I think the point is that no one should die over an unpaid traffic ticket.  WTF is wrong with this country?

I don't know how we got so bad. I'm sure it happened a bit over time, until the point where it's going to be hard to clean out. There are still people who don't see a problem with this, meaning it hasn't even gotten bad enough where all of us have to admit we're in deep shit.

For instance my parents believe trickle down economics is great, and the great depression and recent recession was because of over regulating. Not under regulating.

Trump fans?

(September 29, 2015 at 12:03 am)Chad32 Wrote: I don't really understand what the point is, though, unless they're really just hoping the inmate will die because our jails are notoriously overcrowded. They're basically deinsentivizing people to actually surrender when they get caught doing something wrong. if you're likely to die in a cell, you may as well go out fighting.

I don't think they're trying to kill anyone; they just don't give a fuck about the "animals" in their cages. It's one of the reasons that they use those "protective" suicide cells as a torture device against those who cause them grief. They are trying to crush anyone who insists on their basic humanity. 

We have adopted a "the cops are taking out the trash" attitude, in this country, and so we tend to overlook the abuses in the same way that New Yorkers didn't care that the mafia controlled the trash collection trucks/workers of the city, so long as their cans were empty on the curb in the morning. Quite a bit of propaganda goes into the image most people have of police as the heroes, and people aren't then willing to look closely at the cracks in the edifice we have built.

The horrible conditions of jail are a strong incentive for people to plead Guilty (even if they're not, or not guilty of the overstated charges for a minor crime) just to get out of the psychological pressure-cooker that is the jail. So it serves the system to make jail as horrible as possible, while prison conditions have actually improved greatly in the last 30 years because the Powers that Be have to keep the populations as quiet and complacent as possible in order to warehouse so many for so long. It is still hell on earth in many ways, but much better than jail, and after you've been in jail for months and months, prison starts to look pretty attractive as an escape from those conditions.

Ironically you then have people complain that prison life is too good for the inmates.

Yes you have to take care of people if you're going to lock them up. That's part of the job description. I treat actual animals better than police treat prisoners.

(September 29, 2015 at 11:35 am)Chad32 Wrote: Ironically you then have people complain that prison life is too good for the inmates.

Yes you have to take care of people if you're going to lock them up. That's part of the job description. I treat actual animals better than police treat prisoners.

Not all the guards are bad. I'd say about half are genuinely good people just trying to make a living and keep the place safe and running according to the rules (and even then, they'll let some of the crazier anti-inmate rules slide, since they know that the people who earn promotions in the system tend to be the fanatics, and those fanatics then write Official Policies that are often just plain ridiculous, like not playing D&D, for instance)... but believe me when I say that the other guards make up for the evil their good comrades fail to bring to work.

The gangs are an annoyance, as well but generally only if you appear weak or have a weak mind.

It really angers me when I see people writing OpEds or whatever about how we "treat inmates too well". Every so often, here in Missouri, someone will try to take away any petty "luxuries" the prisoners have, like the prison 13" TVs, but even the uber-conservative Secretary of Corrections will refuse to obey the order because he knows at least one of his guards would die if the order was carried out.

Yeah, we know there are some genuinely good cops. I'm sure Min knows too. But if we don't change the system these cops that join the force because they legitimately want to do good will be corrupted, fired, or relegated to near meaningless positions. I remember a story where one cop from a different area caught another cops doing over 100mph without his lights on or anything. She pulled him over, wrote him a ticket, and her higher ups punished her by putting her behind a desk.

Give someone an inch, and they'll take a mile. that's why we need to keep people in power under a fine microscope and give them constant reminders that they don't rule us. They serve us. When they forget that, they deserve to get called out on it. They don;t need more leniency. they need a tight leash.

Quote:I'm sure Min knows too.

But Min wonders why they stay silent when confronted by the abuses of their co-workers and, if they can really be "good cops" if they do.  It's like pervert priests.  Sure not all of them were fucking children; but the ones who weren't had to know what the others were doing and remained silent.  Qui tacet consentire videtur, is the legal maxim.  "He who is silent consents." 

In both cases the system protects the bad apples.

Because they'll lose everything if they do. Would they have the moral high ground if they quit? Would they be able to do a little good despite a corrupt system if they stayed? This is where my comment of good people being corrupted comes from. Good cops trying to work in the system for better change, but eventually becoming no better than others.

Unless they manage to be in a place with very little corruption, if any at all. Usually some small town where there's like five cops or something.

As the saying goes, Chad, "if you lay down with dogs you will catch fleas."  If a law enforcement officer sees a crime and fails to act he becomes part of the problem by default.  It's the same with pervert priests although i do agree with your point that they do it to make things easy on themselves.