
Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons - moxie
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confinement-shane-bauer
======
InclinedPlane
People often ask the hypothetical of what sorts of behavior we consider normal
today that people in the far future will regard as barbaric or bizarre. Our
prison system is probably near the top of that list, for a variety of reasons.
Not least of which is the sheer size of the prison population these days due
to the war on drugs.

Even more significant is the widespread societal belief that prison experience
should be brutal punishment and torture, with no concern for justice,
fairness, or humaneness. Prison rape is a punch-line, it's not even on the
radar as a political issue.

The public acknowledges, accepts, and approves of prison experiences as not
merely pragmatic methods of keeping some folks separate from public society,
and especially not as rehabilitory, but as retributive, vengeful, and
arbitrary. These are the basest and most despicable sentiments when it comes
to issues of criminal justice, but they rule the day in the 21st century as
much as they ever did in the middle ages or even in the stone age.

This is easily one of the most significant issues of our time, as significant
and important as the Cold War in the 20th century or the struggle over the
abolition of slavery in the 19th.

~~~
scrapcode
I'm kind of glad that this is your perception. This should be everyone's
perception of prison. You should have an extreme necessity to keep your ass
out of prison. You should be scared absolutely _shitless_ of prison, so much
that you play exactly by the rules to keep yourself from ever going there. Our
prison system does a pretty good job at driving this perception home.

Prison is not a rehabilitation center. If it were just a means of keeping
folks separate from society, I know plenty of unmotivated individuals that
would love to sit around with a bunch of other lazy-asses and be fed 3 meals a
day. For free. Don't you?

Prison _has_ to be scary. It _has_ to strike one as the number one place that
you do not want to go. It's the other ultimate consequence, along side of
death. I can't imagine this world if it wasn't.

~~~
skrebbel
Upvoted to counter the ridiculous downvote legion. I fully disagree with your
point, but it's a fair point worthy of HN, and I applaud you for uttering what
is clearly a minority opinion here.

~~~
Karunamon
Advocating what amounts to rape and torture just because we don't break it
into its components (it's tacitly accepted, after all) is utterly abhorrent
and deserves every step closer to invisible that it's getting.

~~~
skrebbel
Soo, people who you disagree with should be stopped from spreading their
opinions? Come on, it's not that extreme, he's supporting the status quo. It's
not like he's saying that all <minority X> should be killed. For comparison's
sake, I once wrote here that "the Israeli government are a bunch of nazis"
(and I'm still ashamed of that), and I got fewer downvotes (which doesn't make
any sense at all, it was a horrible and worthless thing to write). In fact,
people who disagreed with me took on the discussion and I learned a lot.
That's what HN should be about.

I really don't understand why supporting the current US prison system is an
opinion so dangerous that it must be hidden from sight.

Also, if you would've carefully read his post, you'd have seen that he doesn't
advocate rape and torture, but the _perception_ of it. It's a subtle
difference, but a significant one.

~~~
Karunamon
>Soo, people who you disagree with should be stopped from spreading their
opinions?

Nobody's stopping anybody from spreading their opinion, last I checked. I said
the downvotes were deserved.

Not only for being factually incorrect, ("Prison has to be scary", which is
the whole premise of the post, is handily disproved by looking at some of the
Nordic nations' systems), but for perpetuating the kind of culture that allows
solitary confinement (i.e. psychological torture) and prison rape to be
accepted by otherwise sane and caring people.

The culture of "whatever happens to guys in prison is their own fault" NEEDS
to stop.

~~~
skrebbel
> _Nobody's stopping anybody from spreading their opinion, last I checked. I
> said the downvotes were deserved._

directly contradicts

> _[it] deserves every step closer to invisible that it's getting_

from your previous comment.

Also, you know that downvoting something enough hides it from HN. On HN, a
downvote doesn't mean "I disagree", because we have comments for that. A
downvote means "this comment isn't HN-worthy".

As for the actual discussion topic, I mostly agree with you and I don't
understand why you're discussing it with me. I'm defending another's right to
disagree with you and me.

> _The culture of "whatever happens to guys in prison is their own fault"
> NEEDS to stop._

I agree, but I'm appalled that you think you can enforce a culture change by
hiding the opinions of people that don't want that culture change. You can't
shove culture down people's throats.

~~~
vacri
_On HN, a downvote doesn't mean "I disagree"_

Actually, it does. pg has said that it is fine to use this way.

I think it's stupid, and you'll see in my profile a screed against the
braindead moderation style of HN and why I think it's bad. I don't
particularly care anymore though - there is no interest from the admins in
changing it, so it's pointless to try.

~~~
alexqgb
It's possible to disagree with an argument without losing respect for the
person making it. You might, for instance, have a rare or specialized
experience that would lead you to think differently from another person. Even
if you know that person to be wrong, you wouldn't respond with a downvote. Not
if their position was intelligent and stated in good faith. Reasonable people
disagreeing, and all that.

And then there are the idiots. Here, the downvote is less about disagreement
per se, and more about a response to thought that is generally stupid and
awful. What it says is that your opinion is so unworthy of consideration that
it's simply being removed from circulation.

------
simonbarker87
A very sad read and the comments are even worse. This sort of thing so clearly
crosses the line in to inhumanity. I appreciate that some/many of these
inmates have committed awful crimes but it seems that this particular system
offers no opportunity for rehabilitation and is focussed solely on punishment.

I forget where I read it but I believe that there is a correlation between the
severity of the punishment and it's peak effect. If it is normal imprisonment
then the effect of the punishment plateaus at 18 months (ish) and if it is
solitary then the (albeit greater) effect of the punishment plateaus at 30
days, after that it is achieving no extra punishment and you may as well go
back in to a rehabilitation mode. I'm not saying that prison sentences should
be no longer than 18 months but after this point the focus should be on
(eventual) reintegration into society with new skills and education to keep
them from reoffending.

~~~
philwelch
It's not about rehabilitation or punishment. It's far more cynical than that.
It's simply a matter of separating people from the population. Prisoners are
separated from the free population; especially dangerous prisoners are
separated even from the prison population.

~~~
Houshalter
The main purpose of prison is to act as a disincentive. A lot of people don't
commit crimes in the first place because they are scared of going to prison.

~~~
EliRivers
The evidence appears to indicate that it's far less effective as a
disincentive than people hope.

For prison to work as a disincentive, people need to be capable of making
sensible decisions about what to do NOW in order to create a better distant
future. They often aren't. Criminals are often people who do very badly at
this. They don't want to be in prison twenty years from now, but it's not
going to affect how they live their life now.

If prisons as thought of as primarily a disincentive, it's a very expensive
way of getting not much back. I expect it's a cultural thing.

~~~
Houshalter
How can you know how many people _don't_ commit crimes because they fear
prison? Yes the people who currently are in prison are the ones who didn't
think they would get caught, but there are people who are not in prison
because they did consider that.

Yes there are cheaper and more effective disincentives, but you're right it is
a cultural thing. Our culture considers those barbaric (but not prison
somehow.)

~~~
EliRivers
"How can you know how many people don't commit crimes because they fear
prison?"

It's very difficult. We can look at the fact that the US imprisons more of its
population than any other nation, and if prison is a working deterrent, this
would mean that the United States is a phenomenally lawless and criminal
society barely held in check by the fear of the USA's notoriously harsh
judicial system. Is the USA a phenomenally lawless and criminal society?

There are studies that try to evaluate the deterrence effect of prison. Some
conclude yes, some no, but the weight of evidence appears to indicates that on
the whole, it's a pretty ineffective deterrent. You can google as well as I
can so I won't list a bunch of google hits.

"Our culture considers those barbaric (but not prison somehow.)"

Now _that_ is interesting. I meant a detention system that actually works;
that actually is applied with the intention of turning criminals into good
citizens and making a better society. I assume that you don't consider that
"barbaric", so I'm guessing you thought I meant something like state-
sanctioned torture or other such physical abuse, or cutting off people's
hands, or public executions in the town square, and all that sort of thing. So
our cultural gap is so big that the first thing you thought of to deal with
detention as an ineffective deterrent wasn't an effective detention system,
but harsher punishments, whereas I thought of stopping trying to use it as a
deterrent and do something useful with it.

------
gruseom
Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's
surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on
it the way we look on past barbarities.

~~~
ZirconCode
The problem is that psychological forms of harm are not treated with as much
respect as physical forms. There are no pictures of it, you cannot see it. It
is the same reason why people struggle to see a psychiatrist but not a doctor.

Lack of sleep is also deployed in some countries ie. the guards won't let you
sleep.

~~~
nraynaud
The real problem is that the US is part of no international treaty on human
rights. Turkey and France have a way more fair process now thanks to the
European Court of Human Rights. They have also put hard limits on terrorist
law etc. It's slow but it's a real adult supervising the local politicians
with true values.

~~~
alan_cx
The US vigorously refuses to be part of any of that. Now you know why.

------
mcintyre1994
I just don't understand how such a ridiculous system comes into being, these
are people's lives, criminal yes, but people. Or do they just not think like
that?

I mean, let's say you get sent to the SHU, I won't go into why because that's
probably impossible without introducing circular logic. Now all your
"associates", ie everybody who knows you in prison, can also be sent to the
SHU. The only way out quickly is for you to "debrief", accuse some other
people so they can be sent to the SHU in your place. But, how many people can
you genuinely criminalise who aren't known associates? Judging by the fact
they read prisoner's diaries, I'd infer surveillance is quite high, so surely
the number of unknown criminal associates is pretty low? If that holds, then
who do you "debrief" about? Like the article said, it's a catch-22, or at
least should be. Instead the guards have a - according to a judge - legal
right to make up stories, attribute them to you, forge your signature and
incarcerate others on that basis.

It's so abstract it's bizarre. It just seems so dystopian, if you consider the
world inside the prison where you're 'innocent' until you commit crime on the
inside, that world would be ridiculed if they weren't criminals. Thrown in on
false evidence, and the only way out is to give more false evidence. I don't
understand how that ends up happening.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The truth of the banality of evil comes into play not just at the extremes
(death camps and so forth) but also at the margins.

------
alan_cx
Get past the comedy, listen to the facts.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPZed8af9RI>

The facts stated have never been refuted.

Be ashamed. Either Americans are the most criminal in the world, or the US
justice system has a real problem.

I mean, worse than Iran? Worse than China? South Africa? Are Americans really
that bad?

Perhaps now we know a certain hacker preferred death. I know I would. As a
British citizen, I would genuinely rather kill my self than end up in the US
justice system. Do not doubt that. And I know my government will not protect
me from American "justice" either.

Im sorry, but this makes me very, very angry. If a country cant get justice
right and fair, then Im sorry, I believe it has no right being a country, let
alone being a country that thinks it has the right to interfere on the world
state, and have the sheer arrogance to pontificate on others.

~~~
jrokisky
There are many problems with the US Justice System, but those standards are
impossible for any country to meet.

~~~
eru
Norway and Sweden don't seem too bad.

~~~
mpyne
Assange apparently disagrees.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Quite the opposite. He has been asking Sweden to guarantee that he will not be
extradited to the US, and in return he will face trial in Sweden. They are
_still_ trying to negotiate this.

He has criticisms about what has happened in Sweden, no doubt. But it's the
prospect of going near a US prison that is the non-starter, and the basis of
his asylum.

------
moxie
Many of the structures that make up our society (jails, taxes, laws, rulers)
were not "our" creation, but the creation of kings.

When those kings were deposed, rather than abolishing the structures those
kings had created, they were instead largely preserved and put under
"democratic" control.

It could be that this was a mistake: that there's something structurally
intrinsic to the instruments of monarchies that can not be eradicated,
regardless of who nominally controls them. ACAB.

~~~
john_b
In some ways the prison system in the U.S. seems to be worse precisely because
it is supported by a democratic society. If prisoners are tortured under a
king, their barbaric treatment can easily be associated with the cruelty of
the king. This connection creates a risk of revolt, and a sensible king will
be mindful of it.

In a democratic society with a Kafkaesque prison system, torture of prisoners
is not as easily associated with any one person's cruelty. Because most people
are optimistic and don't like to believe that several hundred million of their
neighbors would silently condone the torture of a whole class of people, it's
easy for lazy minds to consider prisoner torture acceptable, necessary,
justified, and so on to whatever stronger beliefs these individuals may hold.

I'm not saying that prisoners would fare any better in a non-democratic
society, but how people think of prisoner mistreatment would definitely be
different.

~~~
moxie
Totally. I think one of the most pernicious things about ineffective but
reaffirming processes like voting is that it's easy to conclude that if we
don't change things, we must not have wanted them to change.

Hypothetically, we believe in justice and freedom (and other good things and
not bad things), or we would not have formed a democracy. Since we freedom-
loving, democratic people would naturally act to end all oppression, it
follows that if a policy, law or practice does not change then it must not
truly oppress people.

------
lawnchair_larry
After reading this article, keep in mind that Andrew Auernheimer is also in a
SHU, for having someone update his twitter account on his behalf.

And the reason he is in prison in the first place is for changing an integer
on the end of a URL.

Do these punishments make sense to anyone?

~~~
edyoung
The punishments make sense to the people meting them out.

The prison authorities transparently use isolation in an SHU as punishment for
making them look bad or for inconveniencing them. The two inmates mentioned in
the article who acted as 'jailhouse lawyers' seem like good examples of this.
Anyone in prison who offers any resistance to the power of the authorities is
very likely to be treated this way, even if they are merely requesting
legally-guaranteed rights or marginally better treatment, because doing so
acts as an example to others.

Auernheimer was imprisoned, it seems to me, primarily for unrepentantly
embarrassing those in positions of power, and later transferred to the SHU for
the same reason.

------
w_t_payne
The nature of America's prison system is driven by the fact that middle class
white people vote for politicians and policies that put poor black people
through a cruel, inhumane and all-too-usual system of torture and deprivation.
Is unusual sadism a national characteristic? I do not want to think so, but
the evidence suggests otherwise.

~~~
_account
I didn't know that the laws so clearly stated that black people are singled
out to be tortured.

Can you provide at least one reference to this atrocity?

[I'm guessing you can't]

~~~
potatolicious
Racism doesn't necessarily entail singling a group out explicitly, especially
today where we have a trained smell for racism.

If your intent is to single out black people, there are _many_ ways you can
target them without spelling out "black people". Specific job categories,
specific neighborhoods, specific types of crime (which are _hugely_ lopsided
racially), etc etc.

The same can be applied to any race. You can _effectively_ create a law that
only targets Asian immigrants without once mentioning the words "Asian
immigrant".

In the US race and crime are inexorably linked, and highly politicized.
Through a combination of factors and people (acting both maliciously and
otherwise), blacks _are_ without a doubt targeted.

Here in NYC we have a rather odious policy of stop, question, and frisk, where
the police are empowered to stop anyone they deem suspicious or threatening
and search them. It turns out that Blacks and Latinos are search
disproportionately often, well beyond their proportional contribution to crime
rate. There's nothing in the regulation that spells out that dark-skinned
people should be searched more, but everyone in charge knows this is the
consequence, and everyone in charge intends this to be the consequence.

Racism is complicated. The fact that you don't have a hooded guy on your lawn
burning a cross, screaming "lynch him!", doesn't mean it's not in front of
you.

~~~
vacri
Anecdata on disproportionate searching: I'm a middle-class white guy who's 40.
I haven't been pulled over for a "random stop, sir" since I was about 25, and
before that I would have been pulled over about a dozen times. The times when
I was pulled over, I was a young guy with long hair in a beaten-up car. My
mother has _never_ been pulled over. And judging from the general dialogue
with friends, this is not an unusual experience. These "random stops" are
(almost!) certainly using a different definition of 'random' than the ones we
used in statistics class.

------
Myrmornis
Too depressing to read in its entirety. One straightforward way of evaluating
whether there might be anything wrong with practices in American prisons is to
compare with other countries -- do other nations with stable democracies use
solitary confinement in a similar way?

~~~
peteretep
> do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a
> similar way

Other countries with stable democracies have universal health care, don't
incarcerate almost 1% of the population, have never landed people on the moon,
don't spend 5% of their GDP on the military, aren't the home of Apple,
Microsoft, and IBM, and so on. America has always been (and will probably
always be) an edge case.

~~~
Myrmornis
Actually, all nations think they are special. It's not an excuse for
backwardness.

~~~
honzzz
OT: I remember being in the USA after those 9/11 terrorist attacks an they
aired those "proud to be an American" commercials all the time... like they
assume it's a good thing to be proud that you are a national of a certain
nation. And maybe it is a good thing - I don't know. It just seemed strange to
me. And all those American flags in front of regular family homes... do you
still have those? You don't see that in Europe.

Please do not take this the wrong way. I kind of admire your patriotism...
although I think it might prevent you from seeing (and fixing) bad things.

~~~
Domenic_S
If it weren't for some sense of pride, things would never be fixed. Think
about your technology work -- you do a good job because you take some pride in
it.

American patriotism is the most public, but every country's citizens take some
measure of pride in their country. We're the most public about everything (the
home of myspace/facebook/twitter/instagram/the internet generally) so it makes
sense to me that we're really public about patriotism.

~~~
vacri
American patriotism related to the wake of the 9/11 attacks seem to have
broken more things than it fixed, both internally (eg TSA) and externally (eg
the pride-wounded initiation of the Iraq war). It doesn't seem to have
actually fixed much.

------
denzil_correa
The "Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations" of the State of California
tweeted [0] a related article [1] titled __Why the Producer of "The Hangover
Part III" Spends So Much Time in Prison __.

[0] <https://twitter.com/CACorrections/status/340220581972692992>

[1] [http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/hangover-part-
iii-e...](http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/hangover-part-iii-
executive-producer-scott-budnick-california-prison-interview)

------
king_jester
A lot of the comments here are completely ignorant about the state and nature
of prisons, both on a small scale level for the lives of people who are
incarcerated as well as at a large scale in how Amercian society supports
prisons as a racist institution. I urge everyone looking for starting
knowledge to start with Angela Davi's Are Prisons Obsolete?:
[http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-
Davis/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-
Davis/dp/1583225811)

------
rdl
I think I'd rather spend 3 years in solitary (given adequate books, ability to
write, etc.) than in general prison population. I accept that I'm probably an
outlier, though.

~~~
Confusion
You think that, until you've spent a few months, perhaps only a week, in
solitary confinement.

~~~
rdl
I spent 6 continuous months on Sealand with one other guy (who I avoided as
much as I possibly could, saw him about 3 minutes a day if I didn't correctly
time my hallway trip to avoid running into him).

Lots of space, and the Internet, though.

~~~
igravious
> with one other guy

so not solitary

> Lots of space, and the Internet, though

and not (physically or mentally) confinement either

\---

The only way in which you are an outlier is that you have an inflated sense of
your own awesomeness.

~~~
vacri
rdl may just be unusual in this sense. As for 3min/day, even solitary
prisoners have that minimal contact - bare interaction with guards when let
out for exercise, or when the meals come.

~~~
rdl
Yeah, it's not _sensory deprivation_ , which seems reliably able to drive
people crazy in hours to a day. It's just a really crappy form of prison
(combined with some additional psychological trauma of being solitary). If
you're there voluntarily, even if without the ability to easily leave, it's
nowhere near as bad.

I imagine political prisoners do comparatively well in solitary, too, or the
extremely religious, etc. I know from the other side, religiosity and belief
in one's cause are the main ways to successfully resist torture or other
psychological hardship.

------
zupatol
There's a wealth of information on solitary confinement in the US, including a
few excellent articles like this one. This makes me think that the problem is
on the way to being solved. A lot still needs to be done, but solitary
confinement is now declining.

This site has a huge amount of information, this is probably also the place to
look if you want to help: <http://solitarywatch.com/>

If you want to know more, a good place to start is this national geographic
documentary <http://documentarystorm.com/solitary-confinement/>

and these two excellent articles [https://www.byliner.com/susan-
greene/stories/the-gray-box-an...](https://www.byliner.com/susan-
greene/stories/the-gray-box-an-investigative-look-at-solitary-confinement)
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande)

------
venomsnake
That explains why the death sentence is on the books ... these are the lucky
ones.

That is cruel but sadly not unusual punishment.

~~~
Tomis02
"Born in the U.S.A." is ringing in my mind at this point.

~~~
BurritoAlPastor
I believe the Springsteen song you're thinking of is "Johnny 99":

"Your honor, I do believe I'd be better off dead / So if you can take a man's
life for the thoughts that's in his head / Sit back in that chair and think it
over, Judge, one more time / And have 'em shave off my hair and put me on that
execution line."

------
Irishsteve
Wow 42 years in solitary confinement for a 'political' prisoner

[http://sfbayview.com/2012/hugo-pinell-is-42-years-in-
isolati...](http://sfbayview.com/2012/hugo-pinell-is-42-years-in-isolation-
about-to-end/)

------
joyeuse6701
Hmm, you know, this is a comparison of two different prison systems with two
different prisoners. I fail to see a control here. As much as the observation
of one person that has been through a system would be valuable insight looking
into another, I don't find it anything more than subjective.

I bring up the point about two different prisoners in that 1. I don't believe
all prisoners should be treated alike and 2. Different strokes for different
folks. As for baseline humanity, again that is subjective. Pirates viewed
marooning with some jug of water and a knife and shot as humane. I don't think
that fits today's standards of humane treatment.

The article suggests that because of one man in the system the exception if
you will, is getting screwed, we must do more to prevent this from happening.
I'd argue that if this was a computer system, one exception isn't something to
write home about. Many exceptions depending on how you define it however...

Systemic exceptions are expensive to fix and will cost us all a good amount in
practice, so the real question we may ask ourselves is, how much money are we
willing to put in taxes to overhaul the system? More specifically how much are
each one of us willing to pay? A lump some of a dollar? Sure. A million
dollars? Not so sure.

    
    
      Anyway, it's a mother jones article, it and many like it prey on the notion of self-hate and guilt-ridden introspection that many of the U.S. audience loves to talk about, including me!

------
crazy1van
Well, we in the US have made just about everything a crime, so it's no wonder
that we have a ton of people in jail. Gone are the days when people didn't
need to consult a team of lawyers to stay compliant with the law...they just
instinctively knew that things like stealing and murder were illegal.

With so many startups and entrepreneurs here on HN, I bet tons of you have
violated laws for taxes, banking, employment, or zoning at one time or another
and you probably had no idea.

------
nichols
_Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons..._

"But it wasn't until I started posting on Hacker News that I truly realized
man's inhumanity to man..."

------
rooshdi
Here's a link to the prisoners' contact information, if anyone wants to send
letters.

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/prisoners-
contac...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/prisoners-contact-
information)

------
gcb0
Most states have private prisons. We read about that all the time, mainly on
how profitable they are.

But unlike private health care, there's no one even poking it with a stick in
the start up world.

~~~
scotty79
I think that's the core of the problem. Once you make an industry out of
something it's bound to grow.

------
cooperq
If you enjoyed this article, there is a fantastic book explaining all of the
problems with the American prison system and the 'Felon' Label that goes along
with it. It's called "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. Highly
recommended reading.

------
Uchikoma
Interesting how many people here are hand waving to explain this with
immigrants, blacks etc. when from the outside everyone else sees it as the
brutal "eye for an eye" policy that runs US thinking, society and foreign
relations.

------
Tomis02
I guess a lot of people have seen Oz or documentaries about prison life in
USA. I think the legitimate question would be - is solitary punishment not
preferable to the life in general population?

------
virtualwhys
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares...and their prisons into
monasteries.

------
_account
Prison is society's recourse for anti-social behavior. Does it have to be a
violent and horrible place? No. The residents tend to make it that. In
addition, I am against pampering in anyway, with my tax dollars, people whom
I've had to remove from proper society...for anti-social behavior.

Prison is supposed to be a deterrent. My biggest gripe is that I have to pay
for it at all. I support banishment or death.

~~~
rthomas6
Does this view not presuppose that the exhibitors of the anti-social behavior
cannot be fixed or remade into useful members of society? If you believe that,
fine, but if you think that some could be reformed, why is that not worth the
money? "Reform", in my mind, has nothing to do with pampering. It _could_ be
even more torturous than now...For example A Clockwork Orange. Not that I'm
advocating that.

Does this view also not presuppose that all prisoners have exhibited anti-
social behavior? I think we can both say that this is not the case. Although,
prisons tend to somewhat separate the two populations.

~~~
_account
I suppose that good people can make a[singular and non-violent] mistake or
error in judgement which can run them a foul of the law. These people don't
require reform. They are typically leaniently sentenced, pay for their mistake
and move on.

I also suppose that others are more habitually and fundamentally anti-social.
These people are not worth the effort of trying to 'save'. The brains have
literally been wired for this behavior[over the course of many years]. They
must be removed from society.

There are also those somewhere in between natural-born killer and 'busted for
pot'. These people are responsible for their own personal choices. If they
keep making bad choices of their own volition I have no compassion for them.
[I say this from first hand experience dealing with a close relative who is a
lifelong fuck-up.]

~~~
mc-lovin
You are making a lot of assumptions, which seem taylored to bolster a
particular worldview, rather than be based in fact. In particular, you assume

1\. People differ vastly in their innate ability to follow societal rules.

2\. The justice system is able to distinguish between people who make simple
mistakes, and people who are unable to follow society rules.

3\. The above is a big factor in sentencing.

While there is evidence that some aspects of behavior are innate, there is
also a huge literature linking the environment a person is raised in, and
their tendency towards crime. Furthermore, sentencing is generally extremely
inconsistent by any standards, so it is very unlikely that sentencing would
fit your criteria for being lenient to the right people. Finally, it's hard to
think of sentencing criteria that fit the criteria you propose, and are also
objective.

------
thoughtcriminal
So what the hell is Obama doing anyway? He's done nothing but wring his hands
and give lip service to human liberties.

You have to give Obama credit though, he is supernaturally charismatic and
completely amoral, not to mention the best centrist in US political history.

I think that when he is gone and his powers of charisma and diversion have
long dissipated, history will not be kind to him. He never had the courage and
compassion to do the right thing.

