
The Oldest Problem in American Prisons - dnetesn
http://aging.nautil.us/feature/204/the-oldest-problem-in-american-prisons
======
jonmc12
The "Gulag Archipelago" reference got me googling:
[http://seansrussiablog.org/2013/05/11/us-prison-
industrial-c...](http://seansrussiablog.org/2013/05/11/us-prison-industrial-
complex-versus-the-stalinist-gulag/).

Apparently, if you compare apples to apples, in 1953 the USSR period had more
like 7.4 million "adults on probation, in jail or prison, and on parole".
2.61% of total population vs 0.76% in present US.

~~~
skewart
Where are you getting the 0.76% figure? The article mentions 6.7 million,
which is about 2% of the US population. Still perhaps a lower percentage than
during the height of the gulag days, but not that much lower.

~~~
vacri
0.76% is about the number that's currently incarcerated, with the rest on
parole. It works out to be about 1 in 100 adults in the US that are currently
incarcerated (even the US balks at the idea of locking up children)

------
barking
People jailed for life have usually done some pretty nasty stuff.

Getting old is a prospect a lot of their victims were spared if that's the
right word. And life becoming more miserable as we age is an experience not
confined to prisoners.

To my mind an old folks home can be an experience that must be not too
dissimilar to prison. We like to have a benign view of old people but horrible
young people don't become nice old people. I don't like the thought of
inflicting yet further misery on old people by having these people joining
them.

There should be old folks prisons for old prisoners.

~~~
djsumdog
In much or Europe, murder carries 15 to life vs the US where it's 25 to life.

I do realize it is a serious crime; the most serious crime when you deprive
another human being of the ability to live. There is no way to ever pay that
debt, but at the same time, 25 years is a very long time. 15 years is your
birth to a drivers permit. It's enough time to go from a high school diploma
to a PhD. It is a significant portion of one's life.

> People jailed for life have usually done some pretty nasty stuff.

In America there are many people serving insanely long terms for even lesser
crimes. In places with three strikes laws or point systems, people can be
serving over 20 years for low volume drug distribution.

Incarceration does not make a better or safer society. It just creates a new
slave class. America has the highest percentage of prisoners of any other
country on the planet. It's also the only high-income/western country with the
death penalty. It indicates something is terrible wrong with our justice
system.

Unless they're child molesters, many of the elderly in prison are in a
condition where it is almost impossible for them to physically harm anyone
again. What does society gain by not letting them spend the last few years of
their lives dying humanely?

~~~
barking
If people are in prison who should not be in prison, that's a different thing.
You mentioned murder. Personally I don't believe that murderers should ever be
released. The fact that we do so sends a signal that murder is bad, y'know,
and we give a life sentence and all, but we don't really mean it, particularly
if it wasn't a 'bad' murder. Hypothetically, I would not be happy if my
elderly father was in an old folks home and in the next room was a convicted
murderer.

By all means though, let's have prisons that are essentially old folks homes
with secure fences around the grounds and treat the inmates as decently as
possible.

------
theprop
"6.7 million people under correctional supervision in 2015...more than were
enslaved in antebellum America and more than resided in the Gulag Archipelago
at the height of Stalin’s misrule"

Woah. How many thanks to the for-profit prison industry?

~~~
jcranmer
Minimum sentencing and the three-strikes policy are probably more to blame.

~~~
djsumdog
Which are lobbied for by the for-profit prison industry and police/prison
guard unions.

------
Animats
California has an Elderly Parole Program for prisoners 60 years or older and
have served 25 years or more. Only 5.3% of California state prisoners are over
60.

------
sova
We need human cooperatives stat. Militarised police and wretched prisons are
not good churning mechanisms for a utopia-to-be.

~~~
djsumdog
Don't know why you're getting down voted. I like the idea of coops from Kim
Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Where ever you work, you should gain shares
of ownership based on the number of years you put in, and get dividends for as
long as you own those shares.

The current system of work is pretty insane. It basically turns us into slaves
that produce for peanuts what nets the people in charge a massive cut. They
essentially get large payouts for being willing to take massive risks. Why is
the FedEx guy who gambled the company to success considered an amazing story?
That's as fucked up as Abraham being asked to murder Issac. He didn't give a
damn about his employees. He was just willing to take insane risks to keep his
shipping company going or let it all burn.

~~~
sova
Yeah I don't understand the down-vote but people are afraid of the unknown,
which is sad because there is a lot of good unknown out there.

The best formula I've figured out so far is actually something I'm bending my
life toward(!) and that is creating alternative environments to prisons.

As someone wisely pointed out, the first question is "Are prisons for
punishment, or for healing?" If they are for punishment, our society will
suffer that price when people mingle minds with prisoners who are under
punishment, and then try and re-integrate. This is why recidivism (rate of
falling back into the prison machine) is really high in the US comparatively.

Consider if the prison system were meant to heal and help people re-integrate!
You know, I was reading about French philosophy and very early on, like in the
1600s the French realized that if you have a death penalty, the incentive for
an inmate to reform is gone. Meaning: death penalty equates to "do not change
because there is no point" but a prison sentence that is not terminal / whole-
life actually does give incentive to reform.

Yes, the economic system is unjust, but even worse we have people who are
starving and dying in the cold because they have no money, and if they have no
money we assume that they are not worth-y in the US. Very tragic.

Anyway, I don't want to harp on too much about things I would change, I am
actively in the process of creating a foundation for such things, and I'd
rather do than say, and be than dream.

I like your idea about getting shares -- it would be great if that is how we
operated. Then you'd actually experience some of the wealth of the company
over time. You help build this grape vine? Here, have some grapes in 6 months
when it starts fruiting. Sure, more people join and maybe you only get 10
grapes next year since you left, or just one grape ten seasons from now, but
it all adds up.

Money is good for many things, but the fact that it is a requirement to have
basic survival taken care of is just deplorable.

"Who will pay for basic survival then?"

Well, nobody! This place is so abundant with resource, we throw away enough
food to feed the homeless. We already have empty houses where people could
live, it's just our human concepts and discriminations that block us on the
daily.

If people did not have to fight for basic survival, could you imagine the
number of Tupacs coming out of the ghetto? Could you imagine the number of
Neil deGrasse Tysons coming to fruition? Most of the amazing minds we have are
squandered to total frivolity, but will we ever show that on television? Will
we ever have our propaganda machine look at its own shortcomings so we can
make the nation we know possible?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Maybe the death penalty really is not more expensive than life in prison?

~~~
kennywinker
Maybe we use prisons for punishment, not rehabilitation.

~~~
nine_k
Which is a problem. A punishing prison likely produces a hardened, system-
hating criminal, not a person who'd rather want to integrate back into the
non-criminal society.

~~~
fuckemem
" who'd rather want to " -> " who could "

~~~
sova
both equally valid in this case

------
bobsgame
I believe we need free housing and food for people who are in difficult
emotional situations so they aren't desperate enough to commit crimes.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Sounds great, but who feels like paying for it?

~~~
kasey_junk
Me? Compared to prisons I'd bet it would be a bargain.

The real issue isn't paying for it, it's administering it. We make it so
difficult to to navigate the social safety net that it _becomes a skill_ and
the people who need help are frequently without that skill.

~~~
grondilu
> Me?

Thanks for your sacrifice. What if _I_ am not willing to pay? Will I be sent
in prison? That'd be pretty ironic.

~~~
HarryHirsch
Americans manage crime by moving away from it into the next county. Don't
worry, you'll get to pay anyhow through a longer commute and a HOA-mandated
minimum enclosed floor space.

~~~
sova
If only we analysed actual costs and not just numerical metrics!

