustration in the community, and the response from the government is "Well, it's not illegal to sell alcohol to alcoholics." I give pause to the folks who demand unrestricted drug use for everyone, (which is what decriminalization is - if something's restrictions have no teeth, namely incarceration, it's unrestricted. Same exact reason why financial laws are flouted so often - no teeth) because this is the natural result - businesses that exist solely to profit off of human pain and despair and create it on an industrial scale. The real question, and one that I can't even begin to unravel because there's so much goddamn bullshit on the Internet from agenda-pushers on both sides, is "Is this state of affairs, where a large portion of the population is incarcerated for vice, preferable to a state of affairs where vice is openly permitted?" Personally, as someone who lives in a relatively affluent suburb, I'd say that legalizing everything would be a massive boon to me. My taxes will go down, and more importantly I'm insulated from the consequences by a lack of public transit and vigilant cops who are, er, unfriendly to the lowlives who occasionally wander away from the city. The folks in the city and poorer towns, who actually get to deal with the massive consequences of widespread addiction, might beg to differ. [1] http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004339 http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=whiteclay+nebraska&client=ubuntu&channel=fs&biw=1920&bih=901&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjf666Lzt7LAhUC1WMKHSmNDEAQ_AUICCgD https://www.google.com/search?q=whiteclay+nebraska&client=ub...