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Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

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Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#81

Post by acjohnson55 »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #77
btilly wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG, another terrible "think of the children" law. Did you know that 1/4 of all sex offenders offended as juveniles and are not particularly likely to reoffend as adults? Did you know that well under 5% of "convicted" people actually were convicted? The rest plea bargained out of a combination of not being able to afford trial, and facing much worse potential penalties if they tried to fight it. Before heaping more p…

Edit: Misread parent.

I think you may have read that wrong. I think he's saying that full 25% (the ones who offended as juveniles) are unlikely to be repeat offenders. The remaining 75%, convicted as adults, are presumably a much bigger concern.

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#82

Post by thomastjeffery »

ddlatham wrote: post #63
Ccecil wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in North Idaho. Many people in this area and Montana hunt exclusively for food. Every year they kill/butcher/freeze the meat and use it to supplement. Not everyone actually gets an animal and a large portion of those people are out there to just get drunk and camp...but there are many who do rely on the additional meat to get through the year. Especially in areas like this where people tend to shy away from th…

Is that: (hunt exclusively) for food? or hunt (exclusively for food)? I.e. do they get all of their food from hunting? (what GP asked) Or do they eat all that they hunt?

This is why I wish we used a postfix language. Precidence rules are always ambiguous.

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#83

Post by hkajshdf67 »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #77
btilly wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG, another terrible "think of the children" law. Did you know that 1/4 of all sex offenders offended as juveniles and are not particularly likely to reoffend as adults? Did you know that well under 5% of "convicted" people actually were convicted? The rest plea bargained out of a combination of not being able to afford trial, and facing much worse potential penalties if they tried to fight it. Before heaping more p…

Edit: Misread parent.

Remove juvenile after 75% of

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#84

Post by kbenson »

mschuster91 wrote: post #78
kbenson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g. you're sentenced to X years, get released earlier at Y years and are now on parole for X-Y years I think that's exactly what was meant as an "alternative" to serving their time. You state it yourself, they were sentenced to X, but only serve Y behind bars. They are offered the choice of some years outside prison but with restrictions instead of that time in prison.

The point of parole should be to prevent future criminal acts. Making "everyday crime" (like loitering, jaywalking, speeding, "driving with a broken light") a possible breach of parole defeats this purpose and thus is no alternative. It's keeping someone in constant fear.

> The point of parole should be to prevent future criminal acts.

I think you mean the point of enforcing the rules of and revoking parole is to prevent future crime? Sure. But parole, which is specifically something handed out for good behavior in prison and is in lieu of prison, is still better than prison. They are still serving a sentence, and it's not as bad as it would be in prison. There's lots of problems with how we treat felons and restrict their futures, but I do not consider strict parole rules part of that, given it's during the time allotted for their original sentence. Just because they are out of prison, doesn't mean their punishment is complete (in this case).

Put simply, in all cases I can think of, parole is better than prison, and that's what it should be compared to, because that's the other option (no parole). Comparing it to being completely free for the purpose of deciding whether it's fair is nonsensical to me.

Edit: s/Comparing it to not being/Comparing it to being/

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#85

Post by kasey_junk »

clamprecht wrote: post #79
kasey_junk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6/7/8 are not after a prisoner has "served their said time" its an alternative to that.

You are wrong. Look up federal supervised release. Source: I served it, after completing my federal sentence.

Sure there are sentences that include supervision up front and supervision that is given after sentencing as an alternative to completing the full sentence. But from the parents post that isn't in addition to "has served their said time", its part of the said time.

Are you suggesting that you got supervised release after completing your full sentence as outlined after your conviction?

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#86

Post by clamprecht »

kasey_junk wrote: post #85
clamprecht wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. Look up federal supervised release. Source: I served it, after completing my federal sentence.

Sure there are sentences that include supervision up front and supervision that is given after sentencing as an alternative to completing the full sentence. But from the parents post that isn't in addition to "has served their said time", its part of the said time. Are you suggesting that you got supervised release after completing your full sentence as outlined after your conviction?

For example, my sentence was 70 months prison (1 month under the maximum allowed), then 3 years supervised release (the maximum allowed for my crime). During that 3 years, if I violated any condition of supervised release (including accessing the Internet, or working as a programmer), I could have been sent back for 3 more years of prison. This is different from parole, where you are conditionally released before your original sentence is completed. In my case, they had to let me out when I completed the 70 months. They could not let me out any sooner or any later.

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#87

Post by ergothus »

convolvatron wrote: post #74
btilly wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG, another terrible "think of the children" law. Did you know that 1/4 of all sex offenders offended as juveniles and are not particularly likely to reoffend as adults? Did you know that well under 5% of "convicted" people actually were convicted? The rest plea bargained out of a combination of not being able to afford trial, and facing much worse potential penalties if they tried to fight it. Before heaping more p…

the criminal justice systems is always going to have flaws. sure we should try to address them. but it would also help a lot if we remembered that criminals are people. members of society who screwed up, felt they didn't have a choice, or have psychological problems. punish them, treat them, restrict them, but they aren't unhuman.

Agreed. (Related wall of text follows)

I've always thought a major issue with the criminal justice system is serving competing masters:

You want to punish people so OTHERS decide it would be a bad idea and don't try it

You want to punish people so THEY decide it was a bad idea, not worth doing again.

You want to redeem criminals, put them on a better path

You want to ensure the criminals do not post a further threat to society

But these goals contradict each other to a degree:

Punishing to send a message is something I suspect this only work for fringe crimes - most criminals aren't know for their expert cost/benefit analysis - and regardless, "send a message" punishment hurts efforts to redeem ("we're punishing you as a threat to others" isn't something that makes people think you're fair and worth listening too)

Punishing someone to ensure they think it's a bad idea probably works in terms of teaching cost/benefit, but there's the risk that you're teaching the opposite - Life in prison has got to suck, but if you get through it and discover there is no place in the outside world for you, you're socially ostracized, hard to employ, probably in a crappy financial situation...well, crime CAN pay, and you know you can survive the consequences if you do get caught (heck, at this point, crappy as it is, you're probably used to it - not enough to like it, but it would have some degree of comfort compared to the unfamilar-and-crappy situation you are in now. I could continue to armchair psychoanalyze the effects of living in a smaller community, but I think I've made enough unjustified statements.

Redemption directly pushes against the Punishment rules. Not because redeemed criminals can't accept the concept of "paying a debt to society" (I've always hated that phrase), but because (reportedly) rare is the prisoner that ARRIVES at prison redeemed, and starting with punishment and separating them from the situations that were the problems before generally does not help with dealing with those situations. (And this is assuming this is a "dumb" criminal that committed a stupid crime for stupid reasons. My mother told me as a young child to not commit a crime I couldn't retire on. I recommend this to parents of young children...it has an inherent logic that is harder for a child to dispute than "Just Don't". I credit it with keeping me out of trouble until I was old enough to appreciate the value of laws, respect, and morality. Anyway, there are doubtless OTHER criminals who truly had no better option - redeeming them by telling them how that is their fault and we'll punish them doesn't sound like it would succeed.

Sheltering society from the increased threat that a proven criminal represents largely doesn't care about Punishment or Redemption...but it doesn't help them at all. Redemption is easier of the criminals aren't removed from life. Punishment sounds like it is helped by this, but that goes back to the "what lesson are they learning", so if we're training career criminals, that makes the Sheltering concept currently a short term win for a long term loss.

All of this is based on my opinions that are largely formed from random articles and headlines (rarely in-depth) and likely too much influence from TV and movies (insert Law & Order DUM-DUM here) so no one should actually trust this. If, however, anyone has interesting insight or even actual knowledge to share, that'd be great - I have literally thought this general structure for the last 20+ years, so it obviously has some staying power in my brain even if I'm not motivated enough to do much research.

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#88

Post by wahern »

ahallock wrote: post #76
ransom1538 wrote: post #39

After a prisoner has served their said time [for felons]: 1) remove their right to vote [in florida 1/4 african americans can't vote] [i] 2) force them to divulge they are felons to all new employers 3) force them to tell their neighbors they are criminals [sex crime cases which often only involve one witness testimony] 4) garnish their wages 5) seize their property [drug cases] 6) place them on parole to increase me…

Call me simple-minded, but if you serve the time, you should regain all rights. How is any of this constitutional? Like, how can your right to vote be removed?

The concept of universal suffrage is a relatively recent thing. Indeed, it doesn't even exist given felon disenfranchisement.

Long story short, it's constitutional because the disenfranchisement of felons was expressly contemplated by the 14th Amendment.

  But when the right to vote at any [Federal] election ... is
  denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being
  twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,
  or in any way abridged, except for participation in
  rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation
  therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number
  of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male
  citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Technically speaking any kind of disenfranchisement is contemplated here. It's just that, excepting felons, the consequence is that a state loses representation. That said, most forms of disenfranchisement would be disallowed under Federal constitutional law for other reasons.

Re: Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet

#89

Post by haggy »

Qwertious wrote: post #68
haggy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by your statement. If "Ban != Access" then what's preventing courts from simply denying access (not a "Ban" under your assertion above) to people outside of prisons as well?

Suppose a state doesn't bother to install an internet connection in the prison, and confiscates phones with mobile data. This is denying access. Suppose someone is caught with an internet phone in jail and is hauled in front of a judge. If it's banned , then they can have their jail term increased.

Yea I understand the "If you're in prison" side of this but I feel like asserting "Ban != Access" makes the general public (i.e not in prison) side of this MUCH fuzzier.
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