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Hard manual labor has long been accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes. Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... by a jury of their peers

by codexb 3y ago

Hard manual labor has long been accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes. Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... by a jury of their peers. That's intentional. It's a feature, not a bug.

plasmatix 3y ago
Allowing anyone to benefit from forced labor sounds like an invitation for corruption.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  compared to what, the rest of the economy or political establishment? the difference is that the people getting screwed over were judged guilty of crimes by a jury of their peers or other due process.
- codexb 3y ago
  There is some truth to this statement. Historically, work detail for prisoners benefitted society as a whole -- litter cleanup, public works projects, license plate manufacturing, etc.
Modified3019 3y ago
Outright slavery has been accepted for most of the history of humanity. Appeals to tradition are probably not the way to go when deciding how we can be a better society.
pinkmuffinere 3y ago
I think the question is whether we continue to see that as a feature. It is recently popular to see prison as a rehabilitation rather than a punishment —- ie can we (safely) turn this life around instead of punish it. I’m not opposed to hard manual labor in principle, but it’s hard for me to believe it’s the best use of those lives.
probably_satan 3y ago
[flagged]
jacquesm 3y ago
In some countries.
rsynnott 3y ago
All sorts of things have been long accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes, until people said "yeah, perhaps not". Most developed democracies have banned forced prison labour; the US is a bit of an outlier here.
lesuorac 3y ago
> Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... Nice sound bite; but not really true. It's certainly true a process is followed but that process is pretty shitty. Plenty of people get released after the murder weapon is actually tried for fingerprints and low-and-behold it was somebody else! How does a person go through trial with even the murder weapon being tested? It's not required by the process. Plenty of people have been convicted because "their bite marks match". Is there actually some peer-reviewed standard of bite marks where if I gave you somebody's bite and a bite mark you could match them together at 90% accuracy? No. How are non-reproducible methods used to incarcerate people? The process doesn't require accuracy. For more, John Oliver: Forensic Analysis [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0

by codexb 3y ago

plasmatix 3y ago

Allowing anyone to benefit from forced labor sounds like an invitation for corruption.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
compared to what, the rest of the economy or political establishment? the difference is that the people getting screwed over were judged guilty of crimes by a jury of their peers or other due process.
codexb 3y ago
There is some truth to this statement. Historically, work detail for prisoners benefitted society as a whole -- litter cleanup, public works projects, license plate manufacturing, etc.

Modified3019 3y ago

Outright slavery has been accepted for most of the history of humanity. Appeals to tradition are probably not the way to go when deciding how we can be a better society.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago

I think the question is whether we continue to see that as a feature. It is recently popular to see prison as a rehabilitation rather than a punishment —- ie can we (safely) turn this life around instead of punish it. I’m not opposed to hard manual labor in principle, but it’s hard for me to believe it’s the best use of those lives.

probably_satan 3y ago

[flagged]

jacquesm 3y ago

In some countries.

rsynnott 3y ago

All sorts of things have been long accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes, until people said "yeah, perhaps not". Most developed democracies have banned forced prison labour; the US is a bit of an outlier here.

lesuorac 3y ago

> Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... Nice sound bite; but not really true. It's certainly true a process is followed but that process is pretty shitty. Plenty of people get released after the murder weapon is actually tried for fingerprints and low-and-behold it was somebody else! How does a person go through trial with even the murder weapon being tested? It's not required by the process. Plenty of people have been convicted because "their bite marks match". Is there actually some peer-reviewed standard of bite marks where if I gave you somebody's bite and a bite mark you could match them together at 90% accuracy? No. How are non-reproducible methods used to incarcerate people? The process doesn't require accuracy. For more, John Oliver: Forensic Analysis [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0