7 ms·

At the risk of being boorish about the subject... I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced inmates, myself included, are f

by cubano 9y ago

At the risk of being boorish about the subject... I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced inmates, myself included, are forced, by state law, to "work" in some manner in the jail. In this case, work consisted of 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, of ultra back-breaking kitchen work. We were not even allowed to have water cups anywhere outside the break room. They actually yelled faster! faster! as we ran "the line"...I never could get over that one. All that was missing were the whips and the guards with shotguns spitting tobacco. We processed approx. 10 thousand trays per day, and were constantly harassed and threatened big time by the corporate kitchen staff in charge. It wasn't enough that we were clocking 60-70 hours a week for the grand total of 1 extra tray per meal (not every meal grant you, just the ones we were working during), but you could actually get thrown in the box and lose gain time (more days in jail) for eating a cookie or some trivial such thing. If you refused to work, you were put in the box and 5 days were added to your sentence. I did the math...2 shifts of 28 workers 365 days a year...with overtime and all that, approx $50k per week($2.6mil/year) of free basically coerced slave labor for the Aero-mark Corporation that ran the kitchen. [edits]

77pt77 9y ago
> If you refused to work, you were put in the box and 5 days were added to your sentence. Don't you need a judge to determine that?
- bbctol 9y ago
  Prisons have a certain amount of gaintime (small reductions in sentencing) that's there to be withheld at the prison's discretion, specifically in order to motivate work and good behavior.
- kodt 9y ago
  They aren't actually adding anything to your sentence, but are just taking away 'gain time' that has been earned for good behavior. You can accrue gain time and eventually earn early release. However, they can also take this away for bad behavior. Obviously some sentences are not eligible to earn gain time.
- pixl97 9y ago
  That depends on what 'added' means. The sentence you receive from a judge is probably not anywhere close to what you will actually sit in jail for. Probation, parole, double time, triple time, good behavior, trustee status, all affect the outcome. For example, you are sentenced to 3 years of jail for a non-violent drug offense. How long do you serve in jail? Very commonly 366 days, though it may be as much as a year and a half. That is if you don't get into any other trouble in jail. After that point you will be released on probation. What the previous poster is likely stating is that if you willingly agree to be a slave for the state you get all the benefits of early release. The defectors that do not want to be slave labor are not given said benefits. An ironic application of the prisoners delma. If none of the prisoners would be willing to be a slave, the state could not hold them all, or 'extend' their sentences because of overcrowding.
  - cubano 9y ago
    > For example, you are sentenced to 3 years of jail for a non-violent drug offense. How long do you serve in jail? You don't get 3 years in jail, you get 3 years in prison. The only jail time you do waiting to be sentenced to prison is the time you wait to go to court. You get no gain time for time spent in jail for your prison sentence, so its often called dead time or day-for-day or something. >An ironic application of the prisoners delma. If none of the prisoners would be willing to be a slave, the state could not hold them all, or 'extend' their sentences because of overcrowding. This is an interesting observation, but here is how thats dealt with; anyone whom discusses a general purpose strike against working is charged with a serious felony "inciting to riot" and is given an "outside charge" and is probably spending years more in prison. That's how they do that.
    - throwaway040435 9y ago
      You don't get 3 years in jail, you get 3 years in prison. The only jail time you do waiting to be sentenced to prison is the time you wait to go to court. Do you think it's appropriate to call out someone for using "jail" instead of "prison", when the meaning is clear, and you made the same mistake just 5 minutes prior? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497654 and in your original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14496609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14496609
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  It might be that your actual sentence is 10 years, but the state may expect to send you to prison for the first 5 and have you live on probation or parole restrictions for the last 5. So the judge might tell you to serve 8 years in prison. That gives the state some years of leeway to both add time to your prison sentence for being difficult and to knock some off for being cooperative. No matter which way you slice it, the sentence is still 10 years, and the state can decide how much of that is spent in prison, and how much outside as a less-than-entirely-free person. If you can manage to serve your entire sentence in prison without actually committing additional crimes, you might be able to walk out the front gates and never have a single day of probation, but I put the likelihood of that ever happening at just above infinitesimal. People in prison would mostly rather be outside and on parole/probation. You only need a judge's help to keep someone in prison past the actual length of their sentence. IANAL and IHNBAP, so I may be up to 100% wrong about this.
- hackermailman 9y ago
  It's called 'good time', which you earn as credits for early release. If you refuse to work you get written up and subtracted good time which means time added to expected release date. These disciplinary writeups affect parole potential as well. The kitchen is also considered one of the better jobs, a bad job would be Hoe Squad, which means a chain gang led out into 35C heat to work the fields while guys on horseback yell at you to work faster. The best skill you can have in most prisons is plumbing/home renovation knowledge, as it's common for one of the guards or warden to have you fix their houses in exchange for a restaurant meal on the way back to the prison. If you work well you will be contracted out F/T to the local town and the guards/warden pocket 90% of your salary.
  - samstave 9y ago
    >The best skill you can have in most prisons is plumbing/home renovation knowledge, as it's common for one of the guards or warden to have you fix their houses in exchange for a restaurant meal on the way back to the prison. If you work well you will be contracted out F/T to the local town and the guards/warden pocket 90% of your salary. Is there any documented evidence of this happening? EDIT: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-... http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-prisons-profit/ http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-pri... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-pris...
    - fnordfnordfnord 9y ago
      I worked for TDCJ for a couple years, there were plenty of strange and sometimes salacious scandals. They often failed to make the news. That being said, no CO that I knew wanted inmates to know where they live. I only know of one case of a prison officer taking an inmate to their own home, and that was rumored to have been for sex. That doesn't mean a thing didn't happen though. CO's and other prison folks are very insular, and don't usually discuss things outside their tribe (well, not current affairs anyway). There is limited on-unit housing for officers, and inmates are responsible for maintenance of those. It is not unheard of for inmate work-crew supervisors (officers) to buy their workers a hamburger or take-out meal; this is usually during or after a shift of unusual duration or a situation that deserves a little recognition. There are special cases. My grandfather, a county sheriff, was granted custody of a TDCJ inmate by the director. The inmate worked as a porter in the county jail, and occasionally was my babysitter for short periods of time. This was in the '70's.
- cubano 9y ago
  CCDC gives approx 10 days a month gain time to all sentenced inmates regardless of if you work or not. Actually working for the jail only provides you the opportunity to LOSE gain time, not get more. If you refuse to work, you get up to 15 days in solitary confinement (the box, or I simply call it "jail" because its actually jail inside of jail) and lose 5 days of gain time, thus adding 5 days to your sentence. However, it does not end there...one of the CO's that worked security in the kitchen often threatened to contact your sentencing judge and ask for extra time for screwing up in the kitchen.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
I'm guessing you mean Aramark (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/prison-strike-protest-aramark/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/prison-strike-protest-ar...) not Aero-Mark Corporation, an aerospace company. Though perhaps I'm cynical enough to believe that the latter's mission statement "The Aero-mark team bases its work ethic on unity, quality, and accountability. We are one company, one team, succeeding together." could be espoused by a company that abuses prison labor. These mission statements too often seem to be used as a sort of counterbalance for the actual behavior of the company: the more lofty the mission statement, the more deplorable the behavior.
- cubano 9y ago
  Ha...yes my bad...quick Google search failed me.
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  Oh god, like I needed another reason to loathe Aramark. So much worse than I even realized.
yjgyhj 9y ago
That is indeed totally crazy. I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who sits behind the keyboard on the other side.
- cubano 9y ago
  > I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who sits behind the keyboard on the other side. I could never in a 1000 years make up the narrative of my life. I often cannot believe I've lived it. Every word I write here on HN is true, although you simply have no idea how I wish it wasn't so.
  - ianai 9y ago
    I believe you. I'm also a LV resident. The city is generally hostile.
- sp332 9y ago
  Other stories: http://amp.nola.com/v1/articles/20683759/what_state_prisoners_get_to_wo.amp http://amp.nola.com/v1/articles/20683759/what_state_prisoner... and https://news.vice.com/article/hard-labor-heres-the-weird-shit-inmates-can-do-for-work-in-us-prisons https://news.vice.com/article/hard-labor-heres-the-weird-shi...
- swayvil 9y ago
  "If it seems strange then assume it's a lie". When did that become a thing? And who does it benefit?
- cjrp 9y ago
  There are several similar stories in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)
- interrupt13 9y ago
  I am curious as to why he was incarcerated.
- Jemmeh 9y ago
digsmahler 9y ago
It's not boorish. I only learned about this practice of new American slavery from a friend who had come out of prison recently. Not enough people are talking about it, so nobody knows this is what's going on. Please, keep talking about it!
tomjen3 9y ago
That is arguably a violation of the 13th admentment: >Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Unless the work was part of the sentence (which I think is totally fair, as a term of restitution) I don't see how what they did was legal. You might want to talk to the ACLU.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  Note the clause: > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, SCOTUS has ruled that prison labor does not violate the 13th amendment.
  - Jun8 9y ago
    True, here's a good writeup on the subject: https://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/ https://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-.... Mind boggling! Also, "The Thirteenth Amendment has also been interpreted to permit the government to require certain forms of public service, presumably extending to military service and jury duty." (https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-common-interpretation-the-thirteenth-amendment/ https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-common-interpretation-...)
    - opo 9y ago
      >...Also, "The Thirteenth Amendment has also been interpreted to permit the government to require certain forms of public service, presumably extending to military service and jury duty.” That’s a handy excuse to use to justify involuntary servitude. I guess they feel the part about "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,“ wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
TP4Cornholio 9y ago
Hard to believe it costs so much if they're getting that much free labor. I would think they'd at least break even.
- sedachv 9y ago
  Private prison contracts are structured to basically provide taxpayer-subsidized slave labor.[1][2] It is just another Reagan-Thatcher era privatization scam. [1] http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime/ http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-pri... [2] http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-prisons-profit/ http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-pri...
  - lordlimecat 9y ago
    At some point blaming administrations 30 years ago for practices continued by subsequent administrations becomes deeply dishonest. California for instance (referenced multiple times here) has had many governors since the Reagan days and could have ended the practice on a state level, and at a federal level the pendulum has swung to both sides on multiple occasions. Any of these administrations could have made it a priority, but did not.
    - sedachv 9y ago
      > At some point blaming administrations 30 years ago for practices continued by subsequent administrations becomes deeply dishonest. That statement is nonsensical. Who else is to blame for originating these policies?
      - elif 9y ago
        Choosing to maintain the status quo is still a choice. The blame lies most importantly with those who, today, could change this policy. otherwise.. why not blame the romans?
anigbrowl 9y ago
Yes, it's slavery by another name. Assuming you committed a crime rather than being framed up, that was bad, but the you were treated was itself a crime and I am sorry that you were subjected to that. I've been advocating (not very effectively I'm afraid) for root and branch reform of our criminal justice system for years now, and I feel both angry and ashamed to be a participant in a society where incarceration is treated as an economic opportunity for exploitation rather than a tragic outcome to be remediated.
enknamel 9y ago
I think I need to one up your boorishness. I don't think you are likely to break the law again right? That sounds like an effective correctional system. Sure it sucked. But jail/prison should suck.
- throwawaymaroon 9y ago
  Fuck decorum if it means I can't say fuck you.
- GuiA 9y ago
  Wow. Someone, whom you've never spoken to before, shares a personal story about their treatment in prison, and your reaction is "well you deserved it, treats you right". That's a fairly uncouth attitude to have towards one of your hacker peers.
  - enknamel 9y ago
    Well no that's not my reaction. You shouldn't jump to conclusions that you want to exist. He had a bad time in jail. He is now unlikely to break the law again, right? But maybe I'm wrong. Given his other comments it sounds like he's been in jail/prison more than once.
    - bighi 9y ago
      People are also unlikely to break the law again if they have an ok time in jail (it's never going to be good) while learning productive skills and being reintegrated into society without prejudice. I wouldn't be glad someone had a bad time in their life.
      - enknamel 9y ago
        Following that example, people would then break the law in a serious way every time they want to make a career change. Heck you get free training, room, and board! And a brand new set of skills and a job when you get out. Some people need to have a bad time in order to get them to behave. If you know without a doubt, that breaking the law will lead to having a very bad time, you are going to avoid breaking the law. If you see it as a viable career move, wouldn't you be more likely than ever to break the law?

by cubano 9y ago

77pt77 9y ago

> If you refused to work, you were put in the box and 5 days were added to your sentence. Don't you need a judge to determine that?

bbctol 9y ago
Prisons have a certain amount of gaintime (small reductions in sentencing) that's there to be withheld at the prison's discretion, specifically in order to motivate work and good behavior.
kodt 9y ago
They aren't actually adding anything to your sentence, but are just taking away 'gain time' that has been earned for good behavior. You can accrue gain time and eventually earn early release. However, they can also take this away for bad behavior. Obviously some sentences are not eligible to earn gain time.
pixl97 9y ago
That depends on what 'added' means. The sentence you receive from a judge is probably not anywhere close to what you will actually sit in jail for. Probation, parole, double time, triple time, good behavior, trustee status, all affect the outcome. For example, you are sentenced to 3 years of jail for a non-violent drug offense. How long do you serve in jail? Very commonly 366 days, though it may be as much as a year and a half. That is if you don't get into any other trouble in jail. After that point you will be released on probation. What the previous poster is likely stating is that if you willingly agree to be a slave for the state you get all the benefits of early release. The defectors that do not want to be slave labor are not given said benefits. An ironic application of the prisoners delma. If none of the prisoners would be willing to be a slave, the state could not hold them all, or 'extend' their sentences because of overcrowding.
- cubano 9y ago
  > For example, you are sentenced to 3 years of jail for a non-violent drug offense. How long do you serve in jail? You don't get 3 years in jail, you get 3 years in prison. The only jail time you do waiting to be sentenced to prison is the time you wait to go to court. You get no gain time for time spent in jail for your prison sentence, so its often called dead time or day-for-day or something. >An ironic application of the prisoners delma. If none of the prisoners would be willing to be a slave, the state could not hold them all, or 'extend' their sentences because of overcrowding. This is an interesting observation, but here is how thats dealt with; anyone whom discusses a general purpose strike against working is charged with a serious felony "inciting to riot" and is given an "outside charge" and is probably spending years more in prison. That's how they do that.
  - throwaway040435 9y ago
    You don't get 3 years in jail, you get 3 years in prison. The only jail time you do waiting to be sentenced to prison is the time you wait to go to court. Do you think it's appropriate to call out someone for using "jail" instead of "prison", when the meaning is clear, and you made the same mistake just 5 minutes prior? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497654 and in your original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14496609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14496609
logfromblammo 9y ago
It might be that your actual sentence is 10 years, but the state may expect to send you to prison for the first 5 and have you live on probation or parole restrictions for the last 5. So the judge might tell you to serve 8 years in prison. That gives the state some years of leeway to both add time to your prison sentence for being difficult and to knock some off for being cooperative. No matter which way you slice it, the sentence is still 10 years, and the state can decide how much of that is spent in prison, and how much outside as a less-than-entirely-free person. If you can manage to serve your entire sentence in prison without actually committing additional crimes, you might be able to walk out the front gates and never have a single day of probation, but I put the likelihood of that ever happening at just above infinitesimal. People in prison would mostly rather be outside and on parole/probation. You only need a judge's help to keep someone in prison past the actual length of their sentence. IANAL and IHNBAP, so I may be up to 100% wrong about this.
hackermailman 9y ago
It's called 'good time', which you earn as credits for early release. If you refuse to work you get written up and subtracted good time which means time added to expected release date. These disciplinary writeups affect parole potential as well. The kitchen is also considered one of the better jobs, a bad job would be Hoe Squad, which means a chain gang led out into 35C heat to work the fields while guys on horseback yell at you to work faster. The best skill you can have in most prisons is plumbing/home renovation knowledge, as it's common for one of the guards or warden to have you fix their houses in exchange for a restaurant meal on the way back to the prison. If you work well you will be contracted out F/T to the local town and the guards/warden pocket 90% of your salary.
- samstave 9y ago
  >The best skill you can have in most prisons is plumbing/home renovation knowledge, as it's common for one of the guards or warden to have you fix their houses in exchange for a restaurant meal on the way back to the prison. If you work well you will be contracted out F/T to the local town and the guards/warden pocket 90% of your salary. Is there any documented evidence of this happening? EDIT: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-... http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-prisons-profit/ http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-pri... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-pris...
  - fnordfnordfnord 9y ago
    I worked for TDCJ for a couple years, there were plenty of strange and sometimes salacious scandals. They often failed to make the news. That being said, no CO that I knew wanted inmates to know where they live. I only know of one case of a prison officer taking an inmate to their own home, and that was rumored to have been for sex. That doesn't mean a thing didn't happen though. CO's and other prison folks are very insular, and don't usually discuss things outside their tribe (well, not current affairs anyway). There is limited on-unit housing for officers, and inmates are responsible for maintenance of those. It is not unheard of for inmate work-crew supervisors (officers) to buy their workers a hamburger or take-out meal; this is usually during or after a shift of unusual duration or a situation that deserves a little recognition. There are special cases. My grandfather, a county sheriff, was granted custody of a TDCJ inmate by the director. The inmate worked as a porter in the county jail, and occasionally was my babysitter for short periods of time. This was in the '70's.
cubano 9y ago
CCDC gives approx 10 days a month gain time to all sentenced inmates regardless of if you work or not. Actually working for the jail only provides you the opportunity to LOSE gain time, not get more. If you refuse to work, you get up to 15 days in solitary confinement (the box, or I simply call it "jail" because its actually jail inside of jail) and lose 5 days of gain time, thus adding 5 days to your sentence. However, it does not end there...one of the CO's that worked security in the kitchen often threatened to contact your sentencing judge and ask for extra time for screwing up in the kitchen.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

I'm guessing you mean Aramark (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/prison-strike-protest-aramark/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/prison-strike-protest-ar...) not Aero-Mark Corporation, an aerospace company. Though perhaps I'm cynical enough to believe that the latter's mission statement "The Aero-mark team bases its work ethic on unity, quality, and accountability. We are one company, one team, succeeding together." could be espoused by a company that abuses prison labor. These mission statements too often seem to be used as a sort of counterbalance for the actual behavior of the company: the more lofty the mission statement, the more deplorable the behavior.

cubano 9y ago
Ha...yes my bad...quick Google search failed me.
nerfhammer 9y ago
Oh god, like I needed another reason to loathe Aramark. So much worse than I even realized.

yjgyhj 9y ago

That is indeed totally crazy. I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who sits behind the keyboard on the other side.

cubano 9y ago
> I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who sits behind the keyboard on the other side. I could never in a 1000 years make up the narrative of my life. I often cannot believe I've lived it. Every word I write here on HN is true, although you simply have no idea how I wish it wasn't so.
- ianai 9y ago
  I believe you. I'm also a LV resident. The city is generally hostile.
sp332 9y ago
Other stories: http://amp.nola.com/v1/articles/20683759/what_state_prisoners_get_to_wo.amp http://amp.nola.com/v1/articles/20683759/what_state_prisoner... and https://news.vice.com/article/hard-labor-heres-the-weird-shit-inmates-can-do-for-work-in-us-prisons https://news.vice.com/article/hard-labor-heres-the-weird-shi...
swayvil 9y ago
"If it seems strange then assume it's a lie". When did that become a thing? And who does it benefit?
cjrp 9y ago
There are several similar stories in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)
interrupt13 9y ago
I am curious as to why he was incarcerated.
Jemmeh 9y ago

digsmahler 9y ago

It's not boorish. I only learned about this practice of new American slavery from a friend who had come out of prison recently. Not enough people are talking about it, so nobody knows this is what's going on. Please, keep talking about it!

tomjen3 9y ago

That is arguably a violation of the 13th admentment: >Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Unless the work was part of the sentence (which I think is totally fair, as a term of restitution) I don't see how what they did was legal. You might want to talk to the ACLU.

jcranmer 9y ago
Note the clause: > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, SCOTUS has ruled that prison labor does not violate the 13th amendment.
- Jun8 9y ago
  True, here's a good writeup on the subject: https://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/ https://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-.... Mind boggling! Also, "The Thirteenth Amendment has also been interpreted to permit the government to require certain forms of public service, presumably extending to military service and jury duty." (https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-common-interpretation-the-thirteenth-amendment/ https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-common-interpretation-...)
  - opo 9y ago
    >...Also, "The Thirteenth Amendment has also been interpreted to permit the government to require certain forms of public service, presumably extending to military service and jury duty.” That’s a handy excuse to use to justify involuntary servitude. I guess they feel the part about "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,“ wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.

TP4Cornholio 9y ago

Hard to believe it costs so much if they're getting that much free labor. I would think they'd at least break even.

sedachv 9y ago
Private prison contracts are structured to basically provide taxpayer-subsidized slave labor.[1][2] It is just another Reagan-Thatcher era privatization scam. [1] http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime/ http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/09/private-pri... [2] http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-prisons-profit/ http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2015/06/private-pri...
- lordlimecat 9y ago
  At some point blaming administrations 30 years ago for practices continued by subsequent administrations becomes deeply dishonest. California for instance (referenced multiple times here) has had many governors since the Reagan days and could have ended the practice on a state level, and at a federal level the pendulum has swung to both sides on multiple occasions. Any of these administrations could have made it a priority, but did not.
  - sedachv 9y ago
    > At some point blaming administrations 30 years ago for practices continued by subsequent administrations becomes deeply dishonest. That statement is nonsensical. Who else is to blame for originating these policies?
    - elif 9y ago
      Choosing to maintain the status quo is still a choice. The blame lies most importantly with those who, today, could change this policy. otherwise.. why not blame the romans?

anigbrowl 9y ago

Yes, it's slavery by another name. Assuming you committed a crime rather than being framed up, that was bad, but the you were treated was itself a crime and I am sorry that you were subjected to that. I've been advocating (not very effectively I'm afraid) for root and branch reform of our criminal justice system for years now, and I feel both angry and ashamed to be a participant in a society where incarceration is treated as an economic opportunity for exploitation rather than a tragic outcome to be remediated.

enknamel 9y ago

I think I need to one up your boorishness. I don't think you are likely to break the law again right? That sounds like an effective correctional system. Sure it sucked. But jail/prison should suck.

throwawaymaroon 9y ago
Fuck decorum if it means I can't say fuck you.
GuiA 9y ago
Wow. Someone, whom you've never spoken to before, shares a personal story about their treatment in prison, and your reaction is "well you deserved it, treats you right". That's a fairly uncouth attitude to have towards one of your hacker peers.
- enknamel 9y ago
  Well no that's not my reaction. You shouldn't jump to conclusions that you want to exist. He had a bad time in jail. He is now unlikely to break the law again, right? But maybe I'm wrong. Given his other comments it sounds like he's been in jail/prison more than once.
  - bighi 9y ago
    People are also unlikely to break the law again if they have an ok time in jail (it's never going to be good) while learning productive skills and being reintegrated into society without prejudice. I wouldn't be glad someone had a bad time in their life.
    - enknamel 9y ago
      Following that example, people would then break the law in a serious way every time they want to make a career change. Heck you get free training, room, and board! And a brand new set of skills and a job when you get out. Some people need to have a bad time in order to get them to behave. If you know without a doubt, that breaking the law will lead to having a very bad time, you are going to avoid breaking the law. If you see it as a viable career move, wouldn't you be more likely than ever to break the law?