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

In Britain, even jails have a class system

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 183 posts

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#31

Post by detritus »

botwriter wrote: post #13
throway1n wrote: post #5

“ They were closer to me than the mentally ill drug addicts or the Romanian gangsters.” - the english criminal doesn't appear to hesitate at throwing racist remarks around does he?

you're not from the UK or Europe are you? There are a lot of eastern european criminals who come to the UK to do business. I'm not saying its good or bad I'm just saying its part of life in the UK.

Yeah, as in literally Romanian Gangsters.

The irony of this troll's stance is that he's parroting the 'woke slogan spewing twitter user' he's so critical of.

And yes, I did just assume troll's gender.

.

I really should know better than to engage with trolls, but I did find it amusing how keenly he's shooting himself in his feet.

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#32

Post by uk_programmer »

spinglespingle wrote: post #25
broodje wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is identifying someone by their nationality racist?

not at all, but singling out a single ethnicity out of a massively mixed prison, quite is. particularly when it falls in the line of dailymail propaganda. or is racism racism only when against certain groups and not all?

He didn't single them out. He mentioned actually mentioned drug addicts first (which are most likely English) and then the Romanian Gangstars. I would imagine they either stood out in his mind or he happened to be in the same wing of the prison. If I met a Romanian Gangstar it would definitely stand out in my mind.

Also labelling criminals from Romania as Romanian is simply a statement of fact. If they were Japanese Yakuza or Chinese Triads I would expect him to call them Japanese and Chinese respectively.

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#33

Post by jsjddbbwj »

wpietri wrote: post #30
jxramos wrote: post #27

I'm guessing any group of humanity will naturally form hierarchies. Seems like part of human nature.

Sure. Humans are also naturally violent. We naturally get tuberculosis, too. As conscious beings, it's up to us to decide the good and bad in our natural heritage. To amplify the former and mitigate the latter.

What's wrong with hierarchies?

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#34

Post by jsjddbbwj »

throway1n wrote: post #10
uk_programmer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is racist about it? I don't see any racism in that statement. He was simply stating that he was more comfortable around other white collar criminals.

had he said black or jewish criminals you would have been raging on twitter spewing woke slogans. he was simply singling out an ethnicity, the english criminal did.

I agree with you. If it said "black thugs" everybody would go crazy over it. (I believe both things should be okay to be said)

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#35

Post by wpietri »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #29
yarrel wrote: post #8

No, American jails have a class system. British ones contain one.

Please elaborate. As it is, this flew over my head.

I'm guessing it's a reference to how rich people can end up in more pleasant, less restrictive conditions. This is nominally based on security level, but plenty of people seem to think that social class has something to do with it. See, e.g. the notion of Club Fed [1] and how things go for people like Brock Turner [2]. Or Ethan Couch [3], the "affluenza" [4] kid.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_Fed

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#36

Post by UnFleshedOne »

spinglespingle wrote: post #21
botwriter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are gangs of muslim men in the UK raping children, muslim terrorists and black criminals.

"there are" !== "a lot". see where that little racist dailymail twat surfaced? let me guess, you call yourself "liberal" and hate it when trump claims mexicans are rapists eh? but don't hesitate to claim there are "a lot" of east european criminals in the UK are you mate?

I think the point there is not that there are a lot of them (how many raping gangs is a lot?), but that they are predominantly of those origins.

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#37

Post by wpietri »

lolc wrote: post #28
throway1n wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

had he said black or jewish criminals you would have been raging on twitter spewing woke slogans. he was simply singling out an ethnicity, the english criminal did.

The statement does not suggest that Romanians are gangsters, just that there were Romanian gangsters in that prison. I think I would have found "black gangsters" acceptable in that context too. "Jewish gangsters" would have surprised me because it doesn't fit the stereotype I have of Jews. But I don't think I would have found it racist. Don't be angry at the messenger. He's explaining how the separation happens. Not…

I was surprised to learn about it as well, but historically, Jewish gangsters were notable figures in US organized crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish-American_organized_crim...

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#38

Post by oarabbus_ »

jsjddbbwj wrote: post #33
wpietri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Humans are also naturally violent. We naturally get tuberculosis, too. As conscious beings, it's up to us to decide the good and bad in our natural heritage. To amplify the former and mitigate the latter.

What's wrong with hierarchies?

Fair question - I'd say those at the bottom tend to dislike the system.

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#39

Post by Lio »

tramp0line wrote: post #15
broodje wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it not be that he was speaking from first hand evidence of the people he was locked up with?

could it be that if bloomberg says the same about US minorities, it is called racist, but this is not? odd folk

He's not identifying a minority and labelling them criminals though, he's identifying other criminals that come from a particular minority.

All Romanians != Subset of Romanians in UK prisons.

He also mentions gangsters. It's quite within the bounds of what he's written that Romanian criminals in UK prisons that aren't gang members might also not want to associate too closely with the gangs.

Re: In Britain, even jails have a class system

#40

Post by dmix »

> Lewis: Tell me about “spice,” which seems to have become the British prisoner’s drug of choice.

> Atkins: It was so ubiquitous. You could tell straightaway if someone was on it, they’d be zombified, with glazed eyes. They’d just be lying on their bed in a vegetative state.

> I think [spice users] are used to smoking strong cannabis. And you can't really get away with that, because of the smell. But spice doesn’t smell. The sniffer dogs can’t get it.

> It’s the law of unintended consequences. An older screw [prisoner officer] said, it used to be that inmates would smoke weed. But then [jails] brought in drug testing, and marijuana stays in the system for a month. So they stopped doing that, and started to do spice, which makes people vegetative and violent.

There's hundreds of laws like this outside of prison. You take one thing away [with good intention] and then people find a new thing. But the new thing leaves society worse off (in this case crazy and violent off spice).

I personally believe the whole obsession with prison time for punishment in the US is a good example of this. The general public gets very vindictive, then you send them to con-college and they come out a worse criminal. With difficulty finding a job but plenty of new friends in the criminal world and a reputation as a tough-guy.

Consequently the whole war on drugs is the perfect example of unintended side-effects. Creating a hundred-billion dollar black market funding the worst cartels and street gangs. And hey we have thousands of tough guys coming out of prison in need of work.

Zoning laws are another good example of something that sounds like a good idea that ultimately hurts communities more than it helps - resulting in the mass suburbanization of America and urban ghettos [1]. Now people are moving back to cities with a serious lack of housing density, food deserts [2], driving to work becomes mandatory, etc etc. Then there's the War on Terrorism.....

I could go on.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Zoned-Out-Regulation-Transportation-M...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

Post reply on HN