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Running a Website from Your Prison Cell
Eh-Wire writes "Although prisoners Internet access is highly restricted, this hasn't prevented many inmates from getting around the restrictions with the judicious use of phone and snail-mail privileges to network with friends, relatives, activists, and associates to provide content to their websites. Some use their websites to badger witnesses and prosecuters, while others plead their case or phish for pen-pals. Some have successfully challenged their convictions through their websites, which complicates efforts by authorities to silence them. Websites domiciled outside of the respective jurisdictions further complicate the issue. Yahoo News has additional commentary on this controversial subject."
just because they can make content for a website doesn't mean that anyones going to go to it. How many of these prisoner websites are only visited by relatives curious about how they are fairing?
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That is not always a safe assumption.
FTA:"Some use their websites to badger witnesses and prosecuters..."
Websites "run" by prisoners should be under the same regulations as other types of communication in and out of prison.
Free speech? Should have thought of that before you did whatever it was that got you in there.
Never been to jail have you? I did a weekend for something stupid, in an "easy" jail, Dewey County South Dakota, one other fella in there and me. It's not that fun when its just two of you watching HBO. The novelty wears off really, really, really fast.
u th _Dakota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_County%2C_So
As soon as someone is convicted of a felony, they lose the right to vote, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, all of them are gone. Jails only have 3 obligations by law. #1, they must feed you. #2, they must house you. #3, they must try and protect you from other inmates.
Sometimes jails have a hard time with #3.
Honestly, do you think an inmate should vote? Hell, they might elect the green party candidate. They have all day to read the papers. They might form an opinion.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Why not restrict AC posts for 2 minutes after the article first becomes public? This would avoid a great deal of the 'Frist Post' syndrome.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I am sure some prisoners feel they are rewarded. Let them sit in a small cell, and never leave, with no human interaction and nothing to do for the entriety of their stay and see how they feel about being a repeat offender when they are released.
I'm certainly not a liberal by any means - but the problem is these people have to be reintegrated into society. If someone has to live in horrible conditions for years, that's an aweful lot of time to think about the possibilities for revenge. You build up a critical mass of people who are unable to function in your society, and your society WILL crumble and fall.
You could just shoot them in the head for petty crimes, but we've been there and moved on as a civilization. It doesn't work.
Are you under the conception a vast majority of criminals are in prison for violent crimes?
Just some thoughts.
It seems like an important part of a legal system in a democracy that prisoners can get their side of the story out. That's both to ensure that the prison system itself is run well and to help reverse wrongful convictions.
If and when a prisoner abuses the right in order to commit further crimes, only then should his ability to publish be restricted. But he shouldn't be restricted merely because what he says is uncomfortable for prison authorities. He also shouldn't be restricted merely if he is (thought to be) lying, as long as it doesn't rise to the level of defamation.
These cons are there to serve a debt owed to society, not enjoy a free ride at our expense! no more internet use, spousal vists, gym equipment,tv, etc enough is enough. they should be out to work 8 - 10 hrs daily doing something for the community at large and for no pay ( I think they get a small allowance for prison jobs ). The rest of us work our asses off to obtain these things.
Step out of the box and enjoy life
In my country (USA), all it takes to be incarcerated is losing your job before a parking ticket comes due, and not being able to pay. The government here will imprison you for that, and sometimes much less. It's true, I've seen it happen. Most people don't care about prisoners, and just assume they're evil. That's why prisoners are sometimes responsible for revolutions - They're desperate, and no one will let them have hope for a normal life. Please see my comment The American Bastille for more on why it's bad to pretend prisoners are irrelevant. The short version: #1 Governments have proven repeatedly they'll imprison anyone, not just rapists and murderers. #2 It's not wise to instill a sense of hopeless desperation in ex-criminals, because desperate people might behave dangerously in their quest for freedom.
Prisoners supposed to be repaying a debt to society not to be inhumanely tortured. No human interaction? Come on, you and a lot of other people are bordering or crossing the line of human dignity. If you want them to be 'paying the price' why not suggest something more productive than telling them to rot away in a cell, community service is much better. Hell giving them the resources to be productive on their own is probably more useful. Would you still be making that post if a prisoner came up with something that led to better treatment or a cure for cancer and other currently unstoppable ailments?
It's this same stupid attitude that crime should be responded with by more crime that keeps humans at war with each other.
So they(drug use and suicide) both are choices an individual makes. What harm does that do to others? They'll both hurt peoples emotions, but so does not giving a bum $5 or Natalie Portman not naked an petrified. The world would go around much better if everybody didn't get involved in what wasn't their business and what they don't know about.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Posession of any amount of Adderall is a felony. I shit you not. I was recently in a felony court in Houston for posession of 7 pills of Adderall. Less than a month after I was charged, a doctor lawfully gave me a perscription for Adderall, in light of my longstanding ADD diagnosis. This DOES NOT result in the felony charges being dropped. I still take Adderall to improve my concentration and actually do as well in school as a person of my intelligence should. I would have gotten it sooner but back when I was in middle school (with horrible grades) my parents thought that putting my on stimulants was a bad idea. The antidepressents I was given instead probably did more harm than good.
Going to felony court was by far the scariest experience of my life. Compared to the fear I felt of the seemingly imminent ruination of my life spending the night with murdurers and rapists in Harris County lockup was a resort vacation. Not sure how long I would have lasted in prison though. I hope nobody else ever has to go through what I went through but I know it happens every day.
Felons don't believe in your right to property/life/free express, etc. why should you agree to theirs?
what?? I believe in the rights to life, liberty, free expression, and the persuit of happiness. It is the people who created these assinine laws we live under who have no respect for the rights of others. I have never stolen from anyone. I have never hurt anyone. My crime had no victim.
Fortunately my story has a relatively happy ending. Thanks to my ludicrusly expensive lawyer and countless court appearances which caused me to miss alot class (I don't even live in Houston, I was just visiting my parents) I was able to get my charge reduced to a misdemeanor posession of a dangerous drug from felony posession of a controlled substance. At the completion of my year deffered adjudication I should be able to have the record sealed. Once I make sure Choicepoint has up to date information, I'll be able to once again look for a job and earn my keep in this hatefull society. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to look for a job with a felony on my record with people like you making up such a substantial portion of the populace. If I had been convicted of a felony, my plan was to take my life if 5 years after graduation I was still unable to find a job due to my record. I really do feel as though my life has been spared.
I'm so thankful I didn't get convicted of a felony. I was pretty much at the mercy of the district attorney and the skill of my lawyer, but thank God things turned out ok. If I had been convicted of a felony losing the right to vote would have added insult to injury. I relish every opportunity to vote against the hatefilled Nazis who wrote our drug laws.
Facing a felony has really changed me, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been for the better. I became distant, aloof, paranoid, and extremely depressed. My girlfriend left me. Given the condition I was in I can't say I blame her, though it would have really helped if she had stuck by me. They say that whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I don't know about that, but having been to hell and back I do feel like I can deal with anything. Certainly my parents, especially my father deserve alot of the credit for saving my life.
Morals:
If you use Adderall, make sure you have a prescription. They aren't hard to get and you can save you a life ruining experience.
Get a good lawyer. Mine was one of the best in Houston and cost over $10,000. He was worth _every_dime_. He saved my life, and I will never forget it.
Don't judge a person by their record, especially drug related convictions. The only difference between me and the millions of people rotting in prison for similarly pointless drug convictions is that my parents had the money (barely) to pay for a lawyer who could spare me that fate. I'm a gifted programmer, smart and socially conscious, and in general a good person. I'm also
I would agree to keeping them in strict isolation, but strict isolation would mean protecting them from the guards as well as from other prisoners.
I agree that prisons have all of the defects you list, and I could extend the list. And some people do need to be punished.
My solution would be STRICT isolation...as in, sensory deprivation. If that's your goal, then the obvious technique is total isolation. And cut the sentences by a factor of 10 (or more...some experimentation would necessarily be needed).
But strict isolation also means NO ADVERTISEMENTS, NO MORALITY LECTURES, NO BEATINGS. Probably it would be a good idea to provide each prisoner with a good tough book on hatha yoga. One that provided instruction in the traditional poses and warnings, if needed, on dangers of any particular position. And a good set of isometric limbering up exercises. Figure out how tall the prisoner is, and stick him in a concrete cube 5 inches larger in every direction than his height. Feed him through a bellamy tube (compressed air delivery). Weld the door shut. Make everything sturdy as a first consideration, and without dangerous corners or edges for another, because if he gets hurt, nobody's going to know. (I warned that it would be necessary to cut the sentence length.) Pad the walls and floor thickly (but not so that he can't tell that it's cement underneath). This improves sound isolation...but there are sound baffles within the cement anyway, so that aspect isn't very important. There is no bed. The floor padding is thick enough that he doesn't need one. Filter the air on the way into the cell to remove not only all pollen, etc., but also to remove all scents of any sort, except, perhaps the merest trace of ozone. I'm not sure how he should clean himself, though provisions need to be made so that he can do so as he sees fit. The temperature should be controlled to an unvarying 80 Farhenheit (is 80 right? Perhaps slightly higher, and the light should be controlled by a dimmer knob to whatever he sets it at. (LEDs, probably, but full spectrum, and only if they fix that flicker problem. We don't want any changes that aren't initiated by the inmate.)
Alternatively, one could go for a more complete sensory deprivation experience, and reduce the sentences even further (by at least another factor of 10). But I'm not certain that wouldn't do most people more harm than good.
In any case, a part of the purpose of this scenario is to protect the prisoner from both the guards and other prisoners as well as to give him a chance to decide that he doesn't want to end up here again, and hopefully understand what his mistake was. (And to break the circle of prison gangs.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Ask yourself this question.
Why are drugs illegal?
Even John Walters (US drug tzar) cannot answer that one with a straight face.
Discard your opinion (temporarily)
Now go back to the very start of the drug war.
Harry Anslinger circa 1937.
Everything after that is really and truly immaterial. The drug war is a war on (some) people.
Go find out who.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
And where did you get amphetamines without a prescription?
Look, I sympathize with you for what you had to go through. It's obvious that you need the meds since you eventually got a script. I'm glad you were able to get things more-or-less worked out with the legal system, but what you did was extremely stupid. Taking a amphetamines without the advice and supervision of a doctor was dangerous to your health and, as I'm sure you know, highly illegal.
As a rental property owner, I have a particular problem with amphetamines because I've seen what someone on meth can do to a property. I've seen what is involved in the extremely costly cleanup from a meth lab (I realize you weren't cooking, but I just wanted to help you understand where I'm coming from). Fortunately for you not all landlords will do a criminal background check. But given how much damage a meth addict can do, you can guess what an amphetamine conviction on your record will do to your application if the LL runs a criminal report.
Anyhow, I just want to say that I fully support drug-control after seeing firsthand what drug addicts can do. I'm sorry you got caught up in it for (mostly) innocent reasons, but drug abuse is NOT a victimless crime.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent