10 ms·

The penal system in the US is perplexing. It's built on the premise that people should not only lose their freedom but also get subjected to the worst possible

by isodev 4y ago

The penal system in the US is perplexing. It's built on the premise that people should not only lose their freedom but also get subjected to the worst possible conditions and exploited as free labor. I honestly can't comprehend how a modern nation can get to this point.

x86x87 4y ago
It's basically slavery. Lose your freedom and be forced to work for basically free. A lot of "businesses" would straight up collapse without this free labor
parkingrift 4y ago
Worst possible conditions? Seriously? It’s the worst conditions that can possibly exist. Nothing could be worse than being in a prison in the United States? On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. It’s not a vacation, it’s jail.
- gambiting 4y ago
  I read that as "worst possible conditions as legally allowed". So no, they are not "the" worst conditions imaginable, but they are as bad as the system allows. Which is still pretty bad. >>On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. No one is arguing against that. The problem is that prison populations are being used for profit making - anyone can contract with a prison to use their labour to make whatever thing you want to do or make. So companies use prisoners to make products that they then sell for profit. Which obviously creates perverse incentives for prisons to have a large workforce they can hire out for profit. No one is arguing against using prisoners to clear out public pathways or whatever. >> It’s not a vacation, it’s jail. Also, I just want to say I'm not a fan of this argument because people use it to excuse all kinds of things. "People get beaten up in prison? It's not a vacation, it's jail". "Prison rape happens? It's not a vacation, it's jail". And so on and so on. Like, yeah, it's not a vacation, but a basic standard of human dignity should be allowed.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    >>On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. > No one is arguing against that. There's nothing wrong with arguing against that, and there are plenty of people who argue against that.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Sure, and I mean even I can make some convincing arguments against it too - but(in my experience) that's not what most arguments are about, it's about the profit motive and exploitation, not about "putting people to work on public works projects". Maybe I shouldn't have said "no one", that's my bad.
  - dolni 4y ago
    > I read that as "worst possible conditions as legally allowed". Why should conditions be any better than what is legally required? If you have a problem with what the law requires, fine. The law should describe some reasonable standard. But making jail conditions "better" doesn't happen by magic. It requires effort and it costs money.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      Ah yes, perfect riposte, scold the person with no legislative power about how they just have to change the law.
      - dolni 4y ago
        As opposed to cheering on the person who has no power to change prison conditions? Perfect riposte, indeed.
    - JulianChastain 4y ago
      Do you think the purpose of prison is primarily to rehabilitate prisoners into society or to give just, deserved punishment for offenses to society? If you agree with the former, then making conditions better than the legal baseline could humanize the prison population and increase their chances and motivation to reassimilate themselves into society. If you agree with the latter, then I don't see a good argument for bettering the conditions of prisoners. From a basic utilitarian standpoint, it seems very clear that policy guided by the the rehabilitation principle will result in better outcomes than policy guided by the punishment principles.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  Because private sector contractors can't compete with near-free forced labour. It undermines the free market.
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    It also creates a perverse incentive for the justice system to incarcerate people so there is more forced labor.
- hobs 4y ago
  Are you under the impression that working on public works and construction in general is a "vacation"? Your thought process implies that you want even harsher conditions for prisoners that regularly are starved, show up in cells dead from lack of water or beaten and left to die, where rape is used a joke, and recidivism increases because we refuse to hire or integrate people into our society post crime. How much torture should people endure to satisfy your need for punishment?
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > It’s not a vacation, it’s jail. The punishment is deprivation of liberty. I regard that as already an extreme punishment, entailing as it does the loss of your job, and like as not the loss of your family. You are also deprived of the means to defend yourself, despite being surrounded by violent people who wish you harm. I don't think anyone should ever be incarcerated, unless there is no choice - i.e. for the protection of society. I findit remarkable that a country that proclaims itself as the beacon of capitalism, skews the labour market by hiring-out compelled, unpaid labourers. That's not how I was taught that well-regulated markets are supposed to work.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Capitalism isn't about playing fair and having efficient markets, it is about finding an exploit and dominating the economy.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  > Nothing could be worse than being in a prison in the United States? When taking a dump on the US, whether it's the rate of maternal death, incarcerations, prison conditions or school shootings or whatever, it's usually only relevant to compare to a subset of rich and democratic countries. Of course there are places with more murders and worse prisons. The question is if it's reasonable that the country with one of the highest GDPs per capita and the best universities in the world does.
  - uni_rule 4y ago
    It's just further proof that we should be able to do better yet just "don't".
  - AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
  - surement 4y ago
    Japan has way more brutal prisons, but you can also leave your bicycle unlocked outside of your office building all day and reasonably expect it to still be there when you go home.
    - alkonaut 4y ago
      I’m sure you are right. And of course that’s not causation in either direction.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Imagine that your boss is also your prison guard, and that his pay and bonuses are not paid based on being a prison guard but on your output. As someone who was in the Feds and and who saw the people around him forced to work even with severe injuries, sickness, COVID, because they had to meet the UNICOR contract that said they would deliver X widgets, it is literal slavery. Our COVID rules were based around UNICOR output not good COVID guidance, to the point the CDC had to take over running the prison. You can not complain, or you will be put in a cell with very intimidating guys, and your cell will be shaken down every day because you are in it and are causing trouble, which will be make clear to your cellies, and your cellies will 'have a talk' with you about causing trouble. If you continue, you will get 'diesel therapy'. Sure, you have access to the courts, once your diesel therapy is over, and 10 months later the court will start to respond, the BOP will say they changed XYZ, the court will say in that case the inmates challenge is now moot and rule against you. There was a very good LT (cop of lieutenant level) (strict, super cop type, but he followed the rules and you knew what you got, which is what you want in prison) transferred to UNICOR. He quit the BOP prior to getting his very very generous retirement package because he could no longer accept how UNICOR treated people (not inmates, people).
bdg 4y ago
I think this had something to do with the base ethos of North American style crime & punishment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_in_North_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_in_Nor...
SinParadise 4y ago
Because they never lost the appetite for slaves.
- ameister14 4y ago
  That sounds compelling, but what percentage of the prison population currently does unpaid labor? Don't most states have a minimum wage for prisoners? >https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    The minimum wages paid to prisoners are not meaningfully different from $0. And if you are forced to work it's still slavery if they pay you some nominal amount.
    - dolni 4y ago
      People who are not in prison have to work to afford their housing, food, clothing, and other necessities. I am not an advocate for the current state of the prison system. But I don't get why people are fundamentally against "prisoners should work to provide for themselves, just like the rest of us." Hell, it would probably be great for rehabilitation. You could teach people how to show up for a job and manage money. Make it work like it does on the outside, and you'd have an infinitely more effective prison system.
      - socialismisok 4y ago
        Slaves were also fed and housed and clothed. The prison sentence is the loss of your liberty and the mark on your record. Not being sold as forced labor. If we don't want to pay for prisons, maybe we shouldn't have so many people imprisoned.
      - uni_rule 4y ago
        Because it's forced? I feel like you're missing the "forced" part of forced labor.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
acdha 4y ago
We didn’t get here as a modern nation. We got there because the fight to end slavery resulted in a lot of white people giving up during the Reconstruction era and allowing the South to rebuild many of the same power structures through a campaign of terrorism and political disenfranchisement during the Jim Crow era, which was only partially halted during the civil rights era and even some of those wins were later reversed under Regan and later. The major loophole here is in the 13th amendment: > 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. That doesn’t work if the judicial system is unfair. There are many, many examples showing that it too often isn’t with uncomfortably close relationships between the police, prosecutors, judges, and the prison industry. This is one of the more egregious cases in recent memory because it involved children but the cases involving adults tend to get far less media coverage: https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/pa-kids-for-cash-scandal-judges-mark-ciavarella-michael-conahan-20220818.html https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/pa-kids-for-cash-...
- leereeves 4y ago
  How does your theory explain private prisons in northern states? The infamous Kids for Cash scandal you mentioned was in Pennsylvania, not a Southern state that rebuilt "many of the same [prewar] power structures".
  - acdha 4y ago
    Northern doesn't mean everything is a perfect state of equality - many of the northern states were, for example, perfectly happy to profit from the raw materials produced by slaves and when black people started fleeing the south after the war, a lot of northern states had strong negative reactions. For example, one of the things which helped Irish immigrants like my ancestors get accepted into the white club was their value as cheap labor to lower black negotiating power and a lot of them were recruited into rapidly expanded police forces for the same reasons. A TON of money was poured into exploiting racial factions in the nascent labor movement since business owners saw how much less profitable things would be if there was a unified front, and that did not stop at the Mason-Dixon line.

by isodev 4y ago

x86x87 4y ago

It's basically slavery. Lose your freedom and be forced to work for basically free. A lot of "businesses" would straight up collapse without this free labor

parkingrift 4y ago

Worst possible conditions? Seriously? It’s the worst conditions that can possibly exist. Nothing could be worse than being in a prison in the United States? On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. It’s not a vacation, it’s jail.

gambiting 4y ago
I read that as "worst possible conditions as legally allowed". So no, they are not "the" worst conditions imaginable, but they are as bad as the system allows. Which is still pretty bad. >>On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. No one is arguing against that. The problem is that prison populations are being used for profit making - anyone can contract with a prison to use their labour to make whatever thing you want to do or make. So companies use prisoners to make products that they then sell for profit. Which obviously creates perverse incentives for prisons to have a large workforce they can hire out for profit. No one is arguing against using prisoners to clear out public pathways or whatever. >> It’s not a vacation, it’s jail. Also, I just want to say I'm not a fan of this argument because people use it to excuse all kinds of things. "People get beaten up in prison? It's not a vacation, it's jail". "Prison rape happens? It's not a vacation, it's jail". And so on and so on. Like, yeah, it's not a vacation, but a basic standard of human dignity should be allowed.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  >>On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. > No one is arguing against that. There's nothing wrong with arguing against that, and there are plenty of people who argue against that.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Sure, and I mean even I can make some convincing arguments against it too - but(in my experience) that's not what most arguments are about, it's about the profit motive and exploitation, not about "putting people to work on public works projects". Maybe I shouldn't have said "no one", that's my bad.
- dolni 4y ago
  > I read that as "worst possible conditions as legally allowed". Why should conditions be any better than what is legally required? If you have a problem with what the law requires, fine. The law should describe some reasonable standard. But making jail conditions "better" doesn't happen by magic. It requires effort and it costs money.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Ah yes, perfect riposte, scold the person with no legislative power about how they just have to change the law.
    - dolni 4y ago
      As opposed to cheering on the person who has no power to change prison conditions? Perfect riposte, indeed.
  - JulianChastain 4y ago
    Do you think the purpose of prison is primarily to rehabilitate prisoners into society or to give just, deserved punishment for offenses to society? If you agree with the former, then making conditions better than the legal baseline could humanize the prison population and increase their chances and motivation to reassimilate themselves into society. If you agree with the latter, then I don't see a good argument for bettering the conditions of prisoners. From a basic utilitarian standpoint, it seems very clear that policy guided by the the rehabilitation principle will result in better outcomes than policy guided by the punishment principles.
EdwardDiego 4y ago
Because private sector contractors can't compete with near-free forced labour. It undermines the free market.
- ridgered4 4y ago
  It also creates a perverse incentive for the justice system to incarcerate people so there is more forced labor.
hobs 4y ago
Are you under the impression that working on public works and construction in general is a "vacation"? Your thought process implies that you want even harsher conditions for prisoners that regularly are starved, show up in cells dead from lack of water or beaten and left to die, where rape is used a joke, and recidivism increases because we refuse to hire or integrate people into our society post crime. How much torture should people endure to satisfy your need for punishment?
denton-scratch 4y ago
> It’s not a vacation, it’s jail. The punishment is deprivation of liberty. I regard that as already an extreme punishment, entailing as it does the loss of your job, and like as not the loss of your family. You are also deprived of the means to defend yourself, despite being surrounded by violent people who wish you harm. I don't think anyone should ever be incarcerated, unless there is no choice - i.e. for the protection of society. I findit remarkable that a country that proclaims itself as the beacon of capitalism, skews the labour market by hiring-out compelled, unpaid labourers. That's not how I was taught that well-regulated markets are supposed to work.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Capitalism isn't about playing fair and having efficient markets, it is about finding an exploit and dominating the economy.
alkonaut 4y ago
> Nothing could be worse than being in a prison in the United States? When taking a dump on the US, whether it's the rate of maternal death, incarcerations, prison conditions or school shootings or whatever, it's usually only relevant to compare to a subset of rich and democratic countries. Of course there are places with more murders and worse prisons. The question is if it's reasonable that the country with one of the highest GDPs per capita and the best universities in the world does.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  It's just further proof that we should be able to do better yet just "don't".
- AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
- surement 4y ago
  Japan has way more brutal prisons, but you can also leave your bicycle unlocked outside of your office building all day and reasonably expect it to still be there when you go home.
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    I’m sure you are right. And of course that’s not causation in either direction.
ROTMetro 4y ago
Imagine that your boss is also your prison guard, and that his pay and bonuses are not paid based on being a prison guard but on your output. As someone who was in the Feds and and who saw the people around him forced to work even with severe injuries, sickness, COVID, because they had to meet the UNICOR contract that said they would deliver X widgets, it is literal slavery. Our COVID rules were based around UNICOR output not good COVID guidance, to the point the CDC had to take over running the prison. You can not complain, or you will be put in a cell with very intimidating guys, and your cell will be shaken down every day because you are in it and are causing trouble, which will be make clear to your cellies, and your cellies will 'have a talk' with you about causing trouble. If you continue, you will get 'diesel therapy'. Sure, you have access to the courts, once your diesel therapy is over, and 10 months later the court will start to respond, the BOP will say they changed XYZ, the court will say in that case the inmates challenge is now moot and rule against you. There was a very good LT (cop of lieutenant level) (strict, super cop type, but he followed the rules and you knew what you got, which is what you want in prison) transferred to UNICOR. He quit the BOP prior to getting his very very generous retirement package because he could no longer accept how UNICOR treated people (not inmates, people).

bdg 4y ago

I think this had something to do with the base ethos of North American style crime & punishment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_in_North_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_in_Nor...

SinParadise 4y ago

Because they never lost the appetite for slaves.

ameister14 4y ago
That sounds compelling, but what percentage of the prison population currently does unpaid labor? Don't most states have a minimum wage for prisoners? >https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html
- socialismisok 4y ago
  The minimum wages paid to prisoners are not meaningfully different from $0. And if you are forced to work it's still slavery if they pay you some nominal amount.
  - dolni 4y ago
    People who are not in prison have to work to afford their housing, food, clothing, and other necessities. I am not an advocate for the current state of the prison system. But I don't get why people are fundamentally against "prisoners should work to provide for themselves, just like the rest of us." Hell, it would probably be great for rehabilitation. You could teach people how to show up for a job and manage money. Make it work like it does on the outside, and you'd have an infinitely more effective prison system.
    - socialismisok 4y ago
      Slaves were also fed and housed and clothed. The prison sentence is the loss of your liberty and the mark on your record. Not being sold as forced labor. If we don't want to pay for prisons, maybe we shouldn't have so many people imprisoned.
    - uni_rule 4y ago
      Because it's forced? I feel like you're missing the "forced" part of forced labor.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

acdha 4y ago

We didn’t get here as a modern nation. We got there because the fight to end slavery resulted in a lot of white people giving up during the Reconstruction era and allowing the South to rebuild many of the same power structures through a campaign of terrorism and political disenfranchisement during the Jim Crow era, which was only partially halted during the civil rights era and even some of those wins were later reversed under Regan and later. The major loophole here is in the 13th amendment: > 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. That doesn’t work if the judicial system is unfair. There are many, many examples showing that it too often isn’t with uncomfortably close relationships between the police, prosecutors, judges, and the prison industry. This is one of the more egregious cases in recent memory because it involved children but the cases involving adults tend to get far less media coverage: https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/pa-kids-for-cash-scandal-judges-mark-ciavarella-michael-conahan-20220818.html https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/pa-kids-for-cash-...

leereeves 4y ago
How does your theory explain private prisons in northern states? The infamous Kids for Cash scandal you mentioned was in Pennsylvania, not a Southern state that rebuilt "many of the same [prewar] power structures".
- acdha 4y ago
  Northern doesn't mean everything is a perfect state of equality - many of the northern states were, for example, perfectly happy to profit from the raw materials produced by slaves and when black people started fleeing the south after the war, a lot of northern states had strong negative reactions. For example, one of the things which helped Irish immigrants like my ancestors get accepted into the white club was their value as cheap labor to lower black negotiating power and a lot of them were recruited into rapidly expanded police forces for the same reasons. A TON of money was poured into exploiting racial factions in the nascent labor movement since business owners saw how much less profitable things would be if there was a unified front, and that did not stop at the Mason-Dixon line.