Epic Flail

A repository of things i take seriously..pause..then chuckle at later.

newyorker: The Caging of America; Why do we lock up so many people? The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country. - In this week’s issue, Adam Gopnik writes about mass incarceration and criminal justice in America: http://nyr.kr/A75iOm Photograph by Steve Liss. Fascinating and well-written. Knowing many a prosecutors, public defenders, private jail owners and convicted felons, this piece presents an excellent array of perspectives/theories on this dilemma.Mass incarceration is both ineffective and extremely costly. It costs more to house prisoners than it would be to educate him/her correctly. The social behavior adjustments noted at the end makes for an interesting argument. Plus, only in the US have we managed to privatize/capitalize on such sad human conditions. Lastly, I must read Professor Stuntz’s reading of the Bill of Rights as the root of our criminal justice system’s problems.Of late, I really enjoy learning about the complexities of problems such as this. Don’t get me wrong, I still relish in tackling issues like SOPA & PIPA.But, there are much dire problems out there. Living in an extremely poor, under served, un-educated area may sound like hell (and it can be); but I am most certainly thankful for the lessons I am learning & the perspective I have yet to really gain.

newyorker:

The Caging of America; Why do we lock up so many people?

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country.

- In this week’s issue, Adam Gopnik writes about mass incarceration and criminal justice in America: http://nyr.kr/A75iOm

Photograph by Steve Liss.

Fascinating and well-written.

Knowing many a prosecutors, public defenders, private jail owners and convicted felons, this piece presents an excellent array of perspectives/theories on this dilemma.

Mass incarceration is both ineffective and extremely costly. It costs more to house prisoners than it would be to educate him/her correctly. The social behavior adjustments noted at the end makes for an interesting argument. Plus, only in the US have we managed to privatize/capitalize on such sad human conditions. Lastly, I must read Professor Stuntz’s reading of the Bill of Rights as the root of our criminal justice system’s problems.

Of late, I really enjoy learning about the complexities of problems such as this. Don’t get me wrong, I still relish in tackling issues like SOPA & PIPA.

But, there are much dire problems out there. Living in an extremely poor, under served, un-educated area may sound like hell (and it can be); but I am most certainly thankful for the lessons I am learning & the perspective I have yet to really gain.

4 weeks ago

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    Definitely must-frown reading.
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