
Recordings reveal how informant ring operated in Orange County jails - palidanx
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/5/28/orange-county-snitch-scandal-audiotapes.html
======
kw71
Police and prosecutors misbehave frequently enough that the entire system is
cast with a light of illegitimacy. The United States Government is one of the
oldest extant in the world, and this epidemic of misbehavior, corruption and
perjury is a good reason that it should decline and die. In my opinion, the
only other alternative is to treat the misbehaving officials as criminals, but
sadly, they are in practice protected from prosecution. One set of rules for
the chosen, another set for the unfavored, and another set for those in the
middle.

------
danieltillett
Pretty disgusting, but not surprising.

What amazes me is that juries place any weight on jailhouse informants. As the
article suggests you can be convicted solely on the information provided by a
single jailhouse informant. What sort of jury could come to an 12-0 vote that
any case like this was beyond reasonable doubt?

~~~
downandout
_> What sort of jury could come to an 12-0 vote that any case like this was
beyond reasonable doubt?_

People that have not ever had had friends or family ensnared in the criminal
justice system tend to project popular myths and natural biases onto anyone in
jail. One of those is that people in jail are all idiots that do nothing all
day but sit around bragging to their cellmates about their crimes. This is why
jailhouse snitches are believed by juries, despite the obvious incentive to
lie.

~~~
danieltillett
Well yes. If juries gave no weight to the testimony of convicted criminals
with an enormous incentive to lie then prosecutors would stop putting them on
the stand. It tells us how broken the whole jury system is when prosecutors go
to the effort of obtaining these testimonies.

Interesting here in Australia these jailhouse testimonies are not given much
weight by juries and when used (rarely) they are seen as a desperate attempt
by the crown to bolster a very weak case. I guess the more people learn about
how corrupt these testimonies are the less juries will believe them and
hopefully they will stop being used.

------
jacquesm
Is there an upper limit to how large a portion of the adult population of a
country can be in jail before that country collapses?

~~~
Intermernet
Yes, but it's a matter of time, and it's more likely that the country would
just decline in global status to a state of stagnation.

Last I looked the US were still below 1% of the population being incarcerated
(~0.7% total, ~0.9 adult). This is (or was, there may be newer figures) the
world's highest rate.

These numbers are disgusting (especially considering the number of people in
US prisons purely because they can't afford to post bail), but I think it
would take substantially higher rates to cause the collapse of a country.

The _detriment_ of a country is a completely different matter, and this
situation in the US is already recognized by most of the rest of the world.

Similar issues are being seen in China and Russia.

From
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm)
(which is probably well out of date by now):

"Half of the world's prison population of about nine million is held in the
US, China or Russia.

Prison rates in the US are the world's highest, at 724 people per 100,000. In
Russia the rate is 581."

~~~
ch4ck
Seychelles 868 USA 698 Russian Federation 468 China 119

[http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-
lowest/prison_popula...](http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-
lowest/prison_population_rate?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All)

~~~
Intermernet
Thanks for the updated stats! Did you see the graph of the Seychelles since
2006? What's going on there?

EDIT: I hate to post links from the UK Daily Mail but they have an article on
this:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2219618/Will...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2219618/Will-
Thurbin-Our-man-Seychelles-whos-locking-pirates-Indian-Ocean.html)

EDIT 2: From
[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/23/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/23/john-
legend/fact-checking-john-legends-claim-we-live-most-inca/) : ""I think
countries that small are just not comparable," Wagner said, adding that his
group’s 2014 States of Incarceration report filtered out countries with less
than a half-million residents." ... "Only Seychelles technically has a higher
incarceration rate than the United States. But experts said it’s an outlier
because of its miniscule size and largely should be disregarded."

