Incarceration as a form of vengeance

[Michelle Marie]

Posted by Hervé (here)
The business/profit virus... AKA Greed:

Slave labor: Prison food contractors funded efforts to combat marijuana legalization

John Vibes Mint Press News Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:50 UTC

An inmate makes a sandwich while working in the employees’ cafeteria at Coxsackie Correctional Facility in Coxsackie, N.Y.

Food Services of America, a subsidiary of Services Group of America is funding efforts to keep marijuana illegal. It makes sense, considering that a vast majority of America's prisoners are locked in prison on marijuana charges, and the company stands to gain a lot of business from the laws staying the same.

Marijuana.com reported that the company donated $80,000 to a campaign committee opposing the legal cannabis measure on Arizona's November ballot.

Services Group of America has been criticized in the past for providing food to prisons that failed to meet basic nutritional requirements.

The report also indicated that the Arizona state Chamber of Commerce contributed $498,000 to the same campaign week. The effort also received a half million dollar donation from opioid maker Insys Therapeutics as well as sizeable contributions from various players in the alcohol industry.

The influence that the alcohol and pharmaceutical industries have on keeping marijuana illegal has been well documented, but the influence of prison contractors is rarely discussed.

The prison industry is one of the fastest growing and top-earning businesses in the United States. In the past three decades, this enterprise has grown into a monstrous system of oppression that now houses over 2 and a half million people in the US. This number is, by far, the largest prison population in the world. No country on earth has as many inmates as the "land of the free."

Ironic isn't it? Since 1991 the violent crime rate in America has dropped at least 20%, while the amount of people in prison has increased by 50% in that time. These numbers show that the rapid growth in the prison population is primarily due to over prosecution of nonviolent crimes.

This has nothing to do with "cleaning up the streets" or making our society safer — it is all about money and control. The prison system as it stands now does not make our society any safer but instead turns average nonviolent offenders into hardened criminals by exposing them to such a harsh environment.

The sad truth is that the way our prison system has been structured has actually outlawed more than half of the US population. Nonviolent offenders have no place behind bars. The savage conditions of prison will turn most people into violent offenders once they get out. Which is exactly what the prison establishment wants - return customers.

This establishment is the collection of state and quasi-state/private industries that make up the "prison industrial complex." Billions of dollars are made every year in this industry. One company, Wackenhut Corrections, makes over a billion dollars a year and they aren't even the biggest prison service in the country.

These numbers also don't take into consideration the many satellite businesses that surround this industry. There are over 1,000 vendors that specifically sell correctional paraphernalia. Even local phone companies cash in on the operation. The companies install payphones for free because those phones can generate $15,000 per year from each inmate making a phone call every day.

Those companies are just the tip of the iceberg. That isn't even counting the police, lawyers, wardens, politicians and food distributors that line their pockets through the incarceration of peaceful Americans.

All of these organizations have a distinct interest in keeping nonviolent people in jail. So, it should come as no surprise a prison contractor is working to keep marijuana illegal.

They are just making innocent people appear guilty. Those who profit in these unethical practices should be restrained in educational institutions (like jails, only with a purpose to rehabilitate their values) until their conscience works properly.

MM

[Valerie Villars]

I'm bumping this because it's damn good stuff. Carmody and Ernie are invaluable.

[Foxie Loxie]

Agreed, Val!! Let's see....why was Dinesh D'souza incarcerated?!!

[Valerie Villars]

He was incarcerated for having given some money as a campaign contribution, probably to some Republican election campaign. He violated some obscure and almost never enforced campaign contribution law which is only enforced if you piss off certain people. It wasn't much as I recall.

It was obvious they were out to get him for being out-spoken about the Democratic Party's real intentions, aspirations and history.

I want to emphasize this is the way he presents it but after having watched his documentary, I can believe that's the way it really went down.

[Foxie Loxie]

Sorry, Val...that was rather a rhetorical question!! It is simply astounding how many HAVE been incarcerated by the Swamp Creatures!! It is amazing how this Titanic is beginning to turn around after being headed in the same direction for SO many years!!

[Valerie Villars]

[Carmody]

Well, they needed an enemy, a lower caste new enemy. (their thinking, not mine)

So they imported the problem. Forcibly imported the problem. At least it might be possible to interpret it that way.

So a fascist reboot of North America and Europe. Europe gets to be united in the process.

Then both descend on the common enemy, in the middle east. And go to war with the far east, at the same time. Openly and semi-silently economically, and so on.

Canada legalizes cannabis and we see other parts of the system fighting back. Like new laws about detection of use of cannabis, mouth swabs.

Well, mouth swabs can be used to collect DNA as well. That will be struck down fairly fast as an illegal enterprise. No mouth swabs.

At a road side check, random or otherwise...say no to mouth swabs. It might take a few years for the charge to clear, but the mouth swab (or blood collection) must always be a no (denied), if you don't want your DNA collected.

The Cannabis laws in canada set the stage for the destruction/erosion of the USA's Military industrial complex's financial means to an end, which is excessive incarceration.

So they speed up the dissolution of the underlying fiances of the continent itself.

Enter Trump and trade wars, to break the financial/economic system apart and bring on the downturn more quickly. Chaos, so they can run a system of their design through it. They have to make the downturn happen before a system can right itself. Otherwise their door of an opportunity will close.

Then there is this, slowing reform and correction down (keeping the ugly up and going):

The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable. You’re probably part of the problem.

(Atlantic magazine article)

You appear to be looking at a slow motion war, with the entire world as the ground and fodder of it.

[petra]

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
My take on the whole matter is simple: no one should ever be imprisoned. Instead, there should only be two courses of action, two choices - a quick and merciful death or real, true, fair rehabilitation.
..

I'm interested to see what others may think.
Any opinions?

I got as far as the above paragraph and don't need to go any farther yet. I already agree, and I already have my contributions.

This kind of connects into this Justifying Murder thread which I started a while back.

At the time I wrote that, it was the main thing on my mind. How we choose to deal with criminals as a whole is important! This is a huge factor in our evolution as a species.

I was just searching for "vengeance" all by itself, and this thread came up.

Maybe I am a potential murderer, but I sure as heck wouldn't be a vengeful one! The difference is Mercy.

It's impossible for me to forgive someone who's not legitimately sorry (as in they won't do it again), mostly because I'd feel like an idiot for doing so. It's also impossible to know how they're *really* feeling - and that's where we get stuck.

I'm not vengeful (I can't recall a single time!) and I generally don't like vengeful people either.... unless those are the people who are standing up for my (or our) rights.

Maybe vengeance isn't as bad as I thought it was. Other people's so called vengeance can trigger feelings of love, happiness and thankfulness in me....!
I'll never forget the dream I had (described in the murder thread at post #11). I was just so thankful to be FREE

[Pam]

I really do think that most people can be rehabilitated. In the US we make it so ridiculously hard for anyone that has a felony conviction to gain employment or housing that is greatly increases the probability of them returning to a prison setting. I also believe there are a few who will refuse rehabilitation or simply cannot be. I do think that keeping them away from others is the better way. If you are a predator while incarcerated you need to be isolated.

Incarcerating drug addicts is big business. They are one of the few groups that PC doesn't care to turn into victims. It is absolutely pathetic to lock up drug addicts and alcoholics just for possession or use.

Prison for profit is a really bad idea. People will just become fodder for the mill. I have heard of prisons for profit demanding that communities provide them with a certain amount of prisoners. Does that make cops have to go out and look for offenders to "fill the house"? We definitely live in a time where corruption is maxing out.

[Pam]

Posted by petra (here)

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
My take on the whole matter is simple: no one should ever be imprisoned. Instead, there should only be two courses of action, two choices - a quick and merciful death or real, true, fair rehabilitation.
..

I'm interested to see what others may think.
Any opinions?

I got as far as the above paragraph and don't need to go any farther yet. I already agree, and I already have my contributions.

This kind of connects into this Justifying Murder thread which I started a while back.

At the time I wrote that, it was the main thing on my mind. How we choose to deal with criminals as a whole is important! This is a huge factor in our evolution as a species.

I was just searching for "vengeance" all by itself, and this thread came up.

Maybe I am a potential murderer, but I sure as heck wouldn't be a vengeful one! The difference is Mercy.

It's impossible for me to forgive someone who's not legitimately sorry (as in they won't do it again), mostly because I'd feel like an idiot for doing so. It's also impossible to know how they're *really* feeling - and that's where we get stuck.

I'm not vengeful (I can't recall a single time!) and I generally don't like vengeful people either.... unless those are the people who are standing up for my (or our) rights.

Maybe vengeance isn't as bad as I thought it was. Other people's so called vengeance can trigger feelings of love, happiness and thankfulness in me....!
I'll never forget the dream I had (described in the murder thread at post #11). I was just so thankful to be FREE

There are some really, really violent, unapologetic sociopaths out there. What about pedophiles that don't want to change? What do you propose happens to them? Would you feel the same way if they moved next door to you? Would you rent them a room in your house?

[petra]

Posted by peterpam (here)
There are some really, really violent, unapologetic sociopaths out there. What about pedophiles that don't want to change? What do you propose happens to them?

I'd kill them personally as long as I didn't think I'd be punished for it. Painlessly of course.
I'd be willing to deal with the consequences of my actions.

I like how you clarified 'don't want to change' because I know for a fact there's people out there with pedophile tendencies that do NOT like those tendencies one bit.

Posted by peterpam (here)
Would you feel the same way if they moved next door to you?

Yeah, so they darn well better hope I don't find out about their dirty little secrets.

Posted by peterpam (here)
Would you rent them a room in your house?

Hell no, and if they were to trick me, they'd definitely be dead - Laws or No Laws.
Really hope I don't end up in jail someday myself