481–490 of 567 posts
How does the compensation work? The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor, so I hope those practices aren’t carrying over into these more forward-looking types of initiative… but at the same time, surely Turso isn’t paying full SWE salary?
/me putting on my Law & Order hat Why should the taxpayers be burdened by the results of his bad decisions? /me takes off hat
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Decriminalization in Portugal and in Oregon ended up in disasters. Resulted in more drug addicts, more violent crime, more crazy behaviors, more people laying or crawling in the streets. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-hard-drug-decrimina...
- The rehab programs were never properly available
- The general culture in Portland made it very difficult for the city to form any coherent response to homelessness. Most people in Portland really want to be "compassionate" to the homeless/drug addicted/mentally ill, so there was strong pushback on any effort to clear homeless encampments (literally to the point that people were advocating for changes in building code that would force commercial buildings to *enable* homeless people to sleep in front of them by building sleeping platforms.)
- This time period overlaps the BLM protests (which were absolutely massive in Portland), with all the "Defund the Police" / "ACAB". Indeed, the majority of Portland has been very anti-police since the late '90s. The police, obviously, didn't like this. From anec-data, it seemed to me that the street cops just stopped even bothering arresting people. (Here's an anecdote - a friend of mine was riding mass transit, with homeless men both behind him and in front of him, who got in to a conflict that resulted in one man brandishing a knife. The police were called and showed up at the next stop, no arrests were made.)
To make the point abundantly clear, the brandishing of knives in public was never decriminalized, but the police absolutely stopped enforcing *any* laws on the homeless.
- Oregon is generally terrible at implementing anything, even well-supported, popular programs fail to achieve even basic milestones of success. There's also a general lack of funding for most everything.
- COVID
- Fenatnyl use rose massively, nationwide, in spite of local drug policy. The negative effects have definitely been more pronounced in far-left cities, but it's disingenuous to assume that decriminalization increased usage.
The scary thing is that Maine is considered progressive for prison. My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irishman-jailed-for-10-years...
> My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer. Is the story supposed to be more sympathetic because he was (brilliant)?
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This was conveniently omitted from both TFA as well as the linked “how I got here” post. Where did you learn this?
Court docs: https://www.courts.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt471/files/docu...
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They are largely the same though. Small-time dealing of any drug is often just being the guy in your circle of users that does the group buying, maybe it was just your turn. Or your dealer says you can pay for your purchase by driving this package across town. Now you've been caught with enough pills to kill 30 people and the intent to distribute - is that an action that hits your threshold for heavy sentences and ba…
No but this whole discussion hits my threshold on what the extent of government should be, and people need a lot more sovereignty from police/court harrassment than they get now. We live in a totalitarian police state and have for about a century now. The state needs to get out of domestic warfare, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on crime, quit abusing its customers (aka "criminals"), and stick only to killing and…
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> Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. One might argue a fourth end as well: removal. When people talk about "cleaning up the streets" they don't mean causing ruffians to clean up their act, what they refer to is removing the ruffians entirely. To "someplace else". To "Not in my backyard". Out of sight, out of mind as is often said. For profit prisons may view prisoners as cheap lab…
>harsh sentences never seem to cause crime to go to zero Harsh sentences work great when used with the inevitability of punishment. It is obvious that a harsh sentence does not discourage a criminal to commit a crime if they expect to avoid any responsibility
First of all you have criminals who are low-functioning enough for whatever reason to fail to understand how actions connect to consequences in reality. Be it due to mental illness, or overestimation of their abilities. No amount of certainty is enough to dispel the "That won't happen to me" presumption from a pretty big chunk of the population.
Next you have desperate people: either due to "risking punishment may actually be safer than risking privation while obeying the law" and/or due to presumptions of having nothing left to lose.
And finally you have cartels, where folks organize so well that their internal governance and capacity to levy violence actually stands toe to toe against the civil governments that they operate within the jurisdictions of. This is the civil equivalent of a tumor, with all of the oncological complications that that often implies.
So I would caution that "inevitability of punishment" is an unreasonable goal to try to justify harsh sentences, and I would estimate that any historical accounts of governments who have achieved that feat were probably also totalitarian enough to be able to lie about their resulting crime statistics along the path.
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Without judging this guy's current state, he makes it clear in his first blog post that he was a dealer. "So instead of coming back home broke and apologetic, I ended up pretty deep into this and soon was making tens of thousands of dollars a week, very much unapologetically." Then, after his first sentence: "I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making…
Yes unfortunately for a long time my whole life revolved around 'drug culture', and so did of all my 'friends' and my entire social circle. I certainly cannot act like I did not deserve to come to prison, and it's definitely the only reason I am even alive right now. Coming to prison, specifically in Maine, was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Hence why I typically argue for legalization and regulation. You have a pretty unique perspective though. I suppose in your position you're incentivized to always say you did the wrong thing, drugs are bad, etc etc, but to the extent you're able to discuss it, what's your take on arguments for legalization and regulation?
I fear that the distinctly American emphasis on personal independence and deprioritization of root causes has led to our persistent and failed war on drugs. Unfortunately, many of the laws written and policies enacted presume an idealistic fantasy where humans are much more rationally acting, thoughtful, and informed than they really are. The clearest example of this is raising statutory penalties from "many years" t…
This is all good and well. Would people be amenable to the same opportunity for say Hans Reiser?
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I agree he should be released but using the mail to transport marijuana across state lines is definitely not legalized or decriminalized anywhere.
No but in my mind on principle because it’s legalized and decriminalized, this should not be a 10 year sentence.