45 ms·

So, you're addicted, maybe not even because of your own fault (shitty childhood, opioids from a physician?) and your country takes you out of college instead of

So, you're addicted, maybe not even because of your own fault (shitty childhood, opioids from a physician?) and your country takes you out of college instead of helping you!? You take someone from a situation that may make their situation better into a stonecold environment that produces unproducitive citicens at best and criminals at worst!? And he didn't even harm anybody else. What a system.

sonotathrowaway 4y ago
You have to realize the American legal system is optimized to (1) provide employment for the legal system, (2) provide slave labor for states and corporations, and (3) exploit the families of prisoners for profit.
- jahnu 4y ago
  Perhaps also, (n) assuage the fears of a certain class of voters through populist policies that have less to do with effectiveness than they do with fear and retribution.
  - sonotathrowaway 4y ago
    That rhetoric furthers economic benefits though. Prisons are mostly located in rural areas, where they provide job centers to otherwise poor people. The legal system is chiefly concerned with moving people out of urban centers into rural areas, where their incarceration is paid for through state tax revenue, redistributing the money from urban to rural areas. This is the reason why prison lobbies are the strongest political opponents of drug decriminalization or legalization - reducing prison occupancy reduces profits per prisoner.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
      I've also heard that the prison population, while sometimes non-voting, goes to the electoral advantage of these rural areas.
      - rjbwork 4y ago
        That's correct. Prison populations are included in the areas they are located for census purposes, further skewing political power towards rural areas.
      - klyrs 4y ago
        https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/12/31/761932806/your-body-being-used-where-prisoners-who-can-t-vote-fill-voting-districts https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/12/31/761932806...
- foxyv 4y ago
  Don't forget enforcing black codes and Jim Crow during reconstruction. A lot of those laws are still on the books. Vagrancy, loitering, anti-camping, anti-panhandling, etc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)#:~:text=Although%20freedmen%20had%20been%20emancipated,commit%20them%20to%20involuntary%20labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)#:~....
  - sonotathrowaway 4y ago
    Those are the historical reasons prisons were necessary, but those all go towards the above goals - providing a source of slave labor. It has expanded its reach since then though. While the legal has a hard time incarcerating people who haven’t committed crimes (although it still does this, and actively builds up its pipeline for fresh bodies), it’s still able to exploit innocent people for profit. You can see this in prisons strategy of removing and banning in person visits, moving convicts far from their communities, and extorting families with predatory prices to communicate with their loved ones.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Not to forget to be used as tool against political opponents.
chasing 4y ago
Cruelty's a pretty central part of our culture over here.
troupe 4y ago
The issue appeared to be that note cards weren't allowed. Presumably, there would have been no problem if his family copied them onto 8.5 x 11 paper. I don't know why they would ban notecards, but it seems at least possible that the jail had a previous issue where someone used notecards do do something dangerous.
- jabedude 4y ago
  Likely some issue with a notecard being able to be fashioned into a weapon
- foxyv 4y ago
  I'm betting it's because of gambling. Note cards can be used more easily to produce playing cards. Sheets of regular paper become too unique when they are torn to be used for a fair card game. Most of these weird bans are attempts to prevent gambling.
  - troupe 4y ago
    Interesting. Are cards banned from jails and prisons?
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    I'm not so sure...you can get a pretty regular edge with fold fold fold rip. I think it's more that cardstock type paper can be used to fabricate a pretty rigid thrusting weapon with the correct technique.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  That could possibly have worked, if sent as 'letters'. His best chances are to find a lawyer acquaintance who will send the copied note cards on his official stationary so it's correspondence with a lawyer. The thing I've found most maddening when sending material to inmates is that you cannot, for obvious reasons, send used books. It's totally understandable, but things can become expensive.
  - 4y ago
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> And he didn't even harm anybody else He doesn’t mention what he was convicted of, just that he had heroin addiction problems. The incident leading to his arrest may have included violence, we just don’t know because he did not provide enough info.
- ry4nolson 4y ago
  She* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Drug_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Drug_charges
charcircuit 4y ago
>And he didn't even harm anybody else. This ignores that he broke the law. Being punished for breaking the law isn't a revolutionary idea.
- TuringTest 4y ago
  It isn't revolutionary, but it is incompatible with the concept of human rights and proportionate punishment.
yamtaddle 4y ago
I found out some years ago that certain kinds of tax-related federal student aid is cut off for people who've been convicted of crimes like, say, drug dealing. What. The fuck? A 19-year-old gets caught selling drugs so we... make it harder for them to get an education that might give them more attractive options than selling drugs? We... make it more likely for them to go deeper into debt, if they do try to get an education, so make certain kinds of alternative income more attractive to them? What possible sense could that make? I expressed, to the tax accountant who'd told me this, some confusion re: why we'd have a policy that would clearly tend to increase recidivism, hoping he'd be able to explain why this wasn't obviously stupid, and all he came back with was something like "I guess you're some kind of bleeding heart liberal then." Dafuq? I mean, on the one hand, sure, guilty as charged, but what does that have to do with preferring to have less crime happen?
- Loughla 4y ago
  Because it's legislating/regulating morality. That's the American Way©, in my experience. I'm not trying to be a cool edgelord kind, but really. It has appeared, over the course of my life, that most "unsolvable" political issues really amount to trying to do what's "right" instead of what's "good" for society. Gun control - knee jerk morality issue. Abortion - same thing. Education reform. Prisons and law enforcement. Drugs. The number just goes on forever. It's because we don't care to have less crime happen. We care that people are appropriately punished for being bad. It's very frustrating.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  There's a reasonable argument "if funding for 19 year olds' federal student aid is a limited resource, that it might be rationally prioritized, and in doing so, for priority to be given to people without a criminal record". Each of those three elements: not unlimited, needing priority, and prioritized thusly could be viewed by people as being sensible. Whether it should be unlimited is a different question from "given it's not unlimited, how should we prioritize it?"
- notch656c 4y ago
  Colleges are basically ground zero for drug sales. Why the hell would the public be in the business of actually funding dealers to set up shop? I couldn't care less about drugs and think everything up to and including fentanyl should be completely legal and sold at the 7-eleven, but fuck paying the bill for that. Sorry dealers, pay for your own college.
patrec 4y ago
> So, you're addicted, maybe not even because of your own fault Yeah, my heart goes out for all those underprivileged Harvard/Cornell/Rutgers students with loaded parents, who at some point in their ivy league degree and due no fault of their own, suddenly find themselves at a point where they just have to take up drug-dealing. > And he didn't even harm anybody else. It's a she. And chances are, if you're dealing heroin, you are probably harming someone.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  > After applying to and getting into Rutgers University, she made money to pay for classes by joining a strip club and escort agency, which allowed her to rent an apartment of her own. [1] Yes, won't someone please get that silver spoon out of her mouth. People who come from a middle-class life can end up in bad situations as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Homelessness,_addiction,_and_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Homelessness,_a...
  - patrec 4y ago
    Would I also be expected to feel sorry for her had she taken up sex work and drug dealing to afford different luxury goods, a Porsche Carrera say? The Porsche's lower price tag and resale value would have arguably made it a more prudent investment than an elite university English degree with private accommodation. > People who come from a middle-class life can end up in bad situations as well. There's little indication that any of the bad situations she ended up in had external causes. May then one's sympathy with the self-inflicted hardships of the privileged not at least be conditional on a little readiness to assume some responsibility? When she writes: > After almost a decade of struggling with heroin addiction, I’d gotten arrested just a few days before I was supposed to finish my last semester at Cornell. It sounds like the system conspired to rob poor struggling Keri of her Cornell(TM) degree right before the finish line. The reality is that she was a drug dealer caught with $150'000 worth of heroin in her possession (she brags about it elsewhere). But to her the real story are the minor inconveniences the prison system temporarily put in the way of her completing her degree and one of 50 states banning her inspirational and recently released life-story. She does not disagree with proscribing certain books for prisoners but appears offended that the somewhat arbitrary lists different states have drawn up do not completely match the arbitrary list she personally would have drawn up (and fail to fully reflect her own tastes in the ravings of murderous psychopaths).

sonotathrowaway 4y ago

You have to realize the American legal system is optimized to (1) provide employment for the legal system, (2) provide slave labor for states and corporations, and (3) exploit the families of prisoners for profit.

jahnu 4y ago
Perhaps also, (n) assuage the fears of a certain class of voters through populist policies that have less to do with effectiveness than they do with fear and retribution.
- sonotathrowaway 4y ago
  That rhetoric furthers economic benefits though. Prisons are mostly located in rural areas, where they provide job centers to otherwise poor people. The legal system is chiefly concerned with moving people out of urban centers into rural areas, where their incarceration is paid for through state tax revenue, redistributing the money from urban to rural areas. This is the reason why prison lobbies are the strongest political opponents of drug decriminalization or legalization - reducing prison occupancy reduces profits per prisoner.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
    I've also heard that the prison population, while sometimes non-voting, goes to the electoral advantage of these rural areas.
    - rjbwork 4y ago
      That's correct. Prison populations are included in the areas they are located for census purposes, further skewing political power towards rural areas.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/12/31/761932806/your-body-being-used-where-prisoners-who-can-t-vote-fill-voting-districts https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/12/31/761932806...
foxyv 4y ago
Don't forget enforcing black codes and Jim Crow during reconstruction. A lot of those laws are still on the books. Vagrancy, loitering, anti-camping, anti-panhandling, etc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)#:~:text=Although%20freedmen%20had%20been%20emancipated,commit%20them%20to%20involuntary%20labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)#:~....
- sonotathrowaway 4y ago
  Those are the historical reasons prisons were necessary, but those all go towards the above goals - providing a source of slave labor. It has expanded its reach since then though. While the legal has a hard time incarcerating people who haven’t committed crimes (although it still does this, and actively builds up its pipeline for fresh bodies), it’s still able to exploit innocent people for profit. You can see this in prisons strategy of removing and banning in person visits, moving convicts far from their communities, and extorting families with predatory prices to communicate with their loved ones.
Ekaros 4y ago
Not to forget to be used as tool against political opponents.

chasing 4y ago

Cruelty's a pretty central part of our culture over here.

troupe 4y ago

The issue appeared to be that note cards weren't allowed. Presumably, there would have been no problem if his family copied them onto 8.5 x 11 paper. I don't know why they would ban notecards, but it seems at least possible that the jail had a previous issue where someone used notecards do do something dangerous.

jabedude 4y ago
Likely some issue with a notecard being able to be fashioned into a weapon
foxyv 4y ago
I'm betting it's because of gambling. Note cards can be used more easily to produce playing cards. Sheets of regular paper become too unique when they are torn to be used for a fair card game. Most of these weird bans are attempts to prevent gambling.
- troupe 4y ago
  Interesting. Are cards banned from jails and prisons?
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I'm not so sure...you can get a pretty regular edge with fold fold fold rip. I think it's more that cardstock type paper can be used to fabricate a pretty rigid thrusting weapon with the correct technique.
QuarterReptile 4y ago
That could possibly have worked, if sent as 'letters'. His best chances are to find a lawyer acquaintance who will send the copied note cards on his official stationary so it's correspondence with a lawyer. The thing I've found most maddening when sending material to inmates is that you cannot, for obvious reasons, send used books. It's totally understandable, but things can become expensive.
- 4y ago

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

> And he didn't even harm anybody else He doesn’t mention what he was convicted of, just that he had heroin addiction problems. The incident leading to his arrest may have included violence, we just don’t know because he did not provide enough info.

ry4nolson 4y ago
She* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Drug_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Drug_charges

charcircuit 4y ago

>And he didn't even harm anybody else. This ignores that he broke the law. Being punished for breaking the law isn't a revolutionary idea.

TuringTest 4y ago
It isn't revolutionary, but it is incompatible with the concept of human rights and proportionate punishment.

yamtaddle 4y ago

I found out some years ago that certain kinds of tax-related federal student aid is cut off for people who've been convicted of crimes like, say, drug dealing. What. The fuck? A 19-year-old gets caught selling drugs so we... make it harder for them to get an education that might give them more attractive options than selling drugs? We... make it more likely for them to go deeper into debt, if they do try to get an education, so make certain kinds of alternative income more attractive to them? What possible sense could that make? I expressed, to the tax accountant who'd told me this, some confusion re: why we'd have a policy that would clearly tend to increase recidivism, hoping he'd be able to explain why this wasn't obviously stupid, and all he came back with was something like "I guess you're some kind of bleeding heart liberal then." Dafuq? I mean, on the one hand, sure, guilty as charged, but what does that have to do with preferring to have less crime happen?

Loughla 4y ago
Because it's legislating/regulating morality. That's the American Way©, in my experience. I'm not trying to be a cool edgelord kind, but really. It has appeared, over the course of my life, that most "unsolvable" political issues really amount to trying to do what's "right" instead of what's "good" for society. Gun control - knee jerk morality issue. Abortion - same thing. Education reform. Prisons and law enforcement. Drugs. The number just goes on forever. It's because we don't care to have less crime happen. We care that people are appropriately punished for being bad. It's very frustrating.
sokoloff 4y ago
There's a reasonable argument "if funding for 19 year olds' federal student aid is a limited resource, that it might be rationally prioritized, and in doing so, for priority to be given to people without a criminal record". Each of those three elements: not unlimited, needing priority, and prioritized thusly could be viewed by people as being sensible. Whether it should be unlimited is a different question from "given it's not unlimited, how should we prioritize it?"
notch656c 4y ago
Colleges are basically ground zero for drug sales. Why the hell would the public be in the business of actually funding dealers to set up shop? I couldn't care less about drugs and think everything up to and including fentanyl should be completely legal and sold at the 7-eleven, but fuck paying the bill for that. Sorry dealers, pay for your own college.

patrec 4y ago

> So, you're addicted, maybe not even because of your own fault Yeah, my heart goes out for all those underprivileged Harvard/Cornell/Rutgers students with loaded parents, who at some point in their ivy league degree and due no fault of their own, suddenly find themselves at a point where they just have to take up drug-dealing. > And he didn't even harm anybody else. It's a she. And chances are, if you're dealing heroin, you are probably harming someone.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
> After applying to and getting into Rutgers University, she made money to pay for classes by joining a strip club and escort agency, which allowed her to rent an apartment of her own. [1] Yes, won't someone please get that silver spoon out of her mouth. People who come from a middle-class life can end up in bad situations as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Homelessness,_addiction,_and_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Blakinger#Homelessness,_a...
- patrec 4y ago
  Would I also be expected to feel sorry for her had she taken up sex work and drug dealing to afford different luxury goods, a Porsche Carrera say? The Porsche's lower price tag and resale value would have arguably made it a more prudent investment than an elite university English degree with private accommodation. > People who come from a middle-class life can end up in bad situations as well. There's little indication that any of the bad situations she ended up in had external causes. May then one's sympathy with the self-inflicted hardships of the privileged not at least be conditional on a little readiness to assume some responsibility? When she writes: > After almost a decade of struggling with heroin addiction, I’d gotten arrested just a few days before I was supposed to finish my last semester at Cornell. It sounds like the system conspired to rob poor struggling Keri of her Cornell(TM) degree right before the finish line. The reality is that she was a drug dealer caught with $150'000 worth of heroin in her possession (she brags about it elsewhere). But to her the real story are the minor inconveniences the prison system temporarily put in the way of her completing her degree and one of 50 states banning her inspirational and recently released life-story. She does not disagree with proscribing certain books for prisoners but appears offended that the somewhat arbitrary lists different states have drawn up do not completely match the arbitrary list she personally would have drawn up (and fail to fully reflect her own tastes in the ravings of murderous psychopaths).