That is because military installations are built upon federal land, not state land. It is a similar concept to foreign embassies.
Inertia: Care to provide a cite for your assertion about “legally shot?” AFAIK, the punishment for failure to obey a lawful order is jail time plus a Dishonorable or Bad Conduct discharge.
Now, during time of a declared war, the order could be to go into battle. The crime, in that case, would be of desertion, not mere disobedience.
In any case, I’ve wondered why we don’t hear “At hard labour” anymore when someone’s convicted of a crime.
A girl I know was tossed in the can for 60 days for not having a valid drivers license. She has a pretty extensive criminal history of minor crimes, so the law poking her behind bars did not surprise me. What did surprise me is that she got charged $50 a month for her food. Plus, she HAS to attend a couple of obligatory sessions on driving at $128.
No big problem with that at all.
Too many people used to brag about going and living off of the State for a few years and accumulating a little cash while in there. Being very involved with the disabled, I came to the conclusion that prisoners have it much better than many of the people I worked with who lost their homes, live on the streets, have no money for medication, clothing or proper food. Plus, they get harassed by the cops a lot.
I have always been a great advocate of ‘hard’ time for criminals who commit murder, rape, felonious assault, or anything which gets them put away for more than 5 years or anything which they did that was unusually violent. (Like shooting a guy 10 times because he pissed them off when he did not step out of the shooters way fast enough. The guy lives but is crippled for life.) I cheer for the western Chief of Police who established a tent city, stopped television, stopped hot meals, stopped girlie mags, smokes, and stopped the daily grind of lifting weights, going to the library, filing lawsuit after lawsuit over things like cold beans for supper or not being allowed fresh goats blood because a prisoner is suddenly some form of crackpot religion.
I recall the chain gang from when I was a kid, complete with striped uniforms, prisoners linked by chains and pot bellied offiecers standing by with fully loaded, pump shotguns and ready to use them. The prisoners cleaned out the ditches – and did a damn good job. (Now they spray this weed killer shit in them that leaves them looking blighted and diseased forever.)
I watched a prison film on Discovery, where the hard core criminals were placed in small isolation cells and complained mightily about being tortured, restricted in freedoms and inhumane treatment by being kept from the main population. The cells looked pretty roomy to me! They looked clean and neat, plus they got 3 meals a day, a shower 3 days a week, an hour a day in the isolated exercise yard, medical care, clothing, reading material, were able to send and receive mail and allowed visitors now and then. They all looked healthy.
I’ve seen people living out of dumpsters who looked a lot worse off. I’ve been in homes that made those cells look spotless. These people were killers, who slaughtered people and some of them still sent threatening letters to lawyers and others and sometimes like to include a glob of their own feces just to make a point and they complained that they were being given a raw deal.
'K. Put them under heavily armed guard, toss on the leg chains and put them to work in an enclosed prison garden. They used to do that and the prisoners grew most of their own food. Surplus was sold or given to the State and any funds gained went into the prison.
If they try to run, shoot 'em.
I heard one prison guard on TV tell about how, to keep things even in the prison he worked in, one had to ‘passify’ the local gangs, to ‘respect’ them and I thought, well, hell, they ARE in prison so what is this respect crap. The guards are in control, not the gangs. Take them out of the nice, clean central assembly hall, out of the nice clean caftereia, away from the library, computers, school classes, exercise yards where one plays basketball, lifts weights or clumps in groups and buy and sell drugs.
Put the chains on 'em. But the bright prison overall on 'em. Load the guards shotguns with sabot rounds and chainshot. Have them clean 5 miles of road a day in the hot sun, muck out the ditches, break big stones into gravel, lay hot tar and work on the farm. Poke them into the shops and let them turn out furniture for office buildings – they used to, build orange crates, fruit boxes, stamp out automobile parts, and earn a small salary but mainly pay back their incarceration.
Regulate it all to prevent the abuses of the past – the South was famous for major abuses of that form of system. (Grove owners got free prisoner pickers, lawns done, houses built and so on. Corrupt officials sold off prison produce and labor and pocketed the money and many a prisoner mysteriously died and was buried on prison grounds.)
Two serial killers today have written books, have been on television, have filed many, many a free legal action, and at least one brags about how he lives better in jail than he did on the outside and gets whatever he wants. Put them to work melting down scrap aluminum into giant ingots for resale or sorting through garbage for recyclables. Strip search the bastards on the way back in, let them shower and give them clean uniforms to decrease the possibility of them smuggling any weapons back into the prison.
If they rip out a piece of their bunk to make a knife with – then remove the bunk and let them sleep on a mattress on the floor. They throw feces or urine at a guard or visitor, put them to work in the sewage tanks cleaning them out and see how they like it.
Let them get all the rehabilitation and stuff they want, but only if they MEAN it and let them work in between times. I’m kind of tired of people getting out of jail and bragging about how it was a vacation for them.
After reading some of the other posts a bit more closely, I’d like to venture an opinion that organized prison labor would not create a competitive market concerning goods in the general industry area. (Cripes! Everyone is terrified of anything getting in the way of any part of the market – which is busily slitting everyone else’s throat who might be seen as a competitor anyhow.)
In the past, several prisons not only supported themselves through major farms, but provided economical labor for cash strapped farmers nearby. Plus, they took on government contracts to cheaply produce goods like office products for government offices and military bases.
In the ‘iffy’ area of recycling, they could provide a cheap labor source for sorting through the recyclables and bundling them up to be shipped to the processing plants. (Anyone besides me notice how goods containing ?% recycled materials on the average cost MORE than the normal stuff?)
Prisoners could work for Second Harvest in gathering up foods still remaining in fields for donation to charities. Prisoners could work on farms where the produce goes to prison run canneries to provide food for the poor.
I don’t know, but I’ve watched my local County Workers – all UNION – out working on the roads and figure there has to be a better way. Three people patch a small hole in the road with a bag of tar. One is a driver and two are workers. All make about $12 to $14 an hour and take about an hour or so to fill the hole. I’ve watched road crews working and observed something like 6 people leaning on their shovels watching one person listlessly spread dirt, while two supervisors lean on a truck and make comments and a guy dozes in the cab of a dirt grader.
One friend worked for the County and felt that a good days pay deserved a good days work – and tore up those ditches with his hoe – and was told by the boss to slow down because he was making the others look bad and that they did not want to get done TOO fast because there were more jobs to do. He quit.
So, let prisoners start doing many of those jobs. Let them subcontract with other businesses to do ‘skut’ work. Like maybe assembling small parts, cutting out the pieces for chair supports, stamping out lids for jars and such.
Montinator:
“Inertia: Care to provide a cite for your assertion about “legally shot?” AFAIK, the punishment for failure to obey a lawful order is jail time plus a Dishonorable or Bad Conduct discharge.
Now, during time of a declared war, the order could be to go into battle. The crime, in that case, would be of desertion, not mere disobedience.” Yes, I was referring to desertion.
“I cheer for the western Chief of Police who established a tent city, stopped television, stopped hot meals, stopped girlie mags, smokes, and stopped the daily grind of lifting weights, going to the library, filing lawsuit after lawsuit over things like cold beans for supper or not being allowed fresh goats blood because a prisoner is suddenly some form of crackpot religion.” Yeah, that’s the same guy that makes 'em wear pink uniforms.
There’s a lot of talk about how great the “road gangs” are and how there should be more of them. But keep in mind the labor pool you’re dealing with here. Do you really want to pick a crew of a dozen lifers who committed murder, rape, assault, etc and take them out to work in public every day? The bottom line is that the purpose of prison is to protect society not get potholes filled, and society is better protected by keeping hard core prisoners inside the walls.
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My neighbor is a practicing X. X’s are known by all to be evil, despicable people. By his filthy, disgustingactions, he endangers our society, our morals and even our lives! I whip out my gun and shoot this SOB.
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I claim a shred of moral sense. I get together with my neighbors and we make sure that he’s really an X. We find beyond a reasonable doubt that he is a filthy disgusting horrible X. Now we shoot him.
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We don’t kill him. We just take this monstrous X and lock him in a dank cell, and make sure he’s sufficiently brutalized, tormented, and enslaved to put the fear into other would-be X’s who might dare to practice their digusting habits.
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We have a sense of humility. We’re pretty sure that X’s really are a danger. So we segregate the X’s, allow them to live in relative peace where they cannot harm us, and they might even receive treatment to cure their X-ness.
No, I’m not going to subsitute Jew, or homosexual, or black for X; that would be too easy.
In all four scenarios, we sound morally rightous when we subsitute ‘criminal’ for X.
However in the first three we become unspeakable savages when we substitute the term ‘schitzophrenic’.
Are all you macho chain-gang thumbscrew-toting self-righteous hard-asses absolutely sure that you will not be judged by history as were the medieval savages who tortured and abused the mentally ill?
If you are, I pity you. I have found my life to be immeasurably richer when I began to strive to abandon all hatred from my heart, and the desire to cause harm to any person from my will.
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
Inertia: There’s a difference between “Disobeying an Order” and “Desertion.” Thanks for your clarification as to which you were discussing. Desertion during a declared war carries the maximum penalty of death; during peacetime, it’s a severe penalty but not death. Rape, however, even during peacetime does carry the maximum penalty, under the UCMJ, of death. For those who are unaware, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is a part of Federal Law passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. For those who have been sentenced to military prisons (or who have worked in them {I was TAD as TPU Brig Staff in Olongapo for one month}, the routine for the prisoners is quite severe insofar as loss of freedom goes; it’s nothing at all like you see in the movies. Prisoners in a ship’s brig must request permission to go from one room to another within the confines of the brig.
(BTW, “Montinator” is supposed to mean what exactly?)
Regarding the “Western Chief of Police:” Y’all appear to be referring to a particular Sheriff in Arizona, based in Pheonix, IIRC. Reader’s Digest had an article concerning him and his prisoners just a few months ago.
Out here in California (and some other States, no doubt), the non-violent offenders do get the option of volunteering to earn some cash during the wildfire season, and for the most part they’ve served the State very well by fighting forest fires. That definitely counts, IMHO, as “hard labour.”
SingleDad-
What is your point, exactly? Are you saying that criminality is just a form of mental illness? Do you think that it is immoral to punsish people for being criminals?
SingleDad:
You seem to have left out 3.5 in your numbering off possible scenarios for dealing with your X neighbor problem.
3.5) We are just and fair. The X has been tried, and found guilty of being a danger to society. We segregate the X, and require that he help pay for his roomy cell, cable TV, gym, etc. by working at his place of incarceration. If the X wants help to reform, we give it to him.
I would have no problem substituting the word “schizophrenic” for “X” in 3.5. Actually, if “X” were “schizophrenic”, I would violate their consent even further by changing the last sentence of 3.5 to read “Regardless of the X’s desire for help, we give it to him.”
The requirement of work involves no “hatred from my heart”, and in no way causes harm to the prisoner. In fact, I would argue that a prisoner might benefit from doing some honest work (schizophrenic or not).
In response to:
“On an aside to SingleDad: What the heck are you talking about? “A moral violation of the highest order”? “Activities intentionally designed to cause pain or distress”? Jeez, get some perspective. We’re talking about things like mopping floors or washing dishes not Nazi war crimes.”
From Little Nemo, You write:
“Once we exercise our power to incarcerate someone, we then must assume the obligation to positively guarantee the rights he retains since we have stripped him of his own power to defend them.”
I just want some clarification here… I assume (hope) you are referring to:
“Activities intentionally designed to cause pain or distress”,
and not saying that a prisoner has the right to sit on his/her rear end all day. If you are suggesting that a prisoner has the right to sit on his/her rear end all day, where did this right come from? Also, to what “Activities intentionally designed to cause pain or distress” were you referring?
As for viewing “people who commit serious violent crimes to be dangerously insane”, I will agree with the dangerous part, but insane? Sure, some are insane, but most? I don’t think so. I think it has more to do with a lack of respect and care for others. I have no problem killing a bug that is bothering me. This is because I have no respect for the bug, and I don’t care how it feels, what happens to it, or how it’s relatives will feel about its death. I don’t think this makes me insane. It just shows that I don’t care about or respect my victim. Same goes for violent criminals. We’re not talking about a chemical imbalance here. This is a learned behavior, and is not involuntary, as insanity would suggest.
BTW, I like your web site. Well done. I may disagree with some of the philosophies, but like I said… well done. Anyway, it is so much more interesting to read/hear ideas that differ from your own than it is to read/hear your own ideas come out of someone else’s keyboard/pen/mouth/(whatever).
On second thought, I believe that referring to how a bug’s relatives will feel about its death does indeed make me insane. I stand corrected.
Well, … 'Kay. In response to the X thread concerning X people and our alleged inhumanity towards the mentally incompetent of X, X, and X race, religion or species, I need to point out that the majority of hard time criminals are not nuts, mentally ill, deranged, off their rockers or crackers.
They are simply mean, selfish, rebellious and mostly arrogant. Road work is not for the major killers, who might escape but it is certainly fine for those who did little things like bank robbery, rape, beat someone into the hospital or snatched purses. Killers doing life can work in the prison farm, behind fences and armed guards.
I never have liked the current move towards disarming most prison guards anyhow, especially those on watch out of the reach of the prison population. Arm them not just with rifles and pistols but machine guns. To prevent abuses by guards, try paying them more in order to get in a better class of guard. Increase the amount of guards in the prisons also.
I noticed that the rich complain bitterly about taxes and most tax cuts mainly benefit them, but those same taxes help support the prisons, which keep the nasty people from attacking the wealthy in order to steal their riches.
Besides, it has been proven in several areas, over many years, that prisons can be made to be almost self sustaining or at least contribute heavily towards their own support. It’s only been about 30 years since, suddenly, prisoners could go to jail and do nothing but watch restricted TV, lift weights, attend school, attend college, attend groups, mingle in the Yard and run drug businesses, form controlling gangs and actually make money while there. Before that, selected prisoners worked beyond the prison to assist the county, while those too dangerous to let out worked on prison farms and in prison machine or wood shops.
The prison warden who runs the tent city has a load of unhappy prisoners – in pink underwear – and, as usual, there are civil rights groups trying real hard to find violations he might be doing to shut him down. BUT, those prisoners do NOT find doing time very easy and probably will not want to do anything to have to go back there.
Plus, they have less access to anything which they might use as weapons, and are placed under the same conditions – to an extent – that anyone in the military has gone through. (A worse punishment would be to feed them Meals Ready to Eat, like the REAL soldiers get to experience.) Even better would be those noodle meals in a bag one finds in grocery stores at like 5 for a dollar.
Prisons are not hotels! They are there to punish people. Normal people don’t want to go there! I’ve never been convicted of a crime, have no criminal record (aside from an expired license – but I paid the fine) and have never done hard time. I have, however, been in jail over night for various reasons and what I experienced there convinced me that I would NOT want to go there for any length of time.
Some people seem to like jail. Those are the ones who need to be persuaded not to like it so much and to stay straight.
The prisoners owe a debt to society. That debt will not be repaid by them sitting in a room somewhere while I pay for their food. It will be paid by them cleaning up my highways. CHAIN GANGS!
In Florida, at least, you will pay more to support them, transport them and guard them while they pick up trash on the die of the highway. They will also pick up less trash while chained together. I can understand the position of those who argue we should punish them more harshly. I can understand the position of those who say we should require them to perform effective work to offset the cost of thier upkeep. What I fail to understand is how people can imagine that both goals can be acomplished at the same time. Have we become so anamored of sound-bite politics that we don’t even care whether an idea makes practical sense anymore?
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Firstly, making prisoners work to pay their board, seeing as how cushy and fun their lives are, is an easy knee jerk reaction to crime. As single dad pointed out, the inmates have already lost many of their rights, it is society’s duty to protect the few that are left, these are after all people we are talking about, not animals.
Secondly, the inmates have already lost their freedom, that is what prison does; enforcing labour would be additional punishment and only fair if their sentence was reduced to account for this, something that not many posters on this thread would ever consider.
Thirdly, since the work inmates would do would certainly not cover the cost of incarcration, and since 4 million adults in prison demonstrates that prison isn’t such an effective deterent even if it is very unpleasant, what is to be gained by forcing prisoners into grudging, sullen labour for years or months, making them that much more aggressive and resentful when they get out.
It makes angry people feel better.
In the short term, at least.
As I have said before, keep some perspective. How about this: We take “X” and give him a fair trial, allowing him full due process and providing him with legal assistance if needed. If it is then determined that “X” committed an act that society judges as seriously criminal (such as murder or rape) he will be confined in a place where he will be prevented from repeating that act. While there he will be provided with food, shelter, medical care, and opportunities for education and rehabilitation. “X” will also be required to make his bed and pick up after himself.
From your post, you’d think we were talking about ethnic cleansing or something.
Mixed reactions here. On the one hand, I’m insulted by the implication there should be a better class of guard. On the other hand, I’m intrigued by the offer of more money.
I’d be interested, SingleDad, how long your love for your fellow man and abolution of hatred would stand up once you are behind those bars with the compassionate, missunderstood convicts. I’m sure your life would stay rich and your heart would stay solid gold.
The ivory tower is a great place and all, but there’s some sick shit happening down here.
Sentinel, very good points - I agree with you! One of the biggest problems in prisons today are gangs. We need to eliminate the socializing and recreation of convicts - on their down time they should too tired to do anything but sleep. Perhaps, though, instead of chains and shotguns we need to develop a more powerful electric ‘dog collar’ which would be afixed to their neck or chest and deliver an incapacitating or fatal electric shock upon the escape of the violent convict. Oh, yeah - don’t let them sit around eating eggs either: that’s just gross.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Spiritus, are you sure about the cost? It makes sense that extra expense is involved for guards and transportation but isn’t the cost of regular roadway mowing and cleaning crews reduced? I have personally never seen prisoners actually chained together while working although I don’t doubt it happened. (happens?) I did use to see gangs of prisoners out working under guard but not on chains.
A lot of people sentenced to public service in lieu of jail do roadway clean up work–why not have non-violent, low risk prisoners do the same?
SAKI: Don’t think that the shock collar has not been thought of ever since some bright boy invented it for dogs. I have no problem with using it on many of the prisoners I have met.
Many of the hard core prisoners, in my opinion, should be never let loose on society again and probably we would be better off exterminating them. Far to many are repeat offenders no matter WHAT form of rehabilitation they have been given. Short of a frontal lobotomy, nothing is going to stop them from being thugs.
A man holds up a store for drug money. He shoots and cripples the cash girl – just because he did not like her color. He goes to jail. Gets out on probation, starts into drugs and beats the hell out of some guy in a dispute, using a rock that sends the guy to the hospital for months and in rehabilitation for years. He goes to jail. Gets out on probation. He hold up a store, steals a car and wrecks it when being chased by the cops. He goes to jail. Gets out on probation. Beats the hell out of his girlfriend, shoots some guy over a dispute over a loan, does a drive by shooting at someone who owes him drug money and wounds a bystander. Not to mention the beatings he does not get caught doing. The police pull him over for drunk driving and he flees, wrecks his car and injures a bystander. He goes to jail and shortly after, comes up for parole.
You think he’s going to change?