Abu Ghraib torturer freed before serving full sentence

[Darth Fanboy]

Background checks, plus the huge gap in employment history that will have any employer questioning otherwise.

[Winston Blake]

Would YOU want to employe a person who was discharged from the army for brutally torturing people?

I'd rather give him work than force him into further criminality and have him potentially brutalize even more people. There's such a thing as second chances. I think everyone has deserved at least one such. Maybe he fucks that one up too, but maybe he doesn't and betters himself. That's prospect enough.

Come on, people! There's such a thing as resocialisation and it's not just bleeding-heart humanism calling for it.

I agree with the spirit of your first sentence, although I consider your second and third sentences to be, uh, 'bleeding heart'. Really, the problem is that it's 'good' for society in general for him to be able to pay the bills, but it's 'bad' for anyone or any company to actually hire him. A job fundamentally involves responsibility - and he's shown a staggering lack of responsibility. I see 3 'solutions' to this:

• - He gets hired by a gang (to whom his DD is 'cred').
  - He finds some special dead-end job where he interacts with no-one and has no real responsibility, pushing buttons all day.
  - He returns to prison one way or another, under constant supervision, giving haircuts and making furniture or license plates or whatever.

Actually, you'd think the prison would run some kind of 'job skills program' so discharged prisoners would have a kind of official 'substitute work history'. I.e. some dummy qualification which at least shows they can do manual tasks with decreasing levels of supervision. Maybe this already exists, I don't know.

[Eulogy]

On the list of things that prevent you from getting a job the only thing higher than a Dishonorable discharge is "Registered Sex Offender"

Being a registered sex offender is worse than a DD. All the employment problems, plus the housing restrictions means an offender is forced into homelessness, and the fact that the registry is publicly available means you're a target for psycho Dexter wannabes.

The real kicker, though? You can become a sex offender for little mistakes like being a 17 year old sleeping with a 15 year old, or being unfortunate enough to have some bastard pull your pants down in front of a group of students. People who do not deserve to be on the registry are, and they are fucked for life because of it.

• - He gets hired by a gang (to whom his DD is 'cred').
  - He finds some special dead-end job where he interacts with no-one and has no real responsibility, pushing buttons all day.
  - He returns to prison one way or another, under constant supervision, giving haircuts and making furniture or license plates or whatever.

Or he becomes a drug dealer or does some other crime that is profitable.

[Highlord Laan]

And what would you alternative be metahive? Do you think a convicted criminal should get the same treatment as a law abiding citizen in the job market? Do you think that employers should be obligated to hire potentially dangerous or disruptive persons? Especially those with lasting infamy like the man in this case?

This isn't a guy who made a mistake, he is a criminal. While criminals do have basic rights and deserve to be treated equal under the law, said criminals must also deal with the long term consequences of their past mistakes also. The openings will not be as lucrative, but he should have thought of that harder before abusing prisoners.

Actually, I think Metahive is saying that Darth Cheney and Shrub the Lesser should be hauled up in front of the Hague and hit with war crimes charges, then treated the same was as a DD'd soldier.

[K. A. Pital]

If only Teggart forts were still around in Palestine and India. This guy could have had a field day. Now I'd say his only chances are Blackwater or something worse. PMCs do come dirtier than that.

[Lonestar]

Blackwater doesn't hire REMF Guardsmen. Even if they did, they wouldn't hire him because they have a government contract.

[Zaune]

Blackwater doesn't hire REMF Guardsmen. Even if they did, they wouldn't hire him because they have a government contract.

There are probably less reputable PMCs that will. Or rentacop outfits, I guess, the cheaper ones; background checks ain't cheap.

[Metahive]

I agree with the spirit of your first sentence, although I consider your second and third sentences to be, uh, 'bleeding heart'. Really, the problem is that it's 'good' for society in general for him to be able to pay the bills, but it's 'bad' for anyone or any company to actually hire him. A job fundamentally involves responsibility - and he's shown a staggering lack of responsibility.

So having one blot on the resume should blemish a person for life and effectively result in shunning that person from civilized society especially when said blot came about through his immediate superiors encouraging him to it? Then why did he even go to prison when his real punishment is arguably to become a permanent pariah? Then they might as well keep him in prison indefinitely. There at least he doesn't have to steal his food. It also beats becoming a mercenary which is liable to drive him back into human rights abuses only this time with even less oversight.

It's especially funny in light of this, a de facto amnesty for human rights abusers by the Obama administration. Sorry, can't see why this particular guy has to be punished for life while everyone else gets off scott-free.

Also, if "showing staggering amounts of irresponsibility" should be held against people indefinitely then the US electorate would have a lot to answer for considering what their government has been up to with their explicit approval.

[Darth Fanboy]

A dishonorable discharge is far more serious than a "blot on a resume". This is tthe part where he has to redeem himself by keeping his ass out of trouble and doing what he can within the law. There is no law saying that he is not to find gainful employment, his chances have diminished but are people no longer supposed to be held responsible for mistakes? Are you going to continue grandstanding about this man's rights yet ignore the perfectly valid reaons that many avenues of employment would be denied to him?

There is nothing forcing him into a life of crime as you suggest he will fall into by result. If he does, it almost validates the idea that employwrs would not want to hire him to begin with. What he needs to do is stay the hell out of trouble and eventually he can have part of a normal life.

[Tiriol]

A dishonorable discharge is far more serious than a "blot on a resume". This is tthe part where he has to redeem himself by keeping his ass out of trouble and doing what he can within the law. There is no law saying that he is not to find gainful employment, his chances have diminished but are people no longer supposed to be held responsible for mistakes? Are you going to continue grandstanding about this man's rights yet ignore the perfectly valid reaons that many avenues of employment would be denied to him?

There is nothing forcing him into a life of crime as you suggest he will fall into by result. If he does, it almost validates the idea that employwrs would not want to hire him to begin with. What he needs to do is stay the hell out of trouble and eventually he can have part of a normal life.

How long the dishonorable discharge will stay on one's records? If the dishonorable discharge is permanent mark and it kills employment possibilities like described here, it will most likely lead to criminal activity. I think that is what Metahive is commenting on.

[Lonestar]

It's especially funny in light of this, a de facto amnesty for human rights abusers by the Obama administration. Sorry, can't see why this particular guy has to be punished for life while everyone else gets off scott-free.

Everyone who gets a DD or BCD gets the same treatment, not "this particular guy".

[Darth Fanboy]

How long the dishonorable discharge will stay on one's records? If the dishonorable discharge is permanent mark and it kills employment possibilities like described here, it will most likely lead to criminal activity. I think that is what Metahive is commenting on.

I believe it to be permanent, as is a felony conviction. If I am mistaken I am happy to be corrected. There are avenues where a dishonorable discharge can be cleared later but the process is quite difficult as I understand it.

Metahive's reasoning fails because the decreased employment opportunites does not necessitate a life of crime by any means. While opportunities are diminished they are far from non existent, and given hard work and time he could slowly begin to put it behind him. He also fails because he is conveniently ignoring the reasons that the employment opportunites are diminished, because some jobs aren't appropriate to hire criminals to perform and employers are under no obligation to hire them.

Now, should efforts be made to try and get dishonorable dischargees/felons jobs or job training so they can have the resources they need to get on the right track and live their lives? Absolutely. NYC Mayor Bloomberg is funding something along those lines (thought not exactly the same) right now w/George Soros. But that will not change the fact that the person has a criminal history, a history that is not erased just because the person is released from prison.

[Metahive]

Metahive's reasoning fails because the decreased employment opportunites does not necessitate a life of crime by any means. While opportunities are diminished they are far from non existent, and given hard work and time he could slowly begin to put it behind him. He also fails because he is conveniently ignoring the reasons that the employment opportunites are diminished, because some jobs aren't appropriate to hire criminals to perform and employers are under no obligation to hire them.

Ignoring nothing, fanboy. I'm attacking the whole idea of blacklisting people after they have served their prison time. Isn't the idea that getting put in prison is how wrongdoers atone for their crimes and once the term is completed the debt they incurred to society by committing a crime is considered paid off? Repeat offenders, OK, there might be a point in keeping track of them, but I don't see the same to be true for first-timers.

Also get it right, fanboy, I didn't say a life of crime is necessary, just more likely with a permanent blemish on the CV and I did mention that the outcome might as well him becoming a beggar under a bridge. Either outcome would make him a drain on society and I argue gratuitously so. I consider rehabilitation and resocialisation to be more important goals than retribution, especially one that goes beyond the court-mandated sentence.

[Darth Fanboy]

Ignoring nothing, fanboy. I'm attacking the whole idea of blacklisting people after they have served their prison time. Isn't the idea that getting put in prison is how wrongdoers atone for their crimes and once the term is completed the debt they incurred to society by committing a crime is considered paid off? Repeat offenders, OK, there might be a point in keeping track of them, but I don't see the same to be true for first-timers.

There is no "blacklist". What has happened is that conviction has rendered the person unsuitable for a large number of of jobs. Perhaps the person is physically and/or mentally capable, but mere capability does not make someone a good candidate for a position.

Also get it right, fanboy, I didn't say a life of crime is necessary, just more likely with a permanent blemish on the CV and I did mention that the outcome might as well him becoming a beggar under a bridge.

If I misrepresented you then I apologize, my response was towards Tiriol where, when representing your side of the debate, he said "it will most likely lead to criminal activity" which is quite different from "more likely." However, I still think your opinion is this thread is flawed, given the point I am going to reiterate once again coming up next.

Either outcome would make him a drain on society and I argue gratuitously so. I consider rehabilitation and resocialisation to be more important goals than retribution, especially one that goes beyond the court-mandated sentence.

While rehabilitation is a noble and worthwhile pursuit, the fact of the matter is that by comitting a crime, the criminal has rendered his or her self unsuitable for future job opportunities. No amount of empathy is going to change that, it is an unfortunate but inevitable consequence. Do you think businesses should be forced to hire ex-cons? My job involves supervising employees who are given varying degrees of responsbility with regards to cash handling. While an ex con would certainly be mentally and physically capable of the task I would not want that person handling money.

There is a really simple way to prevent this sort of stigma, and it's by not committing crimes in the first place.

[Winston Blake]

I agree with the spirit of your first sentence, although I consider your second and third sentences to be, uh, 'bleeding heart'. Really, the problem is that it's 'good' for society in general for him to be able to pay the bills, but it's 'bad' for anyone or any company to actually hire him. A job fundamentally involves responsibility - and he's shown a staggering lack of responsibility.

So having one blot on the resume should blemish a person for life and effectively result in shunning that person from civilized society especially when said blot came about through his immediate superiors encouraging him to it? Then why did he even go to prison when his real punishment is arguably to become a permanent pariah?

Firstly, I don't consider gleefully torturing prisoners and giving the thumbs up over mutilated corpses to be a mere 'one blot'. Secondly, it's not as if there's a law which says 'hear ye, hear ye, felons hereby must be shunned by all employers'. People just don't want to give responsibility to dangerous criminals. You would have to actually pass a law which forces employers to not discriminate against employees based on their criminal history, something which has been mentioned numerous times in this thread but which you seem to have ignored. Maybe the idea that primary schools don't want to hire someone who once raped a dozen little children to death seems 'unfair' to you - but that's the way the world does and ought to work.

Then they might as well keep him in prison indefinitely. There at least he doesn't have to steal his food. It also beats becoming a mercenary which is liable to drive him back into human rights abuses only this time with even less oversight.

Or if you finished reading my post you would see that it ends with a suggestion for an in-prison job skills program, which would give prisoners a chance to officially prove they can work responsibly and gain a limited work history during their term.

It's especially funny in light of this, a de facto amnesty for human rights abusers by the Obama administration. Sorry, can't see why this particular guy has to be punished for life while everyone else gets off scott-free.

Also, if "showing staggering amounts of irresponsibility" should be held against people indefinitely then the US electorate would have a lot to answer for considering what their government has been up to with their explicit approval.

I'm having trouble following your logic (which I assume is somewhere under the righteous indignation and sarcasm). If I pointed out an example of a corporate fat cat using his connections to get out of a murder conviction, would that absolve all murderers? Because otherwise it's 'oh so unfair'? In an ideal world the Bush mafia and everyone responsible would be similarly charged with serious crimes, and the US electorate genuinely has shown staggering complacency.

Isn't the idea that getting put in prison is how wrongdoers atone for their crimes and once the term is completed the debt they incurred to society by committing a crime is considered paid off?

Short version: no. How would you feel if you had a 10-year-old sister, and you found out the man hired to babysit her was convicted of molesting a little girl and raping her to death and never showed any remorse? Yet he 'served his time'?

[Metahive]

Firstly, I don't consider gleefully torturing prisoners and giving the thumbs up over mutilated corpses to be a mere 'one blot'.

It is the one crime he was convicted for, ergo one blot. According to the article he was released early due to good behaviour and participation in prison labor programs, the very thing you proposed as rehabilitation measure.

Secondly, it's not as if there's a law which says 'hear ye, hear ye, felons hereby must be shunned by all employers'. People just don't want to give responsibility to dangerous criminals. You would have to actually pass a law which forces employers to not discriminate against employees based on their criminal history, something which has been mentioned numerous times in this thread but which you seem to have ignored. Maybe the idea that primary schools don't want to hire someone who once raped a dozen little children to death seems 'unfair' to you - but that's the way the world does and ought to work.

I never said people should be forced to hire convicts so I haven't ignored anything. I argued that rehabilitation and reintegration should take precedence over retribution. A conviction should not be the one deciding factor to not hire someone, rather it should be taken into consideration if the convict has improved himself since his trial. I'm offering a personal opinion on this issue. You can agree or disagree with this opinion, but I'm not making prescriptive statements.

Or if you finished reading my post you would see that it ends with a suggestion for an in-prison job skills program, which would give prisoners a chance to officially prove they can work responsibly and gain a limited work history during their term.

Graner supposedly took part in such programs, yet people here are eager to tell me that he's barred by law from even burger-flipping despite such rehabilitation efforts. Considering the current abysmal situation of the US labor market, the odds of him not reintegrating successfully are considerable or so I would argue.

I'm having trouble following your logic (which I assume is somewhere under the righteous indignation and sarcasm). If I pointed out an example of a corporate fat cat using his connections to get out of a murder conviction, would that absolve all murderers? Because otherwise it's 'oh so unfair'? In an ideal world the Bush mafia and everyone responsible would be similarly charged with serious crimes, and the US electorate genuinely has shown staggering complacency.

If I had said anywhere that Graner didn't deserve his prison sentence you would have a point. I didn't. I'm commenting on the mockery of justice that is the fact that punishment in this case is meted out very unevenly and seemingly at random.

[Darth Fanboy]

I never said people should be forced to hire convicts so I haven't ignored anything.

Well it certainly appears so, because you keep complaining about how his future employment prospects are a steep punishment, when in fact it is not part of his punishment but rather the consequences of his own actions. Regardless of how you feel about people with criminal records and finding employment, you cannot deny that the problems he faces are the result of his own doing.

Graner supposedly took part in such programs, yet people here are eager to tell me that he's barred by law from even burger-flipping despite such rehabilitation efforts. Considering the current abysmal situation of the US labor market, the odds of him not reintegrating successfully are considerable or so I would argue.

Those people are mostly exaggerating, the legal barriers apply mostly to government jobs and jobs with contracts from the government itself. The majority of barriers he will face are those of discriminating employers looking out for their own business interests.

[AMT]

Bowing out as the conversation has moved past my responses (which would thus be redundant and provide nothing)

[Winston Blake]

Firstly, I don't consider gleefully torturing prisoners and giving the thumbs up over mutilated corpses to be a mere 'one blot'.

It is the one crime he was convicted for, ergo one blot. According to the article he was released early due to good behaviour and participation in prison labor programs, the very thing you proposed as rehabilitation measure.

It was the diminution of these crimes to a 'blot' that I disagreed with, not the total number. Further, he was actually convicted of a bunch of different charges. Note that Anders Breivik was also a 'first time offender'. Anyway, this is arguing over personal semantics and tangential to the argument.

I never said people should be forced to hire convicts so I haven't ignored anything. I argued that rehabilitation and reintegration should take precedence over retribution. A conviction should not be the one deciding factor to not hire someone, rather it should be taken into consideration if the convict has improved himself since his trial. I'm offering a personal opinion on this issue. You can agree or disagree with this opinion, but I'm not making prescriptive statements.

OK, whatever, I previously had a different impression of your position and I don't really care if you're backpedaling or if I was unintentionally strawmanning. I agree with this view anyhow.

I'm having trouble following your logic (which I assume is somewhere under the righteous indignation and sarcasm). If I pointed out an example of a corporate fat cat using his connections to get out of a murder conviction, would that absolve all murderers? Because otherwise it's 'oh so unfair'? In an ideal world the Bush mafia and everyone responsible would be similarly charged with serious crimes, and the US electorate genuinely has shown staggering complacency.

If I had said anywhere that Graner didn't deserve his prison sentence you would have a point. I didn't. I'm commenting on the mockery of justice that is the fact that punishment in this case is meted out very unevenly and seemingly at random.

I see - there is no logic to be found, since it was not meant to logically support your position, but was rather just a tangential comment.

[Bakustra]

Okay. So why exactly do we let people out of prison, if we deem that they cannot be trusted with anything beyond menial labor afterwards? Why not make all felony convictions require imprisonment for life? Because that is what you appear to be advocating, Fanboy. If the point of prison is rehabilitation, then we need to rethink how we treat people who have been convicted of felonies. If the point of prison is punishment, then we need to rethink how we sentence people. You used the example of whether somebody with a DUI should be allowed to drive a school bus. I say that if they are truly rehabilitated, then they are exactly as safe as anybody else. But what you're saying is that they cannot be rehabilitated, since you're proposing a permanent exclusion. So what do you have to defend the notion that regret and rehabilitation are impossible for these scofflaws and crooks?

But what underlies this? It is the old saw of the "criminal mind", the idea that criminals are Other. They are not us, they are not human, really, and they are not comprehensible. One cannot let a criminal (unless their crime is socially acceptable) within one's social circles, because who knows what a criminal might do! That is what gives us this passive acceptance of a created underclass in our midst. It is what underlies our passive acceptance of prison rape and prison brutality too. It's what has given us the highest incarceration rate in the world. Meanwhile, The Kernel's blather about corporations is a more capitalist insanity. That is endemic to the US too, but is a little beyond the scope of this post.

So if we accept the underlying premise- the foundation- that criminals are somehow inherently different, that by committing crimes they exile themselves from humanity altogether and in perpetuity (as long as that crime fits within a specific social framework), then let us jump closer to the top. Let us consider murder. Indeed, people would well shy away from the thought of letting murderers work alongside real people. But if we accept that murdering someone makes you alien and monstrous, what of a line infantryman coming back from Afghanistan with two insurgents dead at his hands, or even one? Hasn't he then alienated himself from humanity, too? Shouldn't we exclude him from society, ban him from all but the most menial of jobs, and grind him down, too? After all, he's more dangerous than the typical murderer, seeing as he's been trained to dehumanize and depersonalize his killing, whereas murders tend to be crimes of immediate passion. And he's been trained to avoid regret and remorse, whereas the murderer has not, so he's less likely to feel guilt for killing people!

But there is barely anyone within the US who would suggest treating soldiers who have killed like we treat civilians who have murdered. I would say that there are few in the whole world who would say that. We have done so, especially in the aftermath of Vietnam, and indeed used the same rhetoric of Vietnam vets being Just Different to justify it, but now we feel that the gigantic rates of homelessness amongst veterans are a terrible thing. But we are willing to treat murderers, and all the people who commit crimes less serious than murder, in exactly the same way.

Now, if you could successfully argue that there is some inherent psychological difference, one that is not socially constructed, between a soldier killing and a civilian killing, then this argument would fall apart. But as it stands, what we have left is the realization that the way we treat criminals, even the most serious among them, is a social construct that is not based in the material. We take some killers and lift them up upon pedestals, and we take others and try to sympathize, and yet others we seek to stuff into a Hell from which they will never leave, where we will torment them for life while we yearn for it to be eternal. And this goes on down the line, all the way to people with enough marijuana to be charged with dealing. Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

[Teebs]

Does the US not have something akin to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act? This allows criminals to behave as if they have never had a conviction if they stay clean for a certain amount of time after being released. It also prohibits discrimination should employers somehow find out that an applicant/employee has a spent conviction.*

Anyway, that doesn't seem objectionable to me as a gradual rehabilitation process. Employers are allowed to discriminate for a while, because up to a point they shouldn't be forced to employ potentially unsuitable candidates, but if that person can prove they can be trusted in society then discrimination becomes illegal (and it's much harder to find out they were a criminal anyway).

Maybe having a criminal record is less of a bar to employment here though? I don't have the impression that a record makes it impossible to get a job (although obviously it's harder).



*There are a few professions which are excluded for reasons that should be obvious such as lawyers and teachers. In these cases they have the right to know about all previous convictions and can discriminate based on them.

[Bakustra]

No, it does not have an act like that. Convictions as a minor are sealed upon reaching majority, but that's it for the US. I think that, or something like it, would be necessary towards countering societal prejudices and making our justice system more rehabilitative. The US is overall pretty crazy about crime in a variety of different directions.

[SVPD]

I would have to look into the details of this, but to my understanding it is possible to eventually get a Bad Conduct or Dishonorable Discharge adjusted to a General Discharge, although I don't know that this is universally available.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Why is this a surprise? Most people don't serve a full sentence, they get off for good behavior after 50%-66% on probation.

If it's any consolation, the man is still fucked royally for the rest of his life. A felony conviction combined with having a dishonorable discharge on his record means he isn't going to be able to get any sort of decent job for the rest of his life. Personally I'd say this guy frying burgers until his sunset years is a pretty good punishment compared to having the government have to pay for feeding and housing him.

So, the perfect punishment for torture is the life anyone under 30 can look forward to? That's depressing in two different ways.

[Zaune]

There are a few professions which are excluded for reasons that should be obvious such as lawyers and teachers. In these cases they have the right to know about all previous convictions and can discriminate based on them.

Actually, this has been expanded to any profession where you might have contact with children now, thanks to the Soham, murders, which could presumably include McDonalds if they were inclined to spend about £70 per employee for a background check. The "enhanced" check also brings up just about every contact you've ever had with the police, up to and including a telling-off for having your music too loud now that they're expected to keep records of absolutely everything.
The fact these rules exist in the first place should tell you exactly how much of a sense of proportion many employers have about a criminal record, however ancient or trivial.