Ohio has a 7.5% unemployment rate, a school funding system that has been ruled unconstitutional, a declining economy, 7th highest tax rate in the country and people are fleeing this state everyday.

What does our state legislature focus on? Making sure inmates can still get their TV.

*facepalm*

dustman81: Ohio has a 7.5% unemployment rate, a school funding system that has been ruled unconstitutional, a declining economy, 7th highest tax rate in the country and people are fleeing this state everyday.

What does our state legislature focus on? Making sure inmates can still get their TV.

*facepalm*

thanks for repeating the headline.

Katie98_KT: dustman81: Ohio has a 7.5% unemployment rate, a school funding system that has been ruled unconstitutional, a declining economy, 7th highest tax rate in the country and people are fleeing this state everyday.

What does our state legislature focus on? Making sure inmates can still get their TV.

*facepalm*

thanks for repeating the headline.

It's just that what the state legislature is concentrating on is so moronic that it had to be repeated.

dustman81: Katie98_KT: dustman81: Ohio has a 7.5% unemployment rate, a school funding system that has been ruled unconstitutional, a declining economy, 7th highest tax rate in the country and people are fleeing this state everyday.

What does our state legislature focus on? Making sure inmates can still get their TV.

*facepalm*

thanks for repeating the headline.

It's just that what the state legislature is concentrating on is so moronic that it had to be repeated.

About the only thing they have going for them right now, IMHO, is the attempt to improve higher education and try to slash tuition inflation. Not that any of it is going to work (at least not right away), but they're trying. Of course, it is an initiative pushed by the Democrats.

/btw ... what the f*ck is up with them outlawing "skill games" but allowing Keno?

What ever happened to prison actually being a punishment.

/No TV for convicts.

You know, if we just kept inmates in a chemically induced coma, I bet we could stack them up 10 to a cell. It would also save money on food.

The_Sponge: What ever happened to prison actually being a punishment.

/No TV for convicts.

Wanna see this pencil disappear?

Rant_Casey's_Rabies_Buffet: /btw ... what the f*ck is up with them outlawing "skill games" but allowing Keno?

The same reasoning that kept my state (NC) from getting the lotto until a couple of years ago, yet allow churches and what not to run bingo games where you can win money.

The_Sponge: What ever happened to prison actually being a punishment.

/No TV for convicts.

I'm pretty sure prison still sucks.

/Not disagreeing with you

The_Sponge: What ever happened to prison actually being a punishment.

/No TV for convicts.

Do you honestly think your views through?

Lets punish criminals. No recreation. No fun. All misery. No learning trades, getting an education, or any of the other options currently in place to help people get back on the straight and narrow.

Four years later, they're released back into society.

And this ex-con mark of shame is almost as rid god damn diculous as the SEX OFFENDER LIST... we've watered down all meaning. Someone who punched the wrong person is marked into the same category as someone who committed a multi-million dollar fraud.

Monkeypillow: The_Sponge: What ever happened to prison actually being a punishment.

/No TV for convicts.

I'm pretty sure prison still sucks.

/Not disagreeing with you

Yeah, if I was offered free room and board, three square meals a day, free TV and free medical care, but had to suffer traumatic ass rape on a daily basis, I'd probably just stick to the ol' day job.

Bored Horde: You know, if we just kept inmates in a chemically induced coma, I bet we could stack them up 10 to a cell. It would also save money on food.

Hey they aren't dead and they'd feel no pain... not cruel... and if we did this to a bunch of criminals, it would also be a usual punishment... not unusual.

I think it's a winner

They shouldn't get TV at all. Someone could announce any major news event going on.

A big TV for special events like the superbowl can be in a main room, available only to inmates who have not caused trouble.

This just in: Governments actually have to deal with *all* issues big or small, whether that makes submittard a sad special snowflake or not.

There we go.

I suppose it keeps them in their cells, drug of the masses et al, and so it's worth something to the prison to keep them tuned in.

Makes their life easier.
End of story.

What, no Asinine tag, subby?

Each prisoner can apply for 2 free converter box coupons worth $ 40 each from the federal government.

Federal Gov't DTV Converter Box Website

>Bored Horde: You know, if we just kept inmates in a chemically
>induced coma, I bet we could stack them up 10 to a cell. It would
>also save money on food.


And when they wake up we can give them a strong urge to sew, and knit and the expert skills to do it too.

Bored Horde: Lets punish criminals. No recreation. No fun. All misery. No learning trades, getting an education, or any of the other options currently in place to help people get back on the straight and narrow.

How is sitting in front of the TV helping inmates learn a trade or get an education?

Rant_Casey's_Rabies_Buffet: About the only thing they have going for them right now, IMHO, is the attempt to improve higher education and try to slash tuition inflation. Not that any of it is going to work (at least not right away)

It will work a year after I graduate from college.

Yanks_RSJ: Bored Horde: Lets punish criminals. No recreation. No fun. All misery. No learning trades, getting an education, or any of the other options currently in place to help people get back on the straight and narrow.

How is sitting in front of the TV helping inmates learn a trade or get an education?

By not making them insane?

You should play Dwarf Fortress, you'll learn that if you don't build your jails in nice areas, with luxurious chains and engraved walls, they'll get out worse than they got in :/

simpsonfan: They shouldn't get TV at all. Someone could announce any major news event going on.

A big TV for special events like the superbowl can be in a main room, available only to inmates who have not caused trouble.

agreed. this digital TV bullshiat is so stupid, i'm going to stop thinking about it before i go stab something.

/thank god i don't live in Ohio or the one i'd stab would be the person who thought this shiat up.
//then i'd get free digital TV!

Thakh: By not making them insane?

So how did society survive for thousands of years before TVs were invented?

You could argue that my grandparents are both insane, but I doubt it's because they didn't have a TV in their home until the late 1950s.

Either do it now or pay 2x as much from prisoners litigating the state later on for cruel and unusual punishment (which they would win i bet).

matt2891: Yeah, if I was offered free room and board, three square meals a day, free TV and free medical care, but had to suffer traumatic ass rape on a daily basis, I'd probably just stick to the ol' day job.

This is why I'm convinced all gang members are gay.
1: getting it in the ass
1A: men who aren't gay tend to avoid this. Usually at pretty much all costs.
1B: men who are gay tend to enjoy this, and actively seek it out (whether to pitch or catch).
1C: There are exceptions to both 1A and 1B, but they're something of a minority.

2: everyone knows you get it in the ass in prison.
2A: most people think "not really my thing, I'll keep the day job."
2B: gangbangers go out of their way to tell the world they're a bunch of criminals. They also view going to prison as not only perfectly normal and acceptable, but something to be proud of. I've run into quite a few thugs and wannabes over the years who have expressed admiration for "hard, penitentiary naggers."

The only logical conclusion is that gangbangers REALLY like their ghey buttsecks.

TV for inmates is a practical measure rather than a reward. If you give confined, violent people absolutely nothing to take their mind off the fact that they're stuck in a small cell, they get stir crazy. Then bad shiat happens.

/I imagine being in prison is still pretty awful

Cost of not providing television to inmates > cost of not providing television to inmates.

You know when you go out on friday and leave little johnny and jane home in front of the TV and dont need a babysitter? Its the same thing on a larger scale.

/economics ftw

Would it be cheaper to install cable or satellite? I doubt it.

If having a pleasant diversion for prisoners like TV saves the lives of even a couple of guards, isn't it worth it?

That should read: Cost of not providing television to inmates > Cost of providing television to inmates

/tarded

Ohio is currently attempting to gerrymander their prison population because it skews the demographics from urban where the prisoners come from to rural where the prisons are. They soon may be answering the question, "what happens if you incarcerate 10% of the population, and while they're in prison everybody else leaves?"

MikeFallopian: TV for inmates is a practical measure rather than a reward. If you give confined, violent people absolutely nothing to take their mind off the fact that they're stuck in a small cell, they get stir crazy. Then bad shiat happens.

/I imagine being in prison is still pretty awful

Pretty much what I meant.

What we've got here is failure to communicate!



Fark em! As long as they pay for it themselves, so be it. Personally, I'd like to see prisons go back to a little more "Cool Hand Luke".

Seriously... if they want that converter box, let them pay the $40 per TV that the rest of us have to.

Or, buy cable but only allow the History Channel, A&E, Discovery, PBS, and maybe a couple other education-only channels. No MTV (1 or 2 or other), no VH1, no BET, no ESPN (1, 2, 3, or 7), etc.

Its farking prison. Being entertained while you fulfill terms of a punishment is not a right.

Or maybe my parents were doing it wrong when they taught me those lessons (you know, right v. wrong) when I was a kid. Those sure as hell weren't entertaining. Oh wait - those lessons were farking effective!

/only a wee bit bitter

I'm amazed at the hypocrisy I see here. Most Farkers seem to rail against the unfairness of our drug laws and the police state we live in. Yet, once people are in prison for, oh, I don't know, getting busted with pot, they deserve to suffer any punishment our sadistic minds can come up with. Let well behaved prisoners have over the air TV, and don't continue turning our prisons into schools for criminals.

Aar1012: Rant_Casey's_Rabies_Buffet: About the only thing they have going for them right now, IMHO, is the attempt to improve higher education and try to slash tuition inflation. Not that any of it is going to work (at least not right away)

It will work a year after I graduate from college.

Yeah, I hear ya. I graduate in the spring so it isn't going to do a damn thing to help me either. It's still some, sort of hope for progress ... we'll see in a few years.

matt2891: Rant_Casey's_Rabies_Buffet: /btw ... what the f*ck is up with them outlawing "skill games" but allowing Keno?

The same reasoning that kept my state (NC) from getting the lotto until a couple of years ago, yet allow churches and what not to run bingo games where you can win money.

I'm still confounded that the state wants to ban "random chance" games and we still have cardboard crack / the lottery.

Antilope: Each prisoner can apply for 2 free converter box coupons worth $ 40 each from the federal government.

Federal Gov't DTV Converter Box Website (new window)

Sadly, The Man^TM has violated the human rights of inmates by making them ineligible to apply for convertor box coupons.

Family members, however, could possibly give theirs to their loved ones in lockdown. Fight the power!

From TFA:

Prisoners don't qualify for the coupons because they don't live in a "household," said Bart Forbes, spokesman for the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Forbes' agency encourages people to give one of their coupons to their relatives behind bars. "What you can't do is sell them - that's illegal. But you can give them away."

Carson said Ohio prison officials, who tightly control what items can be sent into prison, would have to adopt a policy before such gifts would be permitted.

The_Sponge What ever happened to prison actually being a punishment. /No TV for convicts.

Oh I agree with this 10000000%. I think the prisons of the early 1900's had it closer to right than we have it today. They should be farmed out as free labor or sold to the highest bidder for labor. They should work their assess off with no exceptions. Go home tired, eat a meal that passes for a meal only if you've been in the desert for 4 years and be put to sleep in their cells.

Problem is our pantywaist system today. The only way to keep people from going to prison is to make it to where they dont want to go back, ever.

Witchydiva:
Or, buy cable but only allow the History Channel, A&E, Discovery, PBS, and maybe a couple other education-only channels. No MTV (1 or 2 or other), no VH1, no BET, no ESPN (1, 2, 3, or 7), etc.

What about ESPN 8, The Ocho?

Rant_Casey's_Rabies_Buffet: dustman81: Katie98_KT: dustman81: Ohio has a 7.5% unemployment rate, a school funding system that has been ruled unconstitutional, a declining economy, 7th highest tax rate in the country and people are fleeing this state everyday.

What does our state legislature focus on? Making sure inmates can still get their TV.

*facepalm*

thanks for repeating the headline.

It's just that what the state legislature is concentrating on is so moronic that it had to be repeated.

About the only thing they have going for them right now, IMHO, is the attempt to improve higher education and try to slash tuition inflation. Not that any of it is going to work (at least not right away), but they're trying. Of course, it is an initiative pushed by the Democrats.

/btw ... what the f*ck is up with them outlawing "skill games" but allowing Keno?

Wow, and I thought California Sucked. I mean, we don't have a budget, a 7.3% Unemployment rate, pathetic funding for the 3rd worst school system in the country, and AH-NOLD as our governor.

One of these day when you screw up your taxes or some other Federal crime and you're in the pokey - Trust me - the least of your worries will be the TV.

The TV rooms are where 90% of the violence in prison starts. People fight over them, people stab over them, people have killed because of them.

When I was down I remember wishing the TVs were removed because no one likes to watch anything but BET or Telemundo Mexican soaps.

Everyone is so down on prisons when everyone is a criminal. Met more lawyers, bankers, and doctors down for 10+ years then I thought I would. When you meet 19 year old white kids in for 2 years because of P2P music ... you might ask yourself, "could it happen to me?"

/9 months for texting ex-girlfriend that I was going to kick her ass
// federal crime - Terroristic threat of Violence
/// up to 5 years per text message
////now a convicted felon - careful!

olddeegee: I'm amazed at the hypocrisy I see here. Most Farkers seem to rail against the unfairness of our drug laws and the police state we live in. Yet, once people are in prison for, oh, I don't know, getting busted with pot, they deserve to suffer any punishment our sadistic minds can come up with. Let well behaved prisoners have over the air TV, and don't continue turning our prisons into schools for criminals.

Lotta ITGs hereabouts convinced that real, live social advocacy is at best a sign of nancyism, and at worst a possible way to end up in PMITA-land for fighting the power a little too hard.

I live in Ohio and work for a company that sells Digital Converter Boxes, so I'm REALLY getting a kick out of these replies.

Fark Ohio. I go here for college and I just had a wonderful internship here. I love my university and my company, got a full time offer, but I plan on begging my company (multinational) to let me transfer to Seattle for my full-time offer. I love Ohio State and my company, but god damn I hate Ohio. The people here just seem to be fully content with being idiots. I really think they are HAPPY that all of the people with education and skills are fleeing as fast as they can.

symbolset: Ohio is currently attempting to gerrymander their prison population because it skews the demographics from urban where the prisoners come from to rural where the prisons are. They soon may be answering the question, "what happens if you incarcerate 10% of the population, and while they're in prison everybody else leaves?"

Sounds like the plot to a cheesy SciFi Channel original.

Raedon: /9 months for texting ex-girlfriend that I was going to kick her ass
// federal crime - Terroristic threat of Violence

... fark?

We've lost our goddamned minds in this country.

D-Wolf2k2: Wow, and I thought California Sucked. I mean, we don't have a budget, a 7.3% Unemployment rate, pathetic funding for the 3rd worst school system in the country, and AH-NOLD as our governor.

Well that's kind of my point. Casinos create jobs, right? Said casinos would be paying taxes on what they make, right? Casinos draw tourism, so more outsiders would be paying your sales taxes. Said created jobs would create more revenue. Sure, crime is going to go up, but with what already goes on, it's a drop in the bucket. Also, since Pennsylvania allows gambling, all of the gamblers just go across state lines and spend money that could be beneficial here. It's f*cking asinine.

My state's schools and municipalities are in the total shiatter right now. Anything that could at least have some positive impact is fine with me at this point. Also, I don't gamble (aside from a poker game with some friends). But I don't give a f*ck what total strangers whom I will probably never meet do with their spare time, as long as it doesn't impact me. If it makes my state some money, and maybe gets some of our craptastic infrastructure and educational institutions on some kind of track, and I'm not losing out on it by avoiding those places, then what's the problem?

/how come people impose their "values" and "morals" on the rest of us for the children hate children so much?

Patriot act

the 9 months was just waiting to get into a federal court room. There is such thing as bail in the federal system.

TheSelphie: Fark Ohio. I go here for college and I just had a wonderful internship here. I love my university and my company, got a full time offer, but I plan on begging my company (multinational) to let me transfer to Seattle for my full-time offer. I love Ohio State and my company, but god damn I hate Ohio. The people here just seem to be fully content with being idiots. I really think they are HAPPY that all of the people with education and skills are fleeing as fast as they can.

Dude, welcome to everywhere you'll ever go.

This is one of those things that really gets me heated up. Our criminal justice system is sooo screwed up, in every way, shape, and form. Here are things that need to happen...in my humble opinion:

1. If they are in prison for violent crime, i.e. murder, rape, etc, we no longer have a use for them as a society. Kill them, quickly, humanely, but kill them.

2. If they are locked up for other non-violent crimes, manslaughter, statutory rape, etc, institute a talionic system, and break it down to dollars and cents, then they server community service at a base rate until their literal debt to society is paid off.

3. If they are in for crimes that can be tied to a dollar sign, theft, vandalism, etc. Put them in a work environment and allow them to pay back their debt. There is no point to keeping productive people locked up, or keeping dangerous creatures alive.

Our humanity is based on the fact we can live in peace with those around us. A human being is separated from an animal by one thing and one thing only, our ability to think logically. The moment we take the life of another, we have ceased to think logically, and our humanity is therefore suspended. If someone murders a child in cold blood, no argument should be made that they are a human being...they are nothing more than a rabid dog off its chain, and like a rabid dog they need to be put down to protect the rest of society.

Harsh...I know, and I don't care.
Unfair...no, its not. The fact they continue to draw breath is a disservice to those whose lives they have destroyed.

That being said, most of our laws are complete and total BS...this should be much more black and white than we try to make it.

/my soapbox, I'm off it.
//forgive the rant...robbed last night