Over 3,200 US prisoners serving life sentences for non-violent offenses including shoplifting
34 replies, posted
[url]http://rt.com/usa/life-prison-without-parole-694/[/url]
[QUOTE]Over 3,200 people in the United States are serving life sentences without parole for non-violent and often petty offenses – and taxpayers are paying billions to keep them locked up, according to a new report.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report, titled ‘A Living Death,’ relays the stories of thousands of people impacted by the United States’ “late-twentieth-century obsession with mass incarceration and extreme, inhumane penalties” which leaves them likely to die behind bars even though they are far from being serious or violent offenders.
From possessing a bottle cap smeared with heroin residue to working as a middleman in a $10 drug sale, the ACLU says that punishment thought to be reserved for the most violent criminals in the US is also meted out to others - oftentimes for minor crimes.
Of the 3,278 people across the country serving life sentences without parole, the vast majority surveyed by the ACLU - 83.4 percent - received the punishment that was mandatory under sentencing laws, leaving the judge no other choice.
In January 1996, Timothy Jackson was caught stealing a jacket from a department store in New Orleans. A few months later, he was convicted of shoplifting and sent to prison. He is still incarcerated for stealing the $159 jacket.
“I know that for my crime I had to do some time, but a life sentence for a jacket value at $159...I have met people here whose crimes are a lot badder with way less time,” Jackson, now 53, told the ACLU.
Jackson’s sister, Loretta Lumar, told the Guardian that her brother’s life sentence is still difficult to digest.
“This doesn't make sense to me,” she said. “I know people who have killed people, and they get a lesser sentence. That doesn't make sense to me right there. You can take a life and get 15 or 16 years. He takes a jacket worth $159 and will stay in jail forever. He didn't kill the jacket!”
Not long after Jackson received life in prison, a Louisiana appeals court found the sentence “excessive,” “inappropriate,” and “a prime example of an unjust result.” The court called him a “petty thief,” and threw out the sentence.
The next year, the state supreme court echoed those sentiments. “This sentence is constitutionally excessive in that it is grossly out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense,” wrote Judge Bernette Johnson. Yet the state's stubborn four strikes law, which mandates life without parole, led her to reinstate the sentence. [/QUOTE]
consecutive sentences are some pretty barbaric shit.
[editline]14th November 2013[/editline]
It could also be said that you know you're living in an oligarchy when property crime is more harshly punished than crimes against an individual.
what is wrong with my country
Welp thats it, time to move to canada.
Many of them being held by one of our many for-profit privately owned prisons, I'm sure
Freedom? I think not.
[QUOTE=andy85258;42859116]Welp thats it, time to move to canada.[/QUOTE]
They've been acting a lot like America these days with Mr Harper in power.
[QUOTE=Mac2468;42859139]They've been acting a lot like America these days with Mr Harper in power.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, fuck that guy. He headed an initiative that introduced mandatory minimum sentences for firearm-related offenses.
I wonder what's next though, locking up their immediate aquintances and family to "deter", this is seriously some NK shit.
[QUOTE=Fatfatfatty;42859152]this is seriously some NK shit.[/QUOTE]
Now THAT's hyperbole.
Besides,
NK doesn't have a private prison industry that requires the country to keep producing long-term inmates. They just execute offenders there, and their families.
Land of the free.
Meanwhile in Finland a person, who helped someone murder a young girl, is jailed for 6 years, gets paroled after only serving 2 years (and immediately after released he proceeds to taunt at the father of the murdered girl.)
Such a shame how unbalanced the justice is.
To be [I]fair[/I], it was the guy's final strike that lead to the sentencing, not just the fact that he stole a jacket.
I'm not defending it, though. Petty shoplifting shouldn't count as a strike in the first place.
Gee, maybe you shouldn't have kept committing crimes?
Property crime and the war on drugs - two things that you can't challenge without being set on like you're blaspheming some holy infallible law.
Thanks 'murica. The land of freedom.
[QUOTE=bisousbisous;42859524]Gee, maybe you shouldn't have kept committing crimes?[/QUOTE]
Lemme put this in perspective for you, if I caught you speeding three times and you had warnings all 3 times, and then I caught you going through a red light, would you deem it fair if I threw you in prison for life on the basis you had 4 strikes against you?
Any better sources than RT.
[QUOTE=archangel125;42859051]consecutive sentences are some pretty barbaric shit.
[/QUOTE]
It's preferable to what we have here, where multiple convictions will result in multiple punishments that you sit out simultaneously - so you only spend as long behind bars are the longest sentence is.
[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;42859769]It's preferable to what we have here, where multiple convictions will result in multiple punishments that you sit out simultaneously - so you only spend as long behind bars are the longest sentence is.[/QUOTE]
I mean that sounds fair to me, I'd call that the preferred situation
Take a coat, life sentence.
Take a life, 15 - 20 years.
It's unbelievable how stupid the judicial system can be in this country.
[QUOTE=bigmansham;42859745]Any better sources than RT.[/QUOTE]
If you opened the link, you'd see them referring to this report:
[URL]https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/living-death-life-without-parole-nonviolent-offenses-0[/URL]
[QUOTE]For 3,278 people, it was nonviolent offenses like stealing a $159 jacket or serving as a middleman in the sale of $10 of marijuana. An estimated 65% of them are Black. Many of them were struggling with mental illness, drug dependency or financial desperation when they committed their crimes. None of them will ever come home to their parents and children. And taxpayers are spending billions to keep them behind bars.[/QUOTE]
I knew the justice system was broken but holy shit, dude.
It's funny thinking you could do less time for shooting a cop than stealing a jacket.
This should be flashing at everyone
[quote][B] Yet the state's stubborn four strikes law, which mandates life without parole, led her to reinstate the sentence.[/quote][/B]
Louisiana is a fucked up place. DOJ had taken over a few of their agencies too because of corruption.
Also
[quote]Louisiana has the highest amount, while Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina also have high totals.[/quote]
No surprises here on where they're all sentenced.
Formula for profit in america
1. Find 5 rich friends
2. Decide a good city with a large population
3. Destroy the business and work opportunities in that city through combining/buying and closing the "good" jobs in that city (see Thrive it or Dive it)
4. Build a prison just outside that city
5. create low income sectors which are sifficiently far from the high income sectors to feel like anohter part of the world. Make sure that the shopping districts do not intersect with these areas, and move all industrial buildings/factories near the new low income areas
6. install hundreds of minimum wage part time jobs in those new low income areas(see mcdonalds, burger king, k-mart, walmart)
7. (optional) supply a few drug dealers with large amounts of illegal drugs, you don't really have to because your human farm will do it on it's own, but if you want to hurry it along you can.
8. wait until the crushing atmosphere pushes large populations into crime as a way of life.
9. by the 2nd generation you should be seeing your new prison struggling to handle all of the new inmates, upgrade prison if necessary. (don't forget to make the government pay for it!)
10. blanket the area with cops once a month and enjoy the never ending profits from your brand new human farm!
Don't forget to use your local news to show a non-stop cascade of crime. Make sure that it is shown in a way that blames the criminals and not their crushing living situations. You really don't have to do much to get people to start comitting crimes since the first generation will ikely turn to selling/using drugs and as such be nearly incapable of raising their kids to do much else other than that. The news is your most effective tool for keeping people from questioning why the criminals are doing it since you can easily manipulate that by showing short clips of the offendor in prison garb with shackles on while using words like "drug manufacture and distribution"
[QUOTE=Tacosheller;42859878]I mean that sounds fair to me, I'd call that the preferred situation[/QUOTE]
Kill 5 people, only actually have to do time for 1 = fair? What's even the point in punishing people for multiple offenses with that?
I still find it insane that America [I]privatised prisons.[/I]
Well welcome to America the land of the so called freedom for the masses, and the true freedom for those who can afford it by making the money off the backs of the min wage people.
[QUOTE=archangel125;42859248]
NK doesn't have a private prison industry that requires the country to keep producing long-term inmates. They just execute offenders there, and their families.[/QUOTE]
Nah. They generally enslave the offender and their family, [url=http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281fe18baf&wit_id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281fe18baf-2-1]ship them to a gulag and have them work till they die of malnutrition/abuse/age/cold/childbirth/failed abortion/execution[/url].
[QUOTE=frozensoda;42860323]Formula for profit in america
1. Find 5 rich friends
2. Decide a good city with a large population
3. Destroy the business and work opportunities in that city through combining/buying and closing the "good" jobs in that city
4. Build a prison just outside that city
5. create low income sectors which are sifficiently far from the high income sectors to feel like anohter part of the world. Make sure that the shopping districts do not intersect with these areas, and move all industrial buildings/factories near the new low income areas
6. install hundreds of minimum wage part time jobs in those new low income areas(see mcdonalds, burger king, k-mart, walmart)
7. (optional) supply a few drug dealers with large amounts of illegal drugs, you don't really have to because your human farm will do it on it's own, but if you want to hurry it along you can.
8. wait until the crushing atmosphere pushes large populations into crime as a way of life.
9. by the 2nd generation you should be seeing your new prison struggling to handle all of the new inmates, upgrade prison if necessary. (don't forget to make the government pay for it!)
10. blanket the area with cops once a month and enjoy the never ending profits from your brand new human farm!
Don't forget to use your local news to show a non-stop cascade of crime. Make sure that it is shown in a way that blames the criminals and not their crushing living situations. You really don't have to do much to get people to start comitting crimes since the first generation will ikely turn to selling/using drugs and as such be nearly incapable of raising their kids to do much else other than that. The news is your most effective tool for keeping people from questioning why the criminals are doing it since you can easily manipulate that by showing short clips of the offendor in prison garb with shackles on while using words like "drug manufacture and distribution"[/QUOTE]
This would make a great video game.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.