3 ms·

> Judges receiving kickbacks to throw minors into juvenile jail, racial bias in sentences, jail for marijuana, private prison etc. I expect you have some solid

by daveguy 10y ago

> Judges receiving kickbacks to throw minors into juvenile jail, racial bias in sentences, jail for marijuana, private prison etc. I expect you have some solid evidence for this? Maybe just a citation? Anything? Obviously there is institutional racial bias, but kickbacks for private jails? for marijuana? for minors? Really?

ken_railey 10y ago
Not the person you're responding to, but I assume that the kickbacks comment was referring to cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
woodruffw 10y ago
> Judges receiving kickbacks to throw minors into juvenile jail He's probably referring to "Kids For Cash" [0]. > racial bias in sentences You can look at federal and state incarceration statistics for yourself. African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans serve, on average, longer sentences for the same crimes as their Caucasian counterparts. Here's one source.[1] > jail for marijuana Mandatory minimums for possession (especially "with intent to sell") have been part of federal drug enforcement policy for the last 50 years. Here are a few of them.[2] > private prison etc It was only this year that the DOJ finally committed to eliminating private prisons in the federal system.[3] They're still a massive part of state penitentiary systems (see: cash for kids). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal [1]: https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/racial-disparities-criminal-justice https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/racial-dispar... [2]: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/primer/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/primer/ [3]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/phasing-out-our-use-private-prisons https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/phasing-out-our-use-private...
- daveguy 10y ago
  I misread that as "Judges receiving kickbacks to:" 1) throw minors into juvenile jail, 2) racial bias in sentences, 3) jail for marijuana, 4) private prison 5) etc. But the kickbacks was in the cash for kids scandal -- hopefully isolated criminal corruption in judges. The others are definitely negative and indications of a broken system, but not the level of "judges taking cash for sentences" corruption. Thank you for the clarification.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    Anybody who actually wants to be a judge in the American system is corrupt. The American system of justice is so obviously flawed that only a person corrupt in their thinking would want to become a judge.
    - grzm 10y ago
      [Removed]
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        Is a loving husband, devoted father, kind neighbor, etc etc person who drove trains for the Nazi's a good person? I feel that most people are in (considerably less extreme) versions of that situation: kind, generous people in general, who simply don't think about how the fairly banal things they do every day are part of really bad stuff. The distributed, banal nature of modern evils -- and they were intentionally structured that way so people wouldnt think about it -- is really what allows evil to flourish in modern society. Yeah, it wasnt a big deal you flipped a train switch (or filled out mortgage loan paperwork a little shoddily, etc), and likely someone else would've done it instead, but if we all refused to do it, the world would be a better place. I think many US judges are similar: they're good, a little bit selfish people who just don't think about the evil they contribute to. Enforcing unjust laws, even fairly, is evil. And (almost) all US judges are guilty of that. (Eg, mandatory minimum drug laws, which empirically just cause harm.)
- theptip 10y ago
  Mandatory SSC post going into more detail than anyone probably wants to on the actual statistics of this stuff: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-m... TLDR: "There seems to be a strong racial bias in capital punishment and a moderate racial bias in sentence length and decision to jail. There is ambiguity over the level of racial bias... There seems to be little or no racial bias in arrests for serious violent crime, police shootings in most jurisdictions, prosecutions, or convictions."

by daveguy 10y ago

ken_railey 10y ago

Not the person you're responding to, but I assume that the kickbacks comment was referring to cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

woodruffw 10y ago

> Judges receiving kickbacks to throw minors into juvenile jail He's probably referring to "Kids For Cash" [0]. > racial bias in sentences You can look at federal and state incarceration statistics for yourself. African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans serve, on average, longer sentences for the same crimes as their Caucasian counterparts. Here's one source.[1] > jail for marijuana Mandatory minimums for possession (especially "with intent to sell") have been part of federal drug enforcement policy for the last 50 years. Here are a few of them.[2] > private prison etc It was only this year that the DOJ finally committed to eliminating private prisons in the federal system.[3] They're still a massive part of state penitentiary systems (see: cash for kids). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal [1]: https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/racial-disparities-criminal-justice https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/racial-dispar... [2]: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/primer/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/primer/ [3]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/phasing-out-our-use-private-prisons https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/phasing-out-our-use-private...

daveguy 10y ago
I misread that as "Judges receiving kickbacks to:" 1) throw minors into juvenile jail, 2) racial bias in sentences, 3) jail for marijuana, 4) private prison 5) etc. But the kickbacks was in the cash for kids scandal -- hopefully isolated criminal corruption in judges. The others are definitely negative and indications of a broken system, but not the level of "judges taking cash for sentences" corruption. Thank you for the clarification.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  Anybody who actually wants to be a judge in the American system is corrupt. The American system of justice is so obviously flawed that only a person corrupt in their thinking would want to become a judge.
  - grzm 10y ago
    [Removed]
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      Is a loving husband, devoted father, kind neighbor, etc etc person who drove trains for the Nazi's a good person? I feel that most people are in (considerably less extreme) versions of that situation: kind, generous people in general, who simply don't think about how the fairly banal things they do every day are part of really bad stuff. The distributed, banal nature of modern evils -- and they were intentionally structured that way so people wouldnt think about it -- is really what allows evil to flourish in modern society. Yeah, it wasnt a big deal you flipped a train switch (or filled out mortgage loan paperwork a little shoddily, etc), and likely someone else would've done it instead, but if we all refused to do it, the world would be a better place. I think many US judges are similar: they're good, a little bit selfish people who just don't think about the evil they contribute to. Enforcing unjust laws, even fairly, is evil. And (almost) all US judges are guilty of that. (Eg, mandatory minimum drug laws, which empirically just cause harm.)
theptip 10y ago
Mandatory SSC post going into more detail than anyone probably wants to on the actual statistics of this stuff: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-m... TLDR: "There seems to be a strong racial bias in capital punishment and a moderate racial bias in sentence length and decision to jail. There is ambiguity over the level of racial bias... There seems to be little or no racial bias in arrests for serious violent crime, police shootings in most jurisdictions, prosecutions, or convictions."