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People have gone to the prison in the past solely because of the color of their skin or because of their religion. People today go to prison just for possessing

People have gone to the prison in the past solely because of the color of their skin or because of their religion. People today go to prison just for possessing a plant or criticizing their head of state. Let's not pretend that being in prison is anything other than a moral judgement rather than an indication of someone's character. It just makes it easier to dehumanize prisoners ("they deserve it") and harder for them to reintegrate ("they must have been a bad person to get into prison"). It's the same attitude where when someone does something drastic, people who knew them will say to the news "I never expected them to do such a thing" or "they were such a sweet person". It denies that we all have the potential to be criminals depending on societies POV and our own situation.

chongli 10y ago
These, along with victim blaming, are examples of behaviour consistent with the Just World Hypothesis [0]. It's really frustrating how many people seem to fall into this cognitive trap but it's understandable. I can see how people who are more aware of the fact that the world is a cruel, unjust, and arbitrary place could fall into a deep depression. I have been there myself. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
qb45 10y ago
We need a program allowing prisoners to serve their sentence as home arrest at foster homes of volunteers to isolate them from their pathological upbringing and socialize them with law-abiding citizenry. To eliminate possibility of unjust moral judgments and discrimination, obviously the inmates would get to choose their hosts and not the other way around. I'm sure you would be happy to participate. Problem solved.
- cooper12 10y ago
  Ah the good ol' tired "why don't you take refugees into your own home" argument. Why would I need to host them when I don't need to host a jail? The same thing with orphans and refugees. The government provides space for them paid for with my taxes. I don't invite every homeless person I see into my home permanently, doesn't mean I don't care about them or believe the government should combat the issue or open more shelters. Trying to put the onus on me saying "why don't you do it if you care so much" is just lazy deflection from the actual issue and a sad attempt of absolving anyone else of responsibility. Anyway, you invented a whole solution which had nothing at all to do with what I said; I never advocated against jails or anything to the effect, please improve your reading comprehension and construct better strawmen to sidetrack me with.
  - qb45 10y ago
    I don't think I have ever been more obviously sarcastic than here. Of course I knew very well that, despite painting prisoners as victims of moral judgments and suggesting that moral judgments are something wrong altogether, you wouldn't want this crowd anywhere near your house. With my comment, I only wanted to point out this exact hypocrisy. So thank you for confirming that my cynicism is justified. I feel better about myself now :)
    - 8note 10y ago
      I'm not seeing where you got "you wouldn't want this crowd anywhere near your house" out of this comment chain. Please elaborate
    - cooper12 10y ago
      Sorry for overreacting, your comment was so outlandish I was really taken aback. (detecting tone on the internet can be quite difficult, especially if you don't know anything about the commentator) The thing about moral judgments I was saying is that the people in jail are there because they did something their society considers morally wrong. For some people these things are not considered bad. My solution would be to not jail them for these things at all. Inviting them into my house is neither here nor there, but I would gladly try to befriend them and as in any relationship eventually they'd be invited into my home as well. My issue isn't with moral judgements, I feel littering is morally wrong and I would gladly see people be fined for it, it's that people don't see that jailing people is a result of these moral judgements rather than some inherent evil.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gedy 10y ago
> Let's not pretend that being in prison is anything other than a moral judgement rather than an indication of someone's character. There's.. a lot of bad people in prison, and for good reason -they've done empirically terrible things, and many without remorse - no matter the "POV"
- cooper12 10y ago
  > empirically terrible things Sorry but there's no such thing. Justice is relative. In many countries you can be considered justified in murder while simply kissing a person of the same sex or protesting can make you be locked up. In fact, If you want to argue that killing someone is empirically terrible, people avoid jail for it all the time if they're on the winning side of a war, in self-defense (in many countries even for defending their honor), or if they're of a high enough status (rich people and cops/politicians). Assuming that only bad people go to jail is naive and assuming jails are only full of bad people is generalizing.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  only most of those "bad things" are things like non-violent drug offences and other such things. I'm not saying they are all good folks, but most of them are just folks that messed up a little bit, and have to pay for it for years. Once we get people in the system, it is likely they will be in and out of it their entire lives. And what is even worse, it doesn't have to be this way (We refuse to take more compassionate measures like countries with a lower recidivism rate, for example). We choose this. Maybe it is partially our own fault that some folks wind up "bad".
  - Cthulhu_ 10y ago
    See this comment, which has sources refuting your claim that "most" are non-violent drug offences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14095968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14095968
    - 8note 10y ago
      does it? it makes two big assumptions that leaves it open: 1. only state prisons are considered 2. only people in prison for a year or more are considered there's nothing in the comment showing that shorter term inmates are a smaller population, nor that they aren't mostly non violent offenders, nor that federal prisons aren't mostly non violent offenders. In total, the comment just shows that there are violent and nonviolent felons in prison
ygaf 10y ago
>people who knew them will say to the news "I never expected them to do such a thing" or "they were such a sweet person" The shittiest of people have friends/family who will vouch to journalists "he loved his family"(awesome achievement), "he was always up for a laugh" (or such euphemisms)... they've grown up talking self-serving bullshit and opposing the system in any situation.
mason240 10y ago
>People have gone to the prison in the past solely because of the color of their skin or because of their religion. The only inmate named in the story was a white guy who who murdered someone during a robbery. http://odrc.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/details.aspx?id=A414233&pg=x http://odrc.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/details.aspx?id=A414...
- cooper12 10y ago
  I said in the past. In America, they were called Jim Crow laws. Though this has happened all over the world.
  - mason240 10y ago
    We are not talking about the past, we talking about today.
    - cooper12 10y ago
      I wasn't, and your quote of me should make that clear. And like I said, it still happens all over the world. Discrimination is also well and alive in America.
      - mason240 10y ago
        Even in this comment you can't decide if you talking about past or present.

chongli 10y ago

These, along with victim blaming, are examples of behaviour consistent with the Just World Hypothesis [0]. It's really frustrating how many people seem to fall into this cognitive trap but it's understandable. I can see how people who are more aware of the fact that the world is a cruel, unjust, and arbitrary place could fall into a deep depression. I have been there myself. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

qb45 10y ago

We need a program allowing prisoners to serve their sentence as home arrest at foster homes of volunteers to isolate them from their pathological upbringing and socialize them with law-abiding citizenry. To eliminate possibility of unjust moral judgments and discrimination, obviously the inmates would get to choose their hosts and not the other way around. I'm sure you would be happy to participate. Problem solved.

cooper12 10y ago
Ah the good ol' tired "why don't you take refugees into your own home" argument. Why would I need to host them when I don't need to host a jail? The same thing with orphans and refugees. The government provides space for them paid for with my taxes. I don't invite every homeless person I see into my home permanently, doesn't mean I don't care about them or believe the government should combat the issue or open more shelters. Trying to put the onus on me saying "why don't you do it if you care so much" is just lazy deflection from the actual issue and a sad attempt of absolving anyone else of responsibility. Anyway, you invented a whole solution which had nothing at all to do with what I said; I never advocated against jails or anything to the effect, please improve your reading comprehension and construct better strawmen to sidetrack me with.
- qb45 10y ago
  I don't think I have ever been more obviously sarcastic than here. Of course I knew very well that, despite painting prisoners as victims of moral judgments and suggesting that moral judgments are something wrong altogether, you wouldn't want this crowd anywhere near your house. With my comment, I only wanted to point out this exact hypocrisy. So thank you for confirming that my cynicism is justified. I feel better about myself now :)
  - 8note 10y ago
    I'm not seeing where you got "you wouldn't want this crowd anywhere near your house" out of this comment chain. Please elaborate
  - cooper12 10y ago
    Sorry for overreacting, your comment was so outlandish I was really taken aback. (detecting tone on the internet can be quite difficult, especially if you don't know anything about the commentator) The thing about moral judgments I was saying is that the people in jail are there because they did something their society considers morally wrong. For some people these things are not considered bad. My solution would be to not jail them for these things at all. Inviting them into my house is neither here nor there, but I would gladly try to befriend them and as in any relationship eventually they'd be invited into my home as well. My issue isn't with moral judgements, I feel littering is morally wrong and I would gladly see people be fined for it, it's that people don't see that jailing people is a result of these moral judgements rather than some inherent evil.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

gedy 10y ago

> Let's not pretend that being in prison is anything other than a moral judgement rather than an indication of someone's character. There's.. a lot of bad people in prison, and for good reason -they've done empirically terrible things, and many without remorse - no matter the "POV"

cooper12 10y ago
> empirically terrible things Sorry but there's no such thing. Justice is relative. In many countries you can be considered justified in murder while simply kissing a person of the same sex or protesting can make you be locked up. In fact, If you want to argue that killing someone is empirically terrible, people avoid jail for it all the time if they're on the winning side of a war, in self-defense (in many countries even for defending their honor), or if they're of a high enough status (rich people and cops/politicians). Assuming that only bad people go to jail is naive and assuming jails are only full of bad people is generalizing.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
only most of those "bad things" are things like non-violent drug offences and other such things. I'm not saying they are all good folks, but most of them are just folks that messed up a little bit, and have to pay for it for years. Once we get people in the system, it is likely they will be in and out of it their entire lives. And what is even worse, it doesn't have to be this way (We refuse to take more compassionate measures like countries with a lower recidivism rate, for example). We choose this. Maybe it is partially our own fault that some folks wind up "bad".
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  See this comment, which has sources refuting your claim that "most" are non-violent drug offences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14095968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14095968
  - 8note 10y ago
    does it? it makes two big assumptions that leaves it open: 1. only state prisons are considered 2. only people in prison for a year or more are considered there's nothing in the comment showing that shorter term inmates are a smaller population, nor that they aren't mostly non violent offenders, nor that federal prisons aren't mostly non violent offenders. In total, the comment just shows that there are violent and nonviolent felons in prison

ygaf 10y ago

>people who knew them will say to the news "I never expected them to do such a thing" or "they were such a sweet person" The shittiest of people have friends/family who will vouch to journalists "he loved his family"(awesome achievement), "he was always up for a laugh" (or such euphemisms)... they've grown up talking self-serving bullshit and opposing the system in any situation.

mason240 10y ago

>People have gone to the prison in the past solely because of the color of their skin or because of their religion. The only inmate named in the story was a white guy who who murdered someone during a robbery. http://odrc.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/details.aspx?id=A414233&pg=x http://odrc.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/details.aspx?id=A414...

cooper12 10y ago
I said in the past. In America, they were called Jim Crow laws. Though this has happened all over the world.
- mason240 10y ago
  We are not talking about the past, we talking about today.
  - cooper12 10y ago
    I wasn't, and your quote of me should make that clear. And like I said, it still happens all over the world. Discrimination is also well and alive in America.
    - mason240 10y ago
      Even in this comment you can't decide if you talking about past or present.