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The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

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Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#71

Post by sgt101 »

rdtsc wrote: post #5

People talk about institutional evil. This is an example of it. You can almost trace their thinking "Oh, so solitary is bad now. We'll fix it. Put two people in a 10x4 cell. See, not solitary anymore, and we doubled the capacity too. Bonuses for everyone". Ideally you'd think those who made those decision would be disciplined, pensions would be cut, etc. But nothing like that is gonna happen. Even if the family wins…

What would you do in response to the stated fact of "162% occupancy" ? Where are they supposed to put the 62% ?

This isn't a tech company hot desking staffers or pulling in home workers to save money. These are people sitting on a powder keg - I wonder why any of them do it and the best two responses I can come up with is that either no one will ever give them any other job or alternatively that they are doing their best to do good as they see it. I think option 1 is a clear product of having a situation like 162% we should thank the heavens above (and the people concerned) for option 2.

I doubt that there's a penny of bonus money in play.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#72

Post by cnvogel »

zanny wrote: post #45
stopinsanity16 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(US point-of-view): in case one ignores the blaring media headlines and the incessant political noise on TV and via unsolicited phone calls, I must inform that this is an election year in this country. There is still plenty of time to mobilize disenfranchised voters to perform a "regime change" to ensure that the people who gave us private jails, funding cuts for schools , increased corporate welfare, "war on drugs",…

The problem we are seeing this election cycle is the undemocratic consequence of first past the post. The American republic has degenerated so direly that, as is par for the course, the American people will once again be given only two choices for president (and likewise, at most two choices in every other ballot position they are eligible in this November, besides the most local of elections) of which very few non-h…

    > the American people will once again be
    > given only two choices for president
They might on "final election night", but the same people who will have (most likely) to choose between the lesser of two evils, had the opportunity to nominate different candidates up to right now...

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#73

Post by jMyles »

sgt101 wrote: post #71
rdtsc wrote: post #5

People talk about institutional evil. This is an example of it. You can almost trace their thinking "Oh, so solitary is bad now. We'll fix it. Put two people in a 10x4 cell. See, not solitary anymore, and we doubled the capacity too. Bonuses for everyone". Ideally you'd think those who made those decision would be disciplined, pensions would be cut, etc. But nothing like that is gonna happen. Even if the family wins…

What would you do in response to the stated fact of "162% occupancy" ? Where are they supposed to put the 62% ? This isn't a tech company hot desking staffers or pulling in home workers to save money. These are people sitting on a powder keg - I wonder why any of them do it and the best two responses I can come up with is that either no one will ever give them any other job or alternatively that they are doing their…

> What would you do in response to the stated fact of "162% occupancy" ? Where are they supposed to put the 62% ?

I'm not sure I understand all of your comment, but the answer to this part is clear: release them and another 80% on top of them. Almost nobody (statistically speaking) in prison actually belongs there.

> I wonder why any of them do it > I doubt that there's a penny of bonus money in play.

You have discounted mental illness as an explainer. Some people who work in "corrections" exhibit signs of serious psychopathy, and the job seems to be a way of self-medicating.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#74

Post by jMyles »

Nutmog wrote: post #26
rdtsc wrote: post #5

People talk about institutional evil. This is an example of it. You can almost trace their thinking "Oh, so solitary is bad now. We'll fix it. Put two people in a 10x4 cell. See, not solitary anymore, and we doubled the capacity too. Bonuses for everyone". Ideally you'd think those who made those decision would be disciplined, pensions would be cut, etc. But nothing like that is gonna happen. Even if the family wins…

It's fair for taxpayers to pay for it because they're also the voters who voted for the system. Most people actually want more horrible prisons, they want solitary confinement, they want prisoners to kill each other, they want long sentences. That's why it happens. So isn't it quite reasonable to push the cost back onto those people when they get sued?

> Most people actually want more horrible prisons, they want solitary confinement, they want prisoners to kill each other, they want long sentences.

Source?

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#75

Post by rtpg »

gnaritas wrote: post #37
superuser2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also what happens when well-intentioned people are vastly more successful at fighting prison construction than fighting mass incarceration. Our prisons are routinely at 1.5x, 2x, 3x capacity. Being against the prison industrial complex feels good, but in doing so you become directly, personally responsible for the fact that there are now 3 people in a cell meant for one, people living on cots in a gymnasium w…

There's a simple solution to that, set people free. We don't need to build more prisons, we already imprison more of our population than any other country in the world, we have too many prisons and too many people in them. We need to imprison less people. Release all inmates who committed victim-less crimes, if more room is needed, release all inmates who committed non violent crimes-there are better ways to deal wit…

I agree that we should have less people in prison.

In order to be lucid about the situation though, it's important to realise that a very large part of the prison population is in there for violent offences. Even knowing this, I still believe we should be reducing sentences (I have a hard time justifying putting anyone in a cage for 15 years as a punishment...) but there probably needs to be some alternative things going on too.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#76

Post by danieltillett »

A terrible story. The thing that sticks with me is the whole situation was rational. You have a murderer who will never be released (nothing to lose) who wants to live alone. The only way he can get this is to kill someone and we somehow expect anything other than the outcome that resulted.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#77

Post by gozur88 »

ljf wrote: post #65
gozur88 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, so solitary is bad now. We'll fix it. Put two people in a 10x4 cell. See, not solitary anymore, and we doubled the capacity too. Bonuses for everyone I doubt that. The people running the system don't decide how many inmates they get or how many beds they have. They put people where they have to put them. And they have to deal with this kind of fallout. They're doubling up because they don't have room to do anyth…

Are they all government employees? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison

Did you read the article?

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#78

Post by bitwize »

Natsu wrote: post #44
llamataboot wrote: post #15

Mass Incarceration is truly one of those things I can't think too much about or I just feel an unrelenting hopelessness and rage. It seems absolutely diabolical to me that in the United States we have simply taken away the humanity of so many people (with absolutely egregious racial and class disparities) in the name of keeping "us" "safer". Not only is it an absolute failure from a moral perspective, it doesn't work…

These are two murderers who decided to kill each other. There are good reasons to leave people like that in actual solitary, so that they're unable to hurt others, but killing each other was never a human response. Nor, given their history, can I glibly conclude that prison made them that way, when all evidence is that the causal arrow points in the opposite direction. I may be somewhat biased. My mother was murdered…

So let's leave the cold-blooded killers in prison and put the inmates there on nonviolent drug offenses under house arrest or something.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#79

Post by sgt101 »

jMyles wrote: post #73
sgt101 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do in response to the stated fact of "162% occupancy" ? Where are they supposed to put the 62% ? This isn't a tech company hot desking staffers or pulling in home workers to save money. These are people sitting on a powder keg - I wonder why any of them do it and the best two responses I can come up with is that either no one will ever give them any other job or alternatively that they are doing their…

> What would you do in response to the stated fact of "162% occupancy" ? Where are they supposed to put the 62% ? I'm not sure I understand all of your comment, but the answer to this part is clear: release them and another 80% on top of them. Almost nobody (statistically speaking) in prison actually belongs there. > I wonder why any of them do it > I doubt that there's a penny of bonus money in play. You have discou…

>I'm not sure I understand all of your comment, but the answer to this part is clear: release them and another 80% on top of them. Almost nobody (statistically speaking) in prison actually belongs there

I was flagging the challenge faced by administrators forced to deal with overcrowding. They do not have the mandate or authority to release any of their wards, but if they did I broadly agree with your approach.

I would argue that there are numbers of people who should be in prison, but I agree that the USA and UK appear to incarcerate vastly more people than necessary.

>You have discounted mental illness as an explainer. Some people who work in "corrections" exhibit signs of serious psychopathy, and the job seems to be a way of self-medicating.

I am biased as my mother worked as a prison officer for a while and I met some of her work mates. They did not appear to be divergent from the population. I am sure that there are some people in the prison administration system who are evil or mad, there are people like that in all organisations, but I doubt that they have the sway that is being attributed to them in the OP. Evil and madness on the part of prison staff is not responsible for the great part of the suffering inflicted by the system.

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