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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, en

by 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
        For the record, I fully support decriminalizing drugs, even if I disagree with the currently fashionable rhetoric about their supposed harmlessness. The statistical debate you want to have is fine. It could potentially be helpful, but not if you insist on terms that tell people that they are helpless. Please just stick to accurate terms that don't convince people to not even try. We have an existing term, "prison labor", which accurately describes the conditions and evokes the appropriate moral connotations. When we have completely adequate terms already, why insist on a legally inaccurate word which requires such a lengthy redefinition? Slavery is an involuntary condition which cannot be exited through one's actions. It's vital to recognize that criminals can choose to exit the criminal class. It's not vital for rich people in the suburbs who don't have to live in our world. It's vital for us, ourselves. Those of us who accept responsibility for their actions tend to be the ones who make it in society. The ones who blame society, government, Republicans, white men, SJWs, or anything else outside of themselves which they have no control over, keep doing the same things over and over, stay addicted to drugs, sex, and violence, and keep coming to prison over and over. (There are some skinheads that blame racial preferences for their own failures in life, lest anyone think that I'm naming SJWs facetiously). Rich people can afford to have these intellectual debates that talk about helping the poor but never seem to actually do anything. We have to actually live in this world, where our own choices and actions will be the only ones we can always count on. Stop telling people that they have no control over their lives. If they believe you, it will be true. These ivory tower theories have real-world consequences. They never seem to get around to actually helping the poor, but they do convince people that they can't help themselves, and those are the people that I see coming back to prison on their 8th or 9th sentence. Those are the guys with 8 kids, most of whom will also end up dead or in prison.
  - utborin 6y ago
    Grandmaster: Revolution? How did this happen? Topaz: Don't know. But the Arena's mainframe for the Obedience Disks have been deactivated and the slaves have armed themselves. Grandmaster: Ohhh! I don't like that word! Topaz: Mainframe? Grandmaster: No. Why would I not like "mainframe?" No, the "S" word! Topaz: Sorry, the "prisoners with jobs" have armed themselves. Grandmaster: Okay, that's better.
- airstrike 6y ago
  > America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible. But that is such a cop out... America has the number of prisoners it has by choice, not due to some inexorable condition which differentiates it from other developed nations.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    > But that is such a cop out... America has the number of prisoners it has by choice, not due to some inexorable condition which differentiates it from other developed nations. > And arguably by the point where you’re locking that many people up, as a society that might be the point. I already covered that in my original post, please don’t snark over things that were already pointed out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
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.

by hkh28 6y ago

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
      For the record, I fully support decriminalizing drugs, even if I disagree with the currently fashionable rhetoric about their supposed harmlessness. The statistical debate you want to have is fine. It could potentially be helpful, but not if you insist on terms that tell people that they are helpless. Please just stick to accurate terms that don't convince people to not even try. We have an existing term, "prison labor", which accurately describes the conditions and evokes the appropriate moral connotations. When we have completely adequate terms already, why insist on a legally inaccurate word which requires such a lengthy redefinition? Slavery is an involuntary condition which cannot be exited through one's actions. It's vital to recognize that criminals can choose to exit the criminal class. It's not vital for rich people in the suburbs who don't have to live in our world. It's vital for us, ourselves. Those of us who accept responsibility for their actions tend to be the ones who make it in society. The ones who blame society, government, Republicans, white men, SJWs, or anything else outside of themselves which they have no control over, keep doing the same things over and over, stay addicted to drugs, sex, and violence, and keep coming to prison over and over. (There are some skinheads that blame racial preferences for their own failures in life, lest anyone think that I'm naming SJWs facetiously). Rich people can afford to have these intellectual debates that talk about helping the poor but never seem to actually do anything. We have to actually live in this world, where our own choices and actions will be the only ones we can always count on. Stop telling people that they have no control over their lives. If they believe you, it will be true. These ivory tower theories have real-world consequences. They never seem to get around to actually helping the poor, but they do convince people that they can't help themselves, and those are the people that I see coming back to prison on their 8th or 9th sentence. Those are the guys with 8 kids, most of whom will also end up dead or in prison.
- utborin 6y ago
  Grandmaster: Revolution? How did this happen? Topaz: Don't know. But the Arena's mainframe for the Obedience Disks have been deactivated and the slaves have armed themselves. Grandmaster: Ohhh! I don't like that word! Topaz: Mainframe? Grandmaster: No. Why would I not like "mainframe?" No, the "S" word! Topaz: Sorry, the "prisoners with jobs" have armed themselves. Grandmaster: Okay, that's better.
airstrike 6y ago
> America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible. But that is such a cop out... America has the number of prisoners it has by choice, not due to some inexorable condition which differentiates it from other developed nations.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  > But that is such a cop out... America has the number of prisoners it has by choice, not due to some inexorable condition which differentiates it from other developed nations. > And arguably by the point where you’re locking that many people up, as a society that might be the point. I already covered that in my original post, please don’t snark over things that were already pointed out.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

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.