Comments on: Prisons in Crisis

By: Capitalist

Capitalist — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:53:05 +0000

Put Prisoners to work!

Sitting around all day for years breeds lazyness, trouble making, and poor work habits.

For less dangerous prisoners, put this massive labor force to work. Either tackling societal problems… like trash on highways, habitat for humanity projects, license plates, ect.

Prisoners will learne skills that will be helpful when they are released.

Allow the prisoners to earn a small hourly rate so that when they are released theey ahve some starter money to get themselves on their feet.

Chanrge prisoners “rent” that they have to pay for with part of this salary.

By: California’s broke(n) prisons « 1 in 100

California’s broke(n) prisons « 1 in 100 — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:18:08 +0000

[...] here to listen to an NPR podcast about the Chino riot and problems in California’s prisons. Click [...]

By: R.M.

R.M. — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:27:35 +0000

putney , the “we” is lilya and her big brother’s from hamas ……She is viciously hateful of jews

By: The Moral Choice at the Heart of the Prison Crisis: Weekend Liberties Wrap | Civil Liberties

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:30:03 +0000

[...] [...]

By: Mark S.

Mark S. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:26:30 +0000

I wasn’t questioning that. I just looked it up too. It wasn’t silent.

By: Ellen Dibble

Ellen Dibble — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:02:49 +0000

Laurel and Hardy, 1935. Tit for Tat.
Erupting in a Depression…

By: Ellen Dibble

Ellen Dibble — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:57:41 +0000

Mark S, I think there is an actual movie called Tit for Tat. Are you teasing me because I am not looking it up on the web? The protagonists are as famous as Harpo Marx, but I can’t think of the name. It’s all visual antics, and it seems to me the pair were ALWAYS enacting tit for tat.
I don’t know movies at all. So.

By: Mark S.

Mark S. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:26:10 +0000

Admittedly O.T. “silent movies of the 1930s?” Which ones were those? Thought they were mostly talkies after “The Jazz Singer” in 1927… Some great prison pictures, too, by the way.

By: Ellen Dibble

Ellen Dibble — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:13:36 +0000

Putney, I’ll have to look around for one of these rage-meters you use on all the posters. You do propose that “help” will bring down the rage meter for all of them. I am thinking that Americans view democracy as a birthright to anger/rage. We don’t see it as a birthright to reasoned debate. No. We see it as: Whenever in any way threatened, get your blood pressure as high as you can and stop listening till you get your way.
That’s democracy.
Now Republicanism, that’s different.
Oh, I am SO sarcastic today.
How this attaches to prisons — prisons are the black heel on the throat of anger. So we reap the whirlwind there.
That’s overgeneralization, but Joe B, who seems have an open-wallet policy when it comes to taxing-and-spending on prisons, doesn’t see the vicious circle of the black heel approach: Tit for Tat (see silent movies of the 1930s) writ large. Tragi-comedy.

By: Putney Swope

Putney Swope — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:18:26 +0000

Gee Joe B so much rage. So much BS.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:20:51 +0000

I am not able to access the show due to technical diffulties of the website. From the point of view of your northern neighbour who is closer to the European view, it seems to me that there is a puritanical culture of justice, retribution and the gun which will severely inhibit your society. This attitude of everyone for themselves, brook no excuses, and pay for your sins, fails to the importance of society, and care for one and other.
For example listen to the BBC regarding the Libyan Lockerby bomber who is being let out on compassionate grounds.
There is too much righteousness and too little understanding. Read: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.
Good luck. I hope you make it through your troubles and recognize circumstance and fallibility.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:33:20 +0000

Great program, Tom.

By: Joe B.

Joe B. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:21:27 +0000

I don’t give a rat’s ass about prisoners. They’ve killed, raped, and molested. They’re getting their just rewards.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:02:01 +0000

bang for your buck

“In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support “three strikes” and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law.
And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped: In 1980, the average officer earned $15,000 a year; today, one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.”

from the link i posted.

By: Mark S.

Mark S. — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:58:17 +0000

“Here is a link on the some interesting data on inmates with mental illnesses. It is now estimated that about 1.25 million people incarcerated are suffering from a mental illness.”

Yes, Putney. Many are sociopaths…and as such incurable.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:52:41 +0000

worth reading as well

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111843426

By: Putney Swope

Putney Swope — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:38:49 +0000

Marc your making some inflammatory claims here.
If you have data to back up your claims please provide it.

One has to wonder what is going wrong in this country that we incarcerate so many people per capita when compared to other industrial nations.

Here is a link on the some interesting data on inmates with mental illnesses. It is now estimated that about 1.25 million people incarcerated are suffering from a mental illness.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/09/05/us-number-mentally-ill-prisons-quadrupled

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:57:53 +0000

It’s disappointing that a lot of useful data on an issue is not used. C’mon NPR, you’re sounding like a bunch of light weight cable tv people.

What happens when “non-violent” felons are set free? My guess is a lot of very bad and expensive things. But it’d be useful to see if we’d be letting go some dangerous people, or just a bunch of self-destructive deadbeats who wouldn’t cause much harm.

How many illegal aliens are incarcerated? How many children of illegals are incarcerated? My guess is at least 20% for the first and higher for the second. And it is a guess. Knowing the former gives us a way of shrinking the prison population relatively quicky through better border control. Knowing the latter gives us an idea of how bad the problem will get.

Where drugs have been legalized and regulated, has crime increased and what other problems occured. BTW, I favor legalization.

I never attribute to bias that which can be explained by laziness. But this show certainly leaves out a lot of relevant information.

By: Ellen Dibble

Ellen Dibble — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:54:43 +0000

I’m waiting for an educator or law enforcement type to point something out, with more authority than I can: At the age when kids are affiliating themselves with gangs, what exactly are their options? Their parents are likely working, so the summer leaves them all sorts of time to develop alliances and purposes. There is an obvious way to go after money, and for this alliances are very helpful. To come of age is to find your niche in this world. The alternatives are so wimpy. In my town I got a call, please cough up 75 bucks for the police department to provide activities to keep the kids off the streets. I remember years of volunteering (when I had time) to that same end. That program, Volunteers in Retirement or something like that, folded. It certainly folded for the community I was connected with. A decade later, I can see things unfolding as if the several adults, salaried and unsalaried, had not spent the summers, the afternoons. Those kids could clarify to me a certain inevitability. I wonder if joining the military would be viable for some. Mostly they have preemptive entanglements with the law before that option opens.
If schools continued through the summers, it would ease things up for working parents up to high school, and ease things up for law enforcement thereafter.
The fact they have to turn to sort of self-policing because they are functioning outside of the law puts a lot of responsibility on still immature teens.

By: PBC Blog » Daily Roundup: Books & Ideas

PBC Blog » Daily Roundup: Books & Ideas — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:41:02 +0000

[...] Prisons in Crisis The United States has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world. Now, in deep recession, some states are letting prisoners go because they can’t afford to keep them locked up. [...]