If thatās not a reality call the the criminal life may not be for you, Iām not sure what isā¦
Oh, a wise guy, eh? (Thatās only 2 of them.) _
Why youā¦! Where was Curly?_
Nyaaaaaahhhhhhh!.. Whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop!..nyuk, nyuk, nyukā¦
CSA
The purpose of jail is not to protect the public but to protect the inmates from themselves. Life is hard-wear a helmet.
So now WE have to house and feed these moronsā¦ 
Until we start executing criminals summarily, yes. Would you rather have them on the loose? There are no good choices.
No, I donāt want them on the loose. And they donāt deserve execution for stealing a TV or a car.
I DO like prisoners working to support their incarceration, however.
The lowest standard of work has risen higher than what you can get out of the typical inmate. The āgood old daysā when we put crews of men to work with shovels are gone. Itās cheaper to pay the guy with the steam shovel than pay just the supervisors and guards to get convicts to do the work by hand, even if we donāt pay them. Years ago I had a job to which ācommunity serviceā persons were assigned. They were usually malcontents who detracted from the job; I could have done it faster myself, and it was depressing to deal with them.
I occasionally encountered LA Countyās āgeneral assistanceā crews (people who prove their poverty can get a hand-out from the county but have to āworkā for it.) cleaning up roadsides or beaches. They were another depressing sight. A friend who went on GA confirmed my impression.
We have prisoner road crews in my county and my state. Apparently 45 states have some prison work programs of a sort. If you state and county canāt do it successfully, maybe your state and county lack the competence to make it work.
I can define some very low standards for work in the US. Low enough for any breathing human to accomplish. Lack of creativity on the part of the prison system is the only barrier. The real reason many of these inmates canāt find work is their inability to stop using drugs long enough to pass a urine test for employment. If thatās still a problem in prison, your prisons need an overhaul.
Then they are working and you have no complaint.
Drug users worked for years before employers started testing. Back when we didnāt disparage heroin addiction so hysterically most heroin addicts had jobs.
Itās happening in every prison; itās a problem in no prison. The problem is anti-drug hysteria (pharmacophobia). Iād rather work with a heroin addict than a smoker.
You canāt be serious.
A smoker is not nearly as likely to pierce you with a forklift fork nor slice off your hand in a punch press as a heroin addict. There is no way to control the dose of illegal drugs to just satisfy the addiction without risking getting high. We drug test employees in manufacturing jobs to prevent injury to themselves and others and to prevent lawsuits by those injured.
Do you have any data to back up the claim that drug use is NOT a problem in prison? And by that, I mean, problems with stoned inmates, not the access to drugs in prison. I have a BIL that worked for 25 years in corrections that has personal experience with the problems stoned or drunk prisoners cause.
Iām serious. Heroin addiction got a bad rap from movies and pop culture. When we think of them now we think of desperate criminals, but they are criminals only because theyāre made criminals by the law. If prescription opioids were available over the counter theyād get their fix for $1/day, have no need to commit crime, wouldnāt shoot up, could do the kind of work Mr @Mustangman says we have a lot of. They wouldnāt stink like smokers and spend 15 minutes of every hour on smoke breaks.
Berton RouechĆ© wrote a piece for the āNew Yorkerā about addicts in the '50s. The point of the article was how a communicable disease spread when they shared needles (which they usually didnāt); heroin addiction was incidental. All of them had jobs, lived inside, paid their bills, committed no other crime. The police didnāt really care.
We punish them for the theatre. John Calvinās heaven included a balcony from which the saved could enjoy watching the suffering of the damned in hell - sounded like a cheesy heaven.
What data have you for that? Drunks are probably more dangerous. Some jobs are unsuitable for people incompetent for any reason. The heroin addict can probably be weeded out by her/his performance.
No. I bet there isnāt any because prison-people think drug use itself is a crime.
[quote=āMustangman, post:12, topic:100466ā]And by that, I mean, problems with stoned inmates, not the access to drugs in prison. I have a BIL that worked for 25 years in corrections that has personal experience with the problems stoned or drunk prisoners cause.
[/quote]
What problems can you have? And Iām talking about opioids not meth or PCP or cocaine or some other stimulant. Iāll bet opioid users make more compliant prisoners.
And compare to the threats that sober prisoners cause: the opiated are probably asleep instead of rebelling or breaking out.
We already have the condition you describe, prescription opiods, and it is a huge problem in all states. Legally obtained prescriptions being abused by those that become addicted to the drug. Overdoses are epidemic with commercially prepared pharmaceuticals of consistent strength per dose.
So no, an addict canāt de relied on to administer an does that satisfies their addiction but doesnāt make them high.
Do you have a link to Berton Roucheās article into heroin addiction in the 1950ās? I cannot find it and Iād like to read it for myself.
Prescription opioids arenāt a problem: cutting them off is. Heroin is now cheaper than prescription opioids bought on the black market and easier to shoot up, and itās safer: more-dangerous fentanyl is cheaper so itās being substituted. Addressing the Fentanyl threat to public health If we let them have all the vicodin (etc.) they want they wonāt have to resort to street drugs or consort with criminals or shoot up
The problem is the hopelessness of their lives; we donāt blame guns for the deaths people who use them cause.
Overdoses are a solution, not a problem. āLet them be quick about it and decrease the surplus population.ā
I assume I could find it in the 'New Yorkerās archives, which I could search if I had a subscription. All of his essays were published in books. You can try the library.
Hi, when I went to bed last night we were still talking about working to support an incarceration for stealing a car. Could we please bring this back on-topic? Thanks.
I know a long time public defender. He says his job is not to get criminals off, but to get them a fair shake in court. He says that almost all of them have IQs so low that they can barely function in life. Typically, there is a smart criminal that gets the dumb ones to do the dirty work. This continues until the dopes get arrested and the smart one recruits more mentally deficient accomplices. Th guys in the story above are typical, not atypical in their mental incompetence.
Howdy, Sheriff Eagle: I donāt think anyone contested the appropriateness of locking up car thieves. It turned into what to do with them once theyāre there. I didnāt mean for my OP to invite a thread at all, just to amuse and remind readers how badly some people drive.
A lawyer friend liked to remind people that thereās no IQ test to become a criminal.
Iāve long proposed that the best thing to do is put such people to work before they commit a crime, just to keep them busy and pay their bills. As I argued above, and many programs to do just that found out, thatās more expensive than just paying them money. Some cities are doing just that: paying criminals not to commit crime. Itās a hard sell to the citizens, but it may get the most crime-reduction for dollar spent. Weād have to want to spend more to make a program palatable to taxpayers.
OK, so a guy steals a car and gets locked up, now it was deemed cruel and unusual punishment if the prisoner did not have air conditioning, Yet 90 year old lady I cut grass and shovel snow as a charity had no AC, living on Social Security, Treat the convicted better than good people, WTF.