Ramen Noodles and a multivitamin. I lived on that in college.
I too would like a cite for that 99.9% figure.
But suppose for a moment it’s true. That means 0.1% are innocent; that the government is subjecting innocent people to these conditions; the steel toilets, crappy roommates, and all the rest. Is that really okay with you, Starv? I keep hearing that government is the problem; that we must watch it like a hawk, limit the spread of its incompetence. And now it’s okay that one person in a thousand who’s arrested is treated this way and they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong?
Is there a problem with incentives here? Let’s not forget that “if the scale is large enough” refers to actual incarcerated human beings. I’m fine with locking people up who have committed crimes. I see risk in a system where Arpaio can brag about his per-meal costs by increasing headcount, with no apparent regard to guilt or innocence.
We lock people in cages, keep them away from their families (or for that matter, from supporting their families), prevent them from having sex with their loved ones keep them from going to ball games and movies, etc., etc., etc., but nobody thinks twice about that. So what are we to do? Imprison no one because 0.1% is innocent? So while I obviously don’t want innocent people to go to prison, I’m okay with it in the sense that it’s unavoidable unless we’re going to have a society in which no one goes to prison unless there’s 100% no doubt that they committed the crime. In which case most burglars, rapists and murderers would go scot-free. Would that be okay with you?
Dammit, Robot, you gave him an opportunity to do his hard-headed realist posture, and his Wilford Brimely impression! He loves that! You want him following you around?
No, it wouldn’t be okay with me, which is why I DIDN’T SUGGEST ANYTHING OF THE SORT. But there’s a difference between those who have been convicted and those who are who are waiting for a trial. Even if we accept your 99.9% figure, that means there are innocent people being deprived of their liberty by the government. Why aren’t you concerned about that?
Still waiting for a cite on that figure, by the way.
Oh, I can take anything Starving can throw at me. It’s mostly just hangin’ curve balls, anyway.
nm
Sorry, proper gruel as a steady 365 diet is not healthy.
""This recipe is based on the ingredients used in an 18th century workhouse. Gruel was one of the main foods provided. At this workhouse (Sunday-Thursday) on three days of the week, male inmates were served a pint and a half of gruel, a pint and a half of broth, five ounces of cooked meat, twelve ounces of bread and eight ounces of potatoes. On the three alternate days, the men were fed twelve ounces of bread, a pint and a half of gruel, a pint and a half of soup, and two ounces of cheese. On Fridays, they were served twelve ounces of bread, a pint and a half of gruel, fourteen ounces of suet or rice pudding, and two ounces of cheese. The meager menu was divided into three meals daily. Women and children were given slightly less.
Ingredients
* 3 dessert spoonfuls of oatmeal
* 1 pint of water
* a little salt
“”
Even these poor work house inmates got more than just gruel.
Personally, as a diabetic, nothing but grain based gruel would have me pretty close to being hospitalized fairly shortly.
And as it was pointed out, people who cant make bail are jailed as well. They are theoretically innocent until they hit trial, so we now have people who are theoretically innocent and unable to make bail sleeping on the ground and eating gruel.
I hope the people who consider this suitable way to treat people may at some time be down on their luck, innocent and end up in this mans version of tender care so they can see how it is.
I do not care how bad a criminal you are, you deserve a real room, a real bed and a real diet that will keep you healthy. I may be willing to pull the switch on you, but being treated like that is inhumane. That is verging on Buchenwald.
^ The definition of gruel was given in the OP. You have no reason to assume that your definition was the one that was meant.
If you just want the murder rate by country for recent years, that’s real easy to find. The US looks pretty good compared to Central American countries, Africa, and parts of the former USSR. Looks crap when you consider that Afghanistan, Iran, Ireland, Serbia, and Croatia have lower murder rates. It’s not that America’s murder rate is sky high, it’s just incongruously high for such a wealthy country.
Oh, and yes, the democide rate in America compares quite favorably to Stalist Russia. Well done there.
To be partially on topic, yeah, jeez, I guess people from that part of Arizona must be sort of dumb to keep electing this guy. Not for the cruelty to prisoners, I can see how that could be popular. But the man appears to be a crooked publicity hound. Surely they could find another sadistic 80 year old who won’t steal from them so noisily.
Sounds like the lesson here is, if you can’t sing like a canary, don’t do the crime.
When I read this it made me think of Japan, where they actually do have an absurdly high conviction rate due to forced confessions and a systematic breakdown of the justice system (cite). If we ever see a 99.9% conviction rate in the US, we are in trouble that is beyond deep (unless, of course, you’re white).
Keep in mind we’re talking economics of a really big scale. We don’t buy bread in bulk - we buy flour in bulk and make bread. And if the climate was right, we’d be growing our own wheat to make the flour.
Ooh, multivitamins! Some of us weren’t born with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm in our mouths, Richie Rich!
Ramen wasn’t so bad. Would’ve been even easier to eat if I could’ve afforded water…
(emphasis mine)“Donate”? If this asshole sheriff asked them to donate their canteen supplies, do you think it was an entirely voluntary act on their part?
It’s not that they’re dumb, as such. It’s that an awful lot of them are sadistic 80-year-olds themselves…
The thing about 80 year olds is that they don’t have the ability to defend themselves from those younger than themselves, the kind of people that Joe has incarcerated. It also makes sense, on the face of it at least, that at 14 cents a meal you can lock up quite a few of those young trouble makers and keep them there safely, for those on the outside, behind bars.
Meh, it’s not a contest, nor a moral issue, just fact: from that Wiki, ‘In 2004, there were 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 persons, roughly three times as high as Canada (1.9) and six times as high as Germany (0.9)’.
Maybe there’s good reason for the murdering. In the Large Cities section, s’just that whilst I can accept that Detroit would have a high rate of people killing each other, I was surprised at Baltimore taking second place. It always sounds such a pretty place…
Yeah, and I don’t see how even if guilty as fuck, people shouldn’t be treated as you would want to be treated. Swedish model prisons seem almost ideal. The punishment consists in being deprived of liberty and being incarcerated with many annoying people; not in being starved in a dungeon and shouted at.
Quite, and Nationmasters has a neat little list of 62 countries, from Columbia at 0.617847 per 1,000 people to Qatar at 0.00115868 per 1,000 people
America is no. 24 at 0.042802 per 1,000 people , of Murders (per capita) (most recent) by country.
Do the criminals follow the creed as you suggest in the first sentence?
What I’d be interested in knowing is which model results in a lower recidivism rate. If they are relatively equal numbers, I don’t see why we wouldn’t go with the one that saves the taxpayer the most money. Also, I don’t see why prisoners should expect any better treatment than the lowest members of society are subject to. I don’t mean the destitute, but those who work a couple of jobs and barely make enough to make ends meet. The ones who still continue to struggle and don’t commit crimes because of it.
Then you wouldn’t object to simply shooting them all? Say, for crimes against property valued at more than a hundred dollars? Recidivism would drop dramatically, to be sure. And since the only reason we have any crime problems at all is because we are such weak, lily-livered liberals, the addition of maximum penalty should have marvelous prophylactic effect, I would think. I mean, its not like they’re people, or anything.