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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

I'm not inclined to believe things prisoners say about their conditions.

So while I agree the demands are reasonable, I'm not (yet) convinced that they needed to be made or that they are ignored.

(Except for the fruits/vegetables, because realistically while they may ask for it, they aren't going to eat it.)

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I'll make this quick, and monitor to see if interest demands me go into more detail (personal experience).

We do not rehabilitate prisoners. We have a ridiculous recidivism rate (60%+ depending on your data, demographic, etc).

We have the highest amount of citizens in prison then any Western country.

If the Mandatory Minimum Federal laws for drugs were flipped with actual State Violent crimes, we would have a much better society.

I would love to see inmates having the ability to pursue a trade, learn programming, learn a skill which Trumps their felony..which is incredibly difficult. Felon's are obligated by law to note if they have been Charged with a Felony (depending on the wording, for example: "convicted in the last 7 years" you may mark NO if, it has in fact, been 8).

Something that may be of interest.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2008/02/getting_out_life_after...

The US has the highest rate of imprisonment and the largest number of prisoners of any country in the world (including China, which does give us a run for the money...)

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/worl...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...

There was an interesting article in Time magazine (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00....) that looked at the prison system in Norway, where the goal really is to rehabilitate people.

If there were less people in prison, and less reoffenders, who would make all the military equipment, household appliances, license plates etc etc for free?

The US would have no slaves to work with!

edit: Since I'm being downmodded for stating fact:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=82... http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/slavery-in-u-s-prison-sys... http://newworkerfeatures.blogspot.com/2010/02/us-prison-labo... http://www.insideprison.com/prison-industry-labor.asp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwT6CisM0mU

There was also a great wikipedia article listing all the different things that inmates make. If they refuse, they're subjected to solitary confinement.

The US should be thoroughly ashamed. Not that it'll ever be reported by the mainstream media.

Mod parent up. The United States has NEVER gotten over its plantation/slave owner mentality. It's too deeply embedded in the collective unconscious to be calmly refuted--it's so close to the bone that it has to be vehemently, hysterically denied. It goes together with the inability of the United States' public to comprehend risk pools. And not only workers are enslaved, but you entrepreneurs are also, because the state requires you to administer a social program that the government is in a far better position to administer: health insurance (private insurance could then be purchased for more benefits). But forcing businesses to do this is a huge chunk of the deficit, incredibly economically inefficient and is forcing companies to outsource labor. Your new slave owners are the prisons and the insurance companies.

That misses the mark.. prisons are expensive. We'd be better off paying people $8/hr to make that stuff and not paying to house and guard them.

The real reason is because you immediately lose a political argument if you're accused of being soft on crime. So there's absolutely no reasoned debate on the topic, the only time it comes up is when every so often a pol comes up with some dumbass punitive and counter-productive measure to get a headline. Additionally, most prisoners are black, and everyone knows this, while 80% of voters in most districts are white.

So basically, the way we're acting is both short-term stupid (could just pay day laborers and save money) and long-term stupid (creating lifetime criminals by destroying other options for them).

> I would love to see inmates having the ability to pursue a trade, learn programming

Brings a whole new level to the saying "Always code as if the person who ends up maintaining your code is a violent psychopath who knows where you live."

Fundamentally it would require a shift in what a lot of the citizenry feels the prison system is. The prison system is currently not a system for rehabilitation, it's a system of punishment.

It would be a breath of fresh air if we actually tried to rehabilitate people in prison to some degree. I don't know how far off that is, since a lot of people I've talked to seem to think that pretty horrible stuff like rape is part of ione's prison sentence.

I'm not inclined to believe things prisoners say about their conditions.

I am. There's evidence that things are far worse than we complacently imagine. For example, a year or so ago there was a shocking multipart series on NPR about what's going on inside California's prisons. Mostly we just don't want to know.

Do you have a link to that by chance? I'd be interested in reading/listening (whichever the case may be).

This, maybe: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1118434...

Thanks!

Yeah, and this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9229611...

The piece I remember most (not sure if this is the one) was where the reporter got caught in the middle of a lockdown in a crowded San Quentin gym (former gym, now dormitory because of overcrowding). When the alarms go off, everyone has to get on their hands and knees or the guards shoot them on sight. The reporter was told to keep standing during the whole episode, and everyone in the gym was staring at her. Unbelievable moment. I thought it was in this story but the transcript doesn't contain it. Perhaps it doesn't cover the whole audio or perhaps there are more pieces in the series.

It reminds me of the attitudes in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1999171 This is a system that a very small portion of our (middle/upper class) population is going to experience. With the chances of interacting with it being that low we ignore the problem and run a numbers game that our lives won't be unduly affected by it (akin to not being too worried about being killed by a falling satellite). So the situation deteriorates because people are under the impression that if you are in prison you deserve it and ignore the damage it causes to some individuals/families who under different circumstances would have been our neighbors or friends.

We live in a society where its ok to joke approvingly about prisoner's suffering violent rape. Of course our prisons are horrible to be in.

I don't think we should be moderating the parent comment down, just because we disagree with what he or she says. If nothing else, it makes the subsequent conversation difficult to follow.

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