"States may free inmates to save millions"

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Vendaval -> "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 9:13:33 PM)
"States may free inmates to save millions" By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 3, 9:23 PM ET "PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Lawmakers from California to Kentucky are trying to save money with a drastic and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing tens of thousands of convicts from prison, including drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals. Officials acknowledge that the idea carries risks, but they say they have no choice because of huge budget gaps brought on by the slumping economy." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080404/ap_on_re_us/prisoners_early_release;_ylt=Ai7XCgIDxK.AicRcgE5ozJZH2ocA

Termyn8or -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 9:57:17 PM)
If I were to take this country, the first thing I would do is to break everybody out of prison. Perhasps they see the time has come and just agree to let them out ? T

UtopianRanger -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 10:21:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Termyn8or If I were to take this country, the first thing I would do is to break everybody out of prison. Perhasps they see the time has come and just agree to let them out ? T It's about time.... We just can't afford to keep sensationalizing petty crimes and throwing the book at drug addicts and bums. I don't wanna pay for them anymore. Anyways......Reagan said '' Mr. Gorbachev - Tear down this wall ! '' I say to America - '' Tear down these prisons and send the guards and administrative staff down to Wal-Mart to look for new jobs '' - R

popeye1250 -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 10:33:16 PM)
That's the problem, where are the jobs out here for those people that they can make enough to live on?

PrincessDonna -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 10:39:44 PM)
You only have to be the victim of a violent crime once in your life to feel the fear that these proposals create

UtopianRanger -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 10:42:37 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 That's the problem, where are the jobs out here for those people that they can make enough to live on? Well.....Do with them as we do with everything else - leave them at the mercy of the free market. Wal-Mart or the neighborhood Dairy Queen will pick them up for 6.50 an hour. Seriously....instead of manning the ''booking desk'', they can don a blue smock and man the front door at Wal-Mart. - R

kittywitch -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 10:54:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: UtopianRanger quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 That's the problem, where are the jobs out here for those people that they can make enough to live on? Well.....Do with them as we do with everything else - leave them at the mercy of the free market. Wal-Mart or the neighborhood Dairy Queen will pick them up for 6.50 an hour. Seriously....instead of manning the ''booking desk'', they can don a blue smock and man the front door at Wal-Mart. - R You can't feed more than one person on 6.50 an hour. We're living off of the paycheck of a prison guard, and are barely scraping by with three people. (One of us is a computer programmer and so gets paid when he gets a section of the program written, and then it's anywhere from 500- 1000 in one shot, and I have scoliosis and can't work). while I do believe that there are a lot of people thrown in prison for stupid things (drugs and the like) there are some people who deserved to be locked away from society (the thought of having a mass murderer walking the streets again bothers me something fierce.). I live in a reletively small town. If you don't work for the prison system, you work for walmart. If walmart shuts down, there would me probably at least 100 if not closer to 200 people who have no job. And even though the walmart in town is slightly understaffed, no way could they take on so many people.

Leatherist -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 10:58:27 PM)
They should start with the drug offenses. That whole gig is stupid anyhow. And thieves should be getting farmed out as forced labor to pay restitution to thier victims anyhow. And to cover the costs of nursemaiding thier stupid asses.

UtopianRanger -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 11:06:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittywitch quote: ORIGINAL: UtopianRanger quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 That's the problem, where are the jobs out here for those people that they can make enough to live on? Well.....Do with them as we do with everything else - leave them at the mercy of the free market. Wal-Mart or the neighborhood Dairy Queen will pick them up for 6.50 an hour. Seriously....instead of manning the ''booking desk'', they can don a blue smock and man the front door at Wal-Mart. - R You can't feed more than one person on 6.50 an hour. We're living off of the paycheck of a prison guard, and are barely scraping by with three people. (One of us is a computer programmer and so gets paid when he gets a section of the program written, and then it's anywhere from 500- 1000 in one shot, and I have scoliosis and can't work). while I do believe that there are a lot of people thrown in prison for stupid things (drugs and the like) there are some people who deserved to be locked away from society (the thought of having a mass murderer walking the streets again bothers me something fierce.). I live in a reletively small town. If you don't work for the prison system, you work for walmart. If walmart shuts down, there would me probably at least 100 if not closer to 200 people who have no job. And even though the walmart in town is slightly understaffed, no way could they take on so many people. Ok....you've made some wonderful points here. Let's compromise. We won't place an extra burden on Wal-Mart to over-staff their stores--that'll take away from shareholder profits---we'll instead outsource eighty percent of the prison population to the China and re-invest thirty percent of the savings into retraining the prison work force to become mortgage brokers and insurance vendors. Ok? - R

Hippiekinkster -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 11:08:25 PM)
It's the Bush Economic Miracle!

popeye1250 -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/6/2008 11:48:17 PM)
Time to go gun shopping!

meatcleaver -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 1:36:08 AM)
With so many people are in American prisons you can bet your life most shouoldn't be there. Prisons, as is well known, are universities of crime, people go in and come out better criminals (edit correction) or drug addicts. Locking people up as always been a simplistic and failed solution to minor crime. People should only be in prison if they are a phyasical danger to society. Britian has the same problem as the US and yet again, locking people up is a simplistic populist and failed policy. As stupid as that other failed policy, the war on drugs. I suppose we get the politicians we deserve, ones that don't think because the people that vote for them don't think either.

LadyEllen -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 1:46:52 AM)
We've had this a long while - its great! With half the sentence knocked off for "good behaviour", less time on remand waiting trial, even such as abduct and rape under age girls are out in less than two years. E

meatcleaver -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 2:12:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LadyEllen We've had this a long while - its great! With half the sentence knocked off for "good behaviour", less time on remand waiting trial, even such as abduct and rape under age girls are out in less than two years. E LE, I used to work in the Probation Service, I've seen the nonsensical policies at first hand. I worked with one unemployed youth who was making his own guitar (to be a rock star ha ha) and shop lifted a pick up and strings on separate occasions and got three months. He came out an heroine addict stealing for his habit. Yeah, he was wrong for shoplifting but community work would ahve been a more fitting sentence, he wasn't violent, abusive, he was just unemployed with no job prospects. Society ended up with another burglar to deal with. That story can be multiplied. If someone rapes someone, they should be inside because they are violent but no one is arguing with that.

LadyEllen -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 2:28:16 AM)
Exactly MC - wouldnt it have been easier all round just to give him a guitar and amp? They do a basic kit for £150-00 these days. Prison should be reserved for violent dangerous offenders - who dont get out until theyre no longer a danger (yes, unlimited sentences), and for those who are serious recurrent offenders of all sorts - ie not paying the TV licence or council tax should not need a prison sentence. Meawhile drug addicts need treatment as do the mentally ill who find themselves locked up. Instead we hear this "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" claptrap, and the band plays on. But until we fix the socio-economic world people are released into, we'll just see the door revolving. E

seeksfemslave -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 2:44:22 AM)
You fix the socio economic model while I adopt a more sensible attitude to drug consumption and come down like a ton of bricks on young thugs, smart arses and generally useless ne'er do wells who start their career at about their early teens. I'll be in Utopia, well nearly, before ya' Serious welfare reform, across society as a whole, would really generate more heat than light. Save a lot of money tho' If the crims have to live in tents eat porridge and beans and dig latrines behind a wall ,which they could construct themselves, so be it.

meatcleaver -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 3:32:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave If the crims have to live in tents eat porridge and beans and dig latrines behind a wall ,which they could construct themselves, so be it. I don't think City financiers would be up to living in tents, eating porridge and digging latrines but I'm all for it seeks.

sharainks -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 3:44:52 AM)
I work in a prison as well. You would not believe the number ofpeople coming into the system with less than 6 months to do. For that 6 months the state goes to the expense of running them through a battery of psychological tests, IQ test, etc etc. We have had people who have less than a month to do by the time they get through that process. There are better ways to deal with these people than prison. I doubt too many states will be putting the hardcore criminals back on the streets. Rather, it will be the minimum custody inmates who don't have much time to serve anyway. The states who make having tobacco in prison a felony crime could reverse that and boot some of those that got another year or two tacked onto their sentences out of prison for getting caught having tobacco. The tobacco restriction has been a dismal failure in my state and there is almost daily finds of this "contraband." There there are the mentally ill who are housed in prisons because there is no place else for them. The parole board won't let them out because of that. I've seen mentally ill folks kept in for 30 years for a crime that most people serve 3-4 years for. Is there something wrong with this picture?

cjan -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 6:16:34 AM)
The prisons, both federal and state (and local jails, btw) are packed with prisoners for relatively small dope offenses. I once met a young man doing 8 years federal time (no parole) for selling 300 hits of LSD. Under the current federal sentencing guidelines the judge was mandated by law to pass sentence according to the weight of the relevant substance. In this case, unfortunately for the young man, the acid was on blotter paper which is relatively heavy. Local jails are packed with poor young black men who are awaiting trial. They haven't been convicted yet, but can't make bail. Another young man I met (18) had been there for months awaiting trial because he couldn't post a $5k ($500 cash) bond on a an auto theft charge. And yes, these places are gladiator schools and worse.

pahunkboy -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 6:49:22 AM)
I think I want better locks on my home. Most prisoners -are there for a reason. Even if they went in under iffy circomstances, in order to survive they have to con, and make deals with others. We as a society haven't trained people to do jobs that people need done. I used to think that these guys were geniuses, but they were mis-directed. Channel that talent into something good, and one could excel. A guy like me would be slaughterred by the prison type. They only respect people that can kick their azz. Train these guys to work in nursing homes, to do home maintenence-repairs, like electrical painting, etc. There is a method to my madness. I had wrote 3 prisoners. Well that fizzled- so I wrote 3 more. Did not hear anything. So 3 more, 3 more, 3more. Next thing I know, my home mail box was filled with replies!! Due to a glitch the mail was held up for a month! so now 50 prisoners had my information, including my street address. 4 years later- I heard from prisoners I had not even written to! [they pass on the names] they also lie. I was lured in, something seemed odd- so I went to the state prison website. the pic was not him, the rap sheet was many pages of serious violent convictions! Think the internet is bad? it is nothing compared to writing prisoners! then there is a subculture of prisoner groupies..all bad news. I was glad to move. I wont make that mistake again.

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