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Comment by opdahl | Hacker News Reader

The last line in this article is the most insane one of them all.

> ... Bento, who did not respond to a request for comment, said officials in that office had instructed him not to hand over any documents related to Castleberry’s 2006 drug case, including all records filed after May 2017 that actually pertained to Spriestersbach.

> Spriestersbach was not entitled to the documents, officials said.

> The reason: He was not the defendant in that case. He was not Thomas Castleberry.

They are saying he is not allowed to get the documents for the case which he was the main suspect and subsequently hospitalized for since the documents for the case is for the other person. Even though it happened to him and not the other person. I'm dumbfounded.

View on HN

Wait to have your mind blown further. In Missouri if you’re exonerated for a crime via someone else pleading guilty, DNA, etc and have used up all your appeals you still have to serve out your sentence, even if it’s life in prison https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-peopl...

WTF.

Heartbreaking. The US criminal justice system is a shame.

I don't think it's a shame. It's intentional.

Considering the fact that the US prison population is heavily skewed in one direction, that the US has the highest per capita prison population, that prison populations are used as forced labor, I'm quite convinced it's intentional. The small number of people that are accidentally targeted unintentionally are just collateral damage nobody really cares about.

It's a shame that it's intentional, and it's a failure of what a good prison system should be like.

I often hear "oh well {criminal justice system, healthcare, insert other bad industry} is not a failure because it's doing its intended purpose, which is profit". No, that's the current goal of the system running it. The actual, intended purpose, in a functioning society, is to {serve fair punishments and rehabilitate, enhance quality of health, etc}.

> The actual, intended purpose, in a functioning society, is to {serve fair punishments and rehabilitate, enhance quality of health, etc}.

I'm not sure which history books you've been reading, but modern police were invented in the 17th and 18th centuries as brutal forms of population control. In America, the "actual, intended purpose" was to be a genocidal force that clears the land of Amerindians, to patrol the slaves, to terrorize the workers, and so on. In the South, you can trace the history of police departments directly to Confederate troops, who, immediately after losing the war, rounded up people and threw them in prison on fabricated charges. To a lot of people, it was as if the war never happened. The fact that there was no reign of terror in the south tells you everything you need to know. And the slavery continues to this day. So I have no idea what you mean when you talk about this fantastical "intended purpose".

There are several lines of evolution for modern policing.

The US instance is one.

Robbert Peele's "Peelian Principles" (UK) are another, which is how the UK ended up with a largely unarmed and civillian institution "policing by consent". (It also has its darker elements, but that's the thumbnail sketch.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles

A French "gendarme" is literally a "man at arms", and is derived from military forces, representing a third tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarmerie

There are no "lines of evolution" like carcinization for modern policing. They were caused by the same social and political necessities and they serve the same function.

Citation requested.

We can trace the history of police all the way back to vikings, neanderthals or even to single celled organisms, but all that would be of little use to deal with the today's prison system.

I'm not naturalizing organized violence, you are. I'm talking about the history of one institution and its forms of reproduction. How are you going to "deal" with today's prison system without understanding how it reproduces itself (through the law, through the indoctrination of people such as yourself, etc)?

History of institution has no bearing on actions of individuals in this institution today. What has bearing is policies that exist today. Not history of those policies, but their actual current state.

By "actual, intended" purpose, I do not mean original. I mean commonly agreed upon purpose, that almost all would agree is the true goal to strive for in a {criminal justice system, healthcare, etc}. I specified "current" to differentiate it between the current purpose, and a hopeful future purpose, not a past one. I don't mean to imply that these systems have been "corrupted" from a virtuous initial state (because like you say, they have some dark origins). Though they certainly are corrupt.

For “intended purpose” of differing sectors of society, one may start, if one chooses, with Plato’s Republic.

Hey amigo, looks like you're confusing "shame" and "unintentional" because you have a habit of conversing in the tone of disputation.

No judgements! I only mention because it was a boon when someone pointed out i had a similar habit

> a habit of conversing in the tone of disputation.

Thank you for putting words to this. I think it's something I've struggled with as well.

Companies that own and operate prisons in the US are big business

Unfortunately. That very much should not be a business at all.

This conspiracy theory doesn't really check out. Private prisons exist, but only account for 8% of the US prison population. There's probably a larger vested interest from corrections officer unions than from private prison contractors.

Regardless, there isn't even a need to find some shadowy special interest to explain the high incarceration rates in the US, when the laws that led to those high incarceration rates were passed very publicly for very straightforward reasons: to curb the late-20th-century crime wave of the 1970's-1990's. This was a major, high-profile political issue, and the majority of voters at the time favored "tough-on-crime" measures that led to mandatory sentences, longer sentences, three-strikes laws, and fewer judicial prerogatives. That's why they elected the people who promised to pass those laws before getting elected and kept those promises after being elected. And just like every other well-intended law that's ever been passed, there were unintended consequences that we can and should fix.

The USA also has 22% of all prisoners globally

It’s also intentional in that penitentiaries and prisons from the start in America were an incredibly racist endeavor. As was the response to the “crime waves” of that time period you mentioned. The early prisons, both private and public, were a Protestant method of punishment involving hard labor to cleanse you of your sins. But they were quickly co-opted as a way to make money, whether by labor for the prison itself or by the state leasing convicts to corporations. And after slavery as a way to keep African American people enslaved. If you’ve never seen documentaries on Angola, it’s horrifying the direct lineage of racism visible. Lines of black men in chains, in fields, picking cotton, under the watch of white guards on horseback…in the year 1960 and beyond. Wardens who had property on the plantation prisons of Arkansas and used black prisoners who weren’t in the fields as “house boys”. That’s always been and is today one intentional use for prisons.

I don’t believe these were ever that well intentioned. Race and socioeconomic status was not something unseen and unknown to the politicians, voters, and every one else involved.

There’s a reason some one people like Bernie Sanders were against the 1992 crime bill. Which many republicans and democrats were for. To say the people for it were well intentioned when Bernie and others were telling them of the consequences and having already seen the negative consequences up to that point shows these were not unintended and not well intentioned.

Race is usually invoked as a thought-terminating cliche these days. It might interest you to know that a lot of black people also supported the crime bill because black communities were among those most victimized by crime.

You have found a new way to spin the classic “only racists talk about race”. Also added in a “usually”.

It can interest me when parts of a [sub]group do something. However it doesn’t have to mean anything too concrete or logical or line up so perfectly and neatly as your last sentence states.

> that prison populations are used as forced labor

I was recently reminded of this due to a strange story having to do with covid and a shortage of license plates in Washington state, due to "social distancing" in the DOC. So that state contracted with another state whose prisoners were still incarcerated and still hard at work making license plates.

> The DOC has experienced issues since last summer, when compliance with social-distancing requirements slowed production, according to spokesperson Rachel Ericson. To address the issue, the agency has increased staffing and started outsourcing some production on July 31.

> License plates first began to be manufactured by individuals incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla in 1923. It’s now one of 43 prison factories around the country that produce plates for 40 states and the federal government.

Original: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-state-g...

Outline (no paywall): https://outline.com/YnDVG6

Humans deserve to go extinct.

We probably will. Obviously we don't always act in the most logical fashion. Long term, that's not a good trait.

Humans as a species have had the best track record for acting in a logical fashion on earth. Logic has it's limits.

Humans as a species have had the best track record for acting in a logical fashion on earth

Which doesn't say much. Most complex organisms on Earth go extinct.

Nobody thinks that, not even you.

I very much think that. We are absolutely evil on a macro scale. We destroy ourselves and our planet. If aliens are out there I believe they have their finger on 'the button'.

I believe to think otherwise is hubris.

Could we change? Sure. Will we? Who knows.

There is something called the VHEMT, Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. (Personally I'm against our extinction but this exists).

Tbf, every major conflict the warmongers seem to be dying off.

Just a few hundred years ago people were burned at the stake, impaled, cut open alive in front of a crowd.

Every war kills off the most violent and aggressive. The next big one should wipe a lot of them.

Then again, push someone hard enough and they'll turn against you. Don't even need violence and death, a miserable existence in fear and doubt can be a way better punishment. The sociopathic rich prove it works.

All of the neocons will die in the next few years. Replaced by the anti-war Middle Aged and the 9/11 Generation. Assuming this system doesn't collapse in on itself I say that the US will retreat into isolationism, so it would be a good time for some one abroad to make major political moves if it suited him.

That is, I believe, true in most states, if not all. The response is to appeal to the governor for a pardon.

Governor does not care.

"Right, it's outrageously absurd Moriarty asked, "How old was your daughter when you came in here?"
"Seven weeks old," he replied.
"So, you've missed watching her grow up?"
"Every bit of it."
"How old is she now?"
"She just turned 43."

But an apology, even from the prosecutor, is all he gets, Strickland is still in prison."

This is fucking terrible. It brought tears to my eyes as it's both horrific and so tragic. It's no wonder that much of the world looks on American Justice with much askance and suspicion in that its implementation of 'justice' is so hypocritically at odds with stated American values—and even the Constitution. One wonders why so many American citizens actually tolerate this situation and do so little about it.

For heaven's sake why aren't people on the streets protesting for change?

There’s so much to protest and so many are crushed that many Americans have resigned hope for change.

So what do citizens do short of a revolution (no sensible person ever wants that)?

I wonder if returning soldiers from D-Day and Iwo Jima would have allowed themselves to be crushed in similar circumstances. I doubt it very much.

(Seems to me both the zeitgeist and ethics have changed greatly in the past 75 years. The question is why.)

BTW, I note this story is now here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079154

They don’t protest it because a few years later something worse was going on, and a few years later something even worse, and so on. Nothing gets fixed, it just gets concealed behind some new scandal that people worry even more about. That’s why national unity and trust in institutions is almost at rock bottom, and why groups are starting to riot more often or resort to mob justice on social media

How could the governor sleep at night with verifiably innocent people rotting in jail?

Doesn't the governor of a state have the power to grant pardons?

Yes, he does, and he has not acted on it.

I had a Verizon identity theft issue a year ago, where someone on the other side of the country opened a wireless account at a rural Walmart store.

The number of hoops VZW made me jump through was stupefying. Multiple notarized documents, utility bills, property tax records, as well as the police report.

And then they said "Our initial review says that the account stands as-is, that we are satisfied that it was in fact you that opened the accounts, based on the documentation you provided, and the documentation that was provided on account opening".

Great (not really), I say, in that case, "I want to see the documentation 'I' used to open the account."

"We can't do that, for customer privacy reasons."

"You just told me that you determined -I- am the customer. Are you telling me it's a breach of my privacy to supply documents you've stated on the record -I- supplied you, to me?!?"

"Well, you may not have opened the account..."

Apparently, Schrodinger's cell phone account. Mine when they need the bill paid or sent to collections, and "possibly not mine" when it comes to them revealing what crap they accepted in order to open the account in the first place.

It finally got sorted out, but took a lot more back and forth.

The most mind-boggling thing here is that they are the ones that screwed up by opening the account with bad information, but they're making it look like it's your problem to prove to them that they screwed up, and they are surely not going to make it easy to you to clean up their screw-up.

I experienced identity theft with Verizon, too. Way back in 2000. It was taken care of almost immediately with a single phone call. I had to mail in some proof of identity (photocopy of my water bill, IIRC) to verify that I did not in fact live in whatever place the account had been opened and that was that.

I get the sense that a lot of things that used to be easy to resolve, easy to deal with, easy in general, are actually quite painful and difficult today.

Lawyers operate on the established parameters of a case as directed by a judges orders (and also the particular judge’s idiosyncratic nonsense, no matter how illogical or farfetched), not actual reality or truth..

If they can find a technicality to hide their own mistakes and general incompetency, why would they not try to influence the judge to proclaim their fantasy as the prevailing “truth”?

"Computer says No."

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