Monday, April 4, 2016

Going to Prison, Waldorf Astoria Style

Going to prison in U.S., assuming you survive, gives you street credibility because you may not have been a criminal going into prison but you will sure as hell be one when you come back out.

Nothing is done to ameliorate the situation but rather it's continually compounded by more overcrowding.  There's no evidence anywhere in the U.S. is trying to solve the problem, instead it seems the opposite and it only gets worse.


Cadillac Man saw a story on "60 Minutes" last night and he thought it important enough for a call because it made the obvious point about the status quo in U.S. prisons ... but then it went beyond to look at solutions elsewhere.

That's when the show cut to a convicted murderer on vacation with his wife and kid at, I think, a beach.

The cut is a shocker but settle down as he was on a one-day or less furlough on a trial before he is released and that apparently comes soon.  He can only hurt his freedom by running away so he abides by the conditions.


The immediate is likely what kind of punishment is this but keep segregated the needs in any situation since some belong to the state and some belong to the church.  The state has no mandate other than keeping itself and the citizens safe.  It could not care less about punishment unless it serves the mandate.  The church is highly-interested in punishment because an-eye-for-an-eye, etc.  Whether that's right or wrong isn't the point as the only interest is the segregation of interests and the state doesn't care.

The overview of the German prisons showed apartment-style living and it's jaw-dropping for Americans to see but the fact remains that it works.  They have low rates of recidivism and the biggest measure of any rehabilitation is whether any parolee will re-offend.


Bernie Sanders takes this heads up as the problem here is obvious even while many deny it or camouflage it with for-pay prisons, etc.  The obvious fact to anyone is American prisons are hugely overcrowded and not having enough money to pay for anything better is a shallow excuse for keeping people in conditions which are alone sufficient to justify a charge of cruel and unusual punishment.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just went I thought you could not go any further to left.

Unknown said...

I don't even see any politics in it! System here obviously has serious problems. That seems to work. So.

Doesn't look to me like anything but jailhouse algebra!

Anonymous said...

You need to fix the problems that cause the crimes.
We have many jails similar to that now. They even nickname them Club Med.
But since we have so many violent offenders that overall system cant work.

Anonymous said...

But our overall system is flawed.
It does take alot to be sent to jail but the process to get that far is an issue.
Lets take a simple drug charge as solving that allows a lot of freedom to solve more. We will skip weed for now.
Most jurisdiction do something similar to Germany. You are fined heavily and put on probation. This can be done several times before you are incarcerated. But if you look at the process. A simple drug charge usually results in $2000-$3000 in fines and probation costs. But almost no help in changing the lifestyle. And most offenders do not have the ability to pay the fines and financially drown. Increasing thier income is very hard due to thier new criminal record and very few employers willing to help.

Cadillac Man said...

The 60 minutes report stated that prison reform in the US is one issue that both Democrats and Republicans agree upon. We have 5% of the world's population and house 25% of all prisoners in the world costing us over $80 billion dollars yearly.

American politicians and prison managers have been looking at German prisons for new ideas. Why Germany? It is because they spend less and have about half the recidivism with a great deal less prison violence.

The entire story is available at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-germany-prisons-crime-and-punishment/

Unknown said...

It seems the first thing to do is to get the people out of the jails who don't need to be there for safety of society, etc.

I didn't get to writing the story for a different kind of U.S. jail which is part of a book program which the cons use to earn college degrees of some kind. It's some Pearson program which appears to be a big deal.

Turning the non-violent ones out of the jails is all very well but they will probably go back to selling dope if they can't find something better. For the reason, the program at Folsom sounds highly interesting.

Cadillac Man was highly pumped about the CBS bit with the thinking of, well, who not. Why can't this work here. I'd rather make up a list of reasons it can't work right this minute and those become action items toward making it happen. As you said, the result looks impressive.

Anonymous said...

The focus on how this system would work revolves around the societal problems that are so pervasive in America. We shoot and kill people daily. We rob and steal and cheat as a way of life.
Germany doesnt have those issues to the same degree. So we can never hope to solve the jail problem form the back end.
This idea has been put forth for years. The numbers are fairly skewed that is not to make light of the issue as if we eliminate non violent drug offender and turn those sentences into work programs. We solve many issues and lessen the burden on the jails.
Then the sociologists need to solve why we are so violent asca society to make further progress.
50 years ago it was a fist fight now it is a gun fight or a bombing

Unknown said...

There's a lot of 'they do not think like us' implicit in that one but if you're looking for the pervert criminals who murder children for sex, Germany gets them sometimes too. America has more gunners and more gun crimes but I see no fundamental difference between here and anywhere else except for availability of weapons.

I do think it's important to segregate the driver for the punishment as it's no spank of the church to say a sin requires repentance. It seems the perception of what prison is supposed to do needs to change as I don't much care if someone was punished but I care a lot if it's safe for that person to live next-door after prison. That's not because of my own lack of religion but rather I don't want me noggin bashed in the middle of the night.

I really don't think people care much of anything about an ex-con except ... do we know this one is safe? I don't think anyone cares about rehabilitation or other nebulous things because how should I know if I'm safe from that. It's like Lawrence Olivier when he was using the dental drill on Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man" and he kept asking, "Is it safe?"

So, yah, if wanna know if this ex-con is safe!

Anonymous said...

We are not talking about the murders as every place has those not to the same degree. But the sheer number of violent crimes i.e. carjacking is a very common crime in the US elsewhere they just boost the car same basic crime but in the US it is far more violent.
But the numbers are skewed because this country prosecutes more. Look at India for thier tolerance to rape almost isnt even a crime. US just a women suggesting rape will result in charges.
So I would disagree that there are no differences. And that the only basic issues are too many gun and too many drug offenders.

Unknown said...

My only point was to get away from Americans being different in some way. I don't buy it that the people are different but rather there is at least one variable which if we changed it anywhere then the same consequence would come. The converse thinking is if it or they are changed here then the violence would mitigate.

The obvious pitch is too many guns but it's too simple and it's not at all good for explaining why people are so trigger-happy in the first place. The NRA pitch is those ones are crazy but that goes back to Americans are different and there's a huge number of crazies over here relative to anywhere else.

Anonymous said...

American society is dramaticallty different. Visit any country anywhere the overall philosophy is unique

Unknown said...

I did do that and did not see any particular difference. The ones I saw didn't particularly like Americans but, apart from all the killing, they weren't all that different.

Anonymous said...

Wow I am astonished. Not just the killing but the violence in general. The feelings of entitlement and when they dont receive it They lash out.
America is full of spoiled btats that resort to violence when they dont get their way.
I havent seen that in any country that I have visited.
Terrorists groups aside as they are just like spoiled brsts themselves

Anonymous said...

You are listing terrorist or politiacally motivated groups. All the groups have guns also
I am talking about the losers on thr street corner. If you dont believe it go to the street corner.
Gun access is a cop out to the underlying flaws in the society that promotes the belief that violence is a method to solve problems

Unknown said...

Losers on a street corner are only a millimeter away from being politically-motivated groups. I don't see a whole lot of difference in the willingness to perpetrate violence, particularly when the means are available.

That's not to say guns are the cause of it but rather they're such a convenient mechanism for making it easier. Why someone is willing to cap another driver because he didn't like the other's driving technique requires something more than saying, oh well, it was the gun, you know.

TV and video games don't explain it as the Texas Tallboy practically lived World of Tanks and you wouldn't find anyone more nonviolent. I've seen many violent movies but nary a one made me want to go out a'stranglin' people. I don't believe violent rock lyrics do anything either rather than illustrate the underlying tension which existed anyway.

These days my inclination is to tag it on something which really is different about America in the huge emphasis on the individual which is fine to a point but isn't so good on extremes.

Anonymous said...

Inductive reasoning using Texas Tallboy to prove the general assumption that video games dont cause increased propensity to violence.
A pool of one is a bad sampling practice.
Exactly the under lying tensions that exist then a particular catalyst sets them off.
The guns are just the mechanism the issue is why does he have a mindset believe killing over a traffic incident is the right choice.
Elsewhere the middle finger is enough

Unknown said...

Definitely true about small sample sizes and that's the same logic the anti-vaxx (cough) warriors use. The reason for quoting that bad example is it generally shows the principle and makes the point guns aren't the sole reason so what is. So far not much of a good answer on that, I'm afraid.

The middle finger really is not needed and I find my own driving is a large part of what creates driving situations with drivers around me. If I'm driving aggressively then likely those around me will be as well.

In hanging back, as I was kind of training myself to do with the Sprinter, my drive is a lot cooler and people don't piss me off even a tenth as much. About the worst is when some dickweed steals a parking place after I've been waiting and that will pull a thought of 'you fucking prick' but it doesn't last long because I still need a parking place. My life is a lot more laid-back than it probably appears (larfs).

Anonymous said...

You were one of the most ridiculous road rage drivers out there. If someone pissed you off you would climb on thier bumper like a Nascar driver drafting.
Good thing you didnt have a gun.

Exactly my point is the guns are not the reason. It is an american philosophy of whats yours is mine whats mine is mine and i will ff you up if you dont like it
Google Houston Zoo parking
A huge fist fight over a parking spot yes another spot was only 50 feet away by the TV report
Luckily it was women so probably no gun im the glove box

Unknown said...

I know but road rage driving is curable! (larfs)

The Sprinter was a big part of that because all of a sudden I didn't care where cops were. I wasn't doing anything to get busted and ain't it just fine driving like this. Tooling along with a column of trucks is excellent for reducing the negative waves, Moriarty.

There are many one-off examples of people being total shitbags to each other but for me that's the giant You Are Shit conspiracy to make us all understand what utterly worthless miserable bastards we are. Just look at how you animals behave, fer cryin' out loud, huh? The endless diet of that in media is a beatdown of the psyche for some inexplicable purpose. Controlling the herd??

You do nice stuff. I do nice stuff. Not much of a sample but I still think people mostly do nice stuff or don't do anything. But then there's this other lot and who knows what makes them do what they do. It's like the foxy guy who asked, "You mean it's not ok to take something just because I want it?"

Anonymous said...

Until you solve the entitlement attitudes, you can never solve the prisons as they dont care if they go to prison or not.
Gangs use 14 year olds to do the killing because they are out by 18.
A teacher had a 6 year old arrested for assault because of a temper tantrum and he threw a chair and books at them.
The parents broke down because they cant say no and allow tantrums. The teacher is a moron for not putting Johnny of to the side and ignoring the tantrum till it subsides.
We will meet Johnny again later in his life when he kills someone because no one taught him how tp control his temper

Unknown said...

Entitlement is all mixed-up as they will be telling li'l Georgie, as soon as his li'l baby brain can understand English, someday you will be King. He will grow up with all manner of expectations of things to which he is entitled.

That's fine for him but it doesn't work all that well anywhere else. Out here with the unwashed proletariat, it doesn't work at all since so much can happen at random. We have the right to life so they can't shoot us unless they at least can make-up some half-ass reason; we have the right to liberty which means they can't lock us up without a charge unless they feel like it; we have the right to the pursuit of happiness which doesn't mean anything whatsoever. It may even have been the worst thing they possibly could have said.

Those things don't entitle anyone to anything except breathing, unless the state gets annoyed by it. Yet people feel they're entitled to a great many things so the next question is how they got that way.

Anonymous said...

Parents who cant say no. And s government that lets you ride for free

Unknown said...

Those are easy answers and not much useful. That stuff looks grand painted on the side of a pyramid or something but not much use for fixing problems.

Headline NYC: America went into decline because of parents who could not say no.

The problem of disappearing jobs is real and I see almost all of the children of siblings being largely under-employed. That situation did not come about because of parents who could not say no or government handouts but rather the jobs simply don't exist.