max
Vela Incident
+1,652|6537|NYC / Hamburg

My attitude towards the police is somewhere between utter disrespect for them, feeling sad for them and loathing. Most cops are total dicks and only seem to be concerned with taking money from me and trying fuck me up for really minor things (forgetting my drivers license at home, driving my bike without lights when the sun is nearly up, carrying too much money across the border, ...), than to catch real criminals. Some guy tried to rob us one and it took them an hour to get there (I can slowly walk to their station in like 2 minutes), with bullet proof vests, loads of guns, .... Looked like they were going to invade another country.  That is not to say that there are some good ones around but generally they are lazy twats
once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot  xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.
jord
Member
+2,382|6648|The North, beyond the wall.
My attitude towards cops?

I don't know,i haven't been caught yet,ever.

Seriously whats the point in being a fat street cop?You're not going to catch anyone.
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6375|North Carolina

ghettoperson wrote:

They're alright, but I never liked Sting...
LOL...  Hey, I actually like Sting... 
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
This is the new "The Police are Bad" thread hosted by 16 year old Desert Fox.

Big investigation article from NYT. The infamous Rikers island prison is a mess right now. This article resonated with me because it reminds me of what I saw when I was a janitor at a dysfunctional charter school in Newark.
Much has been made of the crisis gripping Rikers, New York City’s main jail complex — the pandemic and a subsequent staffing emergency have taken a brutal toll on incarcerated people and jailers alike — but the sheer lawlessness inside the compound is difficult to fathom.

Detainees in some buildings have seized near total control over entire units, deciding who can enter and leave them, records and interviews show. In other buildings, they have wandered in and out of staff break rooms and similarly restricted areas, with some flouting rules against smoking tobacco and marijuana. Sometimes they have answered phones that were supposed to be manned by guards. Several have stolen keys and used them to free others in custody, who went on to commit slashings and other acts of violence.
...
City officials have accused jail officers of abusing generous sick leave policies — hundreds have been out of work — while the officers’ labor union has said guards are not going to work because conditions in the jails are unsafe and inhumane.
...
As city officials struggle to respond to the problems in the jails, a sense of futility has taken hold, according to interviews with seven current and former detainees and seven jailers, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss workplace problems. One said he has stopped confiscating weapons — even though stabbings have doubled compared with last year — because doing so would require him to use force in an area where he is likely to be alone with dozens of detainees, with no guarantee of immediate backup.
...
After a fight broke out in one building in June 2020, a detainee left an unlocked housing unit, grabbed a can of pepper spray off a food cart where a guard had left it and used it to spray staff members.

About two months later, a Rikers nurse, Alicia Butler, was working in a secure office in a mental health ward when a detainee opened the security gate and beat her with his fists, inflicting injuries to her hip and knee that were so severe she needed surgery.

A group of men in another housing unit, upset because they said they were not getting enough to eat this summer, blocked two guards in another housing unit from locking a security gate, took keys and a body camera from them and crushed the camera under their heels as the jailers hid in a control station.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/nyre … icers.html

Interesting part...
Problems with jail staffing have been flagged equally often, especially in the past five years. They were mentioned in federal oversight reports in 2016, when monitors found that staff members continued to escalate violent confrontations with detainees at the mildest provocation. And again in 2017, when the monitor noted repeated “security lapses” by staffers that led to disorder in the jail. The reports’ tone grew more critical in recent years, and the monitor noted staff insubordination, lack of basic conflict-management skills and chronic delays in the disciplinary process.
So the the prison authority blames staffing shortages for the chaos. They argue that the officers are abusing their unlimited sick time. The union says the officers are using their sick time because the place is unsafe. Meanwhile the Obama admin complained that the officers were abusive in the past.

It seems attempting to cutdown on guard abuse led to a situation where the guards are now unable to maintain control. The sociopath guards were in fact the thin blue line. Now we are at an impasse. The only way to regain control of the prison would probably be a scourging of the population into submission. But we can't do that for both political and legal reasons. So what now?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Classic "they don't want to do their jobs" starter pack.

I don't think we need cops who mace little girls or bounce old men's heads off the pavement, or prison guards who arrange fights or boil prisoners alive, to maintain lawful control over society and prisons.

Extra reading: Stanford prison experiment and parallels to real situations in real prisons.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
As someone who used to work a spooky job, I assumed you would be understanding of the stress of being put in a dangerous situation with little support.


Prison guards have it much harder than regular cops and unfortunately get neither the respect nor the pay. Prison guards need to deal with the worst people every single day while your average cop does what all day? Issue tickets? Stare down teens leaving school?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

I understand that we have too many prisoners and not enough guards. Compensating for that with violence, and outright sadistic torture, is not a sustainable solution. We need less prisoners, and no for-profit prisons. Very tall order though, prisons are big business.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I understand that we have too many prisoners and not enough guards. Compensating for that with violence, and outright sadistic torture, is not a sustainable solution. We need less prisoners, and no for-profit prisons. Very tall order though, prisons are big business.
First off, thank you for engaging me on this subject.

Anyhow, NY and NJ has "bail reform". They don't hold people for nonviolent crimes. The population of Rikers is very low right now but the issue is that all of the people there are violent sociopaths.

Bail reform...you also have the issue of some people getting arrested multiple times a day for nonviolent crimes.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Prisons should be mostly for violent criminals who are a danger to society. Mental institutions for criminals should be for the actual psychopaths.

Rikers was understaffed. I understand it's long been a shit facility. What amuses me is how the articles on this ordeal mention that the prisoners are *checks notes* "smoking tobacco and marijuana in bold defiance of no-smoking rules!" Yes, that is the important issue.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
Almost everyone who ends up in prison does so because somewhere along the line they have been failed – by systems and by people. Some high-risk prisoners will, exceptionally, never be released into the wider community for reasons of public protection. The brutalising effect of prisons isn’t an inevitable argument for their abolition but it is an unanswerable one for reform.

Alternatives to prison have long been articulated in the UK, the US and elsewhere. There are sufficient reasons on grounds of race or sex alone. As many as 95 per cent of children (16,000) affected by maternal imprisonment in England and Wales are forced to leave their homes. Black Britons make up 3 per cent of the general population, but 12 per cent of adult prisoners and more than 25 per cent of children in custody.

The idea of the irredeemable criminal gained ground in the 1860s, intensified by emergent eugenic views and an increased emphasis on punishment. A left that finds itself agreeing, for whatever reasons, with this fundamentally right-wing perspective, even in relation to a right-wing criminal, might think again.

As recently as 2014 the UK government set out to prevent prisoners from receiving books. The judiciary intervened, seeing ‘no good reason’ to restrict access, but personal testimony suggests that the book ban, instigated by Chris Grayling, is still in place. It has a long and transatlantic history. William Joseph Snelling, who wrote The Rat-Trap, Or, Cogitations of a Convict in the House of Correction (1837), declared the prohibition of books in a Boston jail (along with letters and papers) to be ‘abominable’. In 1876, the New York Prison Association published its Catalogue and Rules for Prison Libraries. David Copperfield and Little Dorrit were thought most suitable, along with Trollope and Julia Ward Howe.A recent list of more than ten thousand books banned in Texas jails includes work by Alice Walker, John Updike, George Orwell and Joyce Carol Oates. Officials at an Ohio jail banned a biology textbook. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (2010) and Race Matters by Cornel West (1993) are often outlawed.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2021/october … -sentences

it seems particularly abominable to me that, in the US, where the prison population are overwhelmingly african-american, that prison administrators would purposefully ban any sort of reading material that speaks to 'the black experience', or that might help to elaborate on the prisoner's social and political situation. how weirdly patrician and racist to prescribe dickens novels that speak of doomed victorian orphans-dun-good and to ban books that might bring a prisoner to greater consciousness of their own circumstances. it's almost as if ... reforming them ... isn't the actual point.

The correlation between education in prison and reduced reoffending rates is well established. But as an ideological commitment to hereditarianism, often driven by racism, increased during the second half of the century, so the belief in the value of reading – which forms part of nurture, not nature – declined.

It isn’t difficult to find former criminals who are less cautious about the value of books than academics often are. Erwin James, who served twenty years for murder, observes that ‘reading can change the way you think about life’. Reading groups where, in the words of one prisoner, ‘you don’t always know what you are supposed to think,’ bring particular benefits. What has happened to books in prisons, and to funding for academics to work long-term in prisons, when 50 per cent of prisoners either can’t read, or struggle to? Should schools and universities be doing more to teach – and reach – students such as Ben John, before they become isolated white supremacists?

Looking back from 1885 to the middle of the century, Edmund Du Cane, the chairman of the new Prison Commission, set up to bring prisons in line with a harsh new penal regime, had mockingly observed that hard, heavy labour had been forbidden ‘in order that whole attention might be devoted to literature – the establishment was a criminal university, and acquired the name of the “read-read-Reading Gaol”.’ By 1862 stone breaking had replaced reading, as Oscar Wilde recorded in ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’, though some learning was retained.
this short piece dovetails into the specific question of 'can reading/literature/the humanities help reform minor criminals', on the back of a recent court ruling in which a teenage white supremacist was given probation and a long reading list of Classics (controversially); but it's a good piece nonetheless.

Last edited by uziq (2021-10-12 01:33:51)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

it seems particularly abominable to me that, in the US, where the prison population are overwhelmingly african-american,
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2018 black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population, white males 29%, and Hispanic males 24%. White females comprised 47% of the prison population in comparison to black females who accounted for 18% of the female population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarcera … ted_States
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

this short piece dovetails into the specific question of 'can reading/literature/the humanities help reform minor criminals', on the back of a recent court ruling in which a teenage white supremacist was given probation and a long reading list of Classics (controversially); but it's a good piece nonetheless.
Behind prison walls, cats and inmates rehabilitate each other through animal care program
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/09/17/PIND/1ac2c947-d0bc-45f3-8458-496517266581-PrisonCats_MM_002.JPG?width=1320&height=880&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/loc … 798291002/
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
i think i'd rather read and marvel at works of art than handle an animal that gives me allergies, thanks.

although it says a lot for your imagination that you'd rather a small fluffy animal over the great works of literature.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

Uzique wrote:

Almost everyone who ends up in prison does so because somewhere along the line they have been failed – by systems and by people.
I resent the idea that "the system", whatever that is, failed everyone in prison. I am sure the guards and me can swap stories of people who are irredeemable and/or unable to be reasoned with.

Uzique wrote:

Erwin James, who served twenty years for murder, observes that ‘reading can change the way you think about life’.
He should have never been released from prison. Maybe the person he killed can get a library card in the after life.

We spend too much time talking about the brutalizing effect of the police or prison or whatever but spend little time talking about the victims of violence or the effect it has on individuals and the community.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

it seems particularly abominable to me that, in the US, where the prison population are overwhelmingly african-american,
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2018 black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population, white males 29%, and Hispanic males 24%. White females comprised 47% of the prison population in comparison to black females who accounted for 18% of the female population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarcera … ted_States
34% and 18% of the overall prison population (the largest such p population on earth) … and what % of the general population are they?

are you this thick, engineering man? yes, african-americans, and black males in particular, are over(whelmingly) represented in the prison population.

as you would expect, considering the inconsistencies in policing, court representation and sentencing. young black males practically get hoovered into the prison system for minor offences which their white, and especially white-collar white, denizens can easily skip.

Last edited by uziq (2021-10-12 10:45:05)

uziq
Member
+492|3422

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Almost everyone who ends up in prison does so because somewhere along the line they have been failed – by systems and by people.
I resent the idea that "the system", whatever that is, failed everyone in prison. I am sure the guards and me can swap stories of people who are irredeemable and/or unable to be reasoned with.

Uzique wrote:

Erwin James, who served twenty years for murder, observes that ‘reading can change the way you think about life’.
He should have never been released from prison. Maybe the person he killed can get a library card in the after life.

We spend too much time talking about the brutalizing effect of the police or prison or whatever but spend little time talking about the victims of violence or the effect it has on individuals and the community.
err no we don’t. a huge amount of the discourse is oriented towards the victims of violence and the harm it does to the community. what do you think metoo and other such movements are about? it’s laughable that you portray the united states as being excessively concerned with the feelings of ‘poor lost little lamb’ prisoners. your approach to justice is substantially old testament. the community gets their eye for an eye.

just about the only time you seriously see discussions of prison reform or 'wait, is this too much?' questions come into the media conversation is when some bastion of evangelism southern state executes yet another person with an IQ lower than room temperature. considering ways to better reform a prison population, or whether to grant them access to books or the possibility of education, is hardly denying victims their right. those people have already forfeited their liberty and incurred a life-long mark on their record as a citizen. the democratic theory of justice doesn't state anywhere that prison should be tantamount to torture.

and yes it’s easy to caricature the liberal position that it’s all the fault of ‘the system’. but i think it’s a fair observation that very few people are born as irredeemable psychopaths from the cradle (though they do exist).

Last edited by uziq (2021-10-12 10:53:04)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

A staggering number of criminals develop as a result of some fault of society. See: sociological positivism, criminology. A lot of points that make sense to me, and should make sense to mac given his support of free school meals for associated reasons.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I am all for helping the needy but at some point enough is enough. The prisoners going around the jail being violent and disruptive shouldn't be excused.

How do we return order to Rikers island? The place was safer for staff and prisoners before criminal justice reforms tamed guard abuse. That is an uncomfortable truth.

I support a very broad welfare state but the need for order and security is also important. I am not a pig man that wants to see prisoners suffer for the sake of their suffering. Give them books. Gay comic books.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Blaming the fall of Rikers on softened guards when everyone's pretty much citing understaffed facilities seems trollish or maybe just willfully dumb.

From Sep:

Justice Delayed: City Jail Staff Shortage Keeps Detainees From Getting to Court
https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/9/14/22674 … from-court

exerpt wrote:

‘No End in Sight’
The staffing crunch means that jail officials are using the department’s centralized busing system to transport detainees around Rikers Island or to the hospital, instead of to court, according to Russo, who represents top jail supervisors.

In the past, people being moved within the island or seeking medical help were transferred via vans at each of the 10 jails on the island, Russo said.

For some people locked up, the lack of transportation means they haven’t been able to testify before grand juries that may end up deciding to not allow the criminal case against them to move forward.

“The system has been broken, but it has never been at this level where the courts are using the jail to warehouse people indefinitely,” said Yung-Mi Lee, legal director of Brooklyn Defender Services.

Sometimes public defenders and judges are told detainees refused to come to court or to appear via video from a jail feed, according to Lee and other public defenders. But their clients later say they were never offered a ride, according to the public defenders.

Detainees are also missing virtual court hearings because there aren’t enough officers to escort them to the areas with the video hookups, according to jail sources.

“Those excuses being made...are just not accurate,” said Rountree. “It’s one thing to have a staffing shortage but it’s another thing to blame the nonproduction on a made-up story. That adds insult to injury.”

“It’s a complete shutdown of the ability of the lawyers to communicate with clients,” he added. “There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.”

In one instance, Martha Grieco, a defense attorney, said her client wasn’t produced for four court dates in June and once this month.

“I wasn’t able to share the discovery [information] or a new offer that the DA made,” she said, noting the trial had to be delayed until she could meet her client at Rikers.

A Correction Department spokesperson compiled the number of missed court dates over the past several months. But City Hall declined to make the figues public, according to a source familiar with the internal discussion.

A spokesperson for de Blasio, said he hadn’t seen the data, but would check.
smh

Of course a bunch of dopes are all like "it's because the liberals don't want to let us go in and bash some heads!"
uziq
Member
+492|3422
lol what a hot take. ‘we care too much about prisoners’ he says, of a pre-trial JAIL where people are being held indefinitely. no surprises they are violent and disruptive. they haven’t even been found guilty yet and they’re spending years behind bars in a hellscape.

world’s number one superpower who spends more on her military than all her rivals combined. but can’t staff her justice system or move people through her court system.

imagine losing one year or three years of your life to JAIL! not even prison. not even formally sentenced.

add that to the industrial prison complex / rich people post bail thing (in certain states) … is this really the best you can do? but i guess america is just soft on her unredeemable underclass. it’s probably genetic.

Last edited by uziq (2021-10-12 11:52:46)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Staffing shortages is strongly related to poor work conditions and behavioral problems among students prisoners.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
it’s also strongly related to an ongoing global pandemic and the fact many high-risk jobs don’t pay shit.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Imagine being coopted into prison guard double duty at one of these facilities when you're actually a nurse or a librarian.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
It's the prisoners who make the conditions bad. It is not like the guards are being asked to shovel sand on Mars.

I sympathize with the guards. They manage the same population of people I have. Low IQ people with aggressive tendencies.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Guards are also recruited from a pool of people with low intelligence and aggressive tendencies. Of course some are going to be resentful when they're told to stop being medieval.

Low pay, understaffed, pandemic conditions. But now I guess "they don't want to do their jobs" only because they aren't allowed to curb stomp people now?

RIP inmate Darren Rainey, body temp 94 degrees 12 hours after his death. Human lobster. How many stories could you swap with staff responsible? Have you ever boiled a student?

The real problem, of course, is guards who don't want to do their jobs because they're picked on by prison reform.

Quite the pig person take, really.

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