Prison Nation [long] [image heavy]

[Netko]

Do you know whether Britain has a derogation from that or something similar? I'm pretty sure our prisons are not that 'pleasant'.

Apparently, it does not have a derogation or something similar (the relevant article is Article 3 of the ECHR). However, it isn't party to most of the optional protocols, including those that focus on rights in the justice system.

However, the above standards aren't yet considered in isolation, but in totality - for example, there are multiple cases where the ECHR accepted a mild failure to adhere to the standards in one area if it is compensated elsewhere (for example, cells smaller then 4 sq.m, but the prisoners not being forced to spend time in them except for sleep). Of course, such a practical approach is seen to be acceptable only exactly because otherwise they would have to shut down a lot of prisons - but if you're building a new prison in Europe, its going to be the dorm kind.

Here's an even more extreme example then the Finnish one of the kind of prisons envisioned by the European rehabilitation-centric policies:
http://www.carniola.org/2007/03/austria ... prison.htm

Yeah, it might seem like way to cushy, but then again, this approach works, as witnessed by Europe having the lowest crime rates (especially of violent crime) in the world - and especially in those countries practising fully the rehabilitationist policies.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

So, I guess Shep isn't planning on responding to people who brought up valid critiques of his arguments and evidence earlier in the thread?

I got other things to do; like clean up scans of some rare World War II US Naval Squadron insignia I just spent the day scanning in at the Washington Navy Yard. I'll get around to the other points when I damn well get around to them. In the meantime, fuck off.

I'm sensing a pattern here,

Never posted a single useful thing! Except those two threads you linked to from his nomination and the seven more you conveniently forgot about and every post since then longer than two lines. NOT A SINGLE THING!

I have better things to do tonight, like work on cleaning up my scans at the Archives II of various never built aircraft projects

Look, you pathetic little troll, you've shit the thread up once already, and now you're doing it again. So far you've brought nothing up but tangents and obvious bullshit everyone knows that doesn't apply to the topic of the thread.

Anyways, doing a little thinking here...

The USA has a lot of other problems to contemplate before prison.

For one, we have few real social safety nets; so to some people who are down and out, a relatively cosy "dorm room" style prison cell would actually be a damn good option.

Okay, I know this idea doesn't have a chance of passing in the US, but this was my first thought on seeing this: Why not combine prisons with sorta-free housing for down-and-out people? Here's the idea: Prison should be for rehabilitation. Why not offer some of the rooms for people down on their luck, free of rent with minimum health/nutrition requirements met, so long as they do constant volunteer work rehabilitating actual prisoners while they're there? Just basic stuff, socializing, teaching them basic skills, on the job training (for usual prison/work stuff, at the same reduced pay), etc.

For another, the US's hard-core strain of Puritanism that has been with us since the country's founding means that there are a lot of things criminalized in our country that may get a pass in European counties. Having possession of some marijuana, for example, was punishable by a certain mandatory minimum sentence, IIRC. I don't know if that is still the case.

Iirc correctly, a significant percentage of people in prison (20%+) are in there for drug-related charges.

Prison reform is needed, but there are many, many, many other things that also need to be done outside of prison to make prison reform realistic. Things that --for the most part-- won't happen because we have an almost hysterical anti-government feeling in our society that borders on the pathological.

You're preaching to the choir there, the US needs a major cultural overhaul before anything meaningful can get done.

But what scares me the most about the OP is, if even some of it is correct, a significant portion of the drug, gang and organized crime problems have their roots and main power structure inside of prison. I've known for a while that many gangs and drug-running organizations tend to 'recruit' heavily inside prison, but the sheer scope of it, and the possibility that this was initially supported by those in power, is terrifying. There is no way to get rid of the US gang and drug problems without major prison reform.

[Simon_Jester]

Oni, to be fair, I think the issue of people winding up in jail who ought to be in a mental institution is pretty legit. It doesn't justify genuine abusive treatment, like throwing shit at inmates. But it's definitely going create a large core of "incorrigible" inmates who cannot be treated within the prison system.

The only thing to do for them is get them in a mental hospital and stick them there. If that can't be done, they either wind up wandering around homeless or committing crimes, and if they commit crimes they're liable to end up in jail. At which point they start having to be restrained and kept under extremely tight watch.

So whichever president and whichever interest groups are responsible for it, and I'm not weighing in on that, the dearth of mental hospital beds for inpatients is a problem for the US penal system, one that cannot be blamed on the penal system itself.

[fgalkin]

So, I guess Shep isn't planning on responding to people who brought up valid critiques of his arguments and evidence earlier in the thread?

I got other things to do; like clean up scans of some rare World War II US Naval Squadron insignia I just spent the day scanning in at the Washington Navy Yard. I'll get around to the other points when I damn well get around to them. In the meantime, fuck off.

So you're running away like a little bitch with a skinned knee but are too much of a pussaholic to concede the point?

Ahh Flagg the great debater, bravely charging in to astound the world with his eloquence....

Since when is Shep required to answer your points on demand at times of your (well, not YOUR, since you have yet to raise one) choosing? I was under the curious impression that real life took precedence over things occurring on this board.


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Serafina]

To be fair, Shep's story has been kept straight (scanning the same stuff - no contradiction here), and he already posted something related in the History forum already.
Besides - not responding in detail immediately is hardly bad debating or a retreat.

Oni, to be fair, I think the issue of people winding up in jail who ought to be in a mental institution is pretty legit. It doesn't justify genuine abusive treatment, like throwing shit at inmates. But it's definitely going create a large core of "incorrigible" inmates who cannot be treated within the prison system.

It just shows the fundamental problem with the US-system:
Bad people ought to be punished, and to hell with the consequences.
By that way of thinking, mentally ill people do not deserve "special treatment" such as a mental institution.

That also shows when people think that it is somehow wrong to give prisoners a decent treatment, including decently comfortable cells etc.
A nation that thinks that prison needs to be cruel and be extremely uncomfortable in order to be effective just thinks that those people deserve such punishments - they essentially advocate something similar to torture and medieval dungeons.

However, they simply fail to realize that this will only create more problems on the long run - people that are treated in such a way will stay criminals. Essentially, someone who has once been to such a prison will stay a criminal.
In the long run, it's no more expensive to provide rehabilitation than to imprison someone all over again.
And it's certainly better for society, not to mention more humane.

[Temujin]

The USA has a lot of other problems to contemplate before prison.

For one, we have few real social safety nets; so to some people who are down and out, a relatively cosy "dorm room" style prison cell would actually be a damn good option.

And actually addressing some of the socio-economic concerns that help lead to a higher preponderance and reoccurrence of crime by individuals in some sectors of American society could actually go along way towards ultimate helping with the overall problems of the US prison system.

[Flagg]

So you're running away like a little bitch with a skinned knee but are too much of a pussaholic to concede the point?

Ahh Flagg the great debater, bravely charging in to astound the world with his eloquence....

Since when is Shep required to answer your points on demand at times of your (well, not YOUR, since you have yet to raise one) choosing? I was under the curious impression that real life took precedence over things occurring on this board.


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Wait, you're defending shep (since when is "real life" just posting shit on other parts of the board, btw?) and using the fact that I've not been an active participant against me... While not having been an active participant yourself. Magnificent.

[fgalkin]

So you're running away like a little bitch with a skinned knee but are too much of a pussaholic to concede the point?

Ahh Flagg the great debater, bravely charging in to astound the world with his eloquence....

Since when is Shep required to answer your points on demand at times of your (well, not YOUR, since you have yet to raise one) choosing? I was under the curious impression that real life took precedence over things occurring on this board.


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Wait, you're defending shep (since when is "real life" just posting shit on other parts of the board, btw?) and using the fact that I've not been an active participant against me... While not having been an active participant yourself. Magnificent.

Unlike you, I do not snipe at participants from the peanut gallery. As for pointing out that you are, I don't need to be a participant to do that.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Flagg]

Ahh Flagg the great debater, bravely charging in to astound the world with his eloquence....

Since when is Shep required to answer your points on demand at times of your (well, not YOUR, since you have yet to raise one) choosing? I was under the curious impression that real life took precedence over things occurring on this board.


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Wait, you're defending shep (since when is "real life" just posting shit on other parts of the board, btw?) and using the fact that I've not been an active participant against me... While not having been an active participant yourself. Magnificent.

Unlike you, I do not snipe at participants from the peanut gallery. As for pointing out that you are, I don't need to be a participant to do that.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Justify your hypocrisy all you want, big boy. You'll also notice I did in fact participate in this thread with one of the first responses, it just happened to get HoS'd along with Sheps trolling. So kindly go do what you're best at and shake your fist at a wall. Douche.

[Einzige]

You all have to understand that Shep doesn't really give a fuck about government spending when he agrees with what it's being spent on. Spending on prisons is a subsidization to rural rednecks, the class he's most conscious of.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Or for that matter Mr Sheppard's Juvie Assualt With a deadly weapon charge, followed by his getting busted by campus security assualting a female student, (who stole his chair in the common room preventing him from reading the captions on the TV screen) would have turned out quite differenttly if he was not of the European stock in this country. simple statistics show racism in justice still exists. and that folks like Ryan can get off lightly for discharging a shotgun at someone, but in Louisiana if a black person kicks a white, it's attempted murder.

[Temujin]

You all have to understand that Shep doesn't really give a fuck about government spending when he agrees with what it's being spent on. Spending on prisons is a subsidization to rural rednecks, the class he's most conscious of.

That's generally true of all Conservative hypocrisy.

• - No big government, except for the military, police, prisons, etc.
  - No wasteful government spending, unless its used for war, law enforcement, building a goddamn wall on the Mexican border.
  - Etc, etc. etc.

[The Yosemite Bear]

lets not forget spending money to keep darker than ivory folks from being stuck as a perminate underclass is racism, and wasting money. spending money to rub salt into the wounds of those same underclass, while giving prison/military wellfare for trailer trash, is just common sense.

(remember when this particular brown haired blue eyed boy was working as a volunteer fire fighter, he did apply for Tech support jobs for the CA prison industrial complex, unfortunatly aspergers/autistic ticks are a bad thing during the interview process, especially bad when they find out that you were able to find $70,000 in graft and embezzlement by their people when working on a fire together.)

[The Yosemite Bear]

note my first fire I worked on they were pimping the female prisoners, and selling us volunteers ampetamines so we could work those 48 on, 16 off shifts. A local rancher gave us volunteers and the prisoners each 6 sides of beef, the guards sold the excess to displaced residents for profit, (none of the fresh dead cow got to the prisoners, that was the part that the guards didn't eat), They didn't trust the prisoners with anything more than hand tools, but filed for replacements of two chainsaws per inmate, and a ton of fuel too.

remind me, not to be so honest during interviews with the same people's bosses a few years later.

[Alyeska]

Funny how you have time to reply in detail to people who responded later in the thread, but not to those who have valid criticisms of your "evidence" earlier in the thread.

Have you honestly known Shep to back down from discussions? He loves being the odd man out. So what exactly would he be doing here? BTW, don't answer that.

A friendly reminder to everyone.

No dogpiling. Give people time to answer. Not everyone sites in front of a computer all day long.

[Ritterin Sophia]

- No big government, except for the military, police, prisons, etc.

What if I like Big Government and Big Military?

[Samuel]

- No big government, except for the military, police, prisons, etc.

What if I like Big Government and Big Military?

Plotting to spread world revolution? Of course it depends what you mean by "Big Military", but people who want the armed force large enough to take on the rest of the world would probably be those seeking to exploit that capability. Unless you mean "I think that Democrats understanding of military policy sucks" in which case you'd be... rationalist isn't a political platform. Dang, I don't know the term.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Dang, I don't know the term.

I would use National Socialist if the Nazis hadn't have, but I'm confused as to what you would call a socialist who supports a large military.

[Norade]

Funny how you have time to reply in detail to people who responded later in the thread, but not to those who have valid criticisms of your "evidence" earlier in the thread.

Have you honestly known Shep to back down from discussions? He loves being the odd man out. So what exactly would he be doing here? BTW, don't answer that.

A friendly reminder to everyone.

No dogpiling. Give people time to answer. Not everyone sites in front of a computer all day long.

Looks like Shep has backed out here... His last post was well over 3 days ago and he has been online since. Last post on this board; Thu Jun 24, 2010 6:55 pm.

[Flagg]

It's his standard MO. I'd just mark it as a win and move on since no one will do a damned thing about it anyway.

[Norade]

Good to know that he has buddies like Alyeska to cover his ass every time he wants to duck out...

[The Yosemite Bear]

Alesakya and Ryan friends?

erm can you share some of that koolaide, it looks more like grateful dead grape then Jim Jones Juice mix.

[Norade]

Alesakya and Ryan friends?

erm can you share some of that koolaide, it looks more like grateful dead grape then Jim Jones Juice mix.

Then I was wrong, either way his ass got covered in this thread by somebody with the authority to tell us all to fuck off.

[Flagg]

I'd watch where you step, but welcome to SDN!

[Temujin]

- No big government, except for the military, police, prisons, etc.

What if I like Big Government and Big Military?

Well I don't have a problem with big government, just inefficient and ineffectual government, be it large or small. And while I think the military could use some necessary cuts, it needs some serious restructuring a lot more to put it on a more realistic and more efficient focus.

I just don't like the GOP's hypocrisy on the matter, that's all.