prisons

So, by your own definition, you had no human rights and should have been locked up in a dungeon?
 

justfred said:
Sunny.
In answer to your query 'Are things really like this' The answer is Yes!! If an inmate complained of the way he/she is being treated we have a band of do gooders claiming we are depriving them of their Human Rights. To me those that commit serious crimes have no human rights and should be severely punished and these human rights busy bodies should keep their noses out.
By the way, I hang my head in shame, I have a criminal record. In 1944 I was caught giving a friend a ride on the crossbar of my bicycle and was fined the sum of two shillings and sixpence.
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Well, Fred, I have to tell you that here in the U.S. most Americans really don’t care about prisoner rights. They are, however, treated humanely, unless they give the guards no other choice. We have low security to maximum security to what is now called “ Super Max” prisons. The more severe the crime, the more severe the punishment and the crimes committed determine what prison the convict is placed in.

Normally, here in Pennsylvania, either a local police department or a marshall will handle transferring a prisoner from one jail to another. I’m looking at my journal as I write this, so the facts should be fairly correct. Back in 1997, another Trooper and myself were assigned to go to Baltimore and collect a prisoner and bring him back to PA. So, the next morning we head down there and get to the prison at about 9:30. The guards asked us what kind of vehicle we had. We’re like, “What does that matter?”

They bring out this huge dude that’s six foot 10 inches tall and weighs in at just over 300 pounds. We knew that there was no way that we were going to be able to stick this guy in the backseat of our car and drive him 140 miles. We called the Barrack’s Commander and he tells us, “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you guys about his size.” It was also our fault for not reading his stats. So, anyway, we had to drive back to our barracks and change our car for a van. Then, we had to stop at U-Haul and rent a bunch of furniture pads, so the prisoner could have a comfy seat on the floor of the van.

The dude was to be arraigned the next day before a judge on six counts of rape, plus other charges. The whole time that he was in our custody, his only words spoken to us was to tell us what he wanted to eat and that he had to use the restroom twice.

He treated us respectfully and never gave us one problem. It just makes me wonder what goes wrong with people at times that makes them do the terrible things that they do.
 

StarSong said:
Say, what, Toorbulite? I didn't read any religious reference in this thread until you injected one...............
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Quite so, Star !
But I wasn't responding to any prior post - just stating my own view.
It seems to me (right or wrong) that many of the most gung-ho advocates of harsh punishments are often religious folk.

Americans have the highest % of "born agains" anywhere - and amongst the highest 'lock 'em up' rates. A coincidence ?
Some interesting stats - prison population per 100,000.
India 33
Japan 45
Finland 57
France 102
U.K. 140(ish)
Aus 167
USA 655
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

Does the U.S. have a far, far higher percentage of crims or is the "throw away the key" mentality counter-productive.
Gotta be one or the other.
 
Disused prisons make interesting museums after the miscreants are moved elsewhere. We have been to one in Deer Lodge, Montana and another in Yuma, Arizona. We did not get out to Alcatraz when we were in San Francisco. The one in Melbourne Australia was complete with a gallows.

I got a tour of "tent city" in Arizona, which is an active jail. They had an interesting display of confiscated contraband that had been snuck in.
 
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911 said:
Sending people to prison today has nothing to do with rehabilitation. The idea of rehabbing prisoners left the building long ago. Today, we have a new kind of prisoner. Most will resist being rehabbed. Most want to do nothing, except to lay in his cage and think of what horrible thing he can do next to a guard. Most prisoners have a job, except in super max prisons, where it's best to keep the animals in their cages and locked. How would you like to be a member of an extraction team in a prison and have to remove a prisoner from his cell?

I have seen extractions. They can get really nasty at times if the prisoner resists and the bigger he is, the worse it can be. I have seen prisoners spit at and on guards, throw their feces and urine on guards and also inside their cell on the walls, mattress, etc. I have seen prisoners stick their finger down their throat so they can throw up on a guard and even stand next to a guard and pee on them.

It's also what prisoners do to each other that makes some of these prisoners come to be called animals. We have all heard about the rapes that go on and that's not a fairy tale. Some rapes are very brutal. Here in Pennsylvania, at the one prison I attended for training, we have a cell block for juvenile offenders. During my training there, we had a fellow that was 15 when he was incarcerated for killing his Mom. I happened to be there when just after he turned 18 and was transferred to the adult wing. It was only about 3 or 4 days later when this kid showed up for morning role call all bloody, hair pulled out, burn marks on his face and arms, clothes torn and no shoes or socks. He must have went through hell at some point during the night. He was put in a cell with another lifer, only he was in his 40's and a much bigger man. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was the person that dished out the punishment. Sure, we pull him out of his cell and put him in solitary confinement, but so what? He's in for life. What else are we going to do to him?

Almost every prisoner carries some kind of shank on him or in a handy hiding place where he can get his hands on it when and if necessary. Everyday, yes, everyday, fights break out, either in the yard or inside the common areas. Prisoners today are mean, viscous and brutal. Most of the young ones up until about 50 or so years of age belong to a gang. Being in a gang affords them protection, or so they think. Gang fights or gang wars as they like to call them, also happen frequently.

Being in prison is like having no life and having to watch your back 24/7. There is always someone pissed off at you and even if there isn't, there are times when one prisoner just wants to stick another one to make him feel good. A prisoner can never trust what's in his food, especially if he has enemies working in the kitchen. It's Hell at its worse.

And last, do not mistake prison for your local county jail. It's like comparing kindergarten to high school.
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My husband worked as a prison guard after he retired from the military, and he said exactly the same things, and we have much the same things going on even in juvenile detention facilities. Here in NM we have all kinds of violent prison gangs, too.

When I was still working, we had to visit clients in prison a time or two (thank God this was very rare) and being inside there, especially after several sets of doors had clanged shut behind us, gave me the very serious creeps (to say the least) even though we always had pretty serious looking escorts. I couldn't help thinking about the disastrous prison riot we had here during the late 70s.

Anyway, I have no idea what the answer is, but I feel strongly that we can't just have violent criminals who have committed unimaginable acts walking around among us, and I don't know what else we could do with them except imprison them. Most people have no idea of the awfulness of the things some of those people have done to other human beings. Sometimes when working on an appeal and looking at evidence photos, transcripts, etc., I would just have to go outside the office and look at trees for a while to get ahold of myself. There were a couple of cases that still occasionally creep into my nightmares.
 
Butterfly said:
........ we can't just have violent criminals who have committed unimaginable acts walking around among us........
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I'm sure nobody would disagree with that, Butterfly.
But I wonder just how many of the millions of imprisoned Americans fall into that category ?

“TOO many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law-enforcement reason.”
The person who said that was neither a defence lawyer, nor a prisoners’-rights advocate, nor a European looking down his nose across the Atlantic.
It was instead America’s top law-enforcement official, Eric Holder, the (then) attorney general. (2013)

https://www.economist.com/the-econo...oes-america-have-such-a-big-prison-population
 
I don't think prison today is about rehabbing people. I think it is now just punishment. I also agree with Butterfly, we can't have violent people walking around in society among the rest of us. I have read that the U.S. spends an awful lot of money (the last number that I can remember reading was about $100 billion) warehousing these violent people, but what is the alternate choice? I certainly don't have the answer.

Just think how many kids we could send to college for no cost if we didn't have to spend so much on prisoners. Or how much more we could do for seniors, or how much more we could spend on disease research. It overwhelms me at times.
 
Butterfly said:
I think it would help a lot if we would quit throwing people in prison for minor drug use infractions. Not talking about trafficking, but possession for personal use.
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I agree those dollars would be better spent on treatment plans.

IMO it all boils down to the length of the sentence and whether or not we are a society that believes in second chances.

If the person's sentence will allow them to rejoin society we owe it to everyone involved to educate and rehabilitate the prisoner to the extent possible before they become our next door neighbor.

I don't see how a person can be expected to make a new life when they are released from prison with $40.00, a bus ticket and the clothes on their back. It seems like a recipe for failure/disaster to me. The good news is that it appears to keep the current system in business.
 
"I agree those dollars would be better spent on treatment plans."

I may agree to a point if the crime committed was a victimless crime, such as embezzlement, theft by deception, etc. However, when you start talking about hardened criminals and gang related crimes, most of those people are not able to be reformed because it's their choice to be a life long bad-ass. Then, we also have pedophiles that are not even curable as is many serial rapists and other sex crimes. As for drug possession in small quantities, for the last several years now, I have noticed judges backing off of long term sentencing. If a person goes before the court because he had a ounce of weed, chances are that person would not see any jail time. In fact, he may be given second and third chances before the person would even see any county time. The judges now are more likely to hand down stiff fines and community service work, rather than jail time, especially if he needs to work and support his family.

Here in PA, we have a matrix we use to determine the degree of the offense. For example: If I would find multiple bags of Cocaine, or even weed for that matter, I could charge you with intent to deal or supply. Actually, this whole thing really gets complicated. There are several factors when determining what the degree of the felony is going to be charged. It all boils down to how much and what substance you are holding in your possession. Of course, the more a person has on him, the more severe is the degree and so is the punishment.

I remember arresting a family man of about 35 years of age that was caught stealing money from a youth organization that he was the treasurer for. He ended up getting 2 years in jail with one year suspended, 50 hours of community service work and a $2500.00 fine. He was out in six months, but his employer didn't hold his job for him, so he was also jobless. Ironically, I drove past his house everyday on my way to work. After about a month, maybe less, I noticed that his pickup was no longer in the driveway when I would go to work at night, so I was fairly certain that he did get another job.


 
"I may agree to a point if the crime committed was a victimless crime, such as embezzlement, theft by deception, etc."

I must take issue with that statement, 911. Since when is embezzlement or theft by deception a victimless crime? I've known people who were defrauded by both of these crimes. Trust me, people who get scammed or defrauded out of tens of thousands of dollars consider themselves victims.

Prostitution is closer to a victimless crime in that both parties are technically willing participants. Even so, prostitutes pressed onto the streets by pimps or the need to generate drug money are in actuality victims - as are the residents of the neighborhoods where those acts occur.
 
Yes, the first one that popped into my head was Bernie Madoff. I think he deserves to be exactly where he is, in prison, more than some guy smoking pot.
 
Sunny said:
Yes, the first one that popped into my head was Bernie Madoff. I think he deserves to be exactly where he is, in prison, more than some guy smoking pot.
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Maybe, maybe not?...Consider this...from the information known , news reports, articles written, heard on talk radio & a made for TV movie. All of the "victims" were people looking for a an easy score , to reap huge profit through investment returns . During that time, he was proclaiming / promising,.. huge percent return , in a short time on investments. Something like 12-15% [as I recall] Within 12-18 months. ?

Now I am no financial / investment wizard , but when I heard it....I thought no way in hell. At a time when rates were fluctuating , and at lower figures ?! Belief in what they wanted to believe & greed is what drained the savings of most of his "victims" .

I'm not saying he should not have been punished in some manner ? Incarcerated for some time? But again [opinion] his "victims" were not innocent. Greed got the better of them.


From an article about it.........

All the investors who lost everything made the classic investing mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket. Always remember that you should never put more than five to 10 percent of your assets in any one investment. A good investment may report that your returns may be 12 percent one year, six percent the next and just two percent the next, so you can expect a return of about 6.67%. Don't believe anyone who promises 10 to 12 percent consistently each and every year.
 
Now I really do have to take 911 to task !
This is serious stuff !


"Nothing good happens after 2:00 a.m."
That's about the time I start communicating with Yanks online (because you're roughly 14 hours behind Australia.)
And that has to be a "good" thing, surely. :playful:
 
rgp said:
Maybe, maybe not?...Consider this...from the information known , news reports, articles written, heard on talk radio & a made for TV movie. All of the "victims" were people looking for a an easy score , to reap huge profit through investment returns . During that time, he was proclaiming / promising,.. huge percent return , in a short time on investments. Something like 12-15% [as I recall] Within 12-18 months. ?

Now I am no financial / investment wizard , but when I heard it....I thought no way in hell. At a time when rates were fluctuating , and at lower figures ?! Belief in what they wanted to believe & greed is what drained the savings of most of his "victims" .

I'm not saying he should not have been punished in some manner ? Incarcerated for some time? But again [opinion] his "victims" were not innocent. Greed got the better of them.


From an article about it.........

All the investors who lost everything made the classic investing mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket. Always remember that you should never put more than five to 10 percent of your assets in any one investment. A good investment may report that your returns may be 12 percent one year, six percent the next and just two percent the next, so you can expect a return of about 6.67%. Don't believe anyone who promises 10 to 12 percent consistently each and every year.
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Yeah, but those investors trying to make a profit were not out to break the law and profiteer at the cost of someone else, like Madoff was. You can't hold the conman harmless just because the people he conned were stupid enough to believe his con.
 
Butterfly.
Re your statement "just because the people he conned were stupid enough to believe his con"
Over here in this country (England) elderly people are being conned out of hard earned savings by the kind of people you are talking about. We must remember that many elderly are very vulnerable and I have seen some of these scams that have been sent to them. They are created by very clever people and appear so genuine that many, mostly elderly vulnerable people fall for them. Another scam over here that appears so genuine is by telephone. Someone will ring claiming to be from your bank and will talk you out of giving your bank details. People have been warned time and time again that this is a scam and banks and building societies will never ask for details over the phone but sadly many of our elderly are taken in and end up losing all their savings. I do not class these victims as 'stupid' Their brain cells are not as active when they get older. I am in my nineties but thankfully still have my wits about me but I must say that at times I have received letters and phone calls that make me wonder but to be on the safe side I ignore.
 
StarSong said:
"I may agree to a point if the crime committed was a victimless crime, such as embezzlement, theft by deception, etc."

I must take issue with that statement, 911. Since when is embezzlement or theft by deception a victimless crime? I've known people who were defrauded by both of these crimes. Trust me, people who get scammed or defrauded out of tens of thousands of dollars consider themselves victims.

Prostitution is closer to a victimless crime in that both parties are technically willing participants. Even so, prostitutes pressed onto the streets by pimps or the need to generate drug money are in actuality victims - as are the residents of the neighborhoods where those acts occur.
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You can take issue all you want. Here in PA and many other states, so long as no injuries are involved, it's considered a victimless crime. Not disagreeing that some people may be hurt financially, but as they say, no blood, no foul.

Prostitution in this state is also considered a victimless crime. Both the prostitute and the john will be sentenced accordingly, however, unless they have been to court on multiple occasions for the same offense, it's unlikely that they will see any jail time.

I have been to prisons in different states, but none compares to Angola in Louisiana. There are many supermax prisons in the U.S., so there may be a worse one, but I visited Angola for a training session back about 20 years ago and I saw guys in there that even scared the crap out of me. Gangs control Angola and even though they are locked in their cages for most of the day, they are still able to communicate with one another and do their business, like selling drugs. I think Angola may be the largest supermax prison in the U.S. Anyone in there, we do not want them out on the streets.
 
I think running scams on the order of what Madoff did could not be considered a "victimless" crime. I once saw a documentary about him, and some of the elderly people who were interviewed had lost their life savings. They
were not motivated by greed, at least many of them were not, any more than any ordinary person who buys a few shares of stock. They trusted Madoff, some of them knew him personally, and they were wiped out. He took
advantage of that trust, and couldn't care less that his Ponzi scheme would eventually leave them in the dust. If that isn't victimizing someone, I don't know what is.
 
Sunny said:
I think running scams on the order of what Madoff did could not be considered a "victimless" crime. I once saw a documentary about him, and some of the elderly people who were interviewed had lost their life savings. They
were not motivated by greed, at least many of them were not, any more than any ordinary person who buys a few shares of stock. They trusted Madoff, some of them knew him personally, and they were wiped out. He took
advantage of that trust, and couldn't care less that his Ponzi scheme would eventually leave them in the dust. If that isn't victimizing someone, I don't know what is.
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I completely agree, Sunny, and wonder if this is a matter of semantics. Perhaps "victim" at one time referred exclusively to a personal injury crime. PA criminal statutes were likely written 300 years ago or more.

One of my elderly relatives was phone scammed out of more than $10K. Believe me, he was victimized.
 
Butterfly said:
Yeah, but those investors trying to make a profit were not out to break the law and profiteer at the cost of someone else, like Madoff was. You can't hold the conman harmless just because the people he conned were stupid enough to believe his con.
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Exactly where did I say he was harmless?

I did & do say ...indeed the investors were stupid....& greedy.
 
I think the hang up here is in the terminology. When I refer to a victimless crime, it means that no one has suffered any physical injuries. However, when the law ia applied, it would be more like a speeding violation or someone littering.

Judges also cofuse the two types of the term “victimless crime” as well. One judge may say during sentencing of a defendant that has been convicted of robbery, “Thankfully, no one was injured during your breaking and entering and the theft of goods and money. Had anyone been victimized, the sentence would be much worse.”

I do want to say this about Bernie Madoff. Had we not had the financial collapse that we did, Mr. Madoff would probably still be in business. Bernie left behind a number of victims from his schemes, although some of it has been recovered, but I will believe to the day that I die, Bernie has some money stashed somewhere. There is just too much that has not been accounted for to think otherwise.
 
rgp said:
Exactly where did I say he was harmless?

I did & do say ...indeed the investors were stupid....& greedy.
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A "hold harmless" agreement protects one of the participants from liability. What I meant by that was just because his victims were gullible and fell for his con does not make him less liable for his actions. Thus, he shouldn't be "held harmless."

I never said he was harmless.

And even though his victims might have been "stupid and greedy" doesn't make him any less a crook. Stupid and greedy are not crimes. Con games are. And HE was greedier than all of them.
 

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