dahmers love zombie: It took 13 official hearings for Thorne to win parole. On Oct. 17, 2011, he was handed a temporary ID and $200 in an envelope. Several guards shook his hand. He was free after 32 years.

Today he says he's ready to do anything to move forward in life. "I'll mop, sweep, floss - it doesn't matter to me," he says.

wat

Maybe he meant fluff.

cman: FirstNationalBastard: Thankfully, these jobless ex-cons will have to once again resort to crime to live, and will be thrown back in jail. Then, the for-profit prison system will be rolling in dough once again!

Begrudgingly this

When people have nothing to lose they lose it.

Again this. Also, a felony arrest or conviction will get you denied housing in many areas.

jbuist: dahmers love zombie: Today he says he's ready to do anything to move forward in life. "I'll mop, sweep, floss - it doesn't matter to me," he says.

wat

There might be more than his criminal record holding him back from success.

We hired a guy this year knowing that he had a felony drug conviction. Apparently simple possession becomes a felony in Michigan when it's your third time. OK, no big deal to us.

Yeah, unreliable as shiat. Got canned within a week or two.

When you are in prison every single little detail of your life is controlled for you. How good would you be at running your own schedule or working after a few years of that?

Hint: people are almost universally bad out of jail.

cman: FirstNationalBastard: serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

So, you're just admitting that Prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation, just punishment, and that "well, he did paid his debt to society" is a quaint notion that no longer applies?

Considering how many people are in prison for stupid shiat like drug possession, well, I guess I should have seen that already.

This is how you stretch

I wish I was that damn good

That wasn't a stretch.

It should be legal to kill them.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: If the damn government would just legalize murder, I would be a f***ing job creator!

/Bootstraps

Agrees: Link

Weaver95: lucky for all those ex-cons, America is a Christian Nation and nobody will ever hold their past actions against them.

I know several entrepreneurial organizations that would employ such individuals. Any poor sap that wants to mainstream \cannot, but being career criminal is very achievable.

We are not doing ourselves any favors.

Well, they can always reoffend to get back in. Recidivism I think is the word?

At least there's free healthcare there.

Psssssst

you'd have more money for training ex cons if you stopped the war on drugs.
You'd also have less convicts in the first place.

Private prison operators give NFL luxury box tickets to congressmen and state legislators.

So if you don't like the number of people we throw in prison or the reasons why we do it, you hate America.

Thank you War on Drugs. Let's turn non violent drug offenders into convicts.

Just move to Massachusetts, they have a state law prohibiting background checks for almost all jobs.

But I though Obama was the greatest job creating President 3V4R! Clearly, these ex prisoners are all racist white hispanics trying to sink his re election.

anderseb2010: Well, they can always reoffend to get back in. Recidivism I think is the word?



Reepeet Oh-Fender!

Parole Board chairman: Not a pretty name, is it H.I.?
H.I.: No, sir. That's one bonehead name, but that ain't me any more.
Parole Board chairman: You're not just telling us what we want to hear?
H.I.: No, sir, no way.
Parole Board member: 'Cause we just want to hear the truth.
H.I.: Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.
Parole Board chairman: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?
H.I.: Yes, sir.
Parole Board chairman: Okay, then.

Obvious tag unavailable? I could possibly see a merit system rating ex-cons based on their convictions other than that, fark 'em, I've tarred roofs and ripped shingles for years and I wouldn't want sympathy. Man up, admit your mistakes and do what you can.

And no I never did time.

The first thing I thought of.


"I mean, if you get caught smoking crack at McDonald's, you can't get your job back. That's right, they're not going to trust you around the Happy Meals."

Yeah, as an ex-offender who did his time (and still has more to do from a charge last year related to the initial charge I'm just now finishing up in court) I took a different approach. I created my own work. After submitting over 500 applications in a year in a half, and going to 67 interviews (I kept track of every interview) all I got was an internship at a non-profit and not a single other job offer. So I said, fark traditional work, networked with people at the non-profit, and do web-design and social media design and outreach (yes people pay for it, and good too) and have a nice legitimate dispensable income. However, being the jerk that I am, I'm staying in my gov't funded apt after finishing treatment since I get paid by check from these people until a traditional job does pop up. My way of adding to the problem since nobody else wants to fix the problem and I got sick of it and decided to quit trying to help fix it.

serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

You will, buddy, you will.

Armadillo Slim: serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

You will, buddy, you will.

Yeah, if you pay taxes, you already do, to imprison them.

Dullahan: Armadillo Slim: serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

You will, buddy, you will.

Yeah, if you pay taxes, you already do, to imprison them.

And after the poor bastard can't get a legitimate job, he takes your wallet or car as well. This leads to more incarceration and more taxes going to house him.

Ah the beautiful cycle of the Prison Industrial Complex.

Here's what any one of them can do: make anaerobic methane digester tank, poop in it, hire other ex-cons to periodically stir the slurry. Compress and sell the methane to power the gas ranges and hot water heaters of still further ex-cons and teach them all to do the same. Self-sustaining process, screw the squares.

Send them to Wall Street. They'll kill the place down there.

OK, bad choice of words.

So what, most of the people in my family have a clean record and can't get jobs.

/Welcome to Obamanation

TommyymmoT: This guy is having a problem finding work?

[www.csmonitor.com image 313x400]

I'm shocked.
He seems like such a responsible decision maker.

Did you read the description that went along with the picture?

"The stars tattooed on his face, which he says used to represent six rival gang members he stabbed in prison, now stand for his six children."

He's just a loving family man.

"Before he landed the job, the 42-year-old was turned down several times."

For fark sake, everyone is turned down several times before they finally get a job.

If you take the majority of petty drug offenses out of the prison population - this is wholly unsurprising. And by "petty drug offenses" i mean weed. Because things like heroine and crack cause all sorts of crime trying to get the next fix.

(For instance, my buddy was a heroine addict that went to jail for armed robbery - because he was robbing to get his next fix because he couldn't keep a job because you know, he was a heroine addict.)

I think that would be helpful in these discussions to classify people as two types of criminals:

1. Pot related drug offenses, retarded third strike offenses (in CA)
2. People we actually want in jail

skilbride: If you take the majority of petty drug offenses out of the prison population - this is wholly unsurprising. And by "petty drug offenses" i mean weed. Because things like heroine and crack cause all sorts of crime trying to get the next fix.

(For instance, my buddy was a heroine addict that went to jail for armed robbery - because he was robbing to get his next fix because he couldn't keep a job because you know, he was a heroine addict.)

I think that would be helpful in these discussions to classify people as two types of criminals:

1. Pot related drug offenses, retarded third strike offenses (in CA)
2. People we actually want in jail

Also, I just noticed my phone autocorrects heroin to heroine - which makes that whole statement ridiculous. Apologies!

skilbride: If you take the majority of petty drug offenses out of the prison population - this is wholly unsurprising. And by "petty drug offenses" i mean weed. Because things like heroine and crack cause all sorts of crime trying to get the next fix.

(For instance, my buddy was a heroine addict that went to jail for armed robbery - because he was robbing to get his next fix because he couldn't keep a job because you know, he was a heroine addict.)

I think that would be helpful in these discussions to classify people as two types of criminals:

1. Pot related drug offenses, retarded third strike offenses (in CA)
2. People we actually want in jail



Uhhh...

skilbride: I think that would be helpful in these discussions to classify people as two types of criminals:

1. Pot related drug offenses, retarded third strike offenses (in CA)
2. People we actually want in jail


Preach it brother...

TommyymmoT: One would think that a person of your experience would at least know how to spell the word Heroin.


Yes, because perfect grammar and spelling are the telltale signs of a life lived...

TommyymmoT: One would think that a person of your experience would at least know how to spell the word Heroin.

And yes, it's capitalized, it's a brand name.

See post directly after. I do know how to spell it. My phone doesn't. Apparently the mytouch4g is against drug use! (it also didn't recognize marijuana which is why i used weed lol)

You know I think they could have picked a better example. The dude they are talking about was an MS-13 gang member and killed a rival gang member. Ya well, it doesn't surprise me that employers would be hesitant to hire him. That is some serious shiat and it is hard to evaluate a claim of reform as genuine or not.

That's real different from someone who did a little time for marajuna who can't get a job. That is the kind of stat that matters. If minor criminal convictions are keeping people from getting jobs, that is a real issue.If membership in probably the most brutal gang in America, murder, and crazy farking tattoos are keeping people from getting jobs, well I can kinda see that and I'm not that concerned.

So next time Mr. Article Writer, choose a better example for your story.

TommyymmoT: skilbride: If you take the majority of petty drug offenses out of the prison population - this is wholly unsurprising. And by "petty drug offenses" i mean weed. Because things like heroine and crack cause all sorts of crime trying to get the next fix.

(For instance, my buddy was a heroine addict that went to jail for armed robbery - because he was robbing to get his next fix because he couldn't keep a job because you know, he was a heroine addict.)

I think that would be helpful in these discussions to classify people as two types of criminals:

1. Pot related drug offenses, retarded third strike offenses (in CA)
2. People we actually want in jail

One would think that a person of your experience would at least know how to spell the word Heroin.

And yes, it's capitalized, it's a brand name.



When you need good clean dope, trust Bayer.

just go to the mugshot website and click "record removal" that's what i did. and i'm not even a murderer!!

ReapTheChaos: TommyymmoT: This guy is having a problem finding work?

[www.csmonitor.com image 313x400]

I'm shocked.
He seems like such a responsible decision maker.

Did you read the description that went along with the picture?

"The stars tattooed on his face, which he says used to represent six rival gang members he stabbed in prison, now stand for his six children."

He's just a loving family man.

So he stabbed a bunch of people and now he's fathering a bunch of children he can't possibly hope to support. Charming. He just keeps right on doing his best to destroy society one way or the other.

Sounds like he has a choice to make.

Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'.

You know if you caught cause you were smokin' crack, McDonald's wouldn't even take you back - you could always just run for mayor of DC.

/ Preach it Good Charlotte!!!

where can i buy bayer dope

all i can find is Benzadrex

Dullahan: Yeah, as an ex-offender who did his time (and still has more to do from a charge last year related to the initial charge I'm just now finishing up in court) I took a different approach. I created my own work. After submitting over 500 applications in a year in a half, and going to 67 interviews (I kept track of every interview) all I got was an internship at a non-profit and not a single other job offer. So I said, fark traditional work, networked with people at the non-profit, and do web-design and social media design and outreach (yes people pay for it, and good too) and have a nice legitimate dispensable income. However, being the jerk that I am, I'm staying in my gov't funded apt after finishing treatment since I get paid by check from these people until a traditional job does pop up. My way of adding to the problem since nobody else wants to fix the problem and I got sick of it and decided to quit trying to help fix it.

That's not called being a jerk, that's called working the system

You tried, that's all anyone can do..

sycraft: You know I think they could have picked a better example. The dude they are talking about was an MS-13 gang member and killed a rival gang member. Ya well, it doesn't surprise me that employers would be hesitant to hire him. That is some serious shiat and it is hard to evaluate a claim of reform as genuine or not.

That's real different from someone who did a little time for marajuna who can't get a job. That is the kind of stat that matters. If minor criminal convictions are keeping people from getting jobs, that is a real issue.If membership in probably the most brutal gang in America, murder, and crazy farking tattoos are keeping people from getting jobs, well I can kinda see that and I'm not that concerned.

So next time Mr. Article Writer, choose a better example for your story.

Guaranteed that MS-13 will show up one day to kill him. Hiring him would be a death wish.

TommyymmoT: Sorry, I didn't see that when I posted.

I figured! It's cool - I'm on the laptop now that cupcakes are in the oven. No more autocorrects!

skilbride: skilbride: If you take the majority of petty drug offenses out of the prison population - this is wholly unsurprising. And by "petty drug offenses" i mean weed. Because things like heroine and crack cause all sorts of crime trying to get the next fix.

(For instance, my buddy was a heroine addict that went to jail for armed robbery - because he was robbing to get his next fix because he couldn't keep a job because you know, he was a heroine addict.)

I think that would be helpful in these discussions to classify people as two types of criminals:

1. Pot related drug offenses, retarded third strike offenses (in CA)
2. People we actually want in jail

Also, I just noticed my phone autocorrects heroin to heroine - which makes that whole statement ridiculous. Apologies!

I don't want to argue for heroin use or anything, but I still don't understand how locking up someone, if their sole crime is possession of ANY drug, benefits society.

In your example, you mentioned that your buddy is serving time for armed robbery. That's a pretty reasonable thing to be jailing people for. But if the system had got him on simple position months before his life fell apart that bad, wouldn't we all be better off treating his addiction, rather than punishing his "crime" at that point. And its true enough that heroin users often relapse, especially if they weren't especially interested in treatment at the time, but getting an addict through their first rehab is more beneficial to them than locking them up and adding to or creating a criminal record.

Also, its not like its exclusively heroin addicts who commit armed robbery. Sometimes people are just at the end of their financial ropes and desperate to make last month's rent; other times, someone just had to have a big screen TV and some new video games. But we don't lock up people for wanting housing or a TV. We lock them up for theft.

/ Eventually, we really do have to stop trying to fight wars against inanimate objects.

What's even worse, anyone with drug conviction can't even get financial aid. So they can't even afford to go back to school to better themselves.

JadedRaverLA: I don't want to argue for heroin use or anything, but I still don't understand how locking up someone, if their sole crime is possession of ANY drug, benefits society.

In your example, you mentioned that your buddy is serving time for armed robbery. That's a pretty reasonable thing to be jailing people for. But if the system had got him on simple position months before his life fell apart that bad, wouldn't we all be better off treating his addiction, rather than punishing his "crime" at that point. And its true enough that heroin users often relapse, especially if they weren't especially interested in treatment at the time, but getting an addict through their first rehab is more beneficial to them than locking them up and adding to or creating a criminal record.

Also, its not like its exclusively heroin addicts who commit armed robbery. Sometimes people are just at the end of their financial ropes and desperate to make last month's rent; other times, someone just had to have a big screen TV and some new video games. But we don't lock up people for wanting housing or a TV. We lock them up for theft.

/ Eventually, we really do have to stop trying to fight wars against inanimate objects.

Part of me agrees with you and part of me doesn't.

I have an internal struggle because I come from a long line of addicts, and because of that (although I haven't fallen into that) I've tended to date addicts. And that comes with a huge list of druggie friends etc etc.

The problem with rehabilitation is that until someone wants to get help - it isn't going to help. You can send a person to rehab 30 times and they'll always go back to using again if they want to. A lot of times I'm on the side that using drugs is a crime against yourself, and all drugs should be legalized - but then I think of situations like my buddy where even if it was legal - and he could buy it at the store, he'd just be doing armed robbery at stores to get it because he wouldn't have a job because heroin farked his life up so bad. If it being illegal gives anyone pause, that's a good thing in my opinion because I've seen so many lives farked up because of it.

So yeah, for the harder things, the heroin, the crack, I think jail is appropriate. For the marijuana, extacy, shrooms and lcd? Not so much. I think there is a line.

dahmers love zombie: So we've got tens of thousands of people with criminal (commonly minor drug) convictions who can't get jobs. Tens of thousands of college students with tens of thousands of dollars of debt...who can't get jobs. Tens of thousands of middle-class, middle-aged folks who are underwater on their homes and living in paralyzing fear of losing their jobs, because they'll literally lose everything if they do.

Naah, this doesn't sound like a situation that could go really, really bad fast. Not at all.

Outside of whining and snarking, what's the solution? And what is your "really, really bad fast" scenario? if you don't offer anything concrete, you just come off like a douche.

Locking people up for pot is rediculous and a waste of our time and money. The other schedule 1 drugs should come with a MUCH stiffer sentence including death in some cases.
As for the suicide pills, I agree. I have said many times that every cell should have an eye bolt in the ceiling. Let them buy a 6 foot piece of rope from commisary after they sign a legal release to remove all liability to the state.

As for the inmates not being able to find a job, well, you just need to listen to how they talk to see why they are unemployable.

"Say, yo man.' Like I want a mufuggin job yo. Ya feel me?"

Yes I am a prison pig.
Oink, Oink.

namatad: MAYBE, exceptions for things like PCP and antibiotics. MAYBE.

Why did you single out PCP?

Yeah... you get what you deserve

Prisons need to switch to rehab and job skills for non-violent inmates if we keep them incarcerated. Being locked in a cell 23 hrs a day would drive anyone insane. And the gangs rule behind bars. People who may not have joined a gang before do so to be protected. How anyone expects a prisoner to come out of prison ready for society with the way prisons are now is anyone's guess. I'm for a change to a fine for minor offenses and keeping only the violent offenders in prison with the said job skills and rehab/psychological help.

Or we could give the drugs away for free to anyone who is an addict. Considering a dose of methadone or heroin can be made for literally 20cents you stop a ton of drug related crime for a couple million dollars a year instead of the billions spent on the war on drugs. Also having a free legal source of these drugs would completely eliminate the black market for them which would get rid of all that pesky gang stuff and violent crime associated with street level dealers. Since the drugs will be dispensed at medical clinic with sterile instruments there wouldn't be any spread of HIV or Hep C. The number of overdoses would go down to practically 0 since narcan would be freely available. The drugs would be unadulterated so there wouldn't be any major health problems associated with the drugs.

Yeah you'll have a lot of people not doing crap and getting high, but we have that now except you have all the robberies/drug dealing in your neighborhood that go with it, but a large portion of opiate addicts are completely functional when they receive a study supply of medication and you'd never know they were on anything. Those people would become productive tax-payers and the other addicts wouldn't be committing violent crime/drug dealing to get their dose. And it would be 100x cheaper than trying to 'punish' the drug addicts and locking them up for $35,000 a year.

serial_crusher: The point of prison is so we can rehabilitate people to prevent them from being a continued threat to society. Not to elevate them to the point that I consider them superior citizens deserving of respect and financial assistance that I wouldn't even want to give most people who haven't committed a felony.

If that was the goal, most of them probably shouldn't have been released.

We make pretty much no effort to rehabilitate people in prison. It's political suicide to even suggest it, because it makes you look "soft on crime". It's one of the many deeply farked up consequences of our media circus political process, but I've got no solution.

serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

We already do that. It's called "imprisoning them".
It costs a great deal of money, you know.

Dullahan: Yeah, as an ex-offender who did his time (and still has more to do from a charge last year related to the initial charge I'm just now finishing up in court) I took a different approach. I created my own work. After submitting over 500 applications in a year in a half, and going to 67 interviews (I kept track of every interview) all I got was an internship at a non-profit and not a single other job offer. So I said, fark traditional work, networked with people at the non-profit, and do web-design and social media design and outreach (yes people pay for it, and good too) and have a nice legitimate dispensable income. However, being the jerk that I am, I'm staying in my gov't funded apt after finishing treatment since I get paid by check from these people until a traditional job does pop up. My way of adding to the problem since nobody else wants to fix the problem and I got sick of it and decided to quit trying to help fix it.

Link to examples?

Emmigtrate. Canada is awesome.

Mexico....like a constant vacation.

Europe, chock full of opportunity

Go and be fruitfull....

really...go

namatad: PCP is a pretty farked drug.

I got no problems with hallucinogens in general, but I have to draw the line with ones that cause you to eat people.

/Send them all to Hamsterdam.

Makes sense to me. I guess I just draw my line with heroin because i've seen it do so much serious damage (and had a couple friends who OD'd)

So PCP and Heroin illegal, but all the drugs OTC. I'm in!

Case: Yeah you'll have a lot of people not doing crap and getting high, but we have that now except you have all the robberies/drug dealing in your neighborhood that go with it, but a large portion of opiate addicts are completely functional when they receive a study supply of medication and you'd never know they were on anything. Those people would become productive tax-payers and the other addicts wouldn't be committing violent crime/drug dealing to get their dose. And it would be 100x cheaper than trying to 'punish' the drug addicts and locking them up for $35,000 a year.

Sort of - but you have to realize the large number of people on methadone who are operational WANT to be that way. If they are still in the mode that they want to get farked up - they will.

One of my best friends is an ex-heroin addict on methadone and she's totally functioning. But she tells me that at the clinic you can basically keep upping yourself to the point where you're farked up all the time - and that's how some addicts handle it until they're off probation. Not that I'm arguing it's their right to do that - but with your plan, I don't want to pay for it :)

Very good 8 part series on Louisiana which apparently has the highest incarceration rate IN THE F'ING WORLD !

Link

TommyymmoT: Call me any name you want to, but here goes...

Certainly not all, probably not even most, of these people were born to women that could not afford to, or even knew how to, raise kids.
You know, like crack heads for example.
Remember all the drug babies from the 80s? Yeah, this is them.

My proposal is this, and it is entirely voluntary.

Offer all the women on welfare, or drugs $10,000, to voluntarily have their tubes tied.
They could even make it reversible in case the woman's situation changes.
Very very few drug addicts are going to turn down $10k.

The savings would be huge. It can cost well over $1million to raise a single crack baby to age 18.
Even a healthy baby is going to cost far more than $10k.
Hell, even offering them $50k isn't unreasonable.

Many, if not most of those women don't even want to have a baby in the first place, and if you are about to say they have them for the increased welfare money, don't.
It'll just make you look stupid.

I don't know where you're getting your info about "crack babies" but you're way off base. It turns out most of the "crack baby epidemic" was actually just media-driven hype. Most of the symptoms and deficiencies observed in babies whose mothers smoked crack can actually be linked more strongly to the mother's poverty, poor nutrition, poor health, lack of prenatal care, etc. Many of the studies about crack babies were headed up by a guy named Ira Chasnoff, and his later work showed that by age 4, crack babies and non-crack babies are basically the same. We can't randomize who uses crack and who doesn't, so we have no way to prove that crack hurts babies any more than the multiple other conditions that go along with living in poverty.

As for the rest of your plan, you're using a coercive amount of money to target only poor women. Do you think only poor women use drugs during their pregnancies? Wrong again. Alcohol is known to cause FAS, which is way worse than anything seen in crack babies, and using alcohol during pregnancy is actually more common among higher-income women.

Where do the fathers fit into your plan? Does the burden of raising non-criminals fall entirely on women? Do you know how many guys in prison had fathers who beat their mothers or beat the kids, or weren't even around? When do we get to sterilize all the men?

Never, because that's just as shiatty as sterilizing women.

namatad: skilbride: Makes sense to me. I guess I just draw my line with heroin because i've seen it do so much serious damage (and had a couple friends who OD'd)

So PCP and Heroin illegal, but all the drugs OTC. I'm in!

see, the thing with Heroin over doses is that the OD happens because there is a complete lack of quality control. You get product of questionable quality with questionable additives. Once you legalize heroin, users would be able to buy product of know dosing.
This alone would greatly reduce the number of ODs.

You can also OD on methadone.

No one has posted the STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE pic yet? Or is it ok when it's drugs and burglary, but red-light cameras are the Nectar of the Gods?

bextraordinary: TommyymmoT: Call me any name you want to, but here goes...

Certainly not all, probably not even most, of these people were born to women that could not afford to, or even knew how to, raise kids.
You know, like crack heads for example.
Remember all the drug babies from the 80s? Yeah, this is them.

My proposal is this, and it is entirely voluntary.

Offer all the women on welfare, or drugs $10,000, to voluntarily have their tubes tied.
They could even make it reversible in case the woman's situation changes.
Very very few drug addicts are going to turn down $10k.

The savings would be huge. It can cost well over $1million to raise a single crack baby to age 18.
Even a healthy baby is going to cost far more than $10k.
Hell, even offering them $50k isn't unreasonable.

Many, if not most of those women don't even want to have a baby in the first place, and if you are about to say they have them for the increased welfare money, don't.
It'll just make you look stupid.

I don't know where you're getting your info about "crack babies" but you're way off base. It turns out most of the "crack baby epidemic" was actually just media-driven hype. Most of the symptoms and deficiencies observed in babies whose mothers smoked crack can actually be linked more strongly to the mother's poverty, poor nutrition, poor health, lack of prenatal care, etc. Many of the studies about crack babies were headed up by a guy named Ira Chasnoff, and his later work showed that by age 4, crack babies and non-crack babies are basically the same. We can't randomize who uses crack and who doesn't, so we have no way to prove that crack hurts babies any more than the multiple other conditions that go along with living in poverty.

As for the rest of your plan, you're using a coercive amount of money to target only poor women. Do you think only poor women use drugs during their pregnancies? Wrong again. Alcohol is known to cause FAS, which is way worse than anything seen in crack babies, and using alcoh ...

I thought the original plan was going a little too far, but...

What if we just set it up to where ANY woman (or man!) who wanted a tubal ligation or vasectomy could get one free of charge and paid for by our taxpayers? I would add a monetary incentive for anybody with an income below 50% of the poverty level: Maybe something like $2,000 for women and $750 for men. But that monetary incentive would actually be intended to reimburse people for the cost of missing work in order to have those surgeries done. I think that ALONE would probably reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies SIGNIFICANTLY - just by making it available for those people who want it and making sure that they have no real obstacles (like, can't get a surgery because I can't afford to be out of work for a week).

namatad: skilbride: So yeah, for the harder things, the heroin, the crack, I think jail is appropriate. For the marijuana, extacy, shrooms and lcd? Not so much. I think there is a line.

nope
all drugs, including alcohol and tobacco should be treated exactly the same. period.
MAYBE, exceptions for things like PCP and antibiotics. MAYBE.

all drugs should be available OTC. period.
this alone will drive down prices enough that drug addicts wont have to steal to get their fix. begging would be enough.
that reduction in theft crime, along with the massive reductions in prison/courts/war on drugs/police would more than pay for any amount of treatment and education programs, with enough left over for tax cuts and spending.... woot

and yet, we will keep fighting the retarded war on drugs on the sun burns out. UNLESS we get an awesome SCOTUS some day.
LOL

I've got a news flash for you, all you are doing is shifting the problem to public health care. If the stuff was legal and cheap, the number of OD cases hospitals treat would go through the roof in the short term, and in the long term treating the effects of treating the addicts would burden the system, and it is pretty safe to say none of them would have insurance. So guess who ends up paying? Yup, the tax payers. So it ends up being a dammed it you do, dammed if you don't proposition.

End the end, it becomes an issue of how society deals with irresponsible people. The way we are set up now, most of them (specifically addicts) never have to take responsibility for their actions beyond jail time. So to hand them cheap/free drugs would be pointless and foolish.

9beers: Just move to Massachusetts, they have a state law prohibiting background checks for almost all jobs.

This should be done nationwide except for rare circumstances.

TommyymmoT: "As for the rest of your plan, you're using a coercive amount of money to target only poor women. Do you think only poor women use drugs during their pregnancies?"

Of course not, but women who aren't poor, can afford proper nutrition, and prenatal care.

This is why I would favor making something like this (not as much of a coercive thing, but free sterilization with some minor compensation for lost wages, inconvenience, etc.) open to EVERYBODY. I actually think it would be more well-utilized if it was open to all. For example, let's say you have a woman who's got two kids already and is really TRYING to do her best, but she has a drug habit. She wants to kick the drug habit but just hasn't been able to, so she's working full-time and turning a few tricks on the side to support her habit. Now if she has to justify WHY she wants to be sterilized by admitting that she's a drug addict, she might be less willing to do that. If she's a mostly functional addict (as many are) and hasn't yet attracted the attention of CPS and/or law enforcement, she might be less willing to have it in her medical records that she got a free surgery because she's a drug addict, than if she could just walk in and say, "I want my tubes tied so that I don't have any more babies."

GAT_00: jbuist: dahmers love zombie: Today he says he's ready to do anything to move forward in life. "I'll mop, sweep, floss - it doesn't matter to me," he says.

wat

There might be more than his criminal record holding him back from success.

We hired a guy this year knowing that he had a felony drug conviction. Apparently simple possession becomes a felony in Michigan when it's your third time. OK, no big deal to us.

Yeah, unreliable as shiat. Got canned within a week or two.

When you are in prison every single little detail of your life is controlled for you. How good would you be at running your own schedule or working after a few years of that?

Hint: people are almost universally bad out of jail.

Here's the thing. People are not criminals because they are bad people. Nor are they bad people because they commit crimes. What they are is: lazy, uneducated, unmotivated, lacking impulse control, clueless, unwilling to learn, unable to extrapolate from one situation to another situation, unreliable, and all the other things that make people petty criminals. They are NOT bad people. What they are is bad at life.

In the olden days, people like this were called "shiftless". They got by because back when we were a primarily agricultural society, you farmed or hunted or you starved. If you lived in a city, you worked or you starved. Nobody had any compunctions about taking your kids away if the parents couldn't or wouldn't support them; church charities and workhouses took care of the widows and orphans. Debtor's prisons swept up the rest.

Today, "shiftless" people have a few more options, but the social safety nets aren't there for the families. So people who can't support their families turn to petty crime, and once you're on the treadmill it's very very hard to get off. If you can't make it on time for a job, you can't make it on time for your court hearings=bench warrants. Can't make it on time for your social worker meeting=lost benefits. Miss your court ordered AA meetings or anger management classes=no probation next time.

Same thing when you're in the slammer. My friend the CO told me about a guy he had to "fire" from a coveted position as janitorial trustee. The guy had been taking his cleaning supplies back to his pod and stashing them in his cell. The guy couldn't for the life of him understand why he got fired, so my friend had to explain: If you had a job at Walmart and took stuff home, what would that be called? "Stealing?" And if you got caught stealing from Walmart, what would they do? "Fire me?" So what do you think I should do with you? "But how can I get early release hours if I'm not a trustee?" This guy simply couldn't relate, without a lot of help, the two situations: That stealing from a job is stealing from a job, no matter where you are. The guy was lucky it was my friend who caught him, because he understands this kid is not a BAD PERSON, just totally clueless.

I'd guess the vast majority of criminals are like this: take out the hardcore killers and career felons, and most are just "shiftless". They just don't get it. I'm not sure what we as a society can do with them; but recognizing they're not evil might be a first step.

namatad: Speak the right language. The clerics needed to be sure harm reduction was Koranically acceptable, and that is what they were told. "There is a rule in Islam that between bad and worse, you have to accept bad," said one Iranian drug expert, "Having needle and syringe programs is bad, but having H.I.V. is worse.

even Iran has a clue? wtf!

Iran also allows growing and possession of cannabis. Go figure.

cman: Not only that, when one buys drugs, especially street drugs, they are loaded with a shiat ton of adulterants that could be deadly. We had a very recent case up here in Maine. Someone thought they were buying shrooms, they ended up buying some sort of poison instead, and they died

Uh, ok. The CDC said 5k people per week are killed by legal drugs (legally administered). About 12k per YEAR are killed by illegal drugs (including legal drugs taken illegally). If you want to save lives, let the illegal drug dealers go and arrest all the pharmacists instead.

namatad: this alone will drive down prices enough that drug addicts wont have to steal to get their fix.

I was watching one of those awful reality pawn shop shows one night with a friend. Apparently low-quality cocaine is twice as valuable as gold.

We've more or less a war right on our southern doorstep and murders and robberies all around us. All because of plant extracts that cure depression and anxiety instantly.

Which brings up an interesting side point with public health. I wish it was legal because it's the only thing I've ever had that worked for my depression. I've been on so many legal medications I can't even count or remember them all. We're scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard I'm on farking steroids now. I sometimes think about how many other people out there have just given up because a good medicine is banned and nothing else works.

namatad: The idea that the number of heroin users will jump is ludicrous. Legal and acceptable are completely different things.
Just because drugs are legal, you would still lose your job. Not for using illegal drugs, but for using drugs.
(yes, I know there are weird addict protections)

Case in point: alcohol. Completely legal, and pretty much acceptable everywhere. Show up on the job intoxicated, though, and you'll likely get sent packing.

Another one would be be allergy medications. Legal, acceptable, you can buy them pretty much everywhere, AND I've never heard of rules saying you can't use them at work, unlike the obvious drinking on the job.

namatad: (Do you want to buy drugs on the street corner or from CVS?)

Personally, I prefer street corner. CVS sucks balls. Ideally, I could just manufacture my own substances for personal use without fear of legal retribution, but failing that, I'll take street corner.

namatad: Gyrfalcon: The guy was lucky it was my friend who caught him, because he understands this kid is not a BAD PERSON, just totally clueless.

I'd guess the vast majority of criminals are like this: take out the hardcore killers and career felons, and most are just "shiftless".

My guess is that there is more than just shiftless and clueless. I bet there is a large lower IQ component . Being able to make basic analogies is something that we start doing at a crazy early age. On the other hand, we need to figure out a different way to deal with these people, rather than our extremely expensive court systems.

Maybe massive flop houses, with bread and circus. (toss in beer and pot)

Yeah, I say in jest that people are stupid, but really, a lot of these folks are just dumb. Like that inmate my friend talked to: He really couldn't get that stealing from a job in prison was JUST THE SAME as stealing from a job in the world, and had THE SAME CONSEQUENCES. And even then he didn't get that the consequences weren't just "losing your job" it was that "people can't trust you." He thought it was just "officers being mean to him."

When a kid doesn't get that being caught stealing means your parents can't trust you, okay, that can be fixed. When an adult doesn't get that, I'm not sure there is a way to fix it. Same way when a kid doesn't get that you have to be on time somewhere because other people are depending on you, that's one thing; when an adult can't figure it out...what can you do?

anderseb2010: Well, they can always reoffend to get back in. Recidivism I think is the word?

At least there's free healthcare there.

b>anderseb2010: Well, they can always reoffend to get back in. Recidivism I think is the word?

At least there's free healthcare there.

BROOKS WAS HERE

Death_Poot: This should be done nationwide except for rare circumstances.

I was kind of wrong about Massachusetts. They have a law that prohibits asking about past convictions on an application but can do a background check up to 7 years for jobs under 20k and all the way back for jobs over 20k. There are a bunch of other states with the same rules and then a handful that bump up the pay limit to 75k.

The US has the highest percentage of citizens incarcerated than any other country in the world. Apparently, the incarceration rate is pretty even across blue and red states. No wonder why NY City is so safe, everyone is in jail. If you want to quadruple the incarceration rate, appoint only lesbians to be judges.

I love that it's called the prison industry. They aren't even trying to hide the evil behind anything.
The sad part is that no one bothers to notice.

mikewadestr: The US has the highest percentage of citizens incarcerated than any other country in the world. Apparently, the incarceration rate is pretty even across blue and red states. No wonder why NY City is so safe, everyone is in jail. If you want to quadruple the incarceration rate, appoint only lesbians to be judges.

No, really the incarceration is not even across the states. There are a few exceptions, but states in the south have several times more prisoners per capita than most northern states. Louisiana for example, locks up two and a half many people as New York for example (so does Delaware though), and Maine and Minnesota lock up significantly less than New York does. Ultimately, there is no positive correlation between locking up more people and less crime. I'd say quite the reverse, the places where they lockup the most people are usually places I'd rather not live.

TommyymmoT: untaken_name: namatad: (Do you want to buy drugs on the street corner or from CVS?)

Personally, I prefer street corner. CVS sucks balls. Ideally, I could just manufacture my own substances for personal use without fear of legal retribution, but failing that, I'll take street corner.
===================

You would probably still have the option of making your own, but there is a very real advantage to knowing exactly how much of the active ingredient is actually in the bag you're buying.

Most people that O.D. on heroin do so because they unknowingly did too much.

Picture taking say....Valium, but you don't know if the pill you are about to take contains 5mg, or 20mg.
You take 2 like you normally do, and you've unwittingly taken 4 TIMES the amount you meant to, so you O.D. doing the same exact thing you've done hundreds of times without a problem.

I hear you, but none of that is an issue with my substance(s) of choice. Also, with all the drug recalls and deaths from by-the-book administration of legal drugs, I'd not be too sure I could count on the CVS treating you much better than Joe on the corner.

FirstNationalBastard: serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

So, you're just admitting that Prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation, just punishment, and that "well, he did paid his debt to society" is a quaint notion that no longer applies?

Considering how many people are in prison for stupid shiat like drug possession, well, I guess I should have seen that already.

I don't think most drugs should be illegal, but how is breaking a law that results in one's incarceration paying anything to society? What was their "debt" and how exactly did they repay it?

I've not yet heard a good explanation for this. People seem to toss it about as a truism, but what does it really mean?

reubendaley: FirstNationalBastard: serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

So, you're just admitting that Prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation, just punishment, and that "well, he did paid his debt to society" is a quaint notion that no longer applies?

Considering how many people are in prison for stupid shiat like drug possession, well, I guess I should have seen that already.

I don't think most drugs should be illegal, but how is breaking a law that results in one's incarceration paying anything to society? What was their "debt" and how exactly did they repay it?

I've not yet heard a good explanation for this. People seem to toss it about as a truism, but what does it really mean?

In the old days, taxpayers fronted the money for incarceration, and prisoners repaid it with their prison wages. Now that peonage is not legal anymore, that doesn't happen. I don't know why we still use this phrase.

reubendaley: FirstNationalBastard: serial_crusher: Aww, those poor criminals. Let's all send them money to help them out.

So, you're just admitting that Prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation, just punishment, and that "well, he did paid his debt to society" is a quaint notion that no longer applies?

Considering how many people are in prison for stupid shiat like drug possession, well, I guess I should have seen that already.

I don't think most drugs should be illegal, but how is breaking a law that results in one's incarceration paying anything to society? What was their "debt" and how exactly did they repay it?

I've not yet heard a good explanation for this. People seem to toss it about as a truism, but what does it really mean?

You need to brush up on your civics, sir.

"Paid your debt to society" refers to serving time for a crime. A lot of times people refer to Thoreau's "civil disobedience" lessons when discussing this.

As citizens of a republic, we, in theory at any rate, elect representatives which stand for us in our city state and federal governments and (again in theory) represent our interests. If a law is passed assigning a certain punishment to a certain crime, this is... theoretically . . . done with the consent of the electorate.

So. As a citizen of the republic, if you break its laws, you are assigned a punishment which was ... theoretically... agreed upon by the society. You steal, in some societies you lose a hand as decreed by a king or a religious leadership caste or whatever.

In the US, you pay a find maybe spend some time in jail. That's the contract you have entered into as part of the republic and living under its laws.

Once you have "paid the price", you should be, in the eyes of the law, as equal as any other person. You have paid your debt to society. Thoreau talks about this in Civil Disobedience. There was a tax he didn't agree with, but it was pay the tax or go to jail. He chose jail.

In todays world, however, we differentiate between types of crime more than they did when these types of theories were coined. And while being a repeat offender-debt-payer-offer to society in terms of parking tickets is not of interest to most authorities or institutions, being a repeat offender-debt-payer-offer in terms of raping boys *is*, unless youre a member of the clergy. So "paying your debt to society" becomes harder and harder if not impossible to do, since society doesn't want to forget it.

Where things get dicier is with blanket concepts like "felons", as we have seen with drug legislation and so on, these people are regarded in the eyes of the law in many places as dangerous as violent people in terms of their crimincal records, and this is lame.

namatad: skilbride: namatad: MAYBE, exceptions for things like PCP and antibiotics. MAYBE.

Why did you single out PCP?

PCP is a pretty farked drug.

"Psychological effects include severe changes in body image, loss of ego boundaries, paranoia and depersonalization. Hallucinations, euphoria, suicidal impulses and aggressive behavior are reported.[29][31] The drug has been known to alter mood states in an unpredictable fashion, causing some individuals to become detached, and others to become animated. Intoxicated individuals may act in an unpredictable fashion, possibly driven by their delusions and hallucinations. PCP may induce feelings of strength, power, and invulnerability as well as a numbing effect on the mind.[5] Occasionally, this leads to bizarre acts of violence, such as in the case of Big Lurch, former Texan Rapper who claimed his room mate was the devil and ate her intestines.""

I got no problems with hallucinogens in general, but I have to draw the line with ones that cause you to eat people.

/Send them all to Hamsterdam.

what about that one guy that killed that other person while completely sober??

legalize life

FirstNationalBastard: Thankfully, these jobless ex-cons will have to once again resort to crime to live, and will be thrown back in jail. Then, the for-profit prison system will be rolling in dough once again!

Bingo!

skilbride: A lot of times I'm on the side that using drugs is a crime against yourself, and all drugs should be legalized - but then I think of situations like my buddy where even if it was legal - and he could buy it at the store, he'd just be doing armed robbery at stores to get it because he wouldn't have a job because heroin farked his life up so bad.

But if it were legal, it would cost a tiny fraction of what it costs on the black market-- heroin would cost about what aspirin does now. This means that an addict could support his habit with a Mcjob. Even if he still committed crimes to get the tiny amount of money needed to support his habit, he'd have to commit far fewer crimes, which would be a win for society.

Nothing about the second Prohibition makes any rational sense.

TommyymmoT: The savings would be huge. It can cost well over $1million to raise a single crack baby to age 18.

You may not have heard, but "crack babies" turned out to be mostly a media-invented problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html?pagewanted=all

knobmaker: Nothing about the second Prohibition makes any rational sense.

Except the enormous profits it generates for drug companies and law enforcement. Wanting to amass money is rational, even if the way they're going about it is pretty scummy.

JungleBoogie:
With all the persistent damage that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome causes ("The outcome for infants with fetal alcohol syndrome varies. Almost none of these babies have normal brain development"), it seems safe to predict that crack would also have negative impacts o ...


From the Wiki page you linked (which doesn't do much for me - I actually study women who use drugs during pregnancy, so I'm not going to take the summary from a Wiki page in favor of all the research I've seen): "Later studies failed to substantiate the findings of earlier ones that PCE has severe disabling consequences; these earlier studies had been methodologically flawed (e.g. with small sample sizes and confounding factors). Scientists have come to understand that the findings of the early studies were vastly overstated and that most people who were exposed to cocaine in utero do not have disabilities.[1] No specific disorders or conditions have been found to result for people whose mothers used cocaine while pregnant.[2] Studies focusing on children of six years and younger have not shown any direct, long-term effects of PCE on language, growth, or development as measured by test scores"

TommyymmoT:
Crack babies are not a rumor. I know pediatric nurses that have seen far more of their fair share of them.
They are often premature, and are often born with mutiple birth defects, not the least of which are blindness, deafness, and learning disabilities.
Are you trying to tell me that a baby born to a woman that's been smoking crack through her whole pregnancy is going to be just fine?
Quick, ...

I'm a criminologist who studies substance use, specifically among pregnant women. Try again. As has already been linked in this thread (and is summarized in this Wiki article, if you want the short version), prenatal cocaine exposure does not cause nearly the number of severe negative outcomes you think you know about. Those outcomes are likely MORE closely related to living in poverty, a condition to which many NON-drug-using women are also exposed.

As for the rest of your comment, it's so full of abject idiocy and ignorance that it's not even worth addressing. If you think all women using substances during the pregnancies are prostitutes and that they wouldn't be poor if they weren't on drugs, there's nothing *I* can say that is going to educate you at all.

Gwyrddu: mikewadestr: The US has the highest percentage of citizens incarcerated than any other country in the world. Apparently, the incarceration rate is pretty even across blue and red states. No wonder why NY City is so safe, everyone is in jail. If you want to quadruple the incarceration rate, appoint only lesbians to be judges.

No, really the incarceration is not even across the states. There are a few exceptions, but states in the south have several times more prisoners per capita than most northern states. Louisiana for example, locks up two and a half many people as New York for example (so does Delaware though), and Maine and Minnesota lock up significantly less than New York does. Ultimately, there is no positive correlation between locking up more people and less crime. I'd say quite the reverse, the places where they lockup the most people are usually places I'd rather not live.

You have a good point and have educated me.

I was actually trying to make the point that Red and Blue states overall are no different when it comes to locking people up. I agree that prison is not the answer. What is funny is that Norway has the most absurd and liberal prison policy and yet the have the lowest recidivism rates in the world and yet they are mocked as being too soft. Being more homogenious probably gives them an advantage. I appreciate your education.

Regards,

Mikewadestr