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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.
When can we start punishing non-inmates for this offense?
I don't see why inmates need access to it at all. They can find plenty of other ways to not be productive.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"How is communicating on Facebook different than making phone calls or sending letters to the outside world?"
Ads for prison clothing.
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.
Nevermind. Who would have thought the article would actually have useful information? "Some inmates ask their families to access their online accounts for them, while many access the Internet themselves through a contraband cell phone (possession of which is yet another Level 1 offense)." Having the inmates be punished for something someone does on the outside seems ridiculous. Though, the prison authorities probably don't know whether it was done by someone on the outside or by a contraband device, so they appear to be assuming that it must be happening via a contraband device.
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 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
So if I create a fake facebook page for each of their inmates and have each of them auto update the status once a day then they'll never get out of jail?
4:30PM: wrapping shank handle :( :( :( :( fucking hate that puta
6:00PM: meat balls cold noodles
1:00AM: hooked sum smokes from the line
1:01AM: i hate menthol
2:24PM: finished shank! check teh pic itz bad ass
4:01PM: lawyer sez my appeal isup next week. coolz
7:10PM: sharpen shank. it was sharp but lolz
9:00AM: powdered eggs again
1:15PM: emilio took the shank
6:05PM: meat balls rice
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
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