Hacker News Reader

Comment by ianstallings | Hacker News Reader

I've never been to prison but years ago I went to jail in the US for violent acts and weapon charges and wouldn't wish that on anyone. My co-defendant in the trial was charged with greater crimes and did 8 years in prison out of 13. I went to visit the guy about once a month and I can say one thing for certain - he will never be the same. And not in a good way.

I know a lot of guys like him. The US prison system is not worried about rehabilitation. It's about punishment and removal from society, regardless of how you come out. It's a terrible place meant to scare the crap out of you and that's basically it. And now it's one big industry.

View on HN

has that experience served as a deterrent for you in any way?

Yes definitely. I was a different person back then but that experience in particular helped change me. I fear going to jail now more than before I ever went in. The sheer boredom of it all is enough to drive you mad. Concrete walls, hard metal beds, lights never go off, constant yelling, just enough food to make sure you don't starve, and of course the other inmates that are all criminals and a lot are willing to commit violence to get their way. You've haven't seen the true depths of human depravity until you see two grown men try to kill each other because one wanted to watch a different soap opera or sought revenge for some supposed sleight. And I had it easy compared to prison or the penitentiary.

In my misspent youth I got into an altercation that escalated to the point of me being charged with attempted manslaughter[1].

The police picked me up late on a Friday and I spent the weekend in a Nassau county jail. It changed my life...

When I hear people dismiss the power of deterrence it makes me realize they don't have the particular category of cognition that was thrust upon me by my own impulsiveness. Seems like you have a similar context as I -- now may we both never lose it.

----

[1]: yes; attempted manslaughter -- in New York Penal Law, "Attempt" is a separate article that can be applied to any crime: "§110.00 -- Attempt to commit a crime. A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime when, with intent to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which tends to effect the commission of such crime."

Having just come from NYC and seen some of the street hardened types there, I can just imagine.

Extending your anecdotal case, doesn't this mean that prison isn't a deterrent at all until one has committed a crime and experienced it?

firstly; jail and prison are two different things. secondly, it's a spectrum; different people are deterred at different points and some not at all.

I’m sorry, could you elaborate on the difference between prison, jail and penitentiary? To my non-native understanding, they’re exact synonyms.

Off the top of my head: Jail is local and generally short term. Prison is regional and longer sentences. Penitentiary...I think federal (national rather than state level) and higher security.

Jail is also typically used for suspects awaiting trial.

In the US, jails are run by cities and counties and are usually for offenders with sentences of less than 5 years. Longer, more serious sentences are served in prisons, which are sometimes called penitentiaries (or more euphemistically, correctional facilities). These are operated by the state of federal government.

I keep the difference straight be remembering the phrases "county jail" and "federal prison", which makes it clear that going to prison is much more serious, and a much worse place to be.

Thanks, that cleared it up. Over here in Germany, there are only prisons, operated by the state, and labelled Justizvollzugsanstalt (JVA, ‘judicial execution facility’?), and facilities for underage/young offenders called Jugendarrestanstalten (JAA, ‘youth detention facility’, maybe).

The idea of prisons (or even proper police forces) operated by individual counties in the US still strikes me as odd, but then, those counties are likely more comparable to German states.

Anecdote; as a teenager, my brother started to stray. He was caught by the law. The consequences were light, but (speaking as a bystander) I think the fear of the experience itself- being arrested, booked, and charged- served as a form of punishment, and as best I have been able to tell pretty much straightened him back out.

Of course, he is a fundamentally gentle soul; this anecdote doesn't apply to the hardened criminals.

single digit percentages of a given population being deterred is not something to be taken lightly; a penal aspect is both an extant and an historical imperative.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com