5 ms·

Where is the outrage and action to prevent these kinds of abuse in US prisons? What does this say about a society that just accepts this as normal. Makes it cl

Where is the outrage and action to prevent these kinds of abuse in US prisons? What does this say about a society that just accepts this as normal. Makes it clear that what happened in Abu grab was not just some bad apples but and underlying acceptance of such behavior at home. It is shameful.

everdev 8y ago
It's not only shameful but counter productive. Some think that horrible conditions are a deterrent, but there are several problems: 1. Innocent people do get convicted 2. Prisoner suicide 3. Inability to integrate back into a less violent community 4. A prisoner code that requires you to participate in violence or be subjected to it For a sobering account, check out Shaun Attwood on YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/derickatt https://youtube.com/user/derickatt He served in Maricopa County Jail under super Max and medium security. The stories of violence from medium security are just as violent as any fictional movie you've seen. Our prisons seem to be trying to fight fire (violence) with more fire. It's a horribly unethical game we're playing with people's lives that seems to provide little comfort to our society or the victims.
- kbenson 8y ago
  I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison, and doesn't put enough thought into it to realize how crazy that idea is. I'm fairly sure if you took anyone with this view and forced them to have a conversation with you where you presented various scenarios (such as some low-harm and impact crime prisoner ending up getting repeatedly raped), they might change their mind, but actually getting people to listen with an open mind to alternative points of view is amazingly hard in the current charged climate where every issue is a political one.
  - abfan1127 8y ago
    Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. In Reality, Prison should be a place to isolate those who can't be trusted to be free. When trust can be established, they don't belong there anymore. When the concept of prison as isolation is adopted, fewer people go to prison, including innocent people.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      Prison as purely isolation is also a troubling concept to me. Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? If shoplifting isn't a big enough crime to deserve prison, is there any punishment to deter the crime? I see prison as obviously both punishment and isolation, to varying degrees for different crimes. Making it about just isolation doesn't solve the problem with prison, it just trades problems stemming from overbalancing punishment for ones overbalancing isolation.
      - exolymph 8y ago
        There are pretty clear tradeoffs in your example (if we stipulate that there's no way to get the compulsive, habitual shoplifter to reliably stop shoplifting). > Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? Two choices: 1) Accept the cost to society of letting a person run around stealing from various different businesses, probably over the course of years. Not only do those businesses lose money, but it makes their employees' work experience more unpleasant, and adds to a general low-trust atmosphere among strangers. 2) Accept the cost to the shoplifter of putting them in a miserable environment where they won't be able to thrive as a person. Either dispersed costs for lots of people who aren't responsible for the wrongdoing, or concentrated costs to the one person who is doing the objectionable actions. I loosely favor the former... but this is a constrained example, and the available options kinda suck. (Not dissimilar to real life in that way...) If you can actually get the shoplifter to stop their bad behavior, then the options and attendant tradeoffs change.
    - renholder 8y ago
      >Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. Aye, they view it from a purely punitive perspective, rather than a punishment + rehabilitative perspective. In other words, zero thought or care is given to what happens in prisons or how those prisoners will reintegrate into society. They're dehumanized down to that action: shoplifter, murderer, etc. If you remove the humanity from the person, you care less about anything to do with them.
  - renholder 8y ago
    >I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison... One needn't look very hard, /r/ for example, to see examples of this. People lauding, revelling, and even rejoicing in the suffering of criminals is kind of par for the course there.
    - DennisP 8y ago
      Did you mean to link a particular subreddit?
      - rootusrootus 8y ago
        Probably referring to 4chan
JBReefer 8y ago
see other sibling comments that argue against this
tropo 8y ago
You're looking at unintended consequences, the result of outrage and action to prevent keeping prisoners physically separated from each other at all times. Well, if they aren't separated, they do things to each other. This should be unsurprising. It is unavoidable. They are also a bad influence on each other.

everdev 8y ago

It's not only shameful but counter productive. Some think that horrible conditions are a deterrent, but there are several problems: 1. Innocent people do get convicted 2. Prisoner suicide 3. Inability to integrate back into a less violent community 4. A prisoner code that requires you to participate in violence or be subjected to it For a sobering account, check out Shaun Attwood on YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/derickatt https://youtube.com/user/derickatt He served in Maricopa County Jail under super Max and medium security. The stories of violence from medium security are just as violent as any fictional movie you've seen. Our prisons seem to be trying to fight fire (violence) with more fire. It's a horribly unethical game we're playing with people's lives that seems to provide little comfort to our society or the victims.

kbenson 8y ago
I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison, and doesn't put enough thought into it to realize how crazy that idea is. I'm fairly sure if you took anyone with this view and forced them to have a conversation with you where you presented various scenarios (such as some low-harm and impact crime prisoner ending up getting repeatedly raped), they might change their mind, but actually getting people to listen with an open mind to alternative points of view is amazingly hard in the current charged climate where every issue is a political one.
- abfan1127 8y ago
  Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. In Reality, Prison should be a place to isolate those who can't be trusted to be free. When trust can be established, they don't belong there anymore. When the concept of prison as isolation is adopted, fewer people go to prison, including innocent people.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    Prison as purely isolation is also a troubling concept to me. Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? If shoplifting isn't a big enough crime to deserve prison, is there any punishment to deter the crime? I see prison as obviously both punishment and isolation, to varying degrees for different crimes. Making it about just isolation doesn't solve the problem with prison, it just trades problems stemming from overbalancing punishment for ones overbalancing isolation.
    - exolymph 8y ago
      There are pretty clear tradeoffs in your example (if we stipulate that there's no way to get the compulsive, habitual shoplifter to reliably stop shoplifting). > Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? Two choices: 1) Accept the cost to society of letting a person run around stealing from various different businesses, probably over the course of years. Not only do those businesses lose money, but it makes their employees' work experience more unpleasant, and adds to a general low-trust atmosphere among strangers. 2) Accept the cost to the shoplifter of putting them in a miserable environment where they won't be able to thrive as a person. Either dispersed costs for lots of people who aren't responsible for the wrongdoing, or concentrated costs to the one person who is doing the objectionable actions. I loosely favor the former... but this is a constrained example, and the available options kinda suck. (Not dissimilar to real life in that way...) If you can actually get the shoplifter to stop their bad behavior, then the options and attendant tradeoffs change.
  - renholder 8y ago
    >Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. Aye, they view it from a purely punitive perspective, rather than a punishment + rehabilitative perspective. In other words, zero thought or care is given to what happens in prisons or how those prisoners will reintegrate into society. They're dehumanized down to that action: shoplifter, murderer, etc. If you remove the humanity from the person, you care less about anything to do with them.
- renholder 8y ago
  >I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison... One needn't look very hard, /r/ for example, to see examples of this. People lauding, revelling, and even rejoicing in the suffering of criminals is kind of par for the course there.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Did you mean to link a particular subreddit?
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      Probably referring to 4chan

JBReefer 8y ago

see other sibling comments that argue against this

tropo 8y ago

You're looking at unintended consequences, the result of outrage and action to prevent keeping prisoners physically separated from each other at all times. Well, if they aren't separated, they do things to each other. This should be unsurprising. It is unavoidable. They are also a bad influence on each other.