Incarcerated women and Tampons
I came across a video today discussing how women who are in jail only recieve 12 tampons for a month. There is a push for the jails to supply more while these products are in commissary in the jail. What do you think? Should a Prison provide these or should the women purchase the rest as needed.
I have not looked at it in detail, but it makes me wonder what they are using the extra tampons for if the prisons feel they need to limit them.
The first thing that the academy at Selma teaches corrections trainees is that convicted felons are sent to prison AS PUNISHMENT not FOR PUNISHMENT~the latter practiced by such places as North Korea.
Normal needs includes protection. During my 21-year career I've broken up more fights and assaults than I can possibly remember.
Using deadly force to stop an escape is called protecting the public, though.
How one differentiates between prisoners who have the means to purchase things and those who do not is an interesting question. I would suggest that anything defined as a basic need should be included for all prisoners. Extras are are not.
I think the same with how you used "force". It is not very important as force should be used against people that use force against innocent people. The basis by which prisoners deserve their basic needs rests on the idea of humane treatment of people. The punishment should fit the crime and a sort of torture by deprivation of basic needs should not be committed.
Right now, governments are abandoning aging prisoners, releasing them before their sentences are completed, rather than caring for them.
Prisons are a consequence of mysticism and collectivism, not realist-rationalist objective legal philosophy founded on individual rights. The first penitentiaries were invented by Quakers. Historically, in America, prisoners have been the slaves of the warden, being rented out as labor for the warden's enrichment. In the "best" cases, it has been the state itself which profits from the slave trade in convict labor. The entire system is flawed from the top to the bottom in every context. Any objective system wouid look entirely different.
It's not my fault he went off the deep edge so why should I have to pay to keep him.
To be the keeper of another is a choice not a requirement...if you did harm to another...You pay!
Jan
Yes, we need to also execute the "Good ole boy" court system...
There are waaaaaay too many creatures on my payroll that I am not allowed to FIRE!
If the cops, detectives, witnesses, prosecutors or judges screw up...they should pay TOO!...not me/us!!!
https://www.innocenceproject.org
Right now, about 80,000 wrongfully accused people are in prisons.
Jan
While it is true that justice delayed is justice denied, the other side of the coin is that a "kangaroo court" proceeds by leaps and bounds. We accept without question that we are entiitled to swift trial. Without that, people can be incarcerated indefinitely without trtial. That's a problem. But the rapid injustice of a summary execution is the greater problem. That is why juries deliberate i.e., weigh the evidence. That takes time and we want that.
I believe that there is a myth underlying both sides of this argument: that time changes peoples' minds. It simply isn't true. Only replacement ideas change peoples' minds. At best time can help people calm down and control their emotional side (which is usually what got them into trouble in the first place) so they can see the logical side of their predicament.
"Prisons are a consequence of mysticism and collectivism, not realist-rationalist objective legal philosophy founded on individual rights."
Prisons have been around for millenia - they were hardly a product of the Quakers. Good grief - Florida, Georgia and Australia all started as penal colonies - prisons. Do tell: what is objective legal philosophy going to do about murderers, rapists, and thieves if not throw them into prison? Execute them?
The question comes down to the role of a prison, and I think that there are two mindsets about that. One is to simply remove misbehavers from society. The other is to attempt to rehabilitate those incarcerated and educate them on proper behavior. The penal colony mindset is the former. Our legal system has drifted far away from the latter, which in my opinion is unfortunate.
I have a friend who is a prison counselor. His job is probably one of the most depressing and dangerous there is: he has to counsel with prisoners of all stripes - from child rapists to petty thieves. He sees primarily two kinds of criminals: those who already know that what they did was wrong and those who refuse to admit it. In the case of the former, they do their time and have a very low recidivism rate - but it isn't the prison system that is helping them reform. It is their own conscience. In the case of the latter, they mouth their platitudes and play the game so they can get released, but never change their minds. Unsurprisingly, their recidivism rates are very high.
To me, the larger tragedy is that prisoners in our society today are simply escorted to prison for a time while society pretends that somehow this will "solve the problem". What we have to do as a society is understand our own core beliefs enough - and believe in them - to teach them to convicts. And if those convicts reject those principles, they aren't fit to rejoin society.
I would also agree that prison is not the best place for maturity to occur. I think that Sundowning is probably a great idea in such instances.
Jan
Jan
As for your friend's fireside chat, it was largely correct. In technical terms, you can put offenders in two groups, both of them deniers: excusers and justifiers. Excusers would be your first group, who know that they did something wrong, but limit (in their own minds; and want you to agree) that they were not responsible for some putative "reason" or other. Justifiers generally blame the victim in some way, often directly.
One treatment mode that seems to work well is Moral Reconation Therapy. It takes time and effort. And it is not a panacea or a silver bullet. It works well because it does what you do indeed suggest: teach the offender to think differently,
Crime and punishment according to Objectivism, I look forward to your book.
The problem becomes that EVERYTHING ends up with value. So if you can score a few extra you might be trading for something else, and it can get out of control.
I was amazed at how the inmates in one prison were so CREATIVE in how to cheat the system.
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Allosaur will like this. While leaving a High Security Prison (as a computer person), the guy I came to help out looks at me, and says "You look like you are in pretty good shape... I've got $20 that says I can race you to the gate and win!".
As I started to think about it, he said: "Before you take me up on that offer, you MIGHT want to notice the guys in up there with the guns!"... It never even crossed my mind that I'd be running for the gate of a prison... LOL. Evil People!
So, I bought him lunch all week. At the end of the week he said I didn't have to. I told him "yeah, but now you can wonder which of your meals I messed with!"... LOL