What are prisons for?

[iolo]

I remember, when I was a kid, being given the Anarchist paper 'Freedom'. It had an excellent article on 'What is wrong with the Prison System?', and quite a short one. It read: 'Prisons'.

 

[ronburgundy]

Of course it has. We have tonnes of data on it. This is exceedingly easy numbers to sift out.

In fact, sentences are usually only increases as a response to crime rates increasing for a number of other reasons, thus nothing can be inferred from whether the rates decrease after the changes because those other factors are likely still operating to counter any impact of the change.

In USA, how this research is done is that two counties with similar demographics but in different states are compared. And it's not just two such counties. All this data is already collected. All they have to do is go back through the numbers and check. This is not difficult research to do.

It may not be difficult, but it also is not at all valid for testing causal hypotheses. No matter the complicated analyses they try to through at such observations, they can never do anything but test for extremely confounded correlations between variables measured at the aggregated level of counties rather than the level of individual person's at which all the causal influence is predicted to occur.

Counties do not randomly choose different types of sentences. Those differences are the result of countless differences in social and political culture, the type of people who live there, economic factors, etc.. Each of these factors impacts crime rates is are also correlated to countless other differences between the counties that impact crime rates, including things as subtle as population density, that state of the infrastructure, etc..
No study you can point to comes remotely close to fully controlling for all these confounding factors. Which means that no study allows for valid conclusions about the effects or non-effects of sentencing on long-term crime rates.

In addition, any research that compares overall crime rates cannot even hope to address the question at hand, which is whether the fear of prisons contributes to the reduced criminality of the majority of people that do not wind up in prison in the first place. Because crime rate data is measured at the county level rather than for each individual, such a measure is incapable of separating the crimes committed by former prisoners from crimes committed by people that have never been to prison, and only the latter speak to the question at hand. The effects of sentencing could easily be in the opposite direction for these two sub-groups for the reasons I have repeatedly explained. That would make the net correlation observed at the aggregate level appear to be zero implying to those with a shallow statistical understanding no effect, even if harsher sentences do in fact causally deter crime among people who have not been to prison yet.

Yet another factor that makes such research irrelevant to the question is that the typical and largely law-abiding persons level of fear of going to prison is unlikely to be impacted by different levels of specific sentences. People that haven't been to prison or generally involved with the legal system only have a general sense of various actions landing you in prison, not accurate knowledge of the specific number of months you will get in various counties for each type of crime. Their fear of prison would be a more general fear of going to prison at all for various acts, regardless of local sentencing guidelines. For a typical person that doesn't wind up in prison, the difference between a sentence of 6 versus 3 years will mean very little compared to the difference of going to prison at all versus not going to prison.

In sum, all of the research you refer to amounts to nothing more than saying "Hey, we looked in the wrong place for the wrong thing and we didn't find what you said was there, therefore it doesn't exist."

The American three strikes and you're out hasn't worked according to plan, has it?

Clearly, you didn't actually read or understand my full post and are just reacting to the first line. Three-strikes laws only apply to the kind of repeat chronic criminals who wind up in prison multiple times and thus are, by definition, abnormal and non-representative of the majority of the population who never wind up in prison once. Nothing about the impact of such a law informs us about the impact of the threat of prison on the majority population. What the effect of such a law tells us is that repeat criminals are abnormal in how they respond to the threat of prison (which we already know) and that the actual experience of prison may have net effects (such as induction into a criminal network) that override any deterrent effect on those who actually go there. Again, that is a completely separate issue from the deterrent effect on those who do not go there.

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

Oy! That' an even more overused, unscientific, and invalid cliche' that the idea that punishment doesn't work or prisons don't deter criminal behavior. (BTW, not only did its commonly attributed author, Einstein, know little to nothing about insanity, but there is not evidence that he ever even said it. )

If people are repeat offenders then obviously the system isn't working. It's not deterring people. The three strikes is to keep doing what we know has failed twice and expect it to work the third time. Obviously it won't.

We can compare crime rates from before and after the three strikes law. We can compare crime rates of states with three strikes laws and those who don't. Of course we know exactly how well these deter would be criminals. The answer is not at all. All this law leads to is you having to fork up for years of an inmate hotel. It's a wasted life and wasted money. What's the point?

Well, if your cliche' were valid, you would have just proved yourself insane :_) You offer the same irrelevant arguments after I just reexplained to you how you are ignoring the critical distinction between the effect of being in prison on people who go there versus the effect of the threat of prison on the people who avoid ever going there. The latter is the effect I have repeatedly explained I am referring to, and its the effect that is relevant to the vast majority of the population, because they don't go to prison in the first place.

Besides that, for reasons I explained above your meaningless correlational data don't even tell us about the effect of three strikes laws on whether former prisoners go back to prison. As I also already explained to you, three strikes laws are typically a consequence of crime rates that are already rising for various reasons. Also, law changes are a manifestation of cultural change, thus such laws are often accompanied by numerous other changes within communities, cultures, and attitudes. All those other factors could work to increase future crime rates, even if the new 3 strikes law itself is making that increase less than it otherwise would be. Given that rates of change are often variable and non-llinear, there is no way to adequately test whether the rate with the new law is less than it would be without it, because any such statistical analysis must make questionable assumptions about the exact mathematical function that the rate of change would have been operating under in the future had the law not changed. Comparing counties that do or do not implement such a law suffers from all the confounding factors between counties I detailed before.
Note: I point this out again just as a sidebar, so you can avoid this invalid argument in other discussions, but it for reasons I explained it the effect of such laws has no relevance to the question at hand regarding deterrence on people who never wind up in prison, so please don't focus your reply on this issue again.

I think most people follow the law because the law is mostly designed around what most people do. Most people are decent.

Is drinking alcohol any more "decent" than smoking pot?

Is stealing an illegal online bootleg of a just released film any more "decent" than stealing the DVD from a Wallmart? (BTW: the answer by any defensible ethics is "no").

Is punching someone in an alley and more decent than punching them in the middle of a police station parking lot?

None of the former are any more "decent" than the latter, and yet people are many times less likely to do the latter, and the reason is almost entirely a fear of going to jail.

Now you're getting oddly specific. I think you understand me just fine in spite of this odd answer. Stealing is illegal because most people think it should be. Murder and rape is illegal for the same reason. It's not harder than that. We're not refraining from raping one another because it is illegal. We're refraining from doing it because it's morally reprehensible. Even if it would be legal I suspect rapists would be about as rare as today.

We know why smoking pot is illegal. The architect of the policy has come clean. It was a war on hippies and black people. They wanted to be able to arrest and clamp down on the people who were criticising Nixon's Vietnam policy. That's all it was. The mystery is why it still is and why the rest of the world joined in on this bullshit crusade.

Again, you are missing the point entirely. The question is not about why people agree that something should be illegal. Most people who commit various crimes, generally agree that the thing they did should in principle be illegal. Most people that don't smoke pot think it should be legal, yet many do not smoke it simply because they fear the consequences of breaking the law, but they do the objectively more dangerous thing of drinking alcohol because it isn't illegal and their choices are more determined by a fear prison more than even by a fear of chemical addiction and health consequences, which are both more severe with the drinking they do. Beliefs about what generally should be legal have minimal bearing on whether one chooses to act in accord or in violation of the law, rather fear of legal consequences plays a far bigger role in behavior.
That is the point of my example instances. Most people agree that the two actions in each example are equal in their decency/indecency and should be similarly illegal or legal. Yet, most people are far more likely to engage in the former action in each pair, even though they differ only in legal consequences like prison. This illustrates that consequences have a huge impact on behavioral decisions, whether someone breaks a particular law, and which laws they break and how they break them.

Whether or not punching somebody in the face is right or wrong is context dependent, regardless of where it's done. It is sometimes legal to punch somebody in the face. It isn't always illegal.

That is also irrelevant to the point. The two actions I described could have the same "context" that determine that both actions are equally illegal and equally immoral, and yet people would be far far less likely to perform the action in one location (the police station parking lot) solely because they are more likely to get arrested for it and thus go to jail. The fear of punishment is the sole determinant of the difference in the likelihood of these otherwise identical actions. These are merely 3 of nearly infinite examples where morally equivalent actions are engaged in at dramatically different rates merely due to one being more likely to land you in prison, thus illustrating the massive causal deterrent effect of prison on behaviors.

Please make more of an effort to address the actual claim and question I am talking about rather than trying to make it only about the effect of prison on people that go to prison. I won't reply to another post repeating the same misdirections.

Just answer these two very simple questions: Think about the generally law abiding people you know who have never been to jail. Do you think they find the idea of going to prison scary? Do you think that they are less likely to do something if the consequences for them are scary?
If the answer is "no" to either of these, then you know some very odd and abnormal people. IF the answer is yes to both, then it neccessary follows that fear of prison is a deterent among the people that have avoided going to prison.

- - - Updated - - -

I remember, when I was a kid, being given the Anarchist paper 'Freedom'. It had an excellent article on 'What is wrong with the Prison System?', and quite a short one. It read: 'Prisons'.

Yeah, that sounds about like the level of thought that Anarchists put into their ideas.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Counties do not randomly choose different types of sentences. Those differences are the result of countless differences in social and political culture, the type of people who live there, economic factors, etc.. Each of these factors impacts crime rates is are also correlated to countless other differences between the counties that impact crime rates, including things as subtle as population density, that state of the infrastructure, etc..
No study you can point to comes remotely close to fully controlling for all these confounding factors. Which means that no study allows for valid conclusions about the effects or non-effects of sentencing on long-term crime rates.

They don't have to be random. We could hypothetically create a randomized selection, and then go looking for counties that match the randomized selection. So it will be random even though the process with which the laws came to be is random.

Statistics (as used in proper science) is mostly about posing meaningful questions. I think you'd be surprised just how powerful statistical analysis is (if in the right hands). When idiots use statistics to prove bullshit position, that's one thing. But this is scientists using statistics who's mission isn't to fool people or to argue some position. They're just on a mission to figure out what is true. Statistics is a powerful tool and I think you underestimate it.

Again, you are missing the point entirely. The question is not about why people agree that something should be illegal. Most people who commit various crimes, generally agree that the thing they did should in principle be illegal. Most people that don't smoke pot think it should be legal, yet many do not smoke it simply because they fear the consequences of breaking the law, but they do the objectively more dangerous thing of drinking alcohol because it isn't illegal and their choices are more determined by a fear prison more than even by a fear of chemical addiction and health consequences, which are both more severe with the drinking they do. Beliefs about what generally should be legal have minimal bearing on whether one chooses to act in accord or in violation of the law, rather fear of legal consequences plays a far bigger role in behavior.

That is the point of my example instances. Most people agree that the two actions in each example are equal in their decency/indecency and should be similarly illegal or legal. Yet, most people are far more likely to engage in the former action in each pair, even though they differ only in legal consequences like prison. This illustrates that consequences have a huge impact on behavioral decisions, whether someone breaks a particular law, and which laws they break and how they break them.

Ok, here's an example, myself. I like drugs. Sweden has very harsh drug laws, comparatively. I don't do drugs that often. But it happens. I'd say I do exactly as much drugs as I like. The fact that drugs come with harsh penalties in Sweden is a non-factor in my life. I'm pretty sure I would go to jail for the drugs I have at home right now. If the cops found it. For professional reasons a criminal record would be a disaster for me. I don't care. I'm not going to stop living because a bunch of anxious nerds happen to be in charge of making laws. Deterrence obviously isn't working on me. And neither is it working on my friends. I'd say all the cool people in Sweden are very liberal around drugs. They all have drugs at home and parties here are overflowing with them.

That is also irrelevant to the point. The two actions I described could have the same "context" that determine that both actions are equally illegal and equally immoral, and yet people would be far far less likely to perform the action in one location (the police station parking lot) solely because they are more likely to get arrested for it and thus go to jail. The fear of punishment is the sole determinant of the difference in the likelihood of these otherwise identical actions. These are merely 3 of nearly infinite examples where morally equivalent actions are engaged in at dramatically different rates merely due to one being more likely to land you in prison, thus illustrating the massive causal deterrent effect of prison on behaviors.

Ok. now I get it. The research shows that the only deterrent is that of chances of getting caught. The harshness of the punishment of the crime is a non-factor. Nobody commits a crime if they think they might get caught. So you're quite correct that people are more likely to punch people somewhere where you don't get caught. But that adds zero weight to your argument that the length of the prison sentence is a deterrence, or even a factor at all. All research shows that it isn't.

Just answer these two very simple questions: Think about the generally law abiding people you know who have never been to jail. Do you think they find the idea of going to prison scary? Do you think that they are less likely to do something if the consequences for them are scary?
If the answer is "no" to either of these, then you know some very odd and abnormal people. IF the answer is yes to both, then it neccessary follows that fear of prison is a deterent among the people that have avoided going to prison.

It certainly isn't working on me and my friends. I think we're normal for Sweden. Drug use it quote common in Sweden today. The last couple of decades have been a monumental cultural shift. I think our degree of drug use today is in line with the rest of Europe today. The only difference being the harshness of our drug laws, which are very harsh indeed.

So I think you've done a "no true Scotsman". If I agree with you then I'm a true Scotsman. If I don't then I'm not.

 

[ronburgundy]

They don't have to be random. We could hypothetically create a randomized selection, and then go looking for counties that match the randomized selection. So it will be random even though the process with which the laws came to be is random.

Yes, they do have to be randomly assigned to test a causal hypothesis. No statistical approach is a substitute for random assignment to conditions that differ only in a directly manipulated independent variable (aka, an experiment). Random selection only deals with generalizability to the larger population and in no way aids in causal inferences. Random assignment to a manipulated condition determines whether any observed differences between the groups on another variable have any reflection on the causal influence of the grouping variable on that other variable. The methods you are talking about are no different that randomly selecting people from a phone book then categorizing them by whether they have a Y chromosome (analogous to whether a county has harsher sentencing laws), then measure their intelligence, using the data to infer whether having a Y chromosome casually impact intelligence. Sure, I could also measure and then statistically control for a few of the infinite number of confounding variables, like say number of math and science courses taken. Would that satisfy you that any difference between the groups reflects the causal influence of the Y chromosome? It shouldn't, but no less so than you claimed research should satisfy you that sentences don't impact crime rates.

Statistics (as used in proper science) is mostly about posing meaningful questions. I think you'd be surprised just how powerful statistical analysis is (if in the right hands). When idiots use statistics to prove bullshit position, that's one thing. But this is scientists using statistics who's mission isn't to fool people or to argue some position. They're just on a mission to figure out what is true. Statistics is a powerful tool and I think you underestimate it.

If it matters, I am a social scientists and I teach graduate level multivariate analyses and utilize methods of testing different causal models against correlational data. But there are severe limits (sadly ignored by many) to the causal inferences that can be made in non-experimental data, especially when one is not comparing the viability of different competing causes (a more valid use of correlational data) but rather trying to draw a conclusion as to whether a single variable either does or does not have any causal impact on an outcome (which is what you are trying to claim).
Your conception of social science is naive. There are many scientists, and especially social scientists, that are on an activist mission to prove something is true. Especially in areas as related to political policy as the efficacy of the legal system. Combine this with the highly imprecise and indirect measures they often use, along with non-experimental methods that kick the door wide open for biased assumptions that determine statistical decisions and interpretations and you'd be wise to set your bullshit detector to high, regardless of whether the work is published (which is so easy in the social sciences that random word generators have succeeded at it).
Any scientist that would make the kind of strong definitive claim you have about the absence of any causal effect of X on Y, based on the kind of correlational data available, no matter how it was analyzed, is being either dishonest or incompetent as a researcher. That is true no matter the topic, but with this topic, it is even worse because the sheer number of unmeasured and uncontrolled confounding factors is astronomical, plus the high probability that law changes and crime rates would related via multiple separate causal pathways that could operate in opposing directions, resulting in a net lack of observed co variance between them (sometime referred to as suppressor effects).

In addition, nothing, not even controlled experimental methods, can make up for the fact that the wrong variable is being measured. Aggregate crime rates is not the variable in question. Aggregate crime rates reflect criminal actions by all people and cannot distinguish between crime rates among people that have never been to prison (the group all my claims of deterence refer to) versus crime rates among people who have been in but got out of prison. Nothing can be done statistically to make up for the fact that you do not have a measure of the correct variable for the sub-population that is relevant to the hypothesis. Statistics aren't magic (Jesus is magic

Again, you are missing the point entirely. The question is not about why people agree that something should be illegal. Most people who commit various crimes, generally agree that the thing they did should in principle be illegal. Most people that don't smoke pot think it should be legal, yet many do not smoke it simply because they fear the consequences of breaking the law, but they do the objectively more dangerous thing of drinking alcohol because it isn't illegal and their choices are more determined by a fear prison more than even by a fear of chemical addiction and health consequences, which are both more severe with the drinking they do. Beliefs about what generally should be legal have minimal bearing on whether one chooses to act in accord or in violation of the law, rather fear of legal consequences plays a far bigger role in behavior.

That is the point of my example instances. Most people agree that the two actions in each example are equal in their decency/indecency and should be similarly illegal or legal. Yet, most people are far more likely to engage in the former action in each pair, even though they differ only in legal consequences like prison. This illustrates that consequences have a huge impact on behavioral decisions, whether someone breaks a particular law, and which laws they break and how they break them.

Ok, here's an example, myself. I like drugs. Sweden has very harsh drug laws, comparatively. I don't do drugs that often. But it happens. I'd say I do exactly as much drugs as I like. The fact that drugs come with harsh penalties in Sweden is a non-factor in my life. I'm pretty sure I would go to jail for the drugs I have at home right now. If the cops found it. For professional reasons a criminal record would be a disaster for me. I don't care. I'm not going to stop living because a bunch of anxious nerds happen to be in charge of making laws. Deterrence obviously isn't working on me. And neither is it working on my friends. I'd say all the cool people in Sweden are very liberal around drugs. They all have drugs at home and parties here are overflowing with them.

Why don't you have any drugs in your home that you would go to prison for?
Why is alcohol consumed by a much higher % people and more frequently in nearly every country than are drugs that people are imprisoned for? The only plausible answer is because of fear of prison, because many of those illegal drugs are less dangerous than the alcohol most people drink instead.

That is also irrelevant to the point. The two actions I described could have the same "context" that determine that both actions are equally illegal and equally immoral, and yet people would be far far less likely to perform the action in one location (the police station parking lot) solely because they are more likely to get arrested for it and thus go to jail. The fear of punishment is the sole determinant of the difference in the likelihood of these otherwise identical actions. These are merely 3 of nearly infinite examples where morally equivalent actions are engaged in at dramatically different rates merely due to one being more likely to land you in prison, thus illustrating the massive causal deterrent effect of prison on behaviors.

Ok. now I get it. The research shows that the only deterrent is that of chances of getting caught. The harshness of the punishment of the crime is a non-factor. Nobody commits a crime if they think they might get caught. So you're quite correct that people are more likely to punch people somewhere where you don't get caught. But that adds zero weight to your argument that the length of the prison sentence is a deterrence, or even a factor at all. All research shows that it isn't.

I am not arguing that the exact length of a prison sentence is a factor. I said it probably isn't because most people do not know what the various specific lengths are. I am arguing that just the threat of being sent to prison in general (for any length of time) is very frightening to the average person. It isn't "getting caught" itself that matters, it is the consequence of getting caught that matters. If the cops caught you and said "Aha! I caught you, you little rascal! Now get on your way home.", then getting caught would mean nothing. People avoid doing things where getting caught means jail or prison. They are less likely to punch a guy in front of a cop than at a bar, for the same reason that most people are less likely to not punch a guy at all than punch them at a bar. The examples show that going to jail matters to most people. That makes them less likely to commit crimes where getting jailed is more likely, but since getting jailed is always possible for any jailable offence, it also makes them less likely to commit the crime at all and instead chose some non illegal course of action.

Just answer these two very simple questions: Think about the generally law abiding people you know who have never been to jail. Do you think they find the idea of going to prison scary? Do you think that they are less likely to do something if the consequences for them are scary?
If the answer is "no" to either of these, then you know some very odd and abnormal people. IF the answer is yes to both, then it neccessary follows that fear of prison is a deterent among the people that have avoided going to prison.

It certainly isn't working on me and my friends. I think we're normal for Sweden. Drug use it quote common in Sweden today. The last couple of decades have been a monumental cultural shift. I think our degree of drug use today is in line with the rest of Europe today. The only difference being the harshness of our drug laws, which are very harsh indeed.

Do have friends that smoke pot? Do they smoke it out in the open at bars and on the street? If they don't, the only plausible reason they don't is because they are afraid of jail and thus they alter their actions and limit their illegal actions to avoid jail.
You're just not giving a minutes honest thought to the countless ways that you and everyone you know alter their actions on a daily basis to avoid imprisonment.
.
This article suggests that you are very wrong about your own community and country. It claims that drug use in public and at clubs is relatively rare in Sweden, and that pot smoking is far less frequent than other European countries, such as in Chech Republic where it is 4 times as common and 3 times more common in Britain, Belgium, and Netherlands where it is either legal or laws about personal use are rarely enforced. Similar patterns of much higher drug use in countries where penalties are less are reported for Cocaine and ecstasy. In contrast, alcohol consumption does not follow the same pattern. For example, Sweden consumes about the same amount of alcohol per capita as the Netherlands. Why? Because alcohol is legal in both countries, so consumption doesn't show the same pattern as for drugs that are illegal in one but not the other.

 

[Bomb#20]

Here is what an accusation of a poorly constructed argument and a request for clarification do not look like:

"Are you somehow claiming that blacks are somehow inferior to whites? Physically or mentally? That is what you are saying isn't it?"​

You do not appear to be enough of a newcomer to the English language to be unfamiliar with what the construction "That is what you are saying, isn't it?" means. You might as well claim "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" isn't an accusation of wife-beating because it's phrased as a question.

Yes, that is the form of what he was saying. But he said it!

No, he did not. The point you are repeatedly missing is that when somebody says X, and you have forty-seven other premises that when combined with X let you derive Y, that does not mean the guy said Y. It is a reasoning error on your part to conclude that he did so, no matter how strongly you believe your forty-seven other premises, and even if all those premises are correct! To know whether skepticalbip was saying Y, you need to reason from his beliefs, not from yours. This is elementary logic. You are being irrational.

Do you remember when bilby wrote:

By definition, alternatives to prison must include the freedom for convicts to move to places that are not prisons; otherwise they are not alternatives to prisons at all - they are just differently managed prisons.

"Letting [convicts] roam freely" is, by definition, the only possible alternative to imprisoning convicts.​

and you replied:

No, it isn't. That's an absurd conclusion of anything I've said. I haven't even remotely argued for that.​

Bilby drew an inference from what you said, and you thought it was outrageous for him to argue as though that were what you were arguing for. Well, you drew an inference from what skepticalbip wrote, and for you to argue as though your inference were what skepticalbip was arguing for is equally outrageous. Who the hell do you think you are? Why should it be okay for you to use debating tactics you think are outrageous when other people use them? You are not only being irrational; you are being a prick. "Blacks are somehow inferior to whites" is an absurd conclusion of anything skepticalbip said. You are behaving like a religious fundamentalist.

He denied class differences being the cause of continued black impoverishment. I'm sorry, but that only leaves race theory as an option. If a player keeps losing either the game is rigged or there's something wrong with the player. It's either one or the other.

"Letting [convicts] roam freely" is, by definition, the only possible alternative to imprisoning convicts; it's one or the other. Does that satisfy you that you advocated letting convicts roam freely?

The fact that you haven't got the imagination to think of a third alternative does not mean skepticalbip hasn't.

Incidentally, where the devil do you think you saw him deny class differences being the cause of continued black impoverishment? That looks like yet another thing you made up and imputed to him based on combining something he said with some more of your unstated and probably poorly thought out premises. I don't see anywhere where he offered an opinion on causes of black poverty.

Your opinion that this would be an effective replacement is simply irrelevant to the issue in dispute. You know as well as I do that ankle monitors are not, in point of fact, a punishment to replace prisons with "that we have been able to collectively convince ourselves would be effective". You have therefore not produced a substantive counterargument against what I said.

I presented the actual history in order to disprove your libelous contention

What? I haven't argued for ankle monitors specifically.

I didn't say you had; I was pointing out that what you wrote didn't address what I'd written so you had no basis for using it to claim I'd offered a false dichotomy.

that laws are designed around protecting rich white people's property and the laws are designed around redefining their stealing so that it's legal, while poor people crime is judged as harshly as possible. What is known as security theatre. The goal isn't to protect people, it's to make people feel safe, in spite of not being protected at all​

First, write a post that shows you know how to refrain from libeling people for not having believed whatever you happen to believe. Then ask people their theory behind whatever you think they need a theory for.

I was being slightly facetious. But only slightly. White collar crimes are judged less harshly than blue collar crimes. Rich people get lighter punishments than poor people. Are you denying this?

Another point you are persistently missing is that the effect of laws and what laws are designed around are two different things. Surely in the course of your superb mastery of English you've encountered the phrase "unintended consequences"? White collar crimes are judged less harshly than blue collar crimes not because legislators are hostile to poor people but because having your bank account pilfered is a mathematical abstraction while getting robbed in the street at knife point is a gut-wrenching appeal to 500 million years of naturally-selected neural reactions to predators. Duh! Rich people do not get lighter punishments than poor people because the laws are designed to be mean to poor people but because rich people can afford better lawyers. Duh!

Rich people are more likely to recover from diseases than poor people. Are you denying this? Do you think that makes it okay for me to go around saying "DrZoidberg says the medical profession is designed around killing blacks."?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yes, that is the form of what he was saying. But he said it!

No, he did not. The point you are repeatedly missing is that when somebody says X, and you have forty-seven other premises that when combined with X let you derive Y, that does not mean the guy said Y. It is a reasoning error on your part to conclude that he did so, no matter how strongly you believe your forty-seven other premises, and even if all those premises are correct! To know whether skepticalbip was saying Y, you need to reason from his beliefs, not from yours. This is elementary logic. You are being irrational.

What other forty-seven other premises? Name one. I remind you that the topic is whether or not class differences can explain why poor people are more criminally inclined than rich people.

The fact that you haven't got the imagination to think of a third alternative does not mean skepticalbip hasn't.

I could have been clearer. Skepticalb missunderstood. I clarified. What exactly are you still on about?

Incidentally, where the devil do you think you saw him deny class differences being the cause of continued black impoverishment? That looks like yet another thing you made up and imputed to him based on combining something he said with some more of your unstated and probably poorly thought out premises. I don't see anywhere where he offered an opinion on causes of black poverty.

Here he did:

http://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?7777-What-are-prisons-for&p=270608&viewfull=1#post270608

Here's another post where he demonstrates his lack of understanding of how class theory works. Yes, I'm aware this is an attempt at sarcasm but the fact that he attributes these things to me shows that he doesn't understand even the most fundamental aspect of it. This looks like denial to me?

http://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?7777-What-are-prisons-for&p=271069&viewfull=1#post271069

I was being slightly facetious. But only slightly. White collar crimes are judged less harshly than blue collar crimes. Rich people get lighter punishments than poor people. Are you denying this?

Another point you are persistently missing is that the effect of laws and what laws are designed around are two different things. Surely in the course of your superb mastery of English you've encountered the phrase "unintended consequences"? White collar crimes are judged less harshly than blue collar crimes not because legislators are hostile to poor people but because having your bank account pilfered is a mathematical abstraction while getting robbed in the street at knife point is a gut-wrenching appeal to 500 million years of naturally-selected neural reactions to predators. Duh! Rich people do not get lighter punishments than poor people because the laws are designed to be mean to poor people but because rich people can afford better lawyers. Duh!

Let's agree to disagree. Also irrelevant to the OP. So we can drop this.

Rich people are more likely to recover from diseases than poor people. Are you denying this? Do you think that makes it okay for me to go around saying "DrZoidberg says the medical profession is designed around killing blacks."?

I'm aware you're trying to be funny. So of course not. But the fact that rich people are healthier than poor people does effect their performance in the market. We're more willing to hire somebody who is healthy than sick. This is an example of how class differences work. Since black people are on average less wealthy than white people the result is that they will be less healthy, on average. This is the way class differences operate. It's a perpetuating cycle. You could argue that this system, or not trying to fix this system, is somehow beneficial for society as a whole. But I think it'll be difficult to argue that this isn't how society functions.

Class theory is fundamentally the pretty banal observation that it's better to be rich than poor. Which is so obvious that I fail to see how anybody could argue against it?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Again, you are missing the point entirely. The question is not about why people agree that something should be illegal. Most people who commit various crimes, generally agree that the thing they did should in principle be illegal. Most people that don't smoke pot think it should be legal, yet many do not smoke it simply because they fear the consequences of breaking the law, but they do the objectively more dangerous thing of drinking alcohol because it isn't illegal and their choices are more determined by a fear prison more than even by a fear of chemical addiction and health consequences, which are both more severe with the drinking they do. Beliefs about what generally should be legal have minimal bearing on whether one chooses to act in accord or in violation of the law, rather fear of legal consequences plays a far bigger role in behavior.

That is the point of my example instances. Most people agree that the two actions in each example are equal in their decency/indecency and should be similarly illegal or legal. Yet, most people are far more likely to engage in the former action in each pair, even though they differ only in legal consequences like prison. This illustrates that consequences have a huge impact on behavioral decisions, whether someone breaks a particular law, and which laws they break and how they break them.

---

Why don't you have any drugs in your home that you would go to prison for?
Why is alcohol consumed by a much higher % people and more frequently in nearly every country than are drugs that people are imprisoned for? The only plausible answer is because of fear of prison, because many of those illegal drugs are less dangerous than the alcohol most people drink instead.

---

Do have friends that smoke pot? Do they smoke it out in the open at bars and on the street? If they don't, the only plausible reason they don't is because they are afraid of jail and thus they alter their actions and limit their illegal actions to avoid jail.
You're just not giving a minutes honest thought to the countless ways that you and everyone you know alter their actions on a daily basis to avoid imprisonment.

Here's what I've said and what they also said in the seminar:

1. The fact that something is illegal at all is a deterrence.
2. The risk of getting caught is a deterrence.
3. The fact that you get a criminal record if you're convicted is a deterrence.
4. The length of a prison sentence is hardly a factor at all.

The fact that people aren't openly smoking pot in the street (as much as they otherwise would) only supports 3 & 4. Since me and my friends have close to a zero percent chance of getting caught we just don't care about Sweden's drug laws. Regardless of the length of prison sentences. Here's a practical example. USA have much stricter drug laws than European countries. But USA is much more a drug culture. In USA it can be the norm to do drugs at certain parties. We don't have that level of drug user at all in Europe. The harsh prison sentences for drugs in USA doesn't seem to deter Americans or even as much as dent their drug culture.

I said that I actually do have enough drugs at home which I'm pretty sure I'd have to go to jail for. The amounts necessary to be thrown in jail in Sweden are tiny.

Here's a historical run through of Sweden. This is interesting because Sweden is such a conformist country that once something becomes trendy everybody starts doing it until it's not trendy and then everybody stops.

Up to the 1960'ies drugs were pretty much non-existent. The only drug really was heroin. But not much of a problem.
In the 1960'ies recreational drug use began. Very very limited use. Only among artists and people on the extreme fringes of society.
In the 1970'ies drugs became trendy and they started showing up everywhere. Not everybody did drugs of course. But they became a common sight. Now the war on drugs started. Completely influenced by USA.
In the 1980'ies drugs pretty much vanished. It just wasn't trendy any more. This is when I was young and drugs just didn't exist around me. The laws were the same though.
In the 1990'ies drugs started to become trendy again. And we're back to the situation of the 1970'ies. Drug laws are made harsher.
In the 2000'ies Travel is easier now so cultural differences between European countries are lessening, which means that we're bit by bit nearing the consumption patterns of the rest of Europe. The drug laws again are made even harsher.

... and this is the situation today. If we look back historically the law has been irrelevant. The only factor controlling drug use has been if it's trendy or not.

Ok. now I get it. The research shows that the only deterrent is that of chances of getting caught. The harshness of the punishment of the crime is a non-factor. Nobody commits a crime if they think they might get caught. So you're quite correct that people are more likely to punch people somewhere where you don't get caught. But that adds zero weight to your argument that the length of the prison sentence is a deterrence, or even a factor at all. All research shows that it isn't.

I am not arguing that the exact length of a prison sentence is a factor. I said it probably isn't because most people do not know what the various specific lengths are. I am arguing that just the threat of being sent to prison in general (for any length of time) is very frightening to the average person.

We agree completely then. I'm arguing that we can probably find a punishment that feels as scary and frightening to the average person that costs less money as well as being less damaging to the person who goes to jail. My contention is as to why those alternative methods of punishment aren't being pursued. I'm not against punishing people. What I'm against is doing it stupidly. The LSE seminar didn't argue against punishing people. It simply questioned how we were doing it.

It claims that drug use in public and at clubs is relatively rare in Sweden, and that pot smoking is far less frequent than other European countries, such as in Chech Republic where it is 4 times as common and 3 times more common in Britain, Belgium, and Netherlands where it is either legal or laws about personal use are rarely enforced. Similar patterns of much higher drug use in countries where penalties are less are reported for Cocaine and ecstasy. In contrast, alcohol consumption does not follow the same pattern. For example, Sweden consumes about the same amount of alcohol per capita as the Netherlands. Why? Because alcohol is legal in both countries, so consumption doesn't show the same pattern as for drugs that are illegal in one but not the other.

I think the legality of alcohol and drugs a non-factor. We have a low consumption of both drugs and alcohol in Sweden because we have a fitness culture. It's high status here to be in good physical health. So our consumption of anything that will mess up our health will be restricted. I think this is purely a cultural thing. I think politicians have been pushing for stricter drug laws not because we have a drug problem. But because we don't. Because drug consumption is so low there is no political cost to be harsh with drug users. It gives the politician an image of doing something when they're in fact not.

In Sweden alcohol can only be purchased in alcohol shops. Taxes is high. You might think that might explain the low consumption. The problem is that it's considered fancy and high status to import wine privately. This is extremely common. If I want to get booze on a weekend I just call up a guy in a van who can sell me the exact same stuff at half the price delivered to my door. Not legally. But he does it anyway.

I think the controlling factor here is just trends. If it's trendy people will find a way.

BTW, I found this interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_cannabis_use_by_country

Swedes smoke more weed per capita than Americans. I think that's interesting.

 

[tantric]

prison restored my fundamental faith in the basic goodness of humanity. that was my experience, certainly not what was intended. bit from my blog:

i’m a gay, intellectual buddhist who spent time in a maximum security prison – and i might have said some things to disrespect my people inside. let me clarify. i was never beaten, raped or had my shit taken, except by screws. i saw some awful shit, but it was the screw shining a flashlight up my ass every day on the way to ‘work’ (where we make your street and road signs – but only about 10% get paid and only .50/hr, but you get to live in the worker dorm, instead of the mf thunderdorm, so that’s something). my people, jackett, gary, mike, dan, looked out for me and me for them. you walk the path of the lord (Buddha) in prison and life is okay. most of my friends were born agains, but not all – a Nuwabian, if you know what that means, the Nation of Islam guy who taught me to read Arabic so I could study the Koran (in a jail where only religious materials are allowed for reading – i read the Bible in English and Spanish, my Vision of Buddhism til it fell apart and I gave it to fellow seeker). Meditating is better than sitting in a cell, no joke, if you know how. or praying. whatever. when they put me in the genpop at first, the nigga who let me in his room (cause you don’t have a room given – it’s certain somebody is already there) cause he was trying to quit the violence and the gang got stabbed – i walked though a puddle of his blood while being marched to breakfast one morning, i’m not kidding at all. i gave him my padlock to take the wire out to be a pick, but the locker didn’t work anyway – he kept my shit safe. when i got out i sent all the gamers tons of printed out old modules, etc – you can buy game stuff in prison, there’s a catalog that accepts books of stamps as payment, but i know what’s good and it’s in a letter, a lot easier. i owe a lot more than that.

prison is what america does instead of a welfare state and/or monastic tradtion

link to my blog; confessions of a weirdness magnet the prison shit is page 4-6, i think

 

[another1]

Staph infections, scabies, lice, humiliation, dehumanization on several levels, 24/7 psychological torment, thousands of men with the emotional equivalent of a 12 year old sociopath...

Those are just a few reasons the homeless don't start a crime wave. Free food, shelter, medicine and education are all offered in prison, but the darn gang raping ruins everything.

 

[tantric]

Staph infections, scabies, lice, humiliation, dehumanization on several levels, 24/7 psychological torment, thousands of men with the emotional equivalent of a 12 year old sociopath...

Those are just a few reasons the homeless don't start a crime wave. Free food, shelter, medicine and education are all offered in prison, but the darn gang raping ruins everything.

my experience:

prison is funny. see, after all, i *am* stone cold tantric, and locking me in a cell and feeding me like a monk doesn’t really impair my path to spiritual harmony, even if i am locked up with some dumbass bitches.

 

[another1]

Glad you came out a better person. I've been felony free since 2003, so apparently for some people the system does work in a screwed up way. I never had a Zen moment but I got better at drawing and reading. I finished a few books all the way to the end. They would let us order books if they were sent directly from the publisher. In my experience, prisons are for breaking the hearts of Mothers. That is ultimately the worst part of the punishment in my opinion. I'm not a criminal and I'm not proud of having done what I did, which btw was nonviolent.

 

[tantric]

Glad you came out a better person. I've been felony free since 2003, so apparently for some people the system does work in a screwed up way. I never had a Zen moment but I got better at drawing and reading. I finished a few books all the way to the end. They would let us order books if they were sent directly from the publisher. In my experience, prisons are for breaking the hearts of Mothers. That is ultimately the worst part of the punishment in my opinion. I'm not a criminal and I'm not proud of having done what I did, which btw was nonviolent.

interesting. i'm a stone cold criminal. while also being a reasonably devout buddhist. not, mind you, that criminal activities make up a significant portion of my life, but that it's always there. looking for ways to benefit by breaking rules and getting away with it. like bagging up avocados at mal-wart, going to self checkout and entering '4011' - avocadoes, $.65/lb!. there is no guilt associated with this - corporations are not people and they do not have the right to own anything. i'd never steal from a person, except as counting coup. when i see mal-wart, i see my class enemy. consumer capitaiism is a disease. taking thing from corporations is fine, like harvesting fruit, so long as greed isn't the motivation. oh, and the war on drugs is a war of terror and oppression conducted by the government against its own citizens. i'm diabetic, so i can buy needles and i hand them out to iv drug users.

see, in the 90s i was a raverat. i got tired of my friends getting bum pills, so i set up an MDMA lab and gave away the results. i got caught redhanded and got off on an invalid search warrant. six years ago i dropped out of a phd program in epidemiology - i lost hope. i tried to kill myself with a rifle, and accidentally frightened a cop in the process. for this, i spent two years in a maximum security prison.

i learned my lesson - so long as you keep fighting, it's all good. it's when you give up that the jackals get you

 

[another1]

I see. How do you practice your Buddhism and justify stealing tho? I read one thing about it and in my own world it just seemed to be confirming vague things that a person should instinctively know and then connecting them to something I had no use for at the time. I never looked much further into it other than catching a glance at someone praising it, but I got the general impression of honesty no stealing no lying everything is awesome. I don't know you so that is more of a question than an observation of you, so don't trip out and jack me for my shit. Yo.

Me I'm a guilt fetished bastard so I can't go out and steal. If something is only a few dollars I will buy it and charge it to the game. I stole some copper a few times but in my region that is more about culture than crime. It would have gone to waste if someone else did actually steal it, so I was preventing a crime. I try to help out where I can ya know. Other than that and whatever other dumb stuff that happens, I stay on the straight and narrow.

You help your community by providing clean needles to addicts. I totally respect that. Shame that your lab got shut down and your findings were confiscated. I've met people in similar situations. Cops can be so jumpy around guns. Did they send you to a Federal or state prison? Do you agree with my definition of what prisons are for? Like I said, I'm a guilt ridden freak. People will be laughing and having Birthday cake while I'm nailing Jesus to the cross in my head. Guilt keeps me living clean.

 

[tantric]

i only steal things i really need, like food and medicine. it's never about 'want' or greed or anything like that. i really have very little interest in material wealth. i honestly don't want a new TV, car, whatever. i strongly prefer recycling stuff from junk - my computer setup is that. a laptop with the screen detached, a stand alone monitor i trade for from a buddy, etc, but it's running Ubuntu 15.10, fast and reliable. i don't wear new clothes - my sister, whom i despise, is constantly trying to 'dress me up'. i don't need that shit - it's all lies. i'm a GOOD PERSON and you can tell it the minute you talk to me. i'm setting myself up now as a farmer, growing designer veggies for yuppies (google 'orangeglo watermelon') on a farm i'll inherit in a few years. i get paid in cash for those, and i got hustle, so i get by.

dammit, i can't find your def of what prisons are for....

also remember Ji Gong the drunk zen monk:

Chan Buddhist monk who lived in the Southern Song. He purportedly possessed supernatural powers, which he used to help the poor and stand up to injustice. However, he was also known for his wild and eccentric behaviour, and for violating Buddhist monastic rules by consuming alcohol and meat.

it's not about following the rules, it's about always doing the right thing.

this is the page in my blog about my arrest: confessions of a weirdness magnet, up the creek

 

[another1]

I gotcha, like I said, I don't know much about the Buddah faith but I'm interested in all faith and Religion. One thing I find fascinating is how a person changes neurochemically when convinced of a new faith or religion. There is a dress up game most people play and they integrate stuff they derive from mysticals into their lives and personalities. That stuff I love trying to understand. Other than my own limited perception, I have no instruments with which to measure, so any observation I make is about me and not someone else.

I like watching the justification process during the erosion (adjustment) of faith and how people change the fundamentals of their own faith guidelines to suit their situations. I think faith is a constant breaking down and rebuilding process ya know. There is always an exception people can make, like the random monk who gets drunk and fights crime or the Christian crusader who smokes crack but says sorry and still goes to Heaven. Jesus hung out with whores and he was an anarchist etc etc. There is so much hypocrisy in some things spiritual and I think it exists to accrue numbers.The people who wrote the stuff knew how to work the fringe back into the fabric to make things more sturdy.

Back to prison... In my definition, prison is for breaking the hearts of Mothers. They seem to do harder time than inmates. Some people hate their mothers and their families so it may be easier for them. Personally I feel deep shame and regret for the shockwave of pain I created when my irresponsibility caught up with me. Other people are my reality and I'm theirs, in some ways. I either confirm who I am to myself by telling them who I am and waiting for an approving response, or I force the desired impression onto them through psychic heavy petting, which ultimately may be masturbation because I'm probably truly alone. That is how guilt happens. I guess that works into the definition of prison so I haven't strayed from prison topics completely yet. Maybe there is time to talk about that in a different category.

I've looked at your blog. I like it. Seems you have a lot to say. I'll read more later. My eyes take in too much light or something and I get head aches.

 

[tantric]

i'm working on a reply for this. re: stealing - my sandals were about done, so today i went to the mall, tried on a new pair and left my old ones in the box. i just don't feel any wrongness in this - the mall itself is so utterly wrong, there's not much i could do to it.

 

[another1]

I can't judge you. I was going to go into how businesses are pyramids and stealing from the bottom of them raises prices and actually benefits the assholes on top. I'm not going to do that because I'd be a hypocrite. I've done a copper heist here and there since becoming Christian but not much else. Before I started practicing Christianity I stole and lied and treated people like objects. Christianity didn't cure me of that stuff, it just happened that the personal changes I made happened at the same time. It may have helped that my brain was changing from the faith. I've experienced a couple times the head change that comes with a Religion. Christianity is pretty uncut brain candy and it has a lot of objects, sounds, words and whatnot. There are levels of doubt that seem fractal and they just never stop cascading, but that seems to be part of the balance in it. There is also of course the fact that Jesus was probably just a human, if he even lived at all. In my world that doesn't matter because I'm realistic like that.

Back to prison... Fear of prison is what keeps us from picking from the top, right? Don't tell me you wouldn't totally loot a mall and burn it if the opportunity arose and you knew you wouldn't get caught. Prison and my Mom are the things I think about when I see the thousands of things I could do to get ahead. I guess you went to a Southern State prison. Those can get rather crowded and stuffy. No tobacco and limited commissary items. White power and rotten teeth. Lots of people talking about how to cook meth. You had some recipes memorized by the time you left. I've never done meth and don't ever plan on cooking it but even I knew methcathinone synthesis by the time I left. I took a lot of Seroquel and convinced the infirmary docs to take me to a huge dose. I slept away so much time. The medicine made me gain a lot of weight and it took years to do enough drugs to lose it but I succeeded.

You've been saying things in an oddly familiar way and I was wondering if I have met you in perhaps another place. People are people and there are only so many ways to be one, so maybe not. Make a thread about the 90's electronic music scene so we can derail it to drugs. A hallucinogen thread would be cool. Visions, divinatory experiences, the presence of demons during drug trances and the like. I don't argue in debate fashion but those topics I could handle doing.

 

[tantric]

I can't judge you. I was going to go into how businesses are pyramids and stealing from the bottom of them raises prices and actually benefits the assholes on top. I'm not going to do that because I'd be a hypocrite. I've done a copper heist here and there since becoming Christian but not much else. Before I started practicing Christianity I stole and lied and treated people like objects. Christianity didn't cure me of that stuff, it just happened that the personal changes I made happened at the same time. It may have helped that my brain was changing from the faith. I've experienced a couple times the head change that comes with a Religion. Christianity is pretty uncut brain candy and it has a lot of objects, sounds, words and whatnot. There are levels of doubt that seem fractal and they just never stop cascading, but that seems to be part of the balance in it. There is also of course the fact that Jesus was probably just a human, if he even lived at all. In my world that doesn't matter because I'm realistic like that.

Back to prison... Fear of prison is what keeps us from picking from the top, right? Don't tell me you wouldn't totally loot a mall and burn it if the opportunity arose and you knew you wouldn't get caught. Prison and my Mom are the things I think about when I see the thousands of things I could do to get ahead. I guess you went to a Southern State prison. Those can get rather crowded and stuffy. No tobacco and limited commissary items. White power and rotten teeth. Lots of people talking about how to cook meth. You had some recipes memorized by the time you left. I've never done meth and don't ever plan on cooking it but even I knew methcathinone synthesis by the time I left. I took a lot of Seroquel and convinced the infirmary docs to take me to a huge dose. I slept away so much time. The medicine made me gain a lot of weight and it took years to do enough drugs to lose it but I succeeded.

pretty much the complete opposite. smith state prison in south ga, there's natgeo vid about it that shows people i know. yes, i hate the mall and all it stands for and i would love to see it burn. i would do a happy snoopy dance in the ashes of western civilization. but i've chilled out - i did my part for the revolution in the 90s. and frankly, if i really wanted to burn down the mall and get away with it, i probably could. i'm scary smart - like mad scientist smart. note my other thread on DIY genetic engineering. tobacco is not allowed and thus ubiquitous - almost everybody smokes 'bluesteel' cigs. i took a few hits when i was hanging with my niggas, but avoided the habit. i did buy a joint of pot on my first day in the terror dorm - i needed that shit. my first day in the sorting prison that everybody has to go through, Jackson, also houses death row, i saw this guy i was friends with in county - he was on a work crew. in county, his account got fucked and he didn't have commisary for a month and i floated him, giving him some soups and basic shit every week, just cause he was my nigga. when he saw me in jackson, the next day i had a special delivery of food and salt and shit - normally you have to wait weeks to get your commissary started. he totally took care of me - karma. and no - he didn't fuck me or any of that shit (honestly, this guy, camrom, was a sexy mf and i'd totally do him outside, but i didn't do any sex in prison). white power? in county, we could only have religious books. out of boredom, i had my family get me a koran with arabic/english reading, so i could learn it. i asked the Nation of Islam guys to give me an alphabet, they did, no problem. meth recipes? seriously? i was a professional clandestine chemist in the 90s. i speak organic chemistry, i understand drug synthesis like other people know how to bake cakes. my drug is DXM, cough syrup. it took me month to set it up, but i got a bottle every week in exchange for a pack of tuna (which i had to smuggle through the nurse station). once a week i drank my potion, laid back and talked to my gods - the same gods who were providing for me all along, the lords of coincidence and compassion. honestly, i hate my family so much that if i could just go right back to where i was in Smith with my niggas, some days i'd go. in prison, if you tell a lie to somebody, in their face, and they know it - they knock your fucking teeth out. i have low latent inhibition , i'm a natural lie detector. here, in the 'free world' people open their mouths and spew sewage, right in my face, and i have to stand there and pretend to believe their pathetic bullshit. all the time, when interacting with people, fuckers do things to me that would get the shit beat out of them in prison and nothing happens. free world people have zero understanding of honor and integrity - what it means to stand by someone, someone you will fight for, do time for, lie for, cause he's your nigga and that's how it works. reciprocal altruism. here - most people are deluded greedy lying maggots.

 

[another1]

I'm going to watch Walking Dead and get back to you, tantric. I appreciate the response. I have to let my eyes rest for a few brb

 

[another1]

TY tantric. Actually I understood all of that. My I.Q is a humbling 90, so less manic in the details if you don't mind. There is time. You do organism chemistry? I wouldn't know because I don't go on chemistry pages. I don't know how to do chemistry spells other than in drug extraction and manufacture. I don't do that shit but I'm just saying, yeah. You said you have problems interacting with people? Do you have any hallucinogen side effects? That may be why. Hallucinogens are really what I'd like to talk about someday if you aren't too busy splitting atoms and making photon powder or whatever it is that you do. Seriously though can we talk about hallucinating? You mentioned making drugs and trippers aren't hard to spot, but pardon me if I'm wrong about thinking you've done an ocean of liquid LSD intravenously. I can't hate and don't think I am. I tripped all through the 90s and still do some drugs presently. If I had culture it would probably be drugs.

Back to prison... Your experience sounds scary. I suffered trauma in my ordeal. I loaded up on propranolol because I read it prevents ptsd. I took that and Seroquel, plus smoked weed when I had to stack bricks, which actually became my trade for a decade after my release. I was on paper for years after they released me and violated once. I got revocation papers in the mail and freaked out, but my P.O was just doing mind games to put the fear back into me because everybody gets a little too comfortable on paper. He let me go the last six months with dirty urine but I had to pay for home confinement, and a home to be confined in. My actual release date was 2018, and this was in 2004 or 2005. I totally lucked out because my P.O was intuitive and he read me as a non threat to society I guess.

On the antisocial anarchist part I totally agree. I've felt the same way. I try to find peace in depersonalization. 15 grams of weed a day and constant electronic stimulation keeps me from verbally or physically confronting things that are so obviously sick and wrong in what I assume is our world. You do see the humor in how ridiculously fucked everybody is, right? The punch line is in figuring out how to bide the time without being murdered, while enjoying the show. I don't really know so don't quote me. You can if you want and I won't charge you but I still don't know.

Back to prison... Mount Olive and Huttonsville are absolute Hell. At the first place I got processed at for 30 days and they determined what I was about and where I should go. That place was seriously dangerous. Huttonsville was not too terrible, and I had already been in regional jail for six months before they sent me up the road, so I only had ten months left by the time I reached Huttonsville. I made the mistake of getting in medical dorm because I thought it would be safer. It wasn't. Tobacco was still allowed at this point in time and I think they outlawed it shortly after I left. Tobacco, weed, Seroquel and Propranolol sure helped. My closest friends are people I met while being shuffled through those institutions. They still do crime and they do heavy drugs. I'd go on about the many violent things and the feeling of being an infant, totally dependent on a cold institution, but yeah it is just depressing shit to me. My word on the subject is prisons are for breaking the hearts of Mothers and creating super criminals to eat society from within. What do you think good alternatives for prison would be?