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The Science of Solitary Confinement
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Joseph Stromberg writes in Smithsonian Magazine that while the practice of solitary confinement is being discontinued in most countries, it's become increasingly routine within the American prison system. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 81,000 prisoners are in some form of solitary confinement nationwide. Once employed largely as a short-term punishment, it's now regularly used as way of disciplining prisoners indefinitely, isolating them during ongoing investigations, coercing them into cooperating with interrogations and even separating them from perceived threats within the prison population at their request.
Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend at least 23 hours per day restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed, devoid of stimuli (some are allowed in a yard or indoor area for an hour or less daily), and are denied physical contact on visits from friends and family ... A majority of those surveyed experienced symptoms such as dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression, while 41 percent reported hallucinations, and 27 percent had suicidal thoughts...
But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society. Rick Raemisch, the new director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, voluntarily spent twenty hours in solitary confinement in one of his prisons and wrote an op-ed about his experience in The New York Times. 'If we can't eliminate solitary confinement, at least we can strive to greatly reduce its use,' wrote Raemisch."
Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend at least 23 hours per day restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed, devoid of stimuli (some are allowed in a yard or indoor area for an hour or less daily), and are denied physical contact on visits from friends and family ... A majority of those surveyed experienced symptoms such as dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression, while 41 percent reported hallucinations, and 27 percent had suicidal thoughts...
But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society. Rick Raemisch, the new director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, voluntarily spent twenty hours in solitary confinement in one of his prisons and wrote an op-ed about his experience in The New York Times. 'If we can't eliminate solitary confinement, at least we can strive to greatly reduce its use,' wrote Raemisch."
those who have attacked others or have shown to have colluded in harming people outside the prison system?
a lot of these people are bad people and deserve what they get and will never be normal
How sad the USA has become.
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Teach them meditation.
This is what happens when you have a society that is more interested in punishing people than reforming. It's as if to say "We don't believe you'll ever change, or are capable of changing so we're going to crush you instead." All you have to do is read a forum on any news story relating to a crime to get a realistic view on how people view "corrections" should be carried out.... and we call other countries barbaric.
Were taken directly from the dark ages, and were never designed or intended to rehabilitate but to satisfy the victims desire for revenge. And of course wield the power of the state and show how much worse it can be when you don't conform
It's called "retributive justice," and ideally it isn't supposed to be personal, but until human judges are replaced with computer software, it will always be personal.
Would it be so bad if the only role of justice were to protect society while rehabilitating the offender? Some murderers might get out after only a year if they are properly rehabilitated, and serial kleptomaniacs may stay locked away forever, but at least prisons would be a nicer place for them if they weren't meant to be a form of punishment. I think this would do wonders for eliminating crime.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I agree that solitary confinement can be a horrifying thing that could be abused. For some perspective of the numbers, though (unless everyone has king-sized beds and likes the analogies in the summary), that is 8.6 sq. m., and here in Paris, you can legally rent apartments that are as small as 9 sq. m.
At some point - I think we need to be realistic about our goals. Is everyone really able to be rehabilitated? If the answer is no, then maybe the best you can do is to try to keep them from hurting someone else. As much as I dislike the death penalty, I can't help but feel that it actually might be more humane than solitary confinement for even relatively short (in prison term terms) durations.
I think what the director did is a great first step. Too bad that every judge, prosecutor, and correctional officer does not get the same experience before they have the power to send someone to such a hell hole.
I think your response is way more dangerous than the original comment. The trouble with stupid people is they don't know they are stupid.
The health of a prisoner is the responsibility of the state. Allowing damage, including mental illness, to an inmate should be criminal. The use of solitary confinement is not acceptable. Denial of the basics such as free to read books, access to media and films, poor food quality are all modes of torture and are not part of a prison sentence.
Yes, inmates are often bad people. But the catch is that prison workers, cops, the people that accuse, the people in the justice system and the typical tax payer are alos usually really bad people.
The US prison system is about profit first, punishment second, making an example third, more profit fourth, more punishment fifth, other things, and then maybe sometime much later down the line rehabilitation. They spend more money on laundry security than they do on conscious efforts to rehabiltate prisoners for re-entry into society.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You should not lose sleep over this. For a start these numbers have been pumped by a half-baked media system to get people like you excited, but mainly because, at least in part, most of these people had some level of choice. Worry first about those who are killed and imprisoned for no reason at all, then try to save the damned.
Prisoners should be treated humanely. I get that. What I would like to know is how many prisoners who were released after being confined in solitary for a long period of time are repeat offenders. I suspect that, given the horrible conditions of solitary, most of them would do anything to avoid going back to prison. If that is true, then it really is an effective rehabilitation technique, and ultimately reduces crime.
I just did five years in Federal prison and did two stretches in the SHU (basically solitary), totaling about two months. First time was for drawing on a paper food service hat. Second time was for being a smartass to the prison shrink.
Me, I didn't mind it so much. Peace and quiet (though occasionally you get a screamer on the range). Got some reading done. Meditated.
But you only get to make one call every thirty days. No coffee, no commissary. The cops keep the place cold like a meat locker. Lights never go off.
It's not for violent criminals. You get sucker punched or stomped and you go to the SHU for 30 days for an "investigation". You file a grievence against a staff member and you go in for a 90-day "investigation". You get the flu or scabies and you're in there for two weeks: quarantine.
The really violent people end up on a USP or AD-Max in Florence, CO.
I didn't mind the SHU because I enjoy a bit of solitude now and then. But in California, there are guys who've spent decades in the hole. That totally fucks you up.
-k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Society needs revenge for certain crimes, for the sake of all our mental health. When we see evil people going unpunished, or even rewarded, it depresses us. Can you provide any rationale for why we should care so much about the comfort of a serial killer? Try to do so without appealing to some mystical, absolutist morality. Good luck.
Note: we're talking about serious crimes here. Non-violent offenders shouldn't be facing prison time at all, let alone solitary.
Exactly right. It is the way it is because American people are more interested in exacting revenge than rehabbing the offender. Nevermind that taking away somebody's freedom while they are being rehabbed is a punishment in and of itself.
Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend at least 23 hours per day restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed.
Apparently, the definition of "not much larger" is flexible enough to accommodate "almost twice as large". A standard King bed is about 42 square feet.
Here is Human Rights Watch's discussion of how ethnic gangs teach white prisoners tolerance:
The benefits of this therapy have been documented by the government's study of the phenomenon:
Imagine the homophobia to which the world would be subjected if it weren't for the sexual awakening offered by the government's integration of angry white males with the rest of society.
Seastead this.
It's not that we can't, it's just that we won't. Violent prisoners who attack other prisoners should be segregated and isolated, but other than that I see no reason to put someone in solitary.
1. Remove a danger to society
2. Acting as a deterrent
3. As a punitive measure (strongly related to item #2)
4. To provide rehabilitation
To date, analysis[1] has shown that never in the verifiable recorded history of crime and punishment, has any prison, anywhere, ever had a non-negligible impact on recidivism rates. Some pre-established percentage of people continue to commit crimes after a jail sentence, regardless of changes to enable rehabilitation. Education, trade skills, access to medicine & counselors, 'nice' quarters, access to games and exercise, work release programs, etc - no appreciable impact.
Even punishments like public shaming (very big in medieval times) have no impact on the average number of individuals willing to commit the crime again. Even torture (short of permanent harm) has no real lasting impact, though it does often result in the individuals using more effort to reduce the risks of getting caught.
In short, prisons do not rehabilitate prisoners, and they never have.[2] [3]
Pretending they they do, or can and then making screeching noises when they fail - or worse, throwing money at them so they can try yet another fad get-lawful-quick program is just irrational. Blaming the system for not working as one expects only shows the value of those expectations.
Here's the takeaway: The only things prisons are good for is removing a danger from society and providing a punitive threat as a deterrent - and even that last one has only limited impact.
For those interested in constructive comments, the fix is obvious and simple; spend that money on fixing those parts of society that give rise to crime. Focus on education, focus on a two-parent household, focus on employable skills, and so on.
[1] - oy. Google it, read some books, and take a few criminal justice classes. Personally, I'd start with this book, http://www.amazon.com/CRIMINAL... because it's a fascinating read, but your mileage may vary.
[2] - though there's nothing to say they couldn't eventually. Maybe cryogenically freeze them and subliminally imprint upon them the desire to knit when they're stressed? Could work.
[3] - Technically, life in prison works, in that they don't commit any more crimes, but the important point to note is that rehabilitation programs STILL have no impact on this rate. So it doesn't count either.
Don't forget also prisoners with politically related crimes.
But who am I kidding... they don't put people in SC for safety, they do it because they equally, sadistic fucks. They just have the weapons and the advantage.
Were taken directly from the dark ages, and were never designed or intended to rehabilitate but to ... wield the power of the state and show how much worse it can be when you don't conform. FULL STOP!
... but maybe I'm an outlier.
Also, when was prison in the US ever about rehabilitation?
The amount of damage done seems to follow a curve, and everybody responds to it differently. Some people like yourself handle it relatively well, others don't. What really determines how badly you get messed up, though, is time. Every study and every story I've read about this is in agreement - for a lot of people even a week is too much, and it's all downhill from there. The damage worsens and can even become permanent with increasing time in isolation.
Given the overwhelming evidence that solitary confinement is destructive to the health of most - not all, but most - inmates subjected to it and how arbitrarily it's used, especially for nonviolent offenses, I'd rather see it done away with to whatever extent is practical.
The idea of prison was originally that a criminal forfeited their right to live.
In the case of capital punishment, the person's life was ended outright, but the idea of imprisonment was that the lesser punishments were achieved by depriving a person of part of the rest of their life. If you spent X number of years in prison, then X fewer years of your life were available to you. In principle, a prisoner should have no opportunity of spending any of their time in prison constructively, and all confinement should be solitary.
That is why there is a certain intuitive appeal to solitary confinement as a punishment.
Unfortunately, it turns out that solitary confinement is actual torture, is counter-productive, and diminishes those implementing the prison system.
No-one has found a perfect way to punish and rehabilitate (both legitimate goals).
Add in paying rent of $3000/month for the privilege, and you've just described most of Manhattan.
nt
Yeah, but the moment society closes the doors out of vindictiveness, it's pulled out all the control rods. Unfortunately, the road from being considered law abiding citizen to 'unemployable criminal' grows shorter every day. Once that point is reached, there's no longer any reason to care about anyone else's rules or artificial limitations. There's nothing more to lose.
The summary also says that some prisoners prefer it.
Of course it also says this:
But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society.
And that sentence points out the major failure with TFS, and TFA, and your assertions above.
Nobody believes the goal is to rehabilitate any more. A couple hundred years of recidivism statistics has totally washed that nonsense off the slate.
Most of the hard core prisoners will never re-enter society. They are in there precisely to protect society from THEM, not the other way around.
By the time you get a 20 year sentence in this lenient justice system, you have already proven yourself a recidivist.
They are never going to be model citizens. Society has nothing to gain by playing the rehabilitation with these people any more.
If they can't get along in the general population, and require solitary, what makes you think the goal is to re-introduce them to society?
(And never mind quoting what it says in the prison system enabling statutes, and the wishful thinking that goes into calling the
prison systems "department of corrections". Nobody believes that any more)
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Solitary slowly drives these guys insane. It doesn't seem to be permanent, but being cooped up like that does terrible things to the human brain. IMO this all started decades ago with a regression to "get tough on crime" practices. So, now rather than giving prisoners true outlets to reform themselves and develop talents and options for their release, we've got guys with nothing to do and nothing to lose who know that their best bet post-incarceration is getting better at being a criminal. And, gang violence and activity is a great way to get promoted.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The solution is VERY simple: all the liberal, back-slapping, self-congratulating idiots who think that criminals are, in fact, 'victims', should be made to LIVE with them when they are released. The rest of us (the majority) who don't want criminals anywhere near us nor our families, and who don't want to pay taxes to pay for their sorry asses to live IN our societies (i.e. we pay for their housing, because they are losers who can't get jobs, and don't want jobs, we pay for their food, their clothes, their electricity, their water, for their vile offspring to go to schools with OUR children, etc.), can NOT associate with them, and we can live in a virtually crime free society.
Oh no! Somebody suggested something that the TV didn't tell us to think about, it's scary!
The Quakers built a prison in the 1800's that is in Pennsylvania that housed everyone in solitary confinement with only a bible so they could get in touch with god and fix their souls or some other bullshit they made up. After sometime had passed, they came to conclusion that this was not the way humans were meant to live, be, exist, etc. and closed down that part, as the prisoners went mad, suicidal to the extreme. You would have thought we would have learned then, and hell, maybe we did. We learned how to be more sadistic, brutal and evil in how we deal with our fellow man. Torture is now enhanced interrogation. Slavery is now Liberty. We have become that which will consume us.
I'd call it torture. Do it to your dog and people will say you are torturing it.
Solitary Confinement is Torture:
The devastating psychological and physical effects of prolonged solitary confinement are well documented by social scientists: prolonged solitary confinement causes prisoners significant mental harm and places them at grave risk of even more devastating future psychological harm.
Researchers have demonstrated that prolonged solitary confinement causes a persistent and heightened state of anxiety and nervousness, headaches, insomnia, lethargy or chronic tiredness, nightmares, heart palpitations, and fear of impending nervous breakdowns. Other documented effects include obsessive ruminations, confused thought processes, an oversensitivity to stimuli, irrational anger, social withdrawal, hallucinations, violent fantasies, emotional flatness, mood swings, chronic depression, feelings of overall deterioration, as well as suicidal ideation
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
I have a question, from a logical (and perhaps heartless) perspective
If the system has determined that a prisoner is 100% beyond redemption as a functioning member of society, if all methods of medication, therapy, rehabilitation and punishment have failed, why are we keeping them alive? If someone needs to spend some time in solitary to cool their head for a day, fine. That's what it's for. But it sounds like the system is basically giving up on these inmates, and is just stuffing them in a hole until they die on their own. A form a torture even worse than death, from the sound of it.
I'm not trying to advocate "kill them all," or any such drastic behavior. I just hope that seeing the drastic option might cause us to take a second look at the 80,000 guys we've got locked up in permanent solitary. Maybe some of them aren't really beyond redemption, and don't deserve to be forgotten about and left to rot.
This signature is false.
Solitary confinement is not a punishment, it is a reward. I have not interest in interacting with the other people.
Reform of the individual is an important part of why we put people in prison.
Nobody believes that any more.
Not even the corrections departments make any effort to reform, because 100 years of trying has taught them
that it doesn't work.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What makes them think this little tidbit will have any effect on the US penal system which is designed to stay in business by providing your average crooks with more business contacts and an even greater hate for 'the system'.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
The psychopaths and sociopaths that control prisons are the inmates.
The only thing they don't control is the keys.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What a shithole of a country...
"indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained"
How about the indelible mark left on the victims and the rest of the population that must consider the threats?
If :
- our prisons were more of a deterrent than a badge of honor among thugs
- there were stiffer consequence than the afforded street cred
- true victim restitution could be realized
Then:
- we might have fewer folks getting themselves in situations requiring lock up
- we might work harder to insure the innocent are not locked up
- we could overturn some of the silly laws that over complicate the judicial process
Just say'n...
You are the sum of all the things you've ever been, but who you are now and who you have the potential to become is way way way more important to me than who you used to be. People change and grow, not even shouting distance from usually, but often enough to make it really rewarding.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
FTS:
(emphasis mine)
Well, shiver me timbers. Who ever would have expected that? /sarcasm
Seriously though? Whoever thought solitary could possibly 'rehabilitate' anyone, or that it could have any benefit outside of pure punishment for punishment's sake?
The mind reels.
This story and comments remind me of a Short Story by Anton Chekov. The story was called "The Bet". It is worth reading if you are interested in this subject.
I would have a sig but I am too busy updating programs and restarting my computer
There's no reason why it should either be "the torture of solitary confinement" or "the torture of prison rape". One person per cell, one person per shower, most of the problem solved.
The science of punishment is like the science of evolution: there's been consensus for an incredible amount of time, but the US still likes to think their viewpoint has weight behind it.
You obviously have no clue how harsh the sentencing is now a heads with all the tough n crime bills, nearly anything from simple burglary ca. Net you 20 years now
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0619.htm
Manufacture or sale of narcotic, hallucinogen, amphetamine, or at least 1 kg marijuana by non-dependent person - 25 year maximum.
You may not have noticed that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. This is because slavery is such a grand idea that it had to be reinstituted via the prison industrial complex -- a complex that economizes on things like occupancy rates per cell.
Seastead this.
Who needs solitary confinement? No one ever listens or talks to me. I'm all alone in the middle of a crowd. I even get rebuffed for trying to say hello to people I've met before.
Hallucinations are awesome: I always have time to listen to me!
the prisons are full of blacks and people from underprivileged backgrounds
Would you mind educate us what do you mean by "underprivileged", background or otherwise?
I mean, I've seen this word "underprivileged" thrown everywhere, as if it's something that can ensure one to win an argument or such.
Why are the "blacks" "underprivileged" while others, including the Asians (such as I am) are not?
I arrived in America with nothing, yes, with not even the ability of understanding English, and yet, through the decades of struggle I've at least achieved to gain the things that I have (knowledge, skills, financial rewards).
Was I "underprivileged" when I landed on America? Was I ever included in the "underprivileged" lineup, per your definition ?
Why then when I, and many many hundreds of thousands of immigrants (even those who migrated from Africa) could climb up the social ladder while the "indigenous" blacks can't ? Or is it because they lack the incentive to do so ?
Stop throwing around that "underprivileged" word as if it's the one thing people will buy into. I for one, do not, and will never buy into that kind of bullshit.
One's life is under one's mastership - and if one refused to master his/her own life, don't you tell me that they are "underprivileged" because they gave up before the struggle begins.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm betting you wouldn't prefer execution.
That's actually what a bit more than half of the USA really wants. We're using life-in-prison as a super-slow way to execute people. It's kind of like death-by-torture, which lots of us think is entirely appropriate. Standard death-by-torture (stoning, burning, crucifiction...) is more immediately satisfying, but the bleeding-heart liberals (who ought to move to Europe) have made that sort of thing difficult.
Really, this isn't Europe. If you want Europe, go live there. We'll both be happier when you do.
King sized is 60"X78" = 32.5sqft. So actually it is more like 2.5 king sized beds. It is also a heck of a lot larger than the cubicle I spend half my waking hours in.
Human beings are social animals. Depriving someone from social interaction is therefore inhumane.
... issues like "dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression". The US RDA for vitamin D for adults is several times too low, and people in solitary confinement indoors are unlikely to be getting enough sunlight to make up the difference. The isolation itself is no doubt harmful to many people too, but the vitamin D aspect could at least be addressed easily even within the current system. The nutrition issue is even larger; see for example:
http://www.psychologytoday.com...
http://www.theguardian.com/pol...
http://www.naturalnews.com/039...
And environmental toxins contribute too:
http://www.motherjones.com/env...
Ironically, corporations get to repent by "restorative justice" (paying reparations or fixing what was broken) while real people are hit with "punitive justice".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
US prison population stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"In 2008 approximately one in every 31 adults (7.3 million) in the United States was behind bars, or being monitored (probation and parole). In 2008 the breakdown for adults under correctional control was as follows: one out of 18 men, one in 89 women, one in 11 African-Americans (9.2 percent), one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent), and one in 45 Caucasians (2.2 percent). Crime rates have increased by about 25 percent from 1988 to 2008.[18] In recent decades the U.S. has experienced a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of mandatory sentencing that came about during the "war on drugs." Violent crime and property crime have declined since the early 1990s.[19]"
Recent incarcerations for drone protesters, but presumably not in solitary:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
http://www.veteransforpeace.or...
What a difference a nun can make even in prison:
"84-year-old nun sentenced for her anti-nuclear activism"
http://www.catholic.org/nation...
"Rice said she learned in prison to see her fellow inmates, not as perpetrators but as "victims" of a system that gave them few options. Walli says that like Rice, he spends long hours talking to inmates to "instill the idea that human life is sacred. "They know that they are the human fallout and the victims of the profiteering by the elite and top leaders of the corporations that are contracted to make the nuclear weapons. It's (the money) denied to human services that should be the priority of any government," Rice said. "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The idea is to break people and turn them into dependants of their families as a form of social control to make it more difficult to revolt. It's the sort of thing warlords do when they cannot quite justify killing prisoners but what to impede rivals. Of course some idiots in politics in the developed world do not understand this and copy it wholesale just because they think it's a good way to get votes by being "strong" enough to kick a lot of people when they are down. It backfires because it's a drain on the economy to make sure that a lot of people will never be productive again - however if you want to widen a class gap, don't care about the economy and have less morals than a weasel it may not sound all that bad at all.
When someone gets "life in prison" or 10 years in jail....that indicates how long it will take for that person to be rehabilitated? I'm sorry, but how can anyone feel sorry for someone in jail? Solitary confinement is sounding like good punishment to me for their crimes. I would think being locked in a cell could make someone think about suicide, would save taxpayer money if that did.
Interesting that you are using something rare to try to justify something very common - however it tells us nothing at all about the topic and merely that you have an agenda to push and are prepared to get up to underhanded tricks to do it.
How about we have a mature discussion about a topic for once instead of some sort of high school debating game with all the teacher imposed rules removed?
It should be about information instead of ego trips.
So what's the name of this strawman and what about the other few hundred thousand who are not that person?
Nice bit of false scatological outrage. I'm sure you are proud. Do you do other comedy or just devils advocate trolling? Care to do a "Charles Manson was misunderstood" act next?
No, you are using life sentences as your strawman and appear to be hoping people don't notice that you are using a rare example and pretending it is common.
Why are you so busy on this topic? I was curious when I found I was replying to the same person a couple of times and then very curious when you seemed to be in well over a dozen threads. Should a PR company hire you as a "social media worker" or are you already doing that job by posting so many comments on so many threads here?
I think you need to take a hard look at that belief and compare it with the general knowlege you would have picked up by now.
You're spiting your own face just to stick it to them. Societies can't function when large percentages of the population are running around with nothing to lose. Of course rehabilitation didn't work. The current system denies the possibility.
They may never be 'model' citizens (whatever that is), but if the system denies them reasonable opportunities to go straight once their term is up, then it is complicit in their return to crime.
Every single prisoner, including petty theft, should be in solitary confinement. That's because prisoners try to sodomize and murder each other and such acts committed in prisons is the sole legal responsibility of the gov't that runs or leases the prison, thus resulting in multi-million dollar settlements, lavishly funded by taxpayer money. It is cheaper to let prisoners interact only via telepresence with LCD screens and Kinect-like things.
Forcing the populace to have some kind of a "schuldkult" towards criminal individuals, classes and races is an attempt to demoilish the solid moral foundation of christian kingdoms. The USA stands strong because President Jackson once proclaim the Great Nation is founded on three unambigiously positive stances: respect of the Flag and motherhood and the practice of capital punishment. Remove any of those three legs and the chair topples.
> this lenient justice system
Now there's a statement. If the US justice system is lenient, can you point me at one that is not ?
The US incarcaration rate is 750/100000, in western europe its 100/100000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
The US jails a larger proportion of its population than sizeable nation ever. In that respect it's the least free country in the course of human history due to its extraordinarily non-lenient justice system.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
but when it fucks up how does one take revenge on the system?
In that case, it sounds like prison is the wrong place for them. They belong in some sort of controlled mental health facility.
Don't know how they derive the "80,000" in solitary number... I know from personal experience that an awful lot of inmates get put into "solitary" or the "special housing unit" while awaiting for a bunk to free up in general pop. I waited 3 weeks in the SHU for a bunk, with no contact with the outside world for that time, after being transferred... my GF got a box of my clothes/belongings with no other info, and thought I was dead, as when she called the BOP she was told they could give her no info as she was not "real" family. Family called and was told I was "in transit" with no other explanation. I personally didn't mind the time... I did fun things like count the number of openings in a screen... try sketching accurate pictures of the block walls (i.e. correct numbers of bricks depicted), and read a novel a day when I could grab them off the library cart which came by every 4 days (through the "bean hole" in the solid door). Sometimes, all the library cart had was Spanish language soap opera magazines... that's like porn in prison!
23 hours a day in an 80 sq. ft. cell? Sounds like working at EA!
Put em in large clear locked hamster balls and they can roll around on the yard and can't hurt others much!
Lenient?! Aaron Swartz was facing up to 50 years in prison. Assholes like you are part of the reason he is dead.
I know others have already gotten this point in, but I can't help but express my disgust with your description of our justice system as lenient.
Either we have the most draconian "justice" system in the world, or Americans are significantly more criminal than anyone else in the world. Citation.
Bonus: If you go back to the pre-Reagan glory days, you'll notice that our incarceration rate wasn't nearly as ridiculous. This suggests that either Americans aren't inherently worse than anyone else or that Reagan brings out the worst in everyone. Or our "justice" system was replaced by a prison system.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Oh, boy, way to leap to conclusions.
Please supply a citation that shows that Americans are NOT significantly more criminal. Your own citation tends to suggest that we ARE more criminal than others.
In which cultures on your citation have rampant gangs, massive drug smuggling, and REPEATED school shootings, armed bank robberies?
We are more criminal because we can get away with it.
Our justice system still has Juries last time I checked.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You're playing with words. Yes, we have juries. Yes, the people in our jails are convicted of committing "crime".
My point, since you've obviously missed it, is that we criminalize more behaviors and our sentencing is more extreme. That people end up (and stay) in prison for victimless crimes like drug smuggling only further backs up my claim.
The fact that you bring up school shootings just goes to show that you have no idea what you're talking about. School shootings account for a statistically insignificant amount of crime. You might as well talk about hammer attacks (which, incidentally, kill orders of magnitude more people every year than do school shootings).
Stop worshiping the talking heads on your television screen and look at the fucking numbers, man. If you honestly think real crime is more widespread (and laws more poorly enforced) here than, say, in Cuba, or Russia, or China, or Papua New Guinea (!!!), then you are ignorant of reality.
You live in one of the safest countries on Earth by any metric, at one of the safest points in time in history. To complain about a lenient justice system is comically wrong.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
You live in one of the safest countries on Earth by any metric, at one of the safest points in time in history.
So the justice system is working then?
K, thanks, bye.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Sure, just like it would be working better still if we just jailed every last man, woman, and child.
And for the record, it's spelled ktnxbai.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Does that count as Solitary though?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
have any say on this?
Casteism
This has been bothering me for a long time. The justice system is opaque by design. The prison system is literally a black box, no pun intended. It's high time we threw open the doors of these cesspools and let the citizens see what forms of torture are commonplace in our own institutions of rehabilitation. Let the purging begin!!!
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!