11 ms·
Leaving Prison at 72
- wyldfire 7y agoMuch more upbeat story than "Brooks was Here".
- azabua 7y agoMeh, Brooks stopped suffering ... the moment he took his own life. Thanks for the guilty chuckle and the Shawshank ref.
- crispyporkbites 7y agoI’m confused, according to the article this woman, at the age of 55, as a heroin addict, got life without parole for carrying heroin in a sock across town. What a waste of taxpayers money and a complete shambles.
- overcast 7y agoOn a positive note, it probably saved her life.
- bjourne 7y agoYes, but imagine the savings if she had gotten treatment instead of 20 years of pointless punishment.
- alexis_fr 7y agoAnd 1 year in prison cost as much as 1 year at Harvard.
- rienbdj 7y agoPerhaps, but Harvard diplomas are valuable because they are scarce.
- alphabettsy 7y agoYour response completely misses the point. The $30k/year could go towards any number of more productive things than incarceration.
- code_duck 7y agoYou'd have to ask her if she would have preferred to die at 60 than spend her 60s languishing in prison, I guess. The grim truth is that sometimes life is very unpleasant and not everyone always feels that living is better.
- mcbuilder 7y agoMaybe you are too young to remember the war on drugs, but it was (and continues to be) a sad period in American history.
- clarkmoody 7y agoWith two simple rules you could clear up so much absurdity in the criminal justice system and in the public perception of the law: - No victim, no crime - Legal != moral
- ng12 7y agoBy purchasing heroin/cocaine you are virtually guaranteed to be financially supporting a narco-terrorist group.
- colonwqbang 7y agoYou could say the same about purchasing alcohol in the 1920's. But today I'm sure you don't feel you're supporting organised crime when you have a beer.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago... well it’s not the 1920s, so you’re not supporting organized crime...
- toolz 7y agoUntrue, legal suppliers are already supplying coca and poppy plants for medicinal purposes. So there's no reason to believe legalization wouldn't grow that industry just like the legal marijuana industry is growing.
- cr0sh 7y agoOne could extend that kind of reasoning to a number of so-called "legal" products and services being sold today. Either directly or indirectly (degrees of separation), many simple acts of commerce fund things most would find abhorrent. Diamonds are most definitely on that list still - despite all the noise and promises made; I am fairly certain so-called "blood diamonds" are still a part of the trade. Gasoline (more concretely, oil) is another. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that various renewables have their own problems in a similar vein... You can probably think of others.
- ahbyb 7y ago"carrying heroin in a sock" vs. acting as a courier of heroin and hydromorphone pills, after having been convicted before of forgery for having used fraudulent checks and stolen credit cards.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ryuukk_ 7y agowhen will americans finally wake up?
- rayiner 7y agoIt’s a little sad that so many people only get interested in these problems for the drug angle: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2019/05/revisiting-life-without-parole-in-alabama-one-prisoner-at-a-time.html https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2019/05/revis... Geneva Cooley was sentenced to mandatory life without parole based on the drug conviction. However, even if that hadn’t been the case, she could’ve gotten a life sentence based on two prior felony convictions for forgery, and a felony conviction for failing to get tax stamps for the drugs she sold. The drug laws in Alabama have been amended, but the habitual offender laws have been much harder to change. There is a ton of focus on the injustice of drug convictions, maybe because it’s something middle class people can identify with. But that’s just scratching the surface of what’s wrong.
- curryst 7y agoI do think you're right that it's something that middle class people can identify with. Largely because the opioid crisis has started to impact a lot of middle class households, which has helped to humanize the problems with drug addiction. It's also to some degree perceived as less severe because selling drugs is generally something addicts do to other addicts; it's not victimless, but it's not something that victimizes those that aren't drug addicts (beyond helping to continue the cycle of addiction, and stopping that by prosecuting drug dealers hasn't proved effective). Forgery, on the other hand, is much harder to humanize for the middle class because it's generally a crime that victimizes the middle class. Many people are less likely to reduce the sentencing for things like that or burglary because it's a crime that might be inflicted on them, and they want their pound of flesh if it is.
- wgerard 7y ago> Largely because the opioid crisis has started to impact a lot of middle class households, which has helped to humanize the problems with drug addiction. Interesting take! I've always thought it's because of the change in viewpoints towards marijuana (and to a lesser extent, psychedelics). Attitudes towards recreational marijuana use are far more liberal than they used to be. As it became more socially acceptable it caused much of America to re-examine attitudes towards penalizing drug usage in general, if only because it felt draconian to imprison someone from their milieu for smoking their illegal drug of choice (marijuana).
- jedilance 7y agoLogin bypassed: http://archive.is/HMVDp http://archive.is/HMVDp
- known 7y agoI think convicted senior citizens should be house arrested, not jailed;