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Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

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Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#121

Post by kiawe_fire »

aaomidi wrote: post #54
cubano wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around forever. Tell me about it. Between my prison "stigma" and the discriminatory ageism that is very prevalent in the industry, and even though I have 30 years professional programming experience, I am currently finding it impossible to find any work. Can someone please tell me...what am I supposed to do at age 55? Find a new "career"...doing what? I know ple…

The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding is partially to solve this exact problem. I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal background check. I don't think background checks should be allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks. A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say anything: 1. Yes I am fi…

> A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state.

I worked with my Dad growing up and going to school, and I’m fortunate enough to have worked along side people that had felony records.

Some of them for some scary sounding crimes.

I’ve learned just how much nuance is lost in our current “scarlet letter” system (as well as how a crime is judged changes significantly over time).

I can see the notion that somebody should have some kind of re-integration or probationary period, but until we can have an objective and perfect means of conveying the nuance behind every crime, sentence, and rehabilitation (which I say facetiously, because I don’t believe that’s possible) then we should err on the side of not having any scarlet letters.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#122

Post by charlescearl »

Ruth Wilson Gilmore [1,2], Angela Davis [3.4] and many, many others have been making the case for decades that the entirety of the prison system needs to be abolished.

Among the more profound cases that Gilmore makes is that the it is not just for-profit prisons and policing. Racialized exclusion of Black people from the economy has essentially created a captive class -- a pool of bodies for exploitation. Essentially the industry of incarceration at the state (that is both State and Federal level) create sources of income -- for the States, the companies that supply resources to prisons, as well as the private prisons.

Further, Gilmore [2] makes the argument that we need to do away with the presumption that there are people who are "deserving" of prison. Is the very notion of prison consistent with a civilized society?

Just a further note that the incarceration rate of Black men in the U.S. [5] is comparable to that of Uyghur population in Xianjiang [6] -- that rate was estimated to be 5% for Black men across the U.S. in 2009, 5% for Uyghurs in non-Muslim majority districts, roughly 10% in majority-Muslim districts. It would be interesting to understand how the adoption of capitalist economic practices in China correlates with the rise of the carceral.

[1] Golden gulag: Prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242012/golden-gulag

[2] Abolition Geography and the Problem of Innocence. In Futures of Black Radicalism, G. T.. Johnson and A. Loubin (Eds.). New York: Verso, 225–240.

[3] Are Prisons Obsolete? https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213837/are-prisons-...

[4] If They Come in the Morning … Voices of Resistance, Edited by Angela Y. Davis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_They_Come_in_the_Morning

[5] https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-just...

[6] https://qz.com/1599393/how-researchers-estimate-1-million-uy...

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#123

Post by jawzz »

leetcrew wrote: post #100
offtop5 wrote: post #49

Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder. Right now if you fish without a permit in the wrong place you're a felon and you will never be able to get a decent job for the rest of your life. The entire reason the American criminal justice system is like this, at its core is to punish minority groups. I don't ever see this changing, and it's a big part of why I want to make an exit by 40.…

> Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder. there is already a lot of gradation in the spectrum of consequences: fines, probation, house arrest, weekend sentence (free to work during the week, but need check into jail each weekend), different security levels for different offenses. not much "rehabilitation" occurs anywhere along the spectrum, but it's not like you go straight from a sma…

True, but where there’s less of a spectrum is in the stigma that follows you after the punishment. For many companies and landlords, anyone without a squeaky clean record is lumped together. Even for crimes that a significant portion of the population has probably committed at some point and were just never caught.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#124

Post by cgranier »

cubano wrote: post #35
rwmurrayVT wrote: post #7

The #1 issue in the USA beyond simple conviction and incarceration is rehabilitation. At the federal level, where I have personal experience, it seems like it's entirely retribution instead of rehabilitation. I was in a federal prison camp and it is primarily an exercise in leisure. The entire day was composed of well.. nothing. If you like reading, fresh air, and exercise you're in luck. If you like alcohol, drugs,…

> The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around forever. Tell me about it. Between my prison "stigma" and the discriminatory ageism that is very prevalent in the industry, and even though I have 30 years professional programming experience, I am currently finding it impossible to find any work. Can someone please tell me...what am I supposed to do at age 55? Find a new "career"...doing what? I know ple…

I have zero experience with this issue, but someone I met fundraising a few projects ago launched this, which is aimed at solving your particular issue:

[70 Million Staffing](https://www.70millionstaffing.com/) - focused on hiring people with criminal records and its counterpart: [Commissary Club](https://app.commissary.club/) - a social network for ex-cons.

Also, maybe now with the new emphasis on remote work, people with criminal records have a better chance at getting hired?

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#125

Post by Chris2048 »

greedo wrote: post #83
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you on twitter at all during any of the protests of last summer? Vague “incitement of riot” charges are going to be used against a whole lot of anti-establishment groups that were active during that time (and now). If you think it stops at MAGA you are deceived.

Show me a "Vague 'incitement of riot'" charge being brought against anyone. And I wouldn't include the BLM protests of the summer as anti-establishment in the same vein as the Qanon/1776er crowd that wanted to overthrow the government.

> And I wouldn't include the BLM protests of the summer as anti-establishment

Why not? because they only wanted to defund the police?

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#126

Post by curiousllama »

oytis wrote: post #5

A study (if it's a real study) can't tell you what should be done, it should give you new knowledge about the state of affairs. (while I agree that drug offense should be decriminalized).

Was about to comment this myself - totally agree.

The single quickest way to make me suspicious of an empirical study is to give it a prescriptive title. I agree with this title wholeheartedly, but I want (1) studies that provide objective evidence and (2) position papers that recommend policies based on that evidence. Both are legitimate copes for researchers to publish within if they call it what it is. This is a position paper, not a study.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#127

Post by mnd999 »

offtop5 wrote: post #49

Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder. Right now if you fish without a permit in the wrong place you're a felon and you will never be able to get a decent job for the rest of your life. The entire reason the American criminal justice system is like this, at its core is to punish minority groups. I don't ever see this changing, and it's a big part of why I want to make an exit by 40.…

Jaywalking doesn’t even need to be a crime at all. In a lot of parts of the world it isn’t and we do just fine.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#128

Post by paxys »

offtop5 wrote: post #49

Society needs to have something between jaywalking and attempted murder. Right now if you fish without a permit in the wrong place you're a felon and you will never be able to get a decent job for the rest of your life. The entire reason the American criminal justice system is like this, at its core is to punish minority groups. I don't ever see this changing, and it's a big part of why I want to make an exit by 40.…

It is called misdemeanor and several classes of it exist. And no, fishing without a permit isn’t a felony anywhere in the US.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#129

Post by Chris2048 »

bdamm wrote: post #103
Chris2048 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would trust the state to decide if a sexual predators is safe to teach your children?

The thing is... who else would decide? Isn't it the function of the state to make decisions based on information that is not available to the general public?

No-one. No-one would decide. It's not a decision that needs to be made.

Any history of sexual abuse -> be put on a register that prohibits ever working with children again.

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