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The underground economy of solitary confinement

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Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#131

Post by muzani »

randomacct8162 wrote: post #11
syki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing your experience and bringing these things to light. As Dostoevsky said, you can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners. We are not a free people when we live under the threat of being out into a prison system as barbaric as the one we have.

I did have one positive interaction with a guard that stood out to me from my time in there I was being transported to a hospital for a medical procedure, and I was talking to the guard who taking me, to pass the time. I asked him why on earth he would want to be a prison guard -- after all, they are in there with us for 10 hour shifts, and prisons are some of the most bleak/depressing places on earth. That has to ta…

I had a conversation with a police sergeant because of a car accident we had. He said that we seemed to be right, but some lawyers will likely try to sue us because it's in the gray area that they usually "farm". The thing I remember was he said something along the lines of, "These lawyers are even worse than police."

I didn't think police were bad, but that made me reconsider it.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#132

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37
jopsen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those guards belong in jail themselves... The guards are just the product of a system/culture.

Don't make apologies for people who choose torture and who chose to participate in said system / culture. It's a job; if they had morals they would quit, whistleblow, or punish colleagues for this behaviour. I can't believe the pay would be THAT good. There's clearly no adequate chain of command or repercussions for this crime.

So we gonna apply this logic to all the other government workers working for toxic systems that hurt more than they help?

There are plenty of people who go into these jobs with the intention of being decent. The existing systems and culture suck that right out of them.

I knew an old bureaucrat. He got to make decisions that would or wouldn't financially screw families over. He said the worst part of his job was seeing all the younger employees in the cafeteria knowing they were being crushed by the system and turned into people like him and his other senior coworkers.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#133

Post by throwaway0a5e »

goodpoint wrote: post #126
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't make apologies for people who choose torture and who chose to participate in said system / culture. It's a job; if they had morals they would quit, whistleblow, or punish colleagues for this behaviour. I can't believe the pay would be THAT good. There's clearly no adequate chain of command or repercussions for this crime.

The parent poster is not making an apology. The unjust and cruel legal system and the behavior of people involved is all a product of society. It's not just a couple of "bad apples". And saying this does not give anybody a pass.

> The parent poster is not making an apology.

Downvotes from creating a plausibly deniable strawman and then tearing it down are less than the upvotes from doing a good job tearing down the strawman. This kind of crap discourse is incentivized in a "if lawsuits are cheaper than recall we don't do a recall" sort of way.

HN (and other social media) is rife with this behavior/feedback loop.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#134

Post by ROTMetro »

jknoepfler wrote: post #106
ROTMetro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, at least where I was, this was EVERYONE's life (no just solitary) for a year due to COVID. Only with no legal protections, all constitutional requirements waived, because, you know, emergency, and totally not just because the staff were lazy and this allowed them to do zero work.

Are you describing conditions in a prison in the USA outside of solitary confinement? (That's the only way I can make sense of the reply).

Yes. During COVID everyone locked down to their range/tier (constitutional violation because space is so small not allowed to be permanently confined in it). Minimum laundry (constitutional violation, must keep sanitation). No chow hall all food brought to the cells. No rec time/outdoor time (constitutional violation, everyone must be allowed 1 hour of recreation time). Only let out to make phone calls during a short window that didn't necessarily line up with your family could take your call. No law library access (constitutional violation, denying access to the courts adn remember inmates challenges are time bared, you only have 14 days to challenge an illegal sentence and something like a year to challenge unconstitutional from the time of discovery, and these are jurisdictional, I.E. can not be waived). No certified mail access (constitutional violation, denying access to the courts as all motions must be mailed). No family visitation (some of the guys family relationship especially with wives and kids were holding on by a thread, they needed those visits). While it might make sense because of COVID, a year of it was very wearing.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#135

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Ekaros wrote: post #26
randomacct8162 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years. When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life. Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job. I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers fr…

I never understood the whole felon thing, if that is allowed discrimination outside certain roles how can those people ever be expected back to society? Ofc, they are going to do more crime if it is their only realistic option for reasonable income.

That's the point. It gives the state a cudgel with which to keep people in line.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#136

Post by ericmcer »

randomacct8162 wrote: post #7
tokai wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do solitary confinement help in correcting illegal/bad/wrong behaviour among prisoners in your opinion? Seems to me that it can only breed resentment and detachment.

No, not at all. The thing I think most law-abiding/normal people don't understand about the types of people in prisons is that they are almost exclusively habitual offenders. Even in the US, which is heavily punitive instead of rehabilitative, you have to have run-ins with the law a number of times before you are sentenced to serve time, rather than probation or a halfway-house etc. From my experiences, ~90% of peopl…

How do you balance punitive with rehabilitative? I have little experience in this but it seems like for a non-violent offender or a victimless crime the experience should be almost entirely rehabilitative, whereas for violent offenders there should be some kind of punishment. Both to discourage the behavior and as therapy for the victims.

The justice system doesn't really offer me any protection other than vengeance on someone who hurts or kills me or a loved one. There is some comfort knowing that someone might at least hesitate due to fear of consequences.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#137

Post by ROTMetro »

lupire wrote: post #105
kingcharles wrote: post #54

I did three stints in solitary. First for writing to my wife and explaining how I traded coffee for stamped envelopes, which got me an extortion charge. On the last day of my "sentence" in solitary I had my trial and was found "not guilty" of the charge. Of course, it was like Alice in Wonderland, I did my time then got my trial. (during this time in solitary though they went through all my property and figured out I…

After such ongoing illegal torture, why don't former prisoners or their loved ones get together and execute serious reprisals?

Lot's of reasons. Read the court cases and see why the judges explain it's actually legal to do and see you have no chance of winning. Or read the Prosecution reply briefs where the Prosecutors point out that the convicted felon as part of his plea agreement agreed to not challenge his conviction in any way. If you take a plea (which cuts 20 years off your sentence because of the trial tax (https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/com... )) any challenge to your conviction invalidates your plea and puts you at risk of a longer sentence (which for example takes a 4 year bit to 20). I mean, yeah, you have a right to challenge, but it doesn't come without an implied threat and risk of high cost. And of course, going to court involves transport back to your sentencing court, which is basically you volunteering for the previously mentioned diesel therapy. Also, you can't sue the Feds unless you have 'actual damages'. This is a very high bar to overcome legally. Look at the cases of gross medical incompetence in prison. You also have to show actual malice and not just gross complacency or incompetence, again an very high legal bar to meet. Dude, you can only challenge an illegal sentence or one that is in error for 14 days (https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_35). Go read that link and realize American justice is not what you think. And remember, during these 14 days you are being transferred from a detention center to your place of incarceration, so good luck putting together that Rule 35 motion with no access to legal resources, stability, writing materials.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#138

Post by standardUser »

Having read three comments here by people who spent time in solitary for drug crimes, I hope we can all realize the only way to fix our over-policed, over-imprisoned society is to legalize drugs.

We all watched and waited a long, long time for everyone to come around to the fact that the rights of LGBTQ people must be protected. A legion of cowards held us back for generations, and in the meantime immeasurable suffering was endured. Now, we're waiting for the cowards once again to acknowledge the painfully obvious (drugs can't be eliminated in a free society despite how many billions we spend or how many rights we abridge) and in the meantime we have to watch lives get ruined every single day for consensual acts with no victims.

Hurry up, cowards.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#139

Post by ROTMetro »

jrumbut wrote: post #122
ROTMetro wrote: post #92

In the Feds, stamps are the unit of money. On our yard a book of 'compound' stamps was worth $8 of 'value' but it took a lot of work to keep them at that price. For a book you could get one dip of chew. I think is was two books for a 'square' of spice, a tiny sliver of paper enough to get you high. You would also need to include the price of an AA battery to use as your lighter to get high. Don't do drugs, but especi…

This is a fascinating post, thank you for sharing your experiences! That coffee creamer and lemon juice cheesecake sounds interesting. Do you still crave and/or make at home any of the weird food items you described? Where did you store 5 pounds of cheese?

Tamales made by crushing up Dorritos and pork rinds, soaking them and using them for the masa was delicious, but f@#k no I never crave prison food. Also, we had no microwave, so everything is cooked in a trash bag in a trash can filled with hot water. Also all our excercise during COVID was by using trash bags filled with water as weights. The guards would pop the bags and flood all your stuff.

Telling you where the cheese is kept would be considered snitching ;)

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#140

Post by ROTMetro »

ROTMetro wrote: post #92

In the Feds, stamps are the unit of money. On our yard a book of 'compound' stamps was worth $8 of 'value' but it took a lot of work to keep them at that price. For a book you could get one dip of chew. I think is was two books for a 'square' of spice, a tiny sliver of paper enough to get you high. You would also need to include the price of an AA battery to use as your lighter to get high. Don't do drugs, but especi…

More items. 5 stamps to have an artist make a card like a birthday or xmas card for you to send your family. A book (20 stamps, $8) for a month of someone elses phone time (during COVID I think we got 350 minutes a month to call family because no one was allowed family visits but normally it was 250 so people use all that time and need more) but a lot of times phone time was extorted (That was the most extorted thing I saw). 20 stamps for a pound of cooked roast beef delivered. Someone figured out how to reload photo copy cards for the copy machine, so instead of $12 at commissary a reload was 5 stamps. Craft work you can no longer send home unless you made it so that was harder and harder for guys to use as their hustle and sell.
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