Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

prisonism.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–119 of 119 posts

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#111

Post by stcredzero »

literallycancer wrote: post #108
stcredzero wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say I would not want to live in a society that "accommodates" the needs of rapists, murderers, child molesters as well as the various petty criminals. The communists did this in the Gulag system, by putting the rapists and murders -- who had obviously been victimized by the previous system -- in charge.

Pretty sure that wasn't intentional. It's just what happens in dangerous times -- dangerous people prosper.

Pretty sure that wasn't intentional. It's just what happens in dangerous times -- dangerous people prosper.

It was deliberate and ideologically driven. The people who were imprisoned by the previous repressive system must have been innocent victims of that system.

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#112

Post by gcb0 »

Koshkin wrote: post #24
gcb0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how to solve prisons in America: go full Liberal. states want private prisons. prisons should be to rehabilitate. so pay the prison business only if it delivers. i.e. pay private prisons on a rehabilitation rate instead of simply the number of inmates. it's not like you're expected to pay for damaged goods in a regular business transaction, so simply stop doing so with private prisons.

> prisons should be to rehabilitate What I personally appreciate the most is the simple fact of having dangerous people confined so that the danger to others (including myself) is no longer there.

you really dellude yourself that this works?

how about: prisons turns thousands of lowly offenders into hardened, violent criminals that will be out in innefective parole a few months down the road?

doesnt that make you more scared than "but at least 5 of them will be back in prision before commiting any seriously violent crime"

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#113

Post by pc86 »

foldr wrote: post #105
pc86 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruel and unusual, not cruel or unusual. SCOTUS has said about the death penalty specifically that it is without a doubt cruel; however, it is pervasive, and therefore not an unusual punishment. Therefore there is no Constitutional violation. I suspect a similar argument in the inverse rules out corporal punishment. Fifty lashes, even if less cruel than decades in prison, is certainly a cruel punishment. It's also ve…

Prohibitions against X and Y unfortunately tend to be grammatically ambiguous. If your read it as "prohibited to do X and prohibited to do Y" rather than "prohibited to do [X and Y]", then it is equivalent to "prohibited to do [X or Y]". So for example, the statement "It is prohibited to bring fruits and vegetables across the border" would usually be taken to prohibit bringing fruits or vegetables alone.

Ok. We can argue grammatical pedantry all we want, I'm just saying what SCOTUS has said with regard to its interpretation of 8A specifically. There are three things not allowed: 1) excessive bail required; 2) excessive fines imposed; 3) cruel and unusual punishment. The application of a cruel but common punishment doesn't fit #3.

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#114

Post by Invisig0th »

Koshkin wrote: post #24
gcb0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how to solve prisons in America: go full Liberal. states want private prisons. prisons should be to rehabilitate. so pay the prison business only if it delivers. i.e. pay private prisons on a rehabilitation rate instead of simply the number of inmates. it's not like you're expected to pay for damaged goods in a regular business transaction, so simply stop doing so with private prisons.

> prisons should be to rehabilitate What I personally appreciate the most is the simple fact of having dangerous people confined so that the danger to others (including myself) is no longer there.

At least in the US, that results in the dangerous people you mentioned being confined with lots of people with undiagnosed or untreated mental problems and lots of nonviolent (non-dangerous) offenders. On top of that, you have a significant number of innocent people incarcerated also, people who got screwed by the system along the way.

When we place all those people together, in a setting where violent assaults are shockingly common -- and, in particular, the constant threat of rape -- we are definitely making you less safe, not more safe. One might argue that at least the "dangerous people" are preying on other "criminals" while they are inside, but how many of those victims end up becoming MORE dangerous to you and your family due to years of state-supervised abuse?

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#115

Post by [deleted] »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #97
thanatropism wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a tv show that presented those facts, yes. It also features the Goldman family celebrating that he got any kind of jail time at all. And it was a long sentence too!

So are you saying he shouldn't have been jailed for armed robbery and kidnapping? That seems unreasonable. Or are you saying that the Goldmans shouldn't have been happy he was in prison? Maybe so, but that's got nothing to do with the criminal justice system.

[deleted]

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#116

Post by thanatropism »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #97
thanatropism wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a tv show that presented those facts, yes. It also features the Goldman family celebrating that he got any kind of jail time at all. And it was a long sentence too!

So are you saying he shouldn't have been jailed for armed robbery and kidnapping? That seems unreasonable. Or are you saying that the Goldmans shouldn't have been happy he was in prison? Maybe so, but that's got nothing to do with the criminal justice system.

Actually, my broader point is that there's substancial indeterminacy to the legal system and that society uses this wiggle room to dole out mob justice.

Do I have to type that sentence again?

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#117

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #96
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll give you a hint, though: most of them aren't rapists, murderers, and child molesters. HINT = 15% of the prison population in California are sex offenders.

...So you agree? I'm confused.

I was very unclear in that comment, I apologize.

I was myself confused by the comment I was replying to. I don't like when people say "hint, most people x".

I wanted to get better information about what the actual statistics were, because I didn't know what percent of the prison population were sex offenders, which was 15%.

This is my source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/16/sex-offender...

I'm not sure what my position on this issue is. But it appears that a decent percentage of people in prison in California are serious criminals, and although some are definitely marijuana offenders that should probably be released, I don't think its fair to call that the majority of the people in the prison system.

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#118

Post by PhasmaFelis »

thanatropism wrote: post #116
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you saying he shouldn't have been jailed for armed robbery and kidnapping? That seems unreasonable. Or are you saying that the Goldmans shouldn't have been happy he was in prison? Maybe so, but that's got nothing to do with the criminal justice system.

Actually, my broader point is that there's substancial indeterminacy to the legal system and that society uses this wiggle room to dole out mob justice. Do I have to type that sentence again?

That may be true, but I don't see how it's relevant to OJ. He wasn't lynched or set up; he committed a crime and went to prison for it. I don't see how that's mob justice even if some people were happy about it.

Re: HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

#119

Post by thanatropism »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #118
thanatropism wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, my broader point is that there's substancial indeterminacy to the legal system and that society uses this wiggle room to dole out mob justice. Do I have to type that sentence again?

That may be true, but I don't see how it's relevant to OJ. He wasn't lynched or set up; he committed a crime and went to prison for it. I don't see how that's mob justice even if some people were happy about it.

This is me being an armchair "bird lawyer" without actual expertise, but it seems to me that his threatening people with a gun for them to stay in a room for a few minutes while he searched the place for the goods they thought stolen from him...

... well, it's not good. But is it kidnapping? My common sense tells me by then the system was biased against him. Mob justice, therefore, even if not from a wild, tar-and-feather variety.

Post reply on HN