hckrnws
Federal judge orders Texas to air condition all prisons by the end of 2029
(texastribune.org)
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by bonefishgrill
by bonefishgrill
Thankfully I left all that behind a long time ago. Though I just checked and they still don’t have AC.
There is a fairly famous quote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
It is an attributed quote, translated, from discussions on and around his semi-autobiographical novel about time spent in prison.
AC was coincidentally invented as all of this was clearing up, but it wouldn't become ubiquitous until decades later after the major cities had been established with large populations. And even then, I'd blame cheap accessibility of long distance transportation more than AC for the modern state.
Punishment is among the most American things that exist — and this is part of the reason I won’t mourn the passing of the US.
I find most successful Americans I meet are so self-obsessed they are left with an incredibly low capacity for empathy for those in lower classes than them. Wild how they think they are so different than Nazis.
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Way down at the bottom is a dead comment: "Texan here, schools are managed locally, prisons are managed at the state level"
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* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before the invention of A/C (obviously not)
* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before A/C became widespread and affordable for regular people? (probably not)
* what is the main reason why this wasn't an issue 50 years ago and is now? Climate change? People being on average more sensitive to heat than they used to be? Better legal recognition of prisoner suffering? Broadening of 8th amendment protections in the court system? Changing public morals, i.e. "evolving standards of decency"? Ubiquity of A/C in ordinary Texans' day to day life? The random chance of this particular case getting sent to this particular judge?
* Is it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C now, when not all non-imprisoned Texans have A/C (and if so, does that imply that A/C is being codified here as basic human right, and is that really constitutionally tenable? How is it possible for a judge to order that something is a constitutional right for prisoners, but an optional private luxury for non prisoners?)
* Is A/C the only option, or might other, cheaper cooling methods be allowed, if the core of the complaint is reducing preventable heat-related injuries and deaths? Hypothetically (not a real proposal obviously), if instead the prison put hotel-style ice machines in every cell, would this solve the issue or is the judge's decision very specifically about A/C?
I find it best to never underestimate how pedantic strangers on programming related forums can be, so good we've got that out of the way.
I imagine you'd enjoy Martin Porter's four Principles for Quotations and his two pieces on sourcing the Edmund Burke BogoQuote:
* https://tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote.html
* https://tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote2.html
( and possibly even Porter's paleoCompSci work on stemming: https://tartarus.org/martin/PorterStemmer/ )
> It's really curious why people who never read Dostoyevsky make up quotes for him with phrases that nobody with a good command of the Russian language could have written.
It's a solid quip, almost serviceable as a Reader's Digest Condensed Book one page summary of Dostoyevsky prison book save for being too good (in English at least) for that sad US affront to literature.
People make up quotes for all manner of reasons, imperfect memory, a need to summarise, it's a joy to tumble both rocks and words to knock off some rough edges and brighten up a gem. Attribution to "elsewhere" is also common enough -- it can upsell your own work by attribution to a great name, it can deflect criticism if you've only polished a turd.
As curious questions go though, why not attribute it to a translation of Solzhenitsyn or Henri Charrière, (it's in the spirit of Oscar Wilde or Stephan Fry perhaps, but their works are already in English and a little too familiar for the bogoquote treatment (maybe)).
With any Dostoyevsky quote I see in English, I immediately ask an AI to check because none looks like anything any 19th century Russian writer could have possible written, least so Dostoyevsky. Also, I've never ran into a real Dostoyevsky quote in English even as tortured one as Beauty will save the world (which is probably the most often used one in Russian even though it's a fragment of a sentence with an opposite meaning).
It's just been credited to him.
At a more regional level, the area around Cortez, CO is less densely populated than it was simply because virtually no one lives there now. Kayenta, much of the Navajo nation, the upper Gila region, etc are similar.
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As a result Europe doesn’t culturally expect A/C every where, and has been slow to adopt it. But obviously climate change is forcing many to reconsider those cultural norms.
>The resistance is baked into European regulation. In many countries a conventional air conditioner lowers your building’s energy rating. The result is entirely predictable: owners and landlords decline to install units, or rip out the ones they have. Those left without built-in cooling fall back on drafty, inefficient portables that can scarcely make a dent in the temperature. I own one myself—a wheezing box with a fat hose shoved through a rickety fabric covering the window. It is the thermodynamic equivalent of mopping the floor with the tap running, but that’s simply the direction in which Europe’s regulations have nudged me.
https://maartenboudry.substack.com/p/how-europe-became-the-w...
Imagine a working-class European who needs to work in a building without A/C, and live in an apartment without A/C. The landlord/owners' association/municipality is de facto blocking A/C installation. How, exactly, is the situation so different?
Tens of thousands of Europeans are dying. But at least they are "voluntary" deaths--if you use the word "voluntary" sufficiently creatively.
European prisons aren't so great either. There is little evidence they have more A/C than Texas prisons: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-08-07/heatwa...
And as you probably know, prisons in those two countries are not alike.
It was also one of the prisons that eventually helped drive public opinion away from US-style prisons as punishment because of how extreme it was (recognised also in a 1/3 reduction in sentences if you served there...). It was closed in 1970, around the time when the Nordic movements towards criminal custody reform started really gaining traction.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botsfengselet but the Norwegian page is far more extensive: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botsfengselet
It should be the understanding of a society that no human being is just 'bad'. A human being became 'bad' by a definiton of a society due to circumstances like upbringing, environment etc. and a society which failed you.
Prison is the removal of you from society due to impatibility of current values and should help you become 'better'.
Be happy that you had good/avg parents, the mental strength to help yourself, money, luck, body strength, whatever it was which allowed you to comment on HN instead of being in a prison.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...
I also think recidivism is too confounded by the prison population to tell us a lot about the quality of the prison itself.
That is a concept that eludes many.
If it was better than the conditions they endured on the outside people would enticed to commit crimes.
What dehumanizing stereotype did you read?
I suspect the reason what I wrote is hard for you to read, and elicits that reaction in you to find some story that might contradict my statement, is because people need to think of themselves as good people. It's too much of a cognitive dissonance and shameful to think otherwise.
Speak for yourself.
Yeah. A one-shot investment of 10k$ per prisoner to avoid more manslaughter cases is peanuts, really.
Some times people walk into supermarkets just to cool down.
The former almost certainly includes other installation part, utility, and labor costs. Even if you could give everyone a $200 window unit, you'd need to deliver, install, upgrade utilities, maintain them, etc.
Those citizens "making do" generally have freedom of movement, free access to cool water, air-conditioned businesses or vehicles, and are not locked down in a concrete facility.
There is a absolutely no nuance to this.
Sweat is a wet-bulb cooling process which always cools below ambient for any humidity less than 100%.
They choose to be evil.
Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.
> Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.
Which goes to show you the state of Christianity today. Pretty sad.
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~30% of people are wired to feel others' suffering constitutes a 'win', even at cost to the themselves as long as they're suffering less than their counterparty. Add in selection effects and it's pretty clear such people could coentrate in particular industries.
I think another good example of this is through public infrastructure. Look at any poor neighborhood in a city and look how little public infrastructure is invested in those areas. Usually big busy roads with no sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. The city doesn't hate those areas, it's just that the people that live in those areas aren't effective (or unable) to lobby elected officials to invest. Also there is a little bit of a self fulfilling prophecy with lack of investment causing less businesses to want to invest, etc.
> Take away the shame that normally keeps it in check and people's bloodlust rises to the surface
Let me guess, the anti-christ is right around the corner, Peter.
> It is a rare person who chooses to deny themselves pleasure on moral grounds
No, it isn't. This person is average among us, they are rare among the elites and politicians. You don't need to paint others poorly because of your own self-image nor is it productive to do so
I don't enjoy being cruel to convicted criminals. I would much prefer they not commit crime, and that there be no need for the punishment.
>especially given that free will is inconceivable;
I too, have no free will in the matter. I am just a clockwork mechanism, operating as the random universe has not only ordained, but I cannot operate otherwise. Coincidentally, the nature of my mechanism makes me immune to your arguments, and no change in behavior is forthcoming. Fun, huh?
>mass incarceration and poor prison conditions seem to increase crime
Statistics say otherwise. Crime is down across the board the last few decades.
>If we are to have prisons, let's be honest about why they exist: people like them.
I agree. I like criminals being locked away from the rest of us.
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I'm in Texas. I'm a little confused as to why you think I should care. For those wrongly convicted, I don't want them to get air-conditioning in prison... and for those correctly convicted, I'm not especially worried about making them more comfortable.
The entire point of punishment is the cruelty. It doesn't really work without it... it's unclear if you're quibbling over the amount of cruelty, or if you think that there exists some sort of cruelty-free punishment that the rest of us just haven't heard of.
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2. Unless death is the sentence, a sentence should not result in death. If you don't closely control and monitor when the state can do something, it increases the risk of misuse of that power by the state.
3. If cruelty and punishment really worked, crime would decrease over time, not increase.
4. The AC can be set to 75. That's not luxury but won't kill anyone with heatstroke.
What a remarkable thing to write. Even knowing that some innocent people are there, you want them to suffer the risk of death and severe harm from heat.
I think there's a basic floor for how we should treat other people, regardless of the circumstances. Things like access to food and water, shelter, etc.
I'm going to disagree that the point of prison (as punishment) is cruelty. It absolutely can work without it, but I'll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can't be rehabilitated effectively.
This is an absurd claim. How does punishment work without cruelty? Remember, that I allow for people to disagree on the quantity of cruelty (supposing that can be quantified)... so you're proposing cruelty-free punishment. This misses the entire point of what punishment is. Perhaps your reading comprehension is faulty, and you confuse the word with "rehabilitation". I see that alot.
>but I'll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can't be rehabilitated effectively.
Hah! I hadn't even read that sentence yet when I wrote the above! Damn I'm good. Rehabilitation is science fiction. No one has even ever proposed a theory on how or why it's supposed to happen, let alone engineered a method to induce it to occur. On reddit, these conversations are often hilarious, but maybe here on Hackernews it will be glorious. Why do you think you need to do to cause a violent criminal to rehabilitate? If the method is performed diligently, what percentage of violent criminals rehabilitate, and what sort of timeline are we talking? Why do the failures (and let's be honest, there are failures in every manufacturing process) fail? Can these be sorted out beforehand?
But at the end of the day, there is still a big problem. Justice is what society promises to the victims so that they will refrain from revenge; the state must carry out the revenge for them. It does so for several reasons: to discourage eternal feuds, to ensure that the correct culprit is targeted, and to avoid normally nonviolent people from growing accustomed to violence. To satisfy their monkey need for vengeance in the most civilized manner possible. If you fail to satisfy it, then these people are obligated to do it themselves. Rehabilitation alone can't substitute, even if it were possible. For the lesser criminals, incarceration suffices. For those more depraved, we don't want them rehabilitated. It serves no need at all.
???
"Run from me, I will hurt you and I will enjoy it"
Which is insanely ironic, that's the exact same kind of person he'd throw in jail.
They don't want cruelty, just their livelihoods taken away.
That's a pretty messed up morality. I don't even know where to start on this one.
How do you align this with "to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Its also messed up ethics.
The purpose of having the government administer punishment for crime is to prevent vendetta. And from the first time this ever came up it came up as the government saying justice should be balanced. "eye for an eye" == "Punishment fits the crime"
But hey, you don't seem to be very empathic about your luck in life.
You could have been just the person in prison.
Btw. some religions believe in rebirth, you might become a prisoner.
Some believe in an infinite rebirth of universities, which will lead you to be in a prision in another reallity.
Even on a logically viewpoint it would be better for your 'other lives' to not be cruel to other human beings.
Jesus fucking Christ
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Why even waste your money on for-profit prisons if you want the prisoners to die?
Maybe start here https://innocenceproject.org/ before you let everyone around here see how much of a sociopath you are.
But I also fully understand the point of prison is /punishment/, which is why it's such a severe injustice when someone is punished when they have not committed the crime. Prison is not supposed to be pleasant and comfortable, and we should take every action to preserver prisoner's lives specifically in order to ensure that they can serve their complete sentences, upon the assumption of fair adjudication. Without clear, just, punishment within society, we will revert to vigilantism and chaos.
The core ethical/moral complexity here to me is not about treatment of prisoners, its about how people become prisoners in the first place in the state of Texas. In Texas we have a long history of racist practices in policing, in the courts, and the use of coercive plea deal structures that have resulted in many people being wrongfully convicted. As long as that situation stands, it would be clearer to argue that nobody should be imprisoned at all, but that's also not a reasonable argument. As long people are being imprisoned, we should ensure they are rightfully convicted and understand that prison is a punishment, and that we should preserve prisoner's lives and health so that they can experience whatever just punishment has been meted out by society for the harm they have caused through their choices and actions.
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Translators can and do create translations that aren't faithful to the original in at least one or two significant ways. It's a challenge somewhat like Flattening the Earth - there's always some compromise on angles or areas.
As a result, there are many English readers who see Dostoyevsky through a clouded lens; they imagine him to have traits more unique to some translation than to his core.
* https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo363285...
It's very similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment and has nothing about "degree of civilization", which is a common concept in Anglo culture but very alien to Russians, who never figured that you can just subjugate and exterminate peoples with free conscience if you proclaim them to be "uncivilized".
So not an actual quote of his, but one sprung from the minds of people who imagined him to have said that or meant that.
There's an article that claims to have sourced the origin of that attributed quote (or bogus-quote) to 1964, the Canadian playwright and ex-inmate John Herbert [1]&[2] which I imagine you'd enjoy reading as the article author, Ilya Vinitsky, argues that Dostoyevsky would have been _aware_ of the Western notions of "civilisation" and prisons while not being _aligned_ with them.
A strong case is made for Herbert having started that attribution to Dostoyevsky, and for inspiring the spread of the quote as Herbert and his work were latched onto by prison reformers of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
[1] https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dostoyevsky-misprisioned...
[2] https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/beyond-reasonable-do...
The articles trace far more than I can (I'm not in the least bit fluent in Russian), and the specific blame likely falls to a non Russian prison inmate reading as widely as possible in prison, jumbling multiple sources, taking "literary licence" and not having access to a lot of background on Dostoyevsky.
Right, because Europe has much higher population than Texas prisons. In fact, many more people are dying by heat exhaustion in Texas prisons per capita than in Europe.
>In fact, many more people are dying by heat exhaustion in Texas prisons per capita than in Europe.
Based on a quick Google, Europe's population is on the order of 1000x the population of the Texas prison system. Deaths are probably at least somewhat higher per capita in the Texas prison system, but there are also probably subgroups in Europe that have it even worse.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/european-countr...
Also, these measures kinda look similar to what exists in Texas prisons without A/C...
Instead what you see is parents with five successful kids, and one that keeps ending up in prison, and no one can really explain how it went wrong.
We have indigeous people and historic effidence, that kids with mental health issues were kept hidden from the rest of a village, sometimes in cages and on chains.
We know very well that the education system around the planet cateres to the masses not to the ones with disabilityes, ADHD etc.
Human beings are complex, any education system is not and its not reflecting the diversity of humans.
In japan for example, kids have to cleanup there own class rooms, wonderful concept, any other real country which adopted that?
It's possible you're correct and there's some circumstance controlling things we can't see or don't understand, but that's not a testable idea.
Environment plays a huge role, but it's somewhat unpredictable what lessons are taken. One could also say that it's not unanimously clear what makes a good environment; it's likely not simply about having resources and lacking conflict. Likely an amount of scarcity and conflict are needed.
All this isn't to say that kids are all born the same, but I don't consider such differences to generally matter as much as the effect the environment can have.
It's always someone else's fault.
Blaming society for one's own actions is dishonorable. You get to choose, and you are responsible for your choice.
As humans, we have the capacity to hold multiple concepts like honor and contextual awareness at the same time when adjudicating a crime. Someone who stole to feed their family when they were in a dire situation should not be given the same sentence as someone who stole for personal gain. Our ability to acknowledge complex situations and deal with them also separates us from animals.
Some learn how to think critical, some don't. Some are intelligent, some are empathic, some don't understand the world very well.
Don't simplify this by a snarky and ignorant comment.
I'm not even against moving people out of our society, its fucked up enough that this is necessayr, but i'm against cruelty and i'm for helping.
It is simple. People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong.
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But cruelty shouldn't be part of this. Help and rehabiliation
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Meanwhile in this thread, everyone is getting worked up about how evil Texas Christians supposedly are, as though a red flag was waved in front of a bull.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
My comment is independent form the others.
If he finds the experience improving, so much the better, but it is not my primary concern.
Its easier eh?
But lets be clear, you will be on the reciving side or have been already anyway.
Or if never, you speak from a point of privilige...
But yes, we have been devaluing human life and dignity, or if you prefer the Image of God, across all of society. The conditions of these prisons should not exist even if this is purely punitive, which I do not believe it should be. Victims deserve justice, but criminals deserve the right to pay the price and come out "clean". We should want to make society whole, to bring them back into the fold as full members, but too often we don't want to pay the cost.
Everyone of us was born to a mother and father. And yo utell me if someone isn't born 'right' we should do what? Kill them? I think Hitler tried that. Not really sure were you are going with this.
Do you really believe our society is really trying to help people? We are sitting in front of our television, watch reality tv and do other shit. We have more than enough capacity to help others. We just don't. This doesn't make it fair in any sense for every human being we brought into existens.
I don't get your point with the toddler.
It is safe to guess you dont have much experience with toddlers or kids. Yes some needs to be taught what to do in that situation.
Also, you are using language of dignity and rights in pretty manipulative and dishonest way.
There seems to be a general trend of "US inverse exceptionalism", i.e. arguing that the US is a uniquely bad country on the basis of very weak evidence. People complain a lot about systems in the US, but if you look at international comparisons, the US doesn't usually look too bad. Here in this thread people are up in arms because... 1/3 of Texas prisons have A/C, and the remainder have non-AC heat control measures. I doubt this is substantially different from non-US prisons.
Over ~95 degrees, a fan blowing on a human acts as a convection oven, increasing body temperature while dehydrating the body.
This is greatly exacerbated in extreme heat.
CDC guidance is to avoid using a fan in extreme heat conditions unless it is combined with a cooling source and careful hydration. Once again, not exactly an option in a Texas prison.
ambient and body temperature arent coupled items there
have you never used a convection oven?
"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
It's a sick belief system.
It was average people who attacked My Lai, and only one pilot did anything to stop it.
Most people do not usually want to do evil things and are usually repelled from doing them by feelings of shame or obligation. The moment the average person feels a desire for violence and will not be condemned for seeking it, they are as bloodthirsty as a serial killer. The constraints on people are emotional, not moral.
Because our justice system is notoriously good at convicting only people who actually committed a crime.
I don't understand what point you think you're proving. Yes, your actions were determined by the laws of physics based on factors outside your control. This implies that it is incoherent to condemn you as a person for an immoral action because you could not have behaved differently. It does not imply that your actions are good or that you should behave the way you do.
I disagree with you and think you are being obstinate. You should change those things. But I don't think you should be caused to suffer, even though you are guilty of causing others to suffer.
>Statistics say otherwise. Crime is down across the board the last few decades.
Look at Figure 1 in this paper and tell me you see a correlation:
https://vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads...
Perhaps I overstated the case somewhat. The evidence is that mass incarceration in certain jurisdictions increases crime. But overall, the notion that mass incarceration is one of our best tools against crime is wrong. It is not very effective, very expensive, has deleterious effects on communities, and is cruel. And the notion that mass incarceration is an important tool is so thoroughly debunked by now that I think it's fair to call it an excuse.
So why is europe doing it different and overall better/cheaper? Because europe actually tries to help people
Which means, housing first, end the war on drugs, provide access to mental and physical healthcare, provide a reasonable living minimum wage and some sort of UBI for those that fall through the cracks.
https://cityjournal.substack.com/p/does-poverty-cause-crime-...
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I don't want them in prison at all. You, you're apparently satisfied (somehow?) that they get air conditioning. And you think I'm the psychopath. Something's seriously wrong with you. Leftism, not even once.
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My mother spanked me when I misbehaved. She caused real pain as punishment.
It was never cruel.
Punishment and cruelty are not equivalent.
Please note, I am not in favor of spanking children, and never spanked mine.
Now as to your final point, that justice is the state taking revenge on behalf of the victims. I replied to you above that I see the validity of this, and for the same reasons you give (discourage eternal feuds). And for those same reasons Justice is restraint. At most equivalent harm, no more than an eye for an eye.
I think it was your anger that made you say these ethics we both share are bullshit rules designed to hurt your family.
Now in the current case, for that point to stand, we need to ensure that the prisoners have in fact harmed identifiable others. Google tells me "Roughly 40% of inmates in Texas prisons are incarcerated for non-violent offenses". Thus 40% of the time, there is no cause for vengeance.
And where prison is vengeance, if it is just, it needs to be restrained. Not cruel. Not unusual. Just as punishment is not cruelty, justice is not cruelty.
For other readers, as I mentioned above, while I see a valid ethical stance behind NoMoreNicksLeft's anger and hurt, I do not share it. I seek mercy, and as for Justice, "Justice is mine sayeth the Lord"-- in other words, I leave it to God. I find it sick that the US, the "land of the free" has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Look, I've had bad interactions with bonafide unredeemable unrehabilitable psychopaths, and I'd like to see such people locked up for life. But I do not wish them cruelty beyond the innate cruelty of life behind bars.
I'm an atheist. There is no god nor gods. But if I had to have a god, I don't think I'd choose one of the abrahamic ones. There are many to choose from who aren't big on mercy.
>Its also messed up ethics.
I don't accept your ethical framework. It's a system of bullshit rules made up by people who care for me not even a little to put me and my family at a disadvantage against a civilization that doesn't even want to go on living.
>The purpose of having the government administer punishment for crime is to prevent vendetta.
Then you're doing it wrong. It can only prevent vendetta if the victims feel as if they receive justice... if those who do wrong are punished. If you remove the punishment/cruelty from the equation, they will simply do that part themselves. Unless you're hoping to emasculate and disarm them so thoroughly that they have no hope of doing so... but I guess that was the ethics stuff you were talking about above.
Your comment on which god you might choose suggest you are not a fan of mercy. Have you ever made a mistake and wished for mercy for yourself? Have you ever received forgiveness that maybe you didn't think was deserved, if even only from you family?
I can agree with you that justice calls for punishment in response to a harm, and thus harming the person who caused the first harm. And if one considers any intentional harm to another as cruelty, then yes, "the purpose of punishment is cruelty". However, justice also limits the cruelty. The earliest example is "an eye for an eye"-- because the prior system was "a death for an eye" or "I burn your village for an eye", and Hammurabi saw that this lead to endless blood feuds. Vendetta, i.e. you hurt me so now I cause you and your family as much pain as I possibly can, that is not justice.
In fact, I was taking your side in this argument. Many others talk about prison as rehabilitation and keeping society safe, totally dropping the psychological need of the victim for some sense of vengeance. And while I agree with those others, and prefer to leave the vengeance to God rather than to the prison system, I took your side and legitimized the victims need for vengeance.
I am sorry that you have such anger that you saw this as bullshit rules from someone who doesn't care for you and wants to disadvantage you.
What has caused you to conclude that any of those things are right? Mercy, benefit of doubt, leniency... these are for the remorseful. We live in a society that doesn't even seem to know that word.
>However, justice also limits the cruelty.
Within reason. Haven't seen much evidence that we currently need to limit it. This isn't 1700s England where anyone is getting the noose for stealing loaves of bread.
Show me some excessive punishment, I might agree with you. "They have to live with the summer heat like everyone had to do so, convicts and the innocent alive, until 70 years ago" just isn't excessive.
The fact you can serve your time, earnestly work on rehabilitating yourself, jump through all the hoops, etc. but still be under the economic death sentence more or less summarizes how people feel about it.
It’s basically NIMBY applied to the justice system. Everyone loves to pretend they want rehabilitation but also wants someone else to do it. This shows up in hiring, apartment leasing, social benefits, etc.
People on the left love to pretend this, perhaps. Those of us on the right make no such pretense. It's about punishment, sequestration, and deterrence in that order. Rehabilitation doesn't even enter our minds.
Why do you pretend? It wouldn't surprise anyone if you were to just be honest and that you don't care about rehabilitation either, it's rather that you don't want a justice system at all. We all know that already. There's no reason to hide it.
If you don't see value in the U.S. Constitution and providing human beings a chance at reformation, you should advocate for killing falsely convicted criminals before they enter prision and die of inhumane conditions. Wouldn't that be more efficient for your worldview?
I'd love to see a "murder any criminal" bill named for you. I think you would too, so go for it!
>Without clear, just, punishment within society, we will revert to vigilantism and chaos.
The problem is this doesn't really seem to have any relation to the punishment. In the US we love to think that beating someone to a pulp has a strong effect on their future actions that lead to the beating but redactivism rates do not show any strong correlations here at all. Things like education, living conditions, and wealth are far more correlated.
Fully agreed. There absolutely should be air conditioning in prisons in Texas. We need to preserve prisoners lives and health using all reasonable means so that they can receive their just punishment via their sentence.
Of note, however, there are /schools/ in Texas that lack working air conditioning due to mismanagement and underfunding, which I find a far more egregious and wrong circumstance.
> The problem is this doesn't really seem to have any relation to the punishment. In the US we love to think that beating someone to a pulp has a strong effect on their future actions that lead to the beating but redactivism rates do not show any strong correlations here at all. Things like education, living conditions, and wealth are far more correlated.
Agreed, punishment does not help with recidivism rates. You're making a rehabilitation argument. That argument might even be reasonable. That is not why prison in the US exists or how they are operated. They are a form of punishment, that is their purpose in our society.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness with which you present your view, and also see it's validity-- that one purpose of prison is for the government to take a measured and limited 'revenge' for the victims of harm. Where the alternative is blood feuds.
Thus prison should not be comfortable, for those rightfully convicted of crimes involving harm TO OTHERS.
But by this same line, that the government's actions should be measured and limited. Prison should not be cruel, nor should the punishments be unusual.
the laws are written to make sure certain people are easy to press into forced labour
It's still wrong. Having a need does not entitle one to steal. Honor is not something you apply only when it doesn't cost you.
Society is not that easy and just because your father said something, doesn't make it true.
Honor is a concept and for sure a great character trait but if you don't get teached a concept like honor, you don't follow it.
Short term goals vs. long term goals requires long horizion thinking. Critical thinking is necessary to break through cultural heritage. I grew up a christian, took me until 14 to denounce this garbage.
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And that’s ignoring all the laws people break on the regular.
Nor did I say that all laws are just.
I'm not your honey, either.
Stop trying to assume things, if you don't want to take part in this discussion, don't.
But stop playing a game of fallacy
The difference is probably the degree of abuse and cruelty.
Also, the U.S. seems to claim to be a civilised society, so it would make sense to compare its facilities (including prisons) with those in other "civilised" societies. When you do that kind of comparison, you may be shocked to discover that U.S. prisons are amongst the worst.
Anyone that's actually worked a day in their life knows it's all bullshit. Yet Texans keep being the gullible voters they are, giving Sam, Dario, Elon, Mark, and Trump's kids everything they want while their own communities suffer more and more.
Andrew Yang is so upset with you right now.
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Taxes weren't optional last I checked.
>If you don't see value in the U.S. Constitution
Which part of the Constitution is it that guarantees air conditioning? Did I miss an amendment?
>and providing human beings a chance at reformation
Everyone has not only the choice at reformation, if they choose poorly there's always another opportunity to do so later that day. To do so the next morning. If they have to be bribed for that with air conditioning or anything else, they're as far from it as any human can possibly be.
For those in prision today, they can't be rehabilitated if they're dead due to heat stroke caused by cruel and unreasonable 115 degree heat.
Read up, buttercup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United...
Fully agreed, which is why I make the point that air conditioning isn't a question, of course a prison in Texas should have air conditioning. The 8th Amendment makes this pretty clear, that cruel and unusual punishments are disallowed, as they should be. The punishment is and should be the prison sentence itself.
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Because otherwise, “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them” is a bit Javert from Les Mis.
> “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them”
Please don't make up quotes and attribute them to me. That's called the strawman fallacy.
> "People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong."[0]
Broader Context: In response to a commentary on how 'good and bad' can be complicated:
> "It's always someone else's fault."[1]
Broader-broader Context: Prison is punishment, etc.
So, a reasonable chain of thought here and paraphrase of what you've said is: "people know right from wrong" -> we're in the context of crime and punishment, so this is operating as a substitute for "they know what's legal and illegal". If it's not, it doesn't belong here, because at this point we should all know that legality != morality.
"and they chose wrong" -> therefore they chose the consequences - they chose punishment. The colloquial way of saying that is "they get what's coming to them".
So, while those weren't your words, was that your implicit statement? And if not, what is the implicit statement?
I ask because the people in those cells are real, and 23 of them died of heat.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834799
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834226I'm still waiting for a definition that could even suggest otherwise. I know I won't get one, because nobody I have this discussion with is ever capable of coming up with one.
If you can't even define the terms, why do you imagine I should "know" it to be true?
Recall that I wrote this to you:
"I did not say there was no injustice happening. Nor did I say that all laws are just."
> People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong.
The context being that the "bad" person is such simply because they chose to break the law. Even if it doesn't match your thoughts, surely you can see how one might read your comments as both claiming that laws are not morals, and also that those who break the law made the "wrong" (moral) choice (put another way: laws are morals).
Breaking the law is not strictly a moral failure. It can be, but they have an "orthogonal" relationship. To that point:
> I did not say there was no injustice happening. Nor did I say that all laws are just.
Choosing to follow an unjust law is a moral failure. That moral failure is baked into the word "unjust". This blanket statement that the choice to commit a crime is a choice to be "bad" is not self-evident (or it's laughably tautological) and, regardless, is contradicted by the assertion that not all laws are "just".
Of course, one can assume you have more nuanced thoughts than that; the point of my coment is that you've not communicated that nuance here, so you appear to be contradicting yourself: saying both that laws are morals and that they are not morals.
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Saying "He had no free will" doesn't mean "The state has no right to confine him away from people he might hurt."