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This article, and the comments to it here on HN, are written from a perspective that seems to ignore: 1. These prisoners are in prison for a reason, and 2. Th

This article, and the comments to it here on HN, are written from a perspective that seems to ignore: 1. These prisoners are in prison for a reason, and 2. The severe, of then horribly violent, result of contraband in prisons. This isn’t an article about care packages to nursing homes. I await your immediate downvotes.

saryant 9y ago
Many of these prisoners will eventually be released back into society. As their future neighbors, employers, coworkers, customers, seems like it's in our best interest for them to be somewhat ready for that transition. As taxpayers, it's in our best interest to keep the recidivism rate low, as prison is expensive. As humans, we should want our fellow humans treated with some basic standard of respect, even if they are someone we're scared of.
chillwaves 9y ago
Being whiny about downvotes doesn't excuse how dull and meritless your post is. People go to prison for all kinds of reasons, your blanket statement contributes nothing to the conversation and does not address the reality of gouging the loved ones of prisoners who are only trying to have some level of basic human contact, such as letters or phonecalls.
wungsten 9y ago
That may be true, but this system punishes the families trying to support their loved ones as much as it does the prisoners themselves.
mythrwy 9y ago
The fact that some persons in jail are truly awful doesn't justify monopolistic price gouging though. The sentence was to be locked up. Not to be ripped off.
essayist 9y ago
Let's argue in the realm of "should" for a bit. Justice: What should a society permit itself in punishing prisoners (and let's stipulate that the ones we're talking about are guilty as charged, even though many many many are not.) Is it ok to malnourish them? Is it ok to punish their families and friends, who haven't been convicted of crimes? Is it ok to deprive prisoners of outside contact? In other words, where to you draw the line? (And if you don't draw the line, Abu Ghraib is the next stop.) Pragmatism: As others have noted, if you're going to admit a prisoner back into society in, say, five years, does it make sense to reduce their coping and job skills in prison so that they will likely do worse when they get out? And again, where do you draw the line? Regarding contraband: it's even worse than you hint at, today. Prisons are taking all sorts of measures to keep opioids from getting in. You can soak a greeting card or letter paper in water soluble drugs which can then be extracted once the document is inside. So my friend now only get printed out scans of letters and cards, not the cards themselves. So, yeah, security is an issue, too, but I don't think that justifies $25/fifteen minute phone calls, do you?
dang 9y ago
> I await your immediate downvotes. This breaks the HN guidelines. Doing that leads to HN prison. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

saryant 9y ago

Many of these prisoners will eventually be released back into society. As their future neighbors, employers, coworkers, customers, seems like it's in our best interest for them to be somewhat ready for that transition. As taxpayers, it's in our best interest to keep the recidivism rate low, as prison is expensive. As humans, we should want our fellow humans treated with some basic standard of respect, even if they are someone we're scared of.

chillwaves 9y ago

Being whiny about downvotes doesn't excuse how dull and meritless your post is. People go to prison for all kinds of reasons, your blanket statement contributes nothing to the conversation and does not address the reality of gouging the loved ones of prisoners who are only trying to have some level of basic human contact, such as letters or phonecalls.

wungsten 9y ago

That may be true, but this system punishes the families trying to support their loved ones as much as it does the prisoners themselves.

mythrwy 9y ago

The fact that some persons in jail are truly awful doesn't justify monopolistic price gouging though. The sentence was to be locked up. Not to be ripped off.

essayist 9y ago

Let's argue in the realm of "should" for a bit. Justice: What should a society permit itself in punishing prisoners (and let's stipulate that the ones we're talking about are guilty as charged, even though many many many are not.) Is it ok to malnourish them? Is it ok to punish their families and friends, who haven't been convicted of crimes? Is it ok to deprive prisoners of outside contact? In other words, where to you draw the line? (And if you don't draw the line, Abu Ghraib is the next stop.) Pragmatism: As others have noted, if you're going to admit a prisoner back into society in, say, five years, does it make sense to reduce their coping and job skills in prison so that they will likely do worse when they get out? And again, where do you draw the line? Regarding contraband: it's even worse than you hint at, today. Prisons are taking all sorts of measures to keep opioids from getting in. You can soak a greeting card or letter paper in water soluble drugs which can then be extracted once the document is inside. So my friend now only get printed out scans of letters and cards, not the cards themselves. So, yeah, security is an issue, too, but I don't think that justifies $25/fifteen minute phone calls, do you?

dang 9y ago

> I await your immediate downvotes. This breaks the HN guidelines. Doing that leads to HN prison. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html