I Went from Grad School to Prison
cosmopolitan.com
cosmopolitan.com
Imagine a person spends 10 years in that situation, and gets out, what the hell are they supposed to do now? They have no job skills, no life skills, they're psychologically damaged. The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad', it's high because we take people in bad situations, and break them further. We take someone almost-functional, and make them completely disfunctional.
And anyone who disagrees with this model isn't "tough on crime".
And that's when it's on the up-and-up. Half the time it's horribly corrupt[0].
Although, there's always oppression. Occupy saw all kinds of police abuses, which transferred to these judicial abuses. Sure, this one woman has a voice, but she also knows her freedoms are at the whims of others, no matter the evidence (not allowed in court) in her favor.
No, you have to ask, what does a prison like that gain from society?
Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense.
Think about that as you drive by a speed trap, that the police and city undoubtedly portray as a safety operation, but where the cops hide themselves because they're not trying to discourage speeding, they're trying to collect taxes.
Think about that when you see various police organizations stating their opposition to legalizing marijuana. Is their objection that it may promote other, still illegal drugs, or that it would reduce LEO job opportunities? Their only proper stance on the issue, as LEO organizations, is to enforce the laws that society tells them to.
Think about that as an apparently overzealous prosecutor bullies a plea bargain out of someone with the threat of life in prison. She's not overzealous, she doesn't care about society; the victim/defendant is merely a line on her resume. When a prosecutor's job performance depends on convictions (rather than truth), then she's going to maximize convictions.
Think about that as you, just a normal citizen who is no threat to anyone, are monitored, threatened and controlled by unconstitutional surveillance and police tools that are supposedly intended for, you know, actual terrorists threats.
Then why is it that other places in the world, such as Norway, prisons are not like American prisons? You're claiming that the state in America is simply an outcome of universal properties of Government, but this outcome is not universal.
You can't just flippantly say "Things are bad 'cause Gubmint'", when it's clear that other places have overcome these challenges.
We are not uniform, and no outcome is inevitable. The way things are in America are probably more likely in America than elsewhere because of our unique shared myths and the wieldability of government by evil people.
There seems to be very little thought about what is best for society and far more what is best for whatever branch that person works for.
No, you have to ask, what does a prison like that gain from society?
All good. But let's not have whole conversations in this cynic mindset. Let's assume there is sufficient cumulative will to fix things, and let's identify ways to achieve that, however difficult it may seem.
This is an interesting point that I have never considered before. I've often thought that police officers hide themselves as a deterrent - if a hidden police officer can ticket you at any moment, it is a good reason to keep your speeding under control. Interesting analysis though and I will have to think more about my own views. Thanks for your comment!
Now think about what happens when you drive by one of those radar trailers that tell you your speed as you approach: most people slow down. Mission accomplished (safety).
If they wanted you to slow down, they'd be visible.
They're tax collectors with a gun.
How do you know this? Certainly there are different kinds of people who do crimes for different reasons. Some people are in fact "bad" and will keep doing bad things, and the only way to protect the rest of us from their crimes is to keep them locked up, kill them, or banish them to distant lands. For others, incarceration is counterproductive and might lead to a higher likelihood of them committing more crimes after they are released. And incarceration for anyone under the conditions prevailing in some US prisons and jails is insupportable. But some kind of humane incarceration for people who are compelled to continue offending, until one day we learn to fix these people, seems unavoidable.
America incarcerates more of it's people per capita than any other country, more than North Korea, more than South Africa and more than Russia, indeed you incarcerate 7 times more than the European average per captita.
reoffender rates are similarly awful.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/february/punishing-taxpay...
RE: Air condition - you're right. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/faq/faq_cid.html#air
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/teas-prisons-in...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/justice/texas-prison-heat-laws...
http://www.insideprison.com/prison_stories.asp?story_id=751
http://www.utexas.edu/know/2014/06/26/summer-heat-kills-inma...
source: I once worked there as a CO.
Yes, there is no "forced labor" but there definitely is "coerced labor", as there are some benefits that will be withheld from inmates who do not work. OTOH, many inmates are willing to work for the mere reason that it helps stave off the boredom.
There are few units with air conditioning, usually only medical units, and the units get dangerously hot during the summer. Your friend is lucky to have the commissary job, as it is one of few air conditioned places in most prison units.
AMAA, I'll check back here in a few.
It's just inhumane that they don't have air conditioning in Texas prisons, especially in the areas where the humidity is so high, like the gulf coast. The heat and humidity were enough to push me away from Houston even though I grew up there.
>he's in one of the state jail facilities near Houston and not a prison. Does that make a difference as to the availability of educational programs?
I don't know a lot of specific details about the state jail system.
>It's just inhumane that they don't have air conditioning in Texas prisons, especially in the areas where the humidity is so high, like the gulf coast. The heat and humidity were enough to push me away from Houston even though I grew up there.
It affects inmates and staff, and every summer there are a number of heat related deaths and injuries from both cohorts.
I didn't find a lot of good humane things about the way we imprison everyone for, everything.
There's also a line of fully qualified people that hasn't failed before.
You made a very good point.
I guess the downvotes are from people who recognise that discrimination and who would work to counter in when they employ people.
More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/
The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/
You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/
You can draw your own conclusions, but what I see is somebody preparing, consciously, to use the force of slamming their elbow into a police officer's face in order to escape from that officer.
Perhaps you disagree with a lot of things -- police militarization, incarceration rates in this country, unequal outcomes and opportunities based on socioeconomic factors.
But I don't see how a fair-minded person can agree that we ought to go around solving our problems by elbowing officers of the law in the eyeball: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/nyregion/officer-testifies...
The woman in this case has repeated problems with the law (and the truth) and was arrested again last year for impersonating a lawyer in the subway and interfering with an arrest: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/nyregion/occupy-wall-stree...
As the prosecutors say in that case: "This new arrest mirrors what was on display throughout the trial: the defendant’s utter contempt for the police and the important job they do on a daily basis."
Fact-free magazines like Cosmopolitan may display sympathy for people like Ms. McMillan, but here at HackerNews we should not.
"Finally some justice for these ass holes who illegally protest and then claim police brutality all the time. I hope she rots in jail."
Is it come kind of totalitarian sect behind this video? Anyway, don't ever want to have anything with you.
To be precise, by demanding to narrow the feedback of the society and radicalize the protesters. This isn't going to end well if that sentiment you describe is widespread.
Of course it's difficult to measure the effectiveness of a peaceful protest, but it wouldn't surprise me if vocal opposition to say the Iraq war had an impact on foreign policy for Syria for example.
IRA is the [edit] obvious example.
Perhaps we can use animal rights protests in the UK. These started off by increasing welfare for farm animals; reducing use of animal testing in cosmetics; reducing the amount of fur sold in department stores. But then other changes included tighter controls on what demonstrations could do and now UK government is hardline on supporting vivisection and denying rights to (even peacefully) protest such.
The difference is probably that a majority of people don't support the fur trade but most people support animal testing for medical research and it's unlikely that any form of protest would really change public opinion.
The view point which you are espousing, whether you believe it or not, is a time-worn tactic of disinterested or opposed parties who aim to curtail freedom of expression by claiming offences to public order. There are plenty of laws for dealing with violence against people and property, but also laws protecting people who are engaging in free speech, and the fact that someone happens to be promoting social change shouldn't be taken as an excuse to ignore the latter, or misapply the former.
It seems to be a lone Republican who is rather bitter about Obama getting elected.
Compare that to countries where unrest is squashed and the same bad guy sits in the office for decades, and then bloody coup. You should be happy you still get protests.
What is the point of the wording "preparing consciously"? Can you prepare for something unconsciously? If someone gropes you from behind, some conscious effort is required to defend yourself.
Fact-free magazines like Cosmopolitan may display sympathy for people like Ms. McMillan, but here at HackerNews we should not.
Please don't use the term "we". I'm not a sociopath and I have sympathy for people who were treated unjustfully.
The point was probably to emphasize the premeditation of it, and I agree it was needlessly verbose. But yes, you can prepare unconsciously, like when your body has the fight-or-flight response.
A thousand times this.
Why exactly is it not a correct response to having your breasts groped from behind by an unknown assailant?
You don't know what events led up to that officer grabbing her. If I show up a a protest, emotions running high, walking around with a sign and I'm suddenly grabbed from behind... I will attack without identifying who grabbed me. That's not something I should be arrested for. The person grabbing at me unexpectedly is the one who better be prepared for bad things to occur. Now if the officer approached her from the front and identified himself as an officer of the law and attempted to explain why he stopped her then suddenly she elbows him in the face, that's another story.
Who decides when the police need to be there? How can there be a protest without emotions running high? That's pretty much what a protest is; people who've reached their limit and want change. If whatever they're protesting wasn't so emotionally/physically stressful they probably wouldn't be protesting to begin with.
In this case, the cop felt the need to grab her to keep her from moving. No cop is going to do that without reason. Again, she put herself into that situation, too. That her breast was grabbed is inconsequential. Her article brings it up as if it was intentional or that she had every right to elbow someone in the nose over it. (The video linked to make the action itself questionable but I won't get into that.)
A jury of her peers has found her guilty. Why does this article need to be written as if she were innocent? She wasn't. Why is anyone trying to justify it?
I'd also bet there are far more facts not told in the article that the jury heard but we never will.
Why does this apply to me and not the cop?
>>In this case, the cop felt the need to grab her to keep her from moving. No cop is going to do that without reason.
You're kidding me. Are you not aware of the many examples of excessive force by police? There are apparently plenty of cops that would do that without any reason other than getting off on their power-trips.
Your inability to accept that there are bad cops is frustrating.
Obviously police do sometimes grab people for the wrong reasons.
The idea is to be arrested, and to passively resist that arrest. Go limp, let them drag you. You document any rough treatment you get and sue accordingly.
There is almost no justification for punching an officer and in almost all cases it's going to end badly for the puncher.
You are stating that the cop was somehow at fault for grabbing her. Can you state why the cop grabbed her in the first place? I'm sure you don't know but why are you so certain the cop grabbed her for a bad reason? How do you know what happened right before that? Was she warned not to go where she went but she did so anyway? Did the cop see she was getting ready to step on a broken bottle and actually rescued her?
You don't know but you have automatically deduced the cop was in the wrong, despite what the jury said.
This interpretation of events is not one I agree with based on video footage and the other available evidence. He was clearly very violently "pulling her away" to the point that that's not a very honest description of his act.
"You are stating that the cop was somehow at fault for grabbing her."
It does appear that way.
"Can you state why the cop grabbed her in the first place?"
Not definitively, though I'd assume it was some form of poor judgment.
"I'm sure you don't know but why are you so certain the cop grabbed her for a bad reason?"
Why are you so certain the cop was justified in the attack?
"How do you know what happened right before that?"
I don't know, though it doesn't matter. From the evidence and information I have available the cop wasn't justified in the attack regardless.
"Did the cop see she was getting ready to step on a broken bottle and actually rescued her?"
If this is the level of fever-dream required to justify his assault on her, it pretty clearly shows that justifying his attack is very difficult to do.
"You don't know but you have automatically deduced the cop was in the wrong, despite what the jury said."
Yes, we are actually permitted to disagree with juries. Juries have failed in their judgment often enough that it would be naive not to be skeptical. Understanding the basis by which jurors are selected, and the methods used by which prosecutors go about misinforming juries I don't have a lot of confidence in their decisions.
"we are actually permitted to disagree with juries. Juries have failed in their judgment often enough"
So now you want to say the jury and the cop are wrong. Based on what? Though you have none of the information other than what you read in the article, you feel you know more than the jury? I think not.
As a matter of fact, I do know more than the jury. The judge suppressed key evidence in the case. There were photos of the cops abusing her that were never presented, and a slam-dunk photo of the cop grabbing her from behind that the jury was not permitted see, as well as more video that made it very clear how out aggressive and out of line the police behavior was.
I qualify what I say since I don't have a perfect view, only the bits and pieces of evidence that exist. Based on those I am assuming what is most likely, and you are doing just the same, as that's all any of us can do.
One other point I forgot to mention - the judge suppressed key evidence in the case. There were photos of the cops abusing her that were never presented, and a slam-dunk photo of the cop grabbing her from behind that the jury was not permitted see.
I didn't know he was such a misogynist and bigot.
mcendella I despise you. Obviously you have never been the victim of the police. Even if she did a roundhouse kick knocking him down and teabagged him afterwards that would be no excuse for her treatment.
There is a difference between a violent protester and a violent policeman. The policeman is trained and armed. He is also getting paid to suppress the protest. The protester on the other hand has a non-commercial agenda, which might be idealistic and in a way not voluntary. The protester has no combat training, no armor. The protester does not choose to enter a violent conflict with the police. The police on the other hand chooses to act as a more often that not active, as opposed to passive, violent force opposed to the protest.
During duty, police officers do not deserve the protection of civil law. It can not be crime to insult, hurt or kill a police officer during a heated protest, as it is no crime for a police officer to insult, hurt or kill a civillian in the course of his duty.
To argue on this specific case, there appears to be proof that she was groped. So there should be a sexual harrassment charge (might be dropped due to "not on purpose"). She reacted violently, within seven seconds. In germany thats called "Affekt". Completely legal, actually she had the right to spontaniously choke the guy even if he was civillian (in germany, as long as she was fast enough).
So lets just say the cops had a reason to arrest her (btw on a protest cops usually arrest anyone for anything, because why not), they beat her up doing so.
Quote from your video: "Is she getting beat up?", "Yes, shes getting beat up."
So why are those guys not tried and sentenced to fucking death (what do you have the death sentence for again)? Even I could arrest that girl without hurting her ffs. These guys should be trained to do so.
To sum this up, the mind of a violent protester goes something like this:
"Fuck they're gonna hurt/kill me, im scared im enraged im panicking, i want to get out of this situation."
The mind of a police officer during a protest goes something like this (actually exactly):
"Fucking protesters, im standing here like an idiot, these fucking broad minded fuckers. Hey, wait, did she just kinda look violent? FINALLY a reason why I can assault one of these fucks."
I got hit by a baton once[1], trying to escape out of a "Kessel" (a circle of policement surounding protesters while throwing tear gas inside). Hit my leg, beside my leg being fucked, i weant deaf for ten minutes (might be an adrenaline/pain/shock think who knows). And thats nothing. I've seen 13 year old girls getting beaten by 4 cops with batons and cops spraying maze into your face from a 1 foot distance because you decided to shout at them.
These are not rare cases. This happens on every protest, its the police's job to make it happen on every protest.
If you ever get arrested during a protest, you can count on being beat up during that arrest. Also expect verbal assault. Unless you are verbally assaulted multiple times during arrest, you must have met a jesus-like cop.
Try it for yourself, there are some things that will get you arrested which will actually not be procecuted (in germany thats for instance being masked), also try to run away when they try to arrest you otherwise you might not get the whole getting kneed in the back while on the ground experience. Its a pretty weird feeling. Afterwards go to a doctor, tell him you've been beaten up. Watch their concerned facial expression while asking you "Who'd do such a thing?". I bet you don't feel nearly as violated as the doctor thinks you have been.[2]
So I must say, every time someone gets sentenced for hurting a police officer during protest:
BOO FUCKING HOO, poor little officer. Really. Poor personfied violence of the state. You got hurt, during your job, which is to hurt adversaries of the state. Someone should play a violin.
Edited, footnotes: [1] I think I was 16, it was a counter protest against a Neo-nazi parade. [2] Also first hand experience. I was 17, it was a student protest for better education. I have video footage. No charges against me but I have a medical certificate that I was violated.
PS: If you think I am a radical activist. Quite the opposite, the few protests I have been to made me stay far away of any kind of police presence (including protests) since then. Its telling that of five protests I've been to in my life, on four I would consider having seen serious human rights violations.
The maladjusted low-life vagrant in the article should consider herself lucky that all she got was a slap on the wrist for this. She very much embodies the majority archetype present at those protests: the entitled, middle class out-of-town suburbanite hell bent on stirring up trouble in a city which has up until then been extremely tolerant of the juvenile, disruptive behavior of extremists it's native population largely disagrees with. These dirtbags spent six months trashing, pissing and shitting on an iconic neighborhood with no real purpose to speak of. The only mistake the city made (and forced the police force to uphold) was allowing this charade to go out beyond the first day it started, at a massive monetary and logistical cost despite an overwhelming negative sentiment against this movement from the local population - the only one's whose opinions really matter.
What's is truly amusing are the many sentiments of those in the comments immediately rushing to condemn the police - clearly, non-native arm chair judicial hobbyists drawing the entirety of their opinions based solely on one-sided articles. Its amusing because save for a few of the pre-planned, large scale "demonstrations" (read: interference of traffic/public transportation and harassment of native New Yorkers just trying to get to work) the police were there NOT to keep the OWS protesters in check; they were there to PROTECT them from the rest of New York which was irate and on the verge of tearing them apart. Had they not been around to guard these parasites and ultimately clean up the filth and squalor they had created, the NYC Vigilante justice would have been far less measured in their response.
No one took kindly to these fuckers attempting to infiltrate and occupy their backyard and rightly so. Let's have assholes fuck, shit, piss, and bang drums right outside your door for over 6 months straight and see how you feel in the end. Then let's multiply that by 100 - let's see who you call to help sort that nightmare out.
How can you start up ad hominem attacks on the woman here, "repeated problems with the law", while completely (and I'm hoping not knowingly) omitting all that similar information about the officer? I don't understand.
How can you be so slanted in your presentation? Let me just fill in the details, from your link [1], that you dropped:
Officer Bovell said that the police department’s Internal Affairs
Division had suspended him for five days without pay, docked him 25
vacation days, rescinded his second job as a bank security guard and put
him on probation for a year. He said that in addition to the three
tickets that he was penalized for, he had also fixed three other parking
tickets.
So, here you go:
Q: How do you severely radicalize a random semi-moderate non-violent protester?
A: Send him/her to jail.
Thankfully this girl kept a cool head and drew a sane interpretation from it, but seriously, what are you Americans trying to do, 'cook up' the next generation of world-wrecking monsters in some insane social-engineering experiment?!
[1] http://abc7chicago.com/politics/what-you-need-to-know-about-...
Are you disputing the verdict or the punishment?
What is the normal punishment for felony assault of a police officer for someone with no priors?
The reason this distinction is important is because disputing the charge/verdict requires getting involved in the case and seeing the prosecution's evidence.
> The reason this distinction is important is because disputing the charge/verdict requires getting involved in the case and seeing the prosecution's evidence.
I don't agree at all but I also think we've seen enough of the evidence that there's not really much factually to dispute. (We know a lot more than the jury did, which is a very common and very depressing situation but also a separate topic)
Anyhow, felony charges are usually reserved for people who do a lot of damage, on purpose, and who have prior convictions. I agree that there's a distinction to be made between the seriousness of charges and the severity of those charges associated punishment - they're determined by different parts of government, if nothing else - but I don't think as much hangs on it as you seem to, vis a vis the way different places treat crimes more or less severely. Heavy handedness in one area correlates with heavy-handedness in the other, after all.
Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system? I realize it's necessarily in some situations but the result is you are never not guilty of some crime. The prosecution virtually never loses. Truth and justice are nowhere to be found.
Prohibit prosecutors from going to trial with charges any higher than they offered in the plea deal. If they offer to (say) let you plead to only misdemeanor drug possession, then they shouldn't be allowed to then prosecute for felony drug possession, resisting arrest, plus anything else they can think of simply because you dared to ask for a jury trial. Sentencing can still be somewhat variable, which would offer an actual incentive to those that know they're caught-holding-the-bag guilty, but would not be such a ruinously life destroying difference that it would frighten the innocent into taking the pllea when they did nothing wrong. The argument against plea bargain reform from prosecutors is always along the lines of "the courts could never handle all those cases, so we have to discourage jury trials as best we can", and frankly, that line of reasoning is bullshit. If there aren't enough resources to offer a jury trial to every offender, then I say we have a crisis of constitutional proportions, and dealing with it by gaming the system to force people to forego their rights simply to improve efficiency is a far more evil thing than most of the crimes people plead to.
That's the part I find the most shocking in this article. Aren't trials supposed to be fair? What are the kind of evidences that are not allowed to be shown?
The shaky videos showed Ms. McMillan, a labor organizer, in a bright green dress, jumping back and planting her elbow in Officer Bovell’s face.
“She crouched down and lunged backward, elbowing me in the eye,” Officer Bovell said. “It’s like a white light in the face.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/officer-stands-by...
The story of her re-arrest for confronting a police officer in the NYTimes story mentioned in the first comment suggests some underlying contributing psychological issues.
Source: My brother went to prison with a 70 year sentence. He was 17.