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Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

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Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#191

Post by angersock »

_account wrote: post #93

Prison is society's recourse for anti-social behavior. Does it have to be a violent and horrible place? No. The residents tend to make it that. In addition, I am against pampering in anyway, with my tax dollars, people whom I've had to remove from proper society...for anti-social behavior. Prison is supposed to be a deterrent. My biggest gripe is that I have to pay for it at all. I support banishment or death.

Oh for fuck's sake...is smoking a bowl on a weekend anti-social? What about trimming a quarter inch from a shotgun barrel? Or issuing well-formed GETs against a public API?

Banishment or death? Really? You do realize that pretty much any inventor or programmer of note in the US--the folks on whose shoulders all of us stand--are likely guilty of several "anti-social" actions?

Prisons, as implemented, are a bad answer to a stupid question.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#192

Post by moxie »

john_b wrote: post #180
moxie wrote: post #140

Many of the structures that make up our society (jails, taxes, laws, rulers) were not "our" creation, but the creation of kings. When those kings were deposed, rather than abolishing the structures those kings had created, they were instead largely preserved and put under "democratic" control. It could be that this was a mistake: that there's something structurally intrinsic to the instruments of monarchies that can…

In some ways the prison system in the U.S. seems to be worse precisely because it is supported by a democratic society. If prisoners are tortured under a king, their barbaric treatment can easily be associated with the cruelty of the king. This connection creates a risk of revolt, and a sensible king will be mindful of it. In a democratic society with a Kafkaesque prison system, torture of prisoners is not as easily…

Totally. I think one of the most pernicious things about ineffective but reaffirming processes like voting is that it's easy to conclude that if we don't change things, we must not have wanted them to change.

Hypothetically, we believe in justice and freedom (and other good things and not bad things), or we would not have formed a democracy. Since we freedom-loving, democratic people would naturally act to end all oppression, it follows that if a policy, law or practice does not change then it must not truly oppress people.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#193

Post by vacri »

dasil003 wrote: post #188
lars wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And while we don't have proven-better alternatives for many of the problems that arise Oh please. The US has a recidivism rate within 3 years of 67.5%. Norway has a recidivism rate of 20% within 2 years. There are proven-better alternatives, but your society has decided not to implement them.

You can't compare recidivism rates between a 300M nation of immigrants a 5M nation with an extremely homogenous culture. The US has social problems that are worse than Norway's worst nightmares. Prisons are just the tip of the iceberg.

You can, however, compare to other anglo-centric melting-pot countries, and the US experience is still vastly worse. And no matter which way you carve it, with the rest of the western world having an incarceration rate between 70 and 150/100k, the US is clearly out of order with a rate of 750.

In any case, your handwaving away of "we have bad social problems" is missing the point. Norway tries to fix them, using rehabilitation in its prisons as one example. The US tries to ignore them, and uses prisons as punishment. It's a point of philosophy. No-one expects that the US recidivism rate would drop to Norway's levels should the focus shift to a Norway-style penal system, but they do expect it would still drop markedly.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#194

Post by vacri »

cobrausn wrote: post #167
Camillo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is.

If you are going to level an accusation like 'the majority of Americans think prisoner-on-prisoner rape is a-ok', then the burden of proof is on you. I won't even say that nobody thinks that way, I just want proof that this is the prevailing mindset.

I would say that the majority don't care, and depending on how you phrase the question, you could get them to swing either way. The problem is that in public discourse, prison rape is seen as a punchline, not a blight.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#195

Post by vacri »

Confusion wrote: post #83
scrapcode wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of glad that this is your perception. This should be everyone's perception of prison. You should have an extreme necessity to keep your ass out of prison. You should be scared absolutely shitless of prison, so much that you play exactly by the rules to keep yourself from ever going there. Our prison system does a pretty good job at driving this perception home. Prison is not a rehabilitation center. If it we…

Western European prisons, Australian prisons, Japanese prisons and prisons in other civilized, well-developed, rich countries are much nicer to stay in than American prisons and still our criminal problem isn't nearly as large as yours. I'm not the least bit afraid of going to prison here. Still I don't break the law, for reasons better than fear of prison.

On youtube there's a tv show "Australia's Hardest Prison", a max-security prison in WA. In it the warden is seen saying (paraphrased) "we try to do rehabilitation here, and the people you read in the newspapers calling for longer sentence simply don't understand prisons". There is also a grey-haired American prisoner who has been in several prisons in several countries. He has the opportunity to return to the US for imprisonment there, and he refuses, wanting to finish his life sentence in Aus because "it's... humane". Then you can click on any of the "America's hardest prisons" videos and they're all about using fear to keep you in line, overcrowding, so on and so forth. There's no overriding philosophy of embetterment, or if there is, it's merely lip-service.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#197

Post by vacri »

skrebbel wrote: post #161
scrapcode wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of glad that this is your perception. This should be everyone's perception of prison. You should have an extreme necessity to keep your ass out of prison. You should be scared absolutely shitless of prison, so much that you play exactly by the rules to keep yourself from ever going there. Our prison system does a pretty good job at driving this perception home. Prison is not a rehabilitation center. If it we…

Upvoted to counter the ridiculous downvote legion. I fully disagree with your point, but it's a fair point worthy of HN, and I applaud you for uttering what is clearly a minority opinion here.

"Prison is not a rehabilitation center" is textbook example of a 'begging the question' logical fallacy. It's not even remotely a 'fair point'.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#198

Post by mynameishere »

vacri wrote: post #193
dasil003 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't compare recidivism rates between a 300M nation of immigrants a 5M nation with an extremely homogenous culture. The US has social problems that are worse than Norway's worst nightmares. Prisons are just the tip of the iceberg.

You can, however, compare to other anglo-centric melting-pot countries, and the US experience is still vastly worse. And no matter which way you carve it, with the rest of the western world having an incarceration rate between 70 and 150/100k, the US is clearly out of order with a rate of 750. In any case, your handwaving away of "we have bad social problems" is missing the point. Norway tries to fix them, using reha…

compare to other anglo-centric melting-pot countries

There are no comparable countries. The US is the absolute worst in the West. But just you watch. The UK and Sweden and Norway are importing diversity at an alarming rate. Eventually, their prisons will turn hard, but not through policy. Policy follows reality.

California's excessive solitary confinement policies strongly belie its left-leaning government. Get a steady dose of murder/rape/robbery and that's what happens.

And prisons aren't punishment. Only victims want to punish criminals. Everyone else just wants kept far away from criminals, and if that means putting rotten people in cages, fine. You can see the effect here:

http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/images/cjsc/recent-s...

(That said, I think solitary confinement should be time-limited. No point in driving people crazy.)

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#199

Post by vacri »

skrebbel wrote: post #173
Karunamon wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Soo, people who you disagree with should be stopped from spreading their opinions? Nobody's stopping anybody from spreading their opinion, last I checked. I said the downvotes were deserved. Not only for being factually incorrect, ("Prison has to be scary", which is the whole premise of the post, is handily disproved by looking at some of the Nordic nations' systems), but for perpetuating the kind of culture that al…

> Nobody's stopping anybody from spreading their opinion, last I checked. I said the downvotes were deserved. directly contradicts > [it] deserves every step closer to invisible that it's getting from your previous comment. Also, you know that downvoting something enough hides it from HN. On HN, a downvote doesn't mean "I disagree", because we have comments for that. A downvote means "this comment isn't HN-worthy". A…

On HN, a downvote doesn't mean "I disagree"

Actually, it does. pg has said that it is fine to use this way.

I think it's stupid, and you'll see in my profile a screed against the braindead moderation style of HN and why I think it's bad. I don't particularly care anymore though - there is no interest from the admins in changing it, so it's pointless to try.

Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

#200

Post by vacri »

gknoy wrote: post #149
mcherm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know plenty of unmotivated individuals that would love to sit around with a bunch of other lazy-asses and be fed 3 meals a day. For free. Don't you? No. I know absolutely no people who would choose to be put in prison simply because they would be fed. I cannot imagine a wealthy society (and make no bones about it, our society is wealthy enough that people can be fed) which would permit that. > It has to strike on…

I've read (though I cannot find a link) of a homeless (or sick?) person who commited crimes because he felt prison's shelter + food was better than freezing/starving on the street. Reading the account, it was hard to consider than an irrational decision.

Even so, it's not like most of those incarcerated (or even a significant minority) share this guy's story.
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