Judge discovers that prison isn't fun.

[KabeRinnaul]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/7137956.html

I have two responses to this, really.

One the one hand, no. Prison is not fun. It will not be over quickly and you will not enjoy it. Complaining that you've been sent there just makes you look like a whining prima donna.

On the other hand, a person with actual morals and ethics would consider this an excellent lesson in how terrible our prison system is, and consider campaigning for it's reform. You know, instead of just whining "And they dared to put me in here!"

Yeah, maybe his treatment has been excessive. But I'm having trouble feeling much sympathy here.

[Red Panda]

Instead, he ended up at the Lake Butler Reception Center in Florida's Department of Corrections. There, an unidentified sergeant forced Kent to "strip naked and perform a painful and repetitive series of humiliating exercises. Once Sam Kent was too tired and in too much pain to perform the exercises any more, the sergeant confiscated Sam Kent's wedding ring and used it to ridicule him," the records say.

1. If you're trying to get contraband out of a person stripping them naked and makign them perform jumping jacks is a good way to do it. Youth deterntion centers where they aren't allowed to do actual strip searches with make a youth put on a robe without underwear and have them do jumping jacks.

2. Are you allowed to have wedding rings in prison? Doesn't seem like he would keep it long if he were in general population

Kent spent the next 16 days in solitary, where he claims the first night he helplessly listened to the "continuous screams of a man being violently raped in the next cell" and "was horrified to observe that the guards ignored the man's screams and only came to remove the man from the cell after the attack had finally ended."

I would think a former judge would have to be kept away from the general population to avoid being killed.

[Plaidman]

Huh. Reminds me of Remo Jalosjos.

Though his time in prison is heaven, being as no sane inmate will dare attack a fucking country leader.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Kent spent the next 16 days in solitary, where he claims the first night he helplessly listened to the "continuous screams of a man being violently raped in the next cell" and "was horrified to observe that the guards ignored the man's screams and only came to remove the man from the cell after the attack had finally ended."

Ok...I'm going to have to ask this.

If he was in Solitary Confinement. How could he know that the person was actually being raped? Solitary in most prisons are a block of cells isolated from general population and from other SC Prisoners.

So if this other prisoner was in the SC section and in a SC cell, how could he be raped?

How does the incarcerated judge know that the other person was being raped and not raising a ruckus to attract attention?

Perhaps the guards did nothing because it was a prisoner acting off to try to get some attention. In Customers Suck there is the woman who started working prisons and frequently regaled us of tales of how the SC prisoners would play with their own feces, urinate on their bedding or anything they can think of to get some attention.

I'm not sure that I'll go as far as to offer no sympathy (since I have no way of knowing the truth) but I'm not going to defend him either. IF he did the crime he has to do the time. Our obligation to him as a prisoner is to offer him a safe and healthy prison environment.

Unless he can offer real proof that stand in a court of law that he isn't getting that, let him do his time and learn his lesson. If he can, then deal with the prison abuses and let him do his time and learn his lesson. If he can't, tell him to shut up and do his time and learn his lesson.

Besides, if you don't want to go to jail then do not commit the crimes.

[Plaidman]

Our obligation to him as a prisoner is to offer him a safe and healthy prison environment.

Which is bullshit.

Rapists, people that muluation others and murderers*, deserve no protections in any prison. They destroyed other people lives. Why do they need protection. Why are they the special ones that get to not suffer like they made others suffer?


* Except people that murder in self defense.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Our obligation as a society is to better than them and resist the temptation to stoop to their level. Whilst prison shouldn't be a dance through the fields it shouldn't be a place where people can get away with whatever they want and injustices go unsettled either.

And, for the sake of clarification, murder is the premeditated unlawful killing of another person. Since self-defense is legal, it does not constitute murder.

[Plaidman]

And, for the sake of clarification, murder is the premeditated unlawful killing of another person. Since self-defense is legal, it does not constitute murder.

I meant more towards people, who after years and years of ether parental or spousal abuse finally snap and murder their abusers in their sleep, which has been known to happen.


As for the whole treating them with respect to be /better/ then them? They laugh at that. Few of them ever feel remourse for what they have done. The ones that are released sometimes go right back to murdering and raping, to be put back in prison, to be release, to go back to raping and murdering. It's an endless cycle.

Why, seriously why should many people suffer so that the one who causes the fucking suffering gets treated with endless respect and love and caring? They never deserved it.They certanlly never gave it to the people they did crimes too. If anything, they likely laughed in their face as they cried and beg for their lives.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Which is bullshit.

Rapists, people that muluation others and murderers*, deserve no protections in any prison. They destroyed other people lives. Why do they need protection. Why are they the special ones that get to not suffer like they made others suffer?

Because we are better than them.

Because if we are going to kill, we should do it with determination and with purpose and not leave it to chance.

Because we are trying to punish prisoners for their crimes and not allow them chances to commit more crimes doing our dirty work.

Because not all who are in our prisons are rapists and murderers.

Because not all who are convicted of rape and murder are actually the ones who committed the crime. Would you want this man to be tossed into an uncontrolled and and unsafe prison environment where he would be tortured, abused, beaten and possibly killed only to find out that the children who accused him lied to cover up the fact that they were late coming home from school?

Because if the prison environment were not a safe one, we would be putting the lives of good men and women who work at the prisons at risk.

Because we have already seen what an uncontrolled prison environment is like.

I'm not talking about making the prisoners lives comfortable. It pisses me off to no end that these people have free cable TV and the ability to get college educations. I have to pay for both, why should they get it for free?

No, by safe I'm simply referring to having total control over their lives while they are in prison. They sleep when we tell them to sleep, they eat when we tell them to eat, they move when and where we tell them to move and they only possess whatever we allow them to posses.

In short, total control over their lives while they are serving out their time.

And by healthy I'm referring to them having basic, cheap, nutritious meals so they do not get sick and die from malnutrition.

Beyond that? Nothing. They get bored? Tough shit. Make their lives interesting by making them work to pay for the food they eat. They get lonely, They have hands, an imagination and a box of tissues. They want civil rights? Then they shouldn't have violated the civil rights of others.

They don't want to be in prison? Well then they shouldn't have committed the crime in the first goddamn place.

[draggar]

Which is bullshit.

Rapists, people that muluation others and murderers*, deserve no protections in any prison. They destroyed other people lives. Why do they need protection. Why are they the special ones that get to not suffer like they made others suffer?

I agree with this (not to the extent, though). Give them the basics and that's it. It disgusts me that people in prisons get jobs, 3 meals a day, education, health care, all on my tax dollar.

Fine, give them the jobs and meals but then how about make them work for the education, health care, etc..

* Except people that murder in self defense.

I love Florida's new(ish) "stand your ground" law.

[Red Panda]

The trouble with prison is that the guy who is in there for running a phone scam or smoking weed is in the same place as people who murder or rape. I really think we need two kinds of prisons, ones for rehibilitation and ones for punishment. If it is determinded you are not suitable for rehibilitation prison you go to one where there are very very few luxery items and you spend pretty much your entire day locked in a cell.

[Skelly]

The trouble with prison is that the guy who is in there for running a phone scam or smoking weed is in the same place as people who murder or rape. I really think we need two kinds of prisons, ones for rehibilitation and ones for punishment. If it is determinded you are not suitable for rehibilitation prison you go to one where there are very very few luxery items and you spend pretty much your entire day locked in a cell.

I have a pathological hate of scammers, con artists and other scum like that, so for all I care, they can go into the same dungeon as the sociopathic rapists, murderers and such. As for pot smoking, legalize and tax weed.

As for prison "not being fun". It isn't supposed to. Prison is there to punish and store criminals to keep them away from honest folks. Now, if it were fun, it would hardly be punishment, would it?

[Red Panda]

Prison for those who are non-violent and not much of a danger needs to be about rehabilitation. If given the choice between taking a mugger off the streets for a few years and taking them off the streets forever and into a job its obviously better to get them that job.

[blas87]

I hate when people of "importance" throw fits about being put in jail or gosh forbid, prison.

One of our state assembly-men just recently got his 3rd DUI, and only spent days in jail (probably in a seperate area so no one would hurt him, oh dear, can't have anyone of importance get beat up in jail).

They get off so much easier than normal Johns and Janes. If you ask me, they should spend just as much, if not more time in there, and with everyone else, so they aren't given special treatment. If you are to be an example of a good lawmaker or citizen, you should not be driving drunk or high, first of all, second of all, you shouldn't get a free pass or little jail time.

[Plaidman]

Mongo Skruddgemire:

Well aware of people get thrown in without being proven. I even posted a story (I think) about the man who was released thirty+ years in prison for a rape he never did. He became friends with his accuser.

I really should have been more clear:

I do mean the people that are REPEAT offenders, and ones that have inrefutuable proof that it was him. (Like cameras, witness, dna, claw marks, beatings, videotapes, even self admission proofs of 100 percent he/she did it. Those people were given to many chances, and proven they are incapable of ever being nice. They laugh at you as they serve their time.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Plaid, you seem to be missing the point that I am trying to make here. I *agree* with you in the spirit. I agree that the American legal system has been pussified over the years to the point where (with a few states being noted exceptions) the most common form of execution of a death row inmate is old age.

I agree that we need to do something about these inmates who commit heinous crimes then laugh about it in prison while they earn college degrees in criminal law and then clog the legal system with frivolous lawsuits.

I agree that these people do not deserve the cable televisions and meals that are a thousand times better than the mystery meat that my children are served in the school cafeteria.

What I do not agree with is the methods that you seem to want to use on these people.

Why are they the special ones that get to not suffer like they made others suffer?

I do not agree with this mentality because I believe that if we are going to deal with these people, I want us as a nation to do it with precision, purpose and determination.

I do not agree with the idea of tossing sexual predators in prison and "letting the prisoners deal with them". Prison is supposed to be a place where the people there are being punished for their crimes or at least isolated from society. Prison is not supposed to be a place where we allow them to commit more crimes even if that crime is revenge for another criminal's actions.

If we are going to "deal with" these sorts of people, we need to stop being pussies about it and go out there and fucking do it. I loved the interviews with the Firing Squad for the recent case (in Utah was it?) where one of them said that "Sometimes you get a defective product and you just have to send it back to the manufacturer" or the other one who stated that he's shot animals that have made him feel more emotion that the prisoners he has had to shoot.

If there is no reasonable doubt that they killed in cold blood (gang banger shooting a store clerk on camera) then look them in the eye and end it.

I also like the idea of corporal punishment. Why lock them up for 90 days in club fed. Take them out to public square, read the crime they were convicted of, announce the sentence, give them 10 lashes with a whip, suture up any cuts that need it, slather the wounds with antibiotic cream, cover with gauze and send them on their way. Bet you even money that they'll learn from THAT lesson a hell of a lot faster than serving a weekend-prisoner sentence in Club Fed.

We have become such pansies over punishing the guilty that no wonder we keep having these sorts of discussions on forums like this. We need to nut up and deal with them and not tip-toe through the tulips like we have been.

The more I see society slip, the more I like Heinlein.