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Dogs and Cats Living TogetherHamilton Nolan
2/11/15 12:20pm
This is telling:

The number of annual jail admissions has nearly doubled in the past 30 years, although crime rates have fallen significantly since the early 1990s.
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  dagmose33Dogs and Cats Living Together
  2/11/15 12:27pm
  there couldn't be a financial motive for putting people in prison could there, hmmmmm?
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  sadsweaterownerDogs and Cats Living Together
  2/11/15 12:29pm
  I need an explanation of why our crime rates have fallen significantly since the 90's. And yes, I could probably do a bunch of reading on my own, but can someone just give it to me in brief? Basically it seems that if crime is falling someone is doing something to effect that—it's not the good economy, it's not a newly sane legal system... is it just because we're locking up so many people *before* they commit violent crimes we happen to lock up a few extra legit future violent criminals too?
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Abigail HamiltonHamilton Nolan
2/11/15 12:45pm
Having had the pleasure of spending 24 hours in jail, I can share some eye-openers:

Jail inmates are in for 1 to 364 days. Of the 10 women in the jail with me, ~3 were there for almost the full maximum year. The jail was underground with only faint transom daylight. Recreation was indoors when available (not daily). You could not receive reading material from outside, or paper, or toiletries (the way you can in prison, as far as I know). It all had to be supplied by the jail or the jail's vending machine.

So there are many people in jails like this not seeing daylight or ever being out of doors for up to a year. Most of the 10 women were young women from disadvantaged backgrounds who got into drug-related trouble.
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  RemeCAAbigail Hamilton
  2/11/15 1:26pm
  Sometimes they serve longer than a year, just not in the same jail. Often someone who has committed infractions in neighboring jurisdictions will spend a sentence of a few months, then be transported to the next jail to serve another jail sentence. Theoretically this could go on for years.
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  CheeseSandwichAbigail Hamilton
  2/11/15 1:33pm
  I spent 24 hours in jail for walking home drunk.
  
  Walking home drunk and happened to walk past cops in a patrol car.
  
  Granted I was visibly drunk and I guess being drunk in public is technically a crime but I was walking from a bar 3 blocks from my apartment.
  
  I didn't even egg the police on or anything. LE SIGH.
  
  It was me, a guy who was in for drugs and a guy who was in for exposing himself. PARTY ON ME.
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cepalgHamilton Nolan
2/11/15 12:21pm
Fun fact: America has a higher percentage of its population in prison than the Soviet Union did at the height of the Gulag system.

But hey, empty prisons don't generate jobs!
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  Harvey Keitel's Detachable Dongcepalg
  2/11/15 12:24pm
  You know, I see people bat this around and it's a fun thing to say if you're feeling particularly catty about the US prison system, but where did the stat about the number of people in the Soviet Union's gulags come from and why does/should one trust it to be legit?
  
  The USSR was not exactly known for being the most transparent government nor for their meticulous bookkeeping.
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  cepalgHarvey Keitel's Detachable Dong
  2/11/15 12:34pm
  The statistic most usually cited in this regard comes from Robert Conquest's "Victims of Stalinism: A Comment" and "Excess Deaths and Camp Numbers." Conquest has since brought the number WAY down, on grounds that his original analysis assumed every labor camp was operating at 100% capacity for prisoners 100% of the time. Sure, it's an obvious mistake, but you can perhaps understand why someone who titled his book Victims of Stalinism did not feel any pangs of conscience about missing high.
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Scott NonaHamilton Nolan
2/11/15 4:52pm
"Benched" on USA touched on this in the pilot, where the bail requested by the defense for an indigent client was $1 (or something like that...it was a sitcom involving E. Coupe in short skirts.)

As a former defense attorney, this hit home because bail is, in the Constitution and statutes, a sum to assure the person returns for further proceedings. For the vast majority of defendants, aside from a select few sitting on caches of drug cash, $100 is an impossible sum. Most of my clients sat in jail for months because making bail was impossible.

Of course, as most readers know, the way they got out was eventually to plead to a crime. "Your trial will be in six months, at which time your job, spouse and kids will all be gone, or plead to possession now and be out on time served."
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  cyberathenaScott Nona
  2/11/15 5:48pm
  This is why people are stuck in a revolving door with no way out... after trial, you're stuck with victim restitution but the reason why you got in that mess in the first place is because you were desperate for money! How the heck are you going to be able to pay fine, restitution, not use your car, find time for urine test twice a week?
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  copulousrexScott Nona
  2/11/15 6:18pm
  You know what bench touches on? My remote, the channel magically changes whenever it comes on like the ghost of good sitcoms press channel up or down to save me from having to see more than the "Benched coming up next on USA" part. Interestingly enough supernatural has the same effect on my remote, like it knows to change it after the flash.
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WIncredulous is with her!Hamilton Nolan
2/11/15 1:23pm
This report is terrifying. Then add in this one on drug treatment (our systems are bloody medieval and no one wants to admit that) from Huff Po, http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-fr…, and I don't even know how people get real help for anything.
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  Sara-Slaughter607WIncredulous is with her!
  2/11/15 1:52pm
  There are a million more where Patrick Cagey came from.. and there are massive waiting lists for Suboxone, the ONE pill that I have ever personally seen make any kind of difference in curbing cravings... methadone, you might as well still be shooting. The minute they miss clinic or can't get there or can't get it, they're looking for a bag instead.
  
  People who are this severely addicted cannot help BUT use... and end up in jail over and over from getting caught. A truly vicious cycle.
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FrederickDouglassHamilton Nolan
2/11/15 1:24pm
"A jail is not a social safety net." It is if you are in the police or guard unions.
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IAmNotADamnWriterHamilton Nolan
2/11/15 12:38pm
Spend just one night in The Tombs in downtown NYC, and you'll know what all this means.
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