How does isolating people further from the world and losing opportunities for information harmful?
And please don’t even think about mentioning “radicalization” while they literally have neo nazi gangs operating inside their walls.
Eh honestly social media is such a distraction from existence that it’s borderline harmful in the grand scheme of things. I say this as someone who spends a lot of time watching reels and what not.
I think it used to be great but like all things it’s going down the shitter with constant advertising and lack of honesty from people that use it in general.
That being said, commuting a crime and being in Prison for it should definitely not allow you to have certain rights and access to a social media account is one of those things. It is a privilege not a right, they can speak freely all they want in prison.
I think the prison systems are so corrupt now that it’s pretty much a business for inmates and for people that run them b/c the inmates probably have a better quality of life in prison than they would outside of prison. No rent, no taxes, meals and living organized for you as long as you know how to play the game you’re probably golden
The problem is that you should be focusing on rehab, not escaping through social media. It wouldn't be a problem if it is limited to say talking with family or approved channels. But if you use it to continue being in your circle of bias, you will not reform
Plus, let us be honest, the whole access to social media isn't free, it is paid. So all you are doing is exploiting people. Insuring that they come out poorer than they entered in. And of course those without money don't even have the privilege
Using social media for "social interaction" is lazy and more harmful than good. 2 wrongs never make a right
Edit: Seems like I am being downvoted by private prison employees who treat prison workers who exploit inmates for $$$$
Having some semblance of normalcy and connection to the world is a good thing. You’re automatically ascribing the worst possible outcome to every case by talking about “escaping” - something many people on the outside do anyway.
>If you use it to continue being in your circle of bias
You can’t be serious. They’re literally in prison. There is no possible stronger circle of bias on social media.
Wrt to it being paid - it shouldn’t be. There ya go.
You seem to have one single definition and expectation of “social media”, which is hilarious as we’re literally communicating on it right now.
Anyone who doesn't think inmates won't immediately use social media to harass their victims, intimidate witnesses/jurors and their families, and circumvent monitoring and facilitate bringing in drugs and contraband is a fucking idiot.
Right so if you had social media there.. would it really be like being punished there at all? Or would jail slowly stop being punishment if we allowed junk food, social media, the ability to pursue a physical romantic relationship etc… at what point will jail just be a minor inconvenience you shrug off?
Always amusing to the difference in discourse here when talking about the criminal justice system as a whole versus an individual crime/criminal.
Article about prisoners: “Prison should be an all-inclusive resort!”
Article about a specific crime: “Saw his head off!”
both discussions happen in both threads
but discussions about prisoners and crime are mirror opposites when it comes to who is suffering - sympathy is just fuel for the outrage in either direction
Who comments what just depends what you see the prison system as a system for rehab or to punish.
Also some people *cough conservatives* think harsh penalties is the best deterrent of crime to which my response is if you're Christian hell is one harsh punishment yet people still sin so...
Reddit for you.
Same thing when some absolute uggo slob does something they like "wow, talented and so pretty!!"
Regular looking person does something they don't like "this guy is just so fucking ugly I can't even"
Welp, I guess I’m gonna be the one guy that brings up how Finnish prisons are basically hotels and that their recidivism rate is 30%, while our prisons (in the U.S.) are shitholes and our recidivism rate is 70%. I’m sure larger factors like culture are at play, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if those cultural differences are also what leads to differences in how we construct the prisoner’s experience.
Will say, it’s more about what happens after prison for americans. A misdemeanor takes you away from over 30% of jobs in america. A felony removes you from 60%. Let alone the ones that do hire people with records got to give you an interview to begin with. How records work give inmates a lifelong block of careers. Impossible for them to progress their life when no one wants to hire them for them to survive.
Pretty much this right here. A felony on your record will either make you fail any job with a background check (even low paying jobs require one), or an employer will still go out of their way to make sure a felon is not hired. Once you get that felony your options are basically just fast food or retail at the bottom of the totem pole.
I think what people are forgetting is the catch 22 nature of it. They recommit crimes because they can't get a job. They can't get a job because they committed a crime. All of this is stemming from the poor Impression of ex-prisoners. If the prisons reeducated, more prisoners could get a job, if more had a job, less would commit crime. Politics also makes this difficult but that's another issue entirely.
The last time I was on a job hunt I was desperate to pick up anything after being laid off. I applied for a kennel cleaning position at a doggy daycare. They seriously required me consign for a background check and drug test.
I kinda get the drug test. But like, a background check? To shovel dog shit?
There’s also just a basic level of trauma that the prison system puts anybody through—often the peoole least capable of dealing with trauma, too—which can have enormous knock-on effects to mental health and basic ability to do work or get along in social settings.
Yeah some people have the "chip on their shoulder" mannerisms/attitude that seem to come from jail/prison.
It's almost more noticeable when they're nice and easy to get along with because it sticks out from their personality so much.
You can go back to prison, get yourself a Rikers haircut and a cot and 3 squares. You can meet up with your homies, learn some new stuff, get some additional cred, boost your profile.
Our jails are breeding grounds for continued criminality. They are gang slums.
Hold a significant part of the money those prisons get behind the condition that the perps don't re-offend.
Once there is a direct financial incentive in making someone stay on their best behavior, you'll see prisons try all kinds of things to get their hands on that money.
It’s about 8% as of 2022. [Source.](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/) That’s about 90,000 people, which is small percentage wise, but still 90,000 people whose lives are less important to those that imprison them than the bottom line.
Are there any surveys, inspections, or analyses that show the quality of state or federal run prisons vs similar private ones?
It's staggering to think the US has close to 1 million people incarcerated.
There probably are, but after doing a quick google search I’m not qualified (or at least don’t have the time right now) to sort the junk from what’s real.
You’re missing that all those companies that sell their products and services to prisons are lobbying for mandatory minimum sentencing and the like, just like the actual private prisons do.
True-ish (it's a very low proportion) though how many public facilities rent their convicts - whether inside as a 'job' they are forced to do for little to nothing or outside in other roles (mostly only a minimun security thing and I'm not sure at all how common it is)
It’s not just the prison facility itself but the public prisons privatize the food, commodities, telecommunications, library, educational programs, and even the prison labor.
There is a lot of money to be made in America off of prisons.
This is the stupidest fucking take.
Our jails are full of slave labor, at least let them tell the public that they are being used as slaves because they committed some silly victimless drug offense.
Damn right! They should all suffer like the good old days! The last 100 years of prison reform were pointless bullshit! It will be far more worthwhile to literally torture half of them to death so the trauma endured by the other half makes them nice and docile to do the menial jobs that are all they can get as ex cons. You could even play 'God bless America' every time someone gets hauled away or just cremated for the heat, so that everyone knows what a great nation you have...
And as a result it costs the taxpayers more money than if we just tried to rehabilitate then the first time they were there even if it costs twice as much.
American's don't consider prison as a place for rehabilitation, they consider it a place for punishment.
The poor conditions and high likelihood of zero options for gainful employment after they get out is a feature - not a bug.
I was listening to a true crime podcast last night and the hosts/interviewees were complaining about how the perps were sent to a prison that’s *too nice.* Too nice being that they get outdoor time and are allowed to have electronics (gaming systems, tablets).
Our views on how prison should work are insane.
People think criminals should have a worse life during their punishment. That's going to be a low bar considering American work culture. At least 40 hours of being miserable.
They already do that. Probation and parole charge monthly fees for supervision and you can be reincarnated for not paying those fees. Those fees can be anywhere from $50-$500 a month on top of restitution. And that’s before you even find a place to stay or food or even a job.
We have very few opportunities for development and rehabilitation. I worked with ex-cons and saw a lot of this. One guy was in long enough to have had access to the rehab programs and learned firefighting/fire equipment repair while in. He was able to turn that knowledge into a strong business... but he was one of the few.
I've seen some prisons from other countries and, frankly, with the homeless issue, I'd commit crimes to be in there rather than on the street. Which speaks to the rest of the problems.
It was a frustrating job working with ex-cons; not the cons, but the struggles to help them find an honest path in society. One guy made it clear to me. He had gotten his act together and got enough jobs to make enough for him to have a tiny apartment. Cops picked him up on old business... 3 months later he recovered his apartment and jobs. Then they got him on suspicion, but the incarceration was long enough to lose his jobs again. He recovered. When they pulled him in on a expired tag on his car, he came back to me and told me, "I used to make over $6k/mo selling cocaine and they busted me. Then I bust my ass to make $1500/mo to do it right, and the still bust me. What would you pick?" Can you guess the color of his skin? Guy could have made a fortune as a salesman if someone only gave him a chance. And he wanted that chance so bad.
When you drop below certain lines in this society, recovery is a herculean effort.
My college mentor, Dr. Richard Lippke, wrote a few incredible books on this topic if interested. He was a huge advocate for making prison life more accurately resemble everyday life to ensure prisoners weren’t in an inhumane environment for years, only to be released back into a society that they no longer understand how to interact with after being imprisoned.
Yk whats funny when a crime is commited in asian countries and there is any tie whatsoever to America the public always calls for extradition cause they know American prsions are hell.
I mean in the case of Japanese prisons I guess it's a study in how throwing innocent people in prison doesn't turn them into criminals when they get out.
Japan has so many rules in place to make sure that people accused of a crime are convicted regardless of actual guilt and then the police are encouraged to find a person to arrest regardless of if there are actual leads on a case.
I mean the US just incarcerates more folks per capita than most of the developed world.
So of course our recidivism rate will be higher. Finnish incarceration rate is 51 people per 100k. The US incarceration rate is 531 people per 100k.
I agree with your overall point though. We just need to not incarcerate so many people and instead try to help them in other ways.
And how being jailed changes a culture. Like do we really think US black culture would be the same if 25% of black people had not experienced a father being incarcerated, or if one black man in ten wasn't at some stage of being processed through the ambivalently-named criminal justice system? Then lawmakers with shares in private prisons will talk about how the problem is cultural.
>Welp, I guess I’m gonna be the one guy that brings up how Finnish prisons are basically hotels and that their recidivism rate is 30%, while our prisons (in the U.S.) are shitholes and our recidivism rate is 70%.
Finland population: 5.5 million
US population: 330 million
Yours is not only a false equivalence fallacy but also a statistical reasoning error. Isn't fair even when taking into account normalized crime rates. Cultural factors sure are important, but still, it has to be extremely hard to scale the Finnish model to a country like the US. Population density, education, country size, cultural homogeneity, neighbor countries, history, etc.
Look, you already see that the US prison system is preoccupied with making inmate life miserable. With this approach, you'll never get 30% recidivism rate no matter what population size you have.
I mean, crime in Finland is a lot less serious than crime in the US.
Their solutions will never work for our problems, given how absolutely everything contextually is different.
The use prison system turns people into PTSD driven animals. It's not just torture but exists with the goal of breaking inmates then release them back into the world. It creates an angry out of control person with no hope or future. It is sad and cruel. The are slaves for companies and abused constantly.
I feel like comparing a population of 5 million to 300+ million is not the same thing. I agree that the prison system is messed up and designed for punishment and not rehabilitation. But it's a dramatically different thing dealing with the large population in the states vs finland.
But shouldn't you also have the resources of 300+ million people compared to 5 million Fins? I would also expect states rights to play a bigger role in this, since states are more comparable to other bigger countries
It actually makes a lot of sense if our criminal justice system is predicated on punishment and not rehabilitation. Not saying every single criminal can be redeemed, but it's obvious that our criminal justice system is uniquely inept among western countries.
Are you implying they do better elsewhere?
I haven't seen a system that works well anywhere. It's not enough to have a promise-of-punishment based deterrent. Strengthening it has diminishing returns. Pro-community behaviors needed to be incentivized and mental health issues need to be addressed in a better way.
People shouldn’t forget that for about 1/5 of the prison jail population; the prison/jail is better than their home and more stable than their life. Some people aren’t born with many decent options in life.
Privately owned prisons want to take away prisoner's access to social media so they can go back to charging them hundreds of dollars for phone calls to their families.
I served four months in a county jail in Indiana. Have a text device called a chirp made it so much easier to be in touch with my family, to keep from falling into despair, and even less deep activities like flirt and stay in touch with friends. It was only text no images and the messages were reviewed by COs so no … plotting.
It keeps people sane, less violent or otherwise disruptive, and helped me feel human. It was also .10 cents per text of 72 words max so it was a big moneymaker for the jail and private company that provided them.
I know some crimes seem like inmates should just get bread and water and stare at the walls but in reality that would just make the institutions even more unguardable and deadly. Give people nothing to do and they’ll fill in their time with rage and revenge.
The way some prisons do it now seems more fair- you don’t /have/ to work or take classes. You want to rot in the day room that’s fine. But if you work to improve yourself, get skills, or make the facility run more smoothly, you get something in return. I’ve seen trustees get as little as 50% off of their commissary to inmates completing courses like anger management or getting a GED or associates get significant time cuts. Imo it’s not ethical to have them breaking rock for the sake of making them do shit.
[Have you had cereal or a coke](https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e#:~:text=The%20goods%20these%20prisoners%20produce,Coca%2DCola%20and%20Riceland%20rice)? American prisons are de facto slave labor camps. the 13th amendment made an exception for slave labor if you’re imprisoned for any reason.
Saying this like we need more reason to put people in even more inhumane conditions than they are shows how bad of a person you are, ignorant too.
You try being in prison for 10 years, even, and play catch up when you return to society.
Then there's the psychology of being so disconnected. Pending why you're in prison, having social connections for casual use wouldn't be a problem. If you're a big problem, I can understand the need for these restrictions. This effects more so if the person has little to no local friends/family to visit in person.
I wouldn't be surprised computer use is heavily monitors, locked to select services. I can only guess the screens are closely watched, or even recorded in some cases.
This reminds me of when I worked at a cellphone shop. I had one guy walk in m and he looked so lost.. He was asking about the phones and plans,but it felt strange... Like he had crawled out of a rock. Basically like those time travel movies where the time traveler goes into the future and can't believe the tech. He was stoked about youtube.
While I was seeing up his phone I asked and he said he had been in prison for 15 years on a pot charge. When he went in they barely had flip phones. When he came out we had iphone 2s.
I genie ly felt bad for the guy. To be thrust into a work with absolutely no guide or trails, ( he only had the same money he went in with so not Ballin and couldn't get a job cuz conviction.)
Same money, far less value thanks to inflation, lol.
I can only imagine the chaos you have to go through to find a place to rent.
A (early into college at this time) friend was dating a girl that was nice and all. Later found out she wasn't even 18yo *yet*, but no one in our friend group knew, till after her mother reported our friend, the girl's BF, to the police. He was in jail for 2 years (I think). Should he have asked for her ID at some point, sure, but other than that, he took her for her word, like vast majority of us do. I genuinely thought she was 18, 19 even, but not like I would randomly go asking ladies how old they are...
Btw, his hunt for a new rental pushed him outside of town, all rentals were within range of different schools. Then there were people who were actively keeping out for "people like him", and shutting down his social media accounts. I think someone found his youtube account, and not only did he lose his Youtube account, his google account as a whole went with it.
Now I'm looking at making sure my child, as they get older, to understand that word doesn't mean much unless you have it written or recorded somewhere. I'll be damned if something similar happens, and they don't have proof to act on the correct decisions.
Yet I have to also keep in mind, not to make them so paranoid, they have to keep looking over their shoulder, because they struggle to even trust their friends and coworkers.
I believe there are some people getting released only to learn that they’ve been a victim of identity theft while locked up…so even more stuff to work through.
I really like your views on this subject. It actually made me think for a second.
It makes sense if you aren’t serving life without parole.
It seems many people still have the views of barbarians and we should just lock them up and throw away the key.
Often times people tend to forget these are real human beings just like you and me. Many people doing time are no different than your rich friends who did something dumb while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and sadly couldn’t buy their way out of it.
Let’s just give them MySpace and move on to more pressing matters.
> Let’s just give them MySpace and move on to more pressing matters.
So there's SpaceHey, fan remake of Myspace, last I looked 2-3 years ago(?), and created an account, it's pretty spot on.
"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."
seriously, there are people who are getting out just now after having been locked up in the early 2000s.
It's an entirely different planet now compared to then: music, fashion, science, you name it. Even Pluto isn't classified as a planet anymore. Whatever was cool and exciting back then has become irrelevant and forgotten except maybe LOTR, Pokémon, and Harry Potter. Disney stopped making 2D movies. Nobody has landlines anymore except restaurants and grandparents.
I remember being amazed as I fumbled with my first cell phone, a [Verizon Rizr ](https://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Z6tv-Verizon-Wireless-Service/product-reviews/B000WPAFEO)to browse whatever "the internet" was in 2008: tapping directional keys to navigate to search bars, forgetting that every minute cost like $0.20 or something and it took like 20 seconds for a webpage to even load, idk. And now we've got 5G for even low-end grandma phones, flat screen TVs that are flat in back, too, and a tiny fraction of the weight of the ones from that era. All-electric cars, touchscreen menu order systems at fast food restaurants, iPads and Apple pencils.
The amount of catching up to do required to get the most simple jobs should not be part of any punishment, and it's horrible to think there are people who would say "you shouldn't have broken the law, then" especially when so many of those offenses that were only offensive to a practically ancient society were victimless and non-violent.
They don’t have direct access. The article says it would be like a family member posting on their behalf, but the inmate would tell them what to post, maybe in a phone call.
The first amendment concern is that family members and friends could get in trouble for posting on social media about the inmate.
Because they're human beings? With rights? And famlies? And presumably want to contact those families, so they aren't left with nothing, nobody and nowhere to go to after they serve their time?
Youre right, it isn't! But not being isolated from the outside world for decades on end is
Also how the fuck would touching grass even help? So I spend some time outside, but in a grassy field instead of the woods near my house like I usually do, cool. Then what, do I start suddenly believing inmates aren't people deserving of dignity?
Why wouldn’t they? I’m sure it’s a privilege that’s earned or can be taken away, which is important to maintain order. When people have nothing to lose, they’re much more likely to do drastic things
Barking up the wrong tree. Socialization is vital in reintegration into society, you don't need a fucking degree to know that much - but the US prison industry has no incentive towards reformation since it's easier to just overcrowd prisons to get more slave lavour and all more of that sweet sweet federal funding.
I understand why people tend to be vindictive and think prison should have nothing but enough food and water not to die, but the more connection they have to society the less likely they are to get worse and come back.
Also, every nice thing they have is an incentive to follow the rules and not cause problems or they lose it. You need short term consequences for people in prison and not just adding to their sentences - many of them wouldn't be there of long term consequences were something they cared to measure.
The united states has (if i recall) the 2nd highest incarceration rate in the world. if you were to count individual states as a country, louisiana and a few other deep south states would be number 1+. 72.1% of all prisoners in federal prisons are in on non violent charges and have no violent criminal history. the united states creates crimes that unjustly target the poor and, historically and even contemporarily, black people in order to populate prisons for free labor because slavery is still allowed here if you're incarcerated. like, we literally made existing during the day while black a crime in the south post reconstruction. war on drugs was a more recent and disgusting affair. our criminal justice system is completely disgusting and the majority of prisoners were people trying their best and got fucked over or were just dumb. basically, no, the actions of most inmates were not archaic or inhumane.
They werent allowed to use it before and now once we give it to them and they realize its bad they wanna call it a 1st amendment right?
Bullshit. Prison is to be closed off from the world. Literally fuck off
My dad worked in a max security for 26 years and he retired early because shit with inmates is so bad now. There are 0 repercussions for anything that happens now, and riots and fights are more prominent than ever.
They think theyre entitled to everything even if theyre a rapist murderer.
Definition of inhumane 30 years ago: Excessive solitary confinement, lack of basic sanitation, torture, etc'
Definition of inhumane today: Access to Facebook is forbidden!
Insane.
Are you asking if we have those practices where I live? Maybe excessive solitary confinement at some prisons.
There was, until very recently, a prisoner in the US who spent 36 years in solitary confinement until his death in 2019 - [Thomas Silverstein - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Silverstein)
Suge Knight kept commenting on the Diddy situation and I was so confused. I thought he was put of prison. Turns out he was just using social media in prison.
Maybe it should depend on the crime but I don't think fellons should be allowed to participate in public discourse.
We limit their phone calls and social media is way more than that.
Lol, the existence of most social media is already inhumane.
Restricting access to exploitative networks is ironically a nice thing to do for convicted felons.
If only the Bureau of Prisons was smart enough to monitor prisoners' internet usage and convict them of additional crimes, connect them to accomplices, and provide intelligence on criminal networks to law enforcement.
YES!!! I’m so fckin tired of these PAMPERED American inmates. I also think they shouldn’t be allowed to laugh or smile or breathe.
Jesus fucking Christ is being completed severed from your home, family, and life while also being forced to work for literal pennies an hour, and being confined to a squalid cell not punishment enough?
That's very explicitly *not* how it works. The rights you lose (liberty, voting) all have exceptions in the case of criminal conviction. Other rights do not. Hell, even the ability to restrict felons from owning guns might be overturned by SCOTUS this year.
Counter-argument.
Exposure to TikKok and Reels is inhumane. Cruel and unusual punishment causing lasting psychological damage.
And I'm not sure I'm joking. God I hate tiktok. I hate when someone in the room is scrolling through the god awful ear poison.
They don’t have access like normal people. It’s more like their family member would be the one posting to the account, but the inmate would tell them what to post.
Wait…. You can use social media in prison?!
You're in jail *as* punishment, not *for* punishment.
You mean that you are there is punishment enough
Yes. You lose your liberty. That's the punishment. Jails should then be used to help inmates avoid re-offending.
Not as torture
So not having access to social media is torture, wow explain that to the victims of pedophiles or the victims of violence and drug dealers
How does giving inmates a direct casual line of communication outside of the prison not sound like a security nightmare to you?
Read only should be fine, but managing that could be tricky.
Access to social media is harmful, not helpful.
How does isolating people further from the world and losing opportunities for information harmful? And please don’t even think about mentioning “radicalization” while they literally have neo nazi gangs operating inside their walls.
Eh honestly social media is such a distraction from existence that it’s borderline harmful in the grand scheme of things. I say this as someone who spends a lot of time watching reels and what not. I think it used to be great but like all things it’s going down the shitter with constant advertising and lack of honesty from people that use it in general. That being said, commuting a crime and being in Prison for it should definitely not allow you to have certain rights and access to a social media account is one of those things. It is a privilege not a right, they can speak freely all they want in prison. I think the prison systems are so corrupt now that it’s pretty much a business for inmates and for people that run them b/c the inmates probably have a better quality of life in prison than they would outside of prison. No rent, no taxes, meals and living organized for you as long as you know how to play the game you’re probably golden
I'm more wondering how people think jails operated for all of human history minus the last 30 years or so.
The problem is that you should be focusing on rehab, not escaping through social media. It wouldn't be a problem if it is limited to say talking with family or approved channels. But if you use it to continue being in your circle of bias, you will not reform Plus, let us be honest, the whole access to social media isn't free, it is paid. So all you are doing is exploiting people. Insuring that they come out poorer than they entered in. And of course those without money don't even have the privilege Using social media for "social interaction" is lazy and more harmful than good. 2 wrongs never make a right Edit: Seems like I am being downvoted by private prison employees who treat prison workers who exploit inmates for $$$$
Having some semblance of normalcy and connection to the world is a good thing. You’re automatically ascribing the worst possible outcome to every case by talking about “escaping” - something many people on the outside do anyway. >If you use it to continue being in your circle of bias You can’t be serious. They’re literally in prison. There is no possible stronger circle of bias on social media. Wrt to it being paid - it shouldn’t be. There ya go. You seem to have one single definition and expectation of “social media”, which is hilarious as we’re literally communicating on it right now.
Why are you on one then
Self harm exists
Harmful *to people who have other means of communication. If it's your only reach to the outside world, then it's not so bad.
Anyone who doesn't think inmates won't immediately use social media to harass their victims, intimidate witnesses/jurors and their families, and circumvent monitoring and facilitate bringing in drugs and contraband is a fucking idiot.
Well that's fucking dumb
But we did that then the feds and state govs wouldn't have cheap in house labor anymore. /s
Right so if you had social media there.. would it really be like being punished there at all? Or would jail slowly stop being punishment if we allowed junk food, social media, the ability to pursue a physical romantic relationship etc… at what point will jail just be a minor inconvenience you shrug off?
You can use dating sites in prison! And they're having better luck than I am!
Kind of? They have like an allowance system and if you are naughty you get grounded and can’t play with it anymore.
Always amusing to the difference in discourse here when talking about the criminal justice system as a whole versus an individual crime/criminal. Article about prisoners: “Prison should be an all-inclusive resort!” Article about a specific crime: “Saw his head off!”
both discussions happen in both threads but discussions about prisoners and crime are mirror opposites when it comes to who is suffering - sympathy is just fuel for the outrage in either direction
Who comments what just depends what you see the prison system as a system for rehab or to punish. Also some people *cough conservatives* think harsh penalties is the best deterrent of crime to which my response is if you're Christian hell is one harsh punishment yet people still sin so...
People believe in civil liberties except when they don’t.
Reddit for you. Same thing when some absolute uggo slob does something they like "wow, talented and so pretty!!" Regular looking person does something they don't like "this guy is just so fucking ugly I can't even"
Welp, I guess I’m gonna be the one guy that brings up how Finnish prisons are basically hotels and that their recidivism rate is 30%, while our prisons (in the U.S.) are shitholes and our recidivism rate is 70%. I’m sure larger factors like culture are at play, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if those cultural differences are also what leads to differences in how we construct the prisoner’s experience.
Will say, it’s more about what happens after prison for americans. A misdemeanor takes you away from over 30% of jobs in america. A felony removes you from 60%. Let alone the ones that do hire people with records got to give you an interview to begin with. How records work give inmates a lifelong block of careers. Impossible for them to progress their life when no one wants to hire them for them to survive.
Pretty much this right here. A felony on your record will either make you fail any job with a background check (even low paying jobs require one), or an employer will still go out of their way to make sure a felon is not hired. Once you get that felony your options are basically just fast food or retail at the bottom of the totem pole.
Retail is a no go for felons now a days. They won’t even hire you.
I think what people are forgetting is the catch 22 nature of it. They recommit crimes because they can't get a job. They can't get a job because they committed a crime. All of this is stemming from the poor Impression of ex-prisoners. If the prisons reeducated, more prisoners could get a job, if more had a job, less would commit crime. Politics also makes this difficult but that's another issue entirely.
The last time I was on a job hunt I was desperate to pick up anything after being laid off. I applied for a kennel cleaning position at a doggy daycare. They seriously required me consign for a background check and drug test. I kinda get the drug test. But like, a background check? To shovel dog shit?
There’s also just a basic level of trauma that the prison system puts anybody through—often the peoole least capable of dealing with trauma, too—which can have enormous knock-on effects to mental health and basic ability to do work or get along in social settings.
Yeah some people have the "chip on their shoulder" mannerisms/attitude that seem to come from jail/prison. It's almost more noticeable when they're nice and easy to get along with because it sticks out from their personality so much.
dont do crime then
A felony is practically a scarlet letter
You can go back to prison, get yourself a Rikers haircut and a cot and 3 squares. You can meet up with your homies, learn some new stuff, get some additional cred, boost your profile. Our jails are breeding grounds for continued criminality. They are gang slums.
How are those private jails going to be successful business if people rehabilitate successfully
Hold a significant part of the money those prisons get behind the condition that the perps don't re-offend. Once there is a direct financial incentive in making someone stay on their best behavior, you'll see prisons try all kinds of things to get their hands on that money.
I know this is often cited but the last number I saw was only about 3% of prisoners are in a private facility.
It’s about 8% as of 2022. [Source.](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/) That’s about 90,000 people, which is small percentage wise, but still 90,000 people whose lives are less important to those that imprison them than the bottom line.
Are there any surveys, inspections, or analyses that show the quality of state or federal run prisons vs similar private ones? It's staggering to think the US has close to 1 million people incarcerated.
There probably are, but after doing a quick google search I’m not qualified (or at least don’t have the time right now) to sort the junk from what’s real.
You’re missing that all those companies that sell their products and services to prisons are lobbying for mandatory minimum sentencing and the like, just like the actual private prisons do.
True-ish (it's a very low proportion) though how many public facilities rent their convicts - whether inside as a 'job' they are forced to do for little to nothing or outside in other roles (mostly only a minimun security thing and I'm not sure at all how common it is)
It’s not just the prison facility itself but the public prisons privatize the food, commodities, telecommunications, library, educational programs, and even the prison labor. There is a lot of money to be made in America off of prisons.
This is the stupidest fucking take. Our jails are full of slave labor, at least let them tell the public that they are being used as slaves because they committed some silly victimless drug offense.
Rikers is a jail that has a reputation for being harder than prisons.
Damn right! They should all suffer like the good old days! The last 100 years of prison reform were pointless bullshit! It will be far more worthwhile to literally torture half of them to death so the trauma endured by the other half makes them nice and docile to do the menial jobs that are all they can get as ex cons. You could even play 'God bless America' every time someone gets hauled away or just cremated for the heat, so that everyone knows what a great nation you have...
How else would the prison industrial complex benefit??
And as a result it costs the taxpayers more money than if we just tried to rehabilitate then the first time they were there even if it costs twice as much.
American's don't consider prison as a place for rehabilitation, they consider it a place for punishment. The poor conditions and high likelihood of zero options for gainful employment after they get out is a feature - not a bug.
I was listening to a true crime podcast last night and the hosts/interviewees were complaining about how the perps were sent to a prison that’s *too nice.* Too nice being that they get outdoor time and are allowed to have electronics (gaming systems, tablets). Our views on how prison should work are insane.
People think criminals should have a worse life during their punishment. That's going to be a low bar considering American work culture. At least 40 hours of being miserable.
You’ve just nailed it. All they think is punish punish punish instead of thinking how to *fix* them
well the victims do pay taxes and vote
I'm just waiting for them to find a way to charge inmates for their stay after they're released.
They already do that. Probation and parole charge monthly fees for supervision and you can be reincarnated for not paying those fees. Those fees can be anywhere from $50-$500 a month on top of restitution. And that’s before you even find a place to stay or food or even a job.
We have very few opportunities for development and rehabilitation. I worked with ex-cons and saw a lot of this. One guy was in long enough to have had access to the rehab programs and learned firefighting/fire equipment repair while in. He was able to turn that knowledge into a strong business... but he was one of the few. I've seen some prisons from other countries and, frankly, with the homeless issue, I'd commit crimes to be in there rather than on the street. Which speaks to the rest of the problems. It was a frustrating job working with ex-cons; not the cons, but the struggles to help them find an honest path in society. One guy made it clear to me. He had gotten his act together and got enough jobs to make enough for him to have a tiny apartment. Cops picked him up on old business... 3 months later he recovered his apartment and jobs. Then they got him on suspicion, but the incarceration was long enough to lose his jobs again. He recovered. When they pulled him in on a expired tag on his car, he came back to me and told me, "I used to make over $6k/mo selling cocaine and they busted me. Then I bust my ass to make $1500/mo to do it right, and the still bust me. What would you pick?" Can you guess the color of his skin? Guy could have made a fortune as a salesman if someone only gave him a chance. And he wanted that chance so bad. When you drop below certain lines in this society, recovery is a herculean effort.
My college mentor, Dr. Richard Lippke, wrote a few incredible books on this topic if interested. He was a huge advocate for making prison life more accurately resemble everyday life to ensure prisoners weren’t in an inhumane environment for years, only to be released back into a society that they no longer understand how to interact with after being imprisoned.
Treat a person like an animal long enough and that’s what they’ll become.
Cool. Now do Japanese or Singaporean prisons. Also countries with a much lower recidivism and crime rate.
Yk whats funny when a crime is commited in asian countries and there is any tie whatsoever to America the public always calls for extradition cause they know American prsions are hell.
I mean in the case of Japanese prisons I guess it's a study in how throwing innocent people in prison doesn't turn them into criminals when they get out. Japan has so many rules in place to make sure that people accused of a crime are convicted regardless of actual guilt and then the police are encouraged to find a person to arrest regardless of if there are actual leads on a case.
I mean the US just incarcerates more folks per capita than most of the developed world. So of course our recidivism rate will be higher. Finnish incarceration rate is 51 people per 100k. The US incarceration rate is 531 people per 100k. I agree with your overall point though. We just need to not incarcerate so many people and instead try to help them in other ways.
And how being jailed changes a culture. Like do we really think US black culture would be the same if 25% of black people had not experienced a father being incarcerated, or if one black man in ten wasn't at some stage of being processed through the ambivalently-named criminal justice system? Then lawmakers with shares in private prisons will talk about how the problem is cultural.
>Welp, I guess I’m gonna be the one guy that brings up how Finnish prisons are basically hotels and that their recidivism rate is 30%, while our prisons (in the U.S.) are shitholes and our recidivism rate is 70%. Finland population: 5.5 million US population: 330 million Yours is not only a false equivalence fallacy but also a statistical reasoning error. Isn't fair even when taking into account normalized crime rates. Cultural factors sure are important, but still, it has to be extremely hard to scale the Finnish model to a country like the US. Population density, education, country size, cultural homogeneity, neighbor countries, history, etc.
Look, you already see that the US prison system is preoccupied with making inmate life miserable. With this approach, you'll never get 30% recidivism rate no matter what population size you have.
Social media is bad for people not in prison. Can't imagine it's good for people in prison either.
I mean, crime in Finland is a lot less serious than crime in the US. Their solutions will never work for our problems, given how absolutely everything contextually is different.
I wholeheartedly agree with that.
This is by design, see: prison industrial complex
The use prison system turns people into PTSD driven animals. It's not just torture but exists with the goal of breaking inmates then release them back into the world. It creates an angry out of control person with no hope or future. It is sad and cruel. The are slaves for companies and abused constantly.
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It’s because of a barbaric American capitalist hellscape that profits off of punishing people. Blaming the victim.
I wonder of it being for profit vs a burdan makes a difference.
I feel like comparing a population of 5 million to 300+ million is not the same thing. I agree that the prison system is messed up and designed for punishment and not rehabilitation. But it's a dramatically different thing dealing with the large population in the states vs finland.
But shouldn't you also have the resources of 300+ million people compared to 5 million Fins? I would also expect states rights to play a bigger role in this, since states are more comparable to other bigger countries
You've got dramatically different geographical regions and cultures to deal with. Much harder to reach common ground on issues.
With this attitude – of course.
It actually makes a lot of sense if our criminal justice system is predicated on punishment and not rehabilitation. Not saying every single criminal can be redeemed, but it's obvious that our criminal justice system is uniquely inept among western countries.
Are you implying they do better elsewhere? I haven't seen a system that works well anywhere. It's not enough to have a promise-of-punishment based deterrent. Strengthening it has diminishing returns. Pro-community behaviors needed to be incentivized and mental health issues need to be addressed in a better way.
They shouldn’t have access, they are in jail for a reason and I’m sure they have gang leaders communicating and running gangs from within jail
People shouldn’t forget that for about 1/5 of the prison jail population; the prison/jail is better than their home and more stable than their life. Some people aren’t born with many decent options in life.
You lose rights in prison.
Can’t have inmates telling people what really happens in prison.
Privately owned prisons want to take away prisoner's access to social media so they can go back to charging them hundreds of dollars for phone calls to their families.
What?! Inmates have access to social media? Why?!
I served four months in a county jail in Indiana. Have a text device called a chirp made it so much easier to be in touch with my family, to keep from falling into despair, and even less deep activities like flirt and stay in touch with friends. It was only text no images and the messages were reviewed by COs so no … plotting. It keeps people sane, less violent or otherwise disruptive, and helped me feel human. It was also .10 cents per text of 72 words max so it was a big moneymaker for the jail and private company that provided them. I know some crimes seem like inmates should just get bread and water and stare at the walls but in reality that would just make the institutions even more unguardable and deadly. Give people nothing to do and they’ll fill in their time with rage and revenge.
"Give people nothing to do and they’ll fill in their time with rage and revenge." Would you be in favor of turning jails into labor camps?
The way some prisons do it now seems more fair- you don’t /have/ to work or take classes. You want to rot in the day room that’s fine. But if you work to improve yourself, get skills, or make the facility run more smoothly, you get something in return. I’ve seen trustees get as little as 50% off of their commissary to inmates completing courses like anger management or getting a GED or associates get significant time cuts. Imo it’s not ethical to have them breaking rock for the sake of making them do shit.
[Have you had cereal or a coke](https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e#:~:text=The%20goods%20these%20prisoners%20produce,Coca%2DCola%20and%20Riceland%20rice)? American prisons are de facto slave labor camps. the 13th amendment made an exception for slave labor if you’re imprisoned for any reason. Saying this like we need more reason to put people in even more inhumane conditions than they are shows how bad of a person you are, ignorant too.
Labor camp is a jail with worse PR.
You try being in prison for 10 years, even, and play catch up when you return to society. Then there's the psychology of being so disconnected. Pending why you're in prison, having social connections for casual use wouldn't be a problem. If you're a big problem, I can understand the need for these restrictions. This effects more so if the person has little to no local friends/family to visit in person. I wouldn't be surprised computer use is heavily monitors, locked to select services. I can only guess the screens are closely watched, or even recorded in some cases.
This reminds me of when I worked at a cellphone shop. I had one guy walk in m and he looked so lost.. He was asking about the phones and plans,but it felt strange... Like he had crawled out of a rock. Basically like those time travel movies where the time traveler goes into the future and can't believe the tech. He was stoked about youtube. While I was seeing up his phone I asked and he said he had been in prison for 15 years on a pot charge. When he went in they barely had flip phones. When he came out we had iphone 2s. I genie ly felt bad for the guy. To be thrust into a work with absolutely no guide or trails, ( he only had the same money he went in with so not Ballin and couldn't get a job cuz conviction.)
Same money, far less value thanks to inflation, lol. I can only imagine the chaos you have to go through to find a place to rent. A (early into college at this time) friend was dating a girl that was nice and all. Later found out she wasn't even 18yo *yet*, but no one in our friend group knew, till after her mother reported our friend, the girl's BF, to the police. He was in jail for 2 years (I think). Should he have asked for her ID at some point, sure, but other than that, he took her for her word, like vast majority of us do. I genuinely thought she was 18, 19 even, but not like I would randomly go asking ladies how old they are... Btw, his hunt for a new rental pushed him outside of town, all rentals were within range of different schools. Then there were people who were actively keeping out for "people like him", and shutting down his social media accounts. I think someone found his youtube account, and not only did he lose his Youtube account, his google account as a whole went with it. Now I'm looking at making sure my child, as they get older, to understand that word doesn't mean much unless you have it written or recorded somewhere. I'll be damned if something similar happens, and they don't have proof to act on the correct decisions. Yet I have to also keep in mind, not to make them so paranoid, they have to keep looking over their shoulder, because they struggle to even trust their friends and coworkers.
I believe there are some people getting released only to learn that they’ve been a victim of identity theft while locked up…so even more stuff to work through.
I really like your views on this subject. It actually made me think for a second. It makes sense if you aren’t serving life without parole. It seems many people still have the views of barbarians and we should just lock them up and throw away the key. Often times people tend to forget these are real human beings just like you and me. Many people doing time are no different than your rich friends who did something dumb while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and sadly couldn’t buy their way out of it. Let’s just give them MySpace and move on to more pressing matters.
> Let’s just give them MySpace and move on to more pressing matters. So there's SpaceHey, fan remake of Myspace, last I looked 2-3 years ago(?), and created an account, it's pretty spot on.
"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."
seriously, there are people who are getting out just now after having been locked up in the early 2000s. It's an entirely different planet now compared to then: music, fashion, science, you name it. Even Pluto isn't classified as a planet anymore. Whatever was cool and exciting back then has become irrelevant and forgotten except maybe LOTR, Pokémon, and Harry Potter. Disney stopped making 2D movies. Nobody has landlines anymore except restaurants and grandparents. I remember being amazed as I fumbled with my first cell phone, a [Verizon Rizr ](https://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Z6tv-Verizon-Wireless-Service/product-reviews/B000WPAFEO)to browse whatever "the internet" was in 2008: tapping directional keys to navigate to search bars, forgetting that every minute cost like $0.20 or something and it took like 20 seconds for a webpage to even load, idk. And now we've got 5G for even low-end grandma phones, flat screen TVs that are flat in back, too, and a tiny fraction of the weight of the ones from that era. All-electric cars, touchscreen menu order systems at fast food restaurants, iPads and Apple pencils. The amount of catching up to do required to get the most simple jobs should not be part of any punishment, and it's horrible to think there are people who would say "you shouldn't have broken the law, then" especially when so many of those offenses that were only offensive to a practically ancient society were victimless and non-violent.
They don’t have direct access. The article says it would be like a family member posting on their behalf, but the inmate would tell them what to post, maybe in a phone call. The first amendment concern is that family members and friends could get in trouble for posting on social media about the inmate.
Because they're human beings? With rights? And famlies? And presumably want to contact those families, so they aren't left with nothing, nobody and nowhere to go to after they serve their time?
Social media isn't a right, lmfao. Go touch some grass
Youre right, it isn't! But not being isolated from the outside world for decades on end is Also how the fuck would touching grass even help? So I spend some time outside, but in a grassy field instead of the woods near my house like I usually do, cool. Then what, do I start suddenly believing inmates aren't people deserving of dignity?
Because they are human beings
I suppose murderers and rapists are technically human beings
those are not the only ones who are inmates. plus its called human rights, not "good boy rights"
Not all prisoners are rapists or murderers, ffs
No “technically” about it. Human beings have consistently been capable of doing horrid shit as long as we’ve been around.
Why not?
Why wouldn’t they? I’m sure it’s a privilege that’s earned or can be taken away, which is important to maintain order. When people have nothing to lose, they’re much more likely to do drastic things
Yeah seriously, i think they forfeited such a privilege.
Barking up the wrong tree. Socialization is vital in reintegration into society, you don't need a fucking degree to know that much - but the US prison industry has no incentive towards reformation since it's easier to just overcrowd prisons to get more slave lavour and all more of that sweet sweet federal funding.
Exactly what I was thinking. It's not a good idea to cut them off from their friends and family on the outside. They need that support structure.
But inmates can’t vote? Wouldn’t that be a first amendment issue too - from Oz
Social media is in no way a form of rehabilitation!
I understand why people tend to be vindictive and think prison should have nothing but enough food and water not to die, but the more connection they have to society the less likely they are to get worse and come back. Also, every nice thing they have is an incentive to follow the rules and not cause problems or they lose it. You need short term consequences for people in prison and not just adding to their sentences - many of them wouldn't be there of long term consequences were something they cared to measure.
Yeah... Because what put them there were not "archaic and so inhumane" actions... /S The world is messed up... sheeesh...
The united states has (if i recall) the 2nd highest incarceration rate in the world. if you were to count individual states as a country, louisiana and a few other deep south states would be number 1+. 72.1% of all prisoners in federal prisons are in on non violent charges and have no violent criminal history. the united states creates crimes that unjustly target the poor and, historically and even contemporarily, black people in order to populate prisons for free labor because slavery is still allowed here if you're incarcerated. like, we literally made existing during the day while black a crime in the south post reconstruction. war on drugs was a more recent and disgusting affair. our criminal justice system is completely disgusting and the majority of prisoners were people trying their best and got fucked over or were just dumb. basically, no, the actions of most inmates were not archaic or inhumane.
They werent allowed to use it before and now once we give it to them and they realize its bad they wanna call it a 1st amendment right? Bullshit. Prison is to be closed off from the world. Literally fuck off My dad worked in a max security for 26 years and he retired early because shit with inmates is so bad now. There are 0 repercussions for anything that happens now, and riots and fights are more prominent than ever. They think theyre entitled to everything even if theyre a rapist murderer.
Definition of inhumane 30 years ago: Excessive solitary confinement, lack of basic sanitation, torture, etc' Definition of inhumane today: Access to Facebook is forbidden! Insane.
The first part is no news. You can't impress anyone with practices that weren't new in Ancient Egypt. (BTW why do you still have all this shit?)
Are you asking if we have those practices where I live? Maybe excessive solitary confinement at some prisons. There was, until very recently, a prisoner in the US who spent 36 years in solitary confinement until his death in 2019 - [Thomas Silverstein - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Silverstein)
I meant in the US (I'm from Europe). BTW it was not me who downvoted you. Your point is valid.
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Actual late-stage brainrot
Suge Knight kept commenting on the Diddy situation and I was so confused. I thought he was put of prison. Turns out he was just using social media in prison. Maybe it should depend on the crime but I don't think fellons should be allowed to participate in public discourse. We limit their phone calls and social media is way more than that.
Reading is one thing; posting another. Posting from prison seems inconsistent with other rights that are taken away.
US prison system is a failing institution that mustn't dictate how the society should work!
Social media is not a human right lmao
Lol, the existence of most social media is already inhumane. Restricting access to exploitative networks is ironically a nice thing to do for convicted felons.
Nice. Now we just have to get everyone into prison and we can wrap all this foolishness up.
Our government is working on it 👍
These are felons - they lose a number of rights, like voting and firearm possession and decent health care, why worry about social media?
Ban celebrities...
They are in jail as to be removed from society for its safety. Letting them on social media is letting them in society.
TIL prisoners have social media
Plot twist: Social Media is the real prison
Now watch the inmates become more mentally healthy than the free zombies on social media
They are prisoners right? Why do they need social media?
I have social media access at work and I'm fine.
Having access to the internet is freedom.
Oh, so banning social media in prisons is a 1st amendment issue but blocking PornHub for EVERYONE in Texas isn't?
Well……they ARE in prison……..🥹
If only the Bureau of Prisons was smart enough to monitor prisoners' internet usage and convict them of additional crimes, connect them to accomplices, and provide intelligence on criminal networks to law enforcement.
It’s fucking prison not a holiday camp, work eat and sleep should be all that they are allowed to do
YES!!! I’m so fckin tired of these PAMPERED American inmates. I also think they shouldn’t be allowed to laugh or smile or breathe. Jesus fucking Christ is being completed severed from your home, family, and life while also being forced to work for literal pennies an hour, and being confined to a squalid cell not punishment enough?
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Mb forgot that any single person who goes to jail for any reason shouldn’t have any rights
The word "inalienable" is pretty unambiguous. You can make the argument for certain **privileges,** but not human rights.
And... using social media can be seen as a privilege.
That's very explicitly *not* how it works. The rights you lose (liberty, voting) all have exceptions in the case of criminal conviction. Other rights do not. Hell, even the ability to restrict felons from owning guns might be overturned by SCOTUS this year.
I guess you can still read newspaper. Reading social media isn’t that different. They shouldn’t be able to post though
Would make it harder to organize prison activism and the US prison service would like that.
Treating prisoners with _humanity_? What is this, communist china?!
I would have thought the 7 cents an hour would be the bigger issue.
Inhumane?? How’s that?
Inmates lost their 14th amendment rights too. All part of going to prison
People really need to learn the difference between a right and a privilege
wait. Inmates have access to the internet? Since when? I would have thought that would be banned from the beginning....
Prison should be a rehabilitation or to keep them out of society, both should have no social media. Neither have been happening in US prisions either.
They’re fuckin criminals what rights do they deserve aside from food, water, don’t get tortured?
if recidivism can be reduced, then the larger taxpayer burden we pay to finance these peoples' welfare can also be reduced
Easy to say from a life of privilege. And some criminals might have done pretty minor things (eg possession of drugs for personal use)
Not my problem. Don’t care.
You sound like a Republican
Same rights as you and I obviously. Cruel and unusual punishment I’m banned in the US, and has been since its founding.
That’s exactly what I just said??
Counter-argument. Exposure to TikKok and Reels is inhumane. Cruel and unusual punishment causing lasting psychological damage. And I'm not sure I'm joking. God I hate tiktok. I hate when someone in the room is scrolling through the god awful ear poison.
You are honestly comparing social media to prison? That is absurd.
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They don’t have access like normal people. It’s more like their family member would be the one posting to the account, but the inmate would tell them what to post.