Maybe I'm too literal here, and there's a bunch of other stuff that could be addressed, but can I just complain that the article titled "A pacifist's plan to survive the violent world of prison" doesn't have a single word about exactly what kind of pacifist he considered himself to be or what this plan was? All he said was that he was a big dude and he didn't join a gang, which doesn't say all that much.
It isn't enough. Legalisation needs to happen, even for things I wouldn't touch.
It isn't just about breaking a cycle, though not shaming addiction is helpful. It isn't just addicts that do drugs: I've met folks that do cocaine twice a year, for example. Few folks are addicted to LSD, and most folks only take MDMA occasionally. There is more than one way to take heroin, and folks do use occasionally. All drugs I wouldn't take are safer if folks know they are getting, strength and purity are verified as much as possible.
Legalisation takes some strength away from cartels, which hopefully means less human trafficking.
Last sentence is especially valid - decriminalization does absolutely 0 with organized crime earning tens of billions every year from all addictives. The same folks that deal in kidnappings, ransom, contract killing, weapons smuggling and many more.
As a bonus health of patients(addicts) is not deteriorating so rapidly due to crap they take along with actual drugs, so bonuses go back to whole society in form of lower costs of general healthcare. Imagine cigarettes that would be killing 10x more slowly/less often. Smokers would often die of old age and not in 1-5 years of super expensive agony. Safer methods of applications can be used.
The benefits just mount for whole society. All it takes is general acceptance that there will always be some part of society that will want to get high / calm the existential pain, be it physical of psychical.
As long as it is more profitable to sell drugs illegally they will continually be sold and trafficked illegally no matter the letter of the law. Even marijuana is grown and trafficked by the cartel in CA, because of the onerous licensing process and the heavy taxation imposed by the state and local governments make it more profitable to operate on the black market.
To a point, sure: Tobacco and alcohol are still sold illegally. But most folks buy it from the stores, and if they aren't, adjustments need to be made. Taxation isn't generally the issue (as alcohol & tobacco are taxed) as long as it is easy to purchase and reasonably priced.
The other issue is that there are conflicts between state and federal law. Not being able to bank easily is a major hurdle, and these sorts of things need fixed.
And that's the caveat. The black market still outweighs the legal market because it is difficult to purchase because of the difficulty in opening a legitimate dispensary, and it isn't reasonably priced with a 30% upcharge for taxes. right off the bat the illegal dispensary is 30% cheaper, and that makes a bigger difference in the MJ market where the base cost of the product is much higher than for a $16 bottle of liquor. Even with alcohol and tobacco it is very typical for people living near a state border to buy their product on the side with the more favorable taxes, routinely done even.
It takes time for each successive group of new users to come to market where they weren’t exposed to the black market in the first place, who are averse to unknown quality of the black market
Unless you take the time to look up the license on the state website, there isn't much of a tell that the brick and mortar dispensary, or delivery service dispensary, is operating illegally. Still the same strange security process getting into the building as in a legitimate dispensary, still the same process of getting delivery (sometimes with nice web design to boot) so it certainly passes the smell test. Happen into one of these, and the prices alone will keep you going there rather than a legal dispensary down the road. Not to mention the packaging requirements of legal dispensaries—ask for an oz and you get handed 8 bags in some very annoying 'child proof' ziplocks (I opt to just cut them open with scissors) since they seemingly can't sell larger units than 1/8 oz or 100mg of edibles per package.
When WA legalized weed, prices went down. I don't think you can make broad claims based on one particular implementation that may well be flawed in details.
> Last sentence is especially valid - decriminalization does absolutely 0 with organized crime earning tens of billions every year from all addictives. The same folks that deal in kidnappings, ransom, contract killing, weapons smuggling and many more.
Sure, it is definitely an improvement and will improve lives greatly. But that still leaves work to do: It should be treated as a stepping stone instead of the end goal because legalization does so much more.
For this reason, I try to bring it up in conversations about decriminalization.
How do you expect it to have an impact on those things? It will be an improvement for drug users in the US, but I doubt much will change for the cartels. To really have an impact the drugs need to be produced and distributed legally.
Well I dont get why we dont get the cartels to become legal entreprises. Even gradually. We should even make deals with them today. Say: reduce death rate by 10% and we give you this and that.
> There is more than one way to take heroin, and folks do use occasionally.
My anecdata contradicts this.
I know a lot of musicians who say "Yeah, they lied to us about pot. So, I assumed they were lying about everything else, too. And they were--except heroin. Do NOT do heroin--that's a path you do not want to be on."
I don't know of any who use it "recreationally" and control it. It just doesn't seem to work that way.
> All drugs I wouldn't take are safer if folks know they are getting, strength and purity are verified as much as possible.
Would decriminalization really help in this particular case? The author isn't in jail for dealing, possession, or consumption of drugs. They're in jail for breaking into someone's house and stealing things to buy drugs. That particular problem doesn't go away if drugs are legal. They still cost money. Maybe you can argue that legal drugs could be cheaper, but there's not really much evidence of that; legal weed is just about the same price as black market weed, often more. I have no reason to think that legal heroin or cocaine or other drugs would be so cheap as to eliminate crime related to obtaining drug money. People deep in the throes of addiction are still going to have trouble holding down jobs to feed their habit, and legal drugs are not going to be free. Making addiction itself less criminal isn't going to eliminate all the accompanying social problems. Addicts are going to have trouble working, maintaining relationships, caring for children, staying housed, or avoiding crimes related to both obtaining money for their habits or as a result of poor decisions they make while intoxicated.
I'm in favor of decriminalizing all drugs, because I don't think getting high should be a crime by itself; because I don't think the government has any right to control what people do with their own bodies; because the war on drugs costs a fortune and doesn't do anything to prevent drug use; because unregulated drugs are more dangerous than legal ones; and because our prisons are overflowing with people whose only crime was possessing the drugs themselves. But if someone breaks into my house and steals my shit to feed their habit, I still want them locked up. It's a terrifying experience to be victimized, and it's not always just a property crime; there's a lot of violent crime too.
It _could_ have helped because, for example, here in Oregon where we just decriminalized they are taking tax revenue from marijuana sales and building drug addiction treatment centers. If you get caught with a small amount of the drugs, you pay $100 or have to go to an appointment at the drug addiction treatment center.
It _could_ have helped in this case because maybe Ryan M. Moser would have gotten help and broken his addiction with a treatment center that didn't have shame and felony crime associated with it. Maybe Ryan M. Moser would have sought help. Maybe. And at least Ryan M. Moser would have had the option if the drug addiction treatment centers were more accessible, walk-in style.
What's his plan? Take it day by day? Watch his back?
Also (infer no adversarial tone), he seems to imply that he needs to be prepared to defend himself against attack, ostensibly using his lingering Krav Maga skill and instincts. Does that violate his pacifism?
Maybe "pacifist", in this context, should be understood to mean "unaffiliated with any gang".
It depends, pacifist is a catch all term not unlike vegetarian. There are total pacifist who will not utilize violence in any form. Then their are pacifist that believe in personal self defence (and that of family) but not offensive violence in any form. Then their are pacifist that don't reason about it on a personal level, rather they do not believe in the validity of government sanctioned violence, but are OK with getting into a prison fight over a disagreement. Pacifism is a philosophical viewpoint and like most things philosophical it has a spectrum.
I consider myself to be a pacifist, but not to the extent that Buddha or Jesus where pacifists, I would be hard pressed to not defend my children or my wife if they were being attacked. For me personally, if I were assaulted, I would try to reach reason and understanding before the violence escalated. If I were being attacked, I would defend myself to the extent that I could get away from the assailant.
I'm a pacifist and a martial artist. My first approach is de-escalation. That has failed, and I've been attacked by people, and still did not want to hurt those people. Nor will I allow people to simply beat me up. I've defended myself by deflecting and avoiding their attacks, using their momentum against them and whatnot; and when necessary, various holds or joint locks. I've also successfully fled situations where I think others would fight out of a sense of pride.
My approach would not work against somebody significantly larger and/or more skilled than myself. Nor is it effective against a group of assailants. Flight is not an option in confined quarters. I'd probably resort to more harmful techniques if I thought my life was in danger. And I'd significantly regret doing so.
They're infrequent, but they do add up over the years. You're probably picturing stranger assaults, but actually drunk and/or angry friends (more usually, "friends") and family are responsible for a good portion of said experiences. It'a rare that I'm the target, but I stand up for folks and generally step in when people I love are about to do something they'll regret.
And then there's the transgender thing -- I've experienced a big uptick in unwanted attention from the public, ever since I came out. Not just a "bad neighborhood" thing, I've had a dude try to follow me home in a sleepy burb, too.
I'm curious: is it actually rational to use more harmful techniques against someone significantly larger than yourself, someone armed, or a group of people? It seems as likely as not to be perceived as an escalation, and in those types of situations an escalation is likelier to mean you get permanently injured or killed.
Of course, the best martial art is de-escalation and the next cross-country, but if you're cornered and there's an unbalanced distribution of force, you're kind of screwed regardless of what you do.
Fun thing about classes. I've had the opportunity to spar with people twice my size. I bounce off them. No, it is not rational to put hope in a method that has no chance of success, unless failure is certain death. Sometimes, the best that training can do is teach you when to accept defeat if that will minimize harm.
Generally, in self defense the idea is to do as little possible up until it's decided that the assailant intends harm no matter what, which is when the goal is to incapacitate as quickly as possible. The example I was given by a friend who is well versed in martial arts:
> You are threatened by someone for your wallet. First and foremost, place your wallet on the ground, and run like hell when they bend over to pick it up. If they step over the wallet, incapacitate then run like hell.
The "step over the wallet" moment is when the decision is made that if you don't do something, you're probably going to be killed.
> if you're cornered and there's an unbalanced distribution of force, you're kind of screwed regardless of what you do.
This is where martial arts and self defense come it in. No matter how big the other person is, it's really hard to catch up to someone running away with a broken knee.
I think it means that he wont be starting fights and will be avoiding them. It does not mean he is naive about why no one attacked him (weight and tough look plays role according to him). It does not mean that if someone attacks him when guards dont look, he will let himself being beaten without attempting self defense.
American prison sentences tend to be higher than other developed nations, but 10 years is quite a bit just for burglary as he says. Florida is a 'three strikes' state so he must be a repeat offender (as in, in and out of prison).
a large portion of the US electorate sees drug users and criminals as inherently violent. It isn't a fact or a conscious choice but rather a belief built from the constant narrative of tough on crime.
It is also fundamentally, systematically, and intentionally racist.
I'm wondering what set people off on downvoting your comment, as it's a commonly held view for anybody who has spent more than a small amount of time looking into our justice system, though perhaps shocking to those who have not examined the prison system. Perhaps the contrast between "not a conscious choice" and "intentionally racist"?
Probably because in people's experience "a large portion of the US electorate sees drug users and criminals as inherently violent" is untrue. Heck even the most hard line anti-drug politicians tend to stop short of calling drug users "inherently violent". The most extreme mainstream opinions tend to be things along the lines of "stop providing narcan and the problem will solve itself".
I didn't say people say 'inherently violent' I said that is the narrative that is created and used implicitly not explicitly. It's the same as 'forced busing' as code...
And you are wrong about the 'extreme' mainstream opinion. From making certain drugs illegal on forward...it is discussed, reported, and legislated in racist ways.
Seeing some people as inherently violent is a very destructive attitude. Almost nobody is inherently violent. It all depends on context. Someone who might be violent in one context might not be violent in a different context. Changing the context can help a lot. A US prison is probably not it.
The early representations used to vilify marijuana were part of jim crow efforts to ensure racial hierarchies. They included representations (later reused with crack cocaine) of Black and Hispanic people using drugs and then being sent into a violent frenzy where they murder and kill white people.
The modern versions of this are more subtle, because they aren't being made explicitly but rather are part of a narrative societal norms is built on, which makes the entire discussion fuzzy and implicit. C.f. ...
With excited delirium, 'symptoms' may include "attempts at violence, unexpected strength [see previous paper]...Complications may include rhabdomyolysis or high blood potassium". Those complications happen to also be side effects of narcotics people are injected with...the 'diagnosis' is much much more likely to be applied to Black people (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28990246/)
it is a disease, invented by police, that only seems to occur when police are involved and suspect drug use, that is disproportionately applied to people of color, to provide a post hoc rationalization for violence comited against them.
Nobody cares about weed anymore for the most part.
Crack is mostly a non issue as that epidemic has already ran its course.
Perceptions of coke are relegated to jokes about white collar professionals and crazy parties.
Heroin and meth are the two drugs people really look down on these days and they're stereotypical white people drugs.
Attempts to cast everyone who wants some sort of stricter drug enforcement as closet racists is naive at best. And this is coming from someone who thinks meth should be available at Walmart just like caffeine pills.
A lot of this is narrative and you really have to be skeptical of any narrative that is too clean and simple and flat to describe a complex situation. Crime rates have gone down dramatically in the past couple decades, so we have the luxury to apply hindsight and see what we got wrong and what we got right. But you should generally assume positive intent. Crime was a very serious problem in the U.S. in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. Take a look at NYC from 1965-2019: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm
Murder rates were 5x higher in 1990 than today. It was a big, big problem. It was believed that drugs drove a lot of that and funded gang activity...some of which was absolutely true. Some of which was absolutely exaggerated.
The victims of crimes are on the other side of this equation of justice. They also deserve justice and consideration. The ideal of our system is for the law to apply the minimum sentence to prevent the crime from re-occurring again. I think it unfortunately oscillates with the moods of the moment, but if murder rates were to suddenly return to NYC 1990 levels in your town, and someone you know or love was murdered, you might be singing a different tune.
>> Is it common to house non-violent offenders with ones convicted of violent crimes?
Bigger issue: Is it very common to house non-convicts, people not found guilty of anything, alongside violent actual convicts. Go to any US jail. The number of people literally waiting for their day in court is usually greater than those convicted and serving time.
(Note I said jail, not "prison". Prisons are for longer sentences. Convicts in US jails are generally serving less than a year.)
It is. Most American prison systems have some kind of low-security units which exclusively house non-violent criminals, but not all non-violent criminals will go to a low security unit.
This is a bleak reminder that prisons are a crime against humanity, no deserves to live in constant fear for their own survival. Not only that but prisoners are a very vulnerable population often exploited for labor, medical experiments and general abuse.
I agree there's a lot to be done to reduce the number of prisoners. But at the end of the day, what do you do about members of society who greatly harm others? (murder, rape, etc)? I can't think of any effective solutions which aren't prison, death penalty, or prison-disguised-as-something-else (like a hospital). Maybe exile? What's your philosophy in those cases?
Well consider this: the legal system considers time served in prison as forgiveness, meaning that said murderers, rapists etc can go back to the streets once their sentences are over, regardless of whether they feel remorse or whether they are inclined to repeat their offenses. There's also stigma among employers etc against hiring ex-cons, which can help perpetuate vicious cycles.
There are places in europe, for example, where they focus on developing skills so that someone trying to integrate back into society has a more legitimate shot at being successful. Others have implemented non-policing systems such as drug addiction rehab programs, effectively diverting funds from a policy of handling certain types of issues as policing/legal issues and instead treat them as public health issues.
I also recall reading about a small town in US that was composed almost entirely of ex-cons, where they could start a normal-ish life in preparation to jumping back into the regular society, stigmas and all.
The topic of punishment of "lost causes" is itself sometimes a hot button. Some societies consider death penalty acceptable while others do not, for example. There's even differences in laws regarding things like involuntary manslaughter in driving accidents, for example (notoriously, the case of core.js maintainer going to prison for it). We could probably be here all day debating what is "beyond redemption" or not, and not come to an agreement, and we can see from the ratio of small crime inmates that we tend to err on the side of far too much caution / vengeful spirit.
You cannot treat miscreant behavior as if it was a movie, where you beat the bad guy and get a happy ending. Real people are complex beasts and life goes on after the credits roll.
The way I see this is, prison should not be taken lightly. The cavalier attitude of simply shoving addicts into prison glosses over the gravity of using this option.
There are appropriate use cases for prison, and violence in prison will be inevitable. The very least we can do is take that more seriously, and stop shoving addicts into the same place as violent murderers.
> stop shoving addicts into the same place as violent murderers.
Isn't this already partly achieved by the delineation between low security & high security prisons, as well as delineations within the same prison complex (general population vs SHU)?
There are examples from around the world of prisons that aren't anything like the US model. It's not a hypothetical, it's a reality that isn't brought up in US political debate because moneyed interests favor the status quo.
No to plant medicines. It is cruel to subject someone only to plant medicine, doubly so if it hasn't been rigorously tested: Give folks actual, up to date medicine instead. You know, the same quality that everyone on the planet should have. There is no reason someone should have to suffer more than they should. If you need anti-depressants, by all means, please have access. And to drugs that alter the course of auto-immune diseases to make them less of an impact on quality of life: Please give high blood pressure meds and insulin if needed.
Farming and nature isn't a cure, and does nothing to help someone adapt to the city they will likely be living in upon release.
They should. I don't think this is something I'm willing to change my mind on.
Prisons are literally one of the worst things we've made. They serve no purpose other than to dehumanize, rape, assault, and other fucked shit to "undesirables." It allows us to put problems to be solved to a later date, instead of addressing them head on and making sure it doesn't happen.
Prison should be an optional rehabilitation option for people, with it potentially being forced on a very very small minority of the population. No more than 0.01% of the population should be in forced rehabilitation, and no more than 1% in optional rehabilitation.
Prisons exist primarily to control threats from society. And secondarily to punish people for getting caught breaking rules, partially for vengeance and partially for deterrence.
Societies have tried other methods of controlling threats beyond imprisonment, including (but definitely not limited to) ankle bracelets, public shaming, shunning, exile, offender registries, altering brains via chemicals, brainwashing, torture, or surgery, altering bodies via sterilization or mutilation, death, even collective punishment.
So prisons aren't great, but they're better than many of the alternatives.
On a personal note: that crime of any kind is even possible in a 100% controlled environment speaks to the malicious incompetence of those administering the prisons, and to our shameful collective thirst for vengeance. As with people, judge a society by how they treat the least powerful.
It's very much the other way around. Prisons exist primarily to punish, and secondarily for isolation. But they were originally - as a concept - intended to be about rehabilitation. The end result is something that doesn't rehabilitate, is a very expensive way to punish someone in a way that makes it hard to control the severity of the punishment, and does a lot more than what's needed for simple isolation.
On top of all that, it gets severely overused, not the least because of this broad assumption that it's "better than many of the alternatives", even when that's not actually true - in many cases, prison sentences that replaced one-off corporal punishments for minor crimes can be a lot more disruptive for the life of the person undergoing them.
The societal failings like prisons existing in the first place? The police and courts who supply a steady stream of fodder to the prison-industrial complex? The legislators who create innumerable and overbroad laws to give the above carte blanche to abuse vulnerable groups?
By all means, let us get rid of all of these things.
> The societal failings like prisons existing in the first place?
Prisons existing is not a societal failure. You can't have a society with 330 million people and not have at least 1 murderer who is relentlessly violent, who needs to be physically confined to protect everyone around them. As soon as you have 1 individual like that (which is almost guaranteed by the law of large numbers irrespective of how good that society is), you've already agreed that some kind of prison (whether or not you label it as such) is necessary.
Every large country has some kind of supermax prison, including Scandinavian countries, because it's a simple reality that individuals like the above exist in small numbers.
When that inevitably fails, where do you put the unrepentant rapist, if not in a prison? This is a simple question, if you find yourself unable to answer it, it's because your proposal is moronic.
You might want to look at the historical status quo before prison - I highly doubt you would approve of public floggings, mutilations, and quickly carried out (from trial at least) executions. Prison requires cheap enough food or a high ransom to be viable as an institution to allow keeping them working and some means of ensuring they cannot escape or fight successfully - potentially guards as well.
It can be a historical running dark joke - "Sadly <x> still qualified as an improvement." such as slavery technically being a bit better than early human warfare ending in genocide either directly or indirectly (forced out of all territory capable of sustaining themselves).
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better (ones with far better recidivism rates should be a model for one) but given the history it isn't a failing in itself - that would suggest a shift away from widespread killing and mutilating people was a mistake.
If you look at California, for example, you can literally verify that many registered sex offenders live just a few blocks away from any given person. The thing with prison mentality is that people forget that most crimes don't carry life sentences and that ex-cons eventually go back to the streets.
So the question becomes how do you reconcile the secretly dark desire to wipe undesirables off the face of the earth forever vs a legal system that says that people do have the right to live normal lives after they've paid their debts to society. There isn't really a viable middle ground here. The current status quo is to just spend ungodly amounts of tax dollars deferring the dilemma to X years in the future. But when the time is up, either you wait for a relapse and go through the whole thing again, or you just accept that society wants undesirables banished and just kill them all all the time to free resources, or you come up with some reasonable reintegration strategy where people are ok living near ex-cons. Most people would probably balk at the idea of unconditional life/death sentences, under some tautological idea of justice. You can see small scale cases where reformed murderers claim to have found god and built families, and whatever. The challenge is that there's a lot of very strong stigma as soon as you leave tight social circles and that's where the relapses often come from.
It does answer your question: you kill them (e.g. law systems that stone them to death) or reintegrate them into society or just keep doing the prison/release/relapse dance indefinitely, burning through tax dollars all the while.
You may put a rapist in a prison but then they serve their sentence and might go on to become your neighbor, regardless of whether they repent or are willing to rape again. Where do you put them then? Who gets to decide who's unrepentant? You see how the question gets uncomfortable?
I get that you're trying to just imply that some criminals should just rot in prison, but that's exactly the blindsidedness that I was talking about when it comes to discussions about prison systems.
I can see you're not taking this conversation seriously, since your proposal would entail a massive increase in executions, which I know you do not seriously desire. You know, as well as I do, that justice systems make mistakes. I do not have to explain to you that an innocent man can be released from prison, but cannot be unexecuted. You know this, yet I bring it up anyway because you insist on pretending to be a moron.
It isn't _my_ proposal. Stoning is a real punishment that was implemented in certain societies. You asked for alternatives to prison sentences and I presented them. It's a bit tall to then suggest that I invented things like islamic law and further, that I'm a moron for bringing it up.
If you scroll elsewhere, you can see I also mentioned that one could spend weeks fruitlessly debating what constitutes a criminal beyond redemption and that that does add extra layers of touchiness when it comes things like capital punishment.
You may not like capital punishment (and I'm neither condemning nor advocating for it), but it is a real punishment framework that addresses tax burden and the problem of discomfort of having to live near a sex offender. Does it have flaws? Absolutely. As you said yourself, justice systems make mistakes. When I said "tautological idea of justice", what I'm deriding is the double standard some people fall into when making an argument that boils down to "killing innocent people is wrong because it cannot be undone" and use that as a differentiator in opinion between capital punishment and long prison sentences, since one can also make the same argument about innocent inmates (the "silver lining" type of argument is usually callously oblivious to the horrors of prison life, as well as stigma, trauma, loss of opportunity and health, etc and the fact that this damage cannot be undone, no matter how much one thinks saying "oops, sorry" is good enough). One can flip the silver lining argument as such: "at least he was put out of his misery quickly". (Again, not advocating for it, just reiterating that side of the debate)
A lot of anti-prison folks will argue that the better option is reintegration, which involves skill development, counseling, etc. This gels well with the vast majority of inmates who are in prison for small crimes. The flaw, of course, is that you can't really proactively stop the odd psychopath. Trade-offs, trade-offs.
By all means, let us get rid of all of these things.
Unfortunately the American people voted otherwise. See what Harris was up to in CA. Expect it to be rolled out nationwide. Biden created the laws that made it possible. They are a right pair.
This is typically what "tough on crime" means in the US. Not that they will catch violent criminals faster or better, but they will prosecute minor crimes as if they were violent crimes. It's how many politicians leverage the fear of crime to get elected.
Our criminal justice system is broken where innocent people should fear getting incarcerated because: 1. Almost everything is a crime and 2. Every crime is prosecuted harshly for political points. (look at me, I'm tough on crime, I imprisoned 300 criminals).
As an European the United States needs proper reform of its judicial/law system, or whatever you call the dreadful thing where you can imprison a person for 10 years because of non-violent property crime. Unfortunately I've read that the new VP had built her career partially on being tough on crime, hope that those people were wrong/lying or (if they were correct) that she'd be able to see that that's not the best road going forward.
Even American prisons tend to have offenders split into violent and non-violent institutions based on offence. In here it is burglary, so I guess they counted it as violent.
But, that UK hacker that got arrested after black hat was in non-violent section.
And the fact that smoking remains legal indoors in prisons. I get that there would be extra stress from withdrawal for new inmates, but it might let them quit a nasty, expensive habit while they're in. Plus, it's bad for the health of everyone in there, whether they're smoking or not, including the guards; they have no choice in being able to get away from smokers like you would do on the outside.
Sorry but this is ridiculous. Your solution to inmates having crappy lives is to impose even more arbitrary restrictions on them? This would make sense only if they could voluntarily go outside for a smoke whenever they want or go to a special smoking room or whatever.
> Your solution to inmates having crappy lives is to impose even more arbitrary restrictions on them?
What about the other prisoners and guards who don't smoke having smoke imposed on their lungs? Isn't that ridiculous? I'm suggesting we make this fairer, by not forcing inmates to breathe poisonous fumes in addition to serving their sentences. What makes prisons special compared to every other indoor public space (in most western countries) where it is banned - why are they exempt?
In a small space like a prison where people by definition can't get out, it seems draconian to let people smoke in light of the fact that there are others who don't want to inhale that and may have medical conditions exacerbated by it. By default, the recreational hobby of smoking should be disallowed.
>And the fact that smoking remains legal indoors in prisons.
This is like saying "OMG, <thing that is regulated by the states> isn't illegal in the US". Prisons are run by the states. Jails are usually run by the counties. Banning tobacco across the board for prisoners and staff is common because it becomes one less potential avenue of illicit trade between the guards and prisoners. Just because there isn't a law against doesn't mean it's not usually prohibited in practice.
No need to overreact. My point was that prisons are often exempt from local legislation regarding smoking in indoor public places, in the US and elsewhere [1]. I find this to be strange - it seems to punish prisoners who don't smoke over and above their sentence, and staff.
It looks like he's on his third go-around, and was probably jailed immediately on a parole or probation violation on his third offense (which explains how he's been away for 6 years despite his current sentence being 5 years). I don't know if he's also going to have to serve more time due to probably having violated his parole for earlier offences.
I hope he gets his life together, for his sake and the sake of his family. It's a shame that he couldn't have been diverted into a first-offender program and rehab many years ago back at his first offense, rather than doing what looks like a 'revolving door' run through prisons.
I agree, it's crazy to take away ~1/7th of someone's life - during their most productive years - for theft. Are we to believe that it takes 10 years to "fix" someone of their theft problem? Did it take 10 years for them to form it? I expect in most cases the theft problem would go away at the same time as the drug problem the writer explains they had.
There are two common ways to get a crazy prison sentence.
Drug and/or gun possession often acts as a multiplier on sentencing guidelines for whatever the underlying crime is.
Multiple contacts with the system (three strikes laws and parole/probation violations) tend to have compounding sentences so screwing up on parole or probation can net you an additional sentence than in addition to time served adds up to longer than whatever the longest sentence you would get as a standalone is.
Also fighting the charge typically results in a high sentence, i.e. not taking the plea deal. Prosecutors notoriously over charge and if you fight it, you typically get the over charge time. See Aaron Schwartz.
This is a particularly nasty thing; if you are innocent and plead your innocence you will be penalized. If a plea bargain is just why should it be withheld ? The answer of course is that it is cheaper for the system to get people through without a serious trial; what value does a society like that truly put on liberty?
The three-strikes law is pure abomination, I've first learned about it watching "Oz" (the TV series) in the early 2000s, couldn't believe that that was real (I don't live in the States). 15 years have passed and there is still no real conversation about abolishing it.
Why? I don't have a well-formed opinion on this type of policy but there is a balance between prioritizing justice for victims and rights of victimizers. Behind every single strike are innocent people who have been hurt by the individual and at some point, you have to take steps to protect them from someone who just doesn't want to stop.
You also can't take away all agency from that individual. Those strikes are collected through many years and multiple prison sentences - at that point, it's a decision to continue.
Putting a person in prison for life for three separate shop-lifting sentences is inhuman (just an example I thought of myself right now but I'm pretty sure it's real).
I know you're proving something here, but I'm not sure what. The first example they cite is a man who was convicted for multiple robberies (robbery is a violent crime, by the way), and even after a string of prison stints, he goes and shoplifts. What is he thinking? What in the world is he doing to his life!?!?!? As is typical of this kind of slant, all agency is removed from him. He is not responsible for going to prison, society is.
I understand what the arguments are, and I agree with the length of sentences ... to a point, but I'm always frustrated that victims are ignored in these arguments and the focus is always on the rights of the abuser. The context for 'three-strike' type of policy is the high level of crime in America and an attempt to protect and provide justice to law-abiding citizens who are victimized by these individuals.
tldr; Don't get addicted to drugs folks, or you will end up like Ryan M. Moser. He didn't end up for prison from drugs per say, but from stealing to get more drugs.
This is why the initiative to decriminalize all drugs in Oregon is important, because it is setting up treatment centers to treat the addiction. It won't save people from stealing but could give many the treatment they need to not be in such a position to begin with.
I've read and heard that size doesn't mean anything in prison. If you're a horse you'll just get jumped by 8 dudes. If that fails, next time 10 dudes. It isn't like the movies.
What you've read is a distorted stereotype. Prisons are extraordinarily violent places by normal standards, but "extraordinarily violent" means that something like 20% of prisoners report being assaulted. A substantial majority of prisoners can expect to avoid being seriously victimized, although I want to be clear that I'm not implying that unlucky 20% somehow deserve it.
I'm going to guess that most prisoners that are assaulted don't report it. That 20% DO REPORT IT implies a much higher number that are assaulted and don't say anything.
The number is based on third-party surveys (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811042/) - those surveys could still be biased, but I don't know that there's any better way to get this information and there's no obvious reason the prisoners would be incentivized to lie. You're definitely right that most assaults aren't reported to the prison authorities, for obvious reasons of retaliation.
