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Working on databases from prison

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Re: Working on databases from prison

#421

Post by rangestransform »

cess11 wrote: post #376
tux3 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Sacklers are comfortably above the law and that's a bad thing, but that doesn't make small time carfentanyl operations any less bad Evil is a threshold, it's not a competition with limited spots Sometimes big crime families or notorious serial killers get away with it, but it doesn't lower the threshold for anyone else It doesn't make it any better that someone else is doing even worse. You don't get to do a litt…

"You don't get to do a little crime, as a treat" Why not? I much prefer a society in which I can get away with some crimes to one where every crime is prosecuted.

Discretionary enforcement is just used as a way to disguise discrimination

Perhaps our laws would be fairer and simpler if enforcement were draconian and uniform

Re: Working on databases from prison

#422

Post by Reasoning »

Aurornis wrote: post #295
TulliusCicero wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug possession. Even if the amount implied dealing, that still seems really high. Don't people typically get less than that for sexual assault or armed robbery?

> Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug possession. The sentence was for intent to distribute. It's an extremely potent substance. This would be like discovering someone had 30,000 pills. You can't really argue that it was for personal use at that point. They also found him in possession of carfentanil (a more potent version of fentanyl), scales, baggies, and other products. This looks like a…

I'll add on, he mentions in his blog that he was making "tens of thousands of dollars a week" selling drugs. He was not a small time dealer and certainly wasn't just buying drugs for himself.

His current sentence also (15-30 years) isn't his first prison sentence. He was released and reoffended which absolutely contributed to the longer sentence.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#423

Post by bastawhiz »

croemer wrote: post #303
bastawhiz wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is a disgusting take. Addiction is well established as an illness. It's outright shameful to suggest that someone who is going through recovery is purely doing it as a grift. What you're suggesting is that we can't trust that rehabilitation is possible or reasonable, which is a deeply cruel prospect.

Rehabilitation is great. But you might have the wrong idea about the crime. It wasn't just addiction. He had enough U-47700 for 30,000 trips (30 thousand). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291172

I'm not disputing that. But someone doesn't simply decide to acquire that much of a very serious drug with a sound mind. Is it fair to treat a crime the same for two people if one person is suffering from schizophrenia and the other is of sound mind?

Simply saying "you did a terrible thing, and that's irredeemable" isn't useful to society. What good are you doing if you've rehabilitated the criminal? You're just spending tax dollars on principle. It's cruel and unproductive.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#424

Post by Reasoning »

croemer wrote: post #387
croemer wrote: post #246

Great story, I wish this inspired more prisons around the world to follow suit. For those who don't want to hit Google, the conviction was for possessing 30g of a synthetic opioid "U-47700". A normal dose is ~1mg, 10mg can be deadly (so this was 30000 trips or killing 3000). The drug became illegal across the US on November 14, 2016. "Police said they found the drug in Thorpe’s apartment in Manchester in December 201…

Turns out TFA lies on his blog: > and some marijuana coming from california (the latter of which is what I am currently serving my time for right now). ( https://pthorpe92.dev/intro/my-story/ ) He's downplaying his crime. It wasn't just Marijuana.

Definitely a manipulative framing on his part. He originally was convicted for MDMA and marijuana, was released on probation and then was convicted for synthetic opioids. He's probably serving time right now for the marijuana for breaking his probation but he's not in prison now because of it.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#425

Post by tristan957 »

freedomben wrote: post #243
larkost wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases the work is not really voluntary, there are sanctions for not taking it. Prisoners in some states are regularly put into solitary confinement for not "volunteering" to work these jobs (a punishment that some areas deem torture). With that amount of coercion I can't see them as voluntary, and so the slavery label is awfully close to the mark.

In those situations, I would agree that is pretty damn close to the slavery mark. I've worked with a lot of prison facilities though in many states across the US and a few international, and have never seen that. That's not to say it doesn't happen of course, but out of curiosity do you (or anyone else) know of any facilities/jurisdictions that do that?

There is an example in this NPR article.

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-for...

Re: Working on databases from prison

#426

Post by genewitch »

ipaddr wrote: post #418
ahahs wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say that to the people he killed selling those drugs. This isn't weed, it's highly lethal pills.

Any yet there are coke-cola machines everywhere including inside police stations which kills more people each year. And only one company is allowed to import the specific leaves/material (coca leafs). The government restricts everyone from importing them unless it's one of the biggest companies in the world.

McDonalds had a location inside the hospital in my metro area. For at least decades, they finally left that location during covid, sometime.

i can't even, and it sounds made up.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#427

Post by aspenmayer »

charcircuit wrote: post #366
cycomanic wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you take personal responsibility if someone innocent is convicted? Once you have executed someone there is no coming back. Or are you saying you're OK with some innocents being killed so you can save some money (taxes)?

>Once you have executed someone there is no coming back. Once you've taken 10 years of someone's life there is no giving that back either. As technology progresses the cost of recording evidence will go down which will help convict and prove the innocence of people.

> As technology progresses the cost of recording evidence will go down which will help convict and prove the innocence of people.

Minority Report is a counterfactual to this claim. The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed. Technology is a tool to extend one’s grasp to meet one’s reach, and vice versa, and is a tool that serves power. Those with power are best able to bend tools to their ends, just or unjust.

> It is the duty of the poor to support and sustain the rich in their power and idleness. In doing so, they have to work before the laws' majestic equality, which forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France

Re: Working on databases from prison

#428

Post by bastawhiz »

ArthurStacks wrote: post #294
bastawhiz wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is a disgusting take. Addiction is well established as an illness. It's outright shameful to suggest that someone who is going through recovery is purely doing it as a grift. What you're suggesting is that we can't trust that rehabilitation is possible or reasonable, which is a deeply cruel prospect.

And I'm sure if you had your way the prisons would be empty of anyone convicted of a drug related crime because 'they and their terribly sad addictions/illnesses are the real victims' Theyre in prison as a punishment for crimes

To what end? To spend tax dollars? To make them rot away indefinitely?

What good are we doing to society if we are keeping rehabilitated individuals locked up at taxpayer expense? There's no objectively correct amount of punishment. The correct amount of punishment should be the smallest amount of time necessary to be confident that the criminal won't cause more harm to society, especially when the crime was committed as the result of a treatable illness like addiction.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#429

Post by rqmedes »

pookha wrote: post #272
brabel wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Northern Europe you get less than that for murder.

Unlikely...He's an incredibly callous individual that was cutting drugs with a substance orders of magnitude more dangerous than fentanyl so he could drive an Audi and live the high life. Given that they tied several deaths back to his operation, and that it was a multi-state joint effort, I doubt he'd get a slap on the wrist by a European judges.

Agreed $&@!& him, and any company hires him

Re: Working on databases from prison

#430

Post by brulard »

tristan957 wrote: post #208
pyuser583 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unclear whether the carve out for prisoners applies to just "involuntary servitude" or "slavery and involuntary servitude." In practice, only "involuntary servitude" has been used. "Community service" - unpaid - is a very common low level sentence. The eighth and fourteenth amendments almost certainly forbid enslavement - permanently becoming human property - as a criminal sentence. Even before the 13th amendmen…

If we pay people 40 cents an hour just to say they aren't slaves, they they are slaves for all intents and purposes. They are put in poor working conditions working for for-profit companies, making much less than minimum wage. How is it legal for the State to not provide sunscreen or shade for inmates doing outdoor manual labor? https://theappeal.org/louisiana-prisoners-demand-an-end-to-m...

A prisoner costs taxpayers around $50k a year on average in US. If their "take-home" wage is $0.40/h, it may still be generous.
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