Nothing Has Made Me Feel More American Than Going to Jail | Hacker News Reader

Nothing Has Made Me Feel More American Than Going to Jail

themarshallproject.org

29 pointsdanso24 comments

I agree the identity politics stuff is misplaced. The author violated parole and got sent to prison. Nobody who works there is nice.

But still some parts are egregious:

> One C.O. responsible for assisting those with mental health issues would announce his shift by trumpeting, “Screws and schizos, come get your Skittles!”

Unnecessary and inappropriate if true, absolutely. Still, the implication that this is anywhere on the level of "public whipping, branding, dunking, pillory, mutilation" makes me inclined to disregard nearly everything the author has to say.

Go to jail. The one I was in had a fire extinguisher full of pepper spray that they occasionally used on the entire room when two people were fighting in a corner (it was an excuse). I was also tased in the shower and split my head open, requiring stitches, after falling naked onto the tile floor because I didn’t hear orders to line up over the water and other voices. I lost consciousness to the sounds of laughter from the staff.

Those are two of my tamest stories. There are more. Public whipping, no, but far worse happens in the American correctional system. If you’re inclined to disregard such reports or ignore what they’re saying because they’re not exactly to your liking, I’m not inclined to regard your opinion — it’s also how I know you haven’t done time.

It also speaks to the level of desensitization of the American public that anything short of "public whipping, branding, dunking, pillory, mutilation" is totally fine because bad people go to the bad place. When literally 1% of America is in prison right now. The world's leading jailer. I refuse to believe Americans are orders of magnitude worse people than any other westerners.

I shared a cell with a Black man who had waived his right to a speedy trial under law enforcement pressure and had subsequently been in pretrial confinement, in county jail, for eight and a half years. On a minor gun charge. Nobody cares. That’s what it is, not that Americans are bad. It’s the natural outcome of jail being where bad people go and tough on crime policy. Even the lawyers who try to reverse this stuff pro bono are shunned by their peers and looked at as uncouth “activist” attorneys.

The man had converted to Islam and was as upbeat as could be expected about it but told me, quite frankly, that he fully expected to die inside with no disposition in his case. He accepted that. I think about him often and how the system failed him.

Well, you're right - I've never been to jail (and hopefully never will), but... what are you saying? That nobody should go to jail for any reason? That there shouldn't be jails? Or that there should be jails but guards shouldn't break up fights? Or that they should only break up fights by physically separating the fighters rather than using pepper spray (are they allowed to do that?) You seem to be saying that you didn't deserve to be tased (and, based on your description of the events, sound like you were right), but are you suggesting that it's never necessary? If they did overreact in this case, how would you recommend they be re-trained?

The author seems somewhat aloof, as if due to his credentials he doesn't belong there. Perhaps a more compassionate view might observe that nobody deserves to be mistreated.

The obligatory identity politics angle comes off as wooden and forced - compartmentalizing, objectifying the individuals. There's a story here if the author is willing to tell it straight. The political buzzwords and slanted historical references feel misplaced. They don't add to the story. Instead they distract.

> due to his credentials he doesn't belong there

It was suspicious that he never mentioned what, exactly, he was on probation for in the first place.

I think it would be mis-leading to specify what his crime was. If he had, it might be interpreted as trying to say that he didn't deserve to be treated the way he was treated simply because his crime was relatively minor. In fact, I think the point he is trying to make is it doesn't matter what crime you committed in the past - no one should have to endure the conditions he experienced.

Some context can be found here: https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/ccsu-professor-sus...

> The probation-violation charges Shankar is facing stem from Aug. 7, 2012, when state police charged him with driving with a suspended license, criminal impersonation, and failure to drive in the proper lane, court records show. Because he was on probation for fraud and drunken-driving convictions in 2011, Shankar also was charged with the probation violations.

https://www.journalinquirer.com/page_one/board-of-regents-to...

> According to records, 39-year-old Ravi Shankar has been in and out of the courtroom more than 20 times.

https://fox4kc.com/news/jailed-university-professor-gets-pro...

Reading the article... the guy makes it sound like he was in jail for some victimless crime or something. But upon further research he was caught red-handed committing theft and fraud. The way he uses his race and profession as some sort of crutch and excuse is just embarrassing for all humans. Cry me a river! People like him are the reason jails exist in the first place. Does he even get that?

As has been said elsewhere in the comments, the point isn't about the severity of his crimes. The point is that people shouldn't be treated so poorly in prisons.

The idea that it's okay to horribly mistreat prisoners because they're 'bad people' is ghastly and outdated. The purpose of prisons should be to keep dangerous people away from regular people, and to rehabilitate the people capable of rehabilitation, not to punish 'bad people' because it makes us feel good.

Congratulations on your stoic decision to become a prison guard. I am sure you will show them how it's done!

This is not exactly a constructive comment, sorry to mention it but you seem to be new around here. Do you have a counter argument to give?

That's an incredibly lazy, facetious reply.

The character of individual prison guards is hardly the major factor here. It's not some statistical anomaly that American prisons are such awful, expensive, ineffective, and cruel places.

What's wrong is institutional and requires political action.

> people shouldn't be treated so poorly

But... there's nothing in the article that suggests that they were treated particularly poorly. He was called "big bang theory", the basketball hoops were different heights, letters were opened and pictures were confiscated, and somebody referred to people with mental health issues as "screws and schizos". That's it? That's your entire indictment of the unfair treatment of people who actually did do horrible things to other people? Sure, there's room for improvement, but... not really that much room.

Yeah, this article in particular is not really the one I'd pick if I wanted to highlight the problems with American prisons. It's anecdotal anyways. Even the best, most compassionate prisons in the world probably have lots of quite negative anecdotes.

However, the horrors of the American prison system are pretty well documented, and I'm not sure it's really controversial to say that these are very bad places to find oneself, significantly worse than the prisons of many other western developed nations, and a much larger percentage of America's population is in prison than any other democratic nation.

maybe this particular article doesn't expose the worst aspects of prisons, but overall there might be some room for improvement, eg https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/2...

besides, a misdemeanor & driving w/ a suspended license hardly confirms that "horrible things" have been done to other people. I'm sure even the most casual observer of the US has some awareness of the vast numbers in jail for non-violent drug offenses.

quite aside from the above, even the assumption that committing a crime is what's put an inmate inside is off the mark: https://csgjusticecenter.org/publications/confined-costly/

you're completely right about the barbarism inherent to the whole retributive mindset, but prisons aren't even effective for the more humane goals you're talking about - they're much more likely to push someone further outside the bounds of legal society than rehabilitate, & the recedivism/rearrest statistics are pretty surprising too

Sure, but I think we might be just getting into a semantics game with how we define prison.

I just think that 'prisons' should become whatever sort of institution is best at rehabilitating criminals while still minimizing the amount of harm they can do to society during the rehabilitation process.

not trying to be pedantic, sorry. I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of people who do awful things but are surprisingly unlikely to reoffend & so whose post-offence imprisonment doesn't actually make society any safer.

This guy commits lots of low level crimes. Something off about him. Like just not capable of making good decisions.

I'm old enough to remember that the terrible situation in jail was the number 1 deterrent for doing crime. The phrase "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" really meant something when the prospect of going to a hell-on-earth prison was real.

Not saying that this should come back, but...jail isn't supposed to be pleasant. It's part of the peace-keeping process. Sort of a "see? It _can_ get worse" punishment.

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