It always comes down to money

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23939378/

California and Kentucky considering letting non violent offenders, addicts, and drug dealers out of prison early to save money. Some of the actually valid reasons for early release (reconnecting with family and community, Rehabilitation) are mentioned in passing but, as always, it's just money driven.

that's right. the free market rears it's beautiful head again.
it's the reason america will have to quit iraq.

i'm not ok with violent offenders being released.

how about:
legalizing all drugs.
convert and build new prisons just for gang members and violent types.
keep "white collar" criminals in low-security facilities.
put the torture president in gitmo.(?)








. . .and then i woke up and was late for work.

Treating drug abuse as a health problem rather than a crime is a good idea, IMO. Giving decent people long prison sentences for using drugs is kinda stupid.

It causes the Fed around $26,000.00-$27,000.00 per inmate per year to keep them there.

As far as white collar crimes, they are in the low-security (minimal security) prisons and some of them in Florida are actually vacation heavens.

Also the Kentucky Federal Medical Facility (Federal prison for the medical ill ) is the place for the NY Mafia meeting the Southern Crime Boss families, and other organized crime families in the West. It is funny why the Fed built the Medical Facilty Prison in the middle of the country where the whole country organized crime family meets at a central place.

US Prison system is still lagging behind other European countries in which inmates in EU with clearance and minimal security risk can actually spend weekends with their girlfriends/wives !

We do have cook-out for the spouses in the Federal prisons and sometimes they can make out if the guards turn a blind eye.

But overall, the Fed runs a much better system than the State prisons except the recent riot in which an inmate was killed.

Arpaio '08

# 2 "America's Toughest Sheriff"

* 2.1 Changes to Jail Operations
* 2.2 Chain Gangs
* 2.3 Think Pink
* 2.4 Tent City
* 2.5 Underwear March

# 3 Controversy and Criticism

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Good. Who knows, this may be the beginning of the end of the war on drugs. whoot!

I prefer letting them out. US prison is not doing a thing except wasting taxpayers money.

Read this: rape, sex happens all the time in US prisons.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/04/juvenile.jails/index.html

lovejoy said:

I prefer letting them out. US prison is not doing a thing except wasting taxpayers money.

Read this: rape, sex happens all the time in US prisons.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/04/juvenile.jails/index.html

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I agree with you for at least the roughly 1/2 of them there for some drug related crime or non-violent crime.And anyone who thinks prisons are nice comfortable places is out of touch with reality.And the state who has the power to take away your liberty also has an obligation to provide reasonably decent safe conditions for the incarcerated.As your link points out all kinds of abuses go on.Is it no wonder most come out worse than they went in.

everybody should check out a book called : No More Prisons
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b...ias=stripbooks&field-keywords=no+more+prisons

I would legalize drugs after the border was blocked (see most recent wall in isreal ).
None of this Chertoff "secured border bullshit either"

I sort of have a problem allowing an infinite amount of narcotics into this nation carte blanche from other nations.

If you guys were to legalize rec. drugs, how would you do it ? Would they be handled much in the way cigarettes are ?

Would you not impose harsh consequences for those caught smuggling contraband across the border after they were made legal ?
What could you charge them with (tax unpaid) ?

the state prison system has become an integral part of gang culture.
how ridiculous is that? for some gangs, you're not a full member until you've been in the can.
they conduct their business completely unhindered by the penal system, and in some ways aided and enabled by it.

:spin::spin:

I think a way to break Prison Gangs is to rotate prisoners every year. Move them around more. Don't let them get comfortable and establish "patterns."

There should also be an attempt at implementing some of the Jeremy Bentham/Michel Foucault Panopticon principles about prison construction and monitoring of prisoners.

I have no problem with forced labor camps at prisons. They should have to work for privileges. I think there should be an attempt to educate certain prisoners so that when they do get released, they can be "reconstituted" within society and they can have a CHANCE at becoming a productive member of society. You can't just hand a prisoner his personal effects, give him $100 and tell him "good luck and check in with your parole officer"....

Legalizing marijuana and allowing for the corporate production of it has to happen...

damn, titsrock, those are some pretty good ideas. im not being sarcastic. i live in LA, and gangs are a huge problem here. gangs originally started in prison, and form what i hear, is still where most operate from. if we ever want to get rid of the gang problem in the US, we have to stab it in the heart.

Facetious said:

I would legalize drugs after the border was blocked (see most recent wall in isreal ).
None of this Chertoff "secured border bullshit either"

I sort of have a problem allowing an infinite amount of narcotics into this nation carte blanche from other nations.

If you guys were to legalize rec. drugs, how would you do it ? Would they be handled much in the way cigarettes are ?

Would you not impose harsh consequences for those caught smuggling contraband across the border after they were made legal ?
What could you charge them with (tax unpaid) ?

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If you remember Ted on Charlie rose said something about walls,which I agreed with.Wasn't there a time when america was against walls? The US I beleive has actually not always approved of the walls Israel erects as well as some that were used in Iraq.And we definately didn't approve of the berlin wall.We have to be able to figure out something better ,smarter than trying to just hide behind a wall which usually really does not work in the end anyway,those all fall eventually.I will tell you also I just say a story couple weeks ago about a farmer in Pa who cannot find enough pickers to pick his tomatoe crop this season and was screaming for a reform plan that would let in legal temporary workers.He is paying $16 an hour but said it is back breaking work.He said without the reform that gets him workers he will just have to switch crops next season to something that a machine can harvest since he can't get people anymore.But that is another issue and is really off topic so i will stop there.
On how you would handle legalized drugs I think it would/should be like Alcohol.It would be a product and once legal the incentive and profits for bootlegging would basically be gone as they are with booze.Legal drugs would be so much cheaper than the illegal ones are now who would bother with anything but the legal stuff.You don't see much home brew alcohol around.

titsrock said:

I think a way to break Prison Gangs is to rotate prisoners every year. Move them around more. Don't let them get comfortable and establish "patterns."

There should also be an attempt at implementing some of the Jeremy Bentham/Michel Foucault Panopticon principles about prison construction and monitoring of prisoners.

I have no problem with forced labor camps at prisons. They should have to work for privileges. I think there should be an attempt to educate certain prisoners so that when they do get released, they can be "reconstituted" within society and they can have a CHANCE at becoming a productive member of society. You can't just hand a prisoner his personal effects, give him $100 and tell him "good luck and check in with your parole officer"....

Legalizing marijuana and allowing for the corporate production of it has to happen...

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1. States have very limited resources and they do rotate, separate prisoners but there are just so many priosons to rotate. For example, Tennessee has only 11 prisons. But most state and Federal prisons are already overcrowded. I worked in three different prison systems (Fed, state, local) and it is the judges that sent down stiff sentences on many minor crimes.

2. In the south and south-west, the prisons are filled with Hispanics, Mexicans, Columbians, spanish-speaking inmates, how can you educate them.
The Hispanics are occupying 40% of prisons in the south and south-west and causing racial riots/fights among different racial groups. In one of prisons I worked at, only 1 guard can speak Spanish among 200 staff. On the weekends, the staff are cut but the work load increases due to visitation from inmates' family.

3. The Federal government is wasting our tax money. Do you believe the US Department of Agriculture Special Agents are out there arresting people selling food stamps. They arrested the entire family of 7 members from aged 30's to 68 selling food stamps. One of them developed stomach cancer while in prison and is suing the governemnt. The oldest one is almosts 70 years old. We are getting so many older inmates, 2-3 inmates are doctors who committed Medicare/medicaid fraud (how can you let them go), 5 lawyers committed fraud (they should go to prison) and then you have the gun-runners, drug traffickers. You can't educate them.

4. Those so-called "trustees" can work outside the prisons. They even have Playboy channel ! Many prisons allow trustee inmates, inmates ready to be discharged to live outside the prisons to relieve prison overcrowding.

5. You can not force-labor the inmates. They have successfully sued the states and Fed so inmates only work 6 hours a day (The ACLU has succesfully sued the government all the way in the Supreme Court) Inmates can make from 0.05 cents an hours to over $1.20 per hours doing light duty work to making license plates.

All of my recommendations pertain to American Citizens, naturally. When you say "Colombians" and "Mexicans" etc. I assume you mean undocumented criminals? These people are not citizens and should be returned to their countries of origin. In fact, they should be sold back to their countries. We can take "money" for these prisoner returnees out of upfront trade tariffs. Our gov't should be able to track the country of origin of undocumented workers (say 1000 Colombian drug dealers) and charge the country of Colombia $100,000 for each returnee which we will assess to Colombia at the beginning of every calendar year or else Colombia will not be able to trade certain goods in our country...until they "pay their bill." We can do this with all countries for which we have undocumented citizens in our jails. If we have an undocumented person from a poor country we "keep a tab" for future use, such as if that country applies for aid or applies for membership in the WTO or something...

We need to start applying financial pressure to other countries if our country is the playground for their activity.

A Prison Education Program can be installed so that it offers recent college grads or retired persons the ability to pay off school loans or pay off part of a mortgage if they agree to teach English/Math/Science to prisoners with the intention of that prisoner achieving his GED (if he is not a high school graduate) or if he is..earning college General Ed credit. The trick is not attracting teachers...it's identifying the right prisoners that would be interested in this.

The rotation plan I propose should entail transfer within the nation. A prisoner may begin in TN but he may be heading up toward Maine, or heading West toward Colorado, or Northwest toward Montana...and this prisoner spends 2 years at various facilities along the way to Maine, or Montana..etc. It may take him awhile to get to Maine..but the point is is that he isn't at any one center long enough to do anything criminal....

This might seem like a crazy, expensive, idea but what if it eliminates 90% of prison crime and 100% of prison gangs? What if it helps ease job pressure that faces prison guards? Those benefits would make this a worthy idea.

We need new ideas...and the guts to try new things...

lovejoy said:

It causes the Fed around $26,000.00-$27,000.00 per inmate per year to keep them there.

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Somebody’s college education could be financed with the amount of money they use to keep one prisoner locked up. The amount of money would also probably be enough to feed multiple families that are poor the entire year also.

If they're a violent offender, then they need to be locked up. I don't give a damn if they're "Reformed". Bullshit! Whatever they've done to their victim needs to be done to them. If they rape and brutalize someone, then they should be raped and brutalized. If they kill someone, they should be killed. Eye for an eye. I don't give anyone who is a violent offender ANY credit for "Reforming". That's their way of saying, "I want out, I'm ready to act like I can be productive in society, at least as long as it suits me." If the states think that they can "Educate" the violent offenders then they've got to learn some education themselves.

As for the others mentioned...Locking up the drug dealers/lords/runners isn't going to stop drug crimes. We need to look into other alternatives for that instead of wasting taxpayers money on housing them in jail. How is locking an addict up helping them? All it's doing is making them waste time in prison when they could be out in a jail-like facility being productive, i.e. chain-gang, or something of that nature.

The government needs to think of ways to make our jails less crowded and quit sending people to jail over stupid shit. If they've committed fraud, then make them go to a work-house, jail is not the place for them. If they've done some other stupid crime like that, then find a different alternative for them, rather than clogging our prison system with people who don't need to be there.

/rant off

Sounds familiar.......

Nearly 18,600 prisoners have been released early under emergency measures introduced last summer to tackle overcrowding, the [UK] government has said.

Nearly 18,600 inmates freed early
Q&A: Crisis in prisons

Facetious said:

Arpaio '08

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:glugglug: I second that! If that man were in charge of the American prison system as a whole there would probably be a lot less crime than there is now.

Also, to save money, they should just execute all the inmates serving life sentences with no possibility of parole. It costs $26k/year to house an inmate for a year. A bullet doesn't cost more than 2 or 3 dollars.