At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt
apnews.com
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A day after my speeding ticket payment was due, I was pulled over, arrested for driving on a suspended license (quite roughly, I might add), and hauled to jail, where they booked me, processed me, and charged me thousands upon thousands of dollars for the privilege of being arrested. The whole process was structured around profit.
It absolutely demolished my meager savings account at the time, and damn near kept me from being able to attend the code bootcamp I was enrolled in. It taught me a serious lesson about the law: They exist only for power and profit. The entire experience cost me over $3000 for a speeding ticket of 5 mph over the stated limit. I've got a nice little arrest mention on my criminal record now, though, so that's nice.
Fines, taxes and some big companies appear there.
It hasn't been a loophole for years (fringe benefits tax took care of that), but many older people still do it anyway.
You can also pay them by credit or debit card online, but there is a small processing fee for doing so.
Not taxes though. My tax is automatically deducted from my salary and paid by my employer every month. All employers do this.
I guess it's for those cases you use the Pay Taxes option in my banks app. I've used it a few times and it's really useful
Even many third world countries offer that...
The Government want you to use cash only when it's convenient for them....
Suspended license driving is anti-social. Any law with a firm cutoff or deadline, and no gradual increase of penalty, sucks for those who barely miss complying with it. There needs to be some kind of consequence, though.
No, there just need to be better laws - or at least, more fit to the "crime" response.
In fact, if he was indeed "5 mph above the speed limit" he shouldn't even have been fined in the first place.
Police can and should use discretion (and they often/mostly do, this was just a shitty move in a shitty district).
Not to mention that, even given the fine was ok, there should have been an online/bank transfer way to pay...
If so, why would him having a debt to the state matter? Clearly him mailing the cash or not wouldn't change his risk profile for driving.
The anti-social thing here is to leverage what is ostensibly a safety concern into a tool of compliance.
As I alluded to, a gradual system of consequences building to suspension, or some other method of easing into or helping avoid the penalty state, would be more fair, especially for light offenses like the OP’s.
That does not change that we expect people not to drive on public roads when they’re barred from using them.
I understand your frustration, but the law does not exist ONLY (or at all, if I'm being honest) for power and profit. The law exists to provide each person with a baseline to guide their interactions, whether it be between them and other individuals, or between them and their government.
Now, obviously you have abuses and especially when some in the government/beaurocracy find out they can get funds by abusing their authority (e.g. civil asset forfeiture), but that's not why the law exists, and it doesn't happen everywhere. That's just a symptom of a lack of oversight by we, the people (chiefly).
Jail time and a permanent record is more punishment than it sounds. It severely affects future employment, even things like renting an apartment or getting a car loan (the ubiquitous background checks are done to weed such people out).
So your argument is that it is not the fault of the people who are paid to do this job, out of our tax money, but it is somehow our fault, even though your average person has literally no input whatsoever into any of this?
That's just false.
I mean, almost 90% of Americans live in a non-swing state where their vote is entirely meaningless.
Sigh, another kid who has not faced life.
Wait there are supporters of this? You're telling me if I asked 100 people on the street, there'd be someone that said "oh yeah this is a pretty fair and reasonable law to charge the inmates 5-star hotel prices"??
"Is it fair to incarcerate individuals for their preference of intoxicant in a free and liberal democracy?"
"Should drug users and other junkies be taken off the streets to keep them safe for the rest of us?"
"Do you think prisoners should be charged $250/night for their incarceration?"
“Should prisoners pay the price of their stay in prison, including room, board, food and security?”
Confronting people on the street with questions like this won't give you a representative sample of what people really think. The sort of people who support the system to maintain their class/lifestyle are likely to ignore your question or to perceive your activist intent and lie to you to avoid getting sucker punched by the 'crazy person on the street.'
Idioms are hard! Want to apologize on behalf of the English language.
There was actually a sigh of relief in many circles when New York lost the 2012 Olympics bid, because many people did not see the benefit of holding the games being worth the massive headaches of infrastructure overload.
Prison conditions in the US are infamous for the degrading of the human experience to a point of no return.
Open rape culture, radicalization, utterly despicable behavior that even barbarians would shiver at openly covered in popular culture as fact.
As someone who grew up outside the US, it is truly astonishing how fucked up the system is.
The most extreme example of this is that the site of the 1970 Lake Placid Winter Olympics was designed to be used post games as a prison, which it is today.
Ever notice that executive power is the same everywhere? They think the laws are unfair to them, because they have to implement totally unrealistic laws, and get blamed harshly for "small" problems (you know, "harshly" except it doesn't carry any consequences for them, except, at best loss of face).
They respond by not following laws, refusing even to implement judicial directives and the like. Their own (sometimes personal) interest, for them, trumps laws and the directives of judges. They have largely made sure their names are never revealed to the people they serve, as they no longer have the support of the people, and they feel they cannot be replaced.
Sorry but wtf?! Read Manufacturing Consent. Don't demonize us. We're not down with this shit.
I haven't been to them, so I can't say whether they're up to the level one would expect, but they're listed as five star hotels.
The actual mechanism probably has many more links including the voting of politicians who share the People's values, who then pass laws in the People's interest. But the underlying axiom of democracy is rule of the People, indirect as the American implementation is, is it not?
This gives the USA the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world.
The next four?
* Rwanda
* Turkmenistan
* El Salvador
* Cuba
[1]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarcera...
Additionally, if you look at the racial breakdown of who's incarcerated in the USA, it's disproportionately black relative to number of blacks per capita residing in the country. Blacks are incarcerated at 5x the rate of whites, and make up 40% of all incarcerated individuals.
This is insane.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300304290/mori-youth-ke...
And I wouldn’t rush to the notion that you need to be justified in using hyperbolic/metaphorical language before you can criticize the problem.
Why would kids growing up in a remote community with no work, surrounded by drug and alcohol abuse, in a culture that tolerates child sex abuse, whose brains are cooked from day one by FASD and inhalants _not_ commit more crime.
Example from yesterday, a black pastor was arrested for watering his neighbors plants because he "looked suspicious":
https://news.yahoo.com/black-alabama-pastor-says-wrongfully-...
The police don't know who that man was, or why he was on property that didn't belong to him. They're not mind readers. If he had provided the identification (or at least his name/DOB) that they had asked for, then it probably would have become clear to them that he was telling the truth. But by REFUSING to give them any information that would prove his story true, he escalated a situation that could have been resolved without his arrest.
People seem to forget that we ask police TO INVESTIGATE. Not just walk up, accept whatever story they are given and then drive away.
Exactly. They're aren't mind readers but they made a decision that he was commiting a crime or about to commit one. They escalated it, not him.
No, actually that's not what they decided.
They decided that, before they just walk away from their SWORN DUTY to investigate without knowing who he was or whether he actually belonged at that property, they would actually do their jobs and find that out that information by doing a simple thing like asking him to identify himself.
I know some people really don't like police officers, but, in the future, you should try to make sure that that dislike doesn't make you completely irrational.
If they cannot be sued for a breach of it, do they have it?
SCOTUS opined: “Nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors.”
(DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (1989) 489 U.S. 189).
But even if you take the position that the police are not REQUIRED to do anything (and I would disagree with that position), that does not mean that they CANNOT do anything. In this case, the police CHOSE (to use a term more suitable to your position) to investigate. And nothing precludes them from choosing to do so. Or do you take the position that the police are neither required to, nor can they choose to investigate when called?
No, police have no "sworn duty" to investigate - you literally made this up out of your head.
“I, (state name), do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the duties of (state position) of the State of Texas, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of Texas, so help me God.”
"I do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the position of ______________________ according to the best of my ability and perform my duties in a manner consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York."
They're all like this.
----
No, seeing a black guy watering flowers is not grounds for anything, even if they are someone else's flowers. I cannot believe I have to make this point.
So I assume those "duties" they're referring to don't include investigating when they are assigned a call. Perhaps you think "duties" just refers to sitting in their car eating donuts?
> "No, seeing a black guy watering flowers is not grounds for anything, even if they are someone else's flowers. I cannot believe I have to make this point."
Again, you have to pay attention to the actual facts when you participate in these discussions.
The police were not just driving down the street and, upon seeing a black man watering some flowers, say to themselves "he must be up to no good". They were specifically CALLED by a neighbor to the property to investigate a suspicious person on their neighbor's property (you know, the typical 'looking out for your neighbor' thing). Your position seems to be that the police should not have done anything. Simple looked at him, shrugged their shoulders and walked away.
Because that's exactly what you would want the police to do if YOU were away and your neighbor saw someone on your property and called the police to investigate. You'd absolutely want them to not find out who that person was or why he was on your property.
But that leaves the fact that white me had no reason to get my back up, because I knew the white cop wasn't being racist. So I handed him my ID and sat quietly on a privately owned rock until he was done with it.
How come black people (specifically African-Americans) are the only people who seem to have these "racism" issues with police? What about other minorities? How many Indians do you see on TV fighting with police or getting shot? What about Hispanics or Asians? Hell, what about African immigrants? It seems quite strange to me that for all this talk of "systemic racism", none of the other minorities seem to have these issues.
It's almost as if the racist police don't have any issue with any minority OTHER than black people. Which makes me think that it really has nothing to do with race and everything to do with what some people are being taught.
There was a video a few weeks ago of young black children (probably around 5-8 years old) taunting, cursing and HITTING police in Minnesota.
https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/video-shows-child-hit-and-swea...
Now, you tell me, who taught that child to behave that way? And when that child grows up, what possible interaction could he have with police that DOESN'T end up with him being beaten, shot or killed?
Everyone wants to look at one side of the issue and ignore what is going on everyday in black families and communities that leads to these confrontations.
To that point, some of the most racist people I know are black people. Growing up as a black person myself in Brooklyn, and hearing it spoken often, I can tell you that there is no one that black people around here dislike more than Jews. It's an irrational kind of hatred based on the normal nonsense "they own all the banks, they own all the property", etc. If you messed up your credit and can't get a loan, it's the Jews fault. If someone gets evicted because they didn't pay their rent for 6 months, its' the Jews fault. That kind of thing. Racism and prejudice exists in all of us.
But you're right, I probably don't really understand how racism works. Because I have never actually experienced real racism. But, to be fair, neither has 99.9% of the people you see on your TV, social media or in the streets screaming about racism because a white person put their hair in dreadlocks or some other such nonsense. What was the most recent one, Drew Barrymore frolicking in the rain was somehow "erasing black people"?
Look, no one denies that there are actual racist people in the world. But the current state of discourse on this topic is a complete joke. REAL racism is largely a thing of the past. The problem is that what people are trying to classify as real racism these days are just wildly over exaggerated claims based on there being a racist boogeyman around every corner.
The truth is that the 'everything is racist' mantra, or the overexaggerated claims of racism, is actually funded and promoted by global elites and politicians who would very much like to create as much division as possible to keep us focused on non-issues like race instead of the fact that every time one of these "crises" occurs, their net income doubles. We are sadly being played as pawns.
I want to make it clear that I agree with you 100% on that much. We're more polarized this year than last year, and we already thought it was very polarized then. I was born in the 70's, I'm an attentive and perceptive dude, and I've never seen anything close to this. People tell me it was worse right before I was born. Someone here gave me a book about the Weather Underground but I haven't finished it yet.
I think it's a blessing in a way that everyone lives in their phone. If the culture war were playing out predominately in meat space, way more people would be dying.
The kids call ideas from 20 years ago reactionary. Wait, hold up. Too many of the kids -know- and believe they -need- the word reactionary, what the fuck, and I'm not talking about vocab.
But I still maintain that the policed do not bear more responsibility than the police. The police are the professionals, and they're the ones empowered to kill people.
A bit more constructively: I suppose if everyone everywhere taught their kids the police are there to help, the way the Electric Company taught me, then that specific problem might be alleviated. Perhaps with unintended consequences. But I basically had to unlearn it, and for them it would require a comfort with a level of cognitive dissonance that I'm sure no individual can sustain, let alone a whole community. At least if you accept their history is separate. Like, my ancestors on my dad's side came here in the 1600's too, but they were on the top of the boat.
Living in Denver for three years and having great HD over the air TV I'd watch the local news while cooking meals. The local news spent considerable time discussing the issues plaguing the refugees with their relationships with certain local law enforcement agencies, as well as the large Hispanic populations. I spent a lot of time hanging out with some refugees and it was interesting to hear their perspectives versus that of my barber who was Hispanic. Not once was my refugee ever asked to prove they were here legally, but my barber was nearly every time he had any kind of interaction with the police where they had some reason to fish for a reason to ask for identification.
Where I live in Central Texas now, it's largely about Hispanic interactions in the news or the continued coverage of the most recent large school shooting here. A huge complexity added to many Hispanic populations around the US is the ability to comfortably and freely voice their frustration without risk of deportation. A lot of abuse they suffer at the hand of law enforcement goes unnoticed on the national scene because they don't want to take to the streets about it and risk losing literally everything they own including the clothes they are wearing when they are arrested.
I'm only 1/4th Hispanic and while I haven't ever been pulled in Central Texas, in the the Dallas suburb of McKinney Texas, where I lived for about a decade I got pulled over all the time and every time they were baffled when #1 I don't know Spanish at all, beyond basic food names from eating at food trucks, #2 I have a slight southern accent because I grew up in Arkansas and sound like everyone else I was around, and #3 I wasn't some easy score for them.
Of the 30+ times I got pulled over on the east-side of McKinney, not once was I ever given a ticket or arrested me but it came pretty freakin' close and I can't imagine how much differently if I didn't immediately register as "he actually might be white".
I have done the following in McKinney, Allen, and/or Frisco Tx:
* Had to do the stupid human tricks on the side of the road before noon, because they claimed I was swerving and they smelled a hint of alcohol on my breath.
* Blown in a breathalyzer in the parking lot of an elementary school because the law enforcement officer camped out using the school as place to nail speeders said I was driving erratically and was staggering as I got out of my car. The erratic driving was specifically around having issues parking. Due to an injury I needed to be able to open my car door all the way open and when I realized I couldn't, I decided to back up and move over a bit more so I could open it all the way. That was the bad driving. The stagger was actually a limp if I put too much pressure on my left leg.
To add insult to injury, the final kick in the balls, etc. was when he started trying to imply I was there for questionable reasons when I was actually there to drop off lunch to my wife who had taught at the school for several years at that point and I routinely volunteered at the school which meant I had actually passed a more rigorous background check than he did to get his job.
* Been accused of having a fake id drivers license because for whatever reason their inability to find something about me to give me a ticket or arrest me on resorts to petty accusations to attempt to get a rise out of me so that they can escalate it even more till they can arrest me for making them scared, or worse they can use their terrible training and end up panicking and pulling their weapon and firing on the extreme end outcome of things.
Too many times to count I was told in parting words I could avoid these problems staying out of the east side of town because that is where all the problems are, or for the times I got pulled over close to home in the more affluent side of town that I should get a better car so I don't stand out and look questionable.
At the time I drove upwards of 100 miles round trip a day, my daily commute car was a highly efficient but very basic American cross over SUV that I picked up used but with less than 100 miles from a rental car agency that went bankrupt. That car also happened to be one of the most popular cars for whatever reason with Mexican people in many areas of Texas. Strike 1. Because I was in the car so much with the long slow commute, I had the windows tinted to protect the interior from UV damage and to protect the left side of my body from multiple hours a day of exposure to the sun due travel directions. Strike 2. Despite identifying as white, I love Tejano music and many other Hispanic musics for their complex guitar playing. Strike 2.5. Go to rich side of Texas suburb or go to area believed to be plagued with problems with immigrants and I had a pretty high chance of getting that third strike by just driving through with music barely audible beyond my car, and I don't listen to anything with a lot of bass or even loud volume. I'm talking side by side at a red light we'd both need our windows down and you'd still probably only be able to hear it as if it was elevator music in a real elevator.
Just because whatever circles of friends or media you consume doesn't focus on a problem does not mean it does not exist. Many of these strained relationships the communities have with law enforcement are not without complex histories and a refusal largely one sided to hold their people accountable to a degree so that trust is restored and the wall of division is broken down.
I have a very short list of people I would be willing to take a physical bullet for and one of them is a cop and they aren't someone related to me, I didn't know them all my life at the time when they'd gotten on that list, etc. It was their actions and humility that put them on that list.
When the police consider their community to be their community things turn out very differently than when the police have zero vested interest in their communities. When you have law enforcement officers who view themselves as warriors and take jobs in areas where crime, especially violent crime, occurs often because they want to live out some kind of deranged fantasy of being some kind of super hero you end up with vested interest in escalating any encounter with the public.
When the police remember that they serve the public, and not the other way around things are very different. The problem is there are many communities where they are policed by outsiders who look nothing like them, have zero history with the community, and honestly don't care what happens to any of the people in those communities.
This happens all over Texas, because the fact of the matter is being a cop fucking sucks. So all levels of policing recruit from all over the state and country trying to get people to move to those areas with crime.
It is boring as hell 99.9999% of the time, so to fill that time they start figuring out any and everything they can do to fill that time. They pick whatever activities make them sleep better at night, feel like they are earning their keep, ..
The problem is when there isn't much really going on you have some people who will start creating problems just to have something to do. It is what bully's do. The problem is the power balance is very different.
Because of this very difference in power I consider it imperative to ask a question when I make the decision to call 911 for anything where I'm asking for the police, especially if the person I'm calling about is a minority: If I were to go outside with my own weapon instead, would I think their current activity and it's likely progression to be something that is worth killing them over because the minute I go outside with my own weapon visible I am making the decision that I am prepared to use it and live with whatever outcomes happen.
I extend that logic to calling 911 for anything that warrants the police and I highly encourage anyone else to seriously consider using some variation of it when they call as well.
Or is there other factors?
That doesn’t make sense. Building a prison in itself doesn’t induce crime nor does it induce prison sentences. Judges and juries have no quotas to fill based on vacancy.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-ma...
Some private prison corporations and judges both felt it was profitable enough. Two Pennsylvania judges received $2.8M in bribes from private prisons to send 4,000 kids to the private prisons with long sentences; apparently ruining 4,000 kids lives was profitable enough to justify $2.8M in bribes. One of the judges has managed to get released early.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686...
https://boingboing.net/2013/08/06/judge-who-accepted-private...
E.g., private prisons likely spend at least as much in legal lobbying efforts to maintain high prison populations as they do in bribes.
If you accept the idea of the "war on drugs", it also goes for drug offenses: by putting drug dealers behind bars, you prevent people from buying drugs and harming themselves.
I don’t think it’s a right way of framing it. It’s not about acceptance. If you look at the statistics on consumption, harm suffered from abuse or how the illegal trade is doing between highly repressive countries and countries which have legalised drugs or don’t jail consumers but try to help them kick their addiction, you can factually say that the “war on drugs” is an abject failure leading to more harm than good like prohibition before it.
The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is probably the most harmful thing the USA ever did to the world.
Shocking that 55% of inmates are in for violent crimes such as murder, rape, and manslaughter.
source: https://felonvoting.procon.org/incarcerated-felon-population...
That would mean for 2mm prisoners there would be 1.1mm murderers, rapists, and manslaughterers. That seems like way too large a number to be realistic with the declining rate of murder, rape, and manslaughter.
If a rapist spends five times as long in prison compared to a drug offense, then there will be five times as many rapists behind bars if the quantity of the two crime's convictions are comparable.
I got it wrong. It's actually only 3.7% in for drug possession, not 4.5%.
I'll let you figure out your mistake from there.
The clue is: It looks like the numbers are reversed which would make a lot more sense.
- 606k violent
- 142k drug
- 159k property
- 124k public order (which includes 42k weapons and 18k DUI)
Land of the free
Edit: I found a variety of sources that suggest 18% of state and 15% of federal prisoners. Nowhere near as high as I was expecting.
The US doesn't actually have that much higher crime rates than other countries otherwise though
Another issue, like this article points out, is that once you're in even if you get out your life is pretty much ruined and you're much more likely to go back in
Just note that this story is about Jails, not Prison. They are different.
Rough numbers reported a lot are 1mm uighurs, 1.6mm ukrainians through Russian 'filtration' camps (though most aren't held long term).
The Government isn’t a magical entity of absolute perfection. Large classes of banned substances are indeed banned for good reason. Their effects on individual/societal well being documented quite heavily.
Two things can be true at the same time: 1. Some substances that are detrimental to human health need to be controlled. 2. The US government and its present approach to enforcing laws is equally harmful and needs a complete overhaul.
Yes. Tons of petty criminals and low level nonviolent felons are behind bars because whatever they were doing it they did it while packing heat or had a gun in their possession when their door got kicked in.
Packing while committing some other crime is a felony by itself in many places and in the case of federal crimes (e.g. drug trafficking) a multiplicative effect on your max sentence and raises the minimum by a ton. Many/most states also have laws that copy the federal law.
This is why why drug dealers who've made it big pay someone else to pack for them and/or store their product as soon as their business can support that.
I'd rather the law be more around information than control. If one believes in the idea of freedom and liberty in the US, then one should support a model where individuals are allowed to make their own decisions, but ensure the facts around such substances are well researched and publicized.
Alcohol kills, and yet is not actually very well controlled at all. Marijuana doesn't kill anyone directly, and yet the lies told about it has kept it tightly controlled, even as the real facts continue to come out.
I don't believe the government really has any obligation to keep us safe from our own poor decisions, assuming those poor decisions can be argued to be have been informed using truthful information.
Let’s just publish the literature online and let people choose their dosage of Ivermectin.
Guns also need to be controlled (in my opinion way more that they currently are) but that doesn’t mean that I am advocating for them to be illegal.
Let’s pull the stats on stabbing or blunt force trauma and ban baseball knives, kitchen knives and nail clippers as well ?
Terrorists ran people over with vehicles. So of course, renting a Uhaul van now has to come with a lengthy background check?
The absurdity of the comparison astounds me, and I’m willing to bet, would certainly astonish you were you to step outside the bubble you seem to be in. Have you met anyone that’s known or was a user of synthetics? Read up on the opioid crisis and the societal impact that’s had. It’s a crying shame that it isn’t taught in schools or spoken about even more than it is at present.
When you draw an absolute line saying drug abuse has no victims, I laugh and point out other “crimes” that do and by your logic are thus different and must be banned.
Now, if you make another point about “forcing people to buy from violent underground marketplaces”, this is where your original comment becomes entirely irrelevant and you’re projecting some unsubstantiated paranoia of yours as a factual argument.
These are addictive substances. Many if not most of them leave permanent psychological scars and inhibit normal human functioning in ways that, unlike naturally occurring substances such as coffee are considered DETRIMENTAL to societal health and safety. By limiting exposure of society to synthetics or dangerous drugs, we limit their harm.
Your argument seems to be everyone in the US population wakes up everyday thinking “where can I get five ks of that sweet sweet Birria” ?
Stop acting like a dickhead if you don’t have any experience with rehabilitating the victims of these idiotic policies you’re proposing and go outside your moms basement once in a while.
This isn't your 70s hippie weed or 80s crack. Dealing in hard drugs these days is a business with a pretty high body count due to the low LD50 of the substances involved. It's like the addictive substances equivalent of giving dynamite to teenagers. A lot of fun will be had but a lot of bad outcomes too.
So yeah, I'd say that dealing often has a victim too.
They’re also sourced from China, a geopolitical adversary where political figures routinely point to the opium wars and revenge for that period on the west.
There is a separate issue of doctors over-prescribing dangerous drugs and people abusing those drugs. I think preventing those overdoses and deaths takes a totally different approach.
You understand what “addictive substances” means , right? Your solution to protecting a population from being hooked on drugs is . . . Give them more and without restriction?
Sometimes the naïveté in the tech community amazes me.
I suppose you could argue that none of these people were injured or killed by the drugs--they were injured or killed by someone misusing the drugs.
But that same argument works guns too. Good luck trying to find some convincing way to distinguish the two.
Separately I just learned fentanyl test strips are not legal in all 50 states. Given that fentanyl is a leading cause of death, giving access to test strips can save lives. I don't know how heavily this law is enforced, but it's a great example of cutting your nose to spite your face. To me it's a litmus test that reinforces the notion the USA's stance on drugs was never about harm reduction.
[0] https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1...
Was it ever framed as harm reduction?
You may not like what it took to get done, but it did work. I'm not advocating for the heavy-handed approach, but it's intellectually dishonest to say that it can't work.
Also, the other countries have done it with a much smaller imprisonment per capita.
You are making a very different argument - that if the US was an entirely different type of society with a different government, culture and history, then this approach might work.
I understand the desire to not needlessly arrest people, on the other hand, I think leaving them to their own devices so they can do drugs in campers illegally parked on the side of the street is no honestly solution either.
I'm all for drug confiscation. If you're caught with drugs, we just take them and destroy them. No arrest and processing, just straight surrender of the illegal substance. Use this as an opportunity to enroll users into programs and get them off of their habits and back on their feet. Use the additional manpower to truly target those who import and traffic in these substances.
Frankly, it sounds like you've never really researched or grappled with this particular social issue. Or participated in it.
Frankly, it sounds like you think this phenomenon is so unique that only a particular expert class is allowed to have opinions on it; and you're making wild guesses as to my experience in order to discount my opinion without actually putting forward the necessary arguments.
That's the entire problem right there. It's also mostly untrue - with very few exceptions there are legal ways to possess an use lots of drugs, including cocaine for example. But drug possession should never be a crime. It is a wildly illiberal approach.
"Plenty of countries have solved the drug problem by eliminating their populations; it would be dishonest to say that it cannot be done".
My preference is with a society that supports the freedom of the individual. One side-effect of that kind of society is that the unlucky and irresponsible are ill-protected. All told, I prefer that situation to an authoritarian, totalitarian, or fascist society.
It's a calculus with numerous concessions on all sides. I suspect we're highly programmed to support the perspective that corresponds to our geographic origins, even though mine's the best.
America has had more than a fair go at a heavy handed anti-drug policy and it was and continues to be a spectacular failure. To sit here at the end of it and say that they didn't go hard enough, (particularly after horrific actions such as poisoning marijuana and therefore smokers with paraquat) is monstrous.
This argument veers a little bit into “sure it’s harsh but their trains do run on time” territory, at least for me.
What authoritarian countries are able to achieve at the cost of human rights would preferably not serve as inspiration, or even as a point of comparison.
> have successfully stopped nearly all drug use and trade with heavy-handed policies.
Like Indonesia for instance? It has one of the strictest drug laws in the world supposedly. Yet 70% of the people imprisoned in the country were convicted of drug related crimes. They had this policy for many years, yet this is what their president said a few years back:
On July 21, 2017, Jokowi stated that Indonesia was in a state of emergency due to widespread drug use, consequently instructing law enforcement officers that “if [narcotics suspects] resist a little bit, just shoot them immediately.”
Which would that their strict policies, far from having stopped nearly all drug trade and consumption, were a complete failure.
Also around 2% of all people in the country are active drug users.
> but it did work
So no, it didn’t
> but it’s intellectually dishonest to say that it can’t work
Yes. Theoretically if you imprison or shot every drug user fast enough and your police force is not thoroughly corrupt it might work. Not sure both of these things can ever be compatible in practice, though.
*https://ppid.bnn.go.id/konten/unggahan/2020/10/Drug-Abuse-Pr...
And where do they get that statistic… the reality will be higher I think.
What nonsense is this? Countries with capital punishment on drugs like thailand, Philippines and singapore (and before malaysia who cancelled the death penalty but are still strict) are rife with dope; you can buy it everywhere; I mean it is literally shoved in your face on every corner. Which countries are you talking about? I been to many, I only drink (by the way; a dangerous, addictive harddrug; people tend to forget alcohol as drug), but I got offered everywhere, all the time. And there are many native users, you can see them all over the place.
UAE I don't know; I would never go there.
With the legalization of marijuana consumption has gone up. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220719162133.h...
So to say they failed is not fact, very few laws eliminate the act that is illegal. Murder happens despite being illegal, and will continue to.
I would agree the cost is too high, that the policy is wrong, but it is pretty clear the illegality reduces consumption.
I don’t understand how you can compare murder with drug use (or even selling drugs). Nobody says “let me try murder today and see if I like it” but plenty of people say (and do) “let me try drugs for fun today and see if I like it”.
Not all illegal activities are the same.
> The government strains, at extraordinary expense, to pretend they can stop drugs from being made, bought and sold, but they can't.
My point is that whether or not something still happens once illegal does not have much bearing on whether it should remain so. Nor does it signal failure of the policy as long as there is reduction.
Because marijuana being illegal did reduce the production, and consumption.
In the meantime, before legalization, weed only become stronger and more readily available. Many teenagers could get it more easily than booze. That was with the government at all levels doing everything it could to stop marijuana use. With many ruined lives of otherwise free people coming with those polices.
At least in my circles, usage has gone up significantly.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/08/25/cannabi...
It’s not like Vancouver or SF decided first to have safe injection sites, and then suddenly had huge heroin problems.
Sure they could. They just don't try because the current system is very very good for them.
Other countries like Portugal and the Netherlands have done a fantastic job on lowering their drug use rate dramatically.
And it's very simple - they treat drug consumption as a medical problem, first and foremost. Possessing drugs, any drugs, for your own personal consumption is _not_ a crime in either place.
Indeed, both countries go out of their way to provide facilities for addicts where they can safely take their drug and get medical treatment and counseling with no fear of being arrested.
----
If the United States wanted to end the drug war, they could simply look at the examples that worked and copied them. But they are much more interested in oppressing hapless addicts and jailing them.
What? Had no idea about this whatsoever and I consider myself a well-read person. Damn.
Someone needs to create a hall of shame for these laws index by federal and for every state.
This is perverse on so many levels. It’s not only ongoing punishment but it disincentivizes people from getting their lives in order and probably increases recidivism rates quite a bit. So in the end I wouldn’t be surprised if it costs more.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/17/pennsylvania...
I'm fairly sure that's intentional, as prisons are "big business" in the USA (which also probably explains the ridiculously high rate of imprisonment here).
/s
Lmao there's definitely a ton of people who would make that comment unironically.
Jokes aside, the government and the largest market players are extremely intertwined.
Another extremely dystopian reality we live with daily and rarely stop to question.
When the 13th Amendment was proposed, one of the big compromises the South fought for was the "except as punishment for crime" clause. And, of course, immediately after it was passed there was a big cultural shift in racist stereotypes of Black men from being effeminate and cowardly to being big scary criminals. Basically just a rush to recreate the slavery apparatus by imprisoning Black people
The south didn't really get a say in the text of the 13th since they weren't around. That clause was included so as not to screw with the established prison labor systems of the states that were in the union. The 13th was in the over at a time when union support for the war was low and it wasn't a boat anyone felt like rocking. It wasn't a contentions clause and was basically seen as a common sense exception at the time. If it wasn't then you'd think some of the more abolitionist states would have tried to abolish that too or you'd at least have some period correspondence about it you could refer to.
>And, of course, immediately after it was passed there was a big cultural shift in racist stereotypes of Black men from being effeminate and cowardly to being big scary criminals.
You're early by a century. The lazy and up to no good criminal black man is a stereotype that mostly came around in the 1960s after we incentivized urban minorities to quit working above the table (and quit getting married) with asinine welfare eligibility rules. As an aside, president Johnson actually has some very quotable quotes on this subject.
In the many decades between the civil war and great depression blacks increasingly moved north and moved to urban areas (mostly in the north and midwest but some in the south) to get jobs in the industrial economy and because the alternatives in the south sucked. Throughout this time period they were stereotyped as tireless workers with some cultural differences much the same way other cultural groups have been over the years.
I remember checking NYTimes and CNN's frontpages and being shocked to see nothing written about it. The strike lasted nearly a month
Really wild to think about how this could've gone down in history books for immense historical significance if we just... paid any attention at all. Instead hardly anyone knows about it
Similarly there's an immigrant detention center near where I live in California. The detainees recently went on strike. They have to work to earn money in order to buy food. The work is "volunteer" so they can get away with paying them $1 for a full day's work. A bag of beans costs $3 and a 15-minute phone call is $2.50. So a full week of work gets you a phone call and some beans. The prison guards use intimidation tactics like "the judge won't like hearing about your bad behavior when your case is up" to keep them from organizing. Lots have gotten sick from the black mold growing in their cells too. It's straight up modern slavery and the only media source I've seen even mention it is LaborNotes[0]
[0] https://www.labornotes.org/2022/08/immigrant-detainees-strik...
That's not coming into money. His $21k was compensation for the vehicle he no longer has. He was more liquid for some time but not in any way richer. It's grossly unfair for the state to interpret that money as something they could go after, even if such pay-to-stay laws were fair (which I don't think they are). What replacement vehicle is he going to get with $3k now?
other things that cost money include: soap, toilet paper, toothpaste, and basic analgesics like aspirin. phone calls are around $9 a minute. a letter is around $4. if you had an accident or need serious medical care it will be billed to you during your stay and comes out of your commissary.
oh and any supervised release after your sentence? that costs money too.
Heh.
For real though, fines that aren't adjusted to the offenders wealth seem to give legal impunity to the wealthy. But performing that adjustment without a floor essentially gives legal impunity to people at rock bottom. The trick is finding some middle ground where all criminals, poor and rich, can be effectively punished to deter crimes of opportunity.
Not only is slavery permitted, the US is the subject of the ire of the United Nations over it (the ILO, specifically). For-profit prisons with state minimum occupancy clauses. Charging prisoners for their time there. And one of the highest incarceration levels and worst recidivism rates in the world.
What exactly is the point of any of this?
It's not about public safety or rehab or reintegration into society. It was always about making money.
Jail operators have every incentive to keep inmates "dangerous" and encourage them to rescind once they get out, because then the prison gets a new customer.
The only group who can "directly compete" with the prison industry is the death penalty industry. Because when an inmate is sent to death sentence, they can no longer be a customer for the prison industry.
>What exactly is the point of any of this?
At least for that there's a pretty simple non-nefarious explanation. The state wants to outsource their prisons/jails to some private entity. They agree to pay the private entity per prisoner housed. However, since the private entity needs to invest upfront cash to build the facility, they want some sort of assurance that the demand will materialize and they won't be left with a facility that's only 50% used, hence the minimum occupancy clause.
I haven't seen the actual minimum occupancy clauses, but realistically speaking they probably involve the state paying for the minimum occupancy even if actual prisoners are less (eg. if minimum occupancy is 800 prisoners but actual occupancy is 700, they still pay for 800 prisoners). It's not like the state has to come up with 100 extra prisoners to meet their obligations.
I agree this causes skewed incentives (ie. the marginal cost of imprisoning someone can potentially be zero), but if you're deciding to lock someone up or not hinges on whether it costs $30k or $0, you probably have other issues. If a convict is dangerous then he should be locked up, if he's not he shouldn't be. Money shouldn't play a factor in this.
That sounds pretty nefarious to me because the state has a duty of care for its citizens - of which this is a clear and flagrant abdication.
> I haven't seen the actual minimum occupancy clauses, but realistically speaking they probably involve the state paying for the minimum occupancy even if actual prisoners are less (eg. if minimum occupancy is 800 prisoners but actual occupancy is 700, they still pay for 800 prisoners). It's not like the state has to come up with 100 extra prisoners to meet their obligations.
Probably worth not speculating. [1] At the end of the day this is the same thing - the state should be paying less when there's less crime. It should be incentivized to stop crime from happening in the first place.
It should be spending that money not on guaranteeing profits for corporations but instead on programs that reduce criminality. The state should feel the burden of higher criminality and reap the reward of lowering it.
[1] http://www.njjn.org/uploads/digital-library/Criminal-Lockup-...
Which part of it constitutes "a clear and flagrant abdication"?
>At the end of the day this is the same thing - the state should be paying less when there's less crime. It should be incentivized to stop crime from happening in the first place.
>It should be spending that money not on guaranteeing profits for corporations but instead on programs that reduce criminality.
This ignores the basic economic reality that the upfront investment needs to be paid somehow. Without it, you end up with too little prison capacity and overcrowded prisons, which is also inhumane. The alternatives aren't much better:
1. if the upfront investment is funded by the taxpayer, and it ends up getting underutilized, the taxpayer is still on the hook for the opportunity cost of the investment
2. if prisons are privatized but without guarantees, the state will need to pay more to make up for the uncertainly, leaving the taxpayers on the hook.
If the facility is under utilized less investment will be needed in the future and conditions can be improved for existing inmates.
What are the moral hazards here? The people running the prisons aren't the ones sentencing/convicting criminals.
>If the facility is under utilized less investment will be needed in the future and conditions can be improved for existing inmates.
What's the difference between wasting money because the state didn't meet the minimum inmate quota, and wasting money because the state invested in a 1000 inmate prison but there's only 600 prisoners?
In one instance 2 judges were being bribed directly to sentence juveniles to maximimum sentences cutting out the middleman and directly selling minority children into slavery like it's 1822 rather than 2022.
You actually don't see the moral hazard here?
under this interpretation you should probably ban police/correctional officers as well, because they have the same moral hazard. Same goes for anyone else that is involved in institutions that profit off human suffering (eg. hospitals).
Now you make a spurious connection between prison and hospital because I guess suffering happens in both institutions? Yes in theory EVERY institution may advocate for positions that advance their interests over the populace but none other is so odious as to advocate for more people to be in chains so they may directly trade the hours and years of their lives for gold nor selling the labor of the slaves it has so corruptly acquired by advocating for greater bondage.
It seems to me obvious that police officers, correction officers, and hospital staff are all absolutely necessary for the function of our society. Having private prisons which only house 8% of inmates at this time absolutely isn't.
There are many more. These above make the pay to stay seem tame in terms of impact.
Generally I wonder if people comprehend that prisons should be (for the majority of inmates) intended to reform people; that is, to make them better and show them a better path. I'm not clear how people think throwing a bunch of criminals together in a featureless pen to lift weights, fight and fraternize is going to achieve anything. If anything, these people warrant more social investment than the average person, with the intent of educating them and building honest skills in them, so that they have new opportunities that they didn't have previously, when they made their mistakes the first time around.
I guess this sentiment is seen as sappy, unrealistic and saccharine, and of course socialist. Of course it has to be paired with having decent socialized healthcare and education, but I think we have seen in practice how the contemporary American school of thought for prisons does not work, and we have seen in other countries what is possible, and how reformist and sympathetic attitudes to incarceration, combined with strong social support generally can produce better outcomes in regards to crime.
I tried bringing up this line of reasoning one time with two coworkers I was close with. Both had the attitude of "why should I be paying for these criminals to be comfortable and get an education and stuff while I'm working and supporting a family and not committing crimes". A roof over their head and 3 really basic meals per day was all they really wanted to provide.
"Sit in the corner and think about what you did" is a method for punishing little kids, but my coworkers couldn't be convinced we probably need to adapt our strategies for adults.
As Articbull mentioned, slavery is permitted in the Constitution for prisons. So even our noble eradication of slavery after the Civil War was incomplete. And surprise, surprise, what population group is over-represented in prison?
I sent a friend a link to a YT video showing the prison conditions in Norway. He thought that was nuts. How will they learn the error of their ways if they don't suffer?
Even trying to appeal to practical concerns like recidivism rates doesn't work. To the cold-hearted, that just proves that these felons are incorrigible and deserve to be locked away forever.
That kind of clause is common for a supply contract (e.g., Buyer promises to purchase goods/services from supplier, minimum order of X units per year.). If a state purchased more units from a prison service provider than it needed, then I can imagine that state trying to re-sell the services to a neighboring state, but I can’t imagine them locking up more people so that they don’t have to pay for unused services. If that happens then a state should just negotiate its contracts differently in the future.
The other stuff I agree with you on.
It almost seems like someone wants people in prison, as if someone is profiting off of it or something. Hmmmm....
Norway is relatively small and homogenous compared to the US. And doesn't have a puritanical and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture.
EDIT: I don't mean to defend the US here. It's a terrible system. Rather just point out the societies are so different I don't think what works in Norway can transfer directly to the US.
(Well, I guess you could say that countries like North Korea are worse, but even the thought of having to compare against North Korea should give a hint on how bad things really are.)
Where is the profit for prisons? It's twofold: forced labor where inmates make license plates and some basic goods, and admin fees for managing prisons where taxpayers foot the bill.
I find the whole system disgusting.
The US Govt purposefully restricts opportunities to request asylum in the way in which our govt deems 'legal.' e.g. a few people at a time through sparse border crossings.
And then prosecute those who cross the border because it's the only way to state their claim.
Shameful.
The propaganda of 'invasion' and 'replacement' has really made this a politically toxic issue. A dangerous one at that.
It had been occupied for 65000 years by people that might have argued otherwise though!
Also at least in Britain the number of capital crimes increased almost exponentially in the late 17th and the 18th centuries. So I’m not sure that’s quite right.
(And no, we don't charge them the cost afterwards.)
I absolutely think we should buy these services from other EU countries where costs are lower. I don't get why the EU single market legislation shouldn't apply to this.
[1]: https://www.sbb.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2022_Yili_...
And if reducing costs is your only goal. Well there are other options to get rid of criminals..
Or you could just them as free labor to build those house for the poor.
Better example would be Norway or Netherlands: more expensive prisons, but least prisoners per capita: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2014/04/the_netherlands_has_ex...
The point of prison system should be rehabilitation not keeping prisoners down for life.
$10 Slave-labor Breakfast
$5 Leasure time
$10 bathroom access
$5 Billy club smack
$5 radio access
$15 Slave-labor lunch
$30 sunshine
$20 Slave-labor dinner
$10 tv
$10 phone
$129 Cage rental
Leave it to America to reward the rich and shit on the poor.
A student takes a loan to get an education. When taking the loan they agreed to the terms which includes paying it back. There is no stipulation in the loan agreement on what jobs they take to pay back the loan. Being in debt does not change what jobs are available.
The person profiled in the article owes 1.5 million after 17 years, so will never be able to accumulate any sort of wealth.
And is it politically incorrect to say that this is essentially a form of slavery?
Here's 3 reasons why it is bonkers to require this: 1. By requiring this, the government is foregoing its primary stake in preventetive justice, ie recidivism 2. This is double punishment 3. A government's role is to ensure its population thrives, not a balanced checkbook
Who then is supposed to pay for a criminal’s stay in prison? Law-abiding tax-payers?
Laws that SEND people to prison (like drug possession laws) can be fairly painted as ridiculous, but when it comes to paying for the actual prison infrastructure… it seems a lot less ethically clear.
Absolutely yes.
If society is improved by the removal of these individuals from free association therein, and the decision is made to do so, then society should be responsible for the costs necessary to make it happen.
Cost of enforcement should be a limiting factor on the expansion of laws. If nothing else, it is a proxy for the number of people criminalized, which is a measure of social acceptability (and/or lack of negative impact) of the behaviour itself.