Friend is hatching plan that involves purposeful jailtime and hunger strike. Support?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

If this were my friend and he gave me the “Well, if you’re not going to support me in this, and just be a downer, I can’t talk to you about it.” thing I’d tell him in no uncertain terms that I am not supporting him.

“Dude, I love you and you’re my friend but what you’re doing is crazy and dangerous and isn’t going to end well for you or your children. I’m asking you to reconsider. If you won’t reconsider then I can’t support you in a decision I know will hurt you and your children. I’m sorry.” (I probably wouldn’t say “dude” but you get my drift)

This guy needs a wake up call and withholding your support (including not helping him with his writing) may be the only thing that helps him see reason.

Good luck to you and your friend. I hope he gets it all figured out before he goes to jail.

22

[QUOTE=CeilingWhacks]
Does anyone know: Don’t they usually hold non-payment cases until the past due amount is paid?
[/QUOTE]

Not always. The judge at my last support hearing (years and years ago - I finally gave up) said something to my ex like, “Well, the law says I can throw you in jail, but that won’t get this kid here the money he needs for new shoes.” It’s sort of a no-win situation. You can send someone to jail for non-support, but that won’t get you the support you need. So they leave them free with orders to go find a job and don’t have any real legal teeth with which to enforce it.

23

Okay, I’ll just be upfront about a couple of things:

(A) I have a ridiculous amount of faith in the American justice system. Call my naive if you want, but I’m professionally and personally invested in believing it works most of the time. And, yes, judges do sometimes make bad decisions and frequently make decisions that at least one party to a case thinks is very bad indeed, but someone has to make the decision and that’s the judge’s job. So the fact that your friend thinks the decision was bad or unfair doesn’t mean it actually was. No doubt his exwife disagrees with him on that.

(B) I have zero – and I mean zero – sympathy for people who do not pay their child support. None. The only time I can muster even a smidge of sympathy is in the very rare case where the person honest to God is living in abject poverty and really, really, really cannot pay. That doesn’t seem to include your friend.

That all said: I don’t see why your friend thinks he has to go to jail. If he wants to go on a hunger strike, he can go on a hunger strike. Get a big sign – HUNGER STRIKE – and go sit down on the steps of the court house. What is the perceived upside to being in jail when he does it? Given the the very real professional and personal damage of being thrown in jail – security clearances, future custody arrangments – why does jail have to be a component of his protest?

He is likely to recieve less publicity for a hunger strike in the jail than he would outside. Outside, he can publicize it however he likes. Inside, his contacts are limited – he’s in jail – and the facility sure as hell isn’t going to assist in publication.

As to what will happen: He likely will be taken out of the general population on the grounds that his actions either present a danger to himself or are disruptive to the population, or both, which means close confinement (something approaching solitary confinement), which is no fun. That is the jails first attempt to make his life uncomfortable to get him to stop. They are unlikely to interfere with him until he has in fact compromised his health and a doctor will attest to that. At the point that he is a danger to himself, they will force-feed him. And they will cotinue to do so until he either leaves the facility or agrees to stop the strike. Again, this is no fun for the inmate.

I know a hunger strike sounds like a big deal to your friend but it is worth emphasizing that it is not at all a big deal to the facility. They deal with hunger strikers all the time. People stop eating if they don’t like their cell assignment, or they didn’t get a visit, or they don’t like the food. They jail will allow them to refrain from eating until they are in danger, and then it will feed them whether they like it or not. None of this is considered particularly worthy of note, much less of publicity.

So tell your friend to stop eating if he wants to stop eating, but frankly I see little upside to getting the local jail involved in his shenannigans.

24

[QUOTE=riker1384]
Yes you can. In my state a Class 1 misdemeanor is punishable by up to one year in jail. I think a year is long enough for a hunger strike.
[/QUOTE]

The fact that it’s punishable by up to one year in jail doesn’t mean that it is routinely punished by one year in jail. Such a sentence would be exceedingly rare for a class 1 misdemeanor, which usually results in no time at all.

25

[QUOTE=riker1384]
Yes you can. In my state a Class 1 misdemeanor is punishable by up to one year in jail. I think a year is long enough for a hunger strike.
[/QUOTE]

Good luck finding a judge who would “award” the OPer’s friend a 30 day non-suspended term in jail, let alone an entire year, for a Class I misdemeanor. Even if he WAS sentenced to 30 days in jail, there are people out there who are an actual menace to society and the jails are getting more and more crowded. Your friend would be out of the pokey before his stomach started growling.

But let’s pretend though that he pisses off some judge so badly that he’s thrown in the big house for six months. Can you imagine the laugh that the ex-wife would have at his expense? There is nothing more validating following a break up than the ex being thrown into jail. Oh, and he’d still owe her the money, just in case he was dim enough to think that civil disobedience = pardon of debts.

26

Let me join the crowd in saying that your friend seems to be sliding quickly into complete crackpottery.

Has he considered less torturous approaches to getting his point across? How about trying to get local newspapers interested? Making a video and posting it in as many places as possible? Organizing a letter- and e-mail writing campaign?

As other posters have already pointed out, your friend’s tactics aren’t necessarily all that effective and could have some very nasty consequences. Your friend, being a smart guy, must realize at least some of the down-sides in pulling this stunt. Why has he decided that a hunger strike, while in prison, is the way to go?

27

[QUOTE=Scribble]
Let me join the crowd in saying that your friend seems to be sliding quickly into complete crackpottery.

Has he considered less torturous approaches to getting his point across? How about trying to get local newspapers interested? Making a video and posting it in as many places as possible? Organizing a letter- and e-mail writing campaign?

As other posters have already pointed out, your friend’s tactics aren’t necessarily all that effective and could have some very nasty consequences. Your friend, being a smart guy, must realize at least some of the down-sides in pulling this stunt. Why has he decided that a hunger strike, while in prison, is the way to go?
[/QUOTE]

Okay, I’m agreeing with everything everyone says. Including the poster who suggested that I tell him in no uncertain terms that he’s a great guy, but I can’t support him in this.

The reason he thinks this is the way to go is that he doesn’t actually KNOW how it GOES. And when you try to tell him…well, that just doesn’t work.

I agree with your approach actually. You’ve got what you think is some newsworthy, edgy commentary, you write it up in a newsworthy and edgy way and hike off down to your local tv station or Boston Globe. Throw your tantrum someplace BESIDES jail.

As I said before, he’s operating under the bizarre opinion that anyone will CARE That he’s starving in jail. I may write him a quick note and inform him that he’s wrong and that he’ll only do his own health and life a great deal of harm.

I may quote some of you…I hope you don’t mind!

28

[QUOTE=CeilingWhacks]
As I said before, he’s operating under the bizarre opinion that anyone will CARE That he’s starving in jail. I may write him a quick note and inform him that he’s wrong and that he’ll only do his own health and life a great deal of harm.
[/QUOTE]

The problem with hunger strikes is, well, the hunger. And most people don’t have the mettle to stick with it.

As a means of protest, it’s not very effective. Cindy Sheehan’s hunger strike certainly didn’t win her an audience with the President. In fact, it probably led to as much ridicule of her as it did support. People who stage hunger strikes generally do so because it’s all they’ve got to get attention. Your friend has other ways and until he exhausts them, a hunger strike is going to look stupid.

Acc to a blip on NPR the other day, detainees in Guantanamo Bay are in the middle of yet another hunger strike as we speak. Heard much about that? Yeah, me neither.

29

Regarding Class 1 misdemeanors, in my state “Class 1” is the most severe kind of misdemeanor, with the longest possible sentence (up to 1 year). I don’t know what the average sentence is, but I highly doubt that it’s nothing, or necessarily less than a month. My point was just that you can be in jail long enough for a hunger strike without being a felon, contrary to what was said by others.

30

Tell your friend that I am probably the sort of person he wants to affect.

And it won’t work. It looks too much like he is simply trying to get out of his support payments, and I would much rather he lose forty pounds in body weight than have any of his obligations forgiven. If I even heard about it; see what Qadcop says about hunger strikes in prison. Done right, and for the right cause, it can be a noble act of self-sacrifice. Done any other way, and it is just a tantrum - the moral equivalent of a toddler’s “I’m going to hold my breath until I DIE, and THEN you’ll be sorry!”

We are not talking about Mohatma Gandhi here; just another narcissistic deadbeat.

Regards,
Shodan

31

[QUOTE=CeilingWhacks]
Honestly, Qadgop, how averse would you be to sending me a description (if you have time) of exactly what WILL happen? Because I would like to be prepared FOR him and I would like to let him know. And neither of us has any clue…he has even less than I do. Would you write me and let me know? Or post it here? How long do you starve before they force a feeding tube into you?
[/QUOTE]

Most of the ‘hunger strikers’ last about a day and a half, then give in when they get hungry. They get little attention, and what attention they do get isn’t generally positive. It annoys security staff, disrupts unit functioning, and pisses off other inmates who may have their rec/library/craftshop time shortened or skipped as the system deals with the hunger striker. Generally inconvenienced inmates make sure that the object of their displeasure is aware of their displeasure. In ways that are frightening, but rarely actually harmful. Well, usually not.

For those who don’t cave quickly, if their behavior is disruptive (and the very nature of food refusal is disruptive) they’ll usually end up in the segregation unit, all by themselves, 1 hour out of 24 to be out of the cell, minimal reading material, and uncomfortable accomodations. There, closer monitoring takes place by health and security staff.

Time goes by. If the patient manages to refuse water along with food, it comes to a head quickly, as dehydration sets in. Most patients don’t choose this route.

If water is consumed, but no calories, it takes longer. The patient becomes ketotic, smells bad as a result, and has strange dreams (stranger than most dreams for folks in prison anyway). Muscle mass will be lost, and I know of at least one individual whose food refusal damaged his heart.

Once someone like me decides that their food/water refusal is actually causing a clear and present and imminent danger to their health, a court order to treat is sought. This is fairly easy to get; the patient is a ward of the state, and the state will not let him commit suicide this way.

Then the patient is confronted with an NG tube. A tube inserted into the nose, threaded into the stomach, then used as a conduit for liquid nutrition. The plan will be to insert it, put the nutrition in, remove it, then repeat once or twice a day as needed.

Most food refusers decline the NG tube, opting to eat instead. Nearly all decline it after the first feeding. It is not pleasant, but it does ensure continuing patient vitality.

Media coverage of inmate hunger strikers has been pretty much zero. In the few exceptions of which I am aware, coverage tended to consist of saying “look at this loser”.

32

[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
Most of the ‘hunger strikers’ last about a day and a half, then give in when they get hungry.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you SO Much Qadgop. I expect this person to have more fortitude than the “day and a half” crowd. But I also know he has no idea what he’s in for and understand that it will not get him what he wants.

Oh…also, we’re talking about local jail anyway…not prison. I assume even LESS attention and care in that case?

Dang, he needs a slap, I think. Sigh…why are all my friends freaks?

33

[QUOTE=CeilingWhacks]
Thank you SO Much Qadgop. I expect this person to have more fortitude than the “day and a half” crowd. But I also know he has no idea what he’s in for and understand that it will not get him what he wants.

Oh…also, we’re talking about local jail anyway…not prison. I assume even LESS attention and care in that case?

Dang, he needs a slap, I think. Sigh…why are all my friends freaks?
[/QUOTE]

Here in Ohio, local jails don’t keep long term prisoners. They are merely holding cells until the person can be transported down to the county jail. Local jails don’t have the resources to hire guards, etc. to house long term prisoners.

As always, your jurisdiction may vary.

34

Jesus, no, don’t support this. He’s not proposing an act of civil disobedience and doesn’t propose anything very practical. It’s hard to list all the ways this could backfire and hurt families and people who are making huge sacrifices for the love of their country. Supporting his effort would be very unethical.

Which should, itself, be reason enough not to. But it also sounds to me like you’d get the chance to get into your own legal trouble somehow or another. So consider that too!

Does your friend’s lack of anything more worthwhile to do have any bearing on his child support truancy?

35

Your friend is too full of himself. He thinks, probably because he has never paid attention to this kind of news story before (hint) that he’s the first and only guy to come up with such a brilliant plan. Perhaps Q the M can give you an idea how many hunger strikers there have been just in the prison he deals with alone.

Individual action like that is rarely effective. Even people who self-immolated were just blips in the news. If your friend truly wants to make a difference, he needs to join with others already engaged in activities to change this issue. The best thing of all would be to persuade someone famous to take up his cause.

People get attention for their causes by gathering large groups, by gaining support from someone famous, or by being famous themselves (that’s ‘famous’, not ‘infamous’). One guy on a mission is quite often considered a nutjob, no matter how passionate he is or how drastic the actions he takes are.

He’d do way better to call a national show like Oprah or Dr. Phil or one of the investigative report shows and trying to interest them in the story (perhaps with your help). Or he could start locally; it seems if a local station picks up a story, you can then send links to the networks or bigger shows. He could even try a CNN I-report.

Tell your buddy there are much much MUCH smarter ways of getting this issue the attention it deserves.

36

[QUOTE=bluethree]
I spent a weekend in jail once twenty years ago and ever since then I’ve been sure to comport myself so that I would never, ever go to jail again. It’s not as fun as it looks.
[/QUOTE]

Ditto. Although I didn’t even spend the weekend, just 24 hours. That was enough.

Although I must say that those orange jumpsuits are really quite comfortable. I was kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to take mine home with me.

STILL NOT WORTH IT!

37

[QUOTE=Napier]
Jesus, no, don’t support this. He’s not proposing an act of civil disobedience and doesn’t propose anything very practical. It’s hard to list all the ways this could backfire and hurt families and people who are making huge sacrifices for the love of their country. Supporting his effort would be very unethical.
[/QUOTE]

You’re right. I no longer plan to. My first inclination was that maybe I’m a big baby. See…I’m like most of you…I wouldn’t get within 10 blocks of a jail, much less put myself in danger of being IN one. That’s because I’m not completely clueless on what goes on in there and how horrible it is. I thought he had some good points (and I still think he does). ANd I considered that maybe I’m just a wimp, unable to take a REAL stand or put things on the line for what I believe in.

But after giving it some thought I agree that straightening his OWN mess out and then taking his complaints on the road in an INTELLIGENT manner is definitely the way to go. Nothing HAS to be on the line here, he’s just gone a little mad.

38

In New York, you aren’t officially on a hunger strike until you’ve refused food for at least seventy two hours. Then we initiate our program. First, we lock you up in a cell so we can keep an eye on you. Second, you get seen by the doctor on a daily basis. Third, we weigh you and take your vital signs every day to keep track of the rate you’re deteriorating. Fourth, we strongly advise you to start eating again. Fifth, if you reach the point where we feel you’re doing yourself serious harm, we stick a feeding tube in your nose and pour a can of Ensure down you. Most people quit their hunger strike before we get to number five.

39

Now, I’m not suggesting that said crazy friend can endure any of this. I figure 12 hours in the cramped quarters with no pillow and he’ll start rethinking his plan. But he’s actually been practicing how long he can go without food…seeing how he feels after 5 days, after 7 days. So if he makes it that far, I figure he’s bound for a feeding tube.

Of course, whe he realizes no one CARES, he may opt out of that choice.

40

You know how there’s one guy at every party (or every message board, for that matter) who you just really don’t want on your “side” in the debate because the baggage he brings with him is more damaging to your cause than his arguments? And eventually he makes himself just so generally unwelcome that even his siding with you is itself damaging to your argument (“Well, if Bill’s on her side, we know it’s a losing proposition!”) Yeah…this might be that guy. I just can’t see the noble (child support paying) soldiers losing custody of their children during a time of war because of some shortsighted and easily changed law (easily changed if they can drum up the right kind of positive attention, that is) really wanting the “support” and attention drummed up by a deadbeat dad (who is not a soldier and whose case really has nothing at all to do with theirs) throwing a hissy fit in prison.

That’s the problem I’m having here - his case just isn’t about their’s. Period. We don’t link child support and visitation/custody in this country because we don’t buy time with our own children - it’s too reminiscent of icky slavery. Both parents contribute financially, and both parents have a right to see their children (barring some action of theirs which makes this unsafe). His not paying child support has nothing to do with soldiers losing custody of their children while being halfway across the globe for far longer than they thought they’d need to be. Any philosophical link he wants to make between the two that’s more specific than “being divorced with kids sukz” is not a sound bite that going to fit on the nightly news.