the random musings not worthy of new thread thread

[Diomedes]

bah...no need for the death penalty.  people like this deserve to live and drain taxpayer dollars

You don't get it, do you?  You suffer the cost of NOT killing these people for the certain knowledge that you haven't killed any innocent ones.  It's a small fargin' price to pay.

And if you wanna talk cash..execution is more expensive than life in prison.

[Geowhizzer]

JFK papers, photos to be put on the Internet

Now if they could remember where they put what was left of his brain... 

[Susquehanna Birder]

JFK papers, photos to be put on the Internet

Now if they could remember where they put what was left of his brain... 

[General_Failure]

[Geowhizzer]

This wasn't me... I swear!

[PhillyPhreak54]

Wow. Some really interesting thoughts on the prison atmosphere. And I am eager to defend what I do and I am also eager to try to debunk some of the myths that are out there about prison. Please bear with me and read all of what I am going to say...

1. Not every incarcerated individual is an animal. I have met many inmates over my time as a CO that I can tell are not animals.

2. Do rapes happen in prison? Yes. Do the guards let it happen? Probably some of them do. And you will find that a lot of the crap like that happens when a privately owned company is running the prison. CCA (Corrections Corp. America) and Wackenhut are two of the well known ones. The states contract the work out to the private companies. And what happens when a company is doing the job? What is it all about? Money.

They cut costs and underpay staff. And the staff is severely undertrained a lot of the time. They cut the inmates medical and psych stuff. They cut the food costs. Undertrained staff + lousy care + prisoners = a powder keg waiting to be ignited.

When I was in Texas we took over Travis County State Jail from Wackenhut becase they ran it into the ground. Inmates were getting officers pregnant, other inmates were getting pregnant and drugs were easy to get a hold of. TDCJ took the facility back over and we changed it.

I have never had an inmate tell me that he was getting raped and not done anything about it. If I am told something like that is going on then I handle the problem. The inmate and the offender are then taken care of. The person being victimized is placed in protective custody and the offender is placed in administrative segregation pending disciplinary action. I have never seen any of the officers I have worked with turn a blind eye to such things either. And i have worked in prisons for awhile.

3. Is administrative segregation inhumane? Hell no. We don't use the "hole" anymore. We do use cells that have extra security on them (bars, food tray slots, etc). They have running water and toilets too. No pissing and shteinting in a hole in the floor. In most facilities they are locked up 23 hours a day. They get 1 hour of rec and a shower a day. They get three meals and they also have things in their cell that they can do (read, write, excercise).

4. If bunks can be moved around, then that facility is messed up. All bunks in EVERY PRISON I have worked in have been bolted to the floor.

5. The biggest problem among the inmate population is that none of them will tell us what is going on because they fear being labelled a snitch. Well, I wouldn't say none. But a large portion of them will not tell us shtein. They would rather handle the business on their own. Inmates like to say "this is jail. we have our own way of handling stuff".

6. And officers do not blantantly let this stuff happen. If they do, they are no better than the people doing the things. Want to know something? We are SERIOUSLY understaffed. We are at the place I work now and we were in Texas. There are shortages all over the US in this field of work.

I'll give you an example. I work a block everyday. There are 116 inmates on my block. And one of me. That is a 116:1 ratio, y'all. I cannot see everything that happens. It is impossible.

If something is going down in a blind spot, or if I am doing something else how can I possibly see this stuff going on? If an inmate is being raped in his cell how can I see that if I am at the front of the block and it is happening at the end of the block? I make my rounds. I am very active and try to keep tabs on everyone, but I cannot do it all at one time. As soon as i leave one cell and head down the wing, that cell I just left could do something.

This is a topic that I will defend for the most part. I cannot speak for every CO in America. There are some bad eggs. Just like there are bad eggs in every profession.

I wish some of you guys could spend some time on a cell block. It doesnt even have to be a maximum security block. Just a regular block. You have inmates who don't make trouble and are there to just do their time and get on with their life. And you have the people who are trouble. They have 24 hours a day to think their plans. And it is those people who give us trouble and give other inmates trouble.

Do physical altercations happen? Yes. Do they happen often? It depends on where you are. If you are working a max unit you'll probably see a lot of them. And again, I have never seen officers just start whuppin up on an inmate for the hell of it.

Let me ask you guys this;

What would you do if you were serving chow to a maximum block and one inmate decided that he was going to throw a cup of piss on you?

What would you do if a guy throws a handful of shtein in your face?

What would you do if an inmate jerks off in his hand and throws his load in your face?

What would you do if an inmate spits in your face?

We are not allowed to know what inmates are HIV positive. We are not allowed to know who has HEP-C. So anytime this happens you do not know if you have been exposed. You have to be tested and wait and worry.

All of this happens, guys. I've seen it. I have been spit on.

I have seen the worst of the worst. I have seen inmates who do this stuff without provocation. And it ain't the CO's making them like this. That is who they are.

[Susquehanna Birder]

This is a topic that I will defend for the most part. I cannot speak for every CO in America. There are some bad eggs. Just like there are bad eggs in every profession.

Bravo, Phreak. Of course, there is no knowing about how many of these horror stories are offset by non-stories. We're not going to read things like, "nothing happened while I was in jail." So it's easy to take what we read and assume that it happens all the time.

I live about a mile away from the Camp Hill facility, and I have known a few COs. I appreciate the job they do, and I know it ain't easy by a long stretch. Kudos to you, Phreak, for being one of the good guys.

[Geowhizzer]

Pa. schools weigh parental fast-food ban

[rjs246]

Of course kudos to Phreak for doing his job correctly. One would hope that he is the norm rather than the exception, but the stories coming out of prisons don't just materialize out of thin air and even some of the things that Phreak mentioned are extremely troubling.

116:1. Holy farging shtein. Unsafe and irresponsible are the first words that come to mind. Blind spots does begin to describe the holes that can form in that kind of situation.

There is also an inherent problem with the notion, which seems to be accepted by the COs, that "this is jail. we have our own way of handling stuff." That is also irresponsible and comes off as a method of condoning bahavior that would NEVER be acceptable anywhere else in society.

His first point is the one that ties this all together as a problem. Not all inmates are animals. Most inmates aren't incarcerated for life and many are only going to be short-timers, but they are still spending 24 hours a day in the company of humanity's worst. There is a massive difference between someone who has driven drunk/sold pot/stolen something/defended his girlfriend in a regluar fight and a rapist/murderer. Those are two very different kinds of people/criminals that are all living in the same environment. Do the lower-level criminals who are in for a short time under the concept of being 'rehabilitated' deserve to be ruled by lifers who have committed hideous crimes? To allow these populations to 'govern themselves' is folly beyond what could be considered humane.

The bottom line is that there are big problems with the system when one CO is responsible for 116 inmates and has accepted the idea that the inmates will 'handle their own stuff.'

[rjs246]

Pa. schools weigh parental fast-food ban

Any chance that congress can ban fast food from this country? I don't think I can handle watching another one of my fatass co-workers shoveling Big Macs into their faceholes.

[Diomedes]

Speaking of fast food, the next time great big ghetto mamma sits on me on the subway, thinking she can wedge her 79" hips into that 23" seat, I'm going to farging lose it.

[Susquehanna Birder]

Just offer her your lap.

[Diomedes]

She's already in my lap.  That's the problem.

[Feva]

Get your skinny ass up and offer the lady a seat... or two.

[Diomedes]

farg that.  I'm going 23 stops end to end..no way I'm standing for Mrs. Burger King.