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

Do Jails Kill People?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 77 posts

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#21

Post by blfr »

xfitm3 wrote: post #2

Incarceration has been a sore spot of the american justice system for a long time. Privatization should be illegal and the plea system needs reform. “Because jails are chaotic and concealed from outside view, we only become aware of them when very bad outcomes occur, such as deaths,”

Rikers Island is operated by the New York City Department of Correction, not a private company, and 85% of Rikers' residents have not been convicted (at least not yet) so how are your suggestions supposed to help with any of the issues outlined in the OP? If anything, moving away from plea bargaining would mean more people in jails awaiting trial.

More generally, what is the value or repeating things like argument-less slogans about prison privatization or "if you don't pay for it, you're the product", especially to people who must have read it dozens of times?

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#22

Post by blfr »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #20
renholder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Privatization should be illegal and the plea system needs reform. IMHO, apathy about anyone who's ensnared in the legal system, " Well, if they weren't doing anything wrong... ", leads to dehumanisation. Dehumanisation will - almost always - lead to many forms of abuse. I wish it were as simple as just making privatisation illegal and reforming the plea system but I fear that it would take far more than that to see…

Everyone commits around three federal felonies a day, according to the premise of the book "Theee Felonies a Day" that I read a long time ago. We are all criminals and all do something "wrong" legally, all the time. The only difference is that the justice system focuses on some of us and not others, and the plea system harms most of those who are focused on, because any scrutiny at all can virtually always lead to an…

This is a real concern in politically- or publicity-motivated prosecutions. And it gives prosecutors a wide avenue to abuse their powers.

But are these a significant per cent of cases that lead people to Rikers? I'm gonna guess no, they won't add up to even a single per cent.

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#23

Post by ZeroFries »

forevertogether wrote: post #19

Has anyone watched the recent documentary 'The Work'? I think putting people in jail is possibly the worst crime of all. Let's get them in therapy instead. We can help to heal them by listening to their stories. The trailer for 'The Work' can be watched here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8OVXG2GhpQ

Good luck convincing anyone that listening to stories will drastically alter a person's neurology to the point of making them go from hyper-aggressive to docile. Until we improve our cognitive reforming abilities, violent criminals need to be segregated from the rest of the population. I do agree, though, that the vindictive aspect of "justice" is primative.

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#24

Post by [deleted] »

blfr wrote: post #21
xfitm3 wrote: post #2

Incarceration has been a sore spot of the american justice system for a long time. Privatization should be illegal and the plea system needs reform. “Because jails are chaotic and concealed from outside view, we only become aware of them when very bad outcomes occur, such as deaths,”

Rikers Island is operated by the New York City Department of Correction, not a private company, and 85% of Rikers' residents have not been convicted (at least not yet) so how are your suggestions supposed to help with any of the issues outlined in the OP? If anything, moving away from plea bargaining would mean more people in jails awaiting trial. More generally, what is the value or repeating things like argument-le…

[deleted]

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#25

Post by xfitm3 »

blfr wrote: post #21
xfitm3 wrote: post #2

Incarceration has been a sore spot of the american justice system for a long time. Privatization should be illegal and the plea system needs reform. “Because jails are chaotic and concealed from outside view, we only become aware of them when very bad outcomes occur, such as deaths,”

Rikers Island is operated by the New York City Department of Correction, not a private company, and 85% of Rikers' residents have not been convicted (at least not yet) so how are your suggestions supposed to help with any of the issues outlined in the OP? If anything, moving away from plea bargaining would mean more people in jails awaiting trial. More generally, what is the value or repeating things like argument-le…

"Guilty pleas have replaced trials for a very simple reason: individuals who choose to exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trial face exponentially higher sentences if they invoke the right to trial and lose. Faced with this choice, individuals almost uniformly surrender the right to trial rather than insist on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, defense lawyers spend most of their time negotiating guilty pleas rather than ensuring that police and the government respect the boundaries of the law including the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard, and judges dedicate their time to administering plea allocutions rather than evaluating the constitutional and legal aspects of the government’s case and police conduct. Equally important, the public rarely exercises the oversight function envisioned by the Framers and inherent in jury service."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2018/07/31/are-inno...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/plea-ba...

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#26

Post by blfr »

xfitm3 wrote: post #25
blfr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rikers Island is operated by the New York City Department of Correction, not a private company, and 85% of Rikers' residents have not been convicted (at least not yet) so how are your suggestions supposed to help with any of the issues outlined in the OP? If anything, moving away from plea bargaining would mean more people in jails awaiting trial. More generally, what is the value or repeating things like argument-le…

"Guilty pleas have replaced trials for a very simple reason: individuals who choose to exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trial face exponentially higher sentences if they invoke the right to trial and lose. Faced with this choice, individuals almost uniformly surrender the right to trial rather than insist on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, defense lawyers spend most of their time negotiating guilty pleas rath…

And how does it relate to brutality on Rikers Island? What is the relevance to the OP?

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#27

Post by ataturk »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #20
renholder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Privatization should be illegal and the plea system needs reform. IMHO, apathy about anyone who's ensnared in the legal system, " Well, if they weren't doing anything wrong... ", leads to dehumanisation. Dehumanisation will - almost always - lead to many forms of abuse. I wish it were as simple as just making privatisation illegal and reforming the plea system but I fear that it would take far more than that to see…

Everyone commits around three federal felonies a day, according to the premise of the book "Theee Felonies a Day" that I read a long time ago. We are all criminals and all do something "wrong" legally, all the time. The only difference is that the justice system focuses on some of us and not others, and the plea system harms most of those who are focused on, because any scrutiny at all can virtually always lead to an…

It just drives home the reality that we live in a police state where the government is far from a disinterested party--there is a power or profit angle to lording over the peasants. There always has been. Part of the Enlightenment was the concept of individual rights. We have been suckered into giving up most of them. There's always a reasonable sounding justification for everything government wants to do. But it's always a one-down relationship with government, always.

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#28

Post by Synaesthesia »

ZeroFries wrote: post #23
forevertogether wrote: post #19

Has anyone watched the recent documentary 'The Work'? I think putting people in jail is possibly the worst crime of all. Let's get them in therapy instead. We can help to heal them by listening to their stories. The trailer for 'The Work' can be watched here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8OVXG2GhpQ

Good luck convincing anyone that listening to stories will drastically alter a person's neurology to the point of making them go from hyper-aggressive to docile. Until we improve our cognitive reforming abilities, violent criminals need to be segregated from the rest of the population. I do agree, though, that the vindictive aspect of "justice" is primative.

I think we can move towards less punitive measures. In Europe there are far fewer jail sentences, I agree about violent offenders. The fact is most people are in jail for non-violent offenses.

Even in the case of violent crime, the necessity of imprisoning them for as long as the US does, is questionable. Again in Europe jail sentences tend to be much shorter.

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#29

Post by CamTin »

blfr wrote: post #26
xfitm3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Guilty pleas have replaced trials for a very simple reason: individuals who choose to exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trial face exponentially higher sentences if they invoke the right to trial and lose. Faced with this choice, individuals almost uniformly surrender the right to trial rather than insist on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, defense lawyers spend most of their time negotiating guilty pleas rath…

And how does it relate to brutality on Rikers Island? What is the relevance to the OP?

If you do elect for a trial, you are going to be waiting for a long time (on Rikers), because the system is overloaded and isn't actually provisioned to provide justice for the volume of people forced through it. This is the same reason that prosecutors are pressured to plead everyone out and public defenders are pressured to take those deals.

It's easy to score public dollars to hire cops and build prisons, but it's much harder to add judges, public defenders, clerks, and courtrooms. The result is more people with a right to a trial than we have the capacity to give a trial. Justice is therefore a scarce good and must be rationed by some means: you can either queue (wait in jail), pay in cash (by hiring private representation and making cash bail), or roll the dice and go to trial with a public defender.

The solution isn't to find another way to ration justice, it's to reduce the imbalance between people with rights to a trial and the number of trials we can provide. We can do this by arresting fewer people by, for example, ending the war on drugs (among other things) or by expanding the number of judges, clerks, and public defenders in our justice system to be able to handle the whole load. Maybe both are needed in some measure.

Re: Do Jails Kill People?

#30

Post by billfruit »

I read an estimate that the majority of rapes that happen in the US are prison rapes. If so then even the public discourse on rape itself is failing to highlight and protect these thousands of victims of sexual violence.
Post reply on HN