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EFF: Hundreds of S. Carolina Prisoners Sent To Solitary For Social Media Use
According to the EFF's Deep LInks, Through a request under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act, EFF found that, over the last three years, prison officials have brought more than 400 hundred disciplinary cases for "social networking" — almost always for using Facebook. The offenses come with heavy penalties, such as years in solitary confinement and deprivation of virtually all privileges, including visitation and telephone access. In 16 cases, inmates were sentenced to more than a decade in what’s called disciplinary detention, with at least one inmate receiving more than 37 years in isolation. ... The sentences are so long because SCDC issues a separate Level 1 violation for each day that an inmate accesses a social network. An inmate who posts five status updates over five days, would receive five separate Level 1 violations, while an inmate who posted 100 updates in one day would receive only one. In other words, if a South Carolina inmate caused a riot, took three hostages, murdered them, stole their clothes, and then escaped, he could still wind up with fewer Level 1 offenses than an inmate who updated Facebook every day for two weeks.
It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the mainstream media to run with this.
Like being in prison?
Looks to me like they're already disallowed Facebook access, since it lands them in Solitary. I'm guessing this is mostly a "covert communication with the outside" type violation though. The prisons are trying to prevent gang leaders/drug lords/etc... from running their empires while locked up. Plus, they don't get to rip off the prisoners with their massively inflated telephone fees.
I read the internet for the articles.
How in the world are they posting to facebook? Are they using smuggled in devices, or are they using devices provided by the prison system? If the later, why don't they just block access to facebook at a level where the inmates can't override it?
Therefore, accessing a social media site should result in a decade or more of additional punishment. QED, amiright?
Usage of social media is equivalent to unsupervised communication with people outside the prison walls. To my knowledge this has always been a big deal and whatever technology is used shouldn't make much of a difference in punishment. Even seemingly innocent communications can be forms of steganography.
Also, I'm pretty sure inmates who commit murder will be charged with murder.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
What the sensational article deliberately ignores is what these prisoners were doing ... running gangs on smuggled phones.
The offense is unauthorized communications. Facebook posts are convenient proof of that offense. Someone with access to a telecommunications device could be ordering gangland hits just as easily as liking someone on Facebook.
I don't see why inmates need access to it at all.
Because social connections reduce recidivism.
America imprisons more people than any other country. On a per-capita basis we imprison more than Russia, Saudia Arabia, Cuba, and four times as many as China. We spend more on prisons than the rest of the world combined. Yet we have one of the worse recidivism rates. It would be hard to design a dumber system even if you tried. Enforcing social isolation just makes it even worse.
I assume they mean solitary when they say isolation. I don't care what "crime" these cons did on the inside, unless you're talking about Magneto and his plastic cell no one should be in solitary for 37 years.
Long term use of the SHU seems to be used as punishment, or more appropriately a form of torture. I can barely imagine the psychological and physical damage of being in the SHU for that long. We may as well be blasting loud music 24/7 and practice forced feedings while we're at it.
If you're so worried about communicating outside the prison and apparently unable to control smartphones from getting inside then maybe you should start looking at Faraday cages or jamming signals. I'm sure the FCC would give an exception given enough proof that these communications were actually resulting in gang activity.
I used to think that inmates talking about prison being a business was bullshit. Then I see how many prisons are privately run and how deals are made to keep that at a certain capacity. Then think of all the support companies that sell items to prisons (clothing, food, equipment, employees, etc etc). Then you look at the incarceration rate of the USA compared to other countries and it all becomes clear.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
"Who gains anything by punishment?"
The privatized prison system can then charge more for the offender as the stay has been extended.
To OP there that thinks it's so they can't run a criminal business, in some form or another gang leaders have been running their organizations from behind bars in some cases decades before the creation of the internet.
What's the difference?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
America imprisons more people than any other country. On a per-capita basis we imprison more than Russia, Saudia Arabia, Cuba, and four times as many as China. We spend more on prisons than the rest of the world combined. Yet we have one of the worse recidivism rates. It would be hard to design a dumber system even if you tried. Enforcing social isolation just makes it even worse.
Excellent point. So maybe if we just replicate the prison conditions of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and China--
Would that reduce recidivism? Goodbye, Facebook!
Reducing recidivism is un-American, because it works against the greatest prison system in the world.
I'm guessing this is mostly a "covert communication with the outside" type violation though. The prisons are trying to prevent gang leaders/drug lords/etc... from running their empires while locked up.
Not to mention, those who would harass the victims of their crimes or plot escape with outside help. There are some serious considerations involved in the social ostracism of convicts.
To be fair, there are undoubtedly folks in prison for victimless crimes.
The thing is, there are some real deal malevolent maternal copulaters who richly deserve to be there. It's difficult enough to make rules in society that are fair to everyone, and the prison systems are not run by folks who will suffer much insomnia for applying rules that err on the side of caution.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Society needs its demons.
I've repeated this numerous times, and I'll repeat it again: Few people are interested in actual justice. Most of them just want somebody that they can publicly rail against for the sole purpose of making themselves feel righteous. It has nothing to do with righting any wrong.
It's not just the police, the prison guards, or the judges that are guilty of it. It's a systemic problem. Some of the worst bullies I've seen are those who target supposed bullies.
It is supposed to take that person out of society because society doesn't want them. Letting them back in through social media defeats the purpose.
The issue is quite a bit more complex than that. For example, there are THREE primary goals/duties for prisons:
1. Punish, as you said.
2. Warehouse - prevent more crime by isolating the individual from the rest of us
3. Reform - because they most likely get out sometime, we need to fix whatever causes them to be criminal in the first place, if possible.
You have to balance the three duties, and I'd argue that the US system needs to add a hefty dose of #3, and social media, communication can help *a lot* with this. The vast majority of prisoners are NOT drug kingpins who will order hits from prison if they're allowed to communicate with the outside.
I don't read AC A human right
If you can hide your crime, you won't do the time.
Illegal is defined by what you can get caught for.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bullshit. Her tweet was making light of our first world bubble. It wasn't worded quite well, but when you look at the context based on her other tweets, it's very self evident.
All of us have said stupid things now and then. Every last one of us. Nobody deserves to have their lives ruined over just one sentence. As the article linked mentions, some historical figures ended the practice of public shaming because they found many cases where it is measurably worse than a death sentence.
That isn't justice. People like you who espouse such an outcome don't give a shit about justice. Your only motivation is to make yourself feel righteous at their expense, and righting a wrong never comes into play.
Bullshit. Words don't make a person racist, actions do.
And stop pretending to get offended on other people's behalf. It's condesending.
Wonder what the public key field is for?