Zaune wrote:Then again, preventing prisoners from getting hold of narcotics shouldn't be an insurmountable problem either, but we can't seem to manage that in this country.
It's not just narcotics, they do the same with weapons on occasion and seem to be very good and getting information disseminated into, out of, and across prisons. I was watching on of the NatGeo specials on this and it was absolutely mindbogglingly the shit that was going on. It was all gang / organized crime related though, but many of them essentially have their own intelligence / information service working full time in US prison system. On second thought maybe call centers wouldn't be a good idea.
Mr. Harley: Your impatience is quite understandable.
Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I'm very sorry... I wish it were otherwise.
"I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." – Frankenstein's Creature on the glacier[/size]
Temujin wrote:It's not just narcotics, they do the same with weapons on occasion and seem to be very good and getting information disseminated into, out of, and across prisons. I was watching on of the NatGeo specials on this and it was absolutely mindbogglingly the shit that was going on. It was all gang / organized crime related though, but many of them essentially have their own intelligence / information service working full time in US prison system. On second thought maybe call centers wouldn't be a good idea.
You can't be serious. I'm sure a lot of prison guards can see the inherent advantages to their charges all being too stoned to riot, but smuggling in weapons? There's either some seriously big backhanders or some truly epic incompetence happening there.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Temujin wrote:It's not just narcotics, they do the same with weapons on occasion and seem to be very good and getting information disseminated into, out of, and across prisons. I was watching on of the NatGeo specials on this and it was absolutely mindbogglingly the shit that was going on. It was all gang / organized crime related though, but many of them essentially have their own intelligence / information service working full time in US prison system. On second thought maybe call centers wouldn't be a good idea.
You can't be serious. I'm sure a lot of prison guards can see the inherent advantages to their charges all being too stoned to riot, but smuggling in weapons? There's either some seriously big backhanders or some truly epic incompetence happening there.
Inmates are unbelievably resourceful. "smuggling in weapons" generally doesn't mean guns; it means knives or improvised versions thereof (although guns aren't unheard of). They come up with all kinds of clever ways of hiding them and I don't just mean in their asshole either.
The most amazing one was told to me by a friend who is a Lieutenant at an Ohio prison near where I live. This guy smuggled in a sword. Not a real sword like you would buy, but an improvised blade long enoughto be a sword. He had itin the crevace formed by his spine and pulled his shoulders back so that it wasn't visible from the outside. They found it on the entry search, but it was a complete surprise. There was no indication whatsoever that this guy had such an unusual weapon, nor any visual clues to its presence. Only good thorough search techniques kept it out of the institution.
Shit like this is why I'm kind of glad it isn't legal to go around punching people in the crotch. You'd be able to track my movement from orbit from the sheer mass of idiots I'd leave lying on the ground clutching their privates in my wake. -- Mr. Coffee
I've personally seen a porn DVD masquerading as a harmless-looking music cd smuggled into a maximum security prison. I've also heard of real 'out there' stories like a guy had a gun smuggled in to him for a gangland hit and some guys have had mobile phones and wifi modems for their computers (you can get computers in Victorian jails, hell I got one myself, but they're not supposed to have wifi access, but one guy in a medium security prison was running an online business from inside his jail cell).
I've read a story that a US judge was discovered taking kick backs from the companies that contracted inmates from the prisons he sent criminals to.
And running prisons as smoothly and humanely as possible has always been very tough to do - back in the very late 1700s to early 1800s, when Britain was fighting against France, the first purpose built POW camp (arguably?) sprung up near Peterborough and was built in response to the truly awful conditions onboard prison ships, but still many hundreds of inmates died and a mini-underworld developed (with strip poker and knives).
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...' - Dr. Evil
'Secondly, I don't see why "income inequality" is a bad thing. Poverty is not an injustice. There is no such thing as causes for poverty, only causes for wealth. Poverty is not a wrong, but taking money from those who have it to equalize incomes is basically theft, which is wrong.' - Typical Randroid
'I think it's gone a little bit wrong.' - The Doctor
Kanastrous wrote:Is there a specific moral distinction between instructing a prisoner to sit in his cell, vs instructing that prisoner to spend his time performing useful, non-dangerous work? Why is requiring that the time be utilized in some relatively safe, useful way less moral than insisting that said prisoner sit on their bunk doing nothing? The state is obliged to expend resources on the prisoner's food, clothing, housing, medical care, etc, so why should there not be a reciprocal obligation on the prisoner's part to do something useful, for the state?
None whatsoever, and if Mr Blunt were talking about forming working parties of prisoners to mend the roads, unblock the drains and pick up litter for the county council then I'd be all for it.
But notice the part where he's talking about inviting British businesses into prisons to take advantage of "effectively free labour", whatever that might mean.
It basically means that the company gets sickeningly rich because they dont have to pay their labor a competitive wage. My inner deontologist screams at this. I am all in favor of using the prison system to reform prisoners. It is what a prison SHOULD do. Provide them with both marketable job skills AND a good liberal education in order to keep recidivism low. The problem with factory work is that it is all outsourced now anyway, so they dont get any marketable skills. The only thing that will happen here is that a company gets to use a captive labor poor in order to increase its profits, Additionally, corruption will result because there will now be a conflict of interest with regard to the state's goal of lowering the prison population and keeping recidivism low, and the financial interest in maintaining the prison labor pool.
If you want to put prisoners to work supporting their own upkeep, or doing useful work for the state, great. Awesome. Do not however line someone else's pockets with their labor.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
The issue that bothers me the most is more on the nature of creating economic incentives to convict as many people as possible for as long as possible so that you may benefit from their "free labor".
Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I think he's from the CIA.
Axiomatic wrote:The issue that bothers me the most is more on the nature of creating economic incentives to convict as many people as possible for as long as possible so that you may benefit from their "free labor".
For who? Corporations or the state? For Corporations yeah, for the state? Not so likely, it cost around 20-,000 a year to house an inmate. Most likely eliminating fiancial incentive.
Axiomatic wrote:The issue that bothers me the most is more on the nature of creating economic incentives to convict as many people as possible for as long as possible so that you may benefit from their "free labor".
For who? Corporations or the state? For Corporations yeah, for the state? Not so likely, it cost around 20-,000 a year to house an inmate. Most likely eliminating fiancial incentive.
There have been cases of judges getting kickbacks from companies that run private prisons. Just saying...
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
Axiomatic wrote:The issue that bothers me the most is more on the nature of creating economic incentives to convict as many people as possible for as long as possible so that you may benefit from their "free labor".
For who? Corporations or the state? For Corporations yeah, for the state? Not so likely, it cost around 20-,000 a year to house an inmate. Most likely eliminating fiancial incentive.
There have been cases of judges getting kickbacks from companies that run private prisons. Just saying...
True, but that's an existing problem of private prisons, I'm talking about the specific idea that the Government would jail people to get cheap labor for themselves. It could happen but it wouldn't be economical to do so, since the cost of housing them would almost be equivilent to giving them a 40-50,000 dollar job.
Darth Fanboy wrote:Laughing very hard at the name "Mrs. Crook" in that article.
Crispin Blunt brought a slight notice from me
Bakustra wrote: And that assumes that the wardens haven't decided that anybody using the library is a prison-cell lawyer and hints to the gangs to rough those people up. You see, Americans are tough on crime.
....da fuck? I know US prisons did some nasty shit but I do not remember that happening.
Also note that some revolutionaries & black nationalists got their start by reforming/leaning, or accurately relearning things in american prison (Malcolm X, as examp;e)
Temujin wrote:Some American prisons have such programs, but they seem to be rather limited, and there are issues as to who gets into these programs, staying in (gotta stay out of trouble, which is not always easy), and just being able to get studying done in what can be a chaotic environment.
From what I remember, Illinois prisons offer GED programs (equivalence to secondary school diploma)
"Opps, wanted to add; wasn't there a study about how really smart people lead shitty lives socially? I vaguely remember something about it, so correct me if I'm wrong. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that I'd rather let the new Newton or new Tesla lead a better life than have him have a shitty one and come up with apple powered death rays."
-Knife, in here
