Parents Behind Bars
ua-magazine.com
ua-magazine.com
You break the law, you go to jail. You keep doing it, you go back. If you have kids, stop doing things that can out you in jail, like a reasonable human being. And if certain communities have a culture where crime is accepted, well, doesn't seem to be much choice if they don't want to change.
Why is that becoming politically incorrect to say?
I think the argument is that there is nothing productive about sending people to prison. At least not as prison, prison time, and transitioning back to society is currently structured.
It's not better for society, it's not better for the victim (and what if there is no victim), and it's not better for the person going to jail.
So why do it? Why not take a more results based approach to preventing people from reoffending? Why not make it easier for them to reintegrate into society once they are out?
If all you want to do is punish people out of some need for retribution sure keep it up. But then you have to accept the costs that come with that need for retribution.
I'd much rather have someone become a productive member of society then let them rot away in jail.
Your otherwise cool idea has no real implementations (communism doesn't count).
> Your otherwise cool idea has no real implementations (communism doesn't count).
Other than the fact that it has completely real and provable implementations:
http://www.alltreatment.com/drug-rehab-infographic
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/18/prison-could...
To not send them there and to cure instead? Organized crimes will grow on this scheme like mushrooms after rain.
To test and monitor everyone before they do something? That's what everyone is fighting with (Snowden et al).
Again, their idea is great, but it will never be elected in social context.
/sarcasm
So y'all are doing the bare minimum over there? Well done you! Hope you catch up soon!
Yours,
The rest of the world
A simplistic "you break the law you go to jail" attitude sweeps the systematic injustices under the rug. Should we have just thrown Ghandi in jail and thrown away the key? How about Rosa Parks?
Laws aren't perfect and they won't be fixed if people are just blindingly following them. Sometimes laws are a vehicle of oppression rather than justice.
If a community has a high degree of crime that is defined in terms of an act, such as robbery or violence, then high incarceration rates are the obvious effect. The solution is not to ignore that it's happening and let everyone else in those neighborhoods be subject to routine criminal activity. That's ludicrous.
There are indeed systemic flaws in some communities where power is abused. But that's because of those actors, not the laws themselves.
The worst part is that it is a self reinforcing cycle. Communities with high crime have heavy handed enforcement and are targeted with punitive laws. This results in many parents behind bars and a general distrust of the police, which combined with lack of opportunities creates another generation of career criminals. Breaking the cycle takes work from both sides, which is why it is important to address police (and law!) reform even if the community isn't responding. You need to keep the door open if you want to have even a chance, and removing the inherent racism in the laws--like making the penalties for crack cocaine much harsher than powdered because blacks use the former and wall street uses the latter.
It's a cycle. Throwing your hands up and saying, "well, stop going to jail!" isn't going to break the cycle.
You've oversimplified my statement to the point of absurdity. There are potentially many other ways to address those problems that do not require just letting people go after they commit crimes.
Claiming that our current system of laws was created in order to be able to target people at will is an extraordinary statement that will require some pretty strong evidence.
That is true for prisons, but not jails. There is a big difference. Most people in jails are awaiting trials/hearings or other procedures. They haven't been convicted. I'd say not convicted 'yet' but an increasing number are never convicted. That doesn't mean they are innocent. Some are, but they may also go to diversionary programs without convictions.
Many individuals are held in jails pending psychiatric evaluations, after which no charges are brought as no prosecutable crime has been committed. And there is a very small subset of persons, material witnesses, who are held in jails without any suggestion that they have committed any crime.
Children certainly don't see much of a difference between jail and prison, but that's the problem. We too casually jail people without actual convictions and pretend it's OK because they aren't being held as convicts. But the kids are impacted just the same.
Is there a better alternative? And are you suggesting that a significant number of people are being held in jail indefinitely without convictions? I find that hard to believe. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I don't know that it's as much of a problem as you seem to be framing it to be.
The only convicts in jails are those serving sentences of less than a year. Anything greater than that goes to a prison, give or take depending on circumstances. So yes, there is a very large population of persons in jails without convictions. That's what they are for.
The answer is probably a better-resourced court system capable of processing hearings more efficiently. Remember the tv-series Night Court? Night courts were meant to accelerate the process of hearings and get people out on bail more quickly. They didn't handle trials. They have almost disappeared today.
Let me tell you a story.
A friend of mine helps convicts with societal reintegration.
One of the guys he was working with, we'll call him Mark, had dealt heroin. Did his time (3-5 years, I think), had gotten serious in prison about his life and responsibilities (4 kids by 3 different women), and decided when he got out he was going to stay clean, get an honest job, and do what he could to take care of his kids.
He had child support judgements against him before and during his time in prison, and he owed something like $30k in back support. So, after he gets out, he has to go to the family court judge and tells him, "Sir, I know I have responsibility to my kids, and I want to repay what I owe on my child support. I'm working on getting a job, what do I have to do to meet my obligations?" Family court judge helps work out a plan whereby Mark is not going to be held in contempt for his back support as long as he makes his current payments. Mark sleeps on couches, eats ramen, walks 2 hours to work the each way to work the night shift, (can't get an apt near work without 3+ months of deposit because he has a felony) saves as much as he can while paying his child support, spends time with his kids every weekend, finally saves enough to by a car. Not a nice car, an older beater, but now he doesn't have to walk to work, and he can go pick up his kids, take them to the park, etc, etc. He's saving up so he can get his own apartment and not have to sleep on couches in the neighborhood where he is surrounded by his old friends that are trying to get him back into dealing.
Mark is doing lots of hard work now. When he was dealing, he drove new cars, partied, always had money. Now he's going through the grind of constantly having to make the right choices, but doing good.
Did you remember Mark's old car? Well, he didn't realize that the taillight had gone out. Mark's night shift job was in a 'whiter' part of town. Mark's black. Mark got stopped for having a tail light out. Mark's license check showed that he was in contempt for back support because some clerk didn't file his repayment plan correctly or something. Mark went to jail. Mark's apartment deposit went to bail, and he only got 75% back. Mark's car got impounded because he had to spend 48 hrs overnight and his one phone call couldn't cover getting his car in time, and his deposit dropped another couple hundred dollars.
Mark's doing OK now, he was able to get some help and get his apartment and keep doing what he needs to do. But that's largely because he had some white friends help him navigate the system. I could tell you have a dozen other stories of guys like Mark who had something similar happen and say, "Even if I do what's right, the man is going to get me. Why bother?" And kids internalize these stories, and then they don't even want to make the changes.
Sometimes, the reasons for crimes are that being a reasonable human being says there's no reason not to commit crime.
In the past, the openness of court records was balanced by the difficulty of figuring out the right courthouse, physically driving there and going over stacks of dusty paper files. Technology has destroyed that balance; citizens can no longer expect any degree of privacy with respect to their history with the criminal justice system.
As a society we need to strike a balance between the privacy of individual defendants, the necessity of open records as a check on the government's power, and the apartment owner's right to set criteria for their tenants.
I'm additionally pointing out that when you said a reasonable human being won't commit crime, that does not seem to be to be the case. There are plenty of reasons why a reasonable human being will come to the conclusion that it is reasonable to commit crimes, especially when those making a solid effort not to commit crime can be arbitrarily punished for someone else's mistake.
How's it working?
If you suggest that it's a common enough occurrence to justify removing prison as a punishment, you'll have to give some number showing that this is extremely common.
B) That's quite a logic leap that you put in my mouth there. I never said we should remove prison as punishment.
For instance, once I had a car accident and hit a wall. Just a few meters from impact there were people standing, I could have killed them. Luckily, no one but me got hurt.
I'm not a bad person, I never did anything wrong my entire life. But for a matter of meters I could have spent years in prison for manslaughter.
You are just being a jerk, making assumptions and being judgmental. You obviously never heard of "innocent until proved guilty".
> You'd have taken the lives of a family.
Who said "family"?
> How could you argue that that would in any way be okay?
When did I said that? That it would be okay? I never said anything like that. Frankly, your reading comprehension skills are below par.
My point, in the context of the discussion, is that good, innocent, hard-working people sometimes also go to jail due to circumstances beyond their control.
Accidents happen, and not always due to recklessness. Maybe you have super-human driving skills with sub nanosecond reaction times. Maybe you are flawless, faultless, perfect. Most people aren't that exemplary.
>My point, in the context of the discussion, is that good, innocent, hard-working people sometimes also go to jail due to circumstances beyond their control.
Ideally, jailtime should end when "innocent beyond my control" in their mind becomes "that was definitely my fault because I often drive tired and that will happen again if I continue". Otherwise it is like saying "It wasn't me, it was a bullet! I just pulled trigger."
And on top of all of that, there's NO evidence that higher sentences and harsher punishments have any effect on the overall crime rates.