Prisoners Launch National Strike to Protest Poor Prison Conditions

You might be. Idunno. I've only seen a few things you said on the karate forum same as could be said about me.
You sound to have some understanding of the prison system from firsthand/probably frontline experience. You also seem to have a very punitive view that makes me doubt you'd have much interest in entertaining multiple perspectives on the topic. Maybe being in close contact with that population can create biases. (I imagine it would and can't say it hasn't happened for myself in different settings.)
That's just a hunch without knowing you.

I don't love crime or think nobody should go to prison, or that it should be a resort, but I think it's often overkill and counter productive for many.
That doesn't mean that I think everyone should be treated the same regardless of their behaviors.
I don't have a problem saying some people are lost causes. But more effort should be placed in providing a chance for those who want to change and will end up back on the streets whether for better or worse.

My state has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country. Only 20% of our offender population are in prison the rest are in community corrections (most states are opposite this). My state does give offenders the opportunity to change; treatment, GOOD jobs, and safe spaces are easy to come by if you work your way towards them. The work of people like Latessa have become the model for corrections nationwide largely because of the work of my state leading the charge long before people like him or I were even born. So no, I don’t have a punitive view of what I do. We are the department of Corrections, not punishment.

I also work with people who’d kill you for no reason. Which touches on the caveat of your original argument. The most violent men I know are in prison for trivial crimes. You can’t see into someone’s soul at intake.
 
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You realize the reason it costs so much to house prisoners is because the system is private and makes money. It's a for profit prison system...that shouldn't be the case. That's the first thing to fix
 
You realize the reason it costs so much to house prisoners is because the system is private and makes money. It's a for profit prison system...that shouldn't be the case. That's the first thing to fix

The whole system is private? News to me.
 
Low risk... high risk... define them both, then take people who have committed a gamut of crimes and classify them appropriately. Max, medium 1, medium 2, min 1, min 2, trustee, etc. After you’ve classified them, take all of those classification reports and house them appropriately. That’s the best you can do, it’s the best anyone can do with limited budgets, manpower, and public care/opinion. Your doe eyed view of this world would get inmates and staff killed.

Is public care/opinion a good thing though?

Most people don't know shit about prisons let alone what works and what doesn't in reducing recidivism.
 
The whole system is private? News to me.

No, I should be more clear. But I lived in a state where 40% where and have a bias against them. Also currently live in a state with 10% private.

The system as a whole has a turn over of 74billion a year. That's ridiculous. In fact the rate of incarceration overall seems incredibly high, I believe this is partly due to the state viewing some aspect of it as a source of income. It's about 5 to 10k in California for just getting arrested for a minor crime in most cases.

But you are correct, it's not all private only around 10% is but that is growing. We do need prisons, I just wish it didn't seem like a way for the state to bring in extra income, as opposed to being closer to corrections. Obviously if you do crimes there has to be a consequence, I don't disagree.
 
No, I should be more clear. But I lived in a state where 40% where and have a bias against them. Also currently live in a state with 10% private.

The system as a whole has a turn over of 74billion a year. That's ridiculous. In fact the rate of incarceration overall seems incredibly high, I believe this is partly due to the state viewing some aspect of it as a source of income. It's about 5 to 10k in California for just getting arrested for a minor crime in most cases.

But you are correct, it's not all private only around 10% is but that is growing. We do need prisons, I just wish it didn't seem like a way for the state to bring in extra income, as opposed to being closer to corrections. Obviously if you do crimes there has to be a consequence, I don't disagree.

True that. I’d like to see private prisons gone. That’s s whole different beast.
 
Also all the people talking about rapists and murderers, I don't think anyone was suggesting we should go easy on them. More that we shouldn't lump them in with the mentally ill, drug abusers, etc. We have a system designed to catch people fucking up and imprison them. And yes, durr don't ever make a mistake is one way of looking at it.

OR, we could try to actually rehabilitate people only in prison because they used drugs, have untreated severe mental illnesses, committed nonviolent crimes etc. Prison isn't supposed to be just punishment, we're supposed to be rehabilitating people.

As someone else mentioned, these people are going to get out one day and be your neighbors. Wouldn't it make more sense to try to give them job skills, not put a huge black mark on them that stops them from getting work, not place them in an environment that in the long term will make them an even worse person?

The murderers, rapists, and pedos we should be executing or giving life sentences. That leaves a LOT of people we're punishing just for the sake of doing it, that we could try to reform into functioning members of society.
 
Yea you can buy one from the private Wall Street investment firm that owns the prison at a 1200% mark up
You can buy lots of stuff in there at huge mark ups so that way the rich fat cat CEO's get money from the taxpayers(they spend pennies on the dollar to operate the prison and keep the rest) and then they get more money from the convicts trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible in a terrible situation
Its quite the hustle they got going on
Respect
What's the markup if I'm in prison and want to rent a high priced ho or three?
 
I'd guess that every day without gaping bloody ass via gang butt rape is a good day in prison.
 
"Inmates plan to refuse to work, and a smaller number plan to go on hunger strikes and conduct sit-ins."

Hunger strikes. What exactly do you accomplish by doing that?
Like South Vietnamese Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest.
I can see the refusal to work having an impact and drawing repurcussions. If food services grinds to a halt, nobody eats and if Unicor stops, well then...
 
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