prison rape

ILE can still sometimes surprise you.

OTM.

And weird. I've been saying this - in more-or-less exactly those words - for years. The whole problem with cops & copping is that the attraction-points for the job (unquestioned authority, ability to cause fear in others, gun carrying, supertuff macho/hetero image, permission to use threats & even violence) pretty much guarantee that most people who will want the job shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it.

But as true as that might seem, it's too simplistic. Law enforment officers sometimes need to to communicate threat (a willingness to do real harm) in order to overcome the belligerence of others without actually resorting to violence. And unfortunately, the best way to communicate threat is to be legitimately threatening - i.e., cops have to mean it when they get tough. Therefore, there's a legitimate need for a "thuggish" tendency in certain police officers. Catch-22.

How do you balance the need for genuinely threatening cops (as a violence deterrent) with the simple fact that most genuinely threatening people can't be trusted to montitor and control their own behavior?

That doesn't even begin to speak to the mentally unwell or mentally incompetent. Yes, having a system of asylums tended toward the "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest" complex, but many people who would have been there are now either medicated, in jail, or on the street. If you don't have money or the right background, one of the latter two. Finding someone mentally incompetent is seen as letting them off easy, which is ridiculous since being sent to a mental health facility tends on average to result in longer stays than most jail sentences, and it's a form of rehabilitation.

So encapsulating it with "prison rape is bad, huh" and drawing attention by highlighting the anal rape accounts diverts from the real issue -- prisons aren't making anything better, they're just getting more full and destroying lives. Sometimes through inmate-on-inmate violence, sometimes just because it's the wrong place to send people.

(I thieved from you ;___;)

-- bell labs (lindsay...), February 14th, 2007. (bell_labs)

maybe you and i are talking about different things, but the supreme court just recently deemed unconstitutional the mandatory sentencing guidelines. it happened about 6 months before my date. had it not, i was pretty much surely destined for prison. i don't want to make this thread about me, but damn, that fact still astounds me.

a proposed bill in washington state to basically test for HIV in prisons.

here's some wa state conservative blog that is outraged by these "felon friendly" bills by democrats:
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/007997.html

Baldock says he faces an uphill battle in trying to win a conviction against Francis. He's certain many jurors seated before him this week will wonder why they should even care what happens to prison inmates.