4 ms·

It’s too bad about the privatization corruption potential, because banning physical mail seems like a good idea overall in this case.

jollyllama 4y ago
Hard disagree. If I were in prison, it would make a great difference to me to keep a drawing that my child sent me in my cell, vs. maybe being able to look at a bad scan of it. Plus, when would I actually get to see the scan?
- warning26 4y ago
  Sure — but you’re not in prison. The kinds of people in there are probably receiving smuggled goods or other illicit materials, not pleasant drawings from kids.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Like they can't get both? Who are you to decide that? Are you in prison since that was your qualifier to the GP?
    - warning26 4y ago
      GP began with “if I were in prison”, so I meant it more like “but you’re not in prison, because you’re distinct from those who are”.
      - thefaux 4y ago
        > I meant it more like “but you’re not in prison, because you’re distinct from those who are”. This is a wretched assumption that dehumanizes everyone in prison by implying that they are a part of some lesser subspecies that does not deserve humane treatment.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        Right, but you're not in prison either making you distinct from those that are. You're painting with a very large brush assuming that the only possessions a prisoner might have are contraband. If you think they don't have pictures of family or notes/letters/drawings from kids, you'd be sorely mistaken.
  - jollyllama 4y ago
    There's truth to what you say, but that's a sweeping generalization.
  - skcusgnad 4y ago
    Yeah, because criminals don't love their children /s Man your callousness is jarring.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    "The kinds of people in there" are not very different from you or me and treating them as other is merely a cognitive opioid to comfort ourselves with treating prisoners with cruelty.
    - treeman79 4y ago
      There are some in prison that screwed up and want to change. Many in prison would slit a throat, scam, mug, assault, rape etc without any kind of remorse. These people are not like you and I. Some of these do some variation of “find Jesus” and try and change. Many do not. Or they take decades to change ways. At Some point dangerous people need to be locked away. Fear of punishment is the only thing that keeps a small percentage of the population from doing these things on a regular basis. Think how people act in real life vs being Anonymous online.
      - lesuorac 4y ago
        Minority of the prison population is there because of a violent crime *. There's no reason to assume the majority would committed violence at the first chance they get since they didn't do that while outside of prison. * Violent crimes often include things such as drug dealing even when no actual violence occured.
      - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
        The truth of the matter is there are plenty of children coerced into false confessions, and there are plenty of freely-going CEO rapists and scammers. There's very little about people who are imprisoned that justify depriving them of being able to communicate with people who aren't imprisoned. For one, how will they communicate if they are being raped, physically abused, or medically neglected by the prison?
  - jMyles 4y ago
    What a ridiculous presumption. Is there anything resembling evidence that the current system of incarceration selects the "kinds of people" to whom you refer, rather than arbitrarily from the population, weighted by money and melanin?
    - warning26 4y ago
      Are you saying that no one in prison is there because they committed a crime? While I’d be certain that there are false positives, you seem to be asserting that the entire prison population is composed of false positives.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      >Is there anything resembling evidence that the current system of incarceration selects the "kinds of people" to whom you refer The National Crime Victimization Survey? I mean people always try and say that the FBI crime stats are wrong/falsified/whatever but I rarely if ever see any attempts to debunk the NCVS which corroborates the FBI crime numbers.
  - jkingsman 4y ago
    I feel sad after reading this comment. People in prison are still people. Many of them have committed crimes against society; some are imprisoned unjustly; all are deserving of human dignity and love. People in prison have families, children, loved ones, and it's an undeniable fact that strong social support networks reduce recidivism. People in prison are not monsters. They're people. I won't deny that illicit substances flowing into prisons is a problem. But painting all prisoners as smugglers who are incapable of receiving affection, love, or support is absurd.
    - warning26 4y ago
      > Many of them have committed crimes against society […] all are deserving of human dignity and love If someone deprived another of dignity via a crime (say, via sexual assault or murder), why should that person be deserving of any dignity themselves?
      - gambiting 4y ago
        Because how we treat others speaks a lot about ourselves. This is the shortest TLDR on a philosophical argument going on literally for millenia. It's the same reason why prisoners are given a mattress to sleep on and warm water to wash with, even though you could argue many of them don't deserve even that.
      - fallingknife 4y ago
        The criminal justice system does not punish for the benefit of the victim by retribution, but rather for the benefit of the state. Criminal cases in court are the state vs the defendant. The victim is not a party.
      - lesuorac 4y ago
        There's many more crimes then sexual assault and murder that can land you in prison. How many soap bottles would I have to steal before you think I don't deserve any dignity? And then there's also not everybody convicted of a crime actually did the crime [1]. [1]: https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-reports-four-percent-of-death-row-inmates-are-innocent/#:~:text=News%2004.28.14-,National%20Academy%20of%20Sciences%20Reports%20Four%20Percent%20of%20Death%20Row,the%20United%20States%20are%20innocent https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-re....
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - thewildginger 4y ago
    As recently as 2022 en masse convictions of corrections officers have been happening within states. In Georgia during a two year sting 46 people were convicted, all DOC employees, mostly Corrections Officers. Taking away physical mail from people already deprived of their rights seems extreme, especially when the problem pretty clearly is COs who enable it. https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/final-defendants-including-former-correctional-officer-sentenced-prison-corruption-scheme https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/final-defendants-includin... https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/court-overturns-guards-convictions-in-prison-scandal/VCFEAD3L4BCHZE3CQHLNT3QHTQ/ https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/court-overturns-guards...
  - indymike 4y ago
    > kinds of people in there At some point, they are human, and if you've ever spent any time even volunteering around the "system" you would begin to understand exactly how wrong, and how utterly heartless this kind of thinking is. How we treat the helpless defines our humanity.
thatguy0900 4y ago
Assuming your end goal with prison is to spit out a member of society at the end, not just a harder, worse criminal, cutting off all their ties to people they know really isn't a great thing to do. There's a big difference between a handwritten letter and a picture on a screen to a person who wants to get out and try again at making something of themselves. Of course if all you want is more criminal activity from them then making their only physical contact other criminals is a great plan.

jollyllama 4y ago

Hard disagree. If I were in prison, it would make a great difference to me to keep a drawing that my child sent me in my cell, vs. maybe being able to look at a bad scan of it. Plus, when would I actually get to see the scan?

warning26 4y ago
Sure — but you’re not in prison. The kinds of people in there are probably receiving smuggled goods or other illicit materials, not pleasant drawings from kids.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Like they can't get both? Who are you to decide that? Are you in prison since that was your qualifier to the GP?
  - warning26 4y ago
    GP began with “if I were in prison”, so I meant it more like “but you’re not in prison, because you’re distinct from those who are”.
    - thefaux 4y ago
      > I meant it more like “but you’re not in prison, because you’re distinct from those who are”. This is a wretched assumption that dehumanizes everyone in prison by implying that they are a part of some lesser subspecies that does not deserve humane treatment.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Right, but you're not in prison either making you distinct from those that are. You're painting with a very large brush assuming that the only possessions a prisoner might have are contraband. If you think they don't have pictures of family or notes/letters/drawings from kids, you'd be sorely mistaken.
- jollyllama 4y ago
  There's truth to what you say, but that's a sweeping generalization.
- skcusgnad 4y ago
  Yeah, because criminals don't love their children /s Man your callousness is jarring.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  "The kinds of people in there" are not very different from you or me and treating them as other is merely a cognitive opioid to comfort ourselves with treating prisoners with cruelty.
  - treeman79 4y ago
    There are some in prison that screwed up and want to change. Many in prison would slit a throat, scam, mug, assault, rape etc without any kind of remorse. These people are not like you and I. Some of these do some variation of “find Jesus” and try and change. Many do not. Or they take decades to change ways. At Some point dangerous people need to be locked away. Fear of punishment is the only thing that keeps a small percentage of the population from doing these things on a regular basis. Think how people act in real life vs being Anonymous online.
    - lesuorac 4y ago
      Minority of the prison population is there because of a violent crime *. There's no reason to assume the majority would committed violence at the first chance they get since they didn't do that while outside of prison. * Violent crimes often include things such as drug dealing even when no actual violence occured.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      The truth of the matter is there are plenty of children coerced into false confessions, and there are plenty of freely-going CEO rapists and scammers. There's very little about people who are imprisoned that justify depriving them of being able to communicate with people who aren't imprisoned. For one, how will they communicate if they are being raped, physically abused, or medically neglected by the prison?
- jMyles 4y ago
  What a ridiculous presumption. Is there anything resembling evidence that the current system of incarceration selects the "kinds of people" to whom you refer, rather than arbitrarily from the population, weighted by money and melanin?
  - warning26 4y ago
    Are you saying that no one in prison is there because they committed a crime? While I’d be certain that there are false positives, you seem to be asserting that the entire prison population is composed of false positives.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    >Is there anything resembling evidence that the current system of incarceration selects the "kinds of people" to whom you refer The National Crime Victimization Survey? I mean people always try and say that the FBI crime stats are wrong/falsified/whatever but I rarely if ever see any attempts to debunk the NCVS which corroborates the FBI crime numbers.
- jkingsman 4y ago
  I feel sad after reading this comment. People in prison are still people. Many of them have committed crimes against society; some are imprisoned unjustly; all are deserving of human dignity and love. People in prison have families, children, loved ones, and it's an undeniable fact that strong social support networks reduce recidivism. People in prison are not monsters. They're people. I won't deny that illicit substances flowing into prisons is a problem. But painting all prisoners as smugglers who are incapable of receiving affection, love, or support is absurd.
  - warning26 4y ago
    > Many of them have committed crimes against society […] all are deserving of human dignity and love If someone deprived another of dignity via a crime (say, via sexual assault or murder), why should that person be deserving of any dignity themselves?
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Because how we treat others speaks a lot about ourselves. This is the shortest TLDR on a philosophical argument going on literally for millenia. It's the same reason why prisoners are given a mattress to sleep on and warm water to wash with, even though you could argue many of them don't deserve even that.
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      The criminal justice system does not punish for the benefit of the victim by retribution, but rather for the benefit of the state. Criminal cases in court are the state vs the defendant. The victim is not a party.
    - lesuorac 4y ago
      There's many more crimes then sexual assault and murder that can land you in prison. How many soap bottles would I have to steal before you think I don't deserve any dignity? And then there's also not everybody convicted of a crime actually did the crime [1]. [1]: https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-reports-four-percent-of-death-row-inmates-are-innocent/#:~:text=News%2004.28.14-,National%20Academy%20of%20Sciences%20Reports%20Four%20Percent%20of%20Death%20Row,the%20United%20States%20are%20innocent https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-re....
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- thewildginger 4y ago
  As recently as 2022 en masse convictions of corrections officers have been happening within states. In Georgia during a two year sting 46 people were convicted, all DOC employees, mostly Corrections Officers. Taking away physical mail from people already deprived of their rights seems extreme, especially when the problem pretty clearly is COs who enable it. https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/final-defendants-including-former-correctional-officer-sentenced-prison-corruption-scheme https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/final-defendants-includin... https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/court-overturns-guards-convictions-in-prison-scandal/VCFEAD3L4BCHZE3CQHLNT3QHTQ/ https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/court-overturns-guards...
- indymike 4y ago
  > kinds of people in there At some point, they are human, and if you've ever spent any time even volunteering around the "system" you would begin to understand exactly how wrong, and how utterly heartless this kind of thinking is. How we treat the helpless defines our humanity.

thatguy0900 4y ago

Assuming your end goal with prison is to spit out a member of society at the end, not just a harder, worse criminal, cutting off all their ties to people they know really isn't a great thing to do. There's a big difference between a handwritten letter and a picture on a screen to a person who wants to get out and try again at making something of themselves. Of course if all you want is more criminal activity from them then making their only physical contact other criminals is a great plan.