Prison Cell Phone Smuggling Out of Control 428
Hugh Pickens writes writes "KCRA reports that the number of contraband cell phones discovered in California state prisons has exploded as prison guards, staff and vendors are cashing in on smuggled phones that can fetch between $200 and $800. Although the large majority of inmates are using the phones to stay in contact with loved ones, there have been documented cases of escape attempts, drug deals and conference calls coordinated via smuggled cell phones. 'The potential is there for the worst kind of activity,' says Folsom Prison Warden Rick Hill. Even Charles Manson has been caught with a cellphone smuggled to him. 'We know the problem is out of control,' says State Senator Alex Padilla, who has proposed making such smuggling illegal in hopes of stopping the continued rise of contraband cell phones in prison."
Proposed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
They can't keep cell phones and other items too, like drugs out of prisons. Out of PRISONS. Yet we really think we can have a War on (some) Drugs applied to the general population. Idiocy. Unlike a cell phone, drugs have a flexible shape, don't broadcast electromagnetic radiation, and don't have an attached account with somebody's name on it.
Re:Proposed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
They can't keep cell phones and other items too, like drugs out of prisons. Out of PRISONS. Yet we really think we can have a War on (some) Drugs applied to the general population. Idiocy. Unlike a cell phone, drugs have a flexible shape, don't broadcast electromagnetic radiation, and don't have an attached account with somebody's name on it.
Prisons are designed to keep people in, not keep stuff out.
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Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
They can't keep cell phones and other items too, like drugs out of prisons. Out of PRISONS. Yet we really think we can have a War on (some) Drugs applied to the general population. Idiocy. Unlike a cell phone, drugs have a flexible shape, don't broadcast electromagnetic radiation, and don't have an attached account with somebody's name on it.
Prisons are designed to keep people in, not keep stuff out.
You are, of course, correct. However - the same walls, and tools that keep people IN could be used to keep stuff OUT. Unfortunately, no one has the brass to use the tools at their disposal. To much inconvenience - kinda like Windows users who click through dozens of warnings that opening some attachment will cause their computer to burst into flames, consuming everything within a 100 yard radius.
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As Bernie, various stars/athletes, politicians, etc.. show, increasing pay isn't necessarily going to solve the problem.
Real prison oversight might help. Heck, getting most of the minor offenders OUT of prison might help.
For that matter, fixing the problem of prisoner communication with their families by providing authorized phones at reasonable rates might help.
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The US prison system was basically crippled by a shift from rehabilitation to sadistic punishment (the punishment is not even applied as rehabilitation, simply as a punitive measure).
This altered the nature of officials in charge of prisons, they shifted from being trained 'correctional' services officers with pay reflecting their training and skills, to dumbed down thugs with pay reflecting their absolute lack of training and their only skill, brutality.
Net result the psychology of the prison guards i
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Instead of trying to get every single phone, just jam them all. Surely the whiners who prevent that in theatres can't have any say in how a prison is run?
Re:Proposed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
In general there are three categories of laws. Infractions, misdemeanors and felonies. At the lower categories the penalty may only be a fine, maybe a relatively small one. Perhaps the legislation is upping the category and/or the penalty.
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Informative)
You could RTFA... :)
It's not illegal to possess cell phones or bring them into California prisons, although it is illegal for federal prisons.
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You could RTFA... :)
Huh? I thought I was reading slashdot.
It's not illegal to possess cell phones or bring them into California prisons, although it is illegal for federal prisons.
Then how is giving a phone to a prisoner "smuggling"?
Idiots (Score:3)
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
OK so technically you could get a permit, but you have to wonder if prisons are relying on cellular for official communications at this point. It's become so cheap and prevalent - cellular is replacing radio for a lot of field operations comms requirements these days. (No I can't cite anything beyond what I see at my own job where some of the field crews are cellphone only at this point.) Anyway, if that is the case and prisons are using cellular for their own comms - jamming the prisoner comms becomes problematic and probably creates a safety issue for employees.
Re:Idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why they should instead create a few microcells (or a few thousand picocells) that cover the prison grounds, then log everything that passes through those cells just like they do with calls from the phone on the wall.
This has the advantage of significantly reducing the ability of inmates to use them for harm while not reducing their ability to use them for good (keeping in touch with family, etc.). Also, it's legal and doesn't put the staff at risk.
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the legislation is upping the category and/or the penalty.
I wonder why they would do that, given the known lack of correlation between the harshness of penalties and the occurence of crimes.
Texas, for example, has one of the highest murder rates in the US, and also has extremely harsh penalties, including the frequent use of killing convicted murderers.
North Dakota, in contrast, has one of the lowest murder rates in the US, and has never employed the practice of killing convicted murderers.
I don't know what the relevant difference is between Texas and North Dakota, but given the murder rates are anti-correlated with the harshness of the penalties it seems unlikely that the two are related at all. There is quite a bit of research to back this notion up, that after a certain point the marginal decline in a criminal behaviour for a marginal increase in penalty decreases, a fact that should come as no suprise to anyone who has been paying attention to ecnomics for, say, the past 200 years. The law of diminishing returns is a pretty fundamental result of human preference functions.
Now it may be that in the present case there are data to suggest that the point of diminishing returns has not been met with regard to cell phone smuggling in prisons, but the very first question that should be asked of people proposing legal changes of this kind is, "Where are the data to show that this new and harsher law will result in a reduction in the penalized behaviour sufficient to justify the change?"
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Population (2009 est)
Texas - 24,782,302
North Dakota - 646,844
Density - Persons per sq mile (2000 est)
Texas - 79.6
North Dakota - 9.3
Dallas has 2x the population of North Dakota. More people, closer together, more chance for crime. Texas also has many more people below the poverty level. src: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html [census.gov]
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Dallas has 2x the population of North Dakota. More people, closer together, more chance for crime. Texas also has many more people below the poverty level
Density is almost certainly a factor.
Poverty level, though - is the poverty the cause of the crime, or crime the cause of the poverty? Or are both the result of a 3rd factor, such as people with poor self-control? A lot of folks assume the first, but the other two seem just as, if not more, likely.
Re:Proposed? (Score:4, Insightful)
take a look at this map of dallas homicides in 2010. South and South East Dallas is predominately minority and low income with high gang activity.
I've included a heat map of home prices just so you know I'm not guessing about those areas economically.
It's a chicken and egg question though as to crime/poverty and I won't even go there.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/graphics/homicides/ [dallasnews.com]
http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Texas/Dallas-heat_map/ [trulia.com]
Don't think so... (Score:3)
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Perhaps the legislation is upping the category and/or the penalty.
I wonder why they would do that, given the known lack of correlation between the harshness of penalties and the occurence of crimes.
You are misusing statistics. The statistics you quote are for large diverse populations. The sample of the population being targeted here is quite small and it is not random. It is a highly screened segment of the population that has been determined to be "more" law abiding than a random selection. The "sample" being targeted are the guards/staff, a key component in this smuggling.
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It is obvious that the death penalty is the cause of murders and harsh penalties cause other crimes. /sarcasm
Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just install cell phone jammers in all prisons? Is there honestly any "right" to have cell phone signal in the prison?.
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cell phone jammers are illegal. Federal law, state law can't override it.
Granted, the law could be changed (with an exception added for cell phone jammers in jails), but it hasn't happened yet. It might soon, if there's enough of a cry out for it.
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about cellphone detectors. I’m sure there is a technology that can detect and triangulate the radiation spewing from those things. And they are probably less illegal than jammers.
I suspect a lot of the stuff that gets smuggled into prisons comes from or is aided by underpaid prison staff (I really think it’s amazing how little they make considering the risk they take) either directly or indirectly. I don’t see how this kind of stuff could make it in, in the quantities that it does, without at least a little help. Even if you came up with a good technical way to stop the cellphone problem, all it takes is one guard to look the other way, and it’s defeated.
Then again I’ve never been to prison nor been a corrections officer... so I admit I have no clue how stuff actually works there.
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Prisons don't tend to be very near private residences so there wouldn't be much issue of blocked area bleeding outside the walls of the prison. And the FCC can issue a waiver for certain cases.
There isn't any reason they can't do this in a *prison*.
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Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble with the Faraday solution is that it would also stop radios from working, which means communications between the guards inside the building and outside in the yard would be impossible.
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Of course. Obviously it would be better to have to only be able to communicate when next to the hardline, instead of being able to get in touch with guards wherever they are on their rounds instantly. It's not like there are any important reasons to distinguish between someone being incommunicado because they aren't near a fixed phone, versus some other reason, in a prison.
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Or just install picocells and snoop on all the traffic. Given it's a prison if you can work out how to stop phones outside the prison using the cell you might even have a end run around privacy rules and warrants and so on...
Why block it when you can collect it all as evidence.
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that would be a logical, one-shot solution that would end the problem. That's no good for a politician. They want an ongoing issue they can pull out from time to time, whenever they need a distraction. There's little profit for your buddies and political capital for yourself from solving problems; there's lots to be made from prolonging them.
They'll integrate the prison guards into the DHS and hire thousands more of them to look for cell phones before they'll do something as simple and effective as installing jammers.
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IANAL, but it seems there are things the prisons could do:
1. For existing facilities: Pay the licensed carriers (AT&T, Verizon, etc) to install custom cells at the prison. Give the base station low power, and program it to only allow pre-determined cell numbers to connect to anything other than 911. Because it is low power, cells outside the prison will choose to use higher-power signals from nearby real cells instead, so there is no interference with neighbors. Yet inside the prison, it will still b
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they just install cellphone towers specifically for prisons
If there are pesky laws against this maybe you could get away by having some "fine print" which "informs" the prisoners (who are unlikely to read it) that they are not allowed to use cellphones in the prison, and if they do, the comms may be tapped or even modified as the prison sees fit.
When opportunity knocks stop complaining about the noise.
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Why don't they just install cellphone towers specifically for prisons ;). If you do it right, the phones will always use your towers in preference to others.
Extending this principle: 1. Give out cell phones to any prisoner who wants one. Secretly configure them to talk only to a special tower you control (not even the guards can know about that part). 2. All calls on those phones will be wiretapped. (prisoners have a lot less 4th Amendment protection than folks out of prison) This solves a couple of problems at once - giving out cell phones dries up the black market and allows those who want to talk to their loved ones, but since you're wiretapping them anyone
Great idea! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure legislation will fix the problem... after all, inmates are in jail because they FOLLOW laws! Politicians are morons.
Re:Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Great idea! (Score:4)
I'm sure legislation will fix the problem... after all, inmates are in jail because they FOLLOW laws! Politicians are morons.
Note that the summary says "prison guards, staff and vendors are cashing in". These suppliers are the weak link and are somewhat likely to respond to the legislation.
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Note that the summary says "prison guards, staff and vendors are cashing in". These suppliers are the weak link and are somewhat likely to respond to the legislation.
Right, so by increasing the penalties you are decreasing the competition, and therefore increasing the profit margins for those willing and able to continue the practice.
But of course fewer (and richer) smugglers does not in any way imply fewer smuggled cell phones, so it isn't clear why anyone would suggest harsher penalties in this case, other than maybe organized criminals who want to use the law to "persuade" the more casual competition to exit the market.
Only if you for some reason assume that "few smu
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Just like the drug laws keep drugs under control, right? You can lose it all there, but people still do it anyways.
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I think the idea is to throw the people (like security guards) who supply inmates with cell phones in jail as well...
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Isn't that where they are now?
Re:Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well of course it's not working, we haven't thrown enough money at it. Just like drugs.
-The legislators
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Legislation tends to just add a force multiplier to an existing crime. For instance; Drug free school zones don't magically stop drugs from being sold, but they add a nice "and" to the existing charges, which in turn makes it harder to plead down.
In this case, legislation *is* needed. If I sneak a hundred cell phones into a prison at 800 bucks a pop, my only crime currently would be not declaring the additional $80,000 in income on my taxes. (Sorta like Al Capone. He was never nailed for bootlegging / extor
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I'm sure if they knew they could pass from jailer to inmate if they got caught it would have a chilling effect on currently rampant smuggling...
It will reduce the number of smugglers. Why do you believe that will reduce the amount of smuggling?
That is, reducing supply without reducing demand [wikipedia.org] cannot have any effect other than increasing the revenues of the remaining suppliers. Demand may drop due to increases in price, but by how much depends on the price elasticity of demand relative to supply. There are circumstances in which reducing the number of suppliers will result eventually in a lower equilibrium market price.
A "problem?" (Score:4, Interesting)
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Most/all cellphones are much larger than say a balloon
You must have had a terrible childhood!
Re:A "problem?" (Score:5, Informative)
A guard caught with a cell phone gets administrative punishment under union rules. A guard caught with drugs goes down for a felony and loses his job.
Re:A "problem?" (Score:5, Insightful)
the real problem, actually, is that the existing, legal phone system inside armerica's prisons is grossly corrupt. prison phone system providers are given a monopoly, charge exorbitant rates (a 630% markup over normal residential prices) and then actually kickback money to prison officials and politicians to keep their sweet contracts (57.5% of profits to the state of new york, for example).
my source for these numbers is here [northcountrygazette.org]
add to that the fact that even if an inmate can get a prison job, the wages are usually in the dollar-or-less per hour range, sometimes as low as 20c/hr, and you have a situation where the legal phone system is financially unusable. the result is that the economic impulse to get a black market cellphone -- even a $200 one -- is strong.
if america really wanted to stop black market cellphones, they'd cancel verizon's prison phone contract and offer reasonably-priced access to phone systems to inmates.
my source for the prison wages info is: here [digitaljournal.com]
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OR (Score:4, Insightful)
Or.... don't let the signal from the towers penetrate to the prison? Surely the guards can do without when they're on duty?
Re:OR (Score:5, Informative)
They kinda do that here in Florida. Some prisons have their own microcell that grabs the signal from any cell phone in use on the prison grounds. If you aren't using an authorized phone, the signal doesn't go out & the guards are alerted.
Why not just install some phones? (Score:2)
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Because people are capable of talking in code, or just being subtle.
Re:Why not just install some phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
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How about installing some 'regular' phones that inmates can use, but monitor all calls?
That sounds very expensive, as in you have to hire people to listen to the calls and other people to double check or at least spot check the first group. Also, if a lifer does call someone and tell his buddies to kill someone, what are you going to do to them? So you can't give everyone access, but then you still have the worst of the cell phone problem having eliminated it only for those people who would normally not be a real problem.
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Also, if a lifer does call someone and tell his buddies to kill someone, what are you going to do to them?
Death penalty, obviously.
This would mean more if we had the balls to do it old-style of course. (stoning, flaying, crucification, burning, etc.)
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This again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Install jammers (probably with a whitelist of allowed phones) or STFU.
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Install jammers (probably with a whitelist of allowed phones) or STFU.
But that would prevent criminal gangs from maximizing their smuggling profits after the casual competition is eliminated! You have to ask who benefits from a proposed legal change, and in this case it is obvious the only beneficiaries are the criminal organizations who will be willing and able to take the risk of continued smuggling.
The volume of smuggling will not change, but the number of smugglers will go down, increasing the profitability of the remaining smugglers by a great deal.
Installing jammers wo
No, not jammers. (Score:3)
Just write legislation saying all cellphone signals to or from prisons are monitored. The legal precedent is easy: all prison mail is subject to inspection. Then you can not only catch idiots ordering hits or whatever, you can profile the guy behind bars: his contacts and associates. Useful information if he is a recidivist. Why jam useful criminal information?
It's the same problem with cracking down in child pornography: it doesn't actually stop it. Instead, let it flow freely. And now you have easy way to
8th Amendment (Score:5, Funny)
"there have been documented cases of escape attempts, drug deals and conference calls coordinated via smuggled cell phones."
Not conference calls! Anything but that! Isn't it bad enough that they're in jail? Now they're being subjected to conference calls. That is surely a violation of an inmate's rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Re:8th Amendment (Score:5, Funny)
Not conference calls! Anything but that! Isn't it bad enough that they're in jail? Now they're being subjected to conference calls. That is surely a violatin of an inmate's rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
I thought the same thing! I imagined this tough, tattoo-decorated guy on his smuggled cellphone, hunching down behind the cot so as not to be obvious...
[Boop-beep!]
"Hello, who just joined?"
"Uhh, this is Tommy 'The Blade', on the call..."
Re:8th Amendment (Score:5, Funny)
"Hi Tommy, we're just waiting for a few more people to join."
"I've got time......"
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[Boop-beep!]
"Hello, who just joined?"
"Jimmy, "The Jacker", Sanderson. Is this the "Crime Scene Cleanup Review Committee" meeting?
"Jimmy, that meeting is held on Thursdays. This is the "Sleeping with the Fish Lessons Learned" meeting."
"Sorry."
[Beep-boop!]
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Well, at least they don't have access to PowerPoint.
A better solution ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop screwing prisoners who try to use the prison phone to contact loved ones.
Prisons have been seeing their phones as a profit center lately, charging a dollar per minute or more to contact loved ones. And loved ones can't call the prisoner -- the prisoner has to make the call. And often they can't call cell phones, only land lines -- but not everybody has a land line any more.
Make the prices more reasonable, drop the "no cell phones" thing, and have some way for people to call the prisoners (or at least tell them to call home beyond sending them a letter) and the demand for cell phones will drop.
Beyond that, simply get a scanner that detects the frequencies used by cell phones, install a few of them around the prison, and when they go off if the system is properly designed it could tell a guard immediately and tell them approximately where the phone is in the jail.
Re:A better solution ... (Score:4, Informative)
Better yet, make the prison a non-GSM zone, deinstalling BTS-es and/or screening/jamming the radio signals. Make the staff and inmates use landlines for phone communication.
Re:A better solution ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Years later, a neighborhood kid who was in juvie for child molestation (diddling his 5 yr old cousin) had taken a shine to my twin daughters. Would attempt to call collect several times a week, all refused. Called the facility, and they could not prevent him from those outgoing calls. Had to call Verizon t
Re:A better solution ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:The point of being in prison (Score:5, Insightful)
Creating monsters out of somewhat dysfunctional people only makes the problem worse. "Tough on crime" is an intellectually lazy approach that doesn't help anyone but private prison operators.
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What exactly the U.S. Prison system is doing has not been discussed much, and sure has not been SETTLED.
It's all lost in "tough on crime" and "humanitarian" bullshit.
What prisons could be doing:
Deregulation (Score:5, Interesting)
A thought:
Stop making it difficult and expensive for inmates to make regular phone calls. Then the only people left wanting cell phones will be those who want it for criminal activities, which will make your investigations more effective (even if they are successful less often).
In addition, though I'm no economist, I have to wonder if that wouldn't cause the remaining cell phone prices to go up, hopefully out of the accessibility range of at least a few people who would use them for criminal purposes (discounting the idea that contacting your family in a manner not approved by the prison might be illegal).
That's the part I care about. Now, the rant:
As someone living in the U.S., I think we need a dialogue on what we believe prison should be *for*, especially if there's some data to back up various methods in light of our desired goals. For example, we know that there is a high rate of re-offence among people who have been in prison. How does restricting contact among family and friends affect that? Does it prevent the inmate from seeking connections anywhere but among fellow criminals? Does having access raise people's sense of injustice and make them more likely to re-offend? Is there an interaction between this and some other social factor?
This dialogue needs to extend to treatment of prisoners. What do we really want the outcome to be? Is it overall better for our society to focus on discouraging people to go to prison, rehabilitation once they are there, or a combination (and in what proportions?).
Perhaps most importantly, the dialogue needs to contain the topic of whether the current system is working, and if the outcomes we get are on par with our desires and what we see in other countries.
m!
Re:Deregulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Your rant is spot on. Unfortunately, shouting about being "tough on crime" leads to getting elected, which leads to the "lock them in jail and make jail Hell on Earth" attitude.
Of course, that does nothing to actually rehabilitate criminals or actually reduce crime -- it just makes you look good come election time. Combine that with a prison system that mostly exists to increase its own profits (q.v. Arizona SB1070) and you've got a recipe for disaster.
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What's the death penalty have to do with anything? Red herring alert.
Advocating replacing all sentences of execution with sentences of life in prison has nothing at all to do with the course of imprisonment for the vast majority of inmates. It certainly has nothing at all to do with rehabilitation, since by definition we have given up on rehabilitation of people who are executed or imprisoned for life.
Re:Deregulation (Score:5, Informative)
If the death penalty was executed (heh heh) in a reasonable timeframe - ie, without a gazillion appeals and stays, then you'd probably find conservatives more willing to discuss lightening up on prison treatment.
The death penalty is idiotic. First, it simply doesn't work as an effective deterrent to crime as numerous studies have shown. People are too stupidly optimistic so the death penalty results in increased rates of murder and violent crime because stupidly optimistic criminals suddenly believe they have nothing to lose by trying to shoot their way out of bad situations and kill anyone who could be a witness. Second, while from a "justice" standpoint and a "cost effective" standpoint it could be supported, that assumes out legal system is actually effective at convicting the right person and that is clearly not the case. When fingerprints came into general use by law enforcement, we were able to show many people had been wrongly convicted including a significant number of supposed murderers. When DNA testing became affordable, again, dozens of convicted murderers, some on death row, some already executed are proved innocent. Why then would any reasonable person assume that our criminal justice system in general is not regularly convicting a significant number of innocent people? You think it is okay then, to kill those people knowing that later on they may be proved innocent?
If the police and lawyers and forensic scientists in our criminal justice system were honest and obeyed the law and proper procedure in obtaining convictions, then maybe we could implement the death penalty in a just fashion, but the truth is, we regularly convict innocent people because the system is designed to reward convictions and not punish convictions of the innocent. Hell, groups like the Innocence Project are fighting the courts for the right to test the DNA of convicted persons. Why would anyone interested in justice oppose more accurate forensic investigation of serious crime? Now that DNA evidence is a known quantity, it is certainly fabricated or falsified just like fingerprints were and we will have to wait for the next disruptive forensic technology the police don't know about yet to exonerate those innocent people in prison more recently. With such a broken legal system, I find it dishonorable and unjust to advocate for the death penalty. Doing so is quite clearly advocating for the murder of innocent people convicted by corrupt or simply lazy law enforcement.
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It makes them look good because enough voters want to lock people in jail and make jail a miserable place.
Again, not people, voters specifically want to lock men up in jail. You can actually get quite a lot of support for not locking up women. Gender roles are a funny thing...
Re:Deregulation (Score:4, Informative)
You are correct.
The USA has by far the highest percentage of it's population in prison, the longest and toughest penalties (Including the death penalty!) of anywhere in the civilized world.
It also has some of the highest crime and murder rates in the world.
But statistics doesn't get you votes.
rate of re-offence (Score:2)
Look, this isn't a problem in Russia. There is a very low recidivism rate because people actually fear going back to prison. Our prisons are just comfy free room and board by comparison.
Russian prison guards beat the prisoners, often for no serious reason. For example, a new guard gets a job and all the prisoners get beaten as a way of introducing the new guard. Russian prisons are thousands of miles from home out in Siberia, despite legislation to the contrary. Russian guards assign some prisoners the job
Re:rate of re-offence (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah Russia's prison system must be effective. That's why there's no crime whatsoever, especially not organised crime.
Don't capture phones, capture the concersations! (Score:4, Interesting)
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The problem is, what happens if someone else (not a prisoner, not a guard) is near the facility and their phone starts communicating with the prison's tower? Monitoring their conversation would be an inadvertent violation of their rights. There would be a great potential for liability, right down to the point where people would *try* to make this happen just so they could sue.
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Dammit (Score:2)
9/11? (Score:2)
If you can't beat 'em, hack 'em. (Score:2)
This cries out for prisons setting up open source GSM cells [makezine.com].
Now to find a CDMA solution. That, they may have to rely on the commercial manufacturers, but with a bit of work and some money, prisons could run their own cell networks and if nothing else listen in on the inmates' plans. Could be worse. Actually, it IS worse.
We can't seem to keep them out of the prisons, so just subvert them. I know this continues a war of escalation, but that's inevitable.
Why not... (Score:2)
Simply set up directional cellphone jammers around the facility? let the criminals have their phones , they wont work.
Or set up a pair of cellular towers like they do at big arenas, suddenly you are on XYZ network roaming where all calls get routed to the prison operator..
Prisoner 167.... bring me that phone.
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you just don't understand the way the system works. You need to make it illegal to smuggle stuff in so even more people are sent to jail, thus increasing your free labor centers' profit.
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So now not only are we having our tax dollars wasted on a "war on drugs" we're also going to start a new "war on cellphones (in prison)".
Sounds absolutely fabulous
The line between "starting a war on cellphones in prison" and "proposing a law to it illegal to smuggle cellphones to prison inmates" is pretty clear and wide.
The attempt to turn this example of state legislators attempting to actually do their jobs into a "govmit wasting my hard-earned money" story is unjustified.
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The one guy in prison that I've ever corresponded with pointed out that he was allowed to have TWO pieces of stationery, two envelopes, and two stamps at any given time. Apparently having any more than that supply was a *serious* infraction. He wasn't even in prison for anything violent. I can imagine that having a cell phone or anything else not approved (i.e., not issued to the prison by the prison) could lead to really serious consequences.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure but who's going to pay to put up that many t-mobile towers?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wah...
If you are in prison, then you have no reason to bitch.... unless you are someones bitch....