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Comment by caddybox | Hacker News Reader

While the article confirms his acceptance of his circumstances, I still find it hard to understand how a man who went into a prison at 15 and came out at 83 can see anything as positive. An entire life spent behind bars. Maybe he really tapped into a sense of contentment and acceptance that I'm missing or am too young to understand.

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I worry about a 15 year old going into an adult system without even understanding his sentence. Prison guards aren’t known for being kind and prisons are full of people who belong in prisons. What did he learn? What did he experience? And how incredibly scared could that man be to raise hell now that he’s out??

I hate to put it so bluntly, but prison takes people who made mistakes and breaks them, sometimes beyond repair. Somehow, I feel like that’s a greater crime than many prisoners are sentenced for.

I’ve been stopped at knife point at dark by two people. It was traumatizing and I have no sympathy towards bad actors. What am I supposed to do? Just get stabbed and be thankful that the criminals were nice enough not to kill me?

I was going to night class and getting harassed by people my age. Lock them up and maybe they become rehabilitated but there’s something seriously wrong with people who are willing to go right up to killing someone over a few possessions. I personally will always vote strongly against crime. You can keep having sympathy for criminals I hope you’re never afraid of going outside after dark.

Although I don't doubt the traumatic nature of your experience and I am genuinely sorry. Surely it would make more sense to diagnose why we have bad actors and seek to rehabilitate them as opposed to dehumanising them and tossing them into a dank cell.

I obviously agree, but can you do me a big favour?? Let's just love the hell out of swman and let them believe what they believe.

Won’t somebody please think of the humanity of those who rob others at knife-point?

At some point, people need to realize that some human beings are just born bad. Psychopathy and Sociopathy are real things that have a genetic component.

And, while we can try to rehabilitate those who score low on measures of psychopathy and sociopathy, we need to recognize that some people really do just need to be locked away from society at large to preserve the lives of innocent people.

Psychopathy and sociopathy are defined as antisocial personality disorder. There are treatments, unfortunately modern prisons are nowhere near conducive to the types of treatments that are effective. And the spiral continues...

I'm very sorry that happened to you. If you'd ever like to talk to someone, my Dad was a police officer and I bet he would open up his network to you. My email is in my profile and nobody ever even has to know your name.

I completely sympathize with you. I hate criminals, I'm tough on crime.

But... 68 years?

At that point, I almost think it's kinder and more honest to execute people.

You argument is very egocentric. It's proved that a light penalty system leads to much lower crime numbers. Too bad that so much people look at it from an individual perspective and not from a society one. The great danger of a individualistic society

I think being able to state - here is my trauma and here is how it’s part of my decision making - is pretty brave. It’s the opposite of egocentric. It clearly states a reasonable bias and makes it easier to communicate about sensitive topics.

Not saying that this is the right example, but usually when throwing in some emotional things to get attention is considered egocentric.

In the case of non-violent crimes for drug possession and distribution, I entirely agree with your second paragraph.

In the case of armed robbery with accompanying multiple murders, I'm much more concerned for the victims than the perpetrators (beyond taking steps as needed to ensure they won’t do it again in free society).

I agree completely - some people deserve cages. My Dad was a police officer and one of his good friends was heavily involved in Victim Services - I grew up hearing about the need for reform in that area and am in complete agreement with you.

It gets tough when you look at entire systems. On one hand, you've got some brave dedicated people who work with asshole criminals. We need a carrot of freedom and parole to keep those people somewhat safe. On the other, if prisons make people worse, that carrot of freedom is dangerous to everyone else. When I look at recidivism rates, I don't think that North American prisons make people better so what the heck do we do??

Fix North American prisons?

That's the best/most obvious solution but at this point, things are so messed up and have been so messed up that that's practically a 'rent bulldozers and start over' situation. I'd give my right arm if we did that, but honestly, I feel pretty safe knowing my right arm will stay intact with that bet.

I know that sounds cynical but in the last year, the 'shining lights' of my city's youth offender program 'quit' for sexually harassing the young people they were charged with. That's Canada's Young Offender system and that is one heavily scrutinized system. If that kind of evil can hide for a decade in our young offender system, we're passed the point of draining the swamp and need to bring in heavy earth movers.

Fix the system and reduce the number of people in exercise. Then fix factors in society that leads people to jail.

Preferably doing all the above at the same time.

Could also be a function of age. People mellow out with age. You learn to take more things in stride without getting in a huff. This topic actually came up in another HN post this week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27117142

You probably end up with a skewed moral compass if everything you’ve seem since you were 15 was through prison bars. People are very good at believing that they deserve whatever situation they’re in.

Some westerners tried to help very young kids living on a garbage heap. Most didn't have a shirt or still had to find shoes. They put one in a foster home and send him to school. He ran away back to the garbage heap. He just wanted to play with friends all day, this school stuff was like prison to him. The thing that surprised me the most was how happy they were. Kids will just be kids regardless apparently and people get used to anything.

People can find acceptance and happiness in their less than ideal circumstances. Maybe it is just a mental trick to keep on living. I've heard similar things about how after a few years paraplegics report happiness higher than their happiness before their paralyzing accident.

Most humans just adapt and accept their circumstances.

Contrarians and discontents are actually uncommon.

You're fed and clothed your whole life. Plus 60+ years is a lot of time to build some robust rationalisations as to why it aint so bad.

> You're fed and clothed your whole life. Plus 60+ years is a lot of time to build some robust rationalisations as to why it aint so bad.

And compared to being a black youth in Jim Crow Alabama—Ligon’s only pre-prison experience—“ain’t so bad” is a pretty low bar to clear.

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