4 ms·

It won't map because of our national obsession with crime and punishment. I'd bet dollars to donuts that it's far cheaper to put a drunk in a homeless shelter

It won't map because of our national obsession with crime and punishment. I'd bet dollars to donuts that it's far cheaper to put a drunk in a homeless shelter AND give him treatment (AlAnon, etc) than it is to lock him in a cage with a herd of sociopaths. But the Prison Industrial Complex has got to look out for its own, after all.

ChristianBundy 8y ago
> a herd of sociopaths I agree with everything you said except for this. The idea that many/most/all prisoners are violent or sociopathic is a myth propagated by those who stand to benefit from the prison industrial complex. Prisoners are human and prisons are inhumane. For another take, here's the IWW IWOC[0]: > Incarcerated people are legally slaves as per the 13th Amendment which abolished "slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime". We are legally slaves. If you've been to prison you'd know we are treated like slaves. Billions are made annually off our backs. Outrageously priced or grossly inadequate privatized 'services' like health care, food, phone calls, assault our humanity - they feed us like animals, suck our families dry, and when sick leave us to die. The government spends as much as an elite college tuition per person to keep each of us incarcerated, but this money does not develop us as human beings, reduce crime or make our communities safer. [0]: https://incarceratedworkers.org/about https://incarceratedworkers.org/about
- DoubleCribble 8y ago
  I wasn't making any claim to the tendencies of many/most/all prisoners. My point was that putting non-violent petty offenders in jail/prison puts them in the path of a concentration of sociopathic people, those who really should be kept out of society.
marnett 8y ago
The intention isn't so much crime and punishment as is the justification. The need to reallocate idle citizens producing no economic value is the systemic reason to high prisoner count domestically. America's prisons are largely forced labor camps recycling rebellious, able-bodied men into a working, productive labor force. One local example for me is paying californian prisoner's $1/hour to fight forest fires in the American west.

ChristianBundy 8y ago

> a herd of sociopaths I agree with everything you said except for this. The idea that many/most/all prisoners are violent or sociopathic is a myth propagated by those who stand to benefit from the prison industrial complex. Prisoners are human and prisons are inhumane. For another take, here's the IWW IWOC[0]: > Incarcerated people are legally slaves as per the 13th Amendment which abolished "slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime". We are legally slaves. If you've been to prison you'd know we are treated like slaves. Billions are made annually off our backs. Outrageously priced or grossly inadequate privatized 'services' like health care, food, phone calls, assault our humanity - they feed us like animals, suck our families dry, and when sick leave us to die. The government spends as much as an elite college tuition per person to keep each of us incarcerated, but this money does not develop us as human beings, reduce crime or make our communities safer. [0]: https://incarceratedworkers.org/about https://incarceratedworkers.org/about

DoubleCribble 8y ago
I wasn't making any claim to the tendencies of many/most/all prisoners. My point was that putting non-violent petty offenders in jail/prison puts them in the path of a concentration of sociopathic people, those who really should be kept out of society.

marnett 8y ago

The intention isn't so much crime and punishment as is the justification. The need to reallocate idle citizens producing no economic value is the systemic reason to high prisoner count domestically. America's prisons are largely forced labor camps recycling rebellious, able-bodied men into a working, productive labor force. One local example for me is paying californian prisoner's $1/hour to fight forest fires in the American west.