6 ms·

The fact that they appear to have identified individuals who should be released, but have not, due to the software not being updated, is frankly disgusting. I

by atty 6y ago

The fact that they appear to have identified individuals who should be released, but have not, due to the software not being updated, is frankly disgusting. I believe holding a person against their will is a criminal act - seems like most of the employees of the Arizona correctional facilities are now guilty of crimes worse than the majority of their inmates.

NullPrefix 6y ago
Computer says no.
- hnedeotes 6y ago
  I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. (and I'm not making fun of this - it's not a situation I would wish to be)
- swayvil 6y ago
  Computer cited as authoritative basis, we see a lot of that these days. Metal hand, flesh puppet.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Ouch!
hkh28 6y ago
As an outside observer (European) this seems to be the way the American prison system is run. The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions. Fixing such an issue should be top priority, and in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  >The inmates are not viewed as humans Easy power comes from demonizing people we don't understand or don't like. Our political parties are so addicted to animosity, they've become incapable of functioning without it.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  You’re overlooking something else. America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible. Estimates are that we’ve got about 2% of the US population in prison or somewhere else in the correctional system (pre-trial detention, probation, parole, etc.), the labor required to treat these people like humans isn’t available. And arguably by the point where you’re locking that many people up, as a society that might be the point. As an aside, it does really rankle me that a country that won’t shut up about being “the land of the free” is arguably a prison state.
  - cwkoss 6y ago
    The US has a specific exemption to the prohibition of slavery for incarcerated individuals in our constitution. I think there are many powerful people in our country with a vested interest in keeping the prison-slave-labor pipeline flowing.
    - edbob 6y ago
      The exemption allows an individual to be sentenced to slavery , but that can only happen if the federal or state laws also allow that sentence. Is there any jurisdiction whose laws allow a sentence of slavery? Has anyone actually been sentenced to slavery in the last 100 years or so? I would imagine that if some jurisdiction somehow did sentence someone to slavery, the states would quickly amend the constitution to make that impossible, while the courts would doubtless find some other grounds for ruling that sentence unconstitutional. It just seems unnecessary to make a currently impossible sentence a little more impossible. I was sentenced to hard labor, but that is quite a distinct sentence. I was a ward of the state, but not property.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        It's wise in these situations to consider the concept of plausible deniability, and how it can be used to obscure intent. To my knowledge, nobody has been sentenced to slavery in a long, long time. On the other hand, the US has managed to lock up 2% of its population and force them to labor in circumstances and rates that would be illegal for free citizens in order to guarantee the profit of private corporations. That this system of arbitrary law enforcement[0] disproportionately hits the same sub-group that used to be literally enslaved really should send your eyebrows through the ceiling when the defense is that it's not literally slavery. Of course, US prisoners are not chattel slaves; they're not literally property, and neither are their children. On the other hand the rate of recidivism in the US, and the strong correlation of outcomes between parent to child makes this kind of a cruel joke. If your father having been in prison makes you overwhelmingly likely to end up in prison yourself for similar reasons, it's hard to put on a straight face and pretend that nothing is wrong. I'd argue that this structure represents something akin to stochastic terrorism, but for forced labor. Stochastic terrorism is a case where someone or some group attempts to radicalize and encourage terrorism from afar. Done correctly it produces a statistical probability of terror attacks without anyone (even the group) being able to predict the exact time and place. These types of systems are very hard to disrupt, which is why groups like ISIS leaned on them in order to attack the west, which had gotten very good at stopping more organized attacks. Similarly, I'd argue that the US system represents a type of stochastic slavery. It's impossible to precisely predict who will or will not end up in the system providing free labor (unlike chattel slavery, where it's very easy to predict), but one can easily calculate the aggregate chance of someone ending up in prison. It's not literally slavery, but with the recidivism rate so high it ends up functioning like it for most people caught up in it. Oh, and it's run for a profit too, which is deeply concerning. 0 - Drug laws remain key to why America has so many people locked up, and drug law enforcement is incredibly arbitrary, both in terms of which drugs get which sentences, and who gets the hammer dropped on them when they get caught.
- edbob 6y ago
  > The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions. This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas. Actually, we are referred to as "offenders" [0] because the terms "inmate" and "convict" are considered offensive. Staff can get in trouble for using a pejorative word like "inmate". (Not that they never do because quite honestly I don't know anyone that actually finds the word offensive, but it's still not a word you want to say in front of the warden or higher administrators). The truth is that staff and administrators are human and have diverse viewpoints. Some don't care about the inmates, but some really want to make a difference in the world. The staff are racially diverse, so you get, for example, a black officer that is very tough on black gangs because he thinks they make black people look bad, but then you have black staff that are particularly sympathetic to black offenders. You can't stereotype the staff—they're just too different. They're also paranoid about legal liability, so they are pretty careful about avoiding things that could potentially expose them to a lawsuit. It's just like any other large bureaucracy. > in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner. Per the article, they are in fact manually computing each prisoner's projected release date: > In the meantime, Lamoreaux confirmed the “data is being calculated manually and then entered into the system.” Department sources said this means “someone is sitting there crunching numbers with a calculator and interpreting how each of the new laws that have been passed would impact an inmate.” [0] https://live.staticflickr.com/2048/2235184432_47cfa473bb_b.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/2048/2235184432_47cfa473bb_b.j...
  - distribot 6y ago
    > This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas. Where did you do your time? Because 70% of Texas inmates are housed in facilities without A/C. Concrete structures that get up to 105 degrees. Inmate accounts of this are truly horrific. The state spent 7 million fighting against having to fix this, potentially (according to plaintiffs) more than the cost of fixing it. So the state is so dedicated to horrible conditions that they spent more money to fight than it would have cost to fix them. Litigation has been going on for years, and the state authorities are still dragging their feet. This is just one example of the way the carceral system dehumanizes people. I'm sure youre familiar with Nutraloaf. https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/26/texas-prison-heat-air-conditioning-costs/ https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/26/texas-prison-heat-ai...
- P_I_Staker 6y ago
  It depends what we're talking about. On paper our system isn't so different. Prisoners are people that have been found to transgress so many rights are forfeited, but not all of them. We send them to correction centers to get better. They leave and rights are restored. The issue is that many of the people involved feel differently in their hearts, and see the rehabilitative side as a bunch of feel good nonsense. It's never gonna work, or isn't worth paying for. More to the point we're chronically unwilling to put any resources towards these goals. It's all about being seen ensuring public safety and making sure no one gets a handout.
giantg2 6y ago
Except the people in the system have immunity. Even laws like kidnapping have a motive portion, and basically an incompetent cop or other official can do what they and just claim they sucked at their job so the motive portion can't be met.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Well, prison fundamentally is about holding someone against their will. The specific issue here is that they’re being held contrary to the rules laid out by society.
GordonS 6y ago
Yes, it is particularly ugly that they appear to be refusing to release prisoners they know have completed their sentence, purely because of bureaucracy - surely there are systems in place for working without the software. I hope every one of the prisoners held past their release date sues and wins.
edbob 6y ago
This is just how bureaucracy typically operates. Everyone knows that the system is messed up, but no one can override the system without potentially huge personal consequences. As a former prison inmate, I honestly think that most of the people affected will be quite happy with the monetary compensation that they'll receive once the courts get done with this. > seems like most of the employees of the Arizona correctional facilities are now guilty of crimes worse than the majority of their inmates. This is destructive thinking. There are surely some employees without relevant authority who are thinking "screw those animals", but there are surely other employees, also without relevant authority, who are sympathetic to the affected prisoners and want to see their cause prevail. None of the employees who work on the actual prisons have any responsibility for this. Releasing a felon is a huge deal and can only be done when ordered. Only the top people at the DOC, at their headquarters, have any authority that could possibly help in this situation. About the "crimes worse than the majority of their inmates" part: If you compare to the crimes inmates were actually convicted of, perhaps they don't look so bad. But quite a few inmates have claimed to me to be guilty of crimes much worse than what they were convicted of. People get caught on the drug charges, but often get away with the violence. What percentage of rape in the hood do you think gets reported to police? 1%? Less?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cwkoss 6y ago
  > But quite a few inmates have claimed to me to be guilty of crimes much worse than what they were convicted of. This is irrelevant and a dangerous ends-justification. No person's imprisonment should be justified by crimes they were not convicted of. We should not seek a justice system that punishes unprovable crimes. What percentage of rapes by prison guards (or police or CEOs or politicians) gets reported to police? What percentage of those reports results in a conviction? Probably far less than "rape in the hood".
  - edbob 6y ago
    > This is irrelevant and a dangerous ends-justification. No person's imprisonment should be justified by crimes they were not convicted of. We should not seek a justice system that punishes unprovable crimes. I did not say anything remotely like that. The justice system should absolutely be strictly restricted to proven offenses, and the consequences should be limited to, at max, the letter of the prescribed sentence. What I actually did was to compare atty's quite unfounded accusations that would never survive in court to some significantly better-founded accusations that would also never survive in court. It was basically just a sanity check, and was not intended to have any implications other than to put the brakes on a destructive, polarizing line of rhetoric. > What percentage of rapes by prison guards (or police or CEOs or politicians) gets reported to police? What percentage of those reports results in a conviction? There are cameras everywhere. The staff has to report and investigate any and every complaint about sexual abuse, even the guy that claims that aliens abducted him from his cell and raped him. They will take you to medical and administer a rape kit if you ask, because they will surely get fired if they refuse. Staff and inmates get caught all the time, but usually for consensual sex. Consensual sex is a lot easier to get away with than rape. (The caveat here is that inmates, as wards of the state, are not legally able to give consent, so when a guard gets caught having "consensual" sex with an inmate they are still prosecuted for the state-jail felony charge "improper sexual activity with a person in custody" [0][1]). [0] https://www.ktre.com/story/32833848/affidavit-female-tdcj-correctional-officer-had-sexual-relationship-with-inmate/ https://www.ktre.com/story/32833848/affidavit-female-tdcj-co... [1] https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-39-04.html https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-39-04.htm...

by atty 6y ago

NullPrefix 6y ago

Computer says no.

hnedeotes 6y ago
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. (and I'm not making fun of this - it's not a situation I would wish to be)
swayvil 6y ago
Computer cited as authoritative basis, we see a lot of that these days. Metal hand, flesh puppet.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Ouch!

hkh28 6y ago

As an outside observer (European) this seems to be the way the American prison system is run. The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions. Fixing such an issue should be top priority, and in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
>The inmates are not viewed as humans Easy power comes from demonizing people we don't understand or don't like. Our political parties are so addicted to animosity, they've become incapable of functioning without it.
ashtonkem 6y ago
You’re overlooking something else. America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible. Estimates are that we’ve got about 2% of the US population in prison or somewhere else in the correctional system (pre-trial detention, probation, parole, etc.), the labor required to treat these people like humans isn’t available. And arguably by the point where you’re locking that many people up, as a society that might be the point. As an aside, it does really rankle me that a country that won’t shut up about being “the land of the free” is arguably a prison state.
- cwkoss 6y ago
  The US has a specific exemption to the prohibition of slavery for incarcerated individuals in our constitution. I think there are many powerful people in our country with a vested interest in keeping the prison-slave-labor pipeline flowing.
  - edbob 6y ago
    The exemption allows an individual to be sentenced to slavery , but that can only happen if the federal or state laws also allow that sentence. Is there any jurisdiction whose laws allow a sentence of slavery? Has anyone actually been sentenced to slavery in the last 100 years or so? I would imagine that if some jurisdiction somehow did sentence someone to slavery, the states would quickly amend the constitution to make that impossible, while the courts would doubtless find some other grounds for ruling that sentence unconstitutional. It just seems unnecessary to make a currently impossible sentence a little more impossible. I was sentenced to hard labor, but that is quite a distinct sentence. I was a ward of the state, but not property.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      It's wise in these situations to consider the concept of plausible deniability, and how it can be used to obscure intent. To my knowledge, nobody has been sentenced to slavery in a long, long time. On the other hand, the US has managed to lock up 2% of its population and force them to labor in circumstances and rates that would be illegal for free citizens in order to guarantee the profit of private corporations. That this system of arbitrary law enforcement[0] disproportionately hits the same sub-group that used to be literally enslaved really should send your eyebrows through the ceiling when the defense is that it's not literally slavery. Of course, US prisoners are not chattel slaves; they're not literally property, and neither are their children. On the other hand the rate of recidivism in the US, and the strong correlation of outcomes between parent to child makes this kind of a cruel joke. If your father having been in prison makes you overwhelmingly likely to end up in prison yourself for similar reasons, it's hard to put on a straight face and pretend that nothing is wrong. I'd argue that this structure represents something akin to stochastic terrorism, but for forced labor. Stochastic terrorism is a case where someone or some group attempts to radicalize and encourage terrorism from afar. Done correctly it produces a statistical probability of terror attacks without anyone (even the group) being able to predict the exact time and place. These types of systems are very hard to disrupt, which is why groups like ISIS leaned on them in order to attack the west, which had gotten very good at stopping more organized attacks. Similarly, I'd argue that the US system represents a type of stochastic slavery. It's impossible to precisely predict who will or will not end up in the system providing free labor (unlike chattel slavery, where it's very easy to predict), but one can easily calculate the aggregate chance of someone ending up in prison. It's not literally slavery, but with the recidivism rate so high it ends up functioning like it for most people caught up in it. Oh, and it's run for a profit too, which is deeply concerning. 0 - Drug laws remain key to why America has so many people locked up, and drug law enforcement is incredibly arbitrary, both in terms of which drugs get which sentences, and who gets the hammer dropped on them when they get caught.
edbob 6y ago
> The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions. This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas. Actually, we are referred to as "offenders" [0] because the terms "inmate" and "convict" are considered offensive. Staff can get in trouble for using a pejorative word like "inmate". (Not that they never do because quite honestly I don't know anyone that actually finds the word offensive, but it's still not a word you want to say in front of the warden or higher administrators). The truth is that staff and administrators are human and have diverse viewpoints. Some don't care about the inmates, but some really want to make a difference in the world. The staff are racially diverse, so you get, for example, a black officer that is very tough on black gangs because he thinks they make black people look bad, but then you have black staff that are particularly sympathetic to black offenders. You can't stereotype the staff—they're just too different. They're also paranoid about legal liability, so they are pretty careful about avoiding things that could potentially expose them to a lawsuit. It's just like any other large bureaucracy. > in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner. Per the article, they are in fact manually computing each prisoner's projected release date: > In the meantime, Lamoreaux confirmed the “data is being calculated manually and then entered into the system.” Department sources said this means “someone is sitting there crunching numbers with a calculator and interpreting how each of the new laws that have been passed would impact an inmate.” [0] https://live.staticflickr.com/2048/2235184432_47cfa473bb_b.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/2048/2235184432_47cfa473bb_b.j...
- distribot 6y ago
  > This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas. Where did you do your time? Because 70% of Texas inmates are housed in facilities without A/C. Concrete structures that get up to 105 degrees. Inmate accounts of this are truly horrific. The state spent 7 million fighting against having to fix this, potentially (according to plaintiffs) more than the cost of fixing it. So the state is so dedicated to horrible conditions that they spent more money to fight than it would have cost to fix them. Litigation has been going on for years, and the state authorities are still dragging their feet. This is just one example of the way the carceral system dehumanizes people. I'm sure youre familiar with Nutraloaf. https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/26/texas-prison-heat-air-conditioning-costs/ https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/26/texas-prison-heat-ai...
P_I_Staker 6y ago
It depends what we're talking about. On paper our system isn't so different. Prisoners are people that have been found to transgress so many rights are forfeited, but not all of them. We send them to correction centers to get better. They leave and rights are restored. The issue is that many of the people involved feel differently in their hearts, and see the rehabilitative side as a bunch of feel good nonsense. It's never gonna work, or isn't worth paying for. More to the point we're chronically unwilling to put any resources towards these goals. It's all about being seen ensuring public safety and making sure no one gets a handout.

giantg2 6y ago

Except the people in the system have immunity. Even laws like kidnapping have a motive portion, and basically an incompetent cop or other official can do what they and just claim they sucked at their job so the motive portion can't be met.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Well, prison fundamentally is about holding someone against their will. The specific issue here is that they’re being held contrary to the rules laid out by society.

GordonS 6y ago

Yes, it is particularly ugly that they appear to be refusing to release prisoners they know have completed their sentence, purely because of bureaucracy - surely there are systems in place for working without the software. I hope every one of the prisoners held past their release date sues and wins.

edbob 6y ago

This is just how bureaucracy typically operates. Everyone knows that the system is messed up, but no one can override the system without potentially huge personal consequences. As a former prison inmate, I honestly think that most of the people affected will be quite happy with the monetary compensation that they'll receive once the courts get done with this. > seems like most of the employees of the Arizona correctional facilities are now guilty of crimes worse than the majority of their inmates. This is destructive thinking. There are surely some employees without relevant authority who are thinking "screw those animals", but there are surely other employees, also without relevant authority, who are sympathetic to the affected prisoners and want to see their cause prevail. None of the employees who work on the actual prisons have any responsibility for this. Releasing a felon is a huge deal and can only be done when ordered. Only the top people at the DOC, at their headquarters, have any authority that could possibly help in this situation. About the "crimes worse than the majority of their inmates" part: If you compare to the crimes inmates were actually convicted of, perhaps they don't look so bad. But quite a few inmates have claimed to me to be guilty of crimes much worse than what they were convicted of. People get caught on the drug charges, but often get away with the violence. What percentage of rape in the hood do you think gets reported to police? 1%? Less?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cwkoss 6y ago
> But quite a few inmates have claimed to me to be guilty of crimes much worse than what they were convicted of. This is irrelevant and a dangerous ends-justification. No person's imprisonment should be justified by crimes they were not convicted of. We should not seek a justice system that punishes unprovable crimes. What percentage of rapes by prison guards (or police or CEOs or politicians) gets reported to police? What percentage of those reports results in a conviction? Probably far less than "rape in the hood".
- edbob 6y ago
  > This is irrelevant and a dangerous ends-justification. No person's imprisonment should be justified by crimes they were not convicted of. We should not seek a justice system that punishes unprovable crimes. I did not say anything remotely like that. The justice system should absolutely be strictly restricted to proven offenses, and the consequences should be limited to, at max, the letter of the prescribed sentence. What I actually did was to compare atty's quite unfounded accusations that would never survive in court to some significantly better-founded accusations that would also never survive in court. It was basically just a sanity check, and was not intended to have any implications other than to put the brakes on a destructive, polarizing line of rhetoric. > What percentage of rapes by prison guards (or police or CEOs or politicians) gets reported to police? What percentage of those reports results in a conviction? There are cameras everywhere. The staff has to report and investigate any and every complaint about sexual abuse, even the guy that claims that aliens abducted him from his cell and raped him. They will take you to medical and administer a rape kit if you ask, because they will surely get fired if they refuse. Staff and inmates get caught all the time, but usually for consensual sex. Consensual sex is a lot easier to get away with than rape. (The caveat here is that inmates, as wards of the state, are not legally able to give consent, so when a guard gets caught having "consensual" sex with an inmate they are still prosecuted for the state-jail felony charge "improper sexual activity with a person in custody" [0][1]). [0] https://www.ktre.com/story/32833848/affidavit-female-tdcj-correctional-officer-had-sexual-relationship-with-inmate/ https://www.ktre.com/story/32833848/affidavit-female-tdcj-co... [1] https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-39-04.html https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-39-04.htm...