Posted on 10/16/2004 6:35:02 AM PDT by HostileTerritory
That proposal was put to the warden of San Quentin prison in California a few years back, and his reply was that unless the non-violent types were mingled in with the violent types the prison would be totally unmanageable (probably due to ACLU lawsuits limiting their ability to take appropriate action to deal with violent prisoners). California does have Pelican Bay, where they send the truly unmanageable prisoners, and the Security Housing Unit there is used for solitary confinement of the true predators. And I think the ACLU practically has a branch office there.
California's big problem is neutralizing gang violence - and I think, unfortunately, that gangs have infiltrated both the prison population and their guards. Judging by the news stories we've seen lately, on wonders whether the state or the Crips are really running the prison system.
The best solution is to humanely euthanize violent predators - preferably with a .45 - produced by their intended victims at the scene of the crime. ;)
The most important thing-the only REALLY important thing-is to find and segregate the predators.
I, myself, think that human predators should be killed as soon as they are identified, at least if that identification comes about from conviction of a violent crime.
The predators are a distinctive minority among prisoners, and non-predators don't belong in facilities where predators reside.
Don't focus so much on the crime-focus belongs on the criminal.
Example: The guy who killed the 11-year old girl in Florida about a year ago.
He had multiple arrests, each one for an unprovoked violent crime with sexual overtones.
His first arrest was for knocking a woman over the head and dragging her into the woods-she escaped without being raped or seriously injured.
No question he did that act. The question is, what should happen to people who fantasize continuously about hurting women and little girls once they, through their behavior, reveal the capacity to act on their desires?
Probation, which is what he got because the woman was not hurt, is obviously wrong.
Incarceration for a term of years is wrong because a) it gives him abundant raw material to brutalize; b) introduces him, perhaps for the first time in his life, to a cadre of like-minded freaks, and c) he gets out.
Incarceration for life is very expensive, but if my fellow citizens vote to pay the bills rather than kill them, I suppose I can live with that.
But what we're doing now does not work.
Why are the "Gangster's" running the prison???
I thought prison was a place where you lost all rights. Maybe they will have prom's next.
Yeah, 'ravishing the countryside' would no doubt be the result. /sarc.
The system is ill-designed and dysfunctional - wringing our hands is not really a dignified option. The Government is manufacturing a lumpenproletariat in order to make their 'protective' functions seemingly more essential.
You're either with the people or the state terrorists.
"I would add one thing, decent food. I don't mean fancy food, just decent, nutritious food. Maybe they're already getting it"
You can forget about any government facility offering decent, nutrional tastey food. Everyone who attended public schools in America knows how wretched the food is. If lawful public school children aren't getting "decent" food prisoners shouldn't either. But this is a whole other topic...
No, it is not a whole other topic. Post 97 mentioned "We are attempting to manage a group of people who don't want to be managed, and whose internal discipline is faulty or nonexistent." How do you think that happened?
"No, it is not a whole other topic. Post 97 mentioned "We are attempting to manage a group of people who don't want to be managed, and whose internal discipline is faulty or nonexistent." How do you think that happened?"
I don't think it happened due to institutional government food or lack of. I attended high school with many inner city lower middle class kids who ate cheeto's for breakfast and lunch and a can of soda and still they were tops in sports, moderate in academia which perplexed me to no end. I figured they got by on little nutrients due to their youthful energy. The body really is an amazing complex machine that can endure a lot of neglect like inadequate nutrients during youth. A mystery to me.
CC
CC
Because no innocent person has ever been raped in prison, and all prisoners deserve to be raped.
I'm sorry, actually I was thinking about the connection with children in general. A child can be corrected at an early age (before hormones set in) and successfully grow to be a well-behaved productive citizen. It is too late to try to correct an adult. We correct children, and in prison we babysit adults.
Sounds about right, bill. Michigan was under a similar consent decree with virtually the same provisions until 3 -4 years ago. virtually all states meet the standards as you list above, as they are both federally mandated, and a part of the prison certification process (american corrections association) it could have happened, but some of it was probably consensual (which doesn't matter legally). the prisoner could be a victim, and in some senses, he probably is. But the FIRST time it happened, all he had to do was report it to a staff member, and he would be in segregation in 5 minutes, and likely transferred to another institution fairly briefly. but my view is from a different vantage point.
Freegards,
CC
Corporal punishment for certain offences would actually be far less costly, in economic and social terms, and far less inhumane than prison.
For example, take the situation of a man, the sole support of his family, who steals a stereo.
Put him in prison and you not only risk throwing his family on to the welfare rolls, but you also send him to the best training ground for future criminals.
Give him a flogging and you can send him back to work to pay restitution and support his family the next day.
Property criminals who reoffend should be isolated from society in a "criminals only" zone, from which no escape is possible and into which no resources are put except erecting and maintaining the fence.
This sounds like something similar to a gulag, without the routine barbarism of the administration and the political prisoners. Northern Alaska sounds like a perfect place for it.
I can see you haven't grown past your modern American college miseducation. You need a little street education. My bet is you couldn't even survive ten minutes with your "proletarian" without catching you "lumpens"!
If you were "with the people" you wouldn't want the violent felons who victimized the "the people" back out on the street.
If society wants to hold prison officials responsible for prisoners brutalizing other prisoners, it better first return control of the prisons to those official!
The system IS "ill-designed and dysfunctional", but lawyers, courts, journalist and social activist have had more to do with creating that system than the prison officials.
I don't want predators on the street, ever.
The prison officials are part and parcel of the damage the lawyers, legislators, and social utopians have done and will continue to do.
Their work is not done - there's only 2,000,000 Americans in prison!
The bottom line is that when people are sentenced to prison, being anally raped is not part of that sentence. People who commit rapes in prison need to be put in isolation/or sentenced to breaking rocks all day for the rest of their lives.
How about 'if you can't stand the time, don't do the crime'.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.