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How I got here

pthorpe92.github.io

231–240 of 373 posts

Re: How I got here

#231
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recidivism rates are astonishingly high in all countries. Norway has the lowest at 20% within 2 years. The real rate is higher because most crimes aren’t solved. So in the best case, rehabilitation makes someone 300x more likely to commit crime than the average Norwegian.

It's unfair to say it "makes" them that way. They were incarcerated because they already proved willing to commit a crime. It failed to change them back into an average citizen, sure. Understandably a very difficult problem. It's quite possible that it makes them worse instead of better but we'd need different evidence to show that.

you'll never get that "different evidence", how are you going to set up a control

Re: How I got here

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should not have been arrested. MDMA should have been legal. End of story. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02565-4 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34708874/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/well/mind/mdma-ecstasy-ri... https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/07/03/australia-just-lega... It's legal or decriminalized in Portugal, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands, and Switzerland, by the way. Surprise: Tho…

Ok...? Why would you start debating MDMA legality when someone's sharing their story? Also, all the studies you linked are about using it in therapy vs using it at a rave?

presumably because OP was traumatised by this interaction with law enforcement that - had things been only subtly different - could have been a catastrophic event in their life.

there wasn’t a moral crime here - MDMA is widely regarded to be.. safe (please don’t bite on that, i mean to say that current research indicates that it’s probably less dangerous than alcohol). so why should that have been so traumatic?

Re: How I got here

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average citizen in every country is already willing to commit a crime. The difference between the average criminal and you is a couple of meals.

No amount of missed meals will make me commit a rape, a murder, or other heinous crimes.

You don't know this. You can "imagine" how you'd react in a theoretical situation all you like, but It's like the first time you go skydiving - sure you know the safety record and you've got a parachute/reserve but until you get thrown out of a moving plane at 14,000 feet in the air, you have no idea whether you're going to react calmly or completely freak out.

Likewise until you're actually in a life and death situation, you don't know what you're truly capable of.

Re: How I got here

#234

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the sce…

Sounds like the plot of Les Mis!

Re: How I got here

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the several hundred thousand nazis, erm German refugees, the Eisenhower administration brought here in 1953. This was much larger than operation paperclip. The GOP reloaded with that cohort. Their descendants are still wrecking havoc upon our country. I'm sure some come and have done well for us but many are trouble. That huge S&L scandal back in the late 80s was by some of them.

Ehrlichman was born in the US though, so I'm not sure where you take the Nazi part from?

USA loved the nazis up until they made a peace treaty with stalin and war with france and england…

Re: How I got here

#236

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the sce…

Sounds like the plot of Les Mis!

Les Mis has a totally different feel when you've been locked up. It touches me even deeper.

Re: How I got here

#237

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the sce…

That man gave you your entire life back. It's not just the time you would have served, but it would have ruined so much of the rest of your life too.

Re: How I got here

#238

As a former software engineer for over a decade and current corrections officer in a max level state facility, this is a very interesting topic. My facility has a large college presence within it. While there are problems with it, I think overall it is probably a net positive for the staff and inmates. At the same time, I don't believe that we have more than maybe a small handful of nonviolent/drug offenders; anybody…

[deleted]

Re: How I got here

#239

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the sce…

The power of stories like this never fails to humble me. There are countless (less dramatic) incidents like this in every life. Your experience brings them back into focus.

Re: How I got here

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfair to say it "makes" them that way. They were incarcerated because they already proved willing to commit a crime. It failed to change them back into an average citizen, sure. Understandably a very difficult problem. It's quite possible that it makes them worse instead of better but we'd need different evidence to show that.

you'll never get that "different evidence", how are you going to set up a control

I agree that it's difficult. Sometimes there are natural experiments that already happened.
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