I see only one thread in here regarding prisons...

Does anyone have links or opinions of/about our penal system in America?

I've been wanting to talk about the way we "penalize" and/or "punish" our so-called criminals. What do others feel about so many people being locked up for non-violent drug offenses? Why do we have so many Prisons? What do we do to help non-violent offenders to reassimilate into the population (especially since the jobless rate is so high) What's the money factor behind building so many prisons, if any?

Add whatever you feel like saying.

I'm not too keen on the justice system in general; too much corruption and bias. Also, what to do about lousy lawyers? The rich versus the poor in terms of justice....etc..

Is the only form of rape at which society takes no offense.

disgusting.

I'm going to spread the word on this. Never even thought about it before. Thanks

It was Bill Clinton's hearty embrace of the prison industrial complex that caused me to abandon the Democratic Party in 2000 and vote for Nader. Relax, I live in California, Gore won the state by a landslide, and I can assure you I won't be doing that again. Yeah, our justice system is totally biased towards the rich and white. You can find no greater archetype for the hypocrisy of it by looking at Rush Limbaugh. Not only does he get special treatment (He'd be doing hard time right now if he was black or poor) but there is a double standard as to how we prosecute drug offenders. Rich people can afford to go to a doctor and get Oxycontin or Prozac or whatever they need, while poor people have no other options than crack or meth. And they get hard prison time for it, whereas Rush or Noelle Bush get either probation or 10 days in county. Our prisons are filled with people doing 20 years for knowing the wrong people, single mothers whose husbands dealt drugs behind their back, and others who ended up being the fall guy for a drug kingpin so they could get a lighter sentence.
If there is one big issue I would like the Democrats to raise it is this one. Sadly, they either cower to the tough on crime mentality that much of the public currently feels because they are ignorant of how our justice system works or they are in the pocket of the prison lobby. Our own recalled Democratic Governor Gray Davis was a huge whore of the prison guard union, and under his leadership the California prison budget was higher than its education budget. It sucks and it's insane. Still is by the way, as far as I know. Ah-nuld hasn't done anything to change it, not that I expected he would.

negative involvment with regards to law and the penal system. I've only learned this same info recently and I'm not happy about it.

I too thought the gropenator was going to do something sensible about the crowded prisons..........don't see it happening. But then, he is more bushite than anything else and we know that Bushco lies like it was gospel to do so.

Frankly, while I will vote Dem and I'm most certainly NOT republican, I'm not happy with many of what I call the Neoliberals I see popping up these recent years. I was dumbstruck when Clinton gutted the welfare program instead of keeping and improving many of the newer helps that were set into place during the late 80's and 90's. What happened to the healthcare thing when he was in office? I know he was up against the right but geez, Bill and Hill's healthcare proposals went down without a real fight. It puzzled me and made me angry.

This evening I posted in another forum my feelings about not wanting the right wing in power to take over the world, but I ALSO don't want a cabal of the neoleft doing the same thing either--especially if they are just as narrowminded as the right is. Anyway, I digress.

Thank you for your post/reply. It's good to know that some folks are thinking about these special issues........lives put on hold, corrupt, biased, brutal, and classist legal systems etc. IT'S GOT TO BE REFORMED. Which party will do it? Beats me.

Just look at who's getting most of the state and federal contracts.
The Lom poc prison in California has the contract for the F16 wiring harness. Texas prisons are bidding on state jobs right and left.
I retired from law enforcement and let me be the first say........You have to have a victim to have a crime.

Like to continue the topic when I return.

I've been in other threads tonight, but I want to revisit here and delve into some of these issues further.

Thank all ... I'll be back tomorrow. I'm bookmarking this thread.

I've not been completely up to date on what's going on though. I think I heard something about inmates doing some sort of "clerical" work for the public sector also.

I know that the medical system, maybe there are others and correct me if I'm wrong, sends eyeglass prescriptions (lens manufacturing) to the prisons.

I know that some institutions try to offer inmates classes on self improvement etc. That's a good start. I'm also aware that the services inmates need: medical, personal items etc. are being cut back...no more smoking inside prison after '05. I have a family member 'inside' who has to pay for many of her own personal items and some medical services. She can't even get laundry soap from the institution--she has to buy it herself. If she is indigent (which she is) she borrows from others (who want something back)or uses stuff like shampoo to wash her underwear...for heavens sake!

This member has worked her tail off inside, going to classes and learning "trades", meeting with counselors. Then she gets shot down when she asks to go to a special drug rehab program after release. She is crestfallen and angry. She WANTED to do the right thing. She WANTED to get the help she'll need to reassimilate outside. The said program would have offered her a plethora of services to re enter society. She has become "institutionalized" by way of becoming "dependant" on the "structure" of prison. Without suppport, she will very likely fall apart outside--especially since no one is hiring these days, let alone hiring ex cons--learned "trade" or no. Where will she live? What work will she do? She can't live with her family for particular reasons, none of which have anything to do with not loving her.

Bush, who I detest, said something in his SOTU speech about helping inmates when they get out....hardy har har...another lie? Doesn't his mother, Babs, "own" or have stock in "private" prison systems?
The whole system is twisted in this matter.
Thanks for your reply........
PS: You are retired you say? Are you now in Texas? If you are posting in here, I like to assume you are one of the compassionate and clear thinking members of our law and legal system. :hi:

This is one of those internal US issues that I don't have much to say about and it might be rude to say much about, but I always feel kinda rude saying nothing about important issues that people bring here and that usually get ignored.

Obviously, I look at things through a Canadian eye, and think about what we do that is different from what you do. A couple of things come to mind:

- no war on drugs

I have a friend who lives just outside NYC who recently did some time in upstate NY for cocaine possession. (He was released, after nearly 2 years inside, on the morning of September 10, 2001. Imagine his surprise ...)

In Canada, his offence (a first) would probably have got him a couple of years of probation. If there had been any reason for prison time (which, knowing him, I doubt any court would have thought), it would almost certainly have been in the form of a conditional sentence -- served in the community like probation unless any terms are violated.

- length of sentences

His sentence was 3.5 years to life -- for what would have been simple possession if they hadn't counted the weight of the water the cocaine was dissolved in (I don't quite understand this stuff, but that's how it was explained). He will likely be on parole for life. That is beyond bizarre.

A huge proportion of his dorm-mates were in prison for parole violations. The parole system in the US seems to be designed to get people back in prison, rather than to assist in re-integrating them into the community: the focus is on catching them in a violation, rather than helping them to meet their conditions. I see you mentioned general unemployment, and that is obviously a factor -- paroled prisoners are certainly far less likely than even ordinary people to find stable employment, both because employers are less likely to hire them and because the restrictions on their lives and constant fear of being reincarcerated for minor breaches interfere with their ability to participate in the labour market.

Apart from parole, the length of sentences commonly imposed in the US is also simply bizarre. Any protection of society gained by segregating most offenders for long periods (not forgetting that most offenders in the US prison system are non-violent to start with, as I understand it) is completely offset by the negative effects of over-incarcerating: overcrowding, inadequate services to prisoners, the unchecked brutality within the prison populations, institutionalization / criminalization of prisoners and the diminished likelihood that they will successfully re-integrate on release. The funds devoted to lengthy incarceration could be put into better services on the inside during shorter sentences, and better services on the outside for parolees.

Of course, all that assumes that any amount of money would assist in integrating former prisoners into the mainstream society and economy in which few of them had any chance of integration in the first place.

- privatization of the corrections system

'Nuff said. The "money factor" is obvious. One more opportunity for corruption -- corruption is a broad term: any placing of private interests over the public's at the public's expense; in this case we have the inherent, built-in tendency of business to expand in its own interests, in order to increase profits, and of business's cronies in government to assist in the effort, as well as the obvious tendency to reduce expenses and increase profits.

Unfortunately, this trend is spreading. Our counter service person at the Midas Muffler last summer was telling us how she's going back to her real career after a hiatus -- this time as a correctional officer in a new young offenders facility in Ontario, a privately-run one established by our (now ousted) decade-long right-wing Tory provincial government. My first question: union? Nope. Up here, where *all* public servants at all levels are unionized, and public sector unions are vocal on public policy, that's intolerable. It may seem unrelated to the question of what's wrong with the correctional system, but it's symptomatic of problems. A non-union workplace, in a field that is has such crucial impacts on both the public's protection and individual's rights, is an institution from which one level of public scrutiny has been removed.

- prisoners' rights

No one feels allegiance to a group that does not recognize and value him/her. A system/society that demeans and devalues and degrades people is just not a system that is going to produce people that respects that society and its values.

In Canada, the only people ever denied the vote were inmates in correctional institutions. Once out, they voted. That has now changed, after challenges to both provincial and federal elections laws under the 1982 constitutional Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the judicial interpretation of the Charter that has evolved since it was adopted. (Here, all criminal law is federal; time less than 2 years is served in provincial prisons, 2 years or more is served in federal penitentiaries. The former are recognized as better places for rehabilitation, and so sentences of "2 years less a day" are common.)

There have been decisions at both the federal and provincial levels that inmates may not be denied the vote in elections. That strikes me as an important symbolic measure, in terms of an expression of respect for prisoners as members of their society. As the Supreme Court here found, denying the vote serves no valid public purpose, and certainly not any of the proper purposes of sentencing. It is purely punitive, and while "denunciation" of crimes and punishment of offenders are valid sentencing objectives, those purposes come no where near the standard that must be met if the state wants to interfere with the most fundamental democratic right in the society.

In Quebec, the provincial Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (non-constitutional legislation that governs private sector activities and that the government has voluntarily submitted its own activities to) prohibits private-sector discrimination on the grounds of criminal conviction, except where there is some direct connection to the situation (applying for a bank teller job after conviction for fraud, say). There was a recent Supreme Court case in which someone who was sent to prison for an offence was fired when he didn't show up at work, and claimed illegal discrimination, but he lost. "Section 18.2 of the Charter does not protect an employee from dismissal where the real reason is the fact that the employee is not available for work because he or she happens to be incarcerated." Even up here, there are limits. ;)


So there are the furriner's thoughts on a few things!

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I'm worried about our legal system for many of the reasons you've stated.

I realize we cannot let homicidal maniacs roam the streets but our prisons are CRAMMED full of lesser violators and non-violent "crimies".

It's just as you say: A person goes in to prison, and for all intents and purposes, is labeled for life--every single area of one's life is forever scrutinized. Some come out and get lucky, not very many.

There are habitual drug offenders going through a revolving door here...a total waste of money and a life cut short. Of course, as someone posted here, the rich or well-connected usually get better treatment and often get off completely while the poorer among us are in deep shit. We also imprison people with mental disabilities who, often, have very little control over their medical circumstances--the lack of adequate and accessible healthcare/mental health/etc. plays out here. Instead of providing REAL help to these people before and after they go off, we just send them away. "Out of sight, out of mind". At no time does the legal system give any thought to the families of these imprisoned. The families are treated like THEY are the "perps".
I can't speak for the whole country, but in Calif. we have a three strikes law that is being abused-->(shocking eh?) The most nonsensiccal 3rd offense can land a person behind bars for eternity.

It's like the attitude of America is KICK ASS and take names later. This macho idea of the wild west lives on. Once an offender, always a pariah; seems like it gives the coppers a "rush" to constantly watch and harrass those with any kind of record.

Then we have to watch ouselves in courts with judges, not to mention lousy lawyers. These are simply people and people have private opinions and politics. They are not suppose to apply their beliefs to their cases but they do. I've watched Judges let violent offenders off while "making an example" of a drug addicted or shoplifting mother....shaming her and denegrating her and getting his jolly's about Lording it over her and sending her to hard time. WTF?

It's an all or nothing system and it needs to go. Thanks for your reply ~Peace~

There seems to be an opening for discussion here. ;)

I was going to post this bit of news anyhow, so here ya go.

A person goes in to prison, and for all intents and purposes, is labeled for life--every single area of one's life is forever scrutinized.

A propos of that, in a roundabout sort of way: the news in issue is about prison tatoos.

I have a vague recollection of public health plans at one time paying for them to be removed -- not sure whether that was in Canada or in the US, although it sounds more Canadian -- but of this having stopped. The idea was that someone with those things was automatically stigmatized when s/he tried to reintegrate into society, and it was in everybody's interests to help get rid of them.

There's another big problem involved with prison tatoos: disease transmission. The news piece I saw the other night mentioned that it is believed that 1 in 4 people in penitentiaries in Canada (sentences of 2+ years) have Hepatitis C, largely as a result of clandestine tatooing.

Who cares? Well, it's the old harm reduction thing. Even if we don't care about them, we might have a thought for ourselves. Most of them are going to be back out here some day, and Hep C is a very transmissible and deadly disease (and that's even without counting the possibilities for HIV transmission). I have one friend who died of it -- he contracted it years ago from giving blood, at a time when equipment was not properly sterile. I have another friend about to have a liver transplant (amazingly, his best friend is, so far, a perfect match and is doing live donor transplant of a portion of his liver) -- he apparently contracted it from blood transfusions during surgery years ago.

So now lemme go find a news report about the new plan.

(If you go to www.cbc.ca and put hepatitis inmates in the search box, you'll get articles with background to the story.)

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/03/29/canada/prisontattoos040329

Tattoo parlours to open in Canadian prisons
Last Updated Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:43:51

VANCOUVER - Corrections Canada is planning to set up tattoo parlours in six federal prisons this year. Health officials hope the parlours will reduce the spread of infectious diseases, including hepatitis C.

Dr. Francoise Bouchard, the director general of health services for Corrections Canada, talked about the pilot project at a hepatitis C conference in Vancouver. One study, she says, shows more than a quarter of all federal inmates have hepatitis C.

Bouchard says there's no way of knowing how many picked up the disease from tattooing, but she says at least 45 per cent of inmates engage in it with whatever they can get their hands on. "All kinds of things, metal, old metal equipment," she said.

So, as a pilot project, Corrections Canada will set up tattoo parlours in six federal prisons. The sites have not been chosen. Bouchard says the shops will be staffed by inmates.

How's that? And they learn a trade to boot. ;)

Unfortunately, a needle exchange program is not yet in place in the prisons, despite long calls for one to be implemented as a way to combat the spread of HIV. (Forgive me, but it's just plain beyond me why our prison system cannot keep drugs out.)

I believe that inmates here may be issued with bleach kits for needles; I'm not positive.

http://winnipeg.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=mb_HIV20031201

WINNIPEG - The Stony Mountain Correctional Institution, just north of Winnipeg, has been rated as the second worst federal prison when it comes to the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, according to the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

... Bond says there needs to be more harm-reduction programs in prisons, better access to clean needles and safe tattooing pilot projects, as well as anonymous testing for inmates.

"A judge refused to send an offender who was 17 or 18 years old...to Stony Mountain, because he knew that the HIV and the Hepatitis C rates were so high in that institution," says Bond. "So he chose to send him to the Youth Centre instead, because it was just a little bit safer place for someone to be."

... Federal figures show in the late 1980s there were 24 federal inmates across the country with HIV. By the end of 2001 that number had grown almost ten times, to 223.

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that spent time in jail 40+ years ago.

You said, "It's just as you say: A person goes in to prison, and for all intents and purposes, is labeled for life--every single area of one's life is forever scrutinized. Some come out and get lucky, not very many." It is so true here.

1. "internal US issues that I don't have much to say about"....Like gun control, I presume?

2. I find the idea of iverglas complaining about the length of sentences to be very, very amusing.

:evilgrin:

I'm not getting at ya! Honest! Just a bit of good-natured banter to keep up the morale!

Mr P.

I find the idea of iverglas complaining about the length of sentences to be very, very amusing.

We are amused.

.

Here's another:

How do we champion making things better without the opposition slapping on the "soft on crime" label and demolishing us in the polls?