'murcans, your justice system?

[JohnnySavage]

There's nothing good to eat there. Unless you like bland, boiled and mushy.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/CheerfulElegantEyra-size_restricted.gif

 

[CandiCame]

I already said that this wasn't posted as a competition between justice systems. I'm just curious about how it works, how people feel about it, and if public perception is accurate. I'm more interested in facts than comparisons.

The British system is a lot easier to discuss offline, frankly. Because I'm surrounded by Brits.

I mean, the quick and easy answer is shit's fucked.

We've got more of our citizens behind bars than any other country so like... we are #1. In something.

 

[doowdniw]

There's an old saying that anyone who acts as his own dcotor/accountant/lawyer/fill in the blank... has a fool for a client.

In legal parlance the phrase for this is 'propria persona," it's interesting that a lot of Judges will practically not let you represent yourself. They will insist that you at least have co-counsel at your table even if you want to speak for yourself.

We always referred to the defendants as appearing "Pro Se" when representing themselves.

 

[dolf]

I mean, the quick and easy answer is shit's fucked.

We've got more of our citizens behind bars than any other country so like... we are #1. In something.

That's the stat you're famous for. You lock up an awful lot of people. And the sentences are sometimes like 300 years, which seems odd. The prison population is vast.

But, as a society, it seems to be what people want. The justice system is a result of public opinion, and several positions are elected?

 

[CandiCame]

That's the stat you're famous for. You lock up an awful lot of people. And the sentences are sometimes like 300 years, which seems odd. The prison population is vast.

But, as a society, it seems to be what people want. The justice system is a result of public opinion, and several positions are elected?

There's a whole slew of reasons for this, but yeah, it's built into our society, obstentially because they needed something to replace slavery with. That's why there's the exemption clause to the 13th amendment.

But it's this whole big complex thing. Prisons are run as for-profit businesses where people are paid slave wages, if they're paid at all, and we need to staff them. That's the long and short of it. Most of the stuff you buy that says, "Made in America" was made in a prison. We use prisoners for slave labor to the point that our society depends on it.

If you read the budgetary reports for my state, that's actually been listed several times as the reason we don't have and will never consider a death penalty. Lifers are a source of free labor that is often outsourced to the department of transportation, for whatever reason. That seems like a fucked-up way to do that to me, but it ain't my decision. But we still got chain gangs and shit around here.

And we really do just funnel people into the system to keep up the labor force, people are trained to be criminals via system that sociologists call, "The school to prison pipeline". At-risk kids are identified and sent off to juvy, and like I said before, once you're in the system you're in there. They call it the "revolving door" system because you're actually psychologically trained in juvy to reoffend as an adult so they can get you into the system, on down the pipeline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline

https://www.mackinac.org/why-theres-a-revolving-prison-door

When I was in juvy- and let's not pretend like that shocks anyone- I worked at a call center. We were forced to work, even as kids, in the for-profit prison system. Then when I got out I had to do community service, more free labor, but I was lucky because my dad was a cop and I got to do it under him. This was for a non-violent drug charge. And we've got these mandatory minimum sentencing laws, so in the state of Ky you are literally forced to lock a kid up as an adult if they get caught smoking weed three times.

But people want the cheap shit produced by the cheap or free labor so their answer is usually, "Don't think about it" or "They deserve to be there" or "They're being punished" and it's like, "Literally no. No one is there to be fucking punished. They're called rehabilitation centers because you're there to be fucking rehabilitated, not sent out so you can just re-offend."

Further Reading:

https://talkpoverty.org/2017/10/19/d-c-residents-fighting-slumlord-regain-control-neighborhood/

https://www.newsweek.com/prison-slavery-who-benefits-cheap-inmate-labor-1093729

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/opinion/national-prison-strike-slavery-.html

https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-modern-day-slavery

https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/mandatory-minimum-penalties-drug-offenses-federal-system

https://sentencing.umn.edu/sites/sentencing.umn.edu/files/an_overview_of_mandatory_minimum_penalties_in_the_federal_criminal_justice_system_2017.pdf

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45074.html

Everybody knows shit's fucked.

Also, yes, jailers and the like are elected, but that's not like... anything that's gonna change the scale of the problem. That just changes how well the people in the system are treated. But no, most positions are hired, because again, jails/prisons are for-profit businesses.

 

[dolf]

 

[CandiCame]

Also, I realize I didn't address this in my last post, but the reason that sentences are sometimes like 300 years long are because of those mandatory minimum things. Like let's use drug possession as an example.

With mandatory minimums in the state of Ky, as you can see from the link I provided, on your third strike, a possession charge carries a MANDATORY minimum of ten years if you're a minor, thirty if they charge you as an adult.

So let's say you're 17, you're in your car, you get pulled over for speeding and they find "probable cause" to search you. When they search you say they find a bag of weed, a pipe, matches, rolling papers, a lighter, a bottle of loris or tranadol or something not in your name (like maybe your mom or somebody gave them to you because that's really common here), and say you just went to Wal-mart and you're coming back and they find a bottle of cough syrup and some drain cleaner.

Every one of those things is a new count. Because the pot is in a baggie, if it's more than one bowl/joint they can get you on 'intent to distribute'. That's two counts just for the pot. If you get a bad judge that's 30+30=60. Just on the bag of weed.

Then every piece of paraphernalia is another count.
30 for the pipe
30 for the matches
30 for the papers
30 for the lighter

Then again, having the bottle not in your name is another 30, and if there's more than one dose in it, it's another 'intent to distribute', so another 60.

Then if you have that they can say that you were gonna make meth with the cough syrup and drain cleaner, because they've already hit you with 'intent to distribute' so now that's 'intent to produce' AND 'intent to distribute' on the shit in your wal-mart bags that you could have very well been going to use to unclog your drain and keep your kid from coughing. So that's another 60.

Add them up and that's a 240 year sentence if the judge is a dick, but they're REQUIRED by law to give you at least 80. Violating a mandatory minimum sentencing actually involves jail time for the judge. If that judge didn't give that kid 80 years for having a bag of weed in the car after he went to wal-mart and maybe even to the pharmacy to pick up his mom's medicine so that he could take it to her, the judge could face jail time.

That's why mandatory minimums are bullshit.

I already linked everything to do with this, but I just wanted to explain why the sentences were incomprehensibly long.

And then they send you to a prison run by American Eagle and you get to make T-shirts in a sweatshop for 80 years and not get paid, or get paid something like 8 cents an hour. And people really want those fucking shirts.

 

[CandiCame]

BTW, this isn't shocking to us. This is super common knowlege in the states. We joke about it on our popular TV programs and in our various media.

Here's an SNL skin about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkt5P5nfXi4

Edit: They would have gotten in bad trouble though, you're not allowed to take your headset off. I was just watching the skit and that bothered me because if they catch you with your headset off you get in MAJOR trouble for it. It's not like... a small thing.

Edit: The call centers in particular, your performance goals are linked to your "rehabilitation chart" so you do like, the way that guy said, "One more good review and I'll make parole" that's a real thing. So please, for the love of god take those surveys and give it 5 stars. There's no reason not to leave a 5-star review. If you call any call center in the US it might be a prison and the person you're talking to might really really need to meet their performance goals because it's linked to their rehabilitation chart. Like you can really help a person out with those things. It seems like a small thing but at least in juvy, and I'm pretty sure in actual prisons too, you get rewards for that shit that makes you not want to kill yourself, like extended family/friend visit time.