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Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

The only question that rings to me anymore about these stories: What can I do?

What code can I write? What broker can I call? What form can I sign? How can I register my civic will so as to undo this blight?

For me, this is the most embarrassing thing about being a United States citizen.

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A good place to start is to refuse to cooperate with evil. The justice system depends on the active and passive cooperation of the general public.

Do not call the police. If the police wish to speak with you, on any matter, politely decline. If a known police or corrections employee tries to do business with you or at a place you work, inform them that their kind are not welcome here.

Don't underestimate the extent to which people are driven by the need to be welcomed and accepted by society. Shunning is a powerful tool of social control.

If you're more the "positive" type, consider encouraging your company to drop its official or unofficial policy against hiring felons (I'm making a reasonably safe assumption here). There are subsidies, tax credits, and insurance programs that might help your case, but it's easier to just not bother. Be the troublemaker that makes it easier to do the right thing.

> Do not call the police.

What? So if I'm getting mugged, murdered, or robbed I should just accept it?

Or maybe I should build a personal arsenal so as to protect myself from all possible threats from criminals?

This all sounds ridiculously Hobbesian to me.

I'm no fan of the police, but the alternative isn't a state of nature.

What are the police going to do about your being mugged?

I find it interesting that out of three examples, you happened to list one where the police can't possibly intercede without already being there, and your calling only serves to start a pretend hunt for lost property (hint: finding your stolen laptop is not their top priority), but will serve as justification if they want to rough up some local tough later.

Again, what do you think the police are going to do if you've already been mugged? I'm genuinely curious as to why you listed that as a case you should call the police in.

I don't think the poster meant to literally call after he was murdered. But rather before it happens.

There was a recent story about a lady who called the police when someone kicked in her door. She hid on the roof while the criminal looked for her. The police came and got the criminal and took her off the roof. Should she have not called the police when the guy kicked in her door?

That's a robbery or home invasion, which was not the particular case I picked out. Note that I didn't complain about calling them to stop a murder, either.

The specific case I pointed out was mugging, which is when someone stops you on the street and steals from you, typically meant to include an implied threat of violence, eg, "Give me your purse or I'll fucking shoot you"

I found it interesting that out of three cases, I thought that calling the police was only the correct response to two of them, precisely because unless the police are already on their way when you get mugged, the mugging will be over before there's a chance for you to even call them.

My comment was meant specifically to point out that even when trying to list reasonable times to call the police, the person only seemed to get 2/3 being times the police would actually help the situation in any sense.

>My comment was meant specifically to point out that even when trying to list reasonable times to call the police, the person only seemed to get 2/3 being times the police would actually help the situation in any sense.

Did the thought ever cross your mind that the police may be able to get security footage from a nearby storefront to identify the assailant or that they might be able to give you a ride home after you lost all of your money, identification, and phone? Or did you just assume police are mobile morons who serve no purpose other than to shoot and beat people?

> Did the thought ever cross your mind that the police may be able to get security footage from a nearby storefront to identify the assailant

I'm aware that police do this when investigating crimes. However, this is also a source of misidentifying people, which often ends poorly. Young, black, and in a yellow shirt? Must be the first black guy we see in a yellow shirt!

I find it unlikely that your call is going to lead to a correct prosecution over a mugging, and further think that you need to counterbalance your want to feel better and more secure by calling big tough guys with guns with the very real prospect you're going to get someone else harassed, hurt, or killed.

> did you just assume police are mobile morons who serve no purpose other than to shoot and beat people?

I don't assume they're morons, nor that they think that's what their purpose is. However, they had to get investigated and forced in to a settlement by the federal DoJ for racially motivated policing and a record of unnecessary violence, including stomping a restrained man in a cell while screaming they'd beat "the Mexican piss out of him", regularly hassling the wrong black person who didn't even match the description given but just happened to be within a few blocks, and shooting a Native American woodcarver multiple times in the back while he was peacefully crossing the street because he was "armed" with a carving knife.

I didn't assume that they were psychotic thugs on a powertrip, no, they demonstrate that the police agency is completely unwilling to deal with these psychopaths in their ranks and instead will shield them from consequence. (They fought federal reform of their criminal policing tooth and nail - and still do to this day.)

When I go a month without hearing about how the local police brutally assaulted or murdered an innocent person, I'll stop acting like the local police force routinely assaults or murders citizens.

And until then, people calling the police need to realize that some police are psychopaths who will brutally assault or murder citizens in response to their call.

My brother, who is an awesome, gentle, smart, great dude, is training to become a police officer. I haven't talked to him much about it. I'm not exactly sure what to say. Your statements rings very true to me, though. For the first time, I'm a little worried for my little bro.

So given the option, you don't want their intervention if you're getting attacked?

What's the difference between a gang member and a police officer? Social acceptance. They all engage in the same behavior, have their own rites and colors, and a shared identity and sense of loyalty to bend the rules for one another.

No- one set goes through an (at least semi-)standard training process, with public scrutiny upon their every action at a personal level with additional access to public records of most of their related actions, while the other is recruited through familial relations and contacts, with the media investigating the group with a view from a collective standpoint with far more limited resources available.

Perhaps it's useful to think of this as a spectrum rather than a stark distinction. In some places and at some times, police organizations behave in ways that we traditionally regard as "gang-like," while in other places and times, gangs behave in places that we think of as more "civic."

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

Any time someone creates a throw-away account to post a pro-government opinion, I immediately assume it's GCHQ/JTRIG.

Not sure how it is in USA, but in Georgia (Europe), muggers are usually caught after 30-60 mins when you call police. And belongings are returned to you. Not necessary some luxury items... even your cheap cellphone [from 00s] counts.

If there is a rise in reported crime in a certain area, a good police department will increase patrol around there. Sure, you can say that it won't always happen but it actually does happen.

Call the police to report a crime. Pick another method of protest.

So the only proposed benefit of calling the police when you're mugged is that they have another source of information about where muggings are happening, to compliment others and help inform their police distribution?

That seems a) unnecessary because they have other channels for the same information, and b) easily replaceable by a one-way interaction, eg, throwing the fact at them without providing an official statement.

Mugging statements are used to create suspect profiles that often target people of the same race who only happen to have a passing resemblance (eg, being black with the same color shirt), and can lead to violence or death when the police chase the wrong person.

That you want the police to distribute themselves different is a pretty weak excuse to send them chasing off after potentially innocent people.

Your comment might me more meaningful if police didn't routinely chase, injure, and kill the wrong person because they got confused about a description.

"routinely" is weasel words - how frequently are we talking about here?

This is one of two things that I find upsetting about US the most. The fact that you don't call the police when you need it, and also(and more importantly) that a lot of people wouldn't call an ambulance unless they were literally dying. It's stupid, and I cannot even fathom not having friendly police or worrying about the bill for an ambulance.

The ambulance thing is a genuine risk in the US, but you're probably getting a very skewed view about American police.

The vast, vast majority of American police are friendly and helpful to the average citizen. I've called the police about all sorts of things and had professional interactions each time. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if I needed to, and I live in a city with a reputation for iffy cops. In my personal experience, that's not how it's been.

Of course, I'm middle class and white. When I had long hair and drove an old car, my experiences were somewhat different, but not that bad even then. Enough, though, that I can imagine if I was a different race or economic class my experience would be different.

That's the sort of world we grew up in, stateside. Not sure how it is everywhere else in the world.

For most people it's that you are only familiar with what you grew up with. I was lucky enough(I guess) to grow up in a country where calling for an ambulance was a no-brainer, never ever seen a single medical bill for anything, and also where I've personally called the police about problems I've witnessed - all interactions with officers were polite and I wouldn't hesitate to call the police again. That's why it's so hard do understand for me that there are places like the US where it's not the case, and calling for an ambulance can put you in massive debt - it's just upside down when I think about it.

Not only can calling an ambulance put you in massive debt, which it does (not merely "can") in America, but interacting with the police is almost unanimously unpleasant in my personal experience. (Report a handgun discarded on the side of the road, get harassed because you don't carry photo ID every time you leave the house on foot, etc.)

Again, what do you think the police are going to do if you've already been mugged?

I'm not in the US, but my brother got his cellphone back after it was stolen (not even mugged, so he didn't even see the thief). It probably helped that it was a device with built-in localization systems, though.

But in general, filing a police report is mandatory around here if you want to activate your insurance policy.

Maybe the advice is don't call the police unless you absolutely have to. Now you might ask, well who calls the police just for fun or when they don't need them. Well when there is a family dispute I heard once a parent would call the police to "talk some sense" into their child who is throwing a tantrum. Then police come and child in a hysterical state swats at them with a spoon and gets shot and killed on the spot.

You might see neighbours across the street being loud, call the police and they come to your house instead and shoot your dog.

So by no means call if you have but know how to interact with them.

Calling the police is like using regular expressions: now you have two problems. You shouldn't expect them to stop crime in progress: if you actually ask a cop she'll tell you that's not their job. Instead, they show up at some random time after the crime is over and do cop things: detain, intimidate, shoot pets, destroy property, confiscate, etc. Why would you invite anyone to your home or neighborhood to do those things? In some cases you have no choice because you're required by law to call the police. Those are the only occasions upon which you should call them.

Yeah was car jacked had my elbow ripped out of the socket police showed up... and left laughing at me, not even a joke. But given the laws in california if I had defended myself I'd likely still be locked up, some one paying $18 to send me an email

I am a victim of these ridiculous fees. I thought about how someone was getting rich and I justified the fees because of the convenience. It most certainly cut back how much I sent and how frequently I used it. This directly affects the incarcerated person.

Side note: PayPal allows you to send money to friends and family for free.

Question: why can't paypal be used here as a viable competing solution?

Because the inmates need to convert their balance into goods in the prison. They don't have cash, just an "account" with the prison operator.

Start a kickstarter campaign to create a not for profit, ethical competitor to JPay? Providing the prisons still get a similar commission (which according to the article isn't where the lion's share of the fees comes from), why wouldn't they opt to go with a payments firm that gives them good PR?

Edit: alternatively, maybe the stripe guys could fund/seed a philanthropic off-shoot to tackle this?

Because of this (quoting from the article):

"To impress state corrections officials and gain their business, JPay spends heavily on industry conventions attended by agency heads with contracting authority. During a 2012 convention of the American Correctional Association, the company threw what it called an “END OF THE WORLD PARTY” at a Denver wine bar that bills itself as “about you, and your inalienable right to the unbridled enjoyment of food and wine.”

The invitation, printed on a disposable beer coaster, promised “a bash, JPay-style: fuerte tequila, hand-rolled cigars, a live mariachi band.” Conventioneers could catch a JPay shuttle leaving from the hotel “ALL NIGHT LONG,” it said."

That actually makes it easier. Build a non-profit competitor, get the press, charities & public behind it and shame the fuckers in to switching. With material like that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

One would hope so, but I suspect that they don't care about public perception, and a surprisingly large slice of the public would actually be supportive of punitive treatment of prisoners' families.

> large slice of the public would actually be supportive of punitive treatment of prisoners' families.

I refuse to believe this.

> "Specifically, the stigma' of incarceration and the accusation of shamelessness are not reserved for offenders; as recent empirical and ethnographic research confirms, the families of convicted and incarcerated persons experience a significant stigma as well."

AUSTIN, R. 2004. Shame of It All: Stigma and the Political Disenfranchisement of Formerly Convicted and Incarcerated Persons, The. Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev., 36, 173.

Corrupt systems don't work that way. In a system which operates at this level of ease, corruption is so far deep into the system that nothing is out of it. It works more like a food chain, and every level co operates with every other level for its own survival.

Most common people have no incentive apart from the moral appeal of it unless they are directly effected by this injustice. The press is largely a privately owned business these days and rest of the system has a lot of vested interest in keeping this unjust system up and running.

The decision makers are civil service types who are basically accountable to nobody. The Deputy Superintendent of Corrections Administration doesn't give a hoot.

Corrections officers have strong unions with ironwood support from their legislators, so it is very difficult to get the executive branch in most states to care about anyth that pisses the unions off.

Why would prison guard unions be in favor of ripping of prisoners with ridiculous fees?

They use usurious feed to find prison expenses.

Perceived control.

The fuckers have no shame to begin with, and as far as much of the public is concerned, if you're in jail your very life is expendable, and most people don't give a flying fuck about inmate's families, either.

You can't shame people who have no shame.

JPay does have competitors and there are a few opportunities out there but the Request For Proposals that come out are for a lot more services than just payment.

The opportunities available for the future are ripe for a startup but no thinks of startups in Corrections.

This is what activists do. The world isn't what you learn in civics class. There's no benevolent bureaucrat or 4-year king who'll give you the tools to fundamentally fix such problems. If you need that, then you're trained in helplessness, like cult members. (Who may pledge allegiance to cult symbols, spend half their day in a communal workplace under a leader's command and watchful eye, etc.)

In the SF Bay Area there is a company called Telmate that has been posting job listings on Reddit and Craigslist at least for the past year or two. Telmate is a prison-phone company that charges slave-wage-earning prisoners a week's pay for a 20min call.

On a more constructive note than "fuck the police", the ACLU has been fighting this fight for some time now:

https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/aclu-national-prison-p...

Regardless of whether you're inclined to give them your money/time, their site is worth reading to get an overview of the specific issues here.

Would be cool to try using a different credit card and charging it back every time. They will pay $15 - $25 per dispute.

Also would probably be fraud, and potentially impact the inmate.

Start out by talking to your local representative. Raise the issue with them and keep at it. Encourage others to talk to your rep or the reps in their area.

Do not fuck the police.

Do not sell to police.

Lobby the correctional facility to use Dwolla.

Pretty much "diddly squat".

A genuine question: What do you think is utility of this reply? Have you thought about what effect this and similar comments might have (in aggregate) on the political process?

Have you considered the possibility that the "political process" is part of the problem? There are other options.

Are those laid out succinctly somewhere? In a manner that's easy to follow and implement?

More importantly - are those options peaceful? Is that a distinction even worth thinking about?

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