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Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

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Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#21

Post by sage76 »

ak_111 wrote: post #15
throw1234651234 wrote: post #3

98. In prison. I imagine there is some theme about how luck and genetics still play a much larger role in health than stuff like sleep, diet, and fitness that I comfort myself with. No idea who this guy is btw, but back to the basics. 98. In prison - pretty amazing.

Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet are also one of those outliers in terms of diet, exercising and work rate. Granted they receive the best medical support money can buy, but they are on record saying how much they binge on fast food, and Munger in particular mentioned on several occasions how he never intentionally did any exercise (no cardio or weightlifting) since he was a teenager. They are both also crazy workahol…

Anecdotally, I have seen stress be a major factor. I know businessmen who are under a lot of stress, and even in their 40s they had major health problems.

Others who seemed naturally inclined to be a bit carefree (not careless) seemes to only start having problems in their late 70s.

All anecdotal of course, so we'd need lot of data to come to a conclusion.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#22

Post by quantumsequoia »

trc001 wrote: post #8
marci wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it seems he was innocent. https://www.cracked.com/article_34310_connecticut-put-a-prob...

I feel like there must be a better source for this information

Read the article linked by the post, it discusses it as well

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#23

Post by nolok »

gabereiser wrote: post #17
throw1234651234 wrote: post #3

98. In prison. I imagine there is some theme about how luck and genetics still play a much larger role in health than stuff like sleep, diet, and fitness that I comfort myself with. No idea who this guy is btw, but back to the basics. 98. In prison - pretty amazing.

The system is designed to “rehabilitate” you. That is, to make it so you’re dependent on the system to live. Most offenders, repeat, sending them back to jail. Some have argued because it’s easier than out on the streets trying to survive. In prison you have a bed, food, shelter (though not from others). On the outside, you had to provide that. Shawshank redemption talked about this a bit when Brooks (the librarian a…

I always considered it an issue with the usually longer sentence in the US (compared to where I'm from in France), particularly when taking into account the stacking of sentences (where we instead have "the longest one apply and trump others). Each year, well each day really, passed behind bars makes rehabilitation harder and it feels a bit counter productive to put people for (often several) decades behind bars, at this point they have a very very small chance to be able to reintegrate properly.

Not that I consider my country a paragon of virtue on that front mind you, since we're still struggling with the concept of rehabilitation instead of punishment.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#24

Post by glimshe »

nimbius wrote: post #16

what it means is less important than the real questions it raises. - if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? - if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? - what meaningful…

Some countries limit the time you can spend in prison for this very reason, no matter what you did. For instance, Brazil sets it to 40 years total even if you killed 100 people.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#25

Post by harles »

hgsgm wrote: post #9
throw1234651234 wrote: post #3

98. In prison. I imagine there is some theme about how luck and genetics still play a much larger role in health than stuff like sleep, diet, and fitness that I comfort myself with. No idea who this guy is btw, but back to the basics. 98. In prison - pretty amazing.

Caloric restriction is one longevity-enhancing technique that prison supports. Also, activity restrictions means exercise is one of the few available hobbies.

Caloric restrictions was my first thought as well.

Also, the fact that we’re talking about this person means he’s an extreme outlier. I’d expect reaching 98 is much more common outside of prison.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#26

Post by gabereiser »

nolok wrote: post #23
gabereiser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system is designed to “rehabilitate” you. That is, to make it so you’re dependent on the system to live. Most offenders, repeat, sending them back to jail. Some have argued because it’s easier than out on the streets trying to survive. In prison you have a bed, food, shelter (though not from others). On the outside, you had to provide that. Shawshank redemption talked about this a bit when Brooks (the librarian a…

I always considered it an issue with the usually longer sentence in the US (compared to where I'm from in France), particularly when taking into account the stacking of sentences (where we instead have "the longest one apply and trump others). Each year, well each day really, passed behind bars makes rehabilitation harder and it feels a bit counter productive to put people for (often several) decades behind bars, at…

Yeah. I think having a system where society is responsible would be best. Instead of private institutions that charge the tax payers. Systems where through hard work and service to the community they can learn to survive. Those that are a threat to the community can be given their own. This was the original idea behind these prisons. Only wall of the ones who would physically harm others until deemed they are no longer a threat. It’s a mental health issue and not a criminal vs non-criminal black & white situation as the layman to the law would have you believe.

It’s not about what is right or just, it’s about what you can prove. And us Americans love a good outlier to form stereotypes about a peoples.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#27

Post by gabereiser »

gabereiser wrote: post #26
nolok wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always considered it an issue with the usually longer sentence in the US (compared to where I'm from in France), particularly when taking into account the stacking of sentences (where we instead have "the longest one apply and trump others). Each year, well each day really, passed behind bars makes rehabilitation harder and it feels a bit counter productive to put people for (often several) decades behind bars, at…

Yeah. I think having a system where society is responsible would be best. Instead of private institutions that charge the tax payers. Systems where through hard work and service to the community they can learn to survive. Those that are a threat to the community can be given their own. This was the original idea behind these prisons. Only wall of the ones who would physically harm others until deemed they are no long…

Think of it this way. The world is PvE. Inside a prison it’s PvP. That should give you the clarity.

Some people like pvp. Some thrive on it. Others like PvE (maybe with agreeable refereed PvP) and don’t like PvP. They want their game to follow the same rules each time they play it. Predictable. Safe.

Others thrive on the chaos that each new day brings new victims and spoils. As well as threats to their own. (Hi Eve-Online players!)

It’s a mindset, a choice, probably something to do with childhood. Most definitely trauma based.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#28

Post by haunter »

>In fact, he could technically leave — to go get lunch, or visit one of the nearby towns — but someone would have to request permission and sign him out, which no one appears to have ever done.

Wonder how many person are in the same situation. I guess you also have to take responsibility for the person while they are outside so no randoms (like a charity or volunteers) can do it

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#29

Post by slashdev »

glimshe wrote: post #24
nimbius wrote: post #16

what it means is less important than the real questions it raises. - if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? - if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? - what meaningful…

Some countries limit the time you can spend in prison for this very reason, no matter what you did. For instance, Brazil sets it to 40 years total even if you killed 100 people.

I’m a fan of the death penalty for really egregious cases, given a hypothetical perfect Justice system. Some people are not worth trying to rehabilitate. However, the Justice system is flawed and a decent percentage of people who get the death penalty are innocent. So what do you do? I’d rather they be locked up for the rest of their natural lives, barring a change in evidence or technology that leads to a change in sentence. But I don’t want some remorseless psychopath back in society because they’ve reached the limit on how long we can hold them.

Re: Frank Smith was locked up for 8 decades. At 98, what would it mean to be free?

#30

Post by habitue »

nimbius wrote: post #16

what it means is less important than the real questions it raises. - if in the united states we refer to our prisons as 'correctional' facilities, what quantitative correction could require nearly a century of internment? - if by any study it costs nearly 40,000 dollars to house a prisoner for one (1) year, was the night watchmans life truly worth 3.2 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers money? - what meaningful…

Prison has multiple purposes: retribution, incapacitance, deterrence, and rehabilitation.

- retribution: gives victims and families of the victim retribution. This one doesn't seem important in the modern day, but if you ignore it you get vigilante revenge, blood feuds, honor culture etc. Having the state take on "revenge" kills these cycles.

- incapacitance: straight up preventing dangerous people from being out and being dangerous.

- deterrence: long prison sentences deter other people from committing crimes because they don't want to get a long prison sentence. Also deters the prisoners themselves from committing another crime (if their sentence is short enough)

- rehabilitation: here's finally the "corrections" part, and honestly our system in the US isn't great at rehabilitating anyone. In principle this is a prudent idea, but we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything. That's politically pretty unappealing

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