Guest Post by The Zman
One of the under discussed topics floating around Washington is prison reform, which has the support of President Trump. His son-in-law has been quietly whipping support for a bill backed by the White House. Trump’s photo-op with Kim Kardashian was part of the effort to get Democrat support for the bill. The point of the reform plan is to put more money into training and counseling for inmates, in an effort to reduce recidivism and decrease the prison population. America has 2.2 million prisoners which is the highest in the world.
Prison reform in America is a loser of an issue, mostly because all previous prison reform efforts have been nothing more than opening up the jails, so blacks could run wild in the streets. Even if you are not old enough to remember the crime wave of the 1970’s, the “soft on crime, bleeding heart liberal” is a stock figure in pop culture. As a result, whites are solidly against anything with the name “prison reform” in it. That’s why you never see blacks on TV making demands for prison reform. Their handlers have no interest in it.
Republicans in the House and Senate are in no hurry to pass anything. Even the open borders fanatics, who want to fill your neighborhood with criminal aliens and MS-13 gang-bangers, are not in a hurry to pass anything. Instead, they are doing the “comprehensive reform” dance, which is how politicians manage to do nothing, while endlessly talking about the need to do something. That means the odds of something getting done in the near term is not good, even if Trump is behind the effort. It’s bad politics right now.
That does not mean the status quo is workable. We have roughly 2.2 million people in jail at anyone moment. There are roughly 4.7 million people on parole, house arrest and court supervision. In a country of 300 million, that’s not a huge number, but seven million people is more than the population of Paraguay. It’s close to twice the population of Ireland. There are 125 countries with less than seven million residents. One reason we have so many people in jail is it is a lot easier to manage criminals in jail than when they are on parole.
Of course, the prison population is about 40% black. That means about about 2.5% of black people are in jail at any one time. Another 5% are under court supervision of some sort. As has been pointed out for decades, eliminate black crime and America is suddenly as docile as any other Western nation. That brings us back to the politics of prison reform, as everyone knows the stats on black crime. Since addressing the realities of the black population in America is forbidden, we maintain a massive human warehousing system.
The looming problem is demographics. In the 1990’s, getting tough on crime mostly meant longer sentences for smaller crimes. The “broken windows” approach to policing is mostly mythology, but getting crime under control does have a real impact. It works the same way the death penalty worked to pacify Europe. By handing out long jail sentences, cities like New York culled the herd, so to speak. Eventually though, the people sent away for 20 years get out on parole or served their time. What happens to them at that point?
A useful example, although not representative, is Joseph Konopka, who went by the name Dr. Chaos in his criminal career. He recruited a groups of young people he called The Realm of Ch@os, who committed acts of terrorism and vandalism in Wisconsin and Illinois. Konopka was arrested plotting a mass cyanide attack on the Chicago transit system. He is serving a 20-year sentence at ADX Florence. He will be released, having served all of his sentence, in August of next year. How is that going to work out?
For those unfamiliar, ADX Florence is a prison for the worst the system has to offer. It is called a “supermax” prison, but the inmates call it the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It holds people like Larry Hoover of the Gangster Disciples, Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham of the Aryan Brotherhood. They also have Zacarias Moussaoui, Faisal Shahzad, Ramzi Yousef, Ted Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph. In other words, when Konopka comes out, he will have spent 20 years living with some of the most dangerous and depraved men on earth.
This is an extreme example, but illustrative of the problem facing modern America. The solution to crime was to lock people up, which made sense at the time, but no one thought much about what those prisons would produce in 20-30 years. Granted, many men coming out of the system are going to be old, but they will still be useless, as the prison did nothing to ready them for life after jail. There’s zero chance the social justice warriors running FaceBook or Starbucks will be hiring Joseph Konopka upon his release.
The right answer, of course, is to start accepting reality about the last 70 years of social reform that started after WW2. Crime spiraled upward when the constraints on non-whites were removed and diversity was imposed on whites. Steve Sailer famously used Katrina and the subsequent collapse of New Orleans to illustrate this biological reality. Black crime would be half of what it is today, most of which is against other blacks, if whites were willing to reimpose the sorts of cultural restraints common before Civil Rights.
That said, the diversity horse has left the barn. By turning America into a majority-minority nation, the ruling class of the last half century has condemned future generations to endemic crime problems like you see in Brazil. One solution to this is the return of penal colonies and criminal reservations. The people serving life terms should be housed on remote islands where they can live out their lives, without causing harm to other prisoners and prison guards. It is the alternative to the enthusiastic use of the death penalty.
Penal colonies would also mean a shift in sentencing. A guy like Joseph Konopka would not get 20 years. Instead, he would get life in the colony. In fact, a fair chunk of the 2.2 million currently in jail would get sent to the penal colonies. There’s simply no point in pretending that a man can come out after 30 years in a gladiator academy and be a normal person in society. There’s no point in pretending the rest of us wish to invest in the effort, even assuming it is possible. Penal colonies humanely address this problem.
End the war on drugs/prostitution/gambling and every other consensual crime. That alone will cut prison populations by massive numbers. Focus punishment on RESTITUTION to the victim and/or their family rather than on RETRIBUTION meant to make “society” feel better. Focus on actually finding out the TRUTH, rather than simply gaining a conviction. Convictions are the life-blood of useless DAs, Judges, and other government parasites running for office, but convicting people who did NOT commit the crime only leaves real criminals on the streets. Prosecutorial misconduct is rooted in this desire to win cases at all costs, regardless of the evidence against the accused. Fundamentally, getting government 100% OUT of the business of “justice” would be the greatest way to fix the system, but most, sadly, do not want to educate themselves about how a private, competitive, free market in justice would be far and away superior to the current failed government monopoly.
You havent addressed the problem of the type of people he is talking about in the article. Not the petti dope dealer, but the evil men, and murderous.
Very good comment by Mr liberty.
A first (and large) step would be to end official immunity for all government types, including prosecutors, judges, police and firefighters, code enforcement and child welfare personnel. End “plea bargaining” as well.
Get rid of government and all those issues go away.
Many years ago I heard a wise man explain why the idea of “rehabilitation” was a non-starter. He explained that rehabilitation is defined as “returning to a former constructive state” and that most prisoners were repeat offenders precisely because they had no former constructive state to return to.
Undoubtedly true, but as much as reasonably possible, prisons shouldn’t be centers of abuse (whether by staff or other inmates). People are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment, and there are innocent people in prison.
I loved Papillon. Great movie, even better book.
Kafka’s Penal Colony on the other hand- great story, would make a boring movie.
I spent 5 years working for a State Corrections agency with access to all their information. The agency’s focus, of course, was training and education during incarceration with the goal of reducing recidivism. Generally speaking, 2/3rds are going to re-offend when they’re released, regardless of the behavioral training and education offered. The reason, IMHO, is found when you read about the home lives. The amount of abuse and neglect throughout the lives of many offenders is absolutely shocking. What these people do to others in their personal lives, outside the crime that got them convicted, indicates that many simply aren’t capable of living in a civilized society. They have no concept of what we might call a “normal” life. They are beasts of prey.
What to do? The author has named the choices: widespread use of the death penalty (the poor nation’s solution) or removal from society (the rich nation’s solution). Since we’ve spent trillions of dollars and 50 years of propaganda trying to turn blacks into middle-class whites, we are now becoming a poor nation. We should choose the fitting solution.
Curse of Ham.
My dad though a democrat would agree. I also worked in a jail for 18 months. I wanted to find out where the parents lived and go slap them. The only way to break the cycle is kill all the offenders above a class of felony. Turn them into fertilizer or harvest their organs like PRC does thereby making them productive. Pay off the guards via buyouts and shrink the prison industry. Do away with private prisons (as they have contracts with state governments that guarantee a high level of occupancy). All races. The balance would return to society. But the corporation of the USA needs the present system.
Criminal Justice is now like Public Education, Modern Child Rearing & Dating, Fiat Currency, Financial Debt Slavery, Government Student Loans, Automobile “options”, honest Voting, Modern Divorce, Modern Art, Hip Music, Modern Architecture, New Religion, Gender Blenders, Relational Ethics, Fake Government Statistics & Hedonic Values, Made to Fail & Impossible to Repair Products, house options & construction materials/methods, etc: Just return to what worked best for people for Christ’s sake and screw forced/coerced liberalism, feminism, the NWO, New Age Agendas, Environmental & Gender Nazis, Globalism, Diversity, Affirmative Action, Equality, Quotas, busing, set asides, etc!
If a person has a Soul Black as Hell, paying some Social Worker to “re-educate” and rehabilitate the person is like taming a snake.
It’s worse than that. Repeated exposure to such evil eats the often soft soul of the social worker. Even probation/parole officers have troubles after a few years on the job. You can’t turn off what you’re exposed to.
Reduced sentences for some drug offenses are probably warranted. The proposition that there are lots of people serving long sentences for personal possession of small amounts of weed is largely overblown, but not entirely. Long penalties for trafficking in heroin are fine by me, since I don’t hold to a Denninger-like libertarian purity. Some tough-on-crime people argue that a great many convicts in prison for a non-violent drug offense also committed another violent crime that either couldn’t quite be proven or was ignored as part of a plea deal. Possibly, but that’s a shitty was to do criminal justice. There are egregious examples of minor criminals caught up in Three Strikes Laws.
What I’d really like to see is an end to civil forfeiture laws. We’re supposed to have a 5th amendment around here: “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or PROPERTY, without due process of law”.
37% of prison inmates are Blacks and 25% are illegals, make it illegal to incarcerate Blacks and illegals and the problem is solved.
Or do what countries like Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia do, all with lower incarceration rates than we have, and just execute them. Dead criminals don’t show up in prison occupancy statistics and serve as a rather strong deterrent for others thinking about committing crimes.
Man’s so-called “justice” system is based on punishment. God’s is based on Restitution.
The other problem, even Christians do not seem to really believe in the Resurrection.
The deterant is if you cannot restore what you have taken, your own life is forfeit. You are sat on the shelf until judgement day. If you can restore what you have taken you are assisted in doing it.
People are imitating their idol [ a divine tyrant ] rather than a loving Creator.
You’ll never have prison or any other reform until the likes of Hillary and Comey take residence in one. And not a club with racquetball courts. Let them fear for their lives like the rest of us would.
Let’s not pretend that whites don’t end up on the wrong side of the law as well. How many 20 something white kids have been thrown to the ground by bubba, the deputy of (insert shit kicking county) because of a marijuana cigarette in the ash tray? Or even worse, some prostitution sting, which ordinarily would be called “entrapment.”
I’m sick of talking and hearing about the darkies. Prison reform affects all of us, and the sooner victimless crimes are taken off the books, the sooner the jails can be filled with actual thieves. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” as Stalin’s premier one said. Any cop will tell you the same thing, and I’ve heard them say it. And trust, me, they’ll flash their badge to get out of any sting, so they don’t need prison reform.
The rhyme of The Aleutian Solution echos with this post. A penal colony in the Aleutian Islands gives new meaning to an island getaway.
I like it.
Training and counseling?? Sounds like a jobs program for SJW college graduates. More government payroll and pensions. That bull shit doesn’t work and never has.
we already have that in the public school system. That hasn’t worked there there either.
The only thing wrong with the prison system is that it needs to spend as much per prisoner as Mexican or Brazilian prisons. There is plenty of opportunity for training and counseling for niggers but they don’t take advantage of it.
The more we define a law the harder it is to enforce. This was by design because more laws were needed and more lawyers and cops.
When the Natural Law was replaced with Rule of Law that’s what happened. The family unit was permitted to settle most grievances under natural law. We’ve been dis-educated, mis-educated and mal-educated into believing that was a bad thing and rule of law was far superior.
I can already hear the mal-educated Manpussies replies.
@MrLiberty: You have identified the problems leading to our criminal problems but not the major culprit. The major culprit is administrative laws, rules & regulations and how this form of law in our country being misused has nearly ruined this country. This law operating without consideration of values has created many criminals. Administrative law needs to be reformed in order to work on the reform of the criminal justice system. A system of values need to be instilled into this now amoral form of law that now only rules by facts alone. Restitution and forgiveness should be the goal of the justice system; that focuses on repentance by the perpetrator leading to a change of mind and consequently actions. Administrative law does not recognize repentance because it is a value, not a fact. While some judges have sympathy for repentance they still have to rule within the law.
In regard to reforming the criminal justice system my thoughts on this go more along with the penal colonies but with different objectives than the past ones. I have seen two generations of people grow up with little or no values instilled into them by their parents or society. This has led to a great increase of criminality in all classes of our society from the working class all the way up to the elites.
I would like to see a totally new approach to criminal justice first recognizing that just as there are different classes of people there are different classes and levels of criminality. Each of these classes and levels have to be identified and assigned remedies that have an impact on the psychological level of the offender.
This country has vast tracks of vacant land where new facilities can be constructed to house, work and re-educate low level criminals and teach them to become productive citizens. I would call them communities of the 21st century. I think in the distant past they were called cities of refuge where criminals that could be rehabilitated were given the tools to change and if they could not be changed other remedies were used.
It seems to me that the first experience a criminal would go through upon entering one of these communities is to go thought a military type boot camp to establish in the mind a sense of order and respect of command. Second would come even during boot camp a series of tests to find out that person’s capabilities for vocational training, accounting, record keeping, etc.
After boot camp would then come the placement and activities to be undertaken by the individual.
The goal of the penal colony would be to become a self sufficient town. This would involve the following:
1. Building infrastructure like water, power, and sanitary facilities.
2. Building small factories that produce durable goods.
3. Building small houses and commercial buildings.
4. Developing agriculture and raising animals.
The money to start these penal communities could be issued by interest free government loans that would be paid back over a period of time when the communities become productive and self sufficient.
As an aside, this country is facing overpopulated cities with a severe lack of affordable housing. Homelessness is rampant in all our cities. Conversely, we have billions and billions of acres of vacant land that can be developed into new communities so people can have room to live and thrive with new production facilities that can make those new towns self sufficient. New technologies are coming online that can make possible what before was not possible.
People need a purpose in life. It seems today that many people feel they have no purpose in life. Could that be why so many have turned to crime? Don’t know but what I do know is many felons need a second chance and many are not getting it thanks to our unforgiving laws and regulations.
Rome was built by felons and ex slaves. Why can’t america do the same?
What say you?
Pretty damn good ideas.
Why not have them re-hab all the abandoned Detroit housing stock?
Well, first, though I only identified drugs, prostitution, gambling, and the generic “other consensual crimes), implied in there were ALL crimes without victims. Administrative BS from the government would certainly fall into that category. The “government,” “society,” and the like, cannot be a victim. As for your other suggestions, they are creative, and show that there are lots of great ideas for administering “justice” once one steps away from the status quo government “solutions” that empower and enrich the government and its friends. What kind of justice system might we find in a free market of providers? Well, ones that think outside of the box to deliver justice WITHOUT further burdening the taxpayers or the victims.
It wouldn’t work unless one paid enough to get uncorruptable people to run the place.
Prison is a money making/employment scheme like most elements of government. I don’t think we need prisons at all, flogging for misdemeanors and death penalty for capital crimes, rape, murder, kidnapping. As to the innocent being convicted and executed problem, sure it happens but not very much, be careful who you hang out with.
I can’t think of anything worse than the stigma of the current probation system. Once a sentence is complete we should return all rights to the criminal. We have probation because we are imposing sentences that let very dangerous people return to the community…that is just being weak. If a person is that dangerous or has committed that serious of a crime…just kill them.
Think of the $Billions we would save and even better the crimes avoided.
The more important side of the equation is the welfare state. End the welfare state, end all government support to everybody. That includes Medicare and social security. Nothing! Gosh, how cruel you say, well the USA did just fine when we had no government support and more importantly our darker brothers were not the feral animals they are now. They were still low IQ (about 85 on average) but they had strong communities and most black crime was within the true ghetto.
The prison reform and ending government transfer payments would also end immigration in a way that no wall ever will. Economic migrants will stop if they don’t have the skills to compete as there is no Government safety net. Easy and then we won’t be seeing “children being separated from their parents”…the current outrage of the Left.
The local community will also flourish and we will see stronger churches, community food banks etc. The engagement in helping others is also a huge positive.
Of course, criminal asset forfeiture will be ended and all drugs legalized…..but without any government programs the costs of addiction will rise and we will see much less drug use in a short period of time.
The Progressive Big Government state started by Wilson has nearly destroyed the USA.
Reform is just taking less poison, we need to stop taking all poison…….the promise of something for nothing.
Pretty damn good ideas. You and Thunderbird ought to have a meeting of the minds.
Well it goes something like this. Just my thoughts.
Cost of maximum security imprisonment x 20 years = over 1 million. Multiply by a 747 plane load of 365= 365,000,000. 1kg of gold is around 50000. We ask people like the former president of Zimbabwe (substitute any 3rd world tinpot African dictator) “would you like to trade these pieces of shits’ citizenship for 500 kilograms of gold”. Corrupt African dictator is amazingly amenable to this agreement.
So now we ship these pieces of shit of to their new country of citizenship (at our expense- one jumbo load 747) yet before they depart their DNA is collected, retina scanned, photographed and any other test we have to ensure we know who they are and then give them a piece of paper enlightening them to the fact that if they are caught on the soil of said western country, they will be treated as a foreign spy and will be summarily executed as there is no question about their guilt.(Death penalty opponents lose their argument about possible innocence).
How they survive in their new country is not really our problem. Worry about their human rights! Well what about OUR human rights that are constantly violated by these criminals. Tough love goes a long way. This should apply to all recidivist criminals regardless of their country of origin, skin colour, religion or any other diversity claim that can be thought of.
Lets see how these tough guys fare on the streets of Mogadishu or Harare, where life is so cheap and the rules of law don’t fucking apply. Lets see them say to the local copper “I want my lawyer”. Let them ring their criminal kin and clans to tell them how good it is in their new country. Let them have freedom.
I’ll be brave enough to say that after three jumbo loads have departed and one or two execution have occurred, this underclass of recidivist criminal will actively look for a new home (Canada, Mexico or any other country bordering any Western country ready to use this) or a new future as a productive person.
fatty,
i like your idea but i’d rather save the $ just execute them–
how about a point system,x #/points for each conviction,no plea bargaining–
reach 100 points,fire up old sparky–
Tampa..
That’s too easily scammed by Cons. It would just open a black market like trading pollution credits. How about the camel jockey method of removing outer extremities one or two at a time. We could even let them buy their hands back by cleaning bathrooms at night.
baggs,
though it would be difficult,i believe mine has a chance of being enacted.
cutting off fingers,no politician would even propose it–
If we propose mine they might settle for yours.
@ Chubby Bubbles: You got a plan for that? I would be interested in hearing it. How to re-hab souse ears.
ADX Florence – I know the guys who built it and some who
work(ed) there.
There is NO person to person contact, ever. There is always steel between guards and inmates. Always. Within a year the inmate is reduced to a mentally damaged badket case.
We could privatize our prisons. Contract incarceration to Mexico,Turkey, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Criminals would not want to re-offend.
Cliff..
I’ve heard rumors that you have to pay for your own upkeep in those places. So much the better if true.
Yikes
The real world truth is:
Ghetto mutant felons usually commit a crime multiple times before their first arrest.
Ghetto mutant felons are usually arrested multiple times for different occurrences before their first court trial.
Ghetto mutant felons usually go to multiple court trials before they see their first conviction.
Ghetto mutant felons usually have multiple convictions before their first prison sentence (especially by taking plea bargains for probation).
Ghetto mutant felons usually get multiple light sentences before their first long prison sentence.
In the mean time their are numerous victims from all these accumulated offenses that libtards choose to ignore.
That is why prison reform is mostly a libtard fantasy, (with exception of Federal white collar crime prosecutions, and mere possession of marijuana/drugs/narcotics for personal use arrests). It is easy for libtards (progs, and anarchos) to pontificate from afar when they are very safe from the violent criminal fray.