I think that out of all the various influences and factors that cause a convict to return to a life of crime, the role society may have played in the lifestyle he enjoyed while in prison would be at or near the bottom of the list.
You think, but your thinking has shown itself to be… eh… let’s just say “kinda shit”.
We didn’t want to spoil the surprise.
Well, did it work? Were you surprised?
Why would you think that? Or is it just more “common sense” ?
Wha-wha-whaaaaaaaat? Did you just say the prison environment has very little impact on recidivism rates?
Then what the hell have we been arguing about for this long?
A sentence that wanders bleakly across the page, endlessly seeking the release of the period, or even the restful semi-colon, but finding only commas, trudges wearily on, and on, and on.
I guess you must not live in Maricopa County, then. Obviously, Sheriff Joe fixes all them serial rapists from their lives of crime by making them wear pink underwear.
I heard that, on account of inmates watching the Disney channel, the crime rate in Maricopa County is actually negative. People break into houses to give you things. And I’m talking nice things, like iPads and pearl earrings. Plus the perps stick around to fix the window they busted in, mostly because if they didn’t do the work, there’s no cheap immigrant labor there for homeowners to hire anymore.
It was not a very good surprise. -.-
I fix that by being a pessimist. All surprises are good for me.
Yeah, I’ve thought of it. Just answered it as a matter of fact. And I’m sorry but I just can’t buy it that a guy coming from a background where all he’s known is drugs and crime and the street, and everyone he knows and all his family are enmeshed in that same environment, and where the way he talks and the way he carries himself and the values he holds have all been deeply ingrained by that environment, would otherwise turn away from and overcome all that except for…he’s pissed off and holds a grudge because of the way he was treated in prison.
Is this another one of those opinions I’m supposed to regard as fact?
There is no way you know this to be so. Twenty one years is a long time in terms of changing sentiments. He could very easily claim that he was young and under the spell of some misbegotten notion that he could right the world’s wrongs by the actions that he now knows were so horrible and how sorry he is for all the lives his actions ruined and he’s a different person now and can no longer understand how he could have felt that way to begin with and now he would never even think of harming someone.
And then the Norse do-gooders would say "Aw, what a good boy he is now. See how well our superior holier-than-thou methods have worked versus those of our more conservative and punitive brethren. Clearly he is no longer a threat to us or anybody else and may be set free to continue living the balance of his life as a free and happy contributor to our wonderfully enlightened society.
“Wait, what’s that you say? There’s an angry mob of victim survivors demonstrating outside? Ah, (insert whatever’s Norse of “Fuck”) them! Of course they’re going to be howling for blood! But what the hell, we aren’t the ones who had to suffer days and months and years because our loved ones were senselessly and deliberately murdered by this man, and fortunately we are therefore in a position to arrive at our determination free from emotional baggage which might otherwise cloud our judgement. Yes, I know people say we care only about the criminal and nothing about the victims, but you know what? They’re right! Ahahahaha!!!”
Ahem…I digress again. Anyway, you get the point.
And then when he, or someone similarly released, goes out and kills someone else, the response will be the same as when our parolees go out and kill someone else: “Well, we thought he was okay now. Too bad we were wrong on this one. But hey, look at all the other guys we released who haven’t killed somebody! How great for them, huh?” Well, yeah, if you care nothing about justice for the people they already killed.
Well, in that case I can answer that for them: Reprogram their value system and thought processes. Teach them how to speak with, behave and interact with the people they’ll be around in their new environment so they won’t feel like an outsider. Set them up with jobs and homes away from everything and everyone they knew before. And hope and trust they’ll live happily ever after while never attempting to contact anyone from their previous life.
Sounds like a much bigger job than any prison could handle if you ask me.
See, murder is where I draw the line on rehabilitation. If you deliberately murder someone, you don’t deserve to be drawing breath in my opinion. There is no justice, no fairness, and no equity in allowing people to continue to enjoy life after they’ve made the irrevocable decision to deprive someone else of theirs. And it’s unfair to the victims’ families and loved ones. You guys get outraged and whinge about inmates suffering pink underwear and moldy sandwiches and 120 degree temperatures, yet you give absolutely not on whit of consideration to the people whose lives are utterly ruined and will never be the same because someone decided to murder their loved one or loved ones. People get over Arpaio’s jail. They may not forget it, but once they’re out they’re over moldy sandwiches and hot tents and Frank Sinatra music. People are never over the rape and murder of their daughters, or the loss of their parents or their husband or wife. And it is far, far more cruel to these people for their loved ones’ murderer to be walking free than is anything Joe Arpaio has ever concocted.
This is what so mystifies my about you people. You happily work to parole convicts with multiple violent felonies and concern yourselves not a whit when these paroles result in innocent people being raped, robbed and murdered when they wouldn’t have been had these assholes remained in prison like they should. And while you whinge endlessly about the rare innocent person who get wrongfully executed, you are utterly silent and seem to care nothing about the fate of all the people who’ve been murdered by convicted and paroled murderers…a number that utterly dwarfs those who’ve been wrongfully executed.
So in other words, why do you find misdemeanors so outrageous when your solution to them cause felonies, and why do you ignore the felonies you thereby cause, which are so much worse?
Well, once again, the fact they haven’t been tried doesn’t mean they aren’t guilty. And also once again, we (and every other country) routinely take people from their families, their source of income, and rob them of their freedom because they’ve been accused of a crime and arrested. They get placed in jail cells with all sorts of unsavory people even under the best of circumstances. So it’s not like people who haven’t been convicted have never suffered except under Arpaio. His additional discomforts are minor in comparison, and in my opinion are well worth it in terms of discouraging future miscreancy (:)) on the part of the vast majority who are guilty.
Yeah, I know. I was aware of it at the time, but I was in a hurry and didn’t want to take time to go back and clean it up.
Think of James Joyce and it’ll seem a trifle. 
There’s a guy named Starving Artist in the Jerry Sandusky thread; I’m sure you two would go at it tooth-and-nail.
I’m saying that the namby-pamby prison environment favored by my opponents will have no positive effect on recidivism vs. a more uncomfortable one either as it is now or as run by Joe Arpaio.
When it comes to recidivism, in my opinion you have two choices: One, Arpaio’s approach, which is probably more effective than the standard jail or prison environment.
Or…
Two, educate every inmate in an employable skill, completely reprogram his thinking and values, teach him modes of dress, speech and behavior that will serve him well out in the American mainstream, and in effect set him up in the witness protection program where he’ll have a job, a home, a car, and a life far away from everything and everyone he’s ever known and to which he may never return.
Other than that, you’re just jerkin’ off to feel superior to the masses.
Does that work?
Translation: “Statistics? I see no statistics, LALALALALALALALALALA”.
And at this point, debate becomes unnecessary, because we’re dealing with someone who is not interested in facts.
I stopped reading early to contemplate the powers this . . . person possesses that allow him to know a person’s criminal record just by looking at him. Care to spoil the ending for me?
Yeah, I mentioned that. I pointed out that, to the torture supporting right such as the specimen in question, Arpaio’s behaviour is acceptable because he’s okay with it. It makes him feel good, so therefore it is good. This is a moral position common to toddlers and right-wing adults. Don’t tell him that his being okay with it is not the measuring stick grownups use to determine right or wrong. He’ll get upset.
On second thought, go for it.
He means black people. Also brown people.
When he catches them . . . Actually, his department has been accused of neglecting sex-crimes investigations.
But as others have said, Apraio is only running a county jail, not a correctional center. Many of the people there have not been convicted of any crime at all. Those who have are not gang bangers or murderers. They have committed misdemeanors and have less than a year on their sentence.
His strategy takes minor criminals at best, and many likely innocent people and subjects them to humiliation. That, if anything, would turn a minor criminal into a person with an immense hate for the system. Such harsh conditions are disproportionate to the crimes these people may or may not have committed.