Your Thoughts on the Prison System | INFJ Forum

Your Thoughts on the Prison System

Scientia

Scientia

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Aug 28, 2014
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A large amount of tax money, about 1/3 in each state, goes toward maintaining the current corrections system. If nonviolent drug offenses were released on probation and into a treatment program, the number of young offenders in prisons in this country would be reduced by more than 400%.
Why haven't lawmakers addressed the huge amount of money being invested in a broken prison system whose recidivism rate is ridiculously high? What is the purpose of incarcerating young, nonviolent offenders? It's not as if they are rehabilitated, in fact, they often leave the system worse than when they entered. It seems to me that this is a huge issue that no one talks about. I see students arrested for minor drug offenses carted off in handcuffs, only to return a few months later with violent tendencies whereas before they had been regular kids.
Anyone familiar with Arizona's policy on nonviolent drug offenders? That one seems to be different. Does it work?
What are your thoughts on the prison system? Do you think it is an effective punishment/deterrent?
 
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[video=youtube_share;yndfqN1VKhY]http://youtu.be/yndfqN1VKhY[/video]
 
I think locking a person in a cage for several years is immoral. Why is it okay if a group of people do that (and the nation sits by and passively accepts it), but if a mother does that to a child she is mentally ill?
 
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its pointless to lock someone up in order to get revenge, because no amount of revenge is ever going to fix the hurt that was done, and anyhow it doesnt stop them from doing it again. however there is a point to removing people from society who are unable to respect its rules, so long as they are cared for humanely.
 
An excerpt from this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/04/Frontline/360812/

You need to watch only the first five minutes of Solitary Nation, the first of two Frontline documentaries that will air on PBS starting Tuesday. The inmates, corrections officers, and prison bureaucrats all appear stooped and burdened, tamped down, by the oppressive nature of the place in which they spend the bulk of their lives. That's what prison is, of course, but Frontline captures something deeper here.

"This is what they create in here, monsters," one inmate tells Frontline's reporters. "You can't conduct yourself like a human being when they treat you like an animal."

"It's like being buried alive," another prisoner says off camera.

Now, every inmate in the history of the world likely has complained about the conditions of his confinement. But the point of the film, I think–and perhaps the best argument against the continued use of solitary–is that regardless of how inmates feel about it, there is no redeemable value to it to the rest of us.

Solitary confinement surely makes prisons safer–that's the argument wardens use over and over again to justify its continued use. But it also creates or exacerbates mental illness in the men who are condemned to it. And that illness, in turn, pushes inmates in solitary to engage in harmful or self-harming conduct that, in turn, prompts a severe disciplinary response from prison officials.

That, in turn, causes the men to turn deeper into their own insanity. And then these broken men are released back into the world without adequate mental health treatment or "step down" services that will help reduce their chances of recidivism. It's a cycle everyone recognizes but cannot seem to change. It's madness upon madness.


Adam Brulotte, one of the inmates featured in the film, gets caught in this cycle. He’s a young man who says he wants to study for his GED so he can get a real job, instead of selling drugs, when he is released. Because he has broken the rules, he is placed in isolation. And because he is in isolation, he goes mad. And because he goes mad, he breaks more rules. The prison is safer but we see Brulotte broken before our eyes. If this young man is not treated now, how much will the rest of us pay when he is ultimately released?

You don't have to sympathize with the inmates featured in this documentary to appreciate just how broken the prison system is today. Solitary Nation is a valuable addition to the growing body of work that slowly is pushing America away from this form of confinement. It shows the blood and the feces and the numbing foulness of solitary for humanizing both prisoner and guard, and it chronicles the ambiguities that exist in these cases (is the inmate truly mentally ill or just faking it?).
Click to expand...

"You can't conduct yourself like a human being when they treat you like an animal."

Except no animal should be treated like that.
 
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i agree hush. has anyone read "Star Rover" by Jack London?? its a short novel about solitary confinement and legalised torture and the way those things destroy the human mind. it was published in 1915 and its just as relevant now as it was then. read it!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
TooShyToSay said:
A large amount of tax money, about 1/3 in each state, goes toward maintaining the current corrections system. If nonviolent drug offenses were released on probation and into a treatment program, the number of young offenders in prisons in this country would be reduced by more than 400%.
Why haven't lawmakers addressed the huge amount of money being invested in a broken prison system whose recidivism rate is ridiculously high? What is the purpose of incarcerating young, nonviolent offenders? It's not as if they are rehabilitated, in fact, they often leave the system worse than when they entered. It seems to me that this is a huge issue that no one talks about. I see students arrested for minor drug offenses carted off in handcuffs, only to return a few months later with violent tendencies whereas before they had been regular kids.
Anyone familiar with Arizona's policy on nonviolent drug offenders? That one seems to be different. Does it work?
What are your thoughts on the prison system? Do you think it is an effective punishment/deterrent?
Click to expand...

Because the taxpayers money is funding privately owned businesses and those owners have powerful lobbies.

Because it keeps a large percentage of young males locked up and not able to band together in a common cause.
Because those that break the law despite the consequences cannot be "controlled".
Because those that experiment with drugs are more intelligent and curious than those who strictly do what they are told to do.

It's all about control and money.
 
Aside from the debate of whether or not the prison system is moral or immoral, oftentimes I feel like we have a prison system that is so large because people who break the law are not smart enough to not get caught. For example, the area where I live has some of the largest per capita concentrations of meth in the company. There are SO MANY news articles I've seen in our county where people have a meth lab in their car and they get pulled over for an expired tag or not wearing their seatbelt, and they fucking give the cop permission to search the fucking vehicle! Last month when Nelly got arrested for drug possession, it was in my county go figure, and what do you know the cop pulled him over for some unrelated thing or another. i feel too lazy to pull up the news story at the moment.
 
drummergirlbk said:
Aside from the debate of whether or not the prison system is moral or immoral, oftentimes I feel like we have a prison system that is so large because people who break the law are not smart enough to not get caught. For example, the area where I live has some of the largest per capita concentrations of meth in the company. There are SO MANY news articles I've seen in our county where people have a meth lab in their car and they get pulled over for an expired tag or not wearing their seatbelt, and they fucking give the cop permission to search the fucking vehicle! Last month when Nelly got arrested for drug possession, it was in my county go figure, and what do you know the cop pulled him over for some unrelated thing or another. i feel too lazy to pull up the news story at the moment.
Click to expand...

Oftentimes people who have not had a quality education, or were brought up in a household with ignorant parents, or even those with learning disabilities will turn to crime as a means to survive or because they have been raised around crime or have/had criminal parents as well.
The problem would be significantly reduced if we had a higher quality education system here in the US…but the cycle of poverty contributes to it even more.
 
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Skarekrow said:
Oftentimes people who have not had a quality education, or were brought up in a household with ignorant parents, or even those with learning disabilities will turn to crime as a means to survive or because they have been raised around crime or have/had criminal parents as well.
The problem would be significantly reduced if we had a higher quality education system here in the US…but the cycle of poverty contributes to it even more.
Click to expand...

that's exactly what I was getting at.
 
To think we punish people for being addicted to a drug is morally wrong IMO.
The word “addict” comes from the word “slave”….as in, your body/brain are slaves to this substance.
Sure, punish them if they commit a crime other than shooting up…but what they need is treatment or nothing will change…all the non-violent drug offenders learn in prison is how to become criminals.
 
Someday, hopefully, it will be looked on as we do the debtor's prisons and madhouses. They can serve as a deterrent, but they usually do nothing to solve the underlying problem... it's usually the exact opposite. Our incarceration rate is a pretty hard statistic to spin, so nobody talks about it.

Nothing's been done, because people have been trained into getting their daily 10+ minutes hate.
 
Marco Rubio Is Being Funded by Private For-Profit Prisons


GEO and Corrections Corporation of America are the two largest for-profit prison companies in the United States.
These companies, along with their peers, have dished out more than $10 million to political campaigns since 1989 and almost $25 million has been spent on lobbying efforts.

What has this expense bought the prison industry?
Apparently, it has purchased quite a bit.

These private businesses generate $3.3 billion in annual revenue, and their market share has skyrocketed.
Private prisons make money by keeping people locked up behind their concrete walls.

Politicians assist in passing laws.
The more laws that are on the books, the more criminals that are created.

The more criminals that exist, the more money a private prison can accumulate.
The more money a lobbyist has at his disposal, the more money a politician can receive.
Click to expand...

The full article here -
http://theantimedia.org/marco-rubio-is-being-funded-by-private-for-profit-prisons/
 
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[video=youtube;e9VETqBVpd4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=e9VETqBVpd4[/video]​
 
TooShyToSay said:
The private prison issue is something I hadn't considered. We are truly lacking as a society. Why is this even a business? It's a catch-22.
Click to expand...

Once you start looking for it you'll see where a large number of state governments have privatized most everything these days.

Also - you'll start seeing how someone will get elected....then they'll serve on a certain committee....then when they don't run for office again....they'll be hired on as a Lobbyist or become a board member of a huge corporation they passed laws to protect their industry while on said committee.

Our government is a complete scam on the working people.

I am a social worker and run a very small grant funded agency for children with special health care needs in TX. We are witnessing the complete overhaul and privatization of the medical care previously administered by the state. Medicaid for children and SSI are about to become wholly administered by private health insurance companies. It is currently a nightmare out there for the Moms of children with such illnesses as: Cystic Fibrosis, Neurodegenerative diseases; Severe Autism; Traumatic Brain injury; and cerebral palsy. It's amazing to watch congress give the money away to their partners and deprive working class families of much needed assistance while watching the insurance companies deny services to children. Medical transportation is privatized. Database management of who gets what is privatized. Pretty soon case management will be privatized and we will most likely see the end of social workers in TX. The insurance companies are hiring RN's to do the case management. We've already heard how they handle things. For example: one elderly lady with COPD needed oxygen, a bed, and a medical home. The nurse never went out to her home to see if she had any other needs. Turns out she needed help with making her electric bill. The nurse said sorry - I only do medical stuff. I can't help it if you don't have electricity.

Yikes! A social worker would have gone out to the home and done a comprehensive assessment. We have known where to get help for the elecric bill. I mean what good would oxygen and other equipment do for the woman if she didn't have electricity?

It's getting pretty rough out there and in TX it will get worse over the coming years.
 
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Why haven't lawmakers addressed our broken justice system? Its because no one cares until it happens to them.
 
Eventhorizon said:
Why haven't lawmakers addressed our broken justice system? Its because no one cares until it happens to them.
Click to expand...

I disagree…just based on the fact that I give a shit, and I doubt that I am that unique.
It’s because our lawmakers are ignoring the people.
 
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