• kent_eh@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    42 minutes ago

    Any government that can financially profit from its prisoners also has an incentive to imprison more of its population.

    • Soapbox@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      8 minutes ago

      Well, the government isn’t profiting from it. Its the people running the government who are invested in private prison companies are personally profiting from it. Along with their golf buddies running said companies.

      Privately run prisons as a for profit business is a crime against humanity.

  • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    4 hours ago

    Us people: criminals shouldn’t be allowed to vote!
    Then proceed to vote for and elect a criminal.
    Then they do it again. Just because.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    6 hours ago

    In the US, slavery is legal for prisoners. The US has the largest prison population in the world. This is not a coincidence.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 hours ago

        From a Billionaire’s perspective, a millionaire is a pauper. A regular working person might as well be a slave. They work hard for much of their lives for pennies, and are terrified THAT will go away.

        And modern wage slavery also carries the improved advantage that the employer no longer has to provide housing, food, or medical care. The slaves have to pay for all that out of their pennies.

        We’re ALL already slaves.

        • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 hours ago

          So the main difference between slavery and work is you get paid less, and don’t have the option of being permanently unemployed and homeless.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            18 minutes ago

            Are you being for real right now?

            You are aware that the thirteenth amendment (the one that abolishes slavery) explicitly allows for slavery to continue “as punishment”.

            This isn’t like some weird leftist take, slavery is quite literally legal in US prisons.

  • asg101@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    11 hours ago

    More fun facts, slavery is still legal in the USA (for prisoners) and the USA imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any other country. The ruling class just makes everything illegal and enjoys unlimited slave labor!

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 hours ago

      They intend to greatly increase the use of prisoner slave labor, and will be using it to punish political prisoners they have labeled ANTIFA terrorists, just for posting messages like this one.

      They want to identify everyone on the Internet, not so they can keep children from learning that boys and girls have different genitalia, but so they can find the ANTIFA Terrorists, imprison them, take away their right to vote, and then lease them out to Sociopathic Oligarchs for whatever dangerous, unregulated work they need done - mining, environmental clean-up, construction, roadwork, crop harvesting, etc.

      All those jobs that immigrants used to do? ANTIFA Terrorists can do them.

  • blitzen@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    109
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Not only do I think non-incarcerated felons should have the right to vote, I think currently incarcerated should as well. Hell, set up a voting location in the prison.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      16 minutes ago

      Especially since those states are counting those prisoners among the residents in the census.

      The entire fucking point is to get the benefits for those additional people, while not having to worry about them voting (likely against the people who put them there)

        • Klear@piefed.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          15 hours ago

          I added the qualifier mainly because of New Zealand. AFAIK the country has otherwise its shit together.

          • nightlily@leminal.space
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            6 hours ago

            They’d like you to think that. Truth is there’s even less „checks and balances“ there than the already paper thin ones in the US. The courts have no teeth with the government and it’s a effectively unicameral system. Theoretically the King has executive power but he would never step in. Prisoners not being able to vote has been ruled by the courts to be against the Bill of Rights and they were just ignored.

          • ProfessorHoover@infosec.pub
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            7 hours ago

            New Zealand also lets the team down by allowing medical advertising. IRC it’s the only country other than the US with prescription medical advertising.

      • blitzen@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        31
        ·
        16 hours ago

        Certainly cutting back 9 out of 10 prisons is a good idea. I don’t object to the idea that there is a certain amount of people who need to be removed for their own and the public’s safety.

        • RmDebArc_5@piefed.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          15 hours ago

          But is a prison really where someone like that should go/it should be called? I would argue those people should be in a mental asylum, not what we have as prisons today (though today’s mental asylums aren’t necessarily more humane)

          • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            17
            ·
            12 hours ago

            Mental hospitals should be places where people with mental illnesses can go for care and treatment. They shouldn’t do double-duty as prisons.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              10 hours ago

              True, but the opposite is the case now: several times more people with mental illness resulting in or at least contributing to unwanted behavior are imprisoned than are receiving any kind of treatment.

              As indicated by the fact that the most incarceration-happy country in the world continues to have a much higher rate of violence and enrichment crimes than most rich countries, the prison industrial complex doesn’t work for anyone except for the people profiting financially and electorally from its abuses.

              If you want to actually reduce crime and make a better society, poverty alleviation, improving mental health services, and restorative justice is the way to go.

              The current model of increasingly draconian oppression only leads to MORE crime AND more false imprisonment.

          • optimisticturtle@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            9 hours ago

            I don’t think people realize how limited psychiatric hospitalizations are. If someone committed a crime because of impulsivity due to untreated mood or psychotic disorder, then a psychiatric stay would likely be appropriate. However, someone who is say psychopathic or committed a crime of passion but has no psychiatric history would get minimal to no benefit from a psych stay.

          • blitzen@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            14 hours ago

            I mean, if responding to my comment about removing some people for “their own safety,” then sure, there are better places that prisons.

            But really what I was saying is there are people who do and will continue to be violent toward others, and prisons probably are the right place for them.

            But I’m in full agreement that the US incarcerates far far too many people that don’t fit into that description.

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              14 hours ago

              The justice system should, not is but should, be in the business of making things right for people who have been wronged and rehabilitating people who have done wrong, as an extension of preventing wrong from recurring, which is itself part of making things right for those wronged.

              There is some theoretical minority of people who can’t be rehabilitated and don’t belong in medical treatment. There are some people where putting them in a medical facility would itself be an injustice to the staff and other patients. The vast majority of people with mental illness are perfectly safe and more likely to be the victim of a crime. Mixing them with billy mcSlapChop the worst person imaginable just creates a lot of dead people with poorly managed bipolar disorder.

              The vast majority of crimes can be handled by the judge finding you guilty and then just letting you go.

    • PenguinMage@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Funny enough according to many states can’t vote. But somehow can be voted for. But I’ve been informed by my eldest sibling that I have some sort of thing they call TDS and I don’t give enough of a fuck to care about what stupidity that means.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    14 hours ago

    Lee Carter is a former Democratic Socialist member of the Virginia House of Delegates (2018–2022) who actively championed prison abolition and criminal justice reform.

  • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Wait until you hear about countries that prevent even their non-criminals from actually voting. They usually hold an election but it’s just theatrical, your text in vote for the next pop idol is more statistically valuable.