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

A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

aclu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 513 posts

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#251

Post by grey-area »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #47

My thoughts on the best and the worst: > Anthony Jackson has a sixth-grade education and worked as a cook. He was convicted of burglary for stealing a wallet from a Myrtle Beach hotel room when he was 44 years old. According to prosecutors, he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security guard and ran away. Police arrested him when he tried to use the stolen…

You should try looking at prison differently. It's incredibly expensive to lock someone up for their life - that's four walls, meals, space to exercise and guards for say another 40 years. We shouldn't spend that unless the alternative would cost a lot more (say violence against another person, a person's life).

he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security guard and ran away

Crime is often impulsive, irrational. Now this guy had poor impulse control and started from a difficult position in life. He then did stupid things like petty crime. The loss to these golfers was probably $100 - balance that against the cost to society of a life in prison. I disagree that's a worthwhile trade or is protecting society to any significant degree. It costs huge amounts of money, throws away a life that could be turned around, results in disproportionate and inhumane punishments, and doesn't even help the victims. This is little better than deportation for stealing an apple.

The US has 1.6 million of its population in jail, and that figure rose very rapidly in the last few decades, probably due to laws like this and jailing people for minor drugs offences, I'm not convinced that has saved US society any money or even made it much safer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#252

Post by EliRivers »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #47

My thoughts on the best and the worst: > Anthony Jackson has a sixth-grade education and worked as a cook. He was convicted of burglary for stealing a wallet from a Myrtle Beach hotel room when he was 44 years old. According to prosecutors, he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security guard and ran away. Police arrested him when he tried to use the stolen…

I can't get too worked up about a system that sentences this guy to life in prison.

Is that seriously the best fucking option you can come up with? A massively expensive revenge-trip that causes far, far more damage than the theft of a wallet?

Perhaps there's some kind of much, much more effective way to get him to stop taking things that don't belong to him. I say perhaps; of course there are. Lots, that are cheaper, more effective and build a better society; but no, (parts of) the US is happy doing this. Cutting off its own nose to spite its own face and destroying a life in the process, behaving like children.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#253

Post by pessimizer »

saraid216 wrote: post #233
lostlogin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My country of birth, New Zealand, has plenty of dark secrets of its own. It's not as simple as being with us or against us though, surely? There are plenty of countries that are worse than the US and there are also a fair few who are better. However there aren't any countries who have a bigger international profile everywhere I have ever been. Its a pity this isn't used to create more good.

> It's not as simple as being with us or against us though, surely? Here in the US, we strive to bring partisan politics into every discussion.

Violent nationalism isn't particularly partisan.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#254

Post by pessimizer »

smtddr wrote: post #170
grahamburger wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that not everyone who is poor is unhappy.

...and not everyone who's rich, is happy...

But the main worry that unhappy people have is lack of money, so it's not at all parallel or equivalent.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#255

Post by dodyg »

rfnslyr wrote: post #22
spodek wrote: post #7

It's a crying shame. Normally that's an empty phrase, but it describes this. I can't imagine reading this and not feeling tears well up. No sense of what I would call humanity. From what perspective does this make the world a better place? What am I missing about being human that this fits into that I don't understand?

Does anybody else constantly live in a state of guilt? So many lives lost and wars fought just to get us to where we are, and we reap the benefits. I feel so guilty for having a good paying job in the city. I'm not adding any value to the world, none at all. I tinker with a few codes every day and make silly amounts of money, when there's people struggling to put food on the table working 18 hour days. I need to do s…

I am a third worlder currently living in Cairo - if you think a bit of poverty here and there in the US is bad, here in this city we are surrounded by it.

Being poor is not a moral flaw and I see people everyday go out of their bed and try to win most of their days. Still people manage to find happiness within the most dire constraints.

You cannot do everything and nobody expects to. Take comfort in that. We are all doing out bits to repair the world (There's a wonderful Hebrew phrase for this: Tikkun olam).

But when you have the means, go travel. Meet the others who occupy this world, who have different perspective of living, who struggles with different things that you do. They will be happy to meet you.

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#256

Post by willvarfar »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #205
humbledrone wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the cost of keeping him out of it exceeds the cost he inflicts by his presence You do realize that it costs $40,000+ per year to incarcerate someone, right? So to meet your justification for imprisonment, this guy would have to be an excellent criminal. Why not just give him $40,000 per year and let him be free? He'd probably not need to burgle anymore.

> Why not just give him $40,000 per year and let him be free? He'd probably not need to burgle anymore. If we did this, I suspect we'd see a sharp rise in burglaries. As to the figure itself, another commenter noted that the low end of prison costs seemed to be Lousisiana, in which operating a prison cost $13K / year. That would make the per-prisoner cost much, much lower than that.

why do you think there would be a sharp rise in burglaries?

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#257

Post by jimmytidey »

From a European perspective some of these things might not even being custodial. European countries don't suffer higher crime rates because of their more lenient punishments.

I think the problem is that on a manifesto a three strikes proposal looks very good especially for those concerned about law and order, the reality is these horrible injustices..

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#258

Post by tluyben2 »

pandaman wrote: post #215
kayoone wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on... Speeding clearly implies more risk, in the case of an impact (in the city for example) the end result can be much worse. On the other hand a guy who has comitted 2-3 non violent crimes in his life because hes probably broke and has mental issues. I am not saying thats ok, but spending the life in prison for that? He wouldnt even have to go to prison for that in the country i live in.

Burglary is punished so severely because, like you said, the end result can be much worse than just stealing property. Can you honestly say that chances of speeding causing any harm what so ever are comparable to chances of burglary turning into an assault, rape or murder?

It's quite worrying that a country seems to do some sort of precog on these people; i'm sure there are cases where stealing a wallet goes on to assault, rape or murder. I don't think locking people up because that could happen is a brilliant plan. Why not lock up a lot more people? I mean little boys who torture (and kill) animals turn into killers? It's pretty vague and weird to think like that.

This guy obviously has issues and they need to be looked at; locking him up has no use whatsoever besides 'making the public feel safe'. While it makes things less safe; if I know I'll go to jail the rest of my life, i'll make sure to kill the people in the room so I have a chance of escaping; what have I to lose? This guy didn't think like that, but with this kind of strangely harsh punishment, why would I hold back on any crime I commit?

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#259

Post by willvarfar »

wmil wrote: post #131
GuiA wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, question- if you actively support putting people behind bars with the intent of seeing them die there, why not just kill them right away? If the intent is for them to not cause any harm to society, then that'll get the job done while saving money for society and making them suffer for a shorter period of time. Unless the goal is to make them suffer for their entire life as punishment; in which case, why not just…

Everyone supports reforming criminals. However we don't have any system that can achieve that reliably. I find three strikes to be to strict. But if they've proven unwilling or unable to reform it's preposterous to let them out of prison.

Countries like Sweden and Norway have much better results than the USA regards reforming prisoners, you think?

Re: A living death: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?

#260

Post by GuiA »

pfedor wrote: post #140
GuiA wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in the southeast of the US as well as the west coast, and I am from Europe. To my foreign eyes, infrastructures and poverty levels in the south east of the US definitely made it feel like a 3rd world country.

For example, Alabama is almost as poor as France or Japan, and Mississippi (the poorest state) is almost as poor as Spain and New Zealand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP

I'm from France; when I lived there, I used a network of cheap state-subsidized subway and trains to get around the country and see friends and family; I attended a good university for a mere few hundred euros a year; I would buy fresh food at the local market every week; my friends from poorer families got free meals at the university, housing stipends, and so on; my healthcare was covered; and many other things that escape me right now.

I also lived in Louisiana; besides New Orleans, what I've seen are old decrepit roads that haven't been restored in decades, public transportation only used by the very poor and mentally ill (very often correlated), neighborhoods next to the university campus that I've been told to never cross for risk of getting shot, almost half of the people being dramatically ill (overweight), lifeless minuscule downtowns. And heck, even New Orleans is still a shitshow.

Present all the economic arguments that you want, as someone who has lived in both places, a lot of the south of the US feels like a terribly dreary place to me. And I've lived in plenty of places, and have found things to like in all of them- this is not just me being close minded, I just found the south of the US to be in a terrible state for being a part of the world's leading superpower.

I've been living in California for many years now, which is orders of magnitude more pleasant and which I love in many ways (although rife with flaws as well; notably the shameful income gap in Silicon Valley).

Post reply on HN