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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Bingo.

When you realize that the primary purpose of our incarceration system is to keep black and brown folks "in line," it all makes sense.  Our prison system has only as a tertiary or lower purpose actual "public safety."

And the feedback loop that it generates. Minorities are the vast majority of inmates, therefore minorities must be more criminal and more violent. Therefore we must give them fewer chances and longer sentences.  
 

im sure there’s a whole chapter on it in the 2nd grade CRT textbook. 

Edited by Pato del Muerto
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Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

While being ignorant of actual facts, I do wonder if the incarceration rate delta is driven by drug laws and punishments that are more harsh than in the rest of the world.  

I personally think it’s our American sense of “rugged individualism” run amok that is the underlying problem. Healthcare education and housing are beyond the reach of a huge part of our society even those who work multiple jobs but we just call them lazy so no security net for you just die or go bankrupt. Take homelessness, it’s a US problem far worse than other places, our solution is to tell them to get a job hippie, or jail. And yes the racial element is undeniable.

Edited by 'stache
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Posted
2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

My bit of Texas lore is that I am related to Billy Sol Estes.  

That's a dude who was born in the wrong time.  If he were alive and healthy today, he'd be governor.  

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Posted
1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Considering the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the developed world, is it your opinion that Americans are just inherently worse people per capita than places like say Scandinavia, and that more people in jail for longer sentences is a solution?

I think that it’s undeniably true that Americans commit more crimes than Finns or Danes, and the thesis “there’s more crime because of higher incarceration rates” strikes me as “high interest in trains causes autism” type reasoning. I think I can point to countries that have extremely low crime rates while having overly harsh—cruel even (Singapore)— penal systems that I wouldn’t want to model. So you’d need to look at them as well as the friendly Nords. 

America’s general lawlessness as compared to other developed societies has been remarked on for centuries, since before we were a country.  There are likely some society-level interventions that might help that, but I am wholly unpersuaded that the focus should be incarceration rates and in a lot of ways addressing basic safety and security will be a prerequisite to success in other areas. 

Posted
28 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

There are likely some society-level interventions that might help that, but I am wholly unpersuaded that the focus should be incarceration rates and in a lot of ways addressing basic safety and security will be a prerequisite to success in other areas. 

I sweatergod if you're just saying "we need more cops" I'm going to shit on your lawn.

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Posted
23 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

I sweatergod if you're just saying "we need more cops" I'm going to shit on your lawn.

Probably not, most of what I’ve seen suggests an “over-policed, under-protected” set of issues.  Long term the interventions are what you’d expect: better education, better employment opportunities especially for young women, better health services across the board, and an improved and healthier physical environment. All of which I’ve argued for across this board. 
 

There’s some good evidence that in the short term, a surge of police presence to impact areas helps— IF they get out of cruisers and take a “protect people and property, don’t focus arrests” approach. Too many surges don’t do that and it usually isn’t an issue of too few overall cops.

All of which can be combined with incapacitating obstinate offenders via incarceration. 

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Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, Iceman said:

As a child who was removed from their bio parents' home because of abuse, IDGAF what their past was.  They own the present as adults.

As a parent, I don't want them anywhere near kids, once it is discovered that they abuse.  That ain't to go all Salem witch trials, but he is in possession of shit he shouldn't be.  Lock him up for life.  

I don't know why you directed this at me. My message had nothing at all to say about violators punishment. It was 100% about victims of csa. My post has nothing to do with yours that I can discern.

For the record I was sexually abused as a child by a male and female couple. My sister was abused by the male of that same couple. It's taken me most of my life to work through some of those issues and that damage. I don't like to discuss it here as I've seen that sort of information be cataloged by users and brought up in later conversations as a slam point.

 

8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Downloading, looking at, trading, and creating sexual abuse material is an inherently irrational act. The ancients would correctly frame people who do it as allowing their passions to control them. Outrage and fear is a natural and healthy reaction to irrational, harmful behavior when demonstrated by others. 

CSA is irrational in the normative patterns of today's morals. The definition of sexual abuse has changes very dramatically in the last 100 years, hell, the last 20. 

There was a historical point where marrying a "woman" at the start of her productive cycle made sense. Do NOT take that to mean I'm defending, in any way, csa. Going further back csa between a male childe and man was culturally embraced (for specific groups). 

Sexual misconduct or sexual crime changes a lot based on social constructs. Less than 30 years ago homosexual acts were still widely illegal in many states. (Sadly it still is in some remote places) 

Then we get to the what is the point of a penal system. Historically, more times that not it has been used as a leverage for debtors, and a place to put "crazy" people and thieves. Of course, thieves are often debtors, but of course we no longer penalize people for being poor. (This is the sarcasm tag).

Its a very unpopular position, but factually true that the US penal system is first classist and sexist, before racist. 

I know I've wandered way off course, mostly as I had applied and intended to go to grad school for and build a career in the US criminal industrial complex. 

So I'm going to get back to the subject at hand. I'm of the believe that a criminal justice system should have 2 primary functions. First and foremost is to protect the public from crime and adjudication for people who commit crimes. Then within the penal system it should be to rehabilitate people who have committed crimes to the degree and effect that it best reduces the likelihood of recidivism. 

A system built purely for punishment is not conducive to a best functioning society. While it "feels" good, and god knows advocating for it gets votes in the US, it ultimately doesn't best serve the public good as a whole. When you also make it classist, sexist and racist it becomes extremely dysfunctional and open for extreme versions of abuse of power. All the while, the general public is less safe as criminals are more likely to become recidivist. 

Which brings me back to CSA and CP and also to broader SA, SB, and other non-consenting sex crime. (I say non-consenting as unfortunately the US criminal industrial complex is still in 3rd world mode when it comes to sex work. Also, drug addiction, but that's a different rant).

The hard truth is, predictive recidivism for sex crimes is at best difficult and in some aspects impossible. As such appropriare sentencing for them is truly a quagmire. Below is a long paper the dives into a ton of details with another shit ton of sites of other studies. Its a rabbit hole for which there is no simple answer. Making it worse is the fact that its difficult to determine success or failure of treatment methodologies for sex offenders.  I won't dive into all the details as the information in the link is far better than anything I would produce. What I will say is if you care about what's best for US citizens as a whole, all of us, addressing the issues of the criminal industrial complex is, in my firm opinion the greatest social issue facing us all. It ties into every other aspect of our issues in this country. There are no simple answers, purely emotional ones aren't and won't work, and it is used as a tool by our politicians and oligarchy overlords to further divide us, all to their own gains. So I encourage all of us, me included, to keep an open mind when discussing it with others. For all of us to continue to educate ourselves and others when possible. To try and work together to find solutions that best serve us all, including those in the criminal industrial complex.

Long, Great Paper on Sexual Recidivism

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, irishtexan said:

Yes. 

Also people that conflate punishment with rehabilitation.

Also the privatization of the prison systems.

Also the school-to-prison pipeline in predominantly black, brown, and poor communities. 

Also, as a society, we strive to be as cruel as possible, and we derive joy out of others' suffering. 

We are the antithesis of Jesus' teachings. 

Gotta imagine just going by the actual writing of Jesus in the new testament, if he was actually a diety and returned to "smite the wicked", the US would be on the short list of countries to smite. 

Also, this Celina shit is about as on brand as it gets. 

Edited by Hermanator
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Posted
33 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

I don't know why you directed this at me. My message had nothing at all to say about violators punishment. It was 100% about victims of csa. My post has nothing to do with yours that I can discern.

For the record I was sexually abused as a child by a male and female couple. My sister was abused by the male of that same couple. It's taken me most of my life to work through some of those issues and that damage. I don't like to discuss it here as I've seen that sort of information be cataloged by users and brought up in later conversations as a slam point.

 

 

I wasn't targeting your initial post, but rather simply replying to it in conversational manner.

 

Didn't mean to make it song like an either/ or scenario.  Was just responding within the flow of what you said.

Posted

Sentencing, however, is no quagmire at all.  If proven in the court of law, lifetime sentence, no parole.

easy peasy.  No more victims.

 

Press reset, and go.

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Posted
26 minutes ago, Iceman said:

Sentencing, however, is no quagmire at all.  If proven in the court of law, lifetime sentence, no parole.

easy peasy.  No more victims.

 

Press reset, and go.

For all forms and all types of sex offenders? 

Okay, I'll play devils advocate. There isn't an endless supply of prison rooms. 

Option A make the list of crimes that are no longer being charged or prosecuted for lack of space. 

State: To account for the 13% of sex criminals since we know they wont do Drug crimes the only equal option is:

Weapons, Arson, Explosives

Federal the only option to match is Firearms.

Federal Prisons

So no more state or federal arrests for any firearms violations including known murders, cartel members and other us gang members. People who like to play with fire and explosives are also free to roam about YOUR neighborhood now. 

Option B:

Permanantly close all public schools and public education k-12 in the United States of America to build prisons.

Option C

Cut all federal and state funding on roads and interstates. 

Making broad sweeping statements feels good, when you have to weigh those broad sweeping statements against logic and budget they aren't as easy to commit to. 

Posted (edited)

According to recent data from sources like the Prison Policy Initiative and the U.S. Bureau of PrisonAccording to recent data from sources like the Prison Policy Initiative and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, about 13% to 20% of people in state and local prisons are incarcerated for a drug offense, while the percentage is significantly higher in federal prisons, at 43%

 

There.  Room provided for the serious threats against humanity.

 

Don't change my words around, and don't say we can't incarcerate the pedos; because we can... and should. We just don't want to.

 

 

Edited by Iceman
Posted
2 hours ago, Iceman said:

Sentencing, however, is no quagmire at all.  If proven in the court of law, lifetime sentence, no parole.

easy peasy.  No more victims.

 

Press reset, and go.

Back to the specific from theoretical: this dude is a school employee and was filming the middle school boys in the locker room for sexual gratification. 

I mean, what are jails for? Anyone here really want to raise their hand and say “yeah, it’s cool for him to come to my culdesac after he gets out.” 

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Posted
Back to the specific from theoretical: this dude is a school employee and was filming the middle school boys in the locker room for sexual gratification. 
I mean, what are jails for? Anyone here really want to raise their hand and say “yeah, it’s cool for him to come to my culdesac after he gets out.” 

Counterpoint: the football team is undefeated.

I’m sure you understand me, and why this needs to be dealt with “inside the football family.”
Posted
35 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Back to the specific from theoretical: this dude is a school employee and was filming the middle school boys in the locker room for sexual gratification. 

I mean, what are jails for? Anyone here really want to raise their hand and say “yeah, it’s cool for him to come to my culdesac after he gets out.” 

I think this kind of advocacy is tricky to navigate. I say that because while we would all like to see this guy and other people that do incredibly perverse shit like this go away for a long time/perhaps forever...in the end, making it easier to imprison people for life is a dangerous prospect, because it's impossible to keep such a system narrowly focused on the Caleb Elliotts of the world. Inevitably, the list of undesirables grows larger and larger, and eventually that person people getting out of prison was in there for being gay or having the wrong political opinions, but the resulting cul-de-sac hypothetical remains unchanged.

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Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, Iceman said:

According to recent data from sources like the Prison Policy Initiative and the U.S. Bureau of PrisonAccording to recent data from sources like the Prison Policy Initiative and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, about 13% to 20% of people in state and local prisons are incarcerated for a drug offense, while the percentage is significantly higher in federal prisons, at 43%

 

There.  Room provided for the serious threats against humanity.

 

Don't change my words around, and don't say we can't incarcerate the pedos; because we can... and should. We just don't want to.

 

 

Check the links I provided in my post as the data in them directly conflicts the numbers you provided.

The drug war is a money driver for federal and state, it's way bigger than you think and if you're doing away with the drug war imprisonment, be prepared to see board patrol, state and local police forces, coast guard and other massive cuts. Also, be prepared for a potentially likely cartel take over of every major US city. Beyond that have you looked at how Seattle, Austin, Portland and other major cities are doing now that all drug and drug related crimes are being almost completely ignored without required and widely available drug treatment? We're not getting drug treatments now, pulling the financial rug out from under our criminal industrial complex is certainly not going to help that reality.

I'm absolutely against the war on drugs but letting all drug offenders of every sort loose including violent ones (gang members and cartel) to keep csa and cp offenders in prison for life put far more lives and businesses at danger. In other words, its way worse for the common good. 

Look, I empathize with your position and would love to agree, but there is always a quid pro quo. We don't have endless prison spaces. Broad stroke calls based on emotion sound and feel great but they don't function great when you look at all aspects. 

Edited by BurntEyes
Posted (edited)

Prosecute the violence, not simple possession.  Stop letting convicted pedos walk the streets and shrugging our shoulders that the children can deal with a little rape. 
 

 

It's hardly an extreme position. It's hardly untenable. It's not an either- or proposition. 

Edited by Iceman
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Posted
12 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

For all forms and all types of sex offenders? 

Okay, I'll play devils advocate. There isn't an endless supply of prison rooms. 

Option A make the list of crimes that are no longer being charged or prosecuted for lack of space. 

State: To account for the 13% of sex criminals since we know they wont do Drug crimes the only equal option is:

 

2 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

Look, I empathize with your position and would love to agree, but there is always a quid pro quo. We don't have endless prison spaces. Broad stroke calls based on emotion sound and feel great but they don't function great when you look at all aspects. 

One thing in which I'm I'm fairly confident is that we will never, ever run out of prison cells.

Posted
4 hours ago, scramblyn said:

How on God’s green earth is 956 an Aggie?

One of my best friends is probably a bigger lib than I am, rarely wears team apparel, and doesn't talk about football that much anymore (though I know he still follows his alma mater closely every year), and occasionally I find myself saying, "Oh yeah, I forgot, you're an aggy."

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Posted
20 hours ago, 'stache said:

I personally think it’s our American sense of “rugged individualism” run amok that is the underlying problem. Healthcare education and housing are beyond the reach of a huge part of our society even those who work multiple jobs but we just call them lazy so no security net for you just die or go bankrupt. Take homelessness, it’s a US problem far worse than other places, our solution is to tell them to get a job hippie, or jail. And yes the racial element is undeniable.

Crime varies as a function of social unrest.  I think that is indisputable.

And our systems, which tend to ignore the least of us, combined with the near-unattainable "American Dream," create a lot of social unrest.

So, social unrest leads to crime leads to incarceration.  And incarceration feeds the unrest.  Some of it is "our nature," but justice policies aren't helping.

Posted

Another quandary in the whole criminal justice/sentencing mess is homicide.  A lot of homicide is a really one-off crime, for example Amber Guyger.

So, as heinous as is "murder" or the taking of another life, a whole lot of murderers are pretty unlikely to do it again or really to engage in other criminality.

Yet, we are pretty likely to punish them severely and incapacitate them for years, and they will be released as social and economic cripples.

I'm not suggesting we let murderers off scot-free, but it's a ponderable.

And, as said many times here, I think the best case for long-term incarceration is the repeat offender.  But I have this sneaking suspicion that we manufacture a lot of those with our justice and social policies.

Posted
12 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


Counterpoint: the football team is undefeated.

I’m sure you understand me, and why this needs to be dealt with “inside the football family.”

The middle school football team is undefeated?

Posted

I’ve often thought about this. A person who explodes in a fit of anger and kills a spouse’s affair partner presents almost no risk to strangers and people outside their intimate circle (and most murders take place because of interpersonal beefs).  A mafia goon presents very high risk to a very small cross section of society and practically none to people outside it. Practically speaking, someone with string of assaults and muggings presents the most headaches and consequences for the largest group of people and he’s the one most likely to be unconfined and able to go about his work. 
 

A big part of this is that we are slowly adapting a medieval instrument (common law) to a society that bears no resemblance to the one that created it. @TwiceHorn talks about bail a lot and that’s a good example.  The bail system was designed so that John, accused of making off with his neighbor’s hog, is able to go home and work the field until a judge can come through in the next quarter and hear his case. The surety is there to make sure John doesn’t flee to his cousin’s thatch hut on the next estate and waste the bailiff’s time to go fetch him back.

It was never designed for John, who has been arrested 12 times in two years for armed carjackings and who is planning another one. It’s just not the same problem at all. 
 

It also doesn’t look at the context of where modern approaches to crime and policing arose (the answer is always Victorian England). What was the cumulative effect of generations of rapid executions of serious criminals and the shipment of generations of petty criminals to colonies as a release valve on the attitudes and habits of population they were policing? I think it’s fair to say “significant.” 
 

My area is Russia and the Soviet Union and its enlightening to see how they really attempted a whole-scale reconstruction of society and its institutions, in a way that’s rarely tried.  Criminal Justice was no different— I mean, the Soviets did abolish the “capitalist” police. They soon recreated them under the “militia” name. 
 

Also super interesting— the idea was that bringing the peasants in from the fields and putting them in cities and factories would raise their culture and habits.  They’d go to reading clubs and the theatre instead of creating problems in the village. Socialism would solve most crime, because criminals were created by capitalism and the old social order. It didn’t quite work that way for a lot of reasons and in fact all the newly urbanized peasants created more problems in concentration than they did in the countryside. 
 

So the Soviets created the crime of “hooliganism” to tighten the screws on the type of urban disorder that’s really familiar to us: loafing, loitering, bothering passersby, petty crime, drunkenness, turnstile jumping, etc and ruthlessly enforced it.  And the definition shifted as needed: hooliganism also became associated with spousal abuse or child neglect.  
 

And this all sort of worked for a bit, Soviet cities were safer and more orderly than many Western ones of similar sizes, if dingier and lifeless. Most former Soviets in the 1990s cited the collapse of aggressive enforcement and state attention to this sort of blight as one of their primary gripes with “capitalism,” and Putin’s mopping up of gopnik culture is key to his enduring popularity. 
 

So anyway, that’s a long diatribe but my point is that people get frustrated when institutions don’t adapt rapidly enough to seismic cultural changes. And even when people make attempts to totally press reset, a lot of the more utopian approaches become less viable and more contingent on context that they are universal. 

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Posted

Point of order, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about bail, but am perfectly willing to a) point out that its original purpose was to ensure appearance at trial, not "protect the public" and b) agree with a lot of critics that it has morphed into something that unduly penalizes the underclass while being untethered to either insuring appearance at trial or public safety.

So, bail reform seems quite warranted, especially for lower-level offenses.  It is possible, and even likely, that it has gone too far the other way, but a lot of that is informed by hindsight bias.

Posted
7 hours ago, Iceman said:

Prosecute the violence, not simple possession.  Stop letting convicted pedos walk the streets and shrugging our shoulders that the children can deal with a little rape. 
 

 

It's hardly an extreme position. It's hardly untenable. It's not an either- or proposition. 

Have you done any research on how your proposed solution works when not tied equally to funding in drug rehabilitation and mental illnesses Healthcare funding?

Seattle Study

Posted
1 minute ago, BurntEyes said:

Have you done any research on how your proposed solution works when not tied equally to funding in drug rehabilitation and mental illnesses Healthcare funding?

Seattle Study

You are infatuated with finding 'no.'  Lolz. 
 

 

Fuck dem kids.  Literally. 

Posted
Just now, Iceman said:

You are infatuated with finding 'no.'  Lolz. 
 

 

Fuck dem kids.  Literally. 

It's clear you have zero interest in actual discussion and instead prefer to rant feel good, illogical tropes and smack.

I tried to discuss the nuance and detail to provide you with some additional knowledge. I failed to gain your interest in the specifics and details where the devil actually lays. I'm moving on.

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