$11M Worth of Legally-Purchased Music Will Be Confiscated From Florida's Prisoners (tampabay.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Tampa Bay Times: In April last year, the Florida Department of Corrections struck a deal with JPay. The private company, spearheading a push to sell profit-driven multimedia tablets to incarcerated people across the country, would be allowed to bring the technology to every facility in the nation's third-largest prison system. But there was a catch. Inmates had already been purchasing electronic entertainment for the last seven years -- an MP3 player program run by a different company: Access Corrections. For around $100, Access sold various models of MP3 players that inmates could then use to download songs for $1.70 each, and keep them in their dorms.... More than 30,299 players were sold, and 6.7 million songs were downloaded over the life of the Access contract, according to the Department of Corrections. That's about $11.3 million worth of music.

Because of the tablets, inmates will have to return the players, and they can't transfer the music they already purchased onto their new devices... The Department of Corrections, meanwhile, has collected $1.4 million in commissions on each song downloaded and other related sales since July 2011... JPay already operates banking accounts and facilitates phone calls at the state-run prisons, charging inmates and their loved ones steep fees for the services. With the introduction of tablets, JPay will add a wide swath of new spending incentives for its incarcerated customers, offering purchases of music, emailing and other virtual fare.
As a compromise, prison officials offered to download the already-purchased music to a CD, and then mail that CD to someone outside the prison. For a $25 fee.

Comments

Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

the wrong people are in prison.

Re:Sounds like

[serviscope_minor]

It's a Republican dominated legislature.

I wonder if I'm r get down modded for stating an indisputable fact. My guess is yes.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ the wrong people are in prison.

One of the most insightful posts I've seen here -- or at least in the last 10 years (I've been reading this webthing mostly since it started).

Interesting how subtleties like this one can stimulate our thoughts. Well done!

But I came here to post a similar perception. Please bear with me, it's a somewhat detailed case.

Moments ago I found an interesting cheatsheet which -- much to my dismay -- was only available as a low-resolution image: ~700x500. That does not print or scale well.

The usual Google search didn't provide any better options.

I particularly found obnoxious that some sites required me to register or login with some main site credentials (e.g. Facebook/Google) -- to get that same bad picture.

Fortunately, there was the name of the author in the pic, so I could search for it instead. I then learned the image was provided as a pdf -- freely made available by the author himself -- which could be scaled to full-page effortlessly. Mission accomplished!

Now comes the moral of the story (if you have some allergic intolerance to such things you might want to skip it):

You get what you pay for. (read on!)

Except:

a) sometimes it is not satisfying to get what you paid for;
b) sometimes people lie, and you get less than what you paid for;
c) there are things which are free-as-in-gratis (like that pdf);
d) people would have you believe that free things don't exist, in order to sell them to you;
e) any human endeavor is bound to have inefficiencies, so middlemen will cost you more than getting things directly;
f) sometimes you must count on middlemen to get things which are hard to get directly (e.g. from nature);
g) on the web, things are easy to get -- it follows that middlemen have to be evil and make it hard for you to get things -- either by hiding them or protecting them through lawyers;
h) information is your weapon against evil ("pay no attention to the man behind the curtain").

I would add item (g) to that list, but I think it deserves a comment apart. The situation described in this story is even more repulsive if we understand that even in prison "die Gedanken sind frei" (thoughts are free).

Some folks found a way to strip people from the only Freedom that inmates still had. I wonder if any composer or songwriter would want her/his creations hidden from the prisoners.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon coming to you!

Glad I never liked music. Glad I like em profits!

Re:Sounds like

[alvinrod]

If you do it's probably because this has nothing to do with the state legislature as they don't run the DoC and wouldn't be responsible for this. If it makes you feel better you can still image it's all the evil Republicans' fault since the governor of Florida is a Republican and he would be the one ultimately in charge and responsible for appointing the secretary that would oversee the agency.

Re:Sounds like

[SuricouRaven]

True, but this is one of those issues on which the parties are united. There's no point trying to win the support of prisoners - they can't vote, they generally don't have any great wealth to donate to a party, and they aren't socially influential. Plus the public has little to no sympathy for them. Indeed, many have the opposite of sympathy - people actually enjoy hearing that the lives of prisoners have been made a bit more miserable, and get angry upon learning that any sort of action has been taken which might make their lives more tolerable. So it does not matter if Republicans or Democrats are in charge: They'll both screw over prisoners. The only difference I can think of is that Republicans are more likely to grant Christian minsters free access to prisoners in the belief that finding Jesus will heal them of their criminal tendencies.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Prisoners don’t have rights. They forfeited when they committed a crime.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

they generally don't have any great wealth to donate to a party

It's almost as if when you have great wealth, you can hire lawyers to dissect every possible technicality or generally hire lawyers with great charisma. Meanwhile, 95% of the population takes a plea deal because the alternative is a public defender who has 10 minutes to review your case. Nothing off about this situation at all.

Sad how often I think about how Star Trek so well captures the spirit:

SISKO: They’ll be tried for their crimes under the Federation Code of Justice.
DUKAT: And if they’re found innocent?
SISKO: I doubt that they will, but if they are, they’ll be set free.
DUKAT: How barbaric. On Cardassia, the verdict is always known before the trial begins. And it’s always the same.
SISKO: In that case, why bother with a trial at all?
DUKAT: Because the people demand it. They enjoy watching justice triumph over evil every time. They find it comforting.
SISKO: Isn’t there ever a chance you might try an innocent man by mistake?
DUKAT: Cardassians don’t make mistakes.

In the US, it's "Cardassians don't make mistakes, unless the suspect is rich like a Kardassian."

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. The people running the US prison industrial complex shouldn't be in prison. They should end their lives dancing at the end of a short rope, then be thrown into a quicklime grave.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely. We are held to a higher standard when we are tasked with the welfare of others. Especially, when they are prisoners and we have total control. We must lead by example and show fairness, firmness, and compassion. We are bound to provide them with a safe place that they won't be exploited. We must be above reproach and at all times highly accountable for the look and feel of our actions and words.

Greed, contempt and utter meanness has poisoned those that lead. They need to be punished for failing to do their duty.

Re:Sounds like

[rossz]

There's no point trying to win the support of prisoners - they can't vote,.

They're trying to change that here in California.

https://ballotpedia.org/Califo...

No. I do not agree with this and plan on voting against it.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

And why is that? Why can't a debt to society be paid and rights restored?

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

The only difference I can think of is that Republicans are more likely to grant Christian minsters free access to prisoners in the belief that finding Jesus will heal them of their criminal tendencies.

As a Christian Democrat, I find that statement offensive.

Though it is obvious which Christians are loudest, I personally do not know whether more Christians are Democrats or Republicans and don't think anybody can. I do have trouble understanding how some of the recent attitudes and actions of people who claim they are Republicans are consistent with Christian beliefs, but, oh well. That is God's business.

Also, as a Christian Democrat, I believe we place far too many in prison for far too long and allow far too little outside help of all kinds to those that are there. We have not been doing a good job of loving all, even the worst among us, as Christ indicated we should in summarizing all of the commandments under that umbrella. At the same time, there is far too little attention to white collar crime and too few people who hurt thousands instead of a few going to prison. Those who lead have not been paying any attention to the mote in their own eye.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? These are still human beings and are still members of society.
There seems to be far too much emphasis on simply taking revenge on people by locking them up instead of solving the social issues which put them on the wrong side of the law. In fact apart from crimes of violence and dealing particularly nasty drugs, a large number of those people probably shouldn't even be in prison. It's about time society learnt to deal with the problem of crime in a new way, help and guide people to a better path instead of hiding them behind walls and trying to pretend your problem has been solved.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty soon Trump will build the wall and soon after every american will be begging to be recognised as a human being, but the wall will be tall, and strong, and there'll be no escape.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

They're trying to change that here in California.

https://ballotpedia.org/Califo...

No. I do not agree with this and plan on voting against it.

And I will be voting for this. They are still citizens.

Re: Sounds like

[Wycliffe]

The public might have very little sympathy for prisoners but even people I know who have little sympathy for criminals don't like seeing them taken advantage of. Most people aren't going to shed a tear about a prisoner not having access to a cell phone, hbo, or conjugal visits but most people are still sympathetic to prisoners as captive audiences being screwed by outrageously priced long distance or having something stolen from them that they legally purchased.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

They forfeited some of their rights when they were convicted, not all of them. The prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment would be rather ironic if that was waived by conviction. Although, having said that, I'm sure there's plenty of conservatives that would love to see that.

The big problem with this is that things like being allowed to have some safe comfort items is essential to maintaining order in prison, especially for those who are serving long sentences. As is the ability to call friends and family and have conjugal visits.

If you take away any source of comfort, you remove the carrot from the equation and it's tough to get much stricter than prison conditions.

Re:Sounds like

[mlyle]

So, simple logic... if the number of prisoners is reasonable, allowing them to vote makes no difference on election outcomes. And if the number of prisoners is unreasonable, holy shit, we're disenfranchising a big set of society-- not letting them have any influence on the laws that have been used against them.

IMO "not letting prisoners/felons/etc" vote is a huge fuck-up/back door to democracy. All you need to do to erode the political influence of a class is criminalize things associated with that class.

Re:Sounds like

[rossz]

By their own actions, convicted felons doing time are not part of regular society, so they don't get a say in how it should operate. There are consequences to engaging in criminal activity.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

> it's tough to get much stricter than prison conditions.

You could be stuck on an airplane, or in line for customs...

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

In some countries it is (or has been) illegal to have a certain religion or practice it, even where it causes no harm to others.

You have to have a good definition of what consitutes a morally defensible criminalisation of an activity for your assertion to be reasonable. I'd argue that intention, harm, consent, the capability to give consent, are some of the factors to consider.

Re:Sounds like

[q_e_t]

This comment confused me at first, as Christian Democrat, to me, has a specific meaning as a set of European political parties!

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf is this chicken little hour?

Re: Sounds like

[astrofurter]

Remember, 95% of inmates in the federal Gulag were coerced into making a false confession ("plea bargain"). They were NOT convicted by a jury of their peers. Their convictions are ipso facto illegitimate, and the kangaroo courts that sentenced them are contemptible.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying "plea bargaining" should be eliminated and perps tried based solely on the crime committed. No one should be allowed to "plea down" their charge, even when there is overwhelming evidence against them.

Wouldn't this end up with MORE time stacked onto the these prisoner's sentence? Wouldn't this end up with MORE cost to the U.S. taxpayers for court time and incarceration time?

What is the benefit of your plan?

With terms like "federal Gulag" and "kangaroo court" it sounds like someone you know has been convicted of a lesser charge. So should they then face a jury trial for their original crime and end up serving more time?
Or are you trying to imply that 95% of people incarcerated by the Feds never broke the Law? Which sounds extremely implausible.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

By their own actions, convicted felons doing time are not part of regular society, so they don't get a say in how it should operate.

Even most criminals are part of regular society in the vast majority of their transactions. The ilk of Shawney Bean is comparatively rare.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

terms like federal gulag and kangaroo court indicate nothing more than familiarity with american prisons and trials

Re:Sounds like

[Highdude702]

Here in Nevada, once you have served your sentence complete(expiration) All of your human rights with the exception of ownership of a firearm are reinstated. Including voting. Sure I committed a crime, I also did my time. Why can I not be treated fairly like every American again? Or do you like the fact that once you are a felon, its very hard to get a job and get a head in life which means most people resort back to the same things that landed them in prison in the first place. Prison is supposed to be to rehabilitate people, not turn them into life long criminals. Do you have a good reason to demonize somebody after they paid their debt to society? Because at this moment you seem to be a snobby cunt that cares about nobody but their self. You are old and from California, so I'm not too much surprised either.

Re: Sounds like

[Highdude702]

It would stop the DA from throwing every charge at you hoping something sticks. When I was arrested for my crimes one of the charged was 'kidnapping' it was added to try to scare me, and to make sure bail was higher than any normal person could ever afford. That should be illegal.

Re: Sounds like

[Highdude702]

The real fucked up thing about this is, its the prisoners family and friends that send them the money to get these items, so not only does shit like this hurt the inmates, it does the same to their family members.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

The action is plain wrong too. Not reasonable and should not be lawful.

I suspect they want recidivism and want the taxpayer to keep private prisons profitable.
This only makes sense if there is ZERO reform or re-education KPI's

While Swedish and Norwegian prisons are too soft, they have a theory.
Do some prevention work (housing prisoners costs a lot of money, more than luxury hotel rooms) and reform them if possible. Rather than out and straight back in.

I can well imagine a crim getting out with enough for two nights of rough sleeping, before having to do something to refill his/her belly. Maybe the crims should target those in the extortion business by sending sterm letters of complaint.

Re: Sounds like

[Cederic]

Wouldn't this end up with MORE time stacked onto the these prisoner's sentence? Wouldn't this end up with MORE cost to the U.S. taxpayers for court time and incarceration time?

No. Instead you'd see people getting a sensible tariff for their crimes, including freedom for those that committed none.

"80 years if you fight or 8 years if you plea guilty to this lesser crime" isn't justice. Either they committed crimes society deemed worthy of an 80 year jail term or they did not. The one thing that's pretty fucking certain is that they didn't commit a crime worth an 8 year punishment.

So try them for the crimes they're alleged to have committed. If you only want them in prison for 8 years, change the tariffs for those crimes so that a judge can give them 8 years.

Right now people plead guilty because of coercion, fear and the cost of fighting to prove their innocence. That's not justice, and "justice is too expensive" is if anything worse.

Re:Sounds like

[drinkypoo]

Why do you hate democracy?

Why do you support slavery?

Re: Sounds like

[Wycliffe]

Yep, it's indirectly charging the family members for the prisoner's care. Everything should be sold at cost. If they really want to charge the prisoner or the prisoner's family for their care then they should bill them directly. They shouldn't be trying to make a profit off of them. At least with most captive audiences like six flags or movie theatres you still have options to not participate. Prisoners don't generally have that as a realistic option especially when it comes to stuff like long distance but even in this case the prisoner made a reasonable contract with the prison that the prison has now reneged on.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

lmao please exit earth asap

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

I truly hope you die today. California would be better if you died. Today.

Re: Sounds like

[rossz]

This is about convicted criminals who are still paying their debt. Giving back their voting rights AFTER they are released is a different matter entirely.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

the wrong people are in prison.

To the rest of the world, yes.

In the US: "That's what they get! They should be fucking grateful that the prison staff are so whishy washy as to spend time and our taxdollars to give them a way to keep it. If I was the one in charge, I'd jack up the price for the stuff they lost to teach them a lesson!"

In the US, criminals are considered sub-human and worse than the slaves of our past by a large majority of our society. Doubly so if the criminal in question just so happens to be African-American. Punishment, according to these people, is the only thing that the criminal elements in our society deserve. So it's not surprising to know about these kinds of stories. Rather it's expected.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the ridiculous definition of kidnapping, they likely could have convicted you on that charge. I know a guy who had that "added to try to scare me" charge and it stuck. He did 15 for it.

For those who don't know, if you prevent a person from leaving an area that they want to leave for at least one second, you have technically committed kidnapping and can be convicted for it. It can be as simple as standing in the doorway during a domestic argument and not moving out of the way immediately the first time they try to walk out the door or simply grabbing someone's arm as they try to go past you out of the room, even if you let go after a few seconds.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have not been doing a good job of loving all"

Usually "loving" them means badgering the crap out of them to believe in your imaginary guy in the sky.
In my life (fairly long, so far, I'm retired) of all the people I've ever met, only ONE who was religious behaved the way I think everyone should - yes, he did initiate a conversation about religion when we first met - it's how we met, he was a Jehova's Witness - but when I showed no interest, he NEVER brought the topic up again. We were friends for many years after that, and had many conversations, about many things, but the only time religion was mentioned was if I brought it up, and he would only answer my questions, or give a point of view, never again tried to "convert" me. That man has my respect until the day I die. Sad that I've only met ONE person like that.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

By their own actions, convicted felons doing time are not part of regular society, so they don't get a say in how it should operate.

Why stop there? Convicted felons after doing time are not part of regular society, so they shouldn't get to vote. Convicted misdemeanors after doing time/paying a fine are not part of regular society, so they shouldn't get to vote. Convicted traffic violators after doing time/paying a fine are not part of regular society, so they shouldn't get to vote.

There are consequences to engaging in criminal activity.

Remember that the next time you jaywalk, speed, or do any number of petty crimes.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

How did America end up with such bad laws? It's like we took our propaganda about how bad North Korea is, and tried to make that the reality at home. Wtf.

Re: Sounds like

[houghi]

If a society thinks it is funny and normal to be raped in prison, you have an issue.
It means you have not yet understood the difference between revenge and punishment (let alone rehabilitation)

Re: Sounds like

[Highdude702]

Yea, those are the types of charges that makes a man say fuck it, and at that point they go all in. This is how you increase the amount of gang members in prisons which leads to more crime from somebody that normally would have not committed crimes after a short sentence of say 1-3 years. Also breeds vendetta, had i been wrongly accused of something like that and had done 15 years, murder would be the only thing I cared about when I got out. Its harder coming out and changing your life than it is going in. You probably wont understand that statement unless you have been where I and apparently a few others here have been.

Re:Sounds like

[stealth_finger]

Prison is supposed to be to rehabilitate people, not turn them into life long criminals.

But when you have a prison system that is run for profit they have no incentive to rehabilitate anyone. You say life long criminal, they say repeat customer.

Re: Sounds like

[mjwx]

It would stop the DA from throwing every charge at you hoping something sticks. When I was arrested for my crimes one of the charged was 'kidnapping' it was added to try to scare me, and to make sure bail was higher than any normal person could ever afford. That should be illegal.

That's why I'm glad in my country it is.

Here if the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) wants to charge you with a crime, they need sufficient evidence that there is a legitimate cause to believe you actually did it. Why... Because if I'm falsely accused of a crime just to scare me, I can sue the accuser and they will have to pay me and my legal costs. This includes the CPS.

Re: Sounds like

[Wycliffe]

If a society thinks it is funny and normal to be raped in prison, you have an issue.
It means you have not yet understood the difference between revenge and punishment (let alone rehabilitation)

Yep. That's a whole different problem. Prisons are broken. You have people literally in cages with 24/7 surveillance and somehow they still can't enforce basic rules against drugs, rape, and smuggled cell phones. I'm not sure if it's a lack of money, bad bureaucracy, or just complete incompetence but these should be easily solved problems in a completely controlled facility.

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

> the wrong people are in charge of prison.

FTFY

captcha: vomited

Re:Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

But at least the motives of the GOP is for their (prisoners) good (they believe) while the Dems' are interested in getting to use their votes (their own benefit). Not much diff unless you believe in Jesus, but ... I prefer thealtruism over the exploitation. I might show up in our political and social cultures.

Re:Sounds like

[Highdude702]

The majority of prisons in the us are DoC ran not privatized. However the canteen is private for some reason, which I can't figure out I can only imagine that if it was govt ran prisoners would be starving as they would be ran like the rest of the govt here.

Re: Sounds like

[Highdude702]

You can sue for wrongful imprisonment here. I don't know how often it works or if it works or if people try. But I guess if the charges get dropped and you actually committed a crime you were convicted for you wouldn't really have a leg to stand on. It's not like they charge you with them to try to find something on you. They add the charges to raise bail total so you don't have a chance to run.

Re: Sounds like

[h4x0t]

Politicians should have to answer to their claims about being arbitrarily "tough on crime", whatever it is they think that means.
Prisoners count in the census. Localities get money for them being there.
Prisoners should be able to vote from prison. And their high turnout would make people think twice about shitting on them constantly.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

This is about convicted criminals who are still paying their debt. Giving back their voting rights AFTER they are released is a different matter entirely.

Right. And denying citizens the ability to vote whilst in prison would NEVER be used by some unethical political party as a rationale to pass laws that effectively target a particular demographic (that typically would vote for some other party).

Equally, no political party would EVER introduce voter ID laws using the excuse of preventing (non-existent) voter fraud, but really to disenfranchise opposition voters.

Nor would a political party engage in gerrymandering.

Nor would a political party spread disinformation about opposition candidates.

I for one am glad to live in our perfect bastion of democracy, where none of the above would ever occur.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

It would stop the DA from throwing every charge at you hoping something sticks. When I was arrested for my crimes one of the charged was 'kidnapping' it was added to try to scare me, and to make sure bail was higher than any normal person could ever afford. That should be illegal.

Yep, common tactic. I was charged with felony distribution of a substance that wasn't even illegal, was owned by someone else who admitted as much and I had nothing to do with simply because I happened to be there and the police were mad they were wrong. Charges were eventually dropped because I didn't break any law but it still made bail 100k at the time. 10% of which I couldn't get back because like most 20 somethings I didn't have 100k in cash sitting around and needed a bond. Anyone that thinks our legal system is even remotely about justice is a complete fool. The main outcome of all that is now I won't involve the police in anything for any reason and would sooner watch a police officer bleed out in the street than call for help.

Re:Sounds like

[mlyle]

Same thing China says about dissidents.

Re: Sounds like

[Sabriel]

So if you are ever falsely convicted of a crime due to your elected government creating an environment that encourages the police and prosecutors to be more interested in looking good than in being good, you're fine with having your ultimate First Amendment right - to change that government - muzzled?

Innocent people haven't magically stopped going to prison. Responsible government depends on checks and balances, while prisons are increasingly being operated as commercial, for-profit companies, complete with lobbyists and political financing. I hope you can do the math.

Re:Sounds like

[Agripa]

By their own actions, convicted felons doing time are not part of regular society, ...

Then do not let them out of prison.

Re: Sounds like

[Agripa]

So you're saying "plea bargaining" should be eliminated and perps tried based solely on the crime committed. No one should be allowed to "plea down" their charge, even when there is overwhelming evidence against them.

Wouldn't this end up with MORE time stacked onto the these prisoner's sentence? Wouldn't this end up with MORE cost to the U.S. taxpayers for court time and incarceration time?

What is the benefit of your plan?

With terms like "federal Gulag" and "kangaroo court" it sounds like someone you know has been convicted of a lesser charge. So should they then face a jury trial for their original crime and end up serving more time?

It could cost a hell of a lot more. The benefit would be assigning a more accurate value to the cost of enforcing the law. As it is, most of this burden has been shifted and hidden.

I would go further. Every offense, even traffic offenses, should have the right to a jury trial. If the offense does not warranty a jury trial, then the law should be reconsidered. Too many (most) municipalities use civil infractions for revenue alienating much of the population.

And with 20 times as many jury trials, more common citizens would get to experience first hand what a farce our "justice" system is.

Or are you trying to imply that 95% of people incarcerated by the Feds never broke the Law? Which sounds extremely implausible.

95% did not break the law that they plied guilty to.

Re: Sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the law they were convicted under is wrong? Lawmakers are only human like the rest of us, and can make mistakes when implementing laws. But someone convicted under a bad law loses the opportunity to vote for someone that might work to fix it.

And even though America's prison population is huge, it is still only ~1% of the population of America, so prisoners on their own aren't a large enough block of voters (not that they'd all vote the same way anyway), to make a difference unless there was already a lot of support for a particular candidate/issue among the general population.

Re:Sounds like

[KingBenny]

yea but talk about lobbyright , man, its supposed to be a "correctional facility" not a dumpster, but there's no specific difference between dumpster facilities (like Gothams Arkham) or correctional facilities is there. If you treat everyone inthere the same, packes like animals then thats how they gonna come out. No one gets corrected by simply being in-prison ed

It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck it up, buttercup.

They shouldn't even be allowed to download music in the first place. Just a security breach waiting to happen. God knows with household names like JPay and Access Corrections, security is virtually assured /s

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[irving47]

So the lawful purchases they made should be taken away and then they should be charged again to keep it? That's not justice. That's right up there with the RIAA policy/opinion that if I have my house burglarized, I'm legally obligated to delete the legal MP3's I have in my itunes library just because the physical CD's were stolen.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

The punishment is their immobility, as well as the lifelong criminal record that permanently eliminates most of their job opportunities.

Torture, however, is not part of the punishment. Since we are keeping them prisoner, regardless of what they have done, it is on us to ensure that they are kept healthy, which includes mental health, which includes access to music.

While true, it isn't supposed to be a luxury resort, that is a clear fallacy of excluded middle. The goal isn't to make them suffer as much as we can get away with, that's petty and wrong.

How a society treats its criminals serves as a testament to how morally and culturally advanced that society is.

 

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it then? US prisons haven't made sense in ages.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[gweihir]

It just teaches these people that right or wrong does not matter, what matters is who has more power. The message does not get more problematic than this.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[kenh]

As a compromise, prison officials offered to download the already-purchased music to a CD, and then mail that CD to someone outside the prison. For a $25 fee.

Is Apple as accommodating when you chose to quit using iTunes?

Will your local cable company burn your 'legally purchased' movies to DVD when you switch to Sattelite TV?

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Since bought tracks on itunes dont have DRM, yes.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

It will teach them (a) prison sucks and (b) don't fuck with the man

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

As a compromise, prison officials offered to download the already-purchased music to a CD, and then mail that CD to someone outside the prison. For a $25 fee.

Is Apple as accommodating when you chose to quit using iTunes?

Will your local cable company burn your 'legally purchased' movies to DVD when you switch to Sattelite TV?

No but normally both of them would be shit out of luck trying to get my government to confiscate my Brand X tablet/smartphone/media-player and forcing me to buy their crap.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Junta]

Is the government going to forcibly make me give up my current cable company?

I understand the sentiment that this is prison and this is a 'first world' sort of prison problem, but it's part of a pattern of private sector exploitation of prisoners. Prisoners should not be seen as a profit engine. There's debate about reform versus punitive, but in either case I don't see it as a good thing for private corps to have financial incentive to wish for more prisoners.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Type44Q]

Anyone who needs to get incarcerated to figure that one out should probably get sterilized...

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had the misfortune of experiencing the system and left it a few years ago. Torture is an inevitable part of it. There is no way that I can communicate to you the damaging effects of years of isolation from society, from human contact, and from information. After about 3 years in prison, even if I could have gotten a decent job back after getting out, I could not have recovered from the effects of the isolation and constant threat of violence even though I managed to avoid being beat up at any point. The PTSD that resulted has lessened now, but will always be there.

Occupying a place in society requires skills that don't get practiced in prison. Some of them are even physical. It took years after getting out for my brain to readjust to being able to process the visual and auditory complexity of shopping in a WalMart without suffering a severe panic attack. Years of absolute uniformity in my environment had atrophied my brain's ability to process my environment. After four years, I have regained a functional level of processing, but it is far below the environmental awareness that I had before. I know that I am not as safe a driver and I still get a bit of brain fog due to overload when facing large crowds.

The system could work to minimize this, but they actually work to maximize it. No matter the feelings of those voting for the system, the people who actually choose to work in prisons are usually there with the belief that those in prison are worthless, should never get out, and that their families are better off if they cut all ties.

The result is that visitation has plummeted over the last few decades. Decades ago, people understood that prisoners needed community contact. In the case of the medium security facility I'm familiar with, vocation programs in prison actually went into communities and performed charity work. The prison ball teams often played on community leagues. When prisoners got out, they often had a place to go to. Today, the community interaction has been stopped and prisoners from that institution are often dropped off at the steps of the courthouse they were convicted at with a couple hundred dollars they managed to save while in prison working at less than $1 an hour and a single set of clothes on their backs.

On top of that, yeh, families routinely pay as much as $1 a minute to talk to their loved ones over the phone. The menus of the food in prison are never followed. If a recipe calls for 180 pounds of meat to make the volume required, the cook will typically be handed 50 pounds instead. The items in commissary are routinely over priced. A $0.10 pouch of Ramen noodles sells for $0.50 to inmates who make $25 / month as janitors. Guards will let people steal what little you've acquired if you ever complain. Book donations to the library by the public were stopped years ago. Medical care is often too risky to use. Teeth are routinely pulled instead of filled. Pulling teeth involves simply smashing the tooth with a hammer and chisel and pulling out the pieces. Tylenol is what you get for the pain afterwards. And on and on.

I could go on forever, but I doubt I could get anyone to understand who hasn't been through it. I am a lucky one who had a family that never abandoned me. I survive. I will never again be able to be the productive member of society I was, nobody will give me a chance to actually return to real engineering, even at the bottom, and even though I would gladly work for less than twice minimum wage. Liability insurance doesn't usually allow it. But, I at least survive.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[mi]

if I have my house burglarized

Burglarized by whom?..

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough tittie.
Prisoners have very few rights. Who pays for their hotel stay? Monetizing crime is another crime, very little goes back to crime victims.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, America - where torture is not having your own mp3 device.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that the system is rigged against them and that their illegal activities are justified as a means to "right" the wrongs done to them. No doubt prison shouldn't be a club med, but it does need to be a humane and fair environment lest those put into it come out the other end more hardened and adept in crime than when they went in.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Statistically speaking? Probably the police via civil forfeiture.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize it's JPay who is monetizing crime here, right?

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a transparent and deliberate misrepresentation of what the poster said.

You resort to irrational argument techniques when, and only when, you can't justify your position using simple and sound reasoning.

Simply by using such a technique, you have already admitted that you are wrong.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that, didn't get the brain fog though.

There's too many people in prison, and too many trying to make money off those inmates. At least you HAD details. Imagine being stuck in your dorm all day long because there's a position on a work detail (unpaid, mind you) for maybe one out of every ten inmates.

The guards where I spent three years were actually pretty good about stopping thievery. Too bad they were selling flip phones to the inmates, constantly. Then they'd get a $100 reward for finding one. They never knew exactly where the phones went after selling them, but they knew how many were in the camp. Catching them on inter-dorm transfers was their favorite hobby.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Type44Q]

Wow, this steaming pile of a sorry-ass attempt at shilling got modded up... I shouldn't be surprised when there're are millions at stake (i.e. millions to be easily stolen from those too helpless to do anything about it).

Do the world a favor and slit your wrists... the correct way, please.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

What they fail to mention is that prisoner employees get payed roughly $0.30/hour for their labor. So, getting that CD made is worth almost 100 labor-hours, whereas for the prison staff it's 1-2 labor-hours, that they spend 5 minutes or less doing. Welcome to the US "justice" system.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget, most of them are in prison for crimes white folk get a slap on the wrist for.

Prison is about teaching and keeping minorities in their place. Not justice, security or peace.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[sjames]

Tough tittie.

Then they get out, apply the lesson learned and say the same thing to you when they clean out your house. Sound good?

Who pays for their hotel stay?

The people who want them to stay there. You can always kick them out if you aren't satisfied with the arrangement.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[alvinrod]

Well since it's the department of corrections, these would all be state run (i.e., non-private) prisons. My guess is that the government gets a cut for all of these sales. They probably got a cut of the previous device and music sales as well, but now someone has offered them a better cut. It would appear that the linked news article bears this assumption out:

The Department of Corrections, meanwhile, has collected $1.4 million in commissions on each song downloaded and other related sales since July 2011.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

So the lawful purchases they made should be taken away and then they should be charged again to keep it?

Yes they forfeited all their rights when they committed a crime.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Junta]

The provider of the electronics/music is however a private corp.

It just shows that even state run prisons are subject to questionable initiatives by private corporations.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for taking the time to write this, and all the best to you. The US penal system is inhuman. One of my big worries in life is that a misstep, misjudgment, moment of anger, or wrong place at wrong time lands me in the justice system. The same concern for my child, her children, etc. The US justice/penal system and economic inequality make me think it's time to return to my country of origin. Most western industrialized countries are less cruel to their citizens who make a wrong turn.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

They invented prison in the 1960s to keep minorities in their place?

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[b0s0z0ku]

What about victimless crimes like drug use, where there is no victim.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a misrepresentation. They think prisons should be nicer. Reality is people should break less laws.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they didn't forfeit all their rights when they committed a crime. I'm absolutely not a leftist twit, but people like you make me realize why people hate my side sometimes. Try using your brain for once.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

kenh quoted TFS thusly:

As a compromise, prison officials offered to download the already-purchased music to a CD, and then mail that CD to someone outside the prison. For a $25 fee.

Then he reacted to it this way:

Is Apple as accommodating when you chose to quit using iTunes?

Will your local cable company burn your 'legally purchased' movies to DVD when you switch to Sattelite TV?

First, Apple is not a cable company. Likewise, cable TV companies, however much they might like to pretend otherwise, are not tech companies, and they are only now beginning to get into content streaming, as their customers become sophisticated enough to realize that "tiered" TV service bundles are simply a pretext to sell them channels they don't and won't watch in order to get the ones they want - and abandon en masse both cable and satellite TV subscriptions in favor of streaming services that actually understand their market. Nor do cable TV companies sell music subscriptions. Two very different business models, two entirely different kinds of product, which you have conflated here.

Having said that, I think it's fair to point out that switching away from Apple and iTunes doesn't mean you have to give up the music you purchased from it. In fact, Apple even offers a tutorial on how convert your iTunes library to MP3s. So, your attempt to further conflate Apple's business model with that of Jpay has no basis in fact. (Full disclosure here: I own an iPad 2 - which I use as an ereader when I'm on the toilet. Otherwise, I'm not at all an Apple customer, nor do I purchase any content whatever from iTunes.)

Your complaint about cable TV companies is, likewise, ungrounded in reality. You do not - indeed, you cannot - "purchase" movies from them. You can, however, opt to pay a premium to watch "pay-per-view" movies in the short time between their theatrical run and their release in DVD/Blueray/digital-download formats - and via HBO and other streaming services. The name of that service should be more than enough clue to the fact that customers who choose that option are not, in any legal sense, purchasing the movies they watch, but instead are merely paying for the privilege of watching them on those services. Give up the services, and you give up the privilege. Likewise, once you watch your pay-per-view movie, if you wish to watch it again, you have the choice of waiting until it's available on the premium channels (which, again, you are paying a monthly fee to watch) or DVD/etc. formats for you to purchase, or paying the pay-per-view fee a second time to do so. Regardless, as long as you're watching them courtesy of a cable/satellite subscription, at no time do you ever actually own them. Period.

Don't mistake this for a defense of Jpay's business model. s entirely based on sweetheart, monopoly deals with state prison systems to exploit a literally-captive audience that could hardly be more corrupt if they were openly run by the Mafia ...

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Uberbah]

Is Apple as accommodating when you chose to quit using iTunes? Will your local cable company burn your 'legally purchased' movies to DVD when you switch to Sattelite TV?

Whatever drugs you are taking to come up with those analogies, did you bring enough to share?

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

It's far worse than that.
All it takes is for one person to make a single false allegation against you and you can get stuck in the system for a *long* time.
The average stay in some county jails pending trial is 6-12 months. All it takes is for a big enough liar to get big enough charges levied against you such that you stand no chance of making bail.
Job-gone.
Benefits-gone.
Retirement-gone.
Home-gone (unless you have no mortgage, or deep, deep savings)
Friends-gone, because you will not be able to have any private conversation with visitors to explain your side of what happened--thus they will read only the liar's allegations in the news from the police reports (which come straight from the accuser or detective's *guesses* based on preliminary info which all comes from the accuser)

Then, if you're *very* lucky, the prosecution will not be corrupt or motivated by number of convictions and will look for the truth in your case and actually drop charges. Hahaha. But this is 'merica now. *Even if your accuser recants and admits that they lied and that you are innocent*, once you are in the system the best you can hope for now is a plea deal that merely offers accepting a conviction on reduced charges (regardless of the truth of the accusations), which avoids you facing a jury of biased dumb asses determining your entire life's fate, but also yields you with a record, probation, huge fines, reduced freedoms and citizenship rights (possibly for life), and exactly zero possible recourse to redress the injustice by suing for wrongful incarceration or suing the accuser for bearing false witness and defamation, and the huge monetary loss. Good luck finding housing and employment from now on. You probably just went from comfortable middle class to hand-to-mouth barely-above-homeless.

These "lucky" good results are only possible to occur if you can afford a good private attorney that will cost you $30-100k. Public defender? You're going to prison regardless of innocence. They don't have time to actually gather real, compelling evidence to exonerate you. They may find a character witness or two to put in a good word, and argue logically against the material evidence demonstrating reasonable doubt, but juries are not rational executive board members. They are dumb asses that merely registered to vote or managed to get a driver license, and could care less about you. The jury has all seen enough NCIS and Matlock to expect either some piece of evidence that 100% completely proves your innocence, or else they deem you guilty.

Speedy trial? That's a joke. You *have* to waive your right to a speedy trial. Why? Because if you don't you'll go to trial before your defense has even been able to complete discovery to have any evidence to defend you with--and you are guaranteed to lose and be convicted. The prosecution is always super slow to provide their evidence. So you waive it, and then every single little court date for every little bureaucratic fart puts you waiting for the next court date which is always at least another 4 weeks away.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on where you are, discovery can't begin until you've been formally indicted. So the prosecution will wait until X-1 months to schedule arraignment, where X is the number of months they can wait until they no longer legally have the right to prosecute you for the alleged infraction.

Then the trial date is set one month after the arraignment.

You get maybe one month to complete discovery and build a case, and it's probably been almost 2 years since the crime occurred.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

They will also play charges like poker chips. They will withhold a few charges and dare you to post bail. Upon which they will simply levy another one from their back pocket, forfeiting your bail (absconding with it) and putting you back under lock and key--all without a conviction yet. If you had used a bond to get out, now you're out 110% of the bail amount (assuming a 10% bond--which is the minimum allowed in many jurisdictions).

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

It just teaches these people that right or wrong does not matter, what matters is who has more power. The message does not get more problematic than this.

Sometimes the truth hurts

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be less laws to break and those at the top of the ladder should face the steepest penalties.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

nobody will give me a chance to actually return to real engineering, even at the bottom, and even though I would gladly work for less than twice minimum wage.

You shouldn't sell yourself short. There is perhaps one advantage you have that others do not. The opportunity cost of becoming an entrepreneur is much lower for you than it is for other people because the value of your next best alternative is much lower than it is for others with similar skills. This means that starting a company holds out the same potential rewards to you as anyone else but with lower cost of failure. Have you considered starting your own company? If you know how to code, it's one of the few businesses that you can start with almost no upfront costs other than your time and effort. Moreover, computers have no emotions and do not judge. What matters in coding is your ability and results. Finally, prison taught you how to live cheaply and survive by your wits, right? So what do you have to lose? It's what I would do if I were in your shoes.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably just went from comfortable middle class to hand-to-mouth barely-above-homeless.

You don't even need to do time for that to happen in America today. The middle class is shrinking every year now. In another few decades a few thousand families will have 99% of the wealth in this country and the rest of us will be little more than modern day serfs.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some criminals ('hardened' criminals) that will never choose to live a straight life and will always commit crimes. Some are even naturally violent and won't change, either. Some of these are just born broken, some of them are irrevocably damaged and can't be fixed. But many (I won't say 'most' because I have no statistics to back anything up) can change, can live a lawful, productive life, if you give them the opportunity. Hanging a lodestone around their necks for life (or, if that metaphor doesn't scan for you, how about this: marking them for life, like a tattoo, that they can never erase) is not an incentive to change the way someone lives their life, it's continuing to punish them for things they ostensibly have paid the price for by serving time in prison. Similarly, treating felons like less than human the entire time they're in prison isn't helping them reform or giving them incentive to reform, all it's doing is damaging them, making it harder for them to change anything about themselves. Seriously, if we were just going to pound on felons continually until they die, then we should dispense with prisons entirely except for the most minor offenses, and just execute felons immediately, putting them out of their misery, and saving ourselves the taxpayer money to contain them. Of course that would mean our entire legal system is invalidated, because some wrongly convicted people would die, which is why we have to have prisons -- therefore prison reform is ESSENTIAL; felons need to be treated like human beings, not a receptacle for all the worst tendencies that humans have, which is what happens to them now. No more 'prisons for profit', no more cruel and unusual treatment by guards and staff, and find new, more effective ways to encourage them and help them to change who they are and what they're about so recitivism is no longer a problem.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not doubt for a moment your story, and I'll have you know that the facts you've presented here make me sick to my stomach. Shit needs to change. Our entire species needs to evolve past treating our own like this, crime or no crime. Best of luck to you.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they can't really keep it. They can send it home, but it is useless to them there. Nothing from home can be sent into the prison. The only good it does is to allow the family to keep some of the benefit.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

The saying that puts it in a few words is "You're here _as_ punishment, not _for_ punishment".

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

State run prisons are big business. The kickbacks to prison officials from private companies that provide services like these can be huge. Check into the history of Aramark and the prisons if you want to get some real insight. They have been known to make over 50% profit on contracts that pay only a little more than $1 per meal. You can imagine the garbage served (literally in some cases).

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, America, where people look at a prison system which acts like this
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article102773597.html
and pretend it's about mp3 players.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

For 20 years of my career, I signed a time card every week that had a note at the bottom warning that a mischarge of more than 10 minutes was punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Since intent doesn't matter in any criminal law anymore, that mischarge could be an accident.

In West Virginia, the date rape drug law states that someone cannot give lawful consent for sex if you have given them an "intoxicating substance" and does not define intoxicating substance. I know of a man that was convicted and given 17 years for having bought drinks for a woman and taken her home. She never complained and had enjoyed the evening. The guy though was from the wrong side of the tracks. Her Dad was a local surgeon and found out. He approached the prosecutor who was a good friend and demanded charges. When this man was approached by officers in his driveway, they asked if he had bought drinks for the woman, then they asked if he had had sex with her afterwards. Not knowing that anything was wrong, he said yes on both accounts. That was all that was needed for conviction. No witness needed to testify. The victim did not have to file a complaint. The jury was instructed by the judge that if they believed the man had purchased the drinks and that the woman was intoxicated (above 0.08) at the time of the sex, they must convict.

Given the complex and comprehensive nature of today's laws, it is doubtful that anyone over 20ish has not committed a felony in their lives.

All it takes is for some prosecutor to decide you need to be put away. They will always be able to find something, especially if you don't have ample money to defend yourself.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this was an isolated incident.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article27738046.html

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

I know right they deserve to be raped and boiled alive duh.

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-wont-charge-prison-guards-who-boiled-schizophrenic-black-man-darren-rainey-to-death-9213190

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Not an uncommon attitude.

If you're OK with prisons being run like this
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-florida-prison-deaths-probe-request-20151016-story.html
we will not be friends.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the families that take it in the neck. The "la mordida" in the prison system grabs money that loved ones send in.

FL prison jobs pay at most 32 cents per hour, at worst nothing. Inmates don't make enough to rip off profitably. The system has to line its pockets with what goes into the inmate's account from their family. It's their relatives who are getting ripped off.

Whatever anyone's position about how punitive to get, there's no excuse for punishing the people who didn't commit a crime.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[gweihir]

You just stated that the US is a failed state. Are you sure that is what you want to say?

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Correctamundo.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

It is quite likely that the 'system' is what caused those people to see a world consisting of two sides and made them feel that they would always be on a particular side.

Society lets some of it's members down badly by letting them grow up in an environment which lets them go the wrong way. If they are identified early on doing something stupid, they should be guided to a better way, given better role models and a place they can feel they belong. Give people a sense of personal dignity and the knowledge that others respect them, then they will maybe not want to risk losing that respect.

I believe there are too many divisions and exclusions, too many ways for people to feel like outsiders or less valued members of the world they live in. This is not a failing of the individual, it is a failing of the community.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Keeping minorities in place was invented in the 60s?

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

He's been drinking the brainstem juice of imprisoned immigrant kids.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

And the RIAA is wrong!

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

You're welcome.

There are things I wish I could say about what put me in prison, but can't. Naming or even describing the acts of some monsters is a dangerous thing.

It was interesting to me to recognize that some of the mantras I'd learned in school had some pretty bad flip sides. I do believe I would have rather been in a guilty until proven innocent system. In those systems, the judges and police are more likely to perform a full investigation instead of simply putting together and finding "evidence" to support a conviction story. They are more interested in truth. In ours, they would not help at all in obtaining evidence to prove innocence and, in fact, denied others the right to investigate innocence. Our innocent until proven guilty mantra sounds good, but its reality has some flaws.

If I could leave the country legally and without having to leave family, I would. I'd probably choose some place like Costa Rica where I could retire in comfort on money that just barely lets me survive here. Family is everything though.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

I have tried and may yet succeed. Though I have done both hardware and software in my time, software is where my real talents were.

Sadly, one of the things I was robbed of is the ability to concentrate for long periods of time.

I had hoped to get a job at the bottom on a team that could help me stay focused until I could regain confidence and absorb changes in tools. But I found that insurance restrictions made that impossible.

I tried to do things on my own, but the concentration issues kept me from succeeding with any of my big ideas and small jobs compete with third world countries in this changed environment.

I hope to try again soon. I can easily handle the full stack from a knowledge point of view. If I can regain enough focus, I can succeed.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

On that basis a $1.70 MP3 is worth over 5 hours of labour. On the outside, minimum wage, that would mean an MP3 cost about $40. This assumes that prisoners do not have access gifts from family to purchase them.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Schugy]

Your story reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Maybe you can find a job or a few months of occupation outside the US (Canada, Australia, EU). Good luck to you and your family.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

1860s actually, with regards to how american prisons operate

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Highdude702]

WHAT??!?! I thought you knew the Offender is the Victim in drug crime! So we have to lock them up doubly long!!

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Highdude702]

Oh look our tolerant liberal cunt is here being a cunt. I hope your house gets broken into and you get raped in front of your family.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment highlights why rigged democracy is the most successful form of authoritarian dictatorship.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

The punishment is their immobility, as well as the lifelong criminal record that permanently eliminates most of their job opportunities.

Torture, however, is not part of the punishment.

And here I thought to have finally found a market for Microsoft Zune.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Statistically? Like you have data on that? Wait no donâ(TM)t. Cute.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[bugs2squash]

Well they were ripped off for an hour of work for 32c.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Die in a fire you fascist shitbird.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[ebvwfbw]

Let's see, Bought star wars on VHS. Then Laser disk. Then they had an anniversary edition, then the one of DVD and now I can buy it again via netflix or something. Then we had casettes, MP3 players, CDs, etc.

For the prisoners, I'm surprised they get anything. Especially a tablet. Maybe we don't have to worry about prisoners with tablets? What could go wrong? Sounds like a really bad idea to me. They can break the glass, etc. Unless maybe they have a tablet designed for a pre-schooler or something that you can't break (somehow).

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything you say... True.. Same boat here. Society in general is bitter, trite, hateful and fully prejudiced against any formerly incarcerated felon; and society actually enjoys it.

How I lived in there, it messed me up more than I was to begin with. Then it's back out into society. Everything is different, difficult, and discouraging. All I want to do is live humbly and give back as best I can.

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[houghi]

Is the government going to forcibly make me give up my current cable company?

Well, sort of. How many others are there for you to select from?

Re: It's prison, not a spa

[stealth_finger]

As a compromise, prison officials offered to download the already-purchased music to a CD, and then mail that CD to someone outside the prison. For a $25 fee.

Is Apple as accommodating when you chose to quit using iTunes?

Will your local cable company burn your 'legally purchased' movies to DVD when you switch to Sattelite TV?

Will either of those forcibly stop their service to sign you up to a new you that you have to pay for all over again?

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[Anonymous Coward]

I know exactly what you mean.
If I had been capable of posting bail, I would have been able to go out and gather the evidence needed to exonerate myself rather quickly, and likely gotten my entire case thrown out.
Instead, trapped inside along with other people pending trial and others actually convicted and serving sentences--all with the same "rights" refused regardless, I was completely helpless to do anything to help my lawyers defend my case. No matter that they were private and paid well for their work, no one is more motivated to gather and analyze evidence on your own behalf than yourself--which you cannot do inside.
IMO, the concept of bail is itself a form of obstruction of justice.

How many movies and shows have they made over the years of a person on the run collecting the evidence to clear their name? We *know* that if they were caught and arrested no one would be motivated or willing to do the same for them and they would be wrongly convicted and lose everything. Those plots are absolutely true to life still today in our present system.

Re:It's prison, not a spa

[lucien86]

You don't even need to do time for that to happen in America today. The middle class is shrinking every year now. In another few decades a few thousand families will have 99% of the wealth in this country and the rest of us will be little more than modern day serfs.

But that's what the people voted for.

Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it that being incarcerated time and again turns out to make you a legal target for scamming?

This is stupid on so many levels. The simplest of which is that if you want to correct inmates' behaviour, it does make a difference what sort of example you're setting. Or hire others to set.

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

People want revenge. They want to see the inmates suffer. It is petty and wrong, and speaks worlds about the kind of people we are.

But that inclination is what allows this sort of thing to happen.

Re:Nice scam, again

[DNS-and-BIND]

You mean we're horrible people, like Senator John McCain who voted for the Iraq War? How many Iraqis suffered? Did they ever find any WMD in Iraq? Spoiler alert: they didn't.

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraqis are horrible too. Possibly more horrible than Americans.

Re: Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially, the ones horribly disfigured by random US bombings.

Re:Nice scam, again

[SuricouRaven]

Americans are horrible. Iraqis are horrible. Prisoners are horrible. The public are horrible. Because at the end, *people* are horrible. It's their instinctual nature: Care for your family, care for your friends, and everyone else is either an enemy or doesn't exist. Everything we have built and call society over ten thousand years of civilisation is devoted to managing this fundamental problem.

Re:Nice scam, again

[kevmeister]

And how many say and believe that they are "good Christians" who never seem to have gottn the whole point of what Christ taught. Among other things you will find Romans 12:19 "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." (It's also in Deuteronomy for the Old testament followers. I suspect Paul found it there and repeated it.)

Re:Nice scam, again

[dryeo]

Wasn't it Gandhi who said something like "I like your Christ but not his followers"

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean we're horrible people, like Senator John McCain who voted for the Iraq War? How many Iraqis suffered? Did they ever find any WMD in Iraq? Spoiler alert: they didn't.

yes WE DID.

chemical mines are WMD.

Re:Nice scam, again

[rtb61]

Nope, the majority of people have just made one particular mistake, they let psychopaths run everything. The discussion leans heavily one way and yet the actions are opposite. Why, because we let psychopaths run the system and they do not give one fuck about what they are doing beyond it enriching and empowering them, the harm they cause, completely indifferent to it, beyond getting a perverse kick from the suffering they are causing.

It is just a minority, that a really horrible, 1% of the general population, 15% of the prison population and 50% of violent crimes. That 1% numbers comes up fro another reason, oh yeah, we are letting the insane run what they have turned society into, an insane asylum.

Simply test for psychopathy early and exclude them from positions where they 'WILL' cause harm.

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

Some countries are more horrible than others. Some people are more horrible than others.

Re:Nice scam, again

[DNS-and-BIND]

How is it that people who aren't Christians think they get to tell Christians - people they hate - how to behave? Do misogynists get to tell feminists how to behave?

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem pretty down on humanity. Don't be. I choose to look at the good sides of avarice. Avarice is what has allowed humans to evolve from the bacteria. Without avarice, there is no evolution. We would just be one loving happy puddle of pond scum that gets eaten by some less benevolent organism that is more in touch with avarice.

Animals need two things: Love and Hate. In the modern world we all bemoan the fact that there are people that hate. Well those people who hate are a natural and necessary part of evolution. Within the tribe there is love. Outside of your tribe there is hate. This is how it has to be. Because we hate those outside out tribe, we work together within our tribe to be better, achieve more, and outcompete the other tribe.

Avarice becomes toxic when it is directed within our own tribe. (which is why the USA and Western civilization is so messed up). Don't hate those people in your country that do not believe as you do. Hate those outside your country no matter what they believe.

Love and hate are two aspects of humanity that have always existed and always will. If you just want to love everything you will die. There are bacteria right now trying to kill you, but your immune system is waging a hateful genocidal war against bacteria so that you may live and spread love within your tribe.

Don't hate those who hate. Understand darkness just like light is necessary.

Re:Nice scam, again

[kevmeister]

Why would my post lead you to believe that I am not a Christian? I am simply disgusted by the behavior of the many who make that claim, usually loudly and belligerently, but ignore what Christ taught.

Re:Nice scam, again

[Dasher42]

I completely agree with the above statement. Psychopathy, narcissism, and machiavellianism comprise a "dark triad" of personality disorders in the DSM, and the callous lack of empathy they engender, the shameless harm done to others, is frightful. The problem is that these people tend to be compulsive social climbers, and will claw their way to the top and then try to remake society in their image. And they have. Thing is, they are a minority, and we have the science to keep extremely toxic people from responsibilities they shouldn't be trusted with. We should use it.

Re:Nice scam, again

[Arzaboa]

Why would you think that just because someone isn't a Christian, that they hate Christians?

And on why its good to hear others opinions, many times its hard to tell whats going on in one's own fishbowl until someone from the outside points it out. This is something called perspective, and every human on the planet needs a dose of it now and then, regardless of their faith.

--
"Speech may be free, but terrible ideas are a dime a dozen"

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

By your theory the Jews should have hated America, Britain, and Russia more than the Germans actively conducting their genocide during World War II. Hating everyone outside your country is twisted bullshit. We have the NFL, NBA, MLB and the big fight over whether whats-her-name should be screwing the werewolf or the vampire to vent our spleens without making the world worse for other innocent people.

Re:Nice scam, again

[Anonymous Coward]

As an atheist. I would say I don't hate Christians. I do hate religions in general (some more than others) for the bullshit they promote, but I don't in general hate the people that follow them, as most people are decent people regardless of their beliefs.

I also would not tell Christians how they should behave. How they behave is their choice. But I may on occasion point out their hypocrisy, like not behaving in accordance to the guidance set out by their messiah, or acts of cherry-picking in what they choose to believe.

Christians and Christianity I am more happy to comment on over other religions as I was brought up going to Church and live in a Christian dominated culture, therefore I know it better, and it affects me more. I am entitled to my opinions on these things, and if anybody chooses to heed what I say, that is their choice.

On further consideration of the comment I am replying to, I would also like to turn the question around and ask: Why do so many Christians think they get to tell non-believers how to behave?

maybe it's better to just give them HBO on the tv

[Joe_Dragon]

maybe it's better to just give them HBO on the tv system and no mp3

Can't do the time don't do the crime

[Anonymous Coward]

So maybe don't do shit that gets you put in jail and you won't have to deal with this?

DRM being used as a punishment.

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA execs must be masturbating to this

If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[rsilvergun]

it's that nobody cares. For one thing politicians are terrified being soft on them will backfire ever since Willie Horton. And to be blunt "tough on crime" plays very well with the dog whistle crowd while disproportionately impacting the poor. As an added bonus incarcerating all those people takes them out of the voter poll (usually permanently, since most states make it really hard to get your rights back). That puts a lot of political pressure on politicians to come down like a ton of bricks.

Me? It's 2018 for God's sake. There is no excuse for punishment anymore. We're adults. Either rehabilitate the person or keep them locked up and in reasonable comfort until they die. Vengeance has no place in a modern society, if for no other reason than it will eventually be turned on us all.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[gweihir]

Well said. Unfortunately a lot of people are not even a bit enlightened and are deeply stuck in the dark ages of violence.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

* punches gweihir with a flashlight *

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Falos]

We pretend to be a modern society, but we hardly have an enlightened population. Most of us are still shallow puppets easily manipulated by our primal urges.

Ask any marketing group. Ask the music industry about their focus on "image". Consider the other fears/desires exploited in political campaigns. Consider the long-standing patterns (and the narrower short-term trends) you can observe in our countless hookup apps, without even being on the other side of the server. Consider that, not long ago, capital punishment was an entertainment industry. Hell yes I want to distinguish my virtue by constructing a villain for me to project against. Doubly so because I'm in a tribal huddle of like-me's. Similar mentality helps drive war, and to a more civil degree, community-based sports.

I agree with you on what should be, but I'll be playing the edgy "everyone is stupid" with respect to the status quo.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Antique Geekmeister]

> There is no excuse for punishment anymore.

I'm afraid there is an enormous number of excuses for punishment. There are also some psychologically and legally supported reasons for it. The fear of consequences is a very real deterrent to many types of crime and abuse, even though it is not completely effective.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Forced incarceration is punishment. Depriving the right after release to vote or own a gun is punishment. It speaks very poorly of people that they see it as no real punishment to deprive a person their liberty of movement, right to vote, or right to own a gun. They feel the need to do more.

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

I woulda used a fleshlight

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

umm why should felon's (people who destroy society) be able to say have a say in society through voting????

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

You do the time and pay for your crimes why shouldnâ(TM)t you be able to come back into society?

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Solve orison over crowding and recidivism by having the violent criminals fight to the death at regularly scheduled intervals, Hunger games style and televising it. Make baseball cards out of it.

People need to learn that smoking a joint carries the same prison penalty as assault, grand theft auto, etc. It's mostly black people in jail anyway, Statistically speaking so it doesn't affect most of us. Quit complaining about wussy criminals and vote to make America great again!

#MAGA

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Ichijo]

Isn't being locked up until you're cured deterrent enough?

In fact, isn't it more of a deterrent than being released when your time is up even if you haven't reformed?

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[epine]

The fear of consequences is a very real deterrent to many types of crime and abuse, ...

How do you prove that?

Do we still have one foot firmly planted in the (inaptly named) wives' tale era? Or is this merely a handy tautology from the "starvation leads to reliable weight loss" school of inapplicable insight?

I agree that most people don't wish to have an orange jumpsuit in their employment history. Beyond that, the dose-response relationship to incarceration is anyone's guess. Sure, you can produce a short-term ripple in the crime rate with an aggressive tough-on-crime throw-away-the-key campaign. But whether this budges the long term equilibrium—in a good way—also remains open to debate.

Robert Sapolsky's book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (for my money, easily the best science book of 2017) argues layer after layer after layer that humanity has systematically overvalued the punitive signal for behaviour modification since more or less the beginning of time. (Cutting off hands, however, has effects that extend well beyond mere behaviour modification, so our primal desire to disfigure and dismember has a incontestable survival foundation.)

My present calibration on this issue is that about 80% of our punitive desire (in the realm of behavioural deterrents) is rooted in the fact that it simply feels good to be a self-righteous asshole. The wheel of fortune spun, and pointed to some other scalawag; make hay while the sun shines (if circumstance were reversed, he or she would likely do the same to you).

Gradually, modern societies have discovered that precipitous, preemptive reciprocation generally produces more harm than good. (Whenever the needle hangs in the balance, assholes rule the earth. Writ large, this reflexive "make accusatory hay while the sun shines" policy is tantamount to an asshole breeding ground.)

One of the cognitive biases lately much in the news is our tendency to presume that our present circumstance derives more from good management than blind luck (thus the fortunate have always claimed). The recent gist is that having a fully developed capacity for good management (and hard work) already depends on considerable life fortune.

The fear of consequences is a very real deterrent to many types of crime and abuse, ...

Perhaps one can also observe that this kind of trite, timeless, baby-kissing adage is a very real deterrent to the hard thinking these difficult problems properly deserve, with all the modern tools of the 21st century now in hand.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Raenex]

And to be blunt "tough on crime" plays very well with the dog whistle crowd while disproportionately impacting the poor.

If you've ever been mugged or had your residence broken into you might feel differently, regardless of your income.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[whoever57]

Me? It's 2018 for God's sake. There is no excuse for punishment anymore. We're adults.

It's the new/old plan. Some people want to take the USA back to the days before 1863, but with some improvements. Here is the gameplan:
1. Pass laws to make several harmless activities illegal.
2. Incarcerate people under the above laws (bonus if the implementation of those laws tends to disproportionately incarcerate darker-skinned people)
3. Obtain the benefits of slavery of the incarcerated people.
4. Get the middle class to pay for the housing costs that in pre-1863 days the slave owner would have to pay.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Uberbah]

umm why should felon's (people who destroy society) be able to say have a say in society through voting????

No taxation without representation, along with plenty of other reasons. Or states being happy to count ex-cons when it comes to the census and having the number of congressional seats allocated, same as when slaves couldn't vote but counted as 3/5 of a person for congress.

So you can fuck off right there. Besides, what the hell do you think ex-cons are going to do - get a supervillian elected as president?

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations. As a result of your no punishment stand you get to provide room and board for a convicted felon. He will be arriving tomorrow night sometime. Probably during an episode of The Purge.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[msauve]

"No taxation without representation"

There's lots of that. I can vote where my residence is, but own some land elsewhere where we plan to eventually build and retire. I can't vote there, yet have to pay taxes.

I'm not saying I should be able to vote in "overlapping" areas (e.g. federal or state), but I should certainly be able to vote on local municipal stuff, including property millages, where I'm paying tax without representation or vote.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[HiThere]

It's not clear that "rehabilitation" is possible. I don't think it's ever really been studied.

OTOH, it's also not clear that if people have a chance, rehabilitation is necessary. Most people really don't want to be outcasts. Some people just don't see that they have any choice in the matter. Often their perceptions seem to be correct.

OTOH, when hiring someone for a position of trust, I'd almost always prefer people who didn't have a valid reason to not trust them.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Me? It's 2018 for God's sake. There is no excuse for punishment anymore. We're adults.

It's the new/old plan. Some people want to take the USA back to the days before 1863, but with some improvements. Here is the gameplan:
1. Pass laws to make several harmless activities illegal.
2. Incarcerate people under the above laws (bonus if the implementation of those laws tends to disproportionately incarcerate darker-skinned people)
3. Obtain the benefits of slavery of the incarcerated people.
4. Get the middle class to pay for the housing costs that in pre-1863 days the slave owner would have to pay.

Those are all false equivalencies.. This is pure, unchecked GREED and extortion. Find it pretty funny people in this thread think it's somehow our fault / we wanted it. Bullshit. What you want your Government to do is irrelevant, you need only look at pot laws, DMCA, "anti-terrorism", etc. for examples. Governments operate above us and have for decades.

Understand that in any authoritarian system, control is paramount, whereever and however you can obtain it. It's like the highschool bully who doesn't want your lunch because he's hungry, he wants it because you have it and he doesn't. Much of the legal system operates under the same sadistic morals. They are designed to either make you go crazy or die in the process. You exist because they let you exist, and to the extent they permit you to. Your entire life is controlled from the time you wake up, to when you sleep and how you shit.

We call them micromanagers in the corporate world, some of them actually believe they have the same control over people as prison guards.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you are ignorant of such studies doesn't mean they don't exist. In fact, it is one of the most studied subjects in sociology and criminology. In fact, many countries (see, e.g., all of Scandinavia) have implemented quite effective and humane rehabilitative prison systems based on these studies.

In the U.S., such studies are ignored because DAships and judgeships, nit to mention higher offices, tend to be elected positions, and advocating being "easy on crime" is a one-way ticket to irrelevance among our poorly-informed electorate.

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[grif_91]

Like several people posting in this thread, I have served time in prison (four years). I can tell you that in a perfect world, where people who are rehabilitated and ready for society are released promptly, that makes some amount of sense. But you may or may not be aware, we do not live in a perfect world. A good anecdotal response is this. During my tenure as a guest of the state, I met a man in his mid to late 50s or so, who I have no doubt was rehabilitated and not a danger to society. He was serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for first degree murder. He had been in prison since he was 20 years old. During his time in prison, he had gotten his GED, volunteered extensively with the prisonâ(TM)s chapel, learned Spanish for the sole purpose of teaching English to Spanish speakers in the prisonâ(TM)s education program, tutored GED students (as did I), written a series of childrenâ(TM)s books (being sold on Amazon now), and has taken every possible college course offered through the prisonâ(TM)s partnership with a local community college. Iâ(TM)ve never heard him utter a cross word to anyone, and he has never had any disciplinary actions against him since his incarceration. The parole board has denied him parole 3 times, stating he is not yet rehabilitated. The way the board works, they donâ(TM)t have to provide justification, they just deny. And do you know what he murdered another man for? That man raped his little sister. The American populous needs to realize that the justice system in this country often does not provide justice, and in a country that has 4% of the worlds population, and 25% of its incarcerated population, everyone is affected in some way, or they soon will be.

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Ichijo]

Prisons have no incentive to rehabilitate and release, only to keep people locked up and collect the rent.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? So you are saying there are not countries out there that are shutting down the prisons due demand dwindling? But I concede, in our great 'Murican society it is impossible for rehabilitation to work when we are all so apathetic.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Uberbah]

If you've ever been mugged or had your residence broken into you might feel differently, regardless of your income.

You mean you're willing to judge a whole race by the actions of a single person committing a B&E? How very non-tiki-torch burning of you.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you read a peer reviewed scientific paper that shows fear of consequences is a deterrent? No, you just made that up.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[CaffeinatedBacon]

They presumably let you vote. So how much worse could it be?

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

> And do you know what he murdered another man for?

Weirdly, I could have guessed. He took an action of personal venegance, which is an affront to the monopoly on state violence offered by the state.

The problem here is not the existence of prison, but quite possibly that parole and release should also be decided (more efficiently) by a jury of peers or the like, not professional (which means corrupt and self-serving) bureacracy.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Raenex]

You mean you're willing to judge a whole race by the actions of a single person committing a B&E? How very non-tiki-torch burning of you.

You mean you're willing to make everything about race, when I was talking about criminals? Do you think only blacks are criminals? Why are you so racist? I guess that explains why you see racism everywhere.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

> How do you prove that?

Why would you? It's what we currently have, it takes effort to change it, and there is a risk that changes could make it worse.

Perhaps you could substantiate a specific alternative before mouthing off.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws protect property, People are on their own.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Antique Geekmeister]

> argues layer after layer after layer that humanity has systematically overvalued the punitive signal for behaviour modification

There is a significant behavior between this and idea that punishment does not work. That punishment can be, and has been, overused in some circumstances is not in question. There are numerous papers, such as this one from the American Psychiatric Association, http://www.apa.org/news/press/.... There is also this publication from the National Institute of Justice on the effectiveness of punishment as deterrence, https://nij.gov/five-things/pa... .

If I might say, the NIJ publication is particularly interesting. It points out that the severity of sentencing does little to deter crime, but the _certainty_ of sentencing does.

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Antique Geekmeister]

Certainly, rehabilitation is not their _only_ mandate. But they are certainly judged and fiscally rewarded for it. And prison staff often, even normally, develop some emotional relationships with their inmates. It can be abusive, but these relationships can also be therapeutic, even becoming a sense of community or a sense of family.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[HiThere]

There have been lots of studies of rehabilitation, but this is different from showing that rehabilitation works. Often what they show instead is either that some particular form of rehabilitation does/does not work in some particular context...without showing that if the context had originally been present the need would not have appeared.

It also appears to be true that just as some people are unable to sense others emotions easily, other people are unable to see any reason not to take advantage of them. The first we call a medical conditions, the second we don't recognize...but it should properly also be considered a medical condition. Sociopath doesn't quite fit what I'm describing, though it would be a subset of it.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[mvdwege]

If you don't want to be called racist, not barking when you hear a dog whistle helps.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Raenex]

Are you racist too? Do you think only blacks are criminals? Is that why you always hear dog whistles?

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Uberbah]

One person, one vote. Keeping track of voting in multiple districts would be a hot mess, and if you have enough money to have more than one property, you probably have enough money to make political donations. And politicians pay the most attention to donations, not votes.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[mvdwege]

And yep. Playing the "You are the real racists" card. That is exactly the kind of projection that gives you away.

Give it up, old chap. No-one believes you.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Raenex]

Why don't you answer the question? Do you think only blacks are criminals? Is that why you always hear dog whistles?

You won't answer because you know, deep down, you're a racist. Those who accuse the most turn out to be the real offenders.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[TheCastro1689]

You also aren't counted there in the census.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[mvdwege]

When did you stop beating your wife?

I don't answer questions that are not asked in good faith. Now go fuck off, you little bigoted twerp.

Re:If it's one thing I've learned about prisoners

[Raenex]

Funny, you run around calling everybody racist based on "dog whistles", but you won't answer questions that portray your racist assumptions.

for profit prisons

[Anonymous Coward]

scams on scams on scams.

Someone has to love it.

Trump will be there soon enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

No illegal Elton John in Federal prison, sorry Trump traitors!

Re:Trump will be there soon enough.

[msmash (Ultra Mod)]

Agree, I couldn't agree more. Also:

The Department of Corrections, meanwhile, has collected $1.4 million in commissions on each song downloaded and other related sales since July 2011.

Me and EditorDavid out drinking last night, $1.4 million commissions on each song a lot of money, HA HA!

Re:Trump will be there soon enough.

[msmash (Ultra Mod)]

Also:

I tip my "hat" to Donald TRUMP, only *he* will able to afford music when he is in "CLUB" Fed, HA HA!

Re: Trump will be there soon enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful, your bias is showing.

Re: Trump will be there soon enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be shit hot music!

Captive market

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the music scam industry's wet dream!

Throw the RIAA down the well

[Anonymous Coward]

so our music can be free

Re:Throw the RIAA down the well

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Jews that run it!

Just because you are in prison...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you are in prison does not mean your technology purchases should be any more fortified against obsolescence than those of us on the outside.

Re:Just because you are in prison...

[Calydor]

Obsolescence?

The MP3 players are effectively being taken away from the inmates at gunpoint; this isn't about your Zune's battery dying and no new Zunes being available to purchase nor the Zune Store (or whatever it was called) being around anymore.

It's theft.

bigger question: is Elon Musk a closeted brony?

[Anonymous Coward]

dude takes one rip off a blunt, and starts fantasizing about being a fucking horse!

Re:bigger question: is Elon Musk a closeted brony?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a closeted neo-fascist horse fucker. He just smart enough not to rant about the jews on social media, but not smart enough to get off of social media completely. Probably jerks it to MLP porn in his spare time. I'll bet he's made Grimes dress up as Rainbow Dash a few times.

When you steal money from inmates

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It's theft too. I hope the bastards get sued.

Re:When you steal money from inmates

[jeti]

If you take something with force or the threat of force, isn't it robbery?

Re:When you steal money from inmates

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, in the united states, when it's done with militarized force, it's called treason.

Re:When you steal money from inmates

[Anonymous Coward]

In most states thats robbery by force or fear. Same law, same punishment, different wording.

Re:maybe it's better to just give them HBO on the

[Anonymous Coward]

Ain't no blacks on the TV screen anyway except for HBO HBO-oh!

prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[p51d007]

Screw that! It's not a college dorm room. It's a prison! "Oh, but their rights"...screw that too! Make prisons a place YOU DO NOT want to be, more like the 60's movie "Cool Hand Luke" and maybe they will think twice about breaking the law!

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

why think about breaking the law when those in power break the law too? this is theft plain and simple, just because they are in a prison doesn't mean that something lawfully purchased for use should be taken from them. eventually the devices will break and go their own way.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just torture one random inmate a week.

Stop using the toilet. Go poop in the corner like a beast.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

You should go to prison for your opinions.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just torture one random inmate a week.

Stop using the toilet. Go poop in the corner like a beast.

that is already happening.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[quantaman]

Screw that! It's not a college dorm room. It's a prison!
"Oh, but their rights"...screw that too! Make prisons a place YOU DO NOT want to be,
more like the 60's movie "Cool Hand Luke" and maybe they will think twice about breaking
the law!

Do you want them to re-offend when they get out or become productive law-abiding citizens? Then treat them fairly, harshly if need be, but fairly. That teaches them that being a productive member of a functioning society pays off.

But being arbitrary and capricious just tells them that the rules don't matter, only power. So when they get out they'll go back to breaking the law because you've failed to show them why the law is just.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[PopeRatzo]

Screw that! It's not a college dorm room. It's a prison! "Oh, but their rights"...screw that too! Make prisons a place YOU DO NOT want to be, more like the 60's movie "Cool Hand Luke" and maybe they will think twice about breaking the law!

Now that Republicans are going to prison in record numbers, I assume you'll soon be advocating for prison reform.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[PopeRatzo]

Why not just torture one random inmate a week.

Stop using the toilet. Go poop in the corner like a beast.

If it's good enough for the White House, it's good enough for prison.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole reason for Cool Hand Luke (well, maybe not the whole reason but one of them) was to expose the intrinsic cruelty and stupidity of prison systems in the United States.

The dude died because he smashed a parking meter.

A parking meter.

Have you ever been in a prison dorm? It is not a college dorm. While it varies from one camp to the next, it's usually a bare concrete edifice with multiple open windows that stay open all year long, with a pair of massive cooling fans somewhere to circulate air. The one I was in had some heaters in the cells (thank goodness) but that's it. We had 120 people in a space designed for 48 men. Guards could hardly control the place. CERT team's entire job was to throw us all in the unairconditioned/unheated gym every month or so to shake down all our property (such as it was) and throw it all on the floor looking for the cell phones that other guards had sold to the inmates previously.

There were so many inmates that they had no meaningful reform programs and maybe one job on an unpaid work detail for every ten inmates.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Swave An deBwoner]

Prison is already a place almost everybody doesn't want to be. Being in prision is the punishment.

What things like this teach the prison population is that it's OK to take what belongs to others with impunity so long as you wield the power. Which is exactly what we're supposed to be presenting as the wrong option - you know - the thing that got most of them into prison in the first place.

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[BankRobberMBA]

Nice

Re: prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

You used to be so insightful, now youâ(TM)re just bitter. What happened?

Re:prisons? dorms? mp3 players

[lucien86]

Why not just torture one random inmate a week.

Stop using the toilet. Go poop in the corner like a beast.

If it's good enough for the White House, it's good enough for prison.

This whole presidency is a dirty protest. They will be hosing down the walls for months afterwards. America may never recover.

a prisoner maybe a game player

[Anonymous Coward]

Solitary.
Zelda.
Crysis. ... for the rest of their times in the prison.

With the hope of that all this is legal constitutionally.

No Great Loss.

[cunina]

Guaranteed, 99.9% of that music sucks and wasn't worth anything to begin with.

Re: No Great Loss.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, buddy holly fan?

No music is all crap; except for my music.

While pretty bad...

[GerryGilmore]

...it does not even come close to the organized scam that is prison phone calls. It's nothing more than legalized theft and - NO! - just because you are incarcerated does not mean that you should be subjected to this kind of crap.

Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Too fucking bad. THEY ARE IN PRISON!! Maybe it will give them something to think about with respect to doing wrong to someone else.

They should be kept one to a cell 24 hrs/day with no âoeentertainmentâ anyway.

Re:Too bad

[novakyu]

You might find that the Constitution disagrees with you.

Somebody should put the fear of God (literally, not just a turn of phrase) into everyone involved in this. They will all be judged for the people they oppressed when they meet their Maker (eventually, after suffering long and hard in their mortal coil).

Re: Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, wait, I thought the Constitution is racist and arachic? Why would we follow it?

Re: Too bad

[novakyu]

If your position is that we should ignore the laws, well, why have prisons at all?

Re:Too bad

[localman]

If your goal is damaging them to be unsalvageable, ensuring they're more of a danger when released -- or perhaps keeping them locked up forever and thus costing far more in prison than they ever cost in crime -- then sure... your plan sound great.

However to anyone that's not an ignorant idiot on the topic, your plan sounds shit.

I fought the law

[PPH]

And the law won.

This is BS

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

I hope someone files a lawsuit and wins. Florida state government is a continual disgrace under Rick Scott.

Re:This is BS

[uvajed_ekil]

I hope someone files a lawsuit and wins. Florida state government is a continual disgrace under Rick Scott.

I don't know anything about Florida's government, but this sounds like a case tailor-made for a class action lawsuit. The fact that the Dept. of Corrections made money off of the song sales makes it a slam dunk, regardless of what unenforceable language was in the original user/inmate agreement. I don't think they can arbitrarily cancel previously purchased licenses like this, in favor of some new for-profit scheme. I hope someone pursues this, and I hope they win, because the concept and existence of incarceration as an industry is evil, inhumane, and morally reprehensible, not to mention counterproductive for society.

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

They would argue they aren't cancelling any licenses they are just removing access to the mp3 players. The fact the the new approved tablets aren't compatible with the previous devices isn't their problem.

and what about guards?

[Anonymous Coward]

When nobody in the prison is in trouble, the prison's guards can enjoy with some kind of entertainment, or listening music, or viewing cinema, etc.

That's decent

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually have an option to get their data out. I can't imagine Steam mailing me off-line versions of my games on DVD.

Sure sounds like corruption somewhere on high

[Anonymous Coward]

Teaching inmates how real scams work, and how corruption is easy, doesn't sound to me like the kind of lessons we should give to those who have criminal tendencies already. How is this being tough on crime beats me. Whatever politicians are going along with this deserve a year behind bars with no music at all, or better yet, charge them $100 per download when they are there.

Messate to the Unites States

[Knuckles]

Your prison system is fucked. If anyone reads TFS and does not see how broken and inhuman this is, then you are as well. Bye

Re: Messate to the Unites States

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is they want it to be inhumane in order to break the inmates.

Re: Messate to the Unites States

[Anonymous Coward]

to what end? petty and broken repressed society

there is freedom, but you gotta stoo dreaming.

There is no legally supported reason

[rsilvergun]

we make the laws. We decide what is legal. When you say that you're just leaning on the authority granted by the word "legal".

As for psychology, in children yes. Because their ability to reason isn't fully developed. But if you're dealing with an entity who's reasoning ability isn't developed then punishing them is obviously morally wrong because they're not in full control of their actions. OTOH if you're dealing with a being who's reasoning ability _is_ fully developed (or very nearly, since the brain develops into you're mid 20s) then there are much, much more effective ways to prevent that entity from doing "bad things". That is what is meant by rehabilitation. And that's before we start talking about prevention. Remember, it's always cheaper to drop food than bombs.

Punishment has two reasons to exist. First, some folks just like people to suffer. And not for the reasons you're thinking. Animals have an innate understanding of 'fairness'. Most people suffer some for their mistakes. When people give into their animal brain and stop reasoning they want others to suffer for their mistakes. I saw this first hand with a buddy of mine who's LGBTQ. She was upset that the young'uns didn't have to suffer like she did (she was bullied by her teachers in addition to students. Pretty f'd up actually).

As for the second reason, well, punishment is _cheap_. In a society with limited resources we can't afford to lock up the crazies and give them decent food and Playstations. Instead you make chain gains and forced labor camps and feed them the worst food possible. Well, economically we're past that. We could solve these problems anytime we want. Right now we don't.

Oh, and at least for murder fear of consequences doesn't factor into that. It's been shown repeatedly that the death penalty is worse than a non-deterrent. It actively encourages people to kill as they've got nothing left to lose and you might as well get rid of the witnesses. Where I am there was a pizza joint robbed a few decades ago where the employees were shot execution style because the crooks were repeat offenders and they knew if they got caught they'd die in prison. That's what your deterrent gets you..

Re:There is no legally supported reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Economically we are not "past that". I don't know which part of the country you're from, but around here, the prison systems are burdened with more inmates than we can afford. They get cheap food and poor accommodations specifically because of this problem.

The local corporate county jail is over 2x capacity. You're lucky to get one shower a week. The folks in the state capitol know this and have not decertified the institution and released any of the inmates on their own recognizance, house arrest, or any of the other obvious (and legal) alternatives to holding most of these men, the majority of whom are either awaiting trial or awaiting transfer to a state prison to serve the remainder of their terms.

The funny thing is that people nationwide are more upset about the foreign asylum seekers being held in custody before their hearings than they are the obvious abuses in our county jail of American citizens for whom the Constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment apparently means nothing.

Re:There is no legally supported reason

[Anonymous Coward]

You might have a point, but it is somewhere other than your post.

Rather than whining, do you have a fully-formed philosophical underpinning to your new system, together with some idea of how it would operationally work?

Because, what we have is a set of traditions worked out with extreme pain and trial and error, that take some account of:

- a deterrent regardless of its imperfection

- ensuring public safety via incarceration or elimination whether or not that is due to mental weakness or instability

- providing measures of legal retribution as a way to disarm the worst excesses of personal venegance or family feuds, to avoid vigilantes, and to mollify the public from following courses of violent action that do not follow precepts of due process

What country do you live in?

[rsilvergun]

I'm in America, and torture most definitely _is_ part of the plan. We use prisoners and overworked and underpaid guards to apply it so we can look the other way while it happens. Just google Prison Rape or look into the lives of prisoners who have mental illnesses (which is a lot of them, funny that how being mentally ill in a country w/o single payer healthcare can land you in jail a lot).

Re:What country do you live in?

[dryeo]

Canadian prisons are full of mentally ill people too. Single payer health care only goes so far and there is very little money for mental illness. While someone with a broken leg has an obvious problem, someone who was born to an alcoholic mother and has fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) looks healthy and is expected to be as fully functional as everyone else.
Then there are all the people that want to torture the mentally ill to teach them a lesson or such, as if that is going to cure them, especially problems like FAS where there is no cure.

Re:What country do you live in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of torture, speaking of Florida, this was apparently standard procedure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Darren_Rainey

I'm not turning up a link in the first round of Googling, but not long ago the Florida authorities were caught starving mentally ill prisoners.

If people losing their property offends you, keep in mind that there are things hundreds of times worse that are almost certainly still going on.

Oh, one more thing

[rsilvergun]

I'm not trying to bag on your entire post, just wanted to make sure folks understand that in America we absolutely do use prisons for torture.

Also, I think making prisons nicer would be a good idea. I'm in favor of basic income anyway, so it's not like I don't think we can afford it. But think of it this way, you're dealing with somebody who's life is probably shit (there's not a lot of high dollar white collar guys in jail, even most of those guys are just passing bad checks). Imagine if you took somebody like that who's daily life is a living hell and gave them a respite for a few years instead of torture? Wouldn't that go a long way to rehabilitate? Of course you can't just abandon them when they're out like we do too...

Re: Oh, one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has never been to jail and never will, clearly we need to make prison worse if you are willing to complain about it after you get out. PTSD, wah wah wah.

Maybe just lock people up forever if we can't execute them for petty crimes. Make them build the wall! And bury them in it if they die as a warning to others.
#MAGA #SHERIFFJOE

Re: Oh, one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you hate Donald Trump so much that you want him to be locked up forever. Or executed.

Re:Oh, one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to get rid of the prisons, not redistribute wealth. The majority in prison are in prison on non-violent offenses. While we may find certain things egregious, disgusting, offensive, or similar that doesn't make someone a violent individual. Few people really need to be kept separate from the rest of the population for the safety of either themselves or the population at large. Even those who have committed violent offenses in many cases do not pose a genuine danger to society. Murders get released all the time and few are at risk of re-offending (murdering) again. That doesn't mean that people won't commit other petty offenses but much of that is down to our own system for dealing with people. A society that tattoos a populous with the word ex-con is a society that is cruel and really fucked up.

Re:Oh, one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

It was amazing to me while in prison to note that every class told inmates what not to do. For the majority there, that is akin to telling them to spend their lives doing nothing. They have never had life experiences to tell them how to live a good life and show them good ways to entertain themselves. Without knowledge of how to live and enjoy a good life, knowing how not to live a bad life is just knowing how to not live. They'll always eventually go back to what they know, even if they genuinely want to do otherwise, because what the rest of the world does is a book they know nothing about.

Prison should be a place to practice how to be happy doing good, not to be berated about being bad. Without a new experience, the same result will emerge as the first time around, only hardened.

Re:Oh, one more thing

[lucien86]

Prison should be a place to practice how to be happy doing good, not to be berated about being bad. Without a new experience, the same result will emerge as the first time around, only hardened.

Far too much common sense.

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoner

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be misdemeanors. Felonies aren't things like stealing an agile pie, they're things like murder and rape.

Vegas update!

[Anonymous Coward]

Caesar's Entertainment issued a statement today that they have entered into an agreement with national provider Phuq-Yew to bring additional entertainment to guests at their award winning results. Under the agreement, Caesar's Entertainment "security" will forcibly enter guest rooms, steal electronic equipment, search through luggage, and attempt access to guest computers in rooms.

"This will enhance our guest experience and bring it to a whole new level. For the convenience and safety of our guests, we will now be offering select, pre-approved content from digital content provider Phuq-Yew and will be providing new stores in the Forum to help guests buy massively overpriced and substandard replacements for their confiscated equipment."

Shareholders of Caesar's Entertainment (CZR) reacted positively to the statement with many anticipating that illegal forced entry and theft on a grand scale would likely bolster the group's bottom line. Caesar's Entertainment also stated that, in many cases, guests may recover their stolen items on eBay auctions.

In other news, gun stores in and around Clark County, Nevada have reported a record surge in sales following the announcement.

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisone

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Felons who do the worst crimes, like downloading music and movies, should be given life sentences. Driving 75mph on the highway when there is a sudden switch to a 35mph zone is another life sentence worthy offense. And don't get me started on those monsters who use marijuana, or even provide their child a taste of alcohol.

Truly, these degenerates should be beaten in cages daily, given chronic physical and mental health problems as a result of years of mistreatment. That will surely teach them the error of their ways when let out with absolutely no support system. Ot just deport them to Mexico. I don't care if they are Mexican or black or complain they were born here. You can take their passport away when the go to prison and just burn it. They have no proof and no money with which to fight back against the border patrol who can just toss them over the wall.

#MAGA

Florida's prison system ...

[CaptainDork]

... like all the other state prison systems, is responsible for the fucked up legal mess that provides corporate slaves.

10 seconds proves otherwise

[raymorris]

Indisputable fact, eh? JPay ARE assholes, no doubt about that. We've they have these contracts with almost every state:

https://www.jpay.com/Pavail.as...

You'll notice the areas they do NOT have these contacts are places like Utah, Arkansas, and Alabama - mostly very Republican states.

Re:10 seconds proves otherwise

[Aighearach]

Looking at that map, it seems instead that some poor states don't have it, and some states with very very low population don't have it. I certainly wouldn't think that Alabama and Arkansas are "very Republican," but that Texas, Idaho, and Mississippi are not.

Re:10 seconds proves otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll notice the areas they do NOT have these contacts are places like Utah, Arkansas, and Alabama - mostly very Republican states.

Because in those states, the prisoners don't get services like these, period. Instead, it is punish, punish, punish.

Re:10 seconds proves otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Idaho, a state where Rs getting elected is damn near a foregone conclusion outside of the more densely populated areas. Our inmates found a way to trick the JPay system and "stole" a bunch of music. I have a feeling these events might be related.

Re:10 seconds proves otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

The same Democrat hands that are shaking black hands on the campaign trail are the same hands that toss them into prison from elected office because what are they gonna do about it? Vote Republican?.

Re:10 seconds proves otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

No bid contracts keep out JPAY... silly rabbit. R and D, like that matters. So glad you found a side.

Sounds like-Party pooper.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think their families are part of this "united"? They vote. They pay taxes.

Sounds like-Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

the wrong people are in prison.

Why did you all vote for him then?

Most of those inmates are pot users

[rsilvergun]

and other non-violent drug offenders. Legalize all drugs, treat the hard stuff as a medical condition and bam, problem solved. I live in America, and our Prisons are a money-making operation. You can't make money housing thieves, rapists and murderers with no hope while torturing them. You need a ton of non-violent guys who didn't belong in there in the first place and who are just trying to quietly "do their time".

Again, if we'd switch from a punishment based system to a rehab based one those problems go away. But then so do the profits...

Re:Most of those inmates are pot users

[Anonymous Coward]

I might even agree re drugs but it doesn't eliminate prison, and I don't see why everyone assumes the proper outcome is a preponderance of "violent" offenders that we give up on, whilst everything else is ignored. A Madoff can ruin more lives than a mugger.

Alot of comments.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of comments from a lot of people that have no idea. Yes things cost more prison. You also can not give prisoners the same items you get outside. There are a lot repackaging and safety measures that are involved to bring these luxuries to inmates. And no matter what you think these people have ended up in prison for not obeying the law. Prison is not a vacation it is a punishment and getting things like MP3s is a luxury.

It’s unconstitutional

[Tjp($)pjT]

There can be no public taking without compensation. The prisoners paid for the players, and paid for .the digital rights. They can perhaps confiscate and store them, but not steal them from the prisoners. And the value, well the prison contracts set that. $100 for the player and $1.70 for each song purchased. The songs don’t depreciate. Bits are bits. The state legislature should get involved, as should the prisoner advocate organization. This is purely profit motivated move on the prisons part.

Re:It’s unconstitutional

[drinkypoo]

They can't confiscate them because confiscation is for contraband. This is theft.

Intentionally not permitted - so as to profit JPay

[Swave An deBwoner]

Timothy Hoey, the assistant warden, did not deny the financial incentives at play in his response to Freeman, saying that it was "not feasible to download content from one vendor’s device to another, not only due to incompatibility reasons, but the download of content purchased from one vendor to another vendor’s device would negate the new vendor’s ability to be compensated for their services."

And yet, when Apple does this nobody cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Give us a break culture warriors. It's prison. Some of us don't like the idea of prisoners living better than some of the people on the outside and getting better benefits. I won't lose any sleep over this. The new program should definitely insert moral object lessons ala Schoolhouse Rock between each and every song. I could go along with that.

I never said we should eliminate prison

[rsilvergun]

I'm saying we should change it's purpose to remove the punishment aspect and be either completely rehabilitative or a place to store individuals who are broken in ways we don't yet know how to fix and who would be a danger to the community if let lose.

We do not 'give up' on them. We rehabilitate every one we can. But I'm not so naive that I think we can reach a 100% rate. I'm saying a few criminally insane will exist. People who have demonstrated they are a danger to the community and who we lack the tools to rehabilitate. Those people need to be locked up, but at the same time it should be done humanely. We should recognize the fact that we're locking them up isn't a failure on their part, it's a failure on ours for being unable to fix what's broken in them.

Re:I never said we should eliminate prison

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's incredibly naive. You don't have a good test to indicate is someone is rehabilitated or not and you're not specifying what "danger to the community" means.

You're also presuming that the criminally insane are insane - that is itself a subjective assessment. A cat biting the head off a mouse isn't criminally insane either, and unfortunately war-time and crises show us that human behavior can quickly revert to base outside the urban/suburban bubbles where people believe we've solved everything because we have running water and people don't routinely get stabbed in Walmart (except they do).

Drink-driving is one example - if you have reasonable belief that the offender will respect a license revocation, they'd no longer be a danger. So now you can drink-drive no problem until you're caught once.

Large-scale fraud is another - once you're caught and can no longer work in finance, you may not be a danger to the community. How does your scheme treat such offenders?

Haha

[BankRobberMBA]

I forgot all about how that first Walmart trip was after I got out. I just stood there against the front wall staring at the shelves. I couldn't make out individual items, it was like there was static in my head. Completely overwhelmed. F'ing ridiculous.
It's been two years, I'm good at stores now, though I still get a little freaked by crowds. I have a real problem dealing with change, now, too, and that sucks.
I also have a super-hard time talking to women, but, hey, don't rob banks, right?

Entrepreneurship

[BankRobberMBA]

Many, many inmates make plans to start businesses when they get out. Unfortunately, they mostly have very poor educational backgrounds and there is a ton of basic stuff they don't understand.

I spent my entire sentence teaching anybody who was interested the basics of business. It ranged from the definition of "profit", to benefits of differentiation strategies vs cost leadership strategies.

Heartbreaking, frustrating, and very fulfilling.

Well...

[BankRobberMBA]

Maybe if it was the right supervillain...

Re:Well...

[Uberbah]

Adrian Veidt?

Lets call a spade a spade here

[Anonymous Coward]

Any person or company/corporation that makes a profit off of the misery of others...such as prisons and healthcare... is a fucking scumbag...and always will be. Period.

Democratic dream

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the state paying 100 percent of these peoples room and board. They also get free medical. They live in a gun free zone. The sexes are separate so there can be no males harassing females, and as a bonus the music industry (which is liberal) get a 100 percent guaranteed copyright enforcement.

It is the democrats wet dream. Haha

On a serious note this is something liberals and conservatives should agree on even if they come at it from different angles. Republicans should support prison reform purly from the freedom aspect of it. It is a shame that the USA, land of the free is the most heavily incarcerated nation on the planet. Democrats can get on board with prison reform by telling themselves they need to help disadvantaged African Americans

takings clause

[Anonymous Coward]

Prisoners or no, thus is a pretty clear violation of the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Fucking White People!

[TheMiddleRoad]

Seriously, Florida is the shithole of the world. A bunch of cracker ass morons voting for cracker ass morons to treat black people and other minorities like shit. Hey kids, wanna go to Disney World? Then I'm disowning your stupid asses. Go get eating by a fucking alligator. No wonder Trump loves that place so much. It must feel like how his brain works, like a steaming pile of shit mixed in with grinding gears and Yoko Ono music.

Re:Fucking White People!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, Florida is the shithole of the world. A bunch of cracker ass morons voting for cracker ass morons to treat black people and other minorities like shit.

That will teach the blacks and other minorities not to create a communist Carribean resort right next door to law and order loving red-blooded white folks. Who do they imagine to have been here first?

There is a way to do this right

[RhettLivingston]

There is no excuse for this because there is a way to do it right. The state is not properly representing the prisoners in this negotiation and really has nothing to lose in doing so unless they are getting a kickback.

If jpay wants the contract, they should be agreeable to a limited period of exchange of existing licenses for new licenses on their system. It's a reasonable cost of doing business. The state should just write that into the contract, along with making the contract long to help make the cost worthwhile, and be done with it. If jpay doesn't like it, someone else will.

It is unlikely to be near as much music as claimed. Most of the devices have likely died by now (inmates don't get quality devices) and many if not most of those who purchased music are probably out of prison.

Just a more direct form of DRM

[Waccoon]

This represents a more fundamental problem with society. We're getting used to the idea that intellectual property is licensed and sold as a service, and that license can be revoked at any time without legal consequence. Almost all digital products are "sold" under the EULA terms that you have a right to use it until you don't, and the license is perpetual until it's not. It's madness.

The real issue here is not that prisoners are being treated unfairly. It's that, in most cases of licensed properly, it's perfectly legal for stuff like this to happen.

Do as I say, not as I do

[localman]

It's important to teach prisoners that property rights are bullshit and that fraud is perfectly acceptable. Glad they're on top of that. There's nothing like making people work for something then taking it away to ensure they don't bother trying to do things right in the future.

If our corrections/rehabilitation system can't follow the basic rules of ethics, why would they expect anyone else to?

sprry for you

[Anonymous Coward]

What a truly shithole country you live in.

any one complaining about the mp3 get's a night in

[Joe_Dragon]

any one complaining about the mp3 get's a night in the box

This if Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what freedom looks like for all of us in the near future. This prisoner experiment function as the test market: find the rioting threshold by testing the abuse flexibility of the market. They are trailblazers of whom we all should be proud of!!!

Re: If it's one thing I've learned about prisoner

[Anonymous Coward]

#MAGA = My Attorney Got Arrested!!

corrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

WHat corruption and what a shakedown on the prisoners.
It's extortion, we'll let you have your music but only on cd and you have to buy this all over again.
And you have to pay us to keep what is yours already.
Isn't that the definition of extortion?

#freedumbs #shitholecuntry

[Anonymous Coward]

SO brave. Very light on the hill.

The spectre of 13th Amendment keeps haunting us...

[iwbcman]

The 13th Amendment to the constitution states:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

As one can see the the exact same sentence which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, which are held to be interchangeable terms, legalizes slavery and involuntary servitude for those parties duly convicted- ie. prisoners of the state.

The primary economic justification for slavery in modern times boils down to this: where labor is free, ie. unpaid for due to being forced involuntary servitude, the only capital cost involved in production cost is what is spent on raw resources, equipment and property, which translates directly to increased profit, and given free labor, slaves, a form of property, enable the purest form of producing profits, for none of the profits need be given back to pay for labor.

With this economic rational, which is as valid today as it was when it was widely practiced, the economic exploitation of prisoners, by and for for-profit corporations is fundamentally pre-programmed.

In essence this has said to capitalist, if you want free labor, find reasons to lock 'em up and wage campaigns to convince the public of this necessity and pass laws imprisoning those who violate the new laws. And remember the next best thing the free labor is dirt cheap labor and even if you don't end up capitalizing on the while their in prison, you'll get cheap labor out of them for the rest of their lives cause they will no longer be eligible for high paid employment, plus they won't be able to vote against the laws which made involuntary servants out of them.

With the passage of the 13th Amendment the penitentiary system of the United States, which we had pioneered, which focused on redemption and rehabilitation, suffered a fatal blow, from which it has never recovered. Our once proud, enlightenment inspired, alternative to the brutal dungeons and prisons of yore, was systematically converted into slave factories, hence the real origin of the prison industrial complex, which now pervades American society.

The apparent intentions behind the passage of the 13th Amendment, the ostensible ones, was the abolition of slavery. But there is something genuinely warped, codified in the text, about how they, that generation, went about abolishing slavery. It's almost as if they needed to concede to those slave holders, that slave holders were not morally bankrupt for desiring and having slaves, but rather that if they wished to continue having slaves they would have to come up with new ways of justifying/legitimizing it. So paradoxically it ends up giving the slave holders right in their aspiration to hold other human beings as slaves, just changing who the subjects of slavery would be.

Sure human beings were no longer being bought and sold as property in broad day light on Market Str. in Louisiville, Ky, the largest open-air slave market in America in the lead-up to the civil war. And certainly the color of your skin was no longer the exclusive characteristic which defined whether you could be owned or not by another human being. But did we not take at least one solid step backwards in the two steps forward of the progress of human emancipation?

Re:Intentionally not permitted - so as to profit J

[Anonymous Coward]

IP Management Corp, the assistant royalty collection agency, did not deny the financial incentives at play in his response to Freeman, saying that it was "not feasible to download content from one vendor's device to another, not only due to incompatibility reasons, but the download of content purchased from one vendor to another vendor's device would negate the new vendor's ability to be compensated for their services."

FTFY.

Can't wait to see that one brought up during trade negotiations...."Hey, the prison system already does it. We just want to *smrk* harmonize the laws."

Criminals, all of them. That is all.

Potential for violence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, all of the inmates will just hand in their MP3 players and say "Here you go, sir" with a smile. This is the type of enviroment where people would beat eachother up over a 35 CENT debt, imagine how they would react giving up both a player and the content they paid good money for. Inmates tend to get screwed/overcharged for what is really cheap junk from commissary, and whatever jobs they get tend to pay far below minimum wage (think cents/hr)

Expect the immates to stash their devices, force the cell block bitch to hide it from them, and do whatever else they can to protect their investment.

Three hots and a cot

[Contract Gypsy]

That is all they need, no more, no less. Get rid of the parole board as well, a sentence of 20 years means you stay in for 20 years, none of this "we are overcrowded shit" so let them out after two weeks. Prisons are not sanctuary cities, the inmates have restricted rights, unlike the CA illegals that get paid to be illegal.

Re:Three hots and a cot

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody survives that. Everyone would break. Broken people are very dangerous. Whenever they get out, they'd be far worse than when they went in. If the system were like that, it would actually become humane to offer assisted suicide instead. You'd be surprised how many prefer death after a few years.

I wonder how you'd feel if I examined your life and figured out a few of your felonies. Every adult has broken some law. The only difference is you haven't been caught. You probably have delusions that intent, motive, etc. matters. Not true anymore.

That's the best line I've read on /.

[rsilvergun]

all year, "Practice how to be happy doing good".

You guys are missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

The families are buying the stuff for them and suffering, This kinda scam makes me sad

If Itâ(TM)s a Scam Then Trump Must Zbe Involv

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump must be behind the prison music scam. Iâ(TM)m surprised he didn ât have his name all over it! What a creep!

something wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not right to extort money from prisoners in this way. If I was inside prison and this was going on, I'd flat refuse to have a new device, and form a prisoner's choir.