Prisoners Hunger Strike

[VWFringe]

It started at Pelican Bay in California, but a thousand or so inmates from other prisons have joined in solidarity(i think).

Before I saw Dr. Gabor Mate speaking about it, I wouldn't have thought much about it, but now I believe we should support their strike. Dr. Mate believes we treat prisoners exactly the way you would need to to get them to become more violent amongst themselves, and that solitary confinement makes them worse, and is not an incentive to someone with that kind of brain chemistry.

Hunger strike among state prisoners winding down, officials say

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

I believe our prisons have gotten it wrong, and I think everyone knows it, but people don't believe anything else is possible or that we don't have any say in it. I don't know, but I believe solitary confinement is way over-used and counter productive (unless you want them staying in prison for years longer than they were sentenced for, which is what's happening).

 

[WatTyler]

What would be an alternative to solitary confinement? A light beating? (lol) Loss of family visit (psychologically worse?)?, loss of what else? I really don't know.

And I don't know much about US prisons except what I've seen on shows like 'Locked Up' and 'Americas Toughest Prisons' which we get over here. And 'Oz' a few year ago, 'tho I'll take that with a grain of salt . But they do seem to be frightfully dangerous places rife with gang violence, rape and stabbings? And I think I saw Pelican Bay on one of those? But this is no doubt the TV warping my perception of American reality again!

It seems to me though that safety of inmates should be paramount- any kind of rehabilitation is pretty impossible if living in a climate of fear of that kind of violence, and prisons should enforce rules pretty hard to prevent this. Otherwise it just becomes warehousing of criminals with all problems being re-enforced and compounded. If you weren't a hard ruthless motherfucker before going into prison, you will be when you get out of that dog-eat-dog environment.

Trouble is it'll never be high on the political agenda to improve the funding and staffing at prisons needed to ensure this- I mean, who would ever get elected with that kind of manifesto commitment? People in general are vengeful and like the thought of prisoners suffering. The violence and rape present is seen by many with right-of-centre political views to provide part of the deterrent, but for me the loss of liberty is enough of a deterrent in itself, without the rape, so I'm not convinced it's needed as part of the prison package. It's punishment, but the net effect is that it won't help society.

 

[lepstadder]

The US government is legally aloud to force feed prisoners who are taking a moral stand by hunger striking

 

[VWFringe]

How did they talk us out of holding any compassion for these people?

How did they convince us that these people would be violent no matter how they are treated?

If they stuck your brother in a box, and beat him, and made sure he didn't get to see or talk to anyone, would your brother get better or worse? Let's say your fictional brother has ADD something fierce, hasn't been able to hold a meaningful job his whole life because of not being able to concentrate properly in school, keeps taking drugs because it's the only thing that ever made him feel loved and connected, and has a problem with impulsive behavior...now, is he going to get better or worse? And isn't he going to be a great example of why you need to hog-tie and chain everyone before they walk down the hall...? yep

they're manufacturing their own justification, and we pay the price when these crooks get out of jail. They get to say it's because of budgets but it's really more to do with our provincial traditions of an eye for an eye. We call it the department of corrections, but they don't even try to correct anything, just punish them.

They say that 80% of our society "could" be locked up, if prosecuted for whatever we didn't get caught for, so pardon me for thinking there's a huge problem here.

We really seem to go after the worse child-abused head-cases, and treat them just how you'd need to to make them violent. This seems more and more like a case of "blow-back" politics - you crush and repress people until they have no where to turn except violence, and they get violent because of how they are treated - self-fulfilling prophecy or whatever, but that's NOT what I want my tax dollars helping to do.

Can anyone say they'd want to be treated like that? Rape and isht, f that, we should say we want them to stop it. As long as we watch their stupid movies that just re-inforce the view of "public enemies" we'll be far from making any changes.

We cannot afford to just stick them in a box, it's too expensive, any more than we can afford to allow homeless people to live the way they do

A study from Los Angeles, CA home to ten percent of the entire homeless population found that placing four chronically homeless people into permanent supportive housing saved the city more than $80,000 per year.

if anyone doubts what i'm saying just think back to when you may have taken drugs - did the laws enter into your thinking? they don't for drug addicts, just a fact... So, if you have individuals who are not capable of weighing the penalty against the crime, can you expect anything done inside a prison to be effective? What was that line about insanity is when you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result? Our prisons.

[there but for the grace of God, go I...I believe I've described myself pretty well in the first paragraph, it's only luck that I was not caught numerous times too, but I've bought into the whole view of us against them for too long - politicians use a common enemy to forward their agenda and muster support, screw that]

 

[tdavie]

It's pretty much the same within Canadian prisons and it's only getting closer to an American style penal system with 'for profit' prisons.

And with the election of harper to a majority government the laws are going to start filling the prisons faster.

Tom

 

[VWFringe]

Well, I don't feel any safer.

Sucks, and we should definitely do something about it. Really. Or else, none of us is safe.

Our prisons make people into little terrorists, then they get out and wreak havoc, just because we couldn't treat them like human beings.

 

[FlasH]

I think until we can get some *shudders* real government regulation of the private corporations and government regulations that run the prison systems we will continue to see opposition to legalization initiatives, obsessive funding for their institutions and the violence and maltreatment of prisoners that we see today. As much as I am for small government, in some places I think there needs to be more.

 

[VWFringe]

i heard a radio show on NPR talking about the end of the hunger strike, on the line was a gal with the coalition supporting the prisoners, and she said the federal government was supposed to be notified to insure their health guidelines (as far as forced feeding I think) are being followed, but said the prisons had repeatedly lied about the number of prisoners refusing meals, even to relatives, and whitewashed the whole thing to the federal government, who was also on the line, and they didn't sound like they wanted anything except to know prisoners are being force fed if they go too long without...so yeah, basically no regulation, no over-sight, holy crap, i'm going to write a letter at least.

they should nationalize all private prisons, cut out the middle-men who only want to exchange cots for funding

this is definitely something the People could and should do better than a corporation who by their charter cannot properly care for the people they are charged with rehabilitating

oh, and not one of the demands was met i think

guards can f*@& with inmates food and get away with it, withhold or take stuff out of thier meals
meals and portion size was a big one of thier demands