Mothers Are the Unsung Heroes of Prison
themarshallproject.org
themarshallproject.org
“(...) making it harder for our moms and other family members to visit us, or forcing them to visit us via video chat. Instead of making it more expensive for them to accept our phone calls or send us emails. (...)”
This seems soulless. I wonder how that works elsewhere.
In Germany, prison time is like being in the hospital without being sick. Mostly boring.
Most prison terms are not 40-60 year virtual life sentences, so most people who go to prison will see the outside again. So while I dont think we should 'take it easy' on prisoners we really shouldn't be trying to do damage that will prevent them from having a chance to function in society.
Besides all that fundamental as a society either the society believes in human rights or it doesnt...
https://nij.gov/five-things/Pages/deterrence.aspx
As well, the purpose of prison should be not only to punish, but also to rehabilitate. I would actually argue rehabilitation should be the primary purpose of prison.
What about the wrongly convicted? I understand the desire for revenge, but prisons should be safe, secure and inmates should come out of there as people you'd be happy to have as a neighbor.
When you treat prisoners like animals, they'll act like animals.
And when you don't treat them like animals, they will still act like animals. Some, of course, not all, just like today not all US-inmates come out acting like animals.
All else being equal, I’d always prefer a non-ex-con over an ex-con as a neighbor. I doubt I’m alone in this.
These are human beings, and I consider it utterly uncivilized and inhumane that we would have an institution designed to "be like hell". It's also a typically Christian approach (I mean the church, not the original love commune nor the homeless man who taught to love each other as one self) - to play God, to judge, to create hell and condemn someone to it.
Many of these lost souls are already in hell, of a broken society, a broken home. Putting them in a deeper circle of hell is not any kind of a solution. For the person being punished, it's just a continuation of the same shit way they've been treated. How can we expect any rehabilitation, any healing to take place in a dungeon?
It just reminds me that we're still in the Dark Ages, underneath our veneer of "civilization".
Though it's only more recently that keeping people in prison for significant lengths of time has been commonplace, or thought of as a way of punishing/rehabilitating.
Present day is darker in some ways than the so-called Dark Ages.
But if you pretend to care about the larger good of society (but still harbor that mean streak) then you lock people away, assure the population you're doing your best to "reform" them, and choose the most expensive form of torture you can imagine: keeping people alive for the rest of their lives all the while subjecting them to sexual violence from their fellow prisoners.
Has the benefit of fewer angry riots over public execution and torture. More predictable.
If you actually care about people you create a system like they have in Norway.
Everyone else:
Fuck you if you get sick. Not our problem.
Fuck you if you have a kid. Not our problem. Maybe keep it in your pants next time.
Fuck you if don't need and can't afford a mansion. No, we absolutely don't believe that the insane square footage and cost inflation of housing has anything to do with our homeless problem. Why are you bringing up crazy talk like that?
Fuck you if you want an education. We are going to load you up with student loans that will ruin your life for decades to come and that you mostly can't discharge via bankruptcy, unlike most other forms of debt.
Then we say the so-called 99 Percent are irresponsible and ill behaved and not a product of our shitty system that is actively chewing up citizens and spitting them out.
And it reminds me of another article about Lyn Ulbricht (https://breakermag.com/lyn-ulbricht-pushed-herself-to-the-br...). Lyn is the mother of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. The article goes at length about the war she is fighting to get her son out of jail. I have so much respect and admiration for this woman. It is quite something and they make a very compelling case in my opinion. You can read more about it here: https://freeross.org/
The murders didn't actually take place, but he did order them and he was under the impression that they were carried out.
I don't have a strong opinion here either way, but separating convicted murderers (especially first-degree or conspiracy-to) from free society doesn't inherently sound like a crazy bad idea.
If you view prison as an agency of revenge on wrongdoers then, of course, life without parole for murderers makes perfect sense.
If, on the other hand, you view prison as a way of trying to reform wrongdoers and turn them into productive members of society then life without parole makes no sense at all.
Someone can agree with both of your views depending on the crime. Physically harming another person, particularly irreparably is different than stealing something for example.
The family might be interested in revenge. Society has an interest in all three other possible motivations, though probably not in revenge.
This is the crux of the whole issue. The US is split between the two notions of justice: retribution and rehabilitation. The split seems to largely fall along political lines, which means the argument isn't likely to be settled any time soon.
I tend to fall in the rehabilitation camp but I can see some of the logic behind the other side. At the very least, I recognize that it's better for the state to apply measured retribution than for families to pronounce blood feuds upon one another. Beyond that, I'm at a loss for what to do about cold, psychopathic individuals who seem utterly incapable of reform.
If a patient goes to a doctor and their wound heals, is that "acting healthy"?
You can make a case that we can't know if someone is rehabilitated, but if you think rehabilitation can be a thing, that necessarily includes being able to distinguish acting from genuine change.
From my research, this non-fact was brought up NOT in any charge, but was in the sentencing hearing as if it was a found true fact.
He doesn't need to be found guilty of those offences for it to factor into sentencing. It would be different if the evidence was not produced at his trial, but given that it was produced, the judge can consider it.
That seems very wrong to me, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" should extend to sentencing
That's quite impossible, isn't it? Motives regularly play a role in sentencing and you cannot prove those, only deeds. You can believe it to be very likely that somebody did X because of Y and not because of Z, but you can't prove it.
Does this go well with:
> Maybe we should consider just how much positive influence these wonderful ladies have on the penal system, every day of the year.
and
> A momma’s boy, which almost all convicts are.
AFAICT, in the USA, single Fathers occur at a much lower rate than single mothers, are more likely to be cohabitating with a partner, and tend to have a higher level of education and a larger income[0].
I don't think you could fairly compare the efficacy of single mothers and fathers against each other. There's not enough single fathers, and their socio-economic positioning tends to be more advantageous.
It would be curious to see if elevating the socio-economic opportunities of single mothers would reduce the likelihood of criminal behaviour in their children.
0: https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-facts-about-todays-single-fa...
I also noted that you do not mention divorce rates and how many children without problems are fatherless.
Finally, yes, in unstable or violent or otherwise troubled families it is usually mother that stays with kid and father who leaves. Either because he is uninterested or in prison or have restraining order against him.
Sounds like you have an agenda here.
Sadly, as I write this, it's the top comment because this is an overwhelmingly male forum, so an awful lot of members are all too happy to upvote anything that spin doctors problems to make men look good and women look bad without thinking any deeper about the problem than that.
For the record, it's actually a problem that so many men in the US don't give a damn about their own children, can't be bothered to show up and also don't give a damn about how that negatively impacts the woman who had children by them.
We need more family friendly policies that help parents do right by their kids. Most developed countries do not take the attitude that "You fools who had kids are on your own and we aren't going to lift a finger to help you raise your kids. No, we don't care that this actually comes back to bite us once they are grown and the problem is being handled by the police and the penal system. We just aren't that bright and can't see the cause-and-effect obvious connection there, never mind the existence of studies that show it."
It's maybe not fancy writing, but the topics are interesting, and it gets to the point.