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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

That's simply untrue.

You don't speak for "all Americans".

A number of Americans (>1) see their imprisonment as a modern form of slavery, one that is explicitly allowed by the US Constitution:

    The U.S. Constitution bans slavery except as punishment for a crime ... In Texas, some prison farms are located on the same land as former slave plantations.

It's "meaningful" in that they feel (with good justification) that they have been found guilty by a system designed to single them out and that they are railroaded into a lifetime of unpaid servitude.

You may disagree with their feelings, but it remains that your blanket statement:

    > No American feels enslaved in any meaningful sense of the word.

is false

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People loosing their liberties because of breaking the law — as determined by due process — is not slavery. They may feel enslaved, but again they cannot feel enslaved in any meaningful sense of the word because they are not enslaved in any meaningful sense of the word.

https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/the-my...

what are you talking about? Getting enslaved because you "broke the law" is as old as slavery

They are not getting enslaved. The temporary loss of liberties for conviction and sentencing happens in every single western country. This is not slavery.

I don't know if you're being good faith, prisoners are forced to work

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_farm

> The study examined 62 private prisons contracts in 21 states. It found that the majority of these contracts guarantee that the state will supply enough prisoners to keep between 80 and 100 percent of the private prisons’ beds filled.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/do-p... (2013)

The US does not falsely convict and jail innocent people en masse as policy. If anything. A much bigger problem is that the US does not convict and jail criminals en masse as policy.

There is no better time and place to be a criminal in the US than today. Criminals are being coddled, which is why most Democrat cities are so crime-ridden.

> Official misconduct contributed to the false convictions of 54% of defendants who were later exonerated. In general, the rate of misconduct is higher in more severe crimes.

> We tried to determine whether official misconduct that contributes to false convictions has become more or less frequent over the past 15 to 20 years. For most types of misconduct, we won’t know for years to come, but we already see strong evidence that a few kinds of misconduct have become less common: violence and other misconduct in interrogations; abusive questioning of children in child sex abuse cases; and fraud in presenting forensic evidence. On the other hand, the number of federal white-collar exonerations with misconduct by prosecutors has been increasing.

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Gove... (2020)

> According to the cybernetician, the purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment, or sheer ignorance of circumstances.

— Stafford Beer (2001)

> It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

— William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England book 4: Of Public Wrongs (1768)

Morality is not defined as things that come out of William Blackstone mouth.

That's true. (Commentaries on the Laws of England summarises a tradition older than the United States, but your point still holds.) Maybe falsely imprisoning innocents en-masse is okay, provided that (for example) the false imprisonment ratio is low enough and it could not easily be lowered further.

But it being okay isn't the same as it not happening. I'm not sure why you asserted that it doesn't happen, when it's a well-known problem. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal (2003–2008), though it's rarely that blatant.

There is no US jurisdiction with a policy of falsely imprisoning innocents en-masse.

No US prisoner is forced to work in any meaningful sense of the word "forced". They can just not work, they won't get beaten for it, they won't get killed for it. In some states, they are required to work. It's not the same as being forced to work. Being a criminal does not entitled them to free room and board on the taxpayer dime, in fact in a just world, society would be entitled to restitution from the criminal.

There is no better time and place to be a criminal in the US than today. Criminals are being coddled, which is why most Democrat cities are so crime-ridden.

> No US prisoner is forced to work in any meaningful sense of the word "forced".

"Refusal to work can be met with solitary confinement and physical beatings"

https://web.archive.org/web/20240224172720/https://www.washi...

Corporal punishment in prisons is not legal in the US[1][2][3].

Prolonged solitary confinement is being used for people who do not refuse to work as well, even for people who have not been convicted[1]. You may think it's inhumane, but it not slavery.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_v._Pelzer

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_v._McMillian

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_v._Gamble

[4] https://eu.recordonline.com/story/news/local/2021/07/19/capi...

>In some states, they are required to work.

>It's not the same as being forced to work.

That's exactly the same thing.

No it's not. There is no physical or legal coercion, i.e. no force, i.e. not forced.

What happens if you refuse?

They may lose privileges and good time credits, and it may impact their parole. They do not lose rights as one may happen when one is convicted of a crime.

> They do not lose rights as one may happen when one is convicted of a crime.

So you get more time in prison, losing all rights, which is what happens when you're convicted of a crime? Just because you don't want there to be legal slavery doesn't mean there isn't legal slavery.

Incorrect. You don't get more time in prison. The sentence is the sentence, and refusing to work does not increase the sentence.

You're playing with words. Early release means less time spent in prison.

In what world is "work or we'll make your life even more miserable" not coercion?

> The Heritage Foundation, sometimes referred to simply as "Heritage", is an activist American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Yeah, thanks for that unbiased source.

Bias does not change facts. There is no better time and place to be a criminal in the US than today. Criminals are being coddled, which is why most Democrat cities are so crime-ridden.

I’m not sold on this narrative. Which Republican cities are you comparing to?

The 10 most violent cities in the US are either democrat or independent controlled: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53991722

1) In part because most cities of any size are run by democrats.

2) “over 100,000 population”. This is the factor that prevents these from mostly being “red”. I assume this is because smaller cities and large towns are both more likely than large cities to be run by Republicans, and also more likely to have bad economies, which (the latter) is a pretty good predictor of crime.

3) The second graph with per-capita gets us closer to correct, the first being “this is just a population heat map” levels of useless. Note all the “blue” cities in red states in the second one. I’ve lived in such a city. It was hopelessly hobbled by the state government—anything “blue” it tried to do was outlawed at the state level as soon as they tried to do it. You can’t really treat those as experiments in Democratic governance.

Republican state government is not preventing Democrat cities from enforcing the law in red states. My point is that criminals are too coddled, not that they are not coddled enough. Preventing democrat cities from coddling criminals even further does not somehow make them less coddled. The Democrat cities coddle criminals as much as they legally can.

Why are so many Republican-run areas way worse than nearly all democratic-run cities, then, as far as violent crime?

I’d say it’s all the poverty in those places, but maybe you’re right and it’s the Republican governments’ fault.

The largest cities have the most crime, because they have the most people. And most large cities have Democratic mayors.

You could break it down per capita instead, which shows that urban area have the highest violent crime rates, and rural areas have the highest property crime rates.

I haven’t been able to find a comparison of cities with Democratic mayors vs cities with Republican mayors.

> You could break it down per capita instead,

The source provided does break it down per capita, and when done so, the 10 most violent cities in the US, measured per capita, are either democrat (9) or independent (1) controlled.

There are far more cities with Dem mayors than Republican mayors, so comparing raw counts is pretty meaningless. (Similar to counting comparing total homicide instead of per capita.) There are 10 Republican mayors amongst the 50 largest cities, and furthermore, these are heavily concentrated at the low end.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_the_50_lar...

It turns out the relationship between crime and population is non linear, and that nonlinearity is also true outside of the US and it's political context.

https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11...

So, what you're seeing is bigger cities with higher per capita rates due to the underlying relationship between population density and crime. It also happens to be the case that in the US, urban areas strongly prefer Democratic mayors.

I did not compare raw counts, I compared per capita counts.

That's not what I said? Reread the comment, you might learn something.

I did re-read.

Quoting you: "There are far more cities with Dem mayors than Republican mayors, so comparing raw counts is pretty meaningless. (Similar to counting comparing total homicide instead of per capita.)"

Quoting me: "I did not compare raw counts, I compared per capita counts."

I did not learn anything I did not know before re-reading.

You're using raw counts /of cities/ in a top ten list, when the actual leadership of cities is heavily skewed towards Dem mayors. I point out that this is similar to comparing raw counts instead of per-capita.

Thanks for clarifying your objection. Here is a list of the most violent US cities, reckoned per capita, without first selecting for being the most high crime cities in absolute terms: https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/most-viol...

Here is the political affiliation of the city governments:

1. St. Louis, MO: Democrat

2. Detroit, MI: Democrat

3. Baltimore, MD: Democrat

4. Memphis, TN: Democrat

5. Little Rock, AR: Democrat

6. Milwaukee, WI: Democrat

7. Rockford, IL: Democrat

8. Cleveland, OH: Democrat

9. Stockton, CA: Democrat

10. Albuquerque, NM: Democrat

11. Springfield, MO: Independent

12. Indianapolis, IN: Democrat

13. Oakland, CA: Democrat

14. San Bernardino, CA: Democrat

15. Anchorage, AK: Independent

16. Nashville, TN: Democrat

17. Lansing, MI: Democrat

18. New Orleans, LA: Democrat

19. Minneapolis, MN: Democrat

20. Chicago, IL: Democrat

Let v = high violence, d = dem mayor, r = republican mayor.

You seem to want to compare P(v|d) to P(v|r). We have little to no data for comparison because there are so few examples of cities with republican mayors. Those that exist are amongst the smaller American cities. This means you need to disentangle the effect of city size on violence rates from the effect of the mayor's party.

I repeat:

There are 10 Republican mayors amongst the 50 largest cities, and furthermore, these are heavily concentrated at the low end.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_the_50_lar...

It turns out the relationship between crime and population is non linear, and that nonlinearity is also true outside of the US and it's political context.

https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11...

You could be right, but I have my doubts that you are.

While not a straight line down, all crime has been falling since the 90s. People's perception differs from reality.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-...

While I dislike your arguments, I have to agree with their correctness. Most of them.

Having had relatives had relatives in jail, they are not coddled. Yes, it is better than the past, but in all ways jail, let alone prison, is much worse than being on the outside.

I don't mean to suggest people are coddled in Prison. I don't particularly like law enforcement, or prison staff. I think the majority of them are crooked, either by direct action or by indirect action. However, prosecutors in many cities refuse to prosecute many classes of crime, and are elected on this basis [1].

In my view, this just contributes to what makes them crooked. They refuse to enforce the law as it is on the books. This is not justice.

[1]: https://thefga.org/research/soros-district-attorneys-make-ci...

One could argue they are elected not to prosecute every single crime committed but to use discretion in what they prosecute to maximize good given their limited resources.

If all they did was prosecute every crime to the fullest extent, they would not need to be elected.

The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution seems to facially disagree with you. It specifically permits criminal punishment as an exception to its ban on "slavery [or] involuntary servitude".

You would still have to show instances of it happening to support a claim that it's happening.

Making society pay for room and board of those that have committed a crime against it is inhumane. At the bare minimum, criminals should be required (not forced) to work, as is the case in some small number of states. In addition, criminals should be expected to make some restitution to society above and beyond this.

Criminals are not the victims, by definition. Society should stop treating them like victims, especially at the expense of actual innocent people.

Rosa Parks and those who got arrested simply for their skin color aren't victims?

Rosa parks was arrested more than 60 years ago. I'm talking about today, not 60 years ago.

I mean, I could do that. Or I could just spend 30 seconds googling and let the ACLU do it for me: https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/2022-06...

"More than 76 percent of incarcerated workers report that they are required to work or face additional punishment such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation, or the inability to pay for basic life necessities like bath soap. They have no right to choose what type of work they do and are subject to arbitrary, discriminatory, and punitive decisions by the prison administrators who select their work assignments."

You might claim that "incarcerated workers report" isn't solid evidence, but if you read the report you'll find that much of it was confirmed by responses to FOIA requests.

Being denied privileges if one does not do something is not the same as forcing someone to do something. I get many privileges for being employed, I'm not forced to be employed.

I also have to work to afford soap. That does not make me a slave.

If you're going to contend that solitary confinement is "denial of privileges" rather than a punishment designed to compel labor, then we just aren't going to agree and I don't see much point continuing. "Do this work, or I will take an action that is costly to me in order to worsen your life" is forced labor in any definition I can come up with.

You are not required to work one, specific job that can be changed at a moment's notice without your consent to afford soap. Almost any work one might do in the market economy is sufficient to pay for basic hygiene products for one person.

Solitary confinement is used in many other cases where people are not even convicted yet. If it was considered a right for the incarcerated to not be in solitary confinement, then it would be illegal to put someone in solitary confinement for refusing to work.

I can't have any job I want either, nobody can. Criminals are not entitled to free room and board just because they have injured society. Criminals are not the victims, they are the criminals. They should pay for room and board and make restitution to society.

If you're going to go to the "legal therefore moral" argument, you could've just started there. There are people who contend that the way some prisons are operated is actually illegal, but I haven't seen any of them here. This discussion is about whether requiring labor with threat of an explicit punishment -- not just "I will withhold something that is mine", but "I will go out of my way to make your life worse" -- is morally and practically comparable to (though clearly a lesser evil than) slavery. There are pretty good arguments that it is not (e.g. that chattel slavery would often extend to children of slaves, or include the right to capriciously murder the slave), but you haven't made them.

You can't have any job you want in the sense that you can't e.g. be President of the United States just because you want to. You likely (unless you happen to be in prison right now?) have a choice between at least two at any given time, though.

I suppose exactly zero of (to try to cover all political bases): Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, the various January 6 convicts, the various people jailed after the George Floyd riots, or even those convicted of things they literally did not do are victims then. There are, always have been, and always will be "convicted criminals" that definitely don't deserve their fate -- though, to be clear, I believe some (not all) of the ones I mentioned do (and you'd probably be wrong if you guessed which were which). They are in the minority, but I'm not willing to deliberately hurt that minority just to also hurt the majority who arguably deserve it.

Hey, turns out there's a whole book about this!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow

And if moving pictures are more your thing, there's a movie, too!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)

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