As an outside observer (European) this seems to be the way the American prison system is run. The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions.
Fixing such an issue should be top priority, and in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner.
> The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions.
This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas. Actually, we are referred to as "offenders" [0] because the terms "inmate" and "convict" are considered offensive. Staff can get in trouble for using a pejorative word like "inmate". (Not that they never do because quite honestly I don't know anyone that actually finds the word offensive, but it's still not a word you want to say in front of the warden or higher administrators).
The truth is that staff and administrators are human and have diverse viewpoints. Some don't care about the inmates, but some really want to make a difference in the world. The staff are racially diverse, so you get, for example, a black officer that is very tough on black gangs because he thinks they make black people look bad, but then you have black staff that are particularly sympathetic to black offenders. You can't stereotype the staff—they're just too different.
They're also paranoid about legal liability, so they are pretty careful about avoiding things that could potentially expose them to a lawsuit. It's just like any other large bureaucracy.
> in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner.
Per the article, they are in fact manually computing each prisoner's projected release date:
> In the meantime, Lamoreaux confirmed the “data is being calculated manually and then entered into the system.” Department sources said this means “someone is sitting there crunching numbers with a calculator and interpreting how each of the new laws that have been passed would impact an inmate.”
> This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas.
Where did you do your time? Because 70% of Texas inmates are housed in facilities without A/C. Concrete structures that get up to 105 degrees. Inmate accounts of this are truly horrific.
The state spent 7 million fighting against having to fix this, potentially (according to plaintiffs) more than the cost of fixing it. So the state is so dedicated to horrible conditions that they spent more money to fight than it would have cost to fix them. Litigation has been going on for years, and the state authorities are still dragging their feet.
This is just one example of the way the carceral system dehumanizes people. I'm sure youre familiar with Nutraloaf.
The lack of A/C really sucks, and it's worse in the dorms which are steel buildings rather than concrete. I actually stayed in the top level of the dorms on the corner of the building that got hit hardest by the sun. It was hard.
I call bullshit on the cost of installing and maintaining A/C in 100-ish large prisons being under 7 million. Back of the envelope, but the cost of crane rental alone could be millions. How much to remove (and later replace) the fencing to move the trucks and cranes in, and how much in overtime to make all this happen and provide security? We could be over 7 million before we even get to the thousands of A/C units, which will predictably fail and have to be replaced, with cranes, every 20-30 years. TDCJ maintenance is pretty good at keeping things running on a budget, but no heavy equipment other than boilers can be expected to last more than 30 years at the very most.
Edit: Another article [0] made it clear that the $7 million figure was only for the lawsuit over a single prison, while the cost of installing A/C in that one prison was estimated at $4 million, with no word on if it went over budget. This is true, but it's clear that the lawsuit would be used as precedent for requiring A/C in other units, so it would be more accurate to compare that one lawsuit's $7 million cost to the much greater figure of $500-1,000 million for the prison system as a whole. The Pack Unit is on the small side, and there are about 120 prisons in TDCJ, so I actually think the $1 billion figure seems reasonable. Note that this is just the cost of installation, and is not a one-time cost but will be repeated every 20-30 years, regardless of how much prices may rise. I would like to see A/C installed throughout, but it's important to account for the true costs.
As hard as the heat was, I didn't feel dehumanized by it. First, the system does identify people who are actually at risk and houses them in cooler areas. I wasn't at risk, so it was merely very uncomfortable. I'm tough enough to handle a high degree of physical discomfort. Second, I felt like many of the staff would have liked to have A/C everywhere, and that the lack of it was due to decisions made long ago which will take a decade or more to change, as I don't think TDCJ is realistically capable of installing cooling systems in just a few years. Their efforts in court have seemed to me to be panicked efforts to get out of a task that they know they aren't able to perform, not about intentionally wanting people to suffer or viewing them as less than human. I will note that TDCJ made, and is continuing to make, radical changes to improve the cooling of the buildings. They have replaced plexiglass with steel mesh to allow airflow, issued personal fans to indigents and provided many, many fans for the housing areas. They installed swamp coolers in some prisons, but those aren't practical everywhere due to mold and corrosion.
I can definitely see where people would have different opinions, but this was my experience. The important dehumanizing factors to me were the futility and pointlessness of wasting time there, along with the toxic culture and attitudes of some of the inmates. Heat would not make a top 5 list of dehumanizing factors.
> I'm sure youre familiar with Nutraloaf.
We call it foodloaf. The breakfast one can actually be really good, but the lunch and dinner ones can be gross. The problem is that you have people who constantly assault the guards, throw feces on them, etc., and the loaf delivered in a brown bag is the only meal that can be delivered with minimal risk to the staff. Open the slot, toss in the bag, close the slot as quickly as possible. Less than a second window to be attacked. Do you have a better solution that doesn't compromise safety?
I never felt like having short-term consequences for my actions was dehumanizing. If I don't want to eat foodloaf, I don't jack off on the nurses or attack the guards. If I do attack the guards, I can still change my ways and just not attack them for 30 days (probably less in reality) to get normal food again. In that case, I actually feel like I'm being treated like a responsible adult. If I could behave like an animal without any real consequences, that would be dehumanizing to me. Not to mention how dehumanizing it would be to have to live with a bunch of people who can freely act like animals.
> Actually, we are referred to as "offenders" because the terms "inmate" and "convict" are considered offensive.
Odd. I would think "offender" would be much more offensive than either "convict" or "inmate". The "convict" label may be in dispute in some cases, e.g. pre-trial or with a case undergoing appeal, but it's hard to argue with the fact that someone is (rightly or wrongly) an inmate of a prison. To me, of the three, "offender" sounds the most like a pejorative personal judgement rather than a neutral summation of undisputed facts.
It's tragic that the wrong noun is offensive and staff is taught to use the "right" terms, but being not being released on time... Well, sorry, the software says you stay, you stay, even if everyone realised it's a software "bug" (or outdated software).
You’re overlooking something else. America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible. Estimates are that we’ve got about 2% of the US population in prison or somewhere else in the correctional system (pre-trial detention, probation, parole, etc.), the labor required to treat these people like humans isn’t available. And arguably by the point where you’re locking that many people up, as a society that might be the point.
As an aside, it does really rankle me that a country that won’t shut up about being “the land of the free” is arguably a prison state.
The US has a specific exemption to the prohibition of slavery for incarcerated individuals in our constitution. I think there are many powerful people in our country with a vested interest in keeping the prison-slave-labor pipeline flowing.
The exemption allows an individual to be sentenced to slavery , but that can only happen if the federal or state laws also allow that sentence. Is there any jurisdiction whose laws allow a sentence of slavery? Has anyone actually been sentenced to slavery in the last 100 years or so? I would imagine that if some jurisdiction somehow did sentence someone to slavery, the states would quickly amend the constitution to make that impossible, while the courts would doubtless find some other grounds for ruling that sentence unconstitutional. It just seems unnecessary to make a currently impossible sentence a little more impossible.
I was sentenced to hard labor, but that is quite a distinct sentence. I was a ward of the state, but not property.
It's wise in these situations to consider the concept of plausible deniability, and how it can be used to obscure intent.
To my knowledge, nobody has been sentenced to slavery in a long, long time. On the other hand, the US has managed to lock up 2% of its population and force them to labor in circumstances and rates that would be illegal for free citizens in order to guarantee the profit of private corporations. That this system of arbitrary law enforcement[0] disproportionately hits the same sub-group that used to be literally enslaved really should send your eyebrows through the ceiling when the defense is that it's not literally slavery.
Of course, US prisoners are not chattel slaves; they're not literally property, and neither are their children. On the other hand the rate of recidivism in the US, and the strong correlation of outcomes between parent to child makes this kind of a cruel joke. If your father having been in prison makes you overwhelmingly likely to end up in prison yourself for similar reasons, it's hard to put on a straight face and pretend that nothing is wrong.
I'd argue that this structure represents something akin to stochastic terrorism, but for forced labor. Stochastic terrorism is a case where someone or some group attempts to radicalize and encourage terrorism from afar. Done correctly it produces a statistical probability of terror attacks without anyone (even the group) being able to predict the exact time and place. These types of systems are very hard to disrupt, which is why groups like ISIS leaned on them in order to attack the west, which had gotten very good at stopping more organized attacks.
Similarly, I'd argue that the US system represents a type of stochastic slavery. It's impossible to precisely predict who will or will not end up in the system providing free labor (unlike chattel slavery, where it's very easy to predict), but one can easily calculate the aggregate chance of someone ending up in prison. It's not literally slavery, but with the recidivism rate so high it ends up functioning like it for most people caught up in it. Oh, and it's run for a profit too, which is deeply concerning.
0 - Drug laws remain key to why America has so many people locked up, and drug law enforcement is incredibly arbitrary, both in terms of which drugs get which sentences, and who gets the hammer dropped on them when they get caught.
For the record, I fully support decriminalizing drugs, even if I disagree with the currently fashionable rhetoric about their supposed harmlessness. The statistical debate you want to have is fine. It could potentially be helpful, but not if you insist on terms that tell people that they are helpless. Please just stick to accurate terms that don't convince people to not even try.
We have an existing term, "prison labor", which accurately describes the conditions and evokes the appropriate moral connotations. When we have completely adequate terms already, why insist on a legally inaccurate word which requires such a lengthy redefinition?
Slavery is an involuntary condition which cannot be exited through one's actions. It's vital to recognize that criminals can choose to exit the criminal class. It's not vital for rich people in the suburbs who don't have to live in our world. It's vital for us, ourselves. Those of us who accept responsibility for their actions tend to be the ones who make it in society. The ones who blame society, government, Republicans, white men, SJWs, or anything else outside of themselves which they have no control over, keep doing the same things over and over, stay addicted to drugs, sex, and violence, and keep coming to prison over and over. (There are some skinheads that blame racial preferences for their own failures in life, lest anyone think that I'm naming SJWs facetiously). Rich people can afford to have these intellectual debates that talk about helping the poor but never seem to actually do anything. We have to actually live in this world, where our own choices and actions will be the only ones we can always count on.
Stop telling people that they have no control over their lives. If they believe you, it will be true. These ivory tower theories have real-world consequences. They never seem to get around to actually helping the poor, but they do convince people that they can't help themselves, and those are the people that I see coming back to prison on their 8th or 9th sentence. Those are the guys with 8 kids, most of whom will also end up dead or in prison.
> It's vital to recognize that criminals can choose to exit the criminal class.
Citation needed.
How can one choose to not have a cop plant evidence on you? Or lie during trial, or choose to not get strong armed into pleading guilty because you can't afford bail and they're threatening you with even worse consequences if you don't plead out early? Or not have a law about drug usage enforced selectively against you and not against others? These are things that happen each and every day in this country, to paint that as a choice on the part of everyone is actually kind of insulting.
Even for those who did commit crimes and got thrown in jail, what exactly do you expect them to do when they get out and can't get a job? Recidivism is very high in this country, higher than our peers. Either you've got to conjure up something about American criminals that makes them permanently criminally, in which case I will just assume that you're two steps away from getting out the skull calipers, or you're forced to come to the conclusion that we've decided to arrange our society in a way that makes this a likely outcome.
Yes, some individuals do escape the cycle, and that is both good for them and good for society. But given the strong trend, one has to ask why.
> stay addicted to drugs, sex, and violence, and keep coming to prison over and over
See, there's a funny thing that happens here. This logic is only ever applied to some people. Poor, black, and addicted to crack? Criminal, straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect any help. Rural white and addicted to opioids? Well by god they're a victim who needs help!
Now to be honest, I think that both of those groups need help, and should be treated far, far better. But the selective nature of who gets sympathy and treatment and who gets steel bracelets is pretty core to my argument.
> There are some skinheads that blame racial preferences for their own failures in life, lest anyone think that I'm naming SJWs facetiously
I still think you're bringing up SJWs facetiously.
> Stop telling people that they have no control over their lives.
Stop making up my point. It's annoying.
Every single person's outcome is a mixture of their own choices, luck, and society. Individual choices matter, I never claimed to the contrary. The question is not "do individual choices matter" but rather "is the playing field setup in such a way that some people's choices are more likely to result in negative outcomes than other people's?"
> those are the people that I see coming back to prison on their 8th or 9th sentence. Those are the guys with 8 kids, most of whom will also end up dead or in prison.
Gee, I wonder why that seems to happen so often? Obviously it's people on the internet worried about the US criminal system's fault, because that obviously makes sense.
Not much point talking if you're going to say "Citation needed" to trivial truths, while making trivially disprovable claims like rural whites not going to prison for drugs. (You may have heard of methamphetamines). I was actually intentionally trying to be more fair to the left when mentioning unfair blame being assigned, as it could seem biased if I only mentioned unfair blame against "conservatives", but it's interesting how you masterfully twisted that attempt at fairness into a slur against me.
"The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative. So that anything that the Negro does is never for his own good, never for his own advancement, never for his own progress, he’s only a pawn in the hands of the white liberal. The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros, and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man. The only way that our problem will be solved is when the black man wakes up, clean himself up, stand on his own feet and stop begging the white man, and take immediate steps to do for ourselves the things that we have been waiting on the white man to do for us" - Malcolm X, seeing straight through the word games and sophistry.
> America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible.
But that is such a cop out... America has the number of prisoners it has by choice, not due to some inexorable condition which differentiates it from other developed nations.
> But that is such a cop out... America has the number of prisoners it has by choice, not due to some inexorable condition which differentiates it from other developed nations.
> And arguably by the point where you’re locking that many people up, as a society that might be the point.
I already covered that in my original post, please don’t snark over things that were already pointed out.
Easy power comes from demonizing people we don't understand or don't like. Our political parties are so addicted to animosity, they've become incapable of functioning without it.
It depends what we're talking about. On paper our system isn't so different. Prisoners are people that have been found to transgress so many rights are forfeited, but not all of them. We send them to correction centers to get better. They leave and rights are restored.
The issue is that many of the people involved feel differently in their hearts, and see the rehabilitative side as a bunch of feel good nonsense. It's never gonna work, or isn't worth paying for. More to the point we're chronically unwilling to put any resources towards these goals. It's all about being seen ensuring public safety and making sure no one gets a handout.
Fixing such an issue should be top priority, and in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner.