The Glade 4.0

There is a huge problem with reforming the prison system. You have to deal with the fact that the majority of the population holds opinions similar to the one Darksiege expressed in the beginning of this thread. Keeping those lawbreaking thugs away from myself and my perfect family is all the more tax dollars the public wishes to spend on them. Prison is a place for us to put them so that we can forget about them. That prison is a catch-all solution to everything from theft to murder never enters our minds, nor does the fact that most inmates will get out someday. A thirty day sentence for credit card fraud may as well be a life sentence for serial rape.

Prison is where we put our undesirables, and time spent in prison forever marks you as such. U.S. society is done with you the moment you enter prison as an inmate, regardless of your crime and sentence. We may as well simply execute anyone who is found guilty in a court of law, except that we also want to be opposed to the death penalty.

Our opposition to the death penalty has nothing to do with empathy or humanity, despite what anyone may tell you, but rather selfishness. We are dimly aware of the possibility of being wrongfully accused, at least enough to recognize the threat the death penalty poses to us, personally. Political prisoners and innocent men sent to jail on falacious, trumped-up charges are thought to be a thing of the past, or at least something that happens in other societies. No one sees a need for the accused or the convicted to have rights, as the events which spurred those amendments to be written are thought to have been brought to an end by government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is only when faced with the idea of the death penalty that we finally recognize that it could happen to us.

It is this mentality that any prison reform must contend with: The presumption of guilt until guilt is confirmed, and the idea that they are forevermore worthless to society. Prison inmates can not be reformed because society does not want them back. The hardest part about making amends for past misdeeds is when honest effort gets thrown back in your face. That is why prison reform can never happen. The common man does not have the strength of character to accept that a criminal wishes to change. Once the criminal realizes this, he quickly sees the folly of trying.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Once you have a felony conviction, you will never make more than $10-11/hour for the rest of your life unless you start your own business.

Let me give you an example. The GM of my old WoW guild had a Master's Degree in biochemistry and had a job with a $65,000 annual salary. Then one weekend he went to a bar and had a lot to drink, and ended up picking a fight with some other guy. Well he was in much better shape than the other guy, and when he punched him, that guy fell down and fractured his skull on the curb. He was eventually convicted of felony battery for this attack. He did not receive any jail time, only probation. However, the felony conviction essentially ended his life. He was immediately fired, and nobody cared that he had a master's degree and 4 years experience. All they saw was the felony conviction, and he was unable to get any kind of job. Even retail stores wouldn't look at him. He eventually ended up having to take a job on an assembly line assembling Christmas ornaments for near minimum wage.

Once you have a felony conviction, you will never make more than $10-11/hour for the rest of your life unless you start your own business. You can no longer start and support a family. If you had a family, expect them to leave you for someone that can support them if they have any intelligence or choice. How can we expect felons to reform, when we do not allow them to? Crime is the only realistic means of income that is available to them when they get out. It does not matter how much work they put in or how valuable their skills are, they are not allowed back into society, ever. Why should they bother to respect your rights and your property?

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

So I suppose he should have started his own business. The only things that are obstacles are the things you allow to be obstacles.

Does the system need to be reformed, or even rebuilt from the ground up? Yes. But that doesn't mean he had no options.

I'll call both bets (over-the-top and easily addressed, and sob stories about inescapable circumstances) and raise to registered sex offender lists.

Let me give you an example. The GM of my old WoW guild had a Master's Degree in biochemistry and had a job with a $65,000 annual salary. Then one weekend he went to a bar and had a lot to drink, and ended up picking a fight with some other guy. Well he was in much better shape than the other guy, and when he punched him, that guy fell down and fractured his skull on the curb. He was eventually convicted of felony battery for this attack. He did not receive any jail time, only probation. However, the felony conviction essentially ended his life. He was immediately fired, and nobody cared that he had a master's degree and 4 years experience. All they saw was the felony conviction, and he was unable to get any kind of job. Even retail stores wouldn't look at him. He eventually ended up having to take a job on an assembly line assembling Christmas ornaments for near minimum wage.

Once you have a felony conviction, you will never make more than $10-11/hour for the rest of your life unless you start your own business. You can no longer start and support a family. If you had a family, expect them to leave you for someone that can support them if they have any intelligence or choice. How can we expect felons to reform, when we do not allow them to? Crime is the only realistic means of income that is available to them when they get out. It does not matter how much work they put in or how valuable their skills are, they are not allowed back into society, ever. Why should they bother to respect your rights and your property?

Sympathy for poor ex-convicts who can't get their lives back evaporates quickly when someone convicted of a sex crime gets out of jail. That we live in a society which has deemed it acceptable to enact sex offense registration laws rather neatly summarizes just how easy it will be to reform our prison system.

It's really too bad that the US doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to stop doing business with China.

I could see a subtler path, weaning Chinese products out of our lives as we discover they are made in China. Of course,stopping borrowing from China, balancing the budget and paying off the debt would be a much better idea.

You do realize China is keeping us afloat for their own purposes? They want to be positioned as the next OMG stable currency provider before we collapse. When we become superfluous as a currency staple, then they will cut us off and start asking for repayment.