9 ms·

The Largest Prison Strike In American History Goes Ignored By US Media

236 points by gnubardt 16y ago

smokeyj 16y ago
I think it's important to note that breaking the law isn't necessarily unethical, therefore we should carefully consider our treatment towards "criminals". The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with Georgia leading the US. It isn't pretty.
- aberkowitz 16y ago
  The United States government creates a hypocrisy when they do not follow laws put in place by their own institutions.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- fleitz 16y ago
  The law being ethical is what lawyers would call a 'legal fiction'. This is why the first juries established jury nullification.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - kelnos 16y ago
    Unfortunately, it seems recently most of the time juries are not informed of their nullification abilities (and the defense is often prohibited from mentioning it). Sadly this line of reasoning has been upheld in court.
    - dedward 16y ago
      They didn't "establish nullification" - nullification is simply the logical outcome that the jury's decision is final, and can't be questioned. The reason judges don't want this fact brought up by counsel during court is because it would render the legal system meaningless... in general I think we'd all LIKE the jury focused on the law and the evidence, not their gut feelings. This always comes up in discussions when we feel the law is unjust and the accused isn't getting a fair trial - but please consider, if counsel were allowed to bring this up in court and instruct the jury that, you know, regardless of what you have heard here, you can vote however you feel like it and, you know, nobody is allowed to give you shit over it afterwards.... that street runs both ways. You'd have people who DO deserve punishment getting off scott free.
      - fleitz 16y ago
        It wouldn't render the legal system meaningless. It would return verdicts according to your 12 peers. Jury Nullification is not about using your gut feelings its used for when the application of the law would return an unjust or immoral result. There is in my estimation, no better judge of the law than 12 of your peers.
sage_joch 16y ago
"... prisoners in Georgia are forced to work without pay for their labor--seemingly a violation of the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude." I hadn't thought about that before, but that's a very interesting point. The fact that such a high percentage of the prison population is black makes it hit home a little harder.
- anon11 16y ago
  "Section 1. 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. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
  - sage_joch 16y ago
    Ouch, I stand corrected. I should know by now not to take quotes from articles at face value, especially when it is so easy to look up the source directly. :-)
  - fleitz 16y ago
    There are many ways to interpret that statement. One interpretation would go towards that a judge may specify involuntary servitude (eg. community service) as punishment, and another would say that involuntary servitude is implied by the prison sentence. I'm sure the prisoners take the former interpretation that involuntary servitude was not specified as punishment and thus is unconstitutional. Also, the 13th amendment absolutely bans slavery, so if you can construe characteristics of ownership then you could make it unconstitutional. Georgia also has a history of abusing the law to keep slavery in all but name going which would negatively impact the states' case in a non-southern court, and would make a good case as to the intent of Georgian legislation being to revive slavery. I mean when they're trying to put the Confederate flag back on their flag it gives a person pause as to the intent of not paying their labor. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85078,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85078,00.html This is why most states pay their employees in prison a pittance rather than absolutely nothing. It avoids the issue entirely and makes it one of labor law. Re-education through labor, not just for communists anymore!
sliverstorm 16y ago
At the very least, it seems like it'd be a good idea to respond to this positively if only to encourage non-violent, instead of violent, prison protests in the future.
j_baker 16y ago
"We have the Crips and the Bloods, we have the Muslims, we have the head Mexicans, and we have the Aryans all with a peaceful understanding, all on common ground." Whatever's happening, they must have done something terrible to cause that.
- raganwald 16y ago
  HN is about interesting new phenomena, and these factions working together seems to qualify. Good call. Also of interest to Hackers, of course, is the suggestion that Old Media has ignored the strike. Why? It seems like terrific news fodder for the traditional Left and the traditional Right. This is very curious to me. Everything else about the actual prison conditions and so on... Seems like "politics" to me unless there's an interesting new angle to it.
  - j_baker 16y ago
    Fair enough. I've edited my previous post.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Oh, sorry, I wasn't actually singling out anything in your post, I was thinking about the direction many of the comments were taking and trying to suggest that yours was especially insightful.
- ams6110 16y ago
  I found it surprising that the strike was apparently coordinated across many state prisons by use of cell phones. I thought possession of cell phones was generally banned in prisons.
  - marcusbooster 16y ago
    Yes cell phones are considered contraband, and yes they are available.
  - 16y ago
lhnn 16y ago
I believe prisoners do have minimal rights, and to the extent feasible, should get a decent meal and perhaps reading material. Weights and playgrounds? Not so much. They should be busting rocks or chopping wood, or something else that is not fun. Make prison too cozy and beneficial, and you give an incentive for crime. Also, an alternative cost-cutter to triple bunking prisoners is to incarcerate fewer people, by decriminalizing victim-less acts (cough cough).
- tomjen3 16y ago
  I kinda agree with you on the first part, but if they should be allowed to read books, which are presumably fun or at least interesting to read, why not let them do "fun" exercises? It seems terribly inconsistent.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  And yet, study after study has shown that harsher punishments do little to deter crime, and that despite the poor state that prisons are in, and the conditions one experiences there, recidivism is still ridiculously high. I've heard the same argument for homelessness and their support structures - make homelessness too easy, who wants to work? I've always asked people who spout this nonsense to go take a look at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen line - I regularly volunteer at both - and then come back and tell me with a straight face that anyone sane will deliberately put themselves in that situation. I'd tell you do so for prison, but that's not really plausible short of actually ending up in the big house. So instead, I'll urge you to go talk to some people who have been in prison, and figure out a little bit of what happens there. It is not "fun", nor is it any place a sane person would willingly and deliberately put themselves.
  - randallsquared 16y ago
    You appear to be using "sane person" to mean "person who shares my values and goals".
  - gyardley 16y ago
    But are prisons primarily for rehabilitation or deterrence? If someone were to hurt or kill someone close to me, I would want him to go to prison for punishment, if we couldn't just kill him and be done with it. When I think about this hypothetical person getting, say, programming lessons with my tax dollars, that only makes me angry. I assume prisons are how they are in part because my attitude is fairly common. None of the above diminishes the problems of wrongful convictions, cruel and unusual punishments, prison rape, victimless crimes, and so on.
gnubardt 16y ago
There's also a good interview about the strikes on Democracy Now with prisoner advocate Elaine Brown. “Repression Breeds Resistance” http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/14/prisoner_advocate_elaine_brown_on_georgia http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/14/prisoner_advocate_ela...
Dove 16y ago
Their demands seem entirely reasonable to me. I'm ashamed to belong to a society in which such demands must be made, more so that they would be ignored.
- ars 16y ago
  I'm not inclined to believe things prisoners say about their conditions. So while I agree the demands are reasonable, I'm not (yet) convinced that they needed to be made or that they are ignored. (Except for the fruits/vegetables, because realistically while they may ask for it, they aren't going to eat it.)
  - gruseom 16y ago
    I'm not inclined to believe things prisoners say about their conditions. I am. There's evidence that things are far worse than we complacently imagine. For example, a year or so ago there was a shocking multipart series on NPR about what's going on inside California's prisons. Mostly we just don't want to know.
    - kellishaver 16y ago
      Do you have a link to that by chance? I'd be interested in reading/listening (whichever the case may be).
      - sudont 16y ago
        This, maybe: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111843426 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1118434...
        kellishaver 16y ago
        Thanks!
        gruseom 16y ago
        Yeah, and this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92296114 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9229611... The piece I remember most (not sure if this is the one) was where the reporter got caught in the middle of a lockdown in a crowded San Quentin gym (former gym, now dormitory because of overcrowding). When the alarms go off, everyone has to get on their hands and knees or the guards shoot them on sight. The reporter was told to keep standing during the whole episode, and everyone in the gym was staring at her. Unbelievable moment. I thought it was in this story but the transcript doesn't contain it. Perhaps it doesn't cover the whole audio or perhaps there are more pieces in the series.
tptacek 16y ago
Somebody connect this to Hacker News for me. If this is Hacker News, what human rights story isn't?
- Roboprog 16y ago
  It's a media issue. It's seemingly an important issue, but it isn't covered much. Admittedly, "media" is on the fringes of programming and business. Besides, many programmers have a libertarian bent, and locking people up, often for questionable stuff, and treating them like dirt rankles. Not that many of them don't deserve to be worked to pay back societal debt. But don't abuse them and feed them junk.
  - tmsh 16y ago
    Sort of what I was going to say too. There's something about the raw truth of people doing good things, uncovered by the media -- that seems correlated with Hacker News. But it's an interesting question.
  - natrius 16y ago
    It's an article that appeals to us and I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think it's hacker news.
    - gbog 16y ago
      Not HN, and annoyingly US-centric...
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    > It's a media issue Then why are all the comments about the politics?
    - Goladus 16y ago
      Because the article wasn't about the media at all, that angle was merely a sensational (and false) hook to get people riled up and reading the article. (Yes, I know I'm answering your rhetorical question).
aberkowitz 16y ago
It will be interesting to see how the strike dissipates, or fails to dissipate, based on the effectiveness of prisoner's communication networks.
anonymoushn 16y ago
Easy fix to crowding due to budget cuts: Release all prisoners who are held only on drug charges.
- nolok 16y ago
  Private prison lobbies won't let that happen
aheilbut 16y ago
Based on the accuracy of the headline, I'm not sure how much trust I have in the source. Doesn't seem as if this news is being ignored by the MSM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12prison.html Prisoners Strike in Georgia http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html Some Georgia Inmates Return to Work
nodata 16y ago
Poor conditions and substandard medical care are also on the inmates’ list of demands. Somehow I doubt that..
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Tsk tsk, HN. As written, the quoted sentence suggests the inmates are demanding poor conditions, the opposite of what was intended.
iwwr 16y ago
Non-violent, therefore not newsworthy.
J3L2404 16y ago
"Today marks the end of a seven-day strike where tens of thousands of inmates in Georgia refused to work or leave their cells until their demands had been met. The odd thing is, that until today, no one had ever heard about this strike." FALSE I posted this NYT article 4 days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994
- Goladus 16y ago
  Seriously. That death+taxes site set off all kinds of propaganda alarms in my head, and a 5-second google search debunked the initial assertion. I'm very disappointed with Hacker News.
J3L2404 16y ago
In the 1830s de Tocqueville reported on a reformatory in Massachusetts where the prisoners had a voting system in order to make decisions about mealtimes and exercise etc. The interesting thing was the way in which the voting worked. All prisoners had a vote regardless of disciplinary actions but if you stayed out of trouble you had two votes and this system worked very well according to Alexis. Tocqueville in America was quite a good read, although long, and has many insights into early America.
wakeup 16y ago
I am ashamed to be a descendant of a race that has prisons. Fucking knuckleheads.
Goladus 16y ago
The article is wrong. This was covered in the NY Times. The articles were published on the same day. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html Edit-- Actually, this was covered in the NYT 4 days ago, and the article was submitted to Hacker News and ignored: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994 Plus, the issue of it being "ignored by US media" is not covered by the article in anything resembling an intellectual way, and merely serves as a sensational hook to get people reading a story already covered by other sources. http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/12/georgia-prisoner-strike-comes-out-of-lockdown.html http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/12/georgia-prisoner-stri... http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=georgia_prison_strike_interview_update_dec15 http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=georgia_prison_strike_in...
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  You'll see the "ignored by the MSM!" angle a lot on these kind of political stories. It's on reddit all the time. Look for headlines like "WTF?! Prisoners on strike and Fox News refuses to report on it! FUCK YOU FOX!!" It's an easy angle to drum up interest in the story and pander to your readers by making them think they're getting the "real" story.
  - jackolas 16y ago
    Well it was being ignored for the first few days, it only just started to get picked up by NYT etc.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  The (fairly short) NY Times article was two days after the initial event. As far as I know, it made it to neither the Times front page nor Google news front page nor did it receive any other wider coverage despite being a fairly significant event (in my opinion, obviously). Also, what would constitute mentioning this lack of coverage in a fashion "resembling an intellectual way"? News stories have hooks and further reading. The problem is...?
  - 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
shotmaker 16y ago
Why is this "hacker news" this belongs on reddit.

236 points by gnubardt 16y ago

I think it's important to note that breaking the law isn't necessarily unethical, therefore we should carefully consider our treatment towards "criminals". The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with Georgia leading the US. It isn't pretty.

aberkowitz 16y ago
The United States government creates a hypocrisy when they do not follow laws put in place by their own institutions.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
fleitz 16y ago
The law being ethical is what lawyers would call a 'legal fiction'. This is why the first juries established jury nullification.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 16y ago
  Unfortunately, it seems recently most of the time juries are not informed of their nullification abilities (and the defense is often prohibited from mentioning it). Sadly this line of reasoning has been upheld in court.
  - dedward 16y ago
    They didn't "establish nullification" - nullification is simply the logical outcome that the jury's decision is final, and can't be questioned. The reason judges don't want this fact brought up by counsel during court is because it would render the legal system meaningless... in general I think we'd all LIKE the jury focused on the law and the evidence, not their gut feelings. This always comes up in discussions when we feel the law is unjust and the accused isn't getting a fair trial - but please consider, if counsel were allowed to bring this up in court and instruct the jury that, you know, regardless of what you have heard here, you can vote however you feel like it and, you know, nobody is allowed to give you shit over it afterwards.... that street runs both ways. You'd have people who DO deserve punishment getting off scott free.
    - fleitz 16y ago
      It wouldn't render the legal system meaningless. It would return verdicts according to your 12 peers. Jury Nullification is not about using your gut feelings its used for when the application of the law would return an unjust or immoral result. There is in my estimation, no better judge of the law than 12 of your peers.

sage_joch 16y ago

"... prisoners in Georgia are forced to work without pay for their labor--seemingly a violation of the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude." I hadn't thought about that before, but that's a very interesting point. The fact that such a high percentage of the prison population is black makes it hit home a little harder.

anon11 16y ago
"Section 1. 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. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
- sage_joch 16y ago
  Ouch, I stand corrected. I should know by now not to take quotes from articles at face value, especially when it is so easy to look up the source directly. :-)
- fleitz 16y ago
  There are many ways to interpret that statement. One interpretation would go towards that a judge may specify involuntary servitude (eg. community service) as punishment, and another would say that involuntary servitude is implied by the prison sentence. I'm sure the prisoners take the former interpretation that involuntary servitude was not specified as punishment and thus is unconstitutional. Also, the 13th amendment absolutely bans slavery, so if you can construe characteristics of ownership then you could make it unconstitutional. Georgia also has a history of abusing the law to keep slavery in all but name going which would negatively impact the states' case in a non-southern court, and would make a good case as to the intent of Georgian legislation being to revive slavery. I mean when they're trying to put the Confederate flag back on their flag it gives a person pause as to the intent of not paying their labor. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85078,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85078,00.html This is why most states pay their employees in prison a pittance rather than absolutely nothing. It avoids the issue entirely and makes it one of labor law. Re-education through labor, not just for communists anymore!

sliverstorm 16y ago

At the very least, it seems like it'd be a good idea to respond to this positively if only to encourage non-violent, instead of violent, prison protests in the future.

j_baker 16y ago

"We have the Crips and the Bloods, we have the Muslims, we have the head Mexicans, and we have the Aryans all with a peaceful understanding, all on common ground." Whatever's happening, they must have done something terrible to cause that.

raganwald 16y ago
HN is about interesting new phenomena, and these factions working together seems to qualify. Good call. Also of interest to Hackers, of course, is the suggestion that Old Media has ignored the strike. Why? It seems like terrific news fodder for the traditional Left and the traditional Right. This is very curious to me. Everything else about the actual prison conditions and so on... Seems like "politics" to me unless there's an interesting new angle to it.
- j_baker 16y ago
  Fair enough. I've edited my previous post.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Oh, sorry, I wasn't actually singling out anything in your post, I was thinking about the direction many of the comments were taking and trying to suggest that yours was especially insightful.
ams6110 16y ago
I found it surprising that the strike was apparently coordinated across many state prisons by use of cell phones. I thought possession of cell phones was generally banned in prisons.
- marcusbooster 16y ago
  Yes cell phones are considered contraband, and yes they are available.
- 16y ago

lhnn 16y ago

I believe prisoners do have minimal rights, and to the extent feasible, should get a decent meal and perhaps reading material. Weights and playgrounds? Not so much. They should be busting rocks or chopping wood, or something else that is not fun. Make prison too cozy and beneficial, and you give an incentive for crime. Also, an alternative cost-cutter to triple bunking prisoners is to incarcerate fewer people, by decriminalizing victim-less acts (cough cough).

tomjen3 16y ago
I kinda agree with you on the first part, but if they should be allowed to read books, which are presumably fun or at least interesting to read, why not let them do "fun" exercises? It seems terribly inconsistent.
potatolicious 16y ago
And yet, study after study has shown that harsher punishments do little to deter crime, and that despite the poor state that prisons are in, and the conditions one experiences there, recidivism is still ridiculously high. I've heard the same argument for homelessness and their support structures - make homelessness too easy, who wants to work? I've always asked people who spout this nonsense to go take a look at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen line - I regularly volunteer at both - and then come back and tell me with a straight face that anyone sane will deliberately put themselves in that situation. I'd tell you do so for prison, but that's not really plausible short of actually ending up in the big house. So instead, I'll urge you to go talk to some people who have been in prison, and figure out a little bit of what happens there. It is not "fun", nor is it any place a sane person would willingly and deliberately put themselves.
- randallsquared 16y ago
  You appear to be using "sane person" to mean "person who shares my values and goals".
- gyardley 16y ago
  But are prisons primarily for rehabilitation or deterrence? If someone were to hurt or kill someone close to me, I would want him to go to prison for punishment, if we couldn't just kill him and be done with it. When I think about this hypothetical person getting, say, programming lessons with my tax dollars, that only makes me angry. I assume prisons are how they are in part because my attitude is fairly common. None of the above diminishes the problems of wrongful convictions, cruel and unusual punishments, prison rape, victimless crimes, and so on.

gnubardt 16y ago

There's also a good interview about the strikes on Democracy Now with prisoner advocate Elaine Brown. “Repression Breeds Resistance” http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/14/prisoner_advocate_elaine_brown_on_georgia http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/14/prisoner_advocate_ela...

Dove 16y ago

Their demands seem entirely reasonable to me. I'm ashamed to belong to a society in which such demands must be made, more so that they would be ignored.

ars 16y ago
I'm not inclined to believe things prisoners say about their conditions. So while I agree the demands are reasonable, I'm not (yet) convinced that they needed to be made or that they are ignored. (Except for the fruits/vegetables, because realistically while they may ask for it, they aren't going to eat it.)
- gruseom 16y ago
  I'm not inclined to believe things prisoners say about their conditions. I am. There's evidence that things are far worse than we complacently imagine. For example, a year or so ago there was a shocking multipart series on NPR about what's going on inside California's prisons. Mostly we just don't want to know.
  - kellishaver 16y ago
    Do you have a link to that by chance? I'd be interested in reading/listening (whichever the case may be).
    - sudont 16y ago
      This, maybe: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111843426 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1118434...
      - kellishaver 16y ago
        Thanks!
      - gruseom 16y ago
        Yeah, and this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92296114 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9229611... The piece I remember most (not sure if this is the one) was where the reporter got caught in the middle of a lockdown in a crowded San Quentin gym (former gym, now dormitory because of overcrowding). When the alarms go off, everyone has to get on their hands and knees or the guards shoot them on sight. The reporter was told to keep standing during the whole episode, and everyone in the gym was staring at her. Unbelievable moment. I thought it was in this story but the transcript doesn't contain it. Perhaps it doesn't cover the whole audio or perhaps there are more pieces in the series.

tptacek 16y ago

Somebody connect this to Hacker News for me. If this is Hacker News, what human rights story isn't?

Roboprog 16y ago
It's a media issue. It's seemingly an important issue, but it isn't covered much. Admittedly, "media" is on the fringes of programming and business. Besides, many programmers have a libertarian bent, and locking people up, often for questionable stuff, and treating them like dirt rankles. Not that many of them don't deserve to be worked to pay back societal debt. But don't abuse them and feed them junk.
- tmsh 16y ago
  Sort of what I was going to say too. There's something about the raw truth of people doing good things, uncovered by the media -- that seems correlated with Hacker News. But it's an interesting question.
- natrius 16y ago
  It's an article that appeals to us and I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think it's hacker news.
  - gbog 16y ago
    Not HN, and annoyingly US-centric...
- jessriedel 16y ago
  > It's a media issue Then why are all the comments about the politics?
  - Goladus 16y ago
    Because the article wasn't about the media at all, that angle was merely a sensational (and false) hook to get people riled up and reading the article. (Yes, I know I'm answering your rhetorical question).

aberkowitz 16y ago

It will be interesting to see how the strike dissipates, or fails to dissipate, based on the effectiveness of prisoner's communication networks.

anonymoushn 16y ago

Easy fix to crowding due to budget cuts: Release all prisoners who are held only on drug charges.

nolok 16y ago
Private prison lobbies won't let that happen

aheilbut 16y ago

Based on the accuracy of the headline, I'm not sure how much trust I have in the source. Doesn't seem as if this news is being ignored by the MSM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12prison.html Prisoners Strike in Georgia http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html Some Georgia Inmates Return to Work

nodata 16y ago

Poor conditions and substandard medical care are also on the inmates’ list of demands. Somehow I doubt that..

anigbrowl 16y ago
Tsk tsk, HN. As written, the quoted sentence suggests the inmates are demanding poor conditions, the opposite of what was intended.

iwwr 16y ago

Non-violent, therefore not newsworthy.

J3L2404 16y ago

"Today marks the end of a seven-day strike where tens of thousands of inmates in Georgia refused to work or leave their cells until their demands had been met. The odd thing is, that until today, no one had ever heard about this strike." FALSE I posted this NYT article 4 days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994

Goladus 16y ago
Seriously. That death+taxes site set off all kinds of propaganda alarms in my head, and a 5-second google search debunked the initial assertion. I'm very disappointed with Hacker News.

J3L2404 16y ago

In the 1830s de Tocqueville reported on a reformatory in Massachusetts where the prisoners had a voting system in order to make decisions about mealtimes and exercise etc. The interesting thing was the way in which the voting worked. All prisoners had a vote regardless of disciplinary actions but if you stayed out of trouble you had two votes and this system worked very well according to Alexis. Tocqueville in America was quite a good read, although long, and has many insights into early America.

wakeup 16y ago

I am ashamed to be a descendant of a race that has prisons. Fucking knuckleheads.

Goladus 16y ago

The article is wrong. This was covered in the NY Times. The articles were published on the same day. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16prison.html Edit-- Actually, this was covered in the NYT 4 days ago, and the article was submitted to Hacker News and ignored: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1996994 Plus, the issue of it being "ignored by US media" is not covered by the article in anything resembling an intellectual way, and merely serves as a sensational hook to get people reading a story already covered by other sources. http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/12/georgia-prisoner-strike-comes-out-of-lockdown.html http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/12/georgia-prisoner-stri... http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=georgia_prison_strike_interview_update_dec15 http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=georgia_prison_strike_in...

jokermatt999 16y ago
You'll see the "ignored by the MSM!" angle a lot on these kind of political stories. It's on reddit all the time. Look for headlines like "WTF?! Prisoners on strike and Fox News refuses to report on it! FUCK YOU FOX!!" It's an easy angle to drum up interest in the story and pander to your readers by making them think they're getting the "real" story.
- jackolas 16y ago
  Well it was being ignored for the first few days, it only just started to get picked up by NYT etc.
joe_the_user 16y ago
The (fairly short) NY Times article was two days after the initial event. As far as I know, it made it to neither the Times front page nor Google news front page nor did it receive any other wider coverage despite being a fairly significant event (in my opinion, obviously). Also, what would constitute mentioning this lack of coverage in a fashion "resembling an intellectual way"? News stories have hooks and further reading. The problem is...?
- 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

shotmaker 16y ago

Why is this "hacker news" this belongs on reddit.