Brickbat: Pissed Off

Hundreds of former and current state inmates in New York have filed suit claiming they received additional punishment, such as forced isolation, after being given drug tests that produced false positives. A spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision says the agency has stopped using the test and restored privileges to those who lost them as a result the test. But officials are refusing to say when they discovered the problem or how widespread it was. Leaked documents indicate some 2,000 prisoners may have been affected.

Comments

[Robert Beckman]

State abuses weakest in society, that’s not even news at 11.

Which is why everyone who will read this already knows the solution is to cut off as many of the States tentacles as we can.

[Jerryskids]

It's rather sexist to suggest that all the state agents are males, but I do agree with the idea of cutting off sensitive body parts of those bastards.

[Ride 'Em]

He wrote tentacles not testicules.

[Don't look at me!]

You assume it was “he”.

[come]

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[Sheldonius Rex]

Mass incarceration is just another failed progressive experiment which must be abolished as soon as possible.

[Earth Skeptic]

To be replaced by what? Exile? Chopping off hands?

Assuming you believe that transgressors of even minimalist laws should be punished, what do you propose?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Get rid of victimless crimes?

Get rid of corrupt cops?

Get rid of ridiculous sentences for petty crimes?

[Vernon Depner]

I'd go further. In most cases, I don't see the use of very long sentences for even serious crimes.

[ohlookMarketthugs]

You mean for another profit seeking experiment, or do you just use the P word cause you don’t know any better?

[hpearce]

The real questions for both children and convicted criminals serving sentence is how much of their rights do they have while in this status?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

That is an excellent question, too seldom asked. I believe in markets; there must be some market solution,but I haven't thought of one yet. Needs to be negotiated between victim and crook because no one else has the proper incentives. But what is there to negotiate other than (a) length of incarceration, (b) where to be incarcerated (meaning a hell hole or a nice place), and (c) how much does it cost?

Or maybe you start with a fixed cost as part of the sentencing: "the State will pay for 7 years incarceration at $40K a year" and take it from there: 14 years in a cheap crappy place, 3.5 years in a really nice place. Any further screwups while in a nice place moves you to a cheaper crappier place. In some ways, that is the current system, but the distinction between nice and crappy places is almost nil. There is no distinction in cost to the public, and so no trade-off in where the criminal is locked up. The criminal's choice is a lousy place with no privacy and solitary confinement with too much privacy.

Incarceration serves the public by keeping proven criminals off the streets during, tries to rehabilitate them for eventual release, provides revenge for their victims, and provides a deterrence for their peers who might think of becoming criminals. I think most criminals' wants probably align pretty well with the public's wants as far as rehabilitation and deterrence for wannabe criminals, and they probably at least understand the idea of punishment and revenge. The problem is the prison bureaucracy has no interest in anything but expanding their bureaucracy, so they want to keep as much control in their own hands and beyond reach of the public and criminals.

[Vernon Depner]

they probably at least understand the idea of punishment and revenge.

I'm not up for writing a paper about it here, but violent criminals have very different ideas about those things than normal people.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

You apparently are also not up to reading very well. Criminals don't have to be nice guys to understand why their victims want them punished. The few criminals I have met knew quite well they were doing something morally wrong, or at least that society considered it wrong.

Then there are all the non-violent criminals who you've cleverly ignored.

[Vernon Depner]

I didn't say they don't understand what society thinks. I said they see these things differently.