Prison System Issues/Discussion

[deadrose]

And this just in: Nearly 160 tons of food produced in a prison kitchen for institutional consumption have been recalled because the water used was contaminated with fire retardants from the nearby Air Force base. What fun!

http://knkx.org/post/nearly-160-tons-food-manufactured-washington-prison-kitchen-recalled

 

[Pterodactyl]

Most of the work is technically paid, at a dollar or two a day, to use in the commissary for toothpaste, soap, snacks, and so on, but since so many states are also billing you for your stay and food, at much higher rates, there's no way you can keep yourself out of debt.

Some people say they're learning useful skills to use on the outside. Well, no, because those jobs are all outsourced to the prisons or out of the country. How many industrial garment manufacturers run factories in the US legitimately? How many license plate factories are there in your town?

So yeah that's all true, but then again these people have to do something to occupy their time. Just having them lift weights, or smash big rocks into smaller rocks is a colossal waste of manpower, not to mention the kinds of things people come up with when they have too much idle time.

I know of some projects locally where inmate labor was used to construct some backpacking trail sections on state land, that required stacking lots of boulders to create stone staircases in the backcountry. As I understand it, these guys were not paid at all, but were largely happy to get out and do the work.

So that's what I'd like to see, forced labor, but for the public good.

 

[luchog]

So yeah that's all true, but then again these people have to do something to occupy their time. Just having them lift weights, or smash big rocks into smaller rocks is a colossal waste of manpower, not to mention the kinds of things people come up with when they have too much idle time.

Things to occupy their time? Let's see, how about addiction counseling, mental health treatment, remedial primary/secondary education (needed by the majority of inmates), job skills training and apprenticeships, post-secondary (university) education, personal improvement activities (behavioural management therapy, family management, developing creative outlets, etc.), social re-integration counseling, community outreach programs, and so on.

So that's what I'd like to see, forced labor, but for the public good.

How about we worry about making sure that they can be productive, contributing members of society once they get out, and are not going to just end up right back in prison, before indulging our nostalgia for the good old days of slave labour? Save the "public good" projects for low-level offenders and those with "community service" sentences.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Things to occupy their time? Let's see, how about addiction counseling, mental health treatment, remedial primary/secondary education (needed by the majority of inmates), job skills training and apprenticeships, post-secondary (university) education, personal improvement activities (behavioural management therapy, family management, developing creative outlets, etc.), social re-integration counseling, community outreach programs, and so on.

Sounds really nice.
Almost makes breaking the law sound like a good option in the face of working some menial job in hopes of making a living or paying for a better education.
I totally agree that we should transition into a more rehabilitative model, but how many years of classes does a person need? A guy doing 10 years can only sit in a classroom for so long.

How about we worry about making sure that they can be productive, contributing members of society once they get out, and are not going to just end up right back in prison, before indulging our nostalgia for the good old days of slave labour? Save the "public good" projects for low-level offenders and those with "community service" sentences.

Shouldn't paying your debt to society actually somehow benefit society though, and not just the offender? I dont know that "slave labor" is the right descriptor. I prefer community service.

 

[crescent]

So that's what I'd like to see, forced labor, but for the public good.

Shouldn't paying your debt to society actually somehow benefit society though, and not just the offender? I dont know that "slave labor" is the right descriptor. I prefer community service.

Keep in mind that forced labor is not even remotely cost effective.

I used to run labor crews in National Parks and BLM lands, including the occasional con crew.

A horde of motivated volunteers, or college-age labor crews from SCA or ACE can do an amazing amount of work, with fewer limitations on what sort of work they can do than the average convict crew can.

Convict crews require armed guards and need to be able to return to the jail/prison each day. If you want to work them further afield, you need to fork out for 24/7 law enforcement details to guard them, you need to put them up somewhere, find a way to feed them. It adds up.

The SCA/ACE crews need none of that. Little direct supervision, and they'll just camp wherever you tell them to and make their own meals. And those crews are very self-motivated, they'll work very, very hard so long as they understand what it is they are supposed to be doing, and why (they "why" part is very important to the self-motivation thing).

 

[Pterodactyl]

Keep in mind that forced labor is not even remotely cost effective.

I used to run labor crews in National Parks and BLM lands, including the occasional con crew.

A horde of motivated volunteers, or college-age labor crews from SCA or ACE can do an amazing amount of work, with fewer limitations on what sort of work they can do than the average convict crew can.

Convict crews require armed guards and need to be able to return to the jail/prison each day. If you want to work them further afield, you need to fork out for 24/7 law enforcement details to guard them, you need to put them up somewhere, find a way to feed them. It adds up.

The SCA/ACE crews need none of that. Little direct supervision, and they'll just camp wherever you tell them to and make their own meals. And those crews are very self-motivated, they'll work very, very hard so long as they understand what it is they are supposed to be doing, and why (they "why" part is very important to the self-motivation thing).

Interesting.
I also have worked in national parks with SCA crews, and have found them to be a mixed bag, but overall good to work with.
What i have seen of convict labor, so long as it is not detailed work, has tended to be pretty impressive, in terms of amount accomplished. You might be right that the costs of paying guards and other logistical constraints could make this inefficient or not cost effective in some circumstances. But that's maybe an artifact of how prisons are run now.
Whereas if you had crews of trustees trained in certain types of work, guard foremen, etc. who did only this kind of stuff, and guys could work years off their sentences, it might become very efficient. Like CCC style.

 

[Brainster]

And that is exactly the point.

The American prison system is working exactly as intended. It was originally designed to perpetuate the institution of de facto slavery, after de novo slavery had been explicitly outlawed. Which was also the reason that prisons have always had a disproportionately high rate of incarceration for minority populations.

Yeah, that was the design. Because there were no prisons in America until after slavery was abolished.

 

[dudalb]

Yeah, that was the design. Because there were no prisons in America until after slavery was abolished.

there you go again: Spoiling a ideological rant with facts.
Seems to me there is need for a balance between rehabilitation and deterrence and it is not a either or situation, but that would upset the ideologues on both left and right.
I admit I am a lot more sympathetic toward Criminals who crimes are not violent then with violent criminals.
Some people can be rehablitiated, others should have the key thrown away on them. Problem is identifying which is which.

 

[deadrose]

Keep in mind that forced labor is not even remotely cost effective.

(snip)

Convict crews require armed guards and need to be able to return to the jail/prison each day. If you want to work them further afield, you need to fork out for 24/7 law enforcement details to guard them, you need to put them up somewhere, find a way to feed them. It adds up.

This was discovered a few years ago here in Washington state. Due to various immigrations crackdowns, the usual migrant work crews didn't arrive for apple-picking season.

Orchard owners cried loudly to the press about their desperate need for workers, and huge numbers of out-of-work people headed over to pick apples, only to be turned away by the owners and foremen. They were told they were too inexperienced and would pick too slowly for the owners to make a profit. But the migrants still stayed away, so many of the orchardists ended up hiring convict labor to bring in the crop. The convicts ended up costing about $25/hr each because of the guards, housing, food, and so on. And of course they were no more experienced than the people who had traveled over to fill the jobs.

That money didn't go to the prison laborers, of course. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the unskilled labor jobs for the unskilled laborers? No matter how much we claim it, not everyone is going to be college degree material, especially as we butcher education. So we can deny them any chances, then lock them up for slave labor, or we can take those jobs back out of the prisons and give people an opportunity to earn a living from them.

 

[luchog]

Yeah, that was the design. Because there were no prisons in America until after slavery was abolished.

there you go again: Spoiling a ideological rant with facts.

You're kidding, right? It is a frighteningly well-documented fact that the modern US prison system was re-designed after the Civil War, and intended predominantly to perpetuate the institution of slavery. This is common historical knowledge for anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history. It's not even controversial, except to a handful of white supremacists, self-serving reactionary conservatives, and those who haven't bothered to study any American history beyond primary school.

Just a handful of references on the subject:

Slavery By Aother Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
by Douglas Blackmon
Which, incidentally, won a Pulitzer prize.

Criminal Justice In America
By George F. Cole, Christopher E. Smith, Christina DeJong

The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Modern Society
eds. Norval Morris and David J. Rothman

Additional references
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=socssp
http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/press/docs/pdf/ASARaceCrime.pdf
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/theoryatmadison/papers/wacquant_deadly_symbiosis.html

Numerous more references in this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ass-incarceration_us_57f66820e4b087a29a54880f

 

[Mumbles]

You're kidding, right? It is a frighteningly well-documented fact that the modern US prison system was re-designed after the Civil War, and intended predominantly to perpetuate the institution of slavery. This is common historical knowledge for anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history. It's not even controversial, except to a handful of white supremacists, self-serving reactionary conservatives, and those who haven't bothered to study any American history beyond primary school.

Yep. It's very well understood that, as one very clear example, "vagrancy" laws were often used to fine black people onerous amounts, and then to "allow them to work it off" by forcing them to work for white households when they could not pay. While I do sometimes feel that Michelle Alexander can take on a bit too much of a preaching affect she's far too well researched to just toss out weak strawmen. Hell, even in the modern day, we see blatant cases of white supremacist policing such as the Ferguson MO police and courts. - and considering we know that they functioned as a means to drain wealth out of black citizens, and give it to some white citizens, yes that is white supremacist.

 

[Brainster]

You're kidding, right? It is a frighteningly well-documented fact that the modern US prison system was re-designed after the Civil War, and intended predominantly to perpetuate the institution of slavery. This is common historical knowledge for anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history. It's not even controversial, except to a handful of white supremacists, self-serving reactionary conservatives, and those who haven't bothered to study any American history beyond primary school.

Just a handful of references on the subject:

Slavery By Aother Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
by Douglas Blackmon
Which, incidentally, won a Pulitzer prize.

Criminal Justice In America
By George F. Cole, Christopher E. Smith, Christina DeJong

The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Modern Society
eds. Norval Morris and David J. Rothman

Additional references
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=socssp
http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/press/docs/pdf/ASARaceCrime.pdf
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/theoryatmadison/papers/wacquant_deadly_symbiosis.html

Numerous more references in this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ass-incarceration_us_57f66820e4b087a29a54880f

Well, I have to say that if the prison system was designed to perpetuate the system of slavery, it's doing an awfully poor job of it. Let's take one of the claims in the Huffington Post article:

The United States called by some the land of the free and the home of the brave, leads the world in incarceration, with over 2 million people behind bars; that is a 500 percent increase over the past 40 years.

Okay so 2 million people are in jail and that's a 500% increase since roughly 1976. That means that in 1976, there were approximately 333,333 prisoners. In 1976 there were approximately 25 million African Americans, so even if we assume that all the prisoners were black, that would still mean that only about 1.3% of the African American population was behind bars in 1976. If we accept a more reasonable estimate that about 38% of the prison population was black, that would indicate an incarceration rate of about 0.5%. Put another way, for every African American in jail in 1976, there were approximately 197 free. Not quite the same as slavery in my book, YRMV.

The system of convict leasing almost certainly was instituted as a replacement for slavery. But arguing that the entire American prison system was designed to replace slavery is taking an extreme position; the northern states, for example, mostly did not engage in convict leasing nor did some of the former slave states.

 

[Civet]

So I've been moving about the internet a bit looking at information on recidivism rates in the United States. It's generally about as bleak as you'd expect. Also turns out that actually measuring recidivism is slightly tricky, so stats can sometimes be misleading. Virginia, for example, was claiming recidivism rates of less than half the national average, but it turns out that they might have been counting differently.
Pretty interesting website www.crimeinamerica.net has some good info on the subject. They conclude here that programs that try to reduce recidivism seem to be able to deliver about 10-20% reductions. Less than I'd like but by no means irrelevant.

 

[luchog]

Pretty interesting website www.crimeinamerica.net has some good info on the subject. They conclude here that programs that try to reduce recidivism seem to be able to deliver about 10-20% reductions. Less than I'd like but by no means irrelevant.

The problem is that there is a great deal of fundamental change that needs to be made in both the American criminal justice system and American society in order to make a more significant impact on crime and recidivism. Right now, one of the most pressing and disconcerting problems is the "school-to-prison pipeline" that exists in poor minority communities. A direct artifact of institutionalized racism, and in particular racist policing.

 

[ahhell]

You're kidding, right? It is a frighteningly well-documented fact that the modern US prison system was re-designed after the Civil War, and intended predominantly to perpetuate the institution of slavery. This is common historical knowledge for anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history. It's not even controversial, except to a handful of white supremacists, self-serving reactionary conservatives, and those who haven't bothered to study any American history beyond primary school.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ass-incarceration_us_57f66820e4b087a29a54880f

This is where I stopped reading, not really but it is where you loose the argument. You start with anyone who disagrees with you is a white supremacist. Could it be that some folks have never heard of this idea, nope, they have to be ********.

 

[Mumbles]

This is where I stopped reading, not really but it is where you loose the argument. You start with anyone who disagrees with you is a white supremacist. Could it be that some folks have never heard of this idea, nope, they have to be ********.

The people who had never heard of this before would b e covered by that third category - the people who hadn't bothered to study much US history.

(I wouldn't have been quite so harsh myself - most people don't spend much time developing a wide understanding of US history, after all...)

 

[ahhell]

The people who had never heard of this before would b e covered by that third category - the people who hadn't bothered to study much US history.

(I wouldn't have been quite so harsh myself - most people don't spend much time developing a wide understanding of US history, after all...)

In that case, why start with the racists, as the vast majority of people haven't bothered to study much US History and I suspect that most that have, didn't study the history of the US penal system. A bit like me saying that anyone that doesn't know ordinary moment frames can't be used in a high seismic region just hasn't studied much engineering.

Edit, I should add, starting with calling your opponents racists doesn't actually loose the argument but it does mean you won't convince any of them, even the merely ignorant, of your point.

 

[marplots]

The people who had never heard of this before would b e covered by that third category - the people who hadn't bothered to study much US history.

(I wouldn't have been quite so harsh myself - most people don't spend much time developing a wide understanding of US history, after all...)

I'm not ashamed to admit I fall in the ignorant bin, having squandered my education on STEM stuff.

 

[Civet]

Upon further review, it seems that things suck even more. It turns out that the much-praised Norwegian prison system's lower recidivism rate might be largely the result of measuring recidivism rather differently than we do. Here's an article discussing it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/the-radical-humaneness-of-norways-halden-prison.html

Then there was the question of what qualifies as “recidivism.” Some countries and states count any new arrest as recidivism, while others count only new convictions or new prison sentences; still others include parole violations. The numbers most commonly cited in news reports about recidivism, like the 20 percent celebrated by Norway or the 68 percent lamented by the United States, begin to fall apart on closer inspection. That 68 percent, for example, is a three-*year number, but digging into the report shows the more comparable two-*year rate to be 60 percent. And that number reflects not reincarceration (the basis for the Norwegian statistic) but rearrest, a much wider net. Fifteen pages into the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, I found a two-*year reincarceration rate, probably the best available comparison to Norway’s measures. Kristoffersen’s caveat in mind, that translated to a much less drastic contrast: Norway, 25 percent; the United States, 28.8 percent.

 

[luchog]

Just ran across this disturbing bit of info:

Louisiana is the world's prison capital

Excerpt:

Louisiana is the world's prison capital

Print Email Cindy Chang, The Times-Picayune By Cindy Chang, The Times-Picayune
on May 13, 2012 at 5:00 AM, updated April 06, 2016 at 12:38 PM
Stay connected to NOLA.com ×
Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly five times Iran's, 13 times China's and 20 times Germany's.

Peeling paint hangs from the ceiling of the old parish jail on the top floor of the Richland Parish Courthouse in Rayville. The Richland Parish Detention Center on Louisiana 15, which opened for women prisoners in 1997, replaced the courthouse jail.
Scott Threlkeld, The Times-Picayune
The hidden engine behind the state's well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.

Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.

If the inmate count dips, sheriffs bleed money. Their constituents lose jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does not happen by thwarting nearly every reform that could result in fewer people behind bars.

And more:

Prisoners, politicians mix at Capitol as Louisiana Legislature weighs criminal justice

And it gets worse. Some numbers to go with it:
I thought I understood racism and mass incarceration. But nothing prepared me for what I saw in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The incarceration rate for Louisiana is over double that of the US in general; which is already the highest in the world. And black people make up the overwhelming majority of the prison population. And as for the prison labour, it's a page right out of the Antebellum South.

Which Louisiana prisoners get to work in the Capitol, Governor's Mansion?

The more things change...