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After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

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Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#51

Post by babuskov »

asveikau wrote: post #17
zalew wrote: post #2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_G._Santos While in prison, he divorced, got married, received a college degree from Mercer University in 1992, a master's degree from Hofstra University in 1995, began a doctorate, and developed programs and resources for inmates and their families. well, you can say he got a lot of time for that in there, but still, wow.

The whole time reading this article, I thought, sounds good, but having spent 25 years in jail he must have done something pretty bad. Then I read that Wikipedia article and it turns out he was caught selling cocaine in his 20s... Man, say whatever you want for drugs being bad, but that's kind of a BS reason to rob someone of their youth like that. For 25 years I thought maybe he'd killed a guy.

I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be hard unless we want to see more and more people doing it. It's all about perceived risk and profit, after all and if risk is higher there would be less people doing it.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#53

Post by mike_esspe »

WA wrote: post #45
ed209 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

until you see the many lives destroyed by drugs. from mothers abandoning their children, to ending up homeless and alone, to deaths and murders. Sure he's just one cog in a giant machine, but he's also responsible for death and hardship as a result of the drugs he moved. Society in general also carries some of the responsibility, as do those involved in his upbringing. But I know that if my child came to any harm as…

You make it sound like your children don't have a choice whether to take drugs or not. You could argue similarly by replacing drugs with anything (legal) that could harm your children. For example, do you blame motorcycle vendors for being responsible for deaths and hardship among the families of motorcyclists? Drugs and motorcycles are certainly different, but it's a bit too easy to blame drug traffickers or dealers…

In modern society it is implied, that person taking drugs is losing their free will and requires guardianship. Whether it is scientifically correct is a question.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#54

Post by mynameisvlad »

babuskov wrote: post #51
asveikau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole time reading this article, I thought, sounds good, but having spent 25 years in jail he must have done something pretty bad. Then I read that Wikipedia article and it turns out he was caught selling cocaine in his 20s... Man, say whatever you want for drugs being bad, but that's kind of a BS reason to rob someone of their youth like that. For 25 years I thought maybe he'd killed a guy.

I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be hard unless we want to see more and…

However, the dealer is not wholly to blame for that. It's the person's choice to use the drugs in the first place, and, sometimes with help, you can quit.

A gun store is not blamed for someone dying at the hand of a gun they sold.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#55

Post by babuskov »

WalterBright wrote: post #36
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #7

The story is amazing. But what continuously went through my head was how different our world will be 25 years from now. It'll be 2038...what will technology be like? If you take a second to realize what it was 25 years ago, what it is now, and then ask yourself what it WILL be in 25 years...well shit, I was left speechless.

My great-aunt remembers the time the first car arrived in her village in the 1800s. She lived to fly across the Atlantic in a jetliner, and see the moon landings.

You surely mean 1900s, right? Or 1890's?

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#56

Post by mynameisvlad »

mike_esspe wrote: post #53
WA wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like your children don't have a choice whether to take drugs or not. You could argue similarly by replacing drugs with anything (legal) that could harm your children. For example, do you blame motorcycle vendors for being responsible for deaths and hardship among the families of motorcyclists? Drugs and motorcycles are certainly different, but it's a bit too easy to blame drug traffickers or dealers…

In modern society it is implied, that person taking drugs is losing their free will and requires guardianship. Whether it is scientifically correct is a question.

Doesn't change the fact that the person, in most cases, had to make a choice to start taking the drugs.

It's not as if you wake up one day, and you're now instantly addicted to cocaine and are destroying your life. You had to make the choice to start using the drugs.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#57

Post by Peaker »

babuskov wrote: post #51
asveikau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole time reading this article, I thought, sounds good, but having spent 25 years in jail he must have done something pretty bad. Then I read that Wikipedia article and it turns out he was caught selling cocaine in his 20s... Man, say whatever you want for drugs being bad, but that's kind of a BS reason to rob someone of their youth like that. For 25 years I thought maybe he'd killed a guy.

I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be hard unless we want to see more and…

It is not inevitable that if your significant other deals drugs you will do drugs. Some would say that unless coercion of any kind was used, the user is fully responsible for their own actions.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#58

Post by yareally »

draugadrotten wrote: post #44
yareally wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Sweden (with a similar system to Norway) where Frank Abagnale[1] (Catch Me If You Can) spent some time and spoke highly of the penal system of the Scandinavian countries. I think he mentioned they were paid a fair wage, able to take real college courses (not just correspondence) and made other attempts at real rehabilitation. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale

The Swedish system tries to rehabilitate prisoners using various evidence-based methods. For some types of prisoners it works very well. Prisoners are paid but only a few cents per hour. They generally spend it all on buying cigarettes. The punishments are much lower in Sweden than in the US. Drug smuggling offences and murders carry the longest penalties. I would say on average penalties are a factor 5x or 10x lower…

Wow, thanks for the insight. I didn't realize things had changed so drastically in Sweden in the past decade.

So just statistically speaking, has the overall crime rate gone up drastically in Sweden throughout the past decade or is it more of a slight bump? Just wondering if it has gone up enough that the average person notices in their daily lives or if it's more of a news report/sound bite for politicians? I'm not an expert by any means on Sweden, but I always thought of it as having a progressive legal system and low crime rate.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#59

Post by probably_wrong »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #54
babuskov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be hard unless we want to see more and…

However, the dealer is not wholly to blame for that. It's the person's choice to use the drugs in the first place, and, sometimes with help, you can quit. A gun store is not blamed for someone dying at the hand of a gun they sold.

I don't think I agree completely with your second statement. You are comparing the drug dealer with the gun store, while in fact you should be comparing a drug store to a pharmacy, in the sense that both sell stuff that can be misused but has lots of other uses, and where both have a code they are expected to adhere to.

A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his customers to his product (unless there are dealers who advice their customers to stop buying and try and keep their addiction in line, as it is hurting them and their loved ones).

A better comparison, I think, would be a drug dealer and an arms dealer selling AK-47 on Irak.

Re: After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind

#60

Post by jbrooksuk »

xijuan wrote: post #49
jbrooksuk wrote: post #19

Another page about the exact same thing was here the other day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5593659

I KNOW! I am a bit surprised that people are talking about it again. Well, it is an amazing story...

Don't get me wrong, it's a good read, and Michael should be so proud of what he's achieved within those 25 years and be excited for the future. I wish him the best of luck.

I'm just amazed that this story is being regurgitated by an audience who will probably visit HN every day.

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