
Prisoners Endure a Nightmare 'Gulag' in Lower Manhattan (2018) - miobrien
https://gothamist.com/2018/06/19/mcc_jail_human_rights_torture.php
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ncmncm
A place like this does not happen by accident.

It is this way because the people responsible to operate it deliberately
choose to keep it this way. It is infested with rats because they want it
infested with rats. Prisoners are denied medical treatment because they want
prisoners to be denied medical treatment.

The individuals responsible for torturing 800 people at a time are clearly
much worse than anybody held there. They have names, and homes, and could be
arrested in them by New York police on New York warrants, if New York law
enforcement could be persuaded to enforce New York law.

The Federal government also has laws covering the behavior of the individuals
torturing inmates there. Federal prosecutors have a responsibility to
prosecute them. Yet, they are not.

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wedn3sday
In the US we really need to figure out what our prisons are for. Are they for
punishment or rehabilitation? Do we just want to impose pain on people that
have done bad things, or are we trying to change them into people that wont do
those bad things anymore? Punishment might feel good to some people on a
visceral level, but what good does it do?

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User23
This is a subject that demands pragmatism. At risk of stating the obvious, the
primary utility of incarceration is to prevent the convict from victimizing
more innocents. It's a crude solution, but it is undeniably effective. It's
very difficult to commit crimes against innocents in general society from a
prison cell.

So, given that the pragmatic benefit of incarceration is protecting the
innocent from being victimized, which presumably we all support, we should
look if there are other less crude ways to achieve the same goal. I understand
that Drug Court and similar programs have had some measurable success. But we
can't forget there are very bad people who will treat diversion programs as a
joke and an opportunity to continue to prey on others. Those individuals
should be incarcerated, not to punish, but to prevent them from offending
again. Rehabilitation would be wonderful and the opportunity should be
offered, but some persons just don't want to be rehabilitated.

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kstenerud
"At risk of stating the obvious, the primary utility of incarceration is to
prevent the convict from victimizing more innocents."

This is not the purpose of incarceration in Germany or the Scandinavian
countries. The purpose there is simply loss of freedom for a short while as
punishment, and assistance to better yourself for when you're released.

And their low recidivism rates bear this out.

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qbaqbaqba
It's disrespectful to victims of Gulags.

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booleandilemma
I’m guessing this is on HN because it’s where Epstein was being held.

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aswanson
Who is that?

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SolaceQuantum
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein)

Well known, well connected guy, busted for sex trafficking children.

~~~
aswanson
Ugh. Sorry i asked.

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Sojuwa
Why was Epstein not under suicide protection, even though he attempted suicide
already, and his testimony was so important to finally outing the orange
cheeto? Was the camera outage really coincidental?

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astro_robot
Prison reform issues always make me feel so contrasted. On one hand, a lot of
the people held there did awful things. The article mentions El Chapo,
mobsters, drug dealers, etc. as some of the people held there. It's extremely
hard to feel any sort of sympathy for those people. They've done extreme
amounts of damage to communities and have done far worse to other people.

But on the other hand, no one should be sexually assaulted and beaten to
death.

~~~
majos
I would argue that you can 1. assume all prisoners are guilty and 2. not care
about their welfare (both assumptions that I disagree with) and _still_
support prison reform on the grounds that it reduces criminality in society
overall.

Look at the current state of American prisons. We crowd prisoners together and
make them feel angry, scared, weak, and ignored by the law (except when it
hammers them down) for years on end. That makes it much harder for them to
integrate back into normal, law-abiding society.

We should be trying to make it as easy as possible for a convict to eventually
leave criminal life behind. But our current system does the opposite.

