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Grotesque. Something I noticed several years ago (with the second Iraq War) was the mainstreaming of behavior that previous seemed to stay hidden in the prison

Grotesque. Something I noticed several years ago (with the second Iraq War) was the mainstreaming of behavior that previous seemed to stay hidden in the prison system among prison guards and the worst level of corrupt cops. If you were surprised by Abu Gharaib then you clearly weren't paying attention to exactly the same sort of thing happening in prisons in the South. We seem to be progressively empowering more and more fearless bullies in all walks of life; even mall cops and campus cops now act like they are cleaning up a riot in a Supermax.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>you were surprised by Abu Gharaib then you clearly weren't paying attention to exactly the same sort of thing happening in prisons in the South. If your were surprised my Michael Brown et. al. then you just weren't up to date on how the cops treat poor and/or black people. If you were surprised by the stuff Snowden published it was because you didn't know the history of the federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. If anything the ATF does surprises you then you must have just slept through the 90s. If this surprises you then you probably weren't keeping tabs on civil liberties at the border, there's been a slow trickle of allegations like this over the years. They can't all be false. It's all just shit. All these organizations just do terrible things with alarming frequencies but it's ok because they only abuse "bad" people and when they abuse innocent people they can either revise the narrative to make those innocent people bad and/or those innocent people are poor and not well connected. It's like the population is so overwhelmed that it can't focus on fixing any one agency.
- almostdeadguy 8y ago
  Going to get a lot of hate for this, but my cranky anarchist take is that these institutions are broken because they're broken by nature and shouldn't exist. Punitive, carceral systems have never not been full of rampant abuse above their mandate, but the baseline nature of what they do is horrific on its own. Carceral institutions do not address undesirable social phenomena, they exacerbate them and then punish the families of the alleged perpetrators. Not to mention the absolute brutality they enact in trying to enforce the laws.
  - GW150914 8y ago
    On one hand I agree with the “broken by nature” argument, I really do. To me, it’s a strong argument for cutting down our criminal code and not jailing people over drugs, sex, and fines. I still want rapists and killers and inveterate thieves removed from society though, but I don’t want to kill them. Without incarceration how do we achieve these seemingly contradictory aims? I don’t have a good answer, but neither “keep it as it is” or “burn it all down” sound good.
    - almostdeadguy 8y ago
      There are lots of ideas about this, but generally the restorative/transformative justice frameworks are the things prison abolitionists tend to focus on. I'm not well versed on the research surrounding these things, I'm sure there are limitations and criticisms, but I've always thought they advocated a reasonable start for thinking about dismantling carceral systems. Mariame Kaba, an author and activist who writes a lot about this, has a good reading list here: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/essential-pic-reading-list/ http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/essential-pic-reading-li...
      - phry 8y ago
        yep, transformative justice seems natural to me. taking 'anti-social' people and isolating them in a situation where there's little semblance of the life they're supposed to start living does not.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
      That's a good point I think- we put people in jail because a) we've always put people in jail and b) we still can't think of anything better to do. As justifications for screwing peoples' lives up go, this one's pretty weak. Oh and, er- please don't misunderstand me. I'm not accusing you of trying to excuse anything.
jancsika 8y ago
> If you were surprised by Abu Gharaib then you clearly weren't paying attention to exactly the same sort of thing happening in prisons in the South. Prison guards in the South in the early 2000s were making the equivalent of photographic "trading cards" glorifying their torture, rape, and humiliation of inmates[1]? I'll admit I've never read anything about that. Can you give some links to stories that covered this at the time? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse#Prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  You seem to think that glangdale is trying to play down Abu Ghraib. I think they're acknowledging the horror there while also trying to draw attention to other atrocities.
  - jancsika 8y ago
    Again-- what are some links to investigative reports of these atrocities that were happening in prisons of the South around the early 2000s (or 1990s) in the U.S. which are "exactly the same sort of thing" as Abu Graib?
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      I don't have any links on hand, personally, but I'm sure you're as good at googling as I am, maybe better. Why are you so skeptical about the idea that serious abuse may have occurred in Southern prisons? Are you concerned about slandering innocent Southern prison workers? Do you think that it would diminish the importance of the Abu Ghraib atrocities? Or are you just nitpicking over whether they were really, literally exactly as bad, as opposed to merely very-bad-but-not-quite-as-bad?
    - Kim_Bruning 8y ago
      Here's a memorandum opinion somewhere in the middle. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/37/855/2415783/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/... If (like me) you're mostly interested in substantiation of the claim, the summary of the situation seems useful already. There are also plenty of references and keywords to be found in this document. For instance, many news reports and court documents seem to refer back to a quote from section XI-A; searching for "culture of sadistic and malicious violence" yielded a large number of relevant hits. Apparently this has been a well known issue, and all 3 branches have been working on improvement.
int_19h 8y ago
"The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions, to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations supported by the military power." When Hamilton wrote this 230 years ago, he was talking of the standing army (of which he was not an opponent, recognizing its necessity - but also recognizing the dangers). An argument could be made - indeed, has been made by many - that modern law enforcement agencies are, in many ways, like a standing army, or at least would be recognized as such by the founders. And if so, it would seem that the above is equally applicable to them.
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  That's actually a really good point. At the time of founding, standing police forces were pretty much non-existent in the US (and not very widespread in the rest of the world). Law enforcement was mostly handled by an elected sheriff who would raise a militia when necessary.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>you were surprised by Abu Gharaib then you clearly weren't paying attention to exactly the same sort of thing happening in prisons in the South. If your were surprised my Michael Brown et. al. then you just weren't up to date on how the cops treat poor and/or black people. If you were surprised by the stuff Snowden published it was because you didn't know the history of the federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. If anything the ATF does surprises you then you must have just slept through the 90s. If this surprises you then you probably weren't keeping tabs on civil liberties at the border, there's been a slow trickle of allegations like this over the years. They can't all be false. It's all just shit. All these organizations just do terrible things with alarming frequencies but it's ok because they only abuse "bad" people and when they abuse innocent people they can either revise the narrative to make those innocent people bad and/or those innocent people are poor and not well connected. It's like the population is so overwhelmed that it can't focus on fixing any one agency.

almostdeadguy 8y ago
Going to get a lot of hate for this, but my cranky anarchist take is that these institutions are broken because they're broken by nature and shouldn't exist. Punitive, carceral systems have never not been full of rampant abuse above their mandate, but the baseline nature of what they do is horrific on its own. Carceral institutions do not address undesirable social phenomena, they exacerbate them and then punish the families of the alleged perpetrators. Not to mention the absolute brutality they enact in trying to enforce the laws.
- GW150914 8y ago
  On one hand I agree with the “broken by nature” argument, I really do. To me, it’s a strong argument for cutting down our criminal code and not jailing people over drugs, sex, and fines. I still want rapists and killers and inveterate thieves removed from society though, but I don’t want to kill them. Without incarceration how do we achieve these seemingly contradictory aims? I don’t have a good answer, but neither “keep it as it is” or “burn it all down” sound good.
  - almostdeadguy 8y ago
    There are lots of ideas about this, but generally the restorative/transformative justice frameworks are the things prison abolitionists tend to focus on. I'm not well versed on the research surrounding these things, I'm sure there are limitations and criticisms, but I've always thought they advocated a reasonable start for thinking about dismantling carceral systems. Mariame Kaba, an author and activist who writes a lot about this, has a good reading list here: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/essential-pic-reading-list/ http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/essential-pic-reading-li...
    - phry 8y ago
      yep, transformative justice seems natural to me. taking 'anti-social' people and isolating them in a situation where there's little semblance of the life they're supposed to start living does not.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    That's a good point I think- we put people in jail because a) we've always put people in jail and b) we still can't think of anything better to do. As justifications for screwing peoples' lives up go, this one's pretty weak. Oh and, er- please don't misunderstand me. I'm not accusing you of trying to excuse anything.

jancsika 8y ago

> If you were surprised by Abu Gharaib then you clearly weren't paying attention to exactly the same sort of thing happening in prisons in the South. Prison guards in the South in the early 2000s were making the equivalent of photographic "trading cards" glorifying their torture, rape, and humiliation of inmates[1]? I'll admit I've never read anything about that. Can you give some links to stories that covered this at the time? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse#Prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
You seem to think that glangdale is trying to play down Abu Ghraib. I think they're acknowledging the horror there while also trying to draw attention to other atrocities.
- jancsika 8y ago
  Again-- what are some links to investigative reports of these atrocities that were happening in prisons of the South around the early 2000s (or 1990s) in the U.S. which are "exactly the same sort of thing" as Abu Graib?
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    I don't have any links on hand, personally, but I'm sure you're as good at googling as I am, maybe better. Why are you so skeptical about the idea that serious abuse may have occurred in Southern prisons? Are you concerned about slandering innocent Southern prison workers? Do you think that it would diminish the importance of the Abu Ghraib atrocities? Or are you just nitpicking over whether they were really, literally exactly as bad, as opposed to merely very-bad-but-not-quite-as-bad?
  - Kim_Bruning 8y ago
    Here's a memorandum opinion somewhere in the middle. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/37/855/2415783/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/... If (like me) you're mostly interested in substantiation of the claim, the summary of the situation seems useful already. There are also plenty of references and keywords to be found in this document. For instance, many news reports and court documents seem to refer back to a quote from section XI-A; searching for "culture of sadistic and malicious violence" yielded a large number of relevant hits. Apparently this has been a well known issue, and all 3 branches have been working on improvement.

int_19h 8y ago

"The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions, to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations supported by the military power." When Hamilton wrote this 230 years ago, he was talking of the standing army (of which he was not an opponent, recognizing its necessity - but also recognizing the dangers). An argument could be made - indeed, has been made by many - that modern law enforcement agencies are, in many ways, like a standing army, or at least would be recognized as such by the founders. And if so, it would seem that the above is equally applicable to them.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago
That's actually a really good point. At the time of founding, standing police forces were pretty much non-existent in the US (and not very widespread in the rest of the world). Law enforcement was mostly handled by an elected sheriff who would raise a militia when necessary.