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Comment by throwaway447 | Hacker News Reader

As an American, who has spent time in a prison in Europe/Germany and was put in solitary confinement under 24/7 monitor supervision, I tend to disagree. The reason why I was put there: I claimed to be a US citizen and wanted to talk to my embassy. Since I don't know US prison, take my opinion with a grain of salt. But fuck Europe!

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After seeing a few documentaries on them (but never going to jail in the US or EU), I am now of the opinion that European jails seem as fucked up, but have a much more humane veneer. They are much more likely to give prisoners huge quantities of psychoactive drugs, and often essentially force them to go to intense therapy sessions, which could be considered a form of psychological torture. US jails don't do any of that, but have a lot of other issues.

> and often essentially force them to go to intense therapy sessions, which could be considered a form of psychological torture. US jails don't do any of that, but have a lot of other issues.

It was my impression that, under the US system, those convicted of crimes related to drug use are very often required to go to therapy.

Yes, many crimes require therapy as part of a release plan in the USA. The therapy supplied is pretty awful quality and the people attending aren't there by choice, but because it is required to stop them returning to prison, so it has almost zero effect on their rehabilitation. From my experience, at least 50% of those released from prison are returned pretty quickly for drug possession.

From being in jail, the jails do give the prisoners whatever psychoactive drugs are needed to zombify them.

US guards often push drugs for side money

(Guards who are overworked and underpaid)

I remember this being a thing that happened in the prison drama Oz, and thinking that phenomenon being BS, but I've heard enough stories of guards bringing in contraband that it seems to happen at an oddly high frequency. Is the prison system somewhat complicit with the drug running?

Yes you can buy drugs in prison freely. You can even buy cell phones but they have devices to detect cell phones in your cell.

Who brings them in? Possibly guards but visitors can also bring in a lot. Pretrial detention is tougher. The drugs are brought into prison and then smuggled into pretrial detention.

When I was locked up a few months ago, I would say on an average cell block maybe 80%+ of the prisoners were using drugs? Higher on some decks, lower on others. It would be a lot higher if people could afford them.

Edit: I'd never seen anything except weed before I went to jail. Inside jail I saw and was offered every single drug known to man in whatever quantity I wanted.

Yes. Go read up on torture island aka Rikers. The system is a cruel joke.

Do you have the names of documentaries handy by chance?

Here's one I happen to know (with English subs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCMt7ynK9jg

"TBS" is "prison with psychiatric care". It's a bit complex because you first get your punishment (prison term) and then after that additional TBS treatment (until you're "safe to be released", basically).

I'm not claiming this is representative for Europe, or even the rest of the Dutch prisons. However, everything else I've seen over the years from most European countries gave me the impression the average is closer to that than what I've seen/heard from US prisons.

Solitary confinement on its own is already controversial enough, but being pushed in a cell naked and literally nothing to do?! What the actual fuck?!

There must be more to the story than just that.

What do you want to know?

What was the context of you saying you wanted to talk to the embassy? I have a suspicion you were already in trouble for something by that point.

Well, yes, I was in trouble because I was in prison already and my public defender did not pick up his phone for 6 months. In this situation, I said I am a US citizen and demanded to talk to my embassy. And after I insisted on this for two or three weeks, I was put into solitary confinement.

Even talked to one of the highest person in charge. Can you proof that you are a US citizen? Let me call my embassy. They did not allow this. I suggested they call the embassy but they rejected this.

I even wrote to my judge a complain and he said there "is no reason for this". I have it in writing.

This is fairly typical of the attitude towards a person once they are incarcerated. No prison employee is going to go out of their way to look something up, or make a phone call. There is no oversight on prison employees (outside of doing the minimum to make sure they don't beat the prisoners too frequently or openly). Laziness is prevalent inside the justice system. No-one is in a hurry to do anything, especially if it is outside their job description.

There is an international treaty (Vienna Convention) that requires governments to inform arrestees of their right to speak to their embassy. The problem is that treaty violations aren't really enforceable without an underlying local statute to implement them.

It was only recently that Illinois made it a statutory requirement to implement the treaty by adding "(b-5) This subsection is intended to implement and be interpreted consistently with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the United States is a party." to their arrest law:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=0...

The hands of the idiot judge who run the prison were shaking when the letter of the embassy arrived. Unfortunately the US embassy did not want to send a note of protest, because I am a dual citizen.

"There is an international treaty (Vienna Convention) that requires governments to inform arrestees of their right to speak to their embassy. The problem is that treaty violations aren't really enforceable without an underlying local statute to implement them."

Well, a diplomatic protest note from the US embassy would have worked wonders to the careers of the people involved in this clusterfuck.

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