TV Louis Theroux: Miami Mega-Jail

[Shagrat]

Did anyone else watch this?

Just watched both episodes, bloody hell.

Packed in cells, 2 hours of exercise A WEEK, and basically left to fight each other for supremacy.

Some of the stories of the inmates were just

One guy, 21, had just been convicted to 40 years inside for murder a freebaser over non-payment of $20's for some crack, and when asked how he felt his reply was:

"relief, less pain in here, dont have to look after my mum, who's an alcoholic, brothers a waste of space, and sisters prostituting herself all day"


really does make you wonder how there supposed to break out of that kind of life when as one put it (who was looking at a potential death penalty), all my role-models were snakes, and I only saw my dad when he came round to beat me cause the police had been called in.

Just so depressing.

 

[eksdee]

Yeah, pretty shocking documentary. I had no idea the American 'justice' system worked that way.

Like you say, it seems worryingly institutionalised into the psyche of so many of those people that what they are doing is just a way of life. Clearly what this documentary shows is that America is just putting a bandage over a gaping wound in its society where they should be looking at the root cause. Frankly, though, it is such a deep-seated problem that it is hard to ever see a situation by which the hegemony of violence and crime that exists in these neighberhoods where these people are from could ever be broken.

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

Bangkok Hilton is far worse, try 40 people in a cell with HIV and HEP running ripe. And you are in there because you didn't have enough money to pay the police, for the weed they caught you with. I'm sure Miami is a fuckin' holiday .....

 

[Helme]

The US prison complex is fucking rotten, yes there's 3rd world hellholes that are probably worse but they aren't located in the richest country on earth. They've made a business out of running prisons, and rehabilitation just doesn't make as much money(or none at all). It's more cost-effective to run at 200% capacity, and keep increase the prison sentences, introduce 3 strike rules etc. and then just suck up the taxpayer money even if it's bankrupting the state(example: California).

Here is a blog with a lot more information if anyone is interested, it's from an x-inmate who has dedicated his life to trying to tear down what he calls the 'Monster'.

click "prisons" on the right to sort the posts, another guy uses the same blog to talk about alternative economics and the consequences of neoliberalism which is also an interesting read if you have the time.

 

[Shagrat]

cheers Helme, I'll have a read.

It does amaze me that the supposedly richest nation can still have such a mess of a judicial system. Some of the guys in that jail (so not sentenced yet) had been waiting for a court hearing for EIGHT years. Its just pouring taxpayers money down the toilet, and the way the jail operates theres no way in hell those guys are coming out rehabilitated.

 

[Tom]

It sometimes strikes me that the 18th-century split from the UK was the moment that the US, culturally, decided to stand still in time.

 

[Helme]

Nah, they were fairly progressive for a time - you just don't know much about it because it's been hidden away by years and years of conservatives re-writing history. The last 30 or so has been dedicated to eradicating any positive moves the country made though, starting with Reagan's busting of unions and de-regulation of the banking sector amongst other things.

The problem really is finding this information out, the easiest way to do it is to go to leftist radicals like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, but that is usually a bit on the extreme side for most people, it doesn't exactly help that things like "socialism" is a dirty word in the US.

 

[cHodAX]

Nah, they were fairly progressive for a time - you just don't know much about it because it's been hidden away by years and years of conservatives re-writing history. The last 30 or so has been dedicated to eradicating any positive moves the country made though, starting with Reagan's busting of unions and de-regulation of the banking sector amongst other things.

The problem really is finding this information out, the easiest way to do it is to go to leftist radicals like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, but that is usually a bit on the extreme side for most people, it doesn't exactly help that things like "socialism" is a dirty word in the US.

+rep for telling it like it is.

 

[Helme]

Went through my bookmarks, found another site hosting the same guy as the other blogs 'effort posts' from a political forum; clicky

This one is a lot easier to read, as it's written more as a narrative and one coherent post that takes up most of the worst shit. Highly recommended, and again if you're interested in more reading the site also has a decent write up on Uruguay and Haiti, and how our exploitation has utterly ruined both countries.

 

[Shagrat]

Policy short-termism does seem an inherent failure of the capitalist system as it works today. Policymakers are too quick to denounce the work of predecessors regardless of its inherent effectiveness just to score points for themselves.

 

[ileks]

That prison was fucking rough. Can you imagine being sent there if you were innocent? The nerdy guy in the first episode was so obviously going to get bummed in the showers. I felt sorry for him even tho he may well have been guilty (attempted murder i think it was).

I haven't seen the end of the second episode but the boot camp thing looked like a load of crap to me. Who in their right mind wouldn't put up with 6 months of that vs. 10 years in the other prison?? I'd rather do 10 years in the fucking boot camp than a month in the other one...

 

[Shagrat]

And yet 11 of them dropped out in the first week of boot camp and went back to await sentencing crazy

 

[throdgrain]

Nah, they were fairly progressive for a time - you just don't know much about it because it's been hidden away by years and years of conservatives re-writing history. The last 30 or so has been dedicated to eradicating any positive moves the country made though, starting with Reagan's busting of unions and de-regulation of the banking sector amongst other things.

The problem really is finding this information out, the easiest way to do it is to go to leftist radicals like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, but that is usually a bit on the extreme side for most people, it doesn't exactly help that things like "socialism" is a dirty word in the US.

Why doesnt that help? Socialism is a dirty word in my house too.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

It's not prison, it's jail. There's a difference. Stop calling it prison

 

[Azurus]

Why doesnt that help? Socialism is a dirty word in my house too.

It's not a question of people disagreeing with it as an ideology, it's the fact it has been so misrepresented by the popular media that people are rarely in a position to appraise it fairly. When people hear the word 'Socialism' in America they are much more likely to think of Communism then for example than the Socialist Democracies present across Scandanavia.

 

[old.Tohtori]

So...here it's "oh sh*t that's rugh", or "that's horrible" and in other threads it's "Feed 'em all to lions", "They should all be shot".

Hmmmm.

 

[Shagrat]

So...here it's "oh sh*t that's rugh", or "that's horrible" and in other threads it's "Feed 'em all to lions", "They should all be shot".

Hmmmm.

Maybe that's because its different people posting in each thread??? I've certainly never posted that people like this should be lined up and shot.

 

[Helme]

Why doesnt that help? Socialism is a dirty word in my house too.

First what Azurus said, secondly socialism just isn't welfare queens, in fact that's quite a small part of it. It's labour protection laws, it's medical aid for everyone and so on. Look at the history of socialism and what it represents, removing power from the privileged - the reason your children aren't working today, or that you aren't working 12 hours a day 6 days a week is because of the socialist movement during the late 19th / early 20th century. Yes, it has some serious problems but compared to the US version of "free markets"(they are anything but that) the European, and mainly Scandinavian version of socialism works.

Now imagine that just mentioning that word makes everyone believe you're a communist, how the fuck can you improve a country like that? And how does this NOT serve the elites? I understand your opposition to it if you're an employer or something along those lines, but honestly out of all the options of making capitalism work a social democracy is the best for the majority of the population. At least that we've found out so far.

Or well, that's not true. The Spanish anarchist movement before the fascists took power did quite well for itself, but we never really got a chance to see how it would have developed.

 

[Dudley52]

So...here it's "oh sh*t that's rugh", or "that's horrible" and in other threads it's "Feed 'em all to lions", "They should all be shot".

Hmmmm.

Totally agreed

 

[Helme]

Maybe that's because its different people posting in each thread??? I've certainly never posted that people like this should be lined up and shot.

This, I strongly believe in rehabilitation and help for people with obviously serious mental problems. I also think a fair social network is key to combating crime. In a country where the top 1% owns around 35% of the countries wealth, is it really so hard to see why there is crime?

 

[old.Tohtori]

Maybe that's because its different people posting in each thread??? I've certainly never posted that people like this should be lined up and shot.

Some different, not all

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

This is what the white scrawny, young guy actually did -

Former FIU student confesses to drive-by shooting | FIUSM.com