Kinja reply list

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DolemiteHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 12:58pm
Who the heck wrote that last one? A guy in solitary that also happens to be an English professor?
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  canamrockDolemite
  2/06/15 1:14pm
  1) Maybe he got a degree while in jail?
  
  2) I mean, he had a lot of time to himself to consider this exact issue. I could put together a scathing poetry slam if it was literally the only thing I could do for days or months at a time.
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  LocalSPDolemite
  2/06/15 1:17pm
  Could be. Even English professors can get into trouble.
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eoghan01Hamilton Nolan
2/06/15 12:56pm
The way we treat prisoners in American society is atrocious. It would be awful if everyone imprisoned had committed a serious crime; it seems worse given how many (especially non-white) people are imprisoned for drug crimes.
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  Ironically Transparenteoghan01
  2/06/15 1:28pm
  I have worked in a state correctional facility in the medical department for the last 20 years. I am not particularly interested in defending any specific state or treatment. I write to give some much needed context.
  
  An offender doesn't go to segregation without a reason. In my state- simple offenses like stealing, cheeking medications, disobeying direct orders, etc will get you 2-4 weeks in seg. For those in long term like one listed in this story- it typically takes a major offense. Staff assault, injury with weapon, attempted escape would be examples. You need to remember that most facilities only have a limited number of seg beds and thus they are usually reserved for the worst of the worse.
  
  For those who decry this treatment- OK I will listen but you need to develop a practical alternative for dangerous individuals who are repeatedly not interested in changing their behavior. I see no where in any comments are the offenders accepting their responsibility in this situation. Many of these individuals are unfortunately damaged people likely from terrible childhoods in which rehabilitation is likely not possible.
  
  This being said- complete isolation DOES change people. I personally haven't found this to make people more dangerous - just different. It can make pre-existing mental illness worse.
  
  I don't know the right answer but it is a lot more complicated than posters or this article maintains. Offenders in general have far more medical and mental issues - seemingly endless demand for both. We would run out of money before we run out of patients.
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  dickbuttkissereoghan01
  2/06/15 2:00pm
  Drugs like marijuana make people murderous psychos. What's worse, marijuana makes white women want to fornicate with negroes! STOP POT!!!1!!
  
  But seriously, there is no virtue in having the world's largest prison population, especially when we're broke as fuck...
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KittensAndUnicorns_v2_The UprisingHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:01pm
- "It is a breeding ground for violent behavior with no benefit for the inmate nor the public because 90 percent of all inmates leave the solitary confinement experience 10 times worse than when they got here."
- "Mentally it turns everyone into hateful individuals – if you've never hated anyone before, go to solitary and start hating everyone. Especially law enforcement and you will literally start plotting ways to kill people. Because one gets so lonely and deprived from human contact that your mind starts to entertain itself. It's the worst. I've never ever hated anyone until I came to solitary and now it seems like it's hard for me to get along with others. I would rather be in a cell by myself now because I've been in solitary so long. I can't stand other people. It made me completely antisocial. I'm getting close to being released, but I'm really scared because I don't know what I'm going to do. I've been in solitary so long I don't know if I can function around normal civilians in the outside world."
- You can't expect an inmate to change just because you throw him in a cell for two or three years at a time and forget about him. You have to treat us, educate us, talk to us, offer us programs. When you throw us in solitary confinement and don't offer us any treatment we rot away, while at the same time becoming angry and bitter about being forgotten. You have to remember that most of us will be getting out again. So while you just lock us up and don't offer us treatment, you're not doing anything for us. We remain untreated and just get kicked back out to society as the same people we were when we first came to prison."
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  areyouseriousrightnow?KittensAndUnicorns_v2_The Uprising
  2/06/15 1:24pm
  I like that our penal system takes already violent people, severely traumatizes them, and then lets them go.
  
  In addition to the fact that this is horrifying treatment that no prisoner should be subjected to, that is NOT GOOD for society.
  
  This setup is purely lose-lose.
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  DatBurnerDoeKittensAndUnicorns_v2_The Uprising
  2/06/15 1:45pm
  Yes, we should all cater to those that victimize others and misbehave in prison because they'll threaten us if we don't.
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TheMightyCornholioHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:05pm
Why are all of these letters presented without the context of how they got there in the first place?

Not like I am for this kind of treatment but it would add to the discussion that you are trying to create and foster here.
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  bassguitarheroTheMightyCornholio
  2/06/15 1:12pm
  because it doesn't matter how or why they got in there, solitary confinement is a terrible thing that human beings should not put other human beings through.
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  stacyinbeanTheMightyCornholio
  2/06/15 1:14pm
  If you check out the source report you will see that the comments are kept anonymous (each inmate has a number assigned to their comment). I assume this is done purposefully to protect them from retaliation or gaining further time in solitary, I'm guessing this is typical for reports of this type.
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kinjakimcheeHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:07pm
My issue with these posts is the lack of context. Why are they in solitary in thr first place? Isn't it a last resort? I don't care what initially brought them to prison. I care what sent them to the hole. Without those facts the story feels incomplete. I feel terrible. And I'm looking at this from a place of presumed innocence when the reality is most likely far different.
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  bassguitarherokinjakimchee
  2/06/15 1:13pm
  it doesn't matter why they're in prison, solitary confinement is a terrible thing that human beings shouldn't put other human beings through.
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  Aventurakinjakimchee
  2/06/15 1:16pm
  Long term solitary confinement is torture, plain and simple. It's not a "last resort;" rather, it's what many prisons use to manage mentally ill prisoners who they are not trained to help.
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Seneca the Younger(er)Hamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:18pm

"Mentally, I'm breaking down each passing day! I have to put up four walls around me, to protect myself from all the screaming and crying – that you hear in here. It feels like hell is breaking loose. And it's taken its toll on my life! I need meds just to cope. I'm mentally unstable, insecure and I am anti-social. I never was like this before."

That's a fairly unimaginative view of what Hell breaking loose might be like. Try an hour or four in combat with RPGs and bullets flying around you after the convoy you were blissfully riding around in gets hit in the middle by IEDs. The combined smell of diesel fuel, cordite, burning human flesh and scorched metal, rubber and plastic, combined with the screaming and yelling on both sides, combined with the pounding of your own heart as you go about your business wondering if this is your last moment on Earth. Then do that every few days, just often enough that you relax enough between encounters to contemplate the friends and comrades you arrived with who don't exist anymore or are horrifically maimed.

So forgive me if I'm not crying a fucking river because you are locked in a cell with reasonable heat, personal safety, food and water and a place to rest your head, all because of a crime you committed.

That said, we need to do something better with criminals than make them more damaged and psychopathic through maltreatment before we release them back into society. It's not productive for the community. But don't for a minute think I'm acknowledging that because of the inmates' hurt feelings and discomfort. It's a simple cost-benefit analysis. Maybe press gangs. Do we have any dangerous physical labor that needs to be done somewhere far, far away? Send them to do that.
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  Pamela TroySeneca the Younger(er)
  2/06/15 1:39pm
  Prolonged solitary confinment results in more than "hurt feelings" and "discomfort" on the part of the inmates.
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  Seneca the Younger(er)Pamela Troy
  2/06/15 1:39pm
  Everything is relative. If you can read my first paragraph and don't recognize an order of magnitude of difference between what was my day-to-day job for years and what is their punishment, your empathy meter is broken, not mine.
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Interstellar FelineHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:09pm
I take these reports with a grain of salt as they are activist organizations.

I can tell you right now 90% of it is bullshit as federal judges have said less violates the 8th amendment.

If you believe the full extent of these allegations are true, you are asking me to suspend my disbelief and accept that out of the 95,000 members of the bar in Texas and the 18,000 in Arizona, that not one will file a slamdunk case and get attorney's fees.

Guess what? In most cases, not only is solitary horrible but it is also constitutional, and it is most definitely earned by being the worst of the worst.

In fact, if these assholes weren't in solitary, they'd be maiming and killing their cellmates, and then you'd be shrieking about that. Guess what? Letting them out isn't a solution.
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  HaystacksInterstellar Feline
  2/06/15 2:02pm
  I believe in looking at all reports with a critical eye. It would be naive to believe that these things don't come with an agenda attached. But if you think the American justice system is simply incapable of this kind of disturbing behavior - you have clearly never experienced it yourself on any level.
  
  Bureaucracy, corruption, institutional racism and cronyism are all par the course of all government institutions, in all countries at all times. It is a reality we need to deal with, and be continuously aware of.
  
  It is like cockroaches in NY. If you want them to stay away you need to spray every year. It doesn't matter how clean you keep your apartment, they are still around. But with vigilance you can keep those incidents small. But stop being aware for even a small amount of time, it can take over.
  
  It is not so easy to "sue to state" especially if you are a convicted felon during time. First you would have to make a thing that is currently considered legal, illegal. These prisons are not technically committing a crime, since our courts have not declared solitary confinement to be "cruel and unusual"
  
  And if you think that those who own and run prisons are not also on the same side of judges and prosecutors, you would be wrong. They are all on "the same side". I am not saying that this is the bad side. We need a justice system. However a justice system that implicitly encourages crime is a broken one. Other countries do not have our incarceration rates or re-offense rates, and it is not because Americans are simply "worse people".
  
  My family has been the victim of violent crimes. Hell, I hope my grandmother's killer is in solitary right now. But that is why you don't let the victim's family choose sentencing - we lack a "society level" perspective that the law (and enforcement of the law) is supposed to have. I think people get to solitary confinement because they are generally bad people who have done awful things. However inducing mental instability into an already violent population seems like the worst idea I have ever heard. Especially if they are going to be released some day.
  
  We know for a fact continuous isolation induces mental problems. That is why it is a technique used to break terrorists. We can't on one hand use something as a tool for torture and then claim it is not cruel or unusual.
  
  Sorry that was so long. :P
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HaystacksHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:41pm
If you were to remove compassion or empathy from the equation, it is still a terrible way to do things for the world at large. Take violent offenders, make them crazy, then, at some point release them.

It sounds like the dumbest idea anyone has come up with for a while. And that is before you get to the "cruel and unusual" parts.

So we are looking at:

-Illegal

-Bad for society at large.

-Expensive

-Morality is debatable. It seems like an evil thing to do to me, but I can't speak for the beliefs of others.

But I have as much faith in America changing it's attitude toward prisons in us changing our attitude towards guns. Deep down, we don't want justice, we want punishment and suffering.
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carlinemomHamilton Nolan
2/09/15 8:56pm
I don't agree with solitary except for prisoners who have proven that they can't be trusted as part of the regular prison population (i.e., they have proven themselves dangerous without exception to other inmates), but generally prison food in Texas is ALL about calories. They strive to make the inmates fat. Inmates who eat the food get enormous.

There have been several lawsuits about this (states and the federal government generally make deals that give the prison and jail systems VERY low food costs while ensuring that farmers and suppliers get great government contracts. The major one I can think of now is the Vitapro controversy in which inmates throughout Texas (and other states) were fed Vitapro, which is a soy product originally designed as a fattening agent for pigs and cattle. Texas jails and prisons - and many in other states as well - switched out meat that was budgeted for in favor of this cheap and lethargy-producing substance. Inmates who spent six months or more in city jails or state jails (which have few exercise options) gained as much as 75 percent of their own body weight, while those in prison gained as much as 60 percent.

Fat prisoners are easier to control, and let's face it - they aren't doing much in Texas (or other) prisons to ensure that people come out healthier and better (the idea of a penitentiary was actually developed by the Quakers as a way of making wayward citizens reflect and determine if they wanted to be a contibuting member of society).

Yeah, I am a conservative and I don't like killers and rapists out in public. But - warehousing human beings and feeding them the dregs and ignoring them while they have to navigate the complexities of a prison dynamic is only going to perpetuate the problem for those in the system and those entering it - prison is full of people who might have made a mistake but could be AMAZING contributors to society if they were given an opportunity (education, mentorship, etc.). The idea that a state contract could be made that fed human beings the same thing that was fed cattle waiting for slaughter? Disgusting. Revolting. Unholy.

Many of the people in prison were never treated as human beings...maybe if we didn't have the scared straight system we have, we could coax and help people to a better life. It won;t work on everyone - but most people in prison aren't habitual (although they can become habitual without the chance to re-renter society in a meaningful way) and they want to be good.

Anway - Texas feeds a huge amount of calories each day to ALL inmates. Solitary people are also getting (bad) but fattening food. Food is the least of their worries.

Humanity - it can be glorious or nefarious.

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NicoHamilton Nolan
2/06/15 1:04pm
Any one else notice the states you would consider more religious are also the cruelest? "You have to have that baby!", "You can't afford to feed that baby!?! Not OUR problem!", "Jesus loves you, except gays!", "Love thy neighbor, unless they're in jail, in that case, who cares if they get raped or spend the rest of their lives in solitary confinement."
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