

Hundreds of South Carolina Inmates Sent to Solitary Confinement Over Facebook - CapitalistCartr
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/hundreds-south-carolina-inmates-sent-solitary-confinement-over-facebook

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tptacek
Can this _possibly_ be accurate? Does "disciplinary detention" really mean
"solitary"? Reporting on South Carolina prison abuses in other circumstances
seem to indicate that it's exactly that.

Here's a report the SC Department of Corrections produced. The numbers are
right there. Can SC possibly be acknowledging that people spend _hundreds of
days in solitary confinement_ for Facebook? Or, really, for virtually any
offense at all?

[http://www.doc.sc.gov/pubweb/research/SystemOverview/social-...](http://www.doc.sc.gov/pubweb/research/SystemOverview/social-
media-report.pdf)

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jkot
Good catch. It does not seems like solitary confinement. I found this doc from
Nevada:

[http://www.doc.nv.gov/sites/doc/files/pdf/ar/AR734.PDF](http://www.doc.nv.gov/sites/doc/files/pdf/ar/AR734.PDF)

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nthitz
Not sure I agree. A document from Washington outlines Disciplinary segregation
which very much sounds like solitary. Granted disciplinary segregation and
disciplinary detention might not be the same.

[http://www.washlaw.org/pdf/Guide_to_Segregation_in_Federal_P...](http://www.washlaw.org/pdf/Guide_to_Segregation_in_Federal_Prisons.pdf)

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mschuster91
It should be absolutely illegal to revoke visitation and communication rights
for longer than 2 weeks.

How does the US system expect inmates to reintegrate into society after they
have spent _years_ without human contact?

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icehawk219
The US system is about punishing people as harshly as possible, not
rehabilitating them. It's all about fear. And it's allowed to happen because
if you polled the population you'd find that an uncomfortably high number of
people view prisoners as less than human. They're viewed as not deserving of
any rights so they usually don't have many, if any, people fighting on their
behalf which causes them to be swept under the rug and largely ignored.

Also keep in mind that many prisons in the US are run by for-profit
corporations. They clearly don't want people to reintegrate. They want people
recommitting at as high of a rate as possible.

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rhino369
>Also keep in mind that many prisons in the US are run by for-profit
corporations. They clearly don't want people to reintegrate. They want people
recommitting at as high of a rate as possible.

This is over blown. It's like 3% of prisoners are in for private prisons. We
treat them shit in our government prisons too.

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smhenderson
They don't have to be in a private prison to warrant private sector interests.
I don't think we can afford to underestimate the economic impact on companies
that provide food, security, building services, apparently social network
investigation services, etc.. If non violent offenders were suddenly released
tomorrow it would have a very negative effect on companies that have based
their whole business model on catering to prisons, both public and private.
Not to mention the impact on local jobs (e.g. guards, staff, administration)
if we were suddenly able to close a significant number of prisons.

I really do believe that there is a political will in this country to not
upset the economic status quo that having a large prison population has
created, especially at the local and state level.

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rhino369
You are right, but I still don't think that is the major cause of all the
mistreatment and high incarceration.

Voters love "tough on crime" politicians. At a local level, being weak on
crime is a death sentence.

Until you convince the voters that throwing people in jail is a mistake,
you'll get this.

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methodover
I would be in favor of Facebook relaxing it's policy regarding password-
sharing for inmates, who can't legally access Facebook directly. Like the
article says, Facebook could be a great tool for sharing information about
social injustice inside prisons.

Prison policy here sounds like a flagrant violation of the first amendment,
when you think about what social media actually is. It's just a way for people
to send messages to each-other. Punishing an inmate for asking his friend to
post on Facebook on his behalf is equivalent to punishing an inmate for asking
his friend to send a letter on his behalf.

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Navarr
I can kinda see why the punishment is so harsh for a form of communication
that COs can't intercept or witness.

I don't think Facebook should be suspending their pages - but I can understand
the punishment.

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rday
The punishments do seem extreme, but the why downvotes? Not everyone in jail
is a drug addict who was affected by bad circumstances. Really bad people get
locked up too.

I only have this one link on hand, but surely it isn't an isolated incident.
Communication is monitored for a reason.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/05...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/05/01/AR2005050100814_2.html)

~~~
Navarr
Downvotes probably because HackerNews is very anti-censorship, even if it's in
a field that's been censored since the beginning (they read the mail inmates
send out, but making it punishable to use ways around that is somehow super
bad?)

They're clearly either not thinking about the people who are putting out hits
by using their contacts through SNS or they are and going the "censorship is
bad period." route, which is understandable.

I wouldn't complain, but in this event it's actually hindering decent
conversation. _shrug_ It is what it is.

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smoyer
Dude ... you did something that sent you to prison so, by definition, your
rights are going to be curtailed.

I do however have a problem with many of the things we send people to prison
for ... let's fix that first (and those who therefore don't go to jail won't
be in trouble for their social media habits).

