Police departments are often the same.
I don't know understand why some people online seem to so often want to steer discussions towards how the police are so awful.
No they are not:
>jails are powerful in all the wrong ways. . . . This is what corrupted power looks like. . . . Police departments are often the same.
The article talks about prisons scanning mail. The OP then says that prisons are corrupt, then throws in that by the way, police departments are too.
OP's opinion about police department corruption has nothing to do with the article about prison mail.
The majority of jails in the US are run by county sheriffs or local law enforcement. The majority of prisons are run by the states.
The mindset behind being a good cop and a good prison guard are totally different. Exposing hires to the corruption and violence inside prisons right before sending them to police the streets creates a very adversarial mindset against the public.
Meanwhile, in Norway, the incarceration rate is 10x lower, while the 2-year recidivism is about 20% instead of the US's 50-60% [1].
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20100509171347/http://www.time.c...
Here's an idea: pay prisons a meaningful amount when people coming out of them stay out and/or get jobs. For example, a bonus each year for five years.
Another idea: penalize them for every death or recidivism.
The article still has nothing to do with police departments, though.
I get that you see financial incentives to prisons as the solution. However, that doesn't really solve the problem. Because it's not the prison or its administrators who deny housing and employment to those released from prison.
Which is why many folks (myself included) support "Ban the box"[0] laws.
Unless and until the societal stigma of incarceration (or even just an arrest -- both are public records) is satisfactorily addressed, this issue can't be solved. And certainly not with incentives to prison administrators.
[0] https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/ban-the-box-...
No. The article is about jail mail. While "prison" and "jail" are often used interchangeably, they are not (at least in the US) the same thing.
Jails are for folks being detained before trial (i.e., they are innocent as they haven't been proven/pled guilty) or incarcerated for minor crimes (with a sentence of less than 1-2 years).
Prisons are for people who have been convicted of serious crimes (with sentences longer than a year or two).
That's not to say that those in prison should be exploited/abused, but this policy change affects those who haven't even been convicted of a crime.
As a rule, I'm usually disgusted by the US "justice" system. I'm even more disgusted now.
> The proposed changes follow a nationwide trend of prisons and jails moving to stop incarcerated people from receiving physical mail. Prisons in Pennsylvania stopped physical mail in 2018, and prisons in Massachusetts started sending incarcerated people photocopies of original letters. Last year, prisons in New Mexico and Florida adopted similar changes, and Texas has also limited in-person mail.
Obviously it's a bit more relevant to prisons where prisoners tend to stay longer and are more likely to receive mail.
Also, none of this shows that the article has anything to do with police department corruption.
This article isn't about front line police, yet you keep bringing them up. Why is that?
In fact, I didn't mention the police at all (although, as others have noted, corrections officers generally are sworn LEOs), so I don't know why you have such a hard on for cops[0].
No, not all cops are sadistic, power-drunk scumbags. But one is too many. cf. Daniel Pantaleo[1], Derek Chauvin[2] or Joseph Franco[3]. There are hundreds more that we know about. Which leaves many, many more we don't know about.
Why don't you invite some of these folks over for dinner so you can tell them how much you love and respect them? Well not Chauvin, as he's in prison, but you better hurry because Mr. Franco will be soon too.
[0]When I was a kid, it was clear that the police were just the biggest and best armed gang -- with qualified immunity -- in NYC. And since I saw and experienced that dynamic a bunch of times over the years, the police themselves proved that to be true. Over and over again. There have been a few positive changes over the last decade or so, but not nearly enough. Certainly not enough to change my view of the police.
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/nypd-officer-put-eric-garner-letha...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Chauvin
[3] https://abc7ny.com/joseph-franco-nypd-detective-convictions-...
Edit: Used "jail" when "prison" was the appropriate term. Fixed.
This is literally my point in this thread. The article is not about the police and I don't understand why people are steering the discussion that way.
I didn't even mention police. You did.
So who is it that's steering the discussion in that direction?
So what? You might as well say the article is about dogs eating mail, dogs are mammals, so I'm going to talk about how much I hate elephants even though they don't eat mail.
Not trying to "out" you here, just trying to understand why you're fighting so hard on their behalf, but do you maybe have a friend or relative that works in the police? Nothing wrong with it, but I have seen that this causes people to be more willing to turn a blind eye towards (or even to outright forgive and excuse) some of the darker things they do. Often viewing them as victims to be defended, while many of the rest of us tend to want the police to be more accountable and generally less violent.
It's popular right now to bash the police as corrupt and as not having people's best interest at heart. But the fact is that those are only some of the police. And when we start throwing out our respect for the institution as a whole, that's when we'll start seeing real corruption.
The big deal to me is that not everything has to be about police officers. The article raises a real issue about prisons scanning mail and refusing to deliver paper copies. That's horrible, and there is a ton of interesting stuff to discuss there. Why do we need to steer it towards yet another uninteresting and rote "police are all corrupt" "hell yeah suck it bootlickers" discussion?
> Not trying to "out" you here, just trying to understand why you're fighting so hard on their behalf, but do you maybe have a friend or relative that works in the police? Nothing wrong with it, but I have seen that this causes people to be more willing to turn a blind eye towards (or even to outright forgive and excuse) some of the darker things they do. Often viewing them as victims to be defended, while many of the rest of us tend to want the police to be more accountable and generally less violent.
I have zero relatives in law enforcement and I don't work in law enforcement. But I really think the rote "police suck" attitude and the current popularity of completely thoughtless police bashing is really going to hurt us all in the long run.
The flaw in your reasoning is that because some police officers have done bad things all police officers are bad. That's not true and it's not supported by the evidence.
The flaw here is that there are countless examples of one police officer doing something terrible, and an entire department rallying around them in support. Or the opposite - like Adrian Schoolcraft attempting to blow the whistle, and being terrorized by the NYPD as a result.
The police generally do suck, and in the US at least they cost a lot of money and do little good while also doing some pretty shitty things and getting away with it. That's going to lead a lot of people to hate them for life, and it would take a herculean effort to reverse that. This is why I wondered if there's maybe a family/friend connection, because while I’m not exactly screaming for the abolishment of the Police altogether, I do think it's sort of absurd to come out swinging in defence the police as the exist in many countries
Where I am (Jefferson County, KY), corrections officers are routinely used as additional back-up during protests or other times when the police feel they need more manpower. They are also routinely hired to work as security when they are off duty, where they wear their uniforms and are allowed to make arrests.
In my jurisdiction, they are legally a type of sworn law enforcement officer and regularly appear in public in ways that are more-or-less indistinguishable from police officers.
Instead of visiting those people, they harass a child and parents for something that's legal. The child has nightmare of police shooting them.
This isn't because of misunderstanding, but because the nature of these systems and the sick sm cultures involved. Not talking about it persists it.
Trying to keep conversations strictly on-topic is a form of putting on blinders. It's also a neurotypical conversation style.
That's horrible and I'm really sorry to hear it. I've let our daughter play outside naked and I'd be absolutely livid if law enforcement bothered us about it.
But that still has nothing to do with jails scanning mail (or even police "corruption").