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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.
I don't see why inmates need access to it at all. They can find plenty of other ways to not be productive.
When did Social Media use become an offense? If you can have visitors and make phone calls, why not Internet access. Or vice versa, if you are in solitary confinement, why did they have internet access?
And what on Earth is the point in punishing this? Who gains anything by punishment?
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I know this sounds terribly traditional, but what could be wrong with sending a friend a letter in which you give instructions to post an update to social media on your behalf? I'm sure that all letters from prison would be read to make sure they're not carrying out something illegal, but it's not illegal for the friend to post an online update, right?
Or how about this: The friend starts a blog called "Letters From Sam in Jail" and just posts a scan of each letter received. That's a clear case where the prisoner is (indirectly) blogging, but nobody is doing something wrong. Right?
The private prisons, of course. 48 out of 50 states have a contract stating they will keep 90% or more bed occupancy or else face fines.
Private prisons also mean the private prison lobby... DAs have to press charges or else they get voted out. Judges have to have a conviction ratio or else be replace by judges who will hand out long sentences and convict. Even PDs are pressed to demand that defendants plead.
Probably not. It seems that he was talking in generals, not going for a sarcastic implication that the guards are incompetent.
Besides corrupt and incompetent guards you also have inmates and outside conspirators who get incredibly creative in their efforts to smuggle stuff into prisons.
Prisoner anuses is only one of many vectors. In one case they had a cat trained to travel between the outside and inside with the contraband tied to her collar. She got food on both ends. A CAT!!! They trained a bloody CAT to run stuff!
They've also found devices being floated by balloon, launched by catapult and pneumatic launchers, trawled up backwards through the sewer system, etc...
Imagine that you're trying to keep several hundred bored engineering college students from doing something. How well is that going to work? The average inmate intelligence might be less, but you do have quite a few intelligent ones in there, and really, what else are they going to do?
I don't read AC A human right