Prisons

People over on the Shkreli thread seem to have the rather surprising opinion that prison violence is good when it happens to bad people. As a leftist who can't really go the final measure to reach the "abolish prisons" mindset that many of my friends have, I'm still kinda shocked to find people on my general side of the political spectrum waxing romantic about prison violence.

So: prisons! imo their central function in the U.S. is a barely-concealed expression of racism & white supremacy, but is that the main problem with them? is prison awesome if it only locks up bad people? does it kick ass when some asshole gets beat up or worse in prison, as long as he's an asshole? Where's everybody at on the question of prisons?

dude it was just an idle joke my actual opinions on prisons + policy is, how shall we say, more nuanced

just taking it as an opportunity to have this discussion - don't take this thread as an attack. I struggle with it myself, since I know a LOT of people who believe prison must be abolished; but I'm a parent -- it's hard for me to conceive of a remedy for child abuse that doesn't involve prison; and I'm a guy who's done rotations through Patton: as a nurse in training, I talked face-to-face with dudes who'd committed murder, and who weren't ever going to be able to honestly say "that won't happen again."

that said I think idle jokes about prison violence are really gross & unseemly ok

I don't know if I'd say the racism of prisons is even a little bit concealed.

this thread needs a C/D, S+D appended to the title

the way prisons are currently structured and run virtually ensures that rehabilitation almost never happens/guarantees recidivism. In a minority of cases you get people who find God/get "scared straight"/somehow manage to maintain their sanity under the worst conditions but they are the sad exception.

I don't think prisons should be abolished, but they should definitely be restructured, along with the rest of our justice system.

xp

I was reading that Colony in a Nation book recently. I couldn't get over the stat that the US has a bigger prison population than China and encompasses 25% of the world's prison population, despite only 5 point odd % of the global population. I didn't the check veracity of these facts before sending a Nuke those bastards plea to N Korea!

no idea how it all works in the US but in the UK it very much depends on the prison. i've spent most of the last few years working as a legal advisor to serving inmates across the UK. some places are well-known as being absolutely breezy, others are supposed to be pure hell. it's interesting to me that this doesn't split neatly along public/private lines. as i say, it depends on the prison.

by and large i think any pretence at rehabilitation in the modern prison system is a sham. you certainly do meet young guys who've been locked up once and never ever want to go back, or 30-somethings that got sentenced to life at the age of 18 (and are super duper fucked up as a result) who seem to have reached some state of enlightenment and have no other ambition in life now other than to get out and stay out, even if that means a life of meekness and dependency and never ever speaking out of turn about anything.

but 90% of the people i've worked with knew that they were essentially playing a game while they were inside - enroll on these courses, turn up to these meetings, say the things that you have to say, play the part assigned to you - then once the Parole Board deem you fit for release you can go straight back to your old lifestyle and try to outwit the system, and we can go back to trying to catch you because that whole cops'n'robbers thing is much, much more fun than actually trying to fix any of the problems inherent in the system. total bullshit, basically. a waste of time and money

there does seem to be an increasing problem of rioting, violence, general disorder in UK prisons atm tho. the introduction of "psychoactive substances" ("spice", especially) has apparently been a big deal in the last few years. fundamentally no different from smoking weed so lots of serving prisoners are drawn to it as a way of unwinding that might ordinarily have steered clear of heroin or w.e. you might get offered a few tokes by one of your mates just in the normal way of things. except it has a number of unfortunate side-effects: psychosis, suicidal ideation, overwhelming feelings of impending doom etc. it's all over the UK prisons now apparently and guys frequently complain / demand that you complain to the prison about what a dangerous situation this is, cause how are you supposed to just get by in prison when you can't even take a few tokes off of a friend's spliff in case it was the wrong stuff and makes you want to swallow batteries or headbutt the cell wall till your brains are all bashed out or whatever. total headache

Prisons are so fucking awful in so many places in this country that abolition is a reasonable response, but I'm not quite there yet. Wishing ill on people in prison isn't my jam, but tbh I've been wishing severe harm on numerous people who will never go to jail in the last year.

In Seattle there's been a lot of debate on the proposed new youth jail/detention center, and there's a big campaign to block its construction. I have a tough time getting fully on board with this, as the current jail is reportedly in bad shape, has undrinkable water, and looks like a depressing 70's-era institutional building. The proposed new center includes a lot more space/money set aside for social services, and is supposedly going to have a much more therapeutic environment. the anti-youth jail movement feels like this is just going to entrench the current justice system and racial disparities, and a facility with more beds will end up filling them one way or another. Also hard not to sympathize with this view, and I'm all for more community rehabilitation options, but there's definitely a small subset of teenagers who commit crimes that are awful enough that I can't endorse returning them to society without some time away, and whether that's enforced mental health hospitalization or detention it's still "caging kids." this is a wimpy pragmatic white liberal view, but I think those kids are better off in a facility that gives them the impression someone gives a shit about them. And the reality of Seattle politics is that successfully blocking this will likely lead to 10 years of dithering with nothing happening.

On the other hand there are activists out there fighting on this with a lot more on the line than me, who are absolutely committed to the cause, and who am I to say that they're wrong, some improvements to the existing system will be good enough?

violence is bad

i think it's plenty weird when wish for somebody (to whom they have no connection) to suffer, even obvious "monsters".. it kind of makes me wince.. and just sad.. go ahead judge me

is prison awesome if it only locks up bad people?
Ya

does it kick ass when some asshole gets beat up or worse in prison, as long as he's an asshole?

Ya

On the other hand there are activists out there fighting on this with a lot more on the line than me, who are absolutely committed to the cause, and who am I to say that they're wrong,

protip: just because someone is an activist doesn't mean they're not at least partially wrong, in fact it almost by definition means they only see one side of the issue

i realize that, my point was that what looks like reasonable progressive policy to me may look like more bullshit promises to people who have dealt with the racism of the criminal justice system for decades, and that's not a point of view i want to ignore.

Prisons in Greece:

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/03/04/after-the-eu-turned-greece-into-a-refugee-warehouse-a-backlash/

"An anecdote shared by John “Dacajeweiah” Hill describes an elderly prisoner who began to sob upon seeing stars in the night sky for the first time in 20 years. He was only allowed to see them because he was allowed to roam the grounds of the prison freely during those four days. These “transcendental modes of consciousness, curiosity, and becoming” prohibited by the prison, Burton writes, were suddenly “nurtured through rebellion.”"

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/attica-orisanmi-burton-tip-spear/