Inmates, California officials warn prisons crowded

[Heracles 417]

What do you expect, considering the various rights a criminal has.. These criminals are becoming evermore vicious daily, yet there are actually people out there advocating we give these same criminals more and more rights and freedoms..

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

There were a series of articles running around on prison rape lately. I'll dig them up later, but it's not just pedophiles getting raped. Anywhere from 10%-20%, depending on the prison, and mostly likely it's not the hardened criminal, but the poncy boy doing 18 months for shoplifting or drunk driving. The tough criminals survive; the people who screwed up but were otherwise good people get preyed on.

Brutal rapes of course lead to fissures and tears, and a reasonable risk of contracting HIV since it's reasonably common in prison populations. I don't think AIDS should be a punishment for drunk driving, and I don't think ####### rape is part of the penal code.

I think the question you need to ask is not whether you'd want the rapist of your child to be punished, but whether you'd want your poncy boy raped if he went to jail for a non-violent offense because his roommate had some pot in the car and well, you didn't have the money for a good lawyer, and funny, after a certain amount possession is a felony, and oh dear, they were on a block near a school.... your kid didn't deal but it was his car and the prosecutor seemed nice, so he pled down to a few months....

Of course, you might get lucky. Poncy boy could join a gang for protection, adapt, and be prone to recidivism when he gets out.

People don't seem to consider that prison has a social system, and that some of the people who suffer this kind of violence are on the outside of it.

I saw a TV documentary last year about one (gay) inmate, who was imprisoned for a non-violent misdemeanor who was literally passed around as a male #######. The guy was suing the prison authorities for complicity on the basis that they turned a blind eye to what was going on. I'll try to find a link to the story.

[Fandango 1,439]

You missed my point. If the 'Golden rule' applies to everyone, what is the pedo saying about the way HE wants to be treated??? I also believe in 'when a person shows you what they are, believe him'

Maybe this can explain better than I can, the wisdom of the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule is considered to be the most prevalent and universal moral principle in history. To reflect on the Golden Rule is to reflect from the perspective of a universal wisdom. In this section, we examine the many dimensions of the Golden Rule, also known as the "Ethic of Reciprocity".

1. The Golden Rule can be stated either positively or negatively: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or "Do not do to another what you would not want done to you." It is another form of the commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

2. The basis for the rule is our need for harmony and symmetry, which leads us to a desire for justice, and a sense that all are equally entitled to dignity and respect. For there is no symmetry in having one rule for ourselves and another for others.

3. The rule requires not what someone else would want you to do, which would enslave you to another's whim, but what you yourself would want done to you if you and another switched places. Thus if you found a wallet full of cash on the street, the rule requires you to imagine yourself the owner of the wallet and to act as you would want someone who found your wallet to act.

4. The rule does not require that you necessarily please others, since there are times when you, if put in someone else's place, would prefer a painful truth to a pleasant lie. For example, if you did not return someone's love, and you put yourself in the other's place, you would prefer to know the truth as soon as possible, even if it wasn't pleasant, to being led on by someone reluctant to disappoint you.

5. Since you are applying your own experience and standards to each circumstance, albeit from another's point of view, what the rule will require of you will always be in your judgment reasonable and fair.Often it may not be in your immediate self-interest, but following the rule is always in your ultimate interest.

6. The Golden Rule is one means by which the power of self-love is turned outward, becoming the force that makes society cohere. And society is the means by which we all survive. The more universally the rule is applied, the more peaceful and stable society will be.

7. There is in everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, a desire to please others, since when we are children we are entirely dependent on parental love. This desire to please, and the often anxious pleasure that pleasing brings, should not be confused with the reward for following the Golden Rule, which is entirely the result of pleasing ourselves. For there is no firm foundation for happiness in dependence on the pleasure of others. We do justice to others not because we want to please them but because we want to live harmoniously, insofar as that is possible.

8. There is a romantic notion that society is evil, and that the individual, once freed from society, is naturally good. This belief led to an overthrow of wisdom and its replacement with philosophies of will, in which moderation and consideration for others were socially implanted restraints that kept an individual from living authentically. Society is undoubtedly a tool of oppression, but the revolutions that destroyed the old societies often set up new ones that were even more oppressive. This is because we are social animals, and the individual has no possibility of either identity or survival outside of society. Thus each individual ought to strive to create a peaceful, stable, orderly, and just society, since within such a society individual happiness is most easily attained.

9. Taken together, the Golden Mean and the Golden Rule reveal the good both for ourselves and in our relations with others. To know the good in general, therefore, is not difficult, though to know it in any given circumstance, and actually to do it, remains very difficult.

http://www.poemsforfree.com/wgrule.html

You totally missed my point there but nevermind :thumb:

[Heracles 417]

People don't seem to consider that prison has a social system, and that some of the people who suffer this kind of violence are on the outside of it.

I have never understood why they don't disband these prison groups / gangs. Force them to interact with each other. These convicts are taking the piss out of the correctional system. Maybe the US should have a prisoner exchange program with the middle east. If the prisoners mack it back alive, they will behave like boy scouts..

The question is, why are so many people committing crimes in that state.. Prevention is certainly better than cure.

Edited February 18, 2007 by Infidel

[choji 0]

People don't seem to consider that prison has a social system, and that some of the people who suffer this kind of violence are on the outside of it.

I have never understood why they don't disband these prison groups / gangs. Force them to interact with each other. These convicts are taking the piss out of the correctional system. Maybe the US should have a prisoner exchange program with the middle east. If the prisoners mack it back alive, they will behave like boy scouts..

The question is, why are so many people committing crimes in that state.. Prevention is certainly better than cure.

That's what experts say:

"People in society and correctional officers need to understand that immediate control over the prison system is often an illusion at any time," says Cory Godwin, president of the gang-investigators association for the Florida Department of Corrections, or DC. "Contraband equals power."

Source:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...v14/ai_21161641

The article is a bit older, but the problems described have not changed. Like this:

Godwin explains: "The environment is set up so that when you put that many people with antisocial behavior and criminal history together, someone is going to be the predator and someone the prey, and that is reality."