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Post by Cornflake on Dec 11, 2006 15:25:18 GMT -5
I've disregarded more whining by prisoners than most people will ever hear. The federal courts routinely get prisoner complaints that are frivolous and are summarily disposed of. Prisoners don't have enough to do. Some pass the time filing court documents. I help with lawyer discipline in my state and I can attest that many prisoners file baseless bar complaints about the lawyers who unsuccessfully defended them.
Some prisoner complaints have merit. A decade back the federal courts were getting inundated with complaints from prisoners in protective segregation. Our corrections pros had decided to put them back in the general prison population, essentially as a cost-cutting measure. One judge was concerned about these complaints. He appointed five of us to represent the prisoners. We proceeded to a trial where corrections professionals from other states testifed that the plan to release protective-segregation prisoners into the general population would result in "a bloodbath," as one put it, or "a feeding frenzy," as another put it. The testimony established that a number of deaths could be expected in short order. The court blocked the proposed transfer of the prisoners.
A guy who had run the prison system in an eastern state told me once that if it weren't for the courts, most prisons would be like concentration camps. Prisoners have no lobby to speak of. My view is that they shouldn't be coddled but they also shouldn't be subjected to treatment that we wouldn't allow in a dog kennel.
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Post by TDR on Dec 11, 2006 16:05:21 GMT -5
The classic model of a prison has all the inmates boxed into cells, while a concentration camp we think of as more communal with more freedom to move around inside the fence. But otherwise, what's the difference?
Doesn't Arpaio's tent camp jailyard look exactly like a concentration camp? Pictures we've seen of Guantanamo don't look very different than the Stalags and the Gulag camps.
We need to get good at running concentration camps, because we are going to need to turn Iraq into one if we are going to stay there. I wonder if they've tried the pink underwear thing at Abu Ghraib.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2006 16:48:32 GMT -5
Nowhere does reality collide so violently with public perceptions as when discussing conditions in prisons or jails. Politicians can never leave it alone, so they have created a broadly-held perception of the "country club" prison, complete with wet bars, cable TV, and unlimited recreational opportunities. It fuels the resentment from some poor working stiff who feels he's been duped to stay on the outside, and pay for the comforts of the incarcerated folks that must be living it up inside.
Having only visited such facilities, I can't consider myself a real expert, but I know enough to marvel at the misconceptions people have.
Here's what I see, as an outsider. An extremely controlled environment, designed specifically and almost exclusively for the purpose of making it easier to warehouse human beings. You enter the place a bit unsettled, after passing a guantlet of wire, wieght-sensitive fences, boundary roads patrolled by guards, and exacting body searches. Inside, hours are kept jealously, like a swiss clock. Bells ring to get you up, your doors open automatically at a certain hour. The time seems artificially regimented. When it's bedtime, lights just plumb go out. And, you are surrounded by some of the most interesting specimens of psychopathy and borderline disorders you will ever meet. The code requires that you barely acknowledge the existance of the employees, most of whom you'd not be interrested in knowing, anyway. Behind every moment is the promise of violent payback. You learn whole new rules: Don't EVER allow another prisoner to do you a favor, or show any real interest in you, because they keep an account for that stuff, and you may not be ready to pay it back. Whether you want to or not, you WILL establish a place in the internal hierarchy through fghting or intimidation. Your days are c ontrolled by both guards and prisoners who probably would have spent the rest of their lives trying to get through 6th grade. The few of them that do have developed intellects are simply more dangerous or malevolent than the dumb guards or prisoners.
But, there IS a set of wieghts in the exercise yard. Be sure to check the rules for using them, though. There's a TV in the common area, but I hope you are fond of cop shows and daytime soap operas. (I woudln't recommend just changing the station to PBS, or anything). Maybe they'd even allow you a TV in your cell. Cool. Just what I want: TV 24/7. Sorry, guitars are not allowed. Maybe you can find an Esteban in the music room. But again, please check the rules.
That being said, I have no illusions that many of the fellows in there NEED to be there. I don't want to imagine a world where violent sociopaths cannot be segregated. I now the heartbreak and misery such guys impose on us.
But, NEVER have i seen anything remotely resembling a country club. Having visited such institutions, perhaps 20-25 times, I never drive away thinking "Hey, that was a really cool place, I think I want to book a reservation there for a couple weeks". I always left kind of depressed and reflective. It truly bruises one's soul.
Shame on the people who politicize this, and play on bizarre images of country clubs. Shame on folks that politicize a sheriff's office. This dude in Arizona is just another ambitious mountebank, unfit for law enforcement.
An example of what's wrong with the guy is his characteristic press-pandering on the underwear. Seems this slug ordered inmates to wear pink underwear. He offered some phony reasoning, with a knowing smile on his face. The purpose of the pink-underwear was obviously simply to humiliate or degrade his inmates, and he wants you to cheer him for being "tough". It probably doesn't even have the desired effect, but reveals what the guy is about.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2006 17:47:10 GMT -5
I agree completely. Politicians of all stripes have the need be seen as "tough on crime" so they can appeal to our sense of outrage.
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Post by theevan on Dec 11, 2006 18:09:46 GMT -5
The very controversial warden of Angola Prison, Burl Cain, changed my thinking about such things with his book 'Cain's Redemption', wherein he chronicled the transformation of Angola from America's bloodiest prison to one of the safest. The Cliff Notes version is: treating the men with respect, rewarding good behavior, 'disincentivising' poor behavior, and giving the inmates a chance at having a productive, meaningful life, one that can repeated with success on the outside (although almost ALL Angola inmates are lifers). Oh, and faith.
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Post by Doug on Dec 13, 2006 6:13:09 GMT -5
Incarceration (other than as a temp holding till trial) seems to me to be cruel and unusual punishment
Not effective, cost prohibitive, lots of other evils involved. Ridiculous to have the jail population that we do.
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Post by TDR on Dec 13, 2006 15:46:12 GMT -5
Back in the old days, England got rid of her convicts by sending them off to some penal colony like Australia. When they got there they survived or not.
Too bad we don't have some outland where we can ostracise our rejects, hunh? No expense, just a one way ticket to Lord of the Flies Island.
Oh, and somehow Ausralia turned out alright anyway. Unless you ask the aboriginals, I mean.
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