
Why rich convicts hire prison consultants - iamben
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48138441
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inflatableDodo
>"After the trial is done and the sentence is passed, ensuring placement in a
good prison is key, and a large part of the programmes all these consultants
offer."

I am imagining the dinner table conversations. "Oh, you went to Otisville? How
exclusive. Our nephew tried to get in there but he's from the other side of
the family, so just didn't have the right connections unfortunately."

~~~
basetop
Wonder if it's harder to buy your way into a good prison or the ivy leagues.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Maybe if you donate 20 million to build the Prison hospital your descendants
can get in as a sort of legacy sentence.

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chasingthewind
[https://justdetention.org/](https://justdetention.org/)

This is a charity dedicated to ending the prison rape crisis in the US.

There's discussion in some threads about prison rape and rather than replying
there I think it's better if this is a top level comment. These folks are
doing good work to try to remedy at least one aspect of the awful conditions
in many US prisons.

~~~
tropo
They propose nearly nothing that would change anything. All I see is offering
free tampons, with the claim that female prisoners are trading sex for
tampons. (we call this prostitution, not rape) Unless there is something I
missed somewhere, that charity looks to be busy collecting donations for
nothing.

There is exactly one solution that will work. People can't get raped if there
is nobody to do it. The people in solitary confinement are not getting raped.

As I understand it, most prisoners are denied solitary confinement. Supposedly
this is a kindness, but cost seems to be a more likely reason. I know I'd be
terrified of a cellmate, and would thus suffer sleep deprivation at minimum,
so I'm not seeing the kindness.

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systemtest
Spending between $495 and $2,000 to learn how to avoid being raped and getting
faeces smeared on you seems like a good investment. Even when you are not
rich.

~~~
sschueller
The fact that this is considered a possibility is abhorrent and should be
addressed immediately. As a society how can one accept such realities as
normal but at the same time condemn other countries that have gulags and
prison work camps?

~~~
rayiner
At some level, you have to understand the fact that people who go to prison
are generally very bad, violent people, and putting them together in the same
place is bound to cause problems. Some things about prison conditions you can
definitely control and those should be fixed. For example, the treatment of
pregnant prisoners in US prisons is often horrible. (You hear stories of women
going into labor and being forced to delivery in their cell.) But other things
you can’t fully control because they emerge from interactions between the
prisoners.

Look at schools. We live in a school district that’s extremely proactive about
addressing bullying. Yet, our friend’s kid recently had water poured over her
head on the bus. If you can’t banish physical violence in schools, among
normal children, is there any prospect of doing the same in prisons?

~~~
throwaway55554
> At some level, you have to understand the fact that people who go to prison
> are generally very bad, violent people, ...

No. The _vast_ majority are in for drug offenses and are not, generally,
considered violent or bad.

Edit: I was wrong. Federal prison have way more drug offenders than violent
offenders. State has more violent offenders than drug offenders. The way
they're classified too is that the worst offense is the one on record. So if
you are on drugs and hit someone, stats will tick up one more violent offense
but not a drug offense.

~~~
marcinzm
No they're not. According this this[1] article drug crimes account for only
16% of inmates in state prisons. Violent crimes account for 54% of inmates.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-better-approach-to-violent-
cr...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-better-approach-to-violent-
crime-1485536313)

~~~
baud147258
The difference is coming from the fact that convictions for drug crimes are
shorter than conviction for violent crimes, which could explain why there's
more drug-related convictions but less drug-related inmates

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lordnacho
Does anybody ask how people can be equal under the law, but it's worthwhile to
spend money on a lawyer and a prison consultant?

~~~
LoSboccacc
you got it the other way around, it is "the law is equal for everyone" not
"everyone is equal for the law"

addndum:

law is neither gender nor race neutral. pretending everyone is equal under the
law is just wishful thinking. and yes the law corpus is the same for
everyone... as long as you are in a specific place, because not even that is a
given, since not everyone lives in the same place under the same law.

you'd expect this community to have some spark in it but no, people around
here don't seem to engage in critical thinking anymore.

~~~
patentatt
I fully comprehend the lexical and logical distinction you’re making ... but
I’d push back that these two things are one in the same.

~~~
LoSboccacc
it's evident that people are not equal under the law. minors have a different
set of rights, women enjoy a different set of protections, minorities have
their own special laws (heck, you have a federal law titled "Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act")

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Double_a_92
Wasn't this the plot of some comedy film?

