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    LordBurleighHamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 1:53pm

    Prison per se is a racist, violent nightmare. Eliminate them all.

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      Sid and FinancyLordBurleigh
      12/18/15 1:54pm

      Where, exactly, do you propose we put the Syrians and Muslim then, huh?

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      Dave LordBurleigh
      12/18/15 1:59pm

      I was wondering if there were an egalitarian Utopian prison out there?

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    ReburnsABurningReturnsHamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 1:59pm

    Don’t send people to prison if you can’t protect their human rights.

    How about we just, you know, reject living in such a hilariously dichotomous world and recognize that while our prison system is a mess and needs to be fixed, on balance it still serves an important role for society.

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      LVNReburnsABurningReturns
      12/18/15 2:07pm

      Or we can send them to Nolans house where they will be treated with respect and dignity.

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      RobNYCReburnsABurningReturns
      12/18/15 2:14pm

      Of creating more crime? By all measures, the current system doesn’t reform anyone, it only makes them career criminals.

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    jokepitchHamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 2:05pm

    The thing is that, in an institution where privacy is forfeit, there is no excuse for gangs or violence being able to gain a foothold.

    You have total control over inmates whose freedom has been surrendered. The only reason any violence, rape, killing, contraband, drugs, etc. happens is because these places allow it to happen.

    The widely held notion that prison is meant to be unending punishment is so clearly rooted in the people who run these places.

    Parole seems to be built around whether inmates have been rehabilitated without a single effort paid toward trying to rehabilitate anyone.

    It’s fucking stupid. You have captive fucking audiences in a prison. They should be led in, given their jumpsuits, shown to their cells, then be given a fucking class schedule so they can learn and start to figure out how to change their lives.

    And that’s setting aside for a moment the number of people who shouldn’t be there in the first place but who are subject to the same hellscape because politicians like to beat their chests about being tough on crime.

    And on top of all that staffing the places with vindictive bullies and racist assholes? Just... no.

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      Max Cherryjokepitch
      12/18/15 2:22pm

      If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the prisons purposely wanted the gangs, in order to keep the inmates divided. Latino majority? No problem. Exploit and encourage rifts between Southern and Northern California Latinos. They started doing this in the ‘60s. Inmates of that era like George Jackson and Rudy “Cheyenne” Cadena (basis for Edward James Olmos’s character in American Me) who tried to promote peace between the races and regions were vastly outnumbered because the violence moved faster than their message did. The difference between crime on the west coast and crime back in NY and Chicago is that you can take just about all gang related crime here and link it to the prisons in some way, where as back east they had the mafia which worked as a buffer between the streets and the prisons. Out here in Cali, the mafia is in prison. It was born there.

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      burps25jokepitch
      12/18/15 2:54pm

      we don’t send people to prison in the hopes they’ll come out better, we send them to prison because they did something wrong and need to be punished. why do they deserve an education? why do they deserve help getting a life afterwards, when they chose to do wrong?

      That’s not my argument, I support rehabilitation for sure. The idea of prison as punishment makes no sense to me, but the statement represents the mentality of many.

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    KwazemiHamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 1:57pm

    It’s stories about prison like this that are precisely why I avoid doing things that would land me in prison. Job done

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      KinglyCitrusKwazemi
      12/18/15 2:10pm

      Because no one has ever been falsely convicted of a crime in the history of mankind, there are no unjust laws, and circumstances that push people to commit crimes just to survive do not exist.

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      nosleepdreamsKwazemi
      12/18/15 3:08pm

      you would think a simple look at the enormity of our prison population would make you think twice before saying such a stupid comment. furthermore, committing a crime does not strip you of your humaness. it amazes me that peoples sympathy goes right out the window whenever we are talking about prisoners as if they are somehow less than human.

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    portland1Hamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 2:00pm

    One of the many, many sad and depressing facets of prisons in America is the way that the inmates are automatically turned into race-warriors and asked to associate only with their own kind. It contributes to the racial animosity of our nation, and it teaches people who already have impulse control and decision-making problems that they are supposed to be allied with their own race above any other loyalty.

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      Max Cherryportland1
      12/18/15 2:39pm

      I’m from Northern California, a lot of Latino relatives. Most of my cousins are girls, and they’ve had various relationships with these hard core Nortenos that are in and out of prison. One of my male Latino cousins, who had a drug problem and ended up in prison, was a rock and roll, stoner type. Although he’d grown up in a Norteno neighborhood, the gang scene was just never his thing. When he got out of prison, his hair was high and tight, and a red shirt, red shoes, and red belt had become a part of his regular wardrobe. Every time I see him he’s covered in more ink. He doesn’t really talk the talk, but it’s obvious where his allegiance is. Almost anyone who is Latino in California, or that even has a close relationship to Latinos, has been affected by this system. It’s a part of the landscape, like the rolling hills of the bay area, the beaches of southern California, and the farms in the central valley.

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      nosleepdreamsportland1
      12/18/15 3:03pm

      It doesn’t teach - it enforces. In prisons where you are not protected by the people hired to protect you, you will join a gang in order to survive. it has very little to actual racism in the way you seem to be understanding it.

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    DoHardTime1Hamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 1:57pm

    “Don’t send people to prison if you can’t protect their human rights.”

    I prefer “don’t commit acts that will land you in prison.”

    Sounds like what people who commit these crimes deserve, anyway.

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      helgaperezDoHardTime1
      12/18/15 2:27pm

      If we aren’t going to try to rehabilitate convicts, we should probably just execute them or give them life in prison. There’s no sense in giving someone 5-10 years when they aren’t going to behave any better when they get out than when they went in.

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    Vinny1Hamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 2:07pm

    Sorry, but prison is not supposed to be fun. The whole purpose of prisons is to punish criminals.

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      helgaperezVinny1
      12/18/15 2:34pm

      “The whole purpose of prisons is to punish criminals.”

      In the United States, yes. However, some other nations believe the purpose of prisons is to either rehabilitate the criminal or prevent the criminal from hurting others. They tend to have lower recidivism rates.

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    WeaselsareUsHamilton Nolan
    12/18/15 2:19pm

    These situations begin with the juvenile system. I worked over 15 years in juvenile corrections in SD. I watched attitudes and treatment of offenders change with every administration but overall a downward trend towards more of a corrective than supportive mentality. I reported abuse in the system and it cost me my career. This is what you get when you treat everyone the same and encourage a punitive atmosphere. Some people belong in prison, some people are pushed there.

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      JT_Pearland146Hamilton Nolan
      12/18/15 2:02pm

      In his book Small Gods Terry Pratchertt penned this memorable line:

      “... there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

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        nosleepdreamsHamilton Nolan
        12/18/15 3:15pm

        Don’t send people to prison if you can’t protect their human rights.

        This is a powerful statement and one I haven’t heard being made nearly enough. People who commit crimes are human beings - their acts do not make them sub-human- they deserve the same protection, support, and basic dignity that any other human life does. To think and act otherwise makes us into the very same monsters we claim to be punishing. We wield justice like a blade and wonder why there is so much blood on the ground.

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          ofthespectaclenosleepdreams
          12/20/15 4:21pm

          i regret that i have but one star to give. this comment is the truth.

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