Josh and Anna 54: He's Listed in the BoP Database

[tanba]

50 minutes ago, Cam said:

Are prisons a terrible deterrent against crime? How many more people would commit criminal offenses without them? Crime is a part of society. Without prisons there’d be a free for all.  Do the “scared straight” programs work? I don’t know. Some people fall on hard times and turn to crime. Some people have criminal minds which cannot be changed. Anyway, I did not say the main reason prisons exist is as a deterrent. It’s just one of many reasons with no priority given to its ranking. 

There have been multiple studies that showed that prisons in the US style are not more effective deterrents for crime than those that treat inmates like humans like those in Norway (to take two extremes). Crime rates in most of Europe are much lower than in the US, and our prison system is very much based on rehabilitation. I have read studies that showed that the deterrence effect of prisons ist mostly due to the loss of freedom, so being treated worse is actually bad for crime rates, because it encourages people to reoffend.

 

there is a debate regarding punishment vs deterrence vs rehabilitation (vs protection).

 

 

 

[Anne Of Gray Gables]

Seagoville is just a little over 45 minutes from the Waller church in Fort Worth as opposed to a 5 -6 hour one way drive from Tontitown. Anna's next moves will be interesting.

Once the initial shock wears off, I think Josh will settle in nicely. Lots of creepy inmates just like himself, no cells. I heard it described as a campus type setting with lots of green grass. He'll be sucking up to the guards and running Bible classes in no time. 

[ILoveJellybeans]

I think prisons are both good and bad, it depends on their risk to the public.

I do see the benefit of having a place to put people when they are too dangerous to be allowed out into society. it is safest if serial killers, terrorists, rapists and pedophiles are kept away from other people and watched over so they cannot harm others. Some people are so dangerous that keeping them in a place where they can be tightly monitored and controlling their communication with the outside world is the best option for public safety.

There still should be attempts to rehabilitate them, but also attempts to understand why people do what they do, and what led to them committing these crimes, so things can be done to stop other people growing up to join a terrorist group and blow up a building, or getting pleasure from stalking the streets at night and strangling people, or molesting children.

These people are only the minority of prisoners though.

The problem is, that most of the people who are sent to prison are not so dangerous they need to be kept away from others. Putting them in prison does not help them change their ways, as being in prison institutionalises people and they dont know how to manage on the outside. There's the isolation, the rigid routine, the fear of violence and the only contact they do have with people is with other criminals.

It gets people into a vicious cycle. Nothing has been made better for them whilst they are in prison, so the problems that led them to commit a crime in the first place are still there, in fact are worse because of the stigma of having been in prison and being unused to the freedom of the outside world. A lot of people who end up in prison do so because of poverty, having a bad upbringing, undiagnosed/untreated mental illness or neurodivergence, poor educational opportunities etc. Once they're out of prison, these are still there on top of all the stigma, and they've spent years around different kinds of criminals, and now have even more problems,, so its easier for them to go to a life of crime and another prison sentence as its what they're used to.

The current prison system is like painting over the toxic mould instead of treating it. 

There needs to be more focus on rehabilitiating people who commit crimes rather than punishment. There also needs to be a way to make life better for people so they dont turn to crime in the first place, like, raising minimum wage to match inflation, better access to mental health care, more money into social services and education, tackling the root causes of homelessness and drug addiction and putting things in place to support them, legalising weed as its not any worse than alcohol and cigarettes etc.

I think prison should only be for the dangerous criminals with a high risk of reoffending, and other crimes should be managed through other means.

As to whether Josh should be in prison, I am glad he is because he finally recieved consequences for his actions. I am glad he is in a place where he cannot access any more children, as the people around him have enabled him for decades and he has plenty of access to minor children. He needs to be in a place where his internet use and movements are monitored to prevent him from accessing more images of children, and where he is not able to be around children as his community are enablers and also create the perfect conditions for a pedophile to hide in their folds. I also think it is a good thing that he is away from Anna so she has time to think about what Josh is really like, and also it guarantees that he will not be allowed to have contact with his children until they are no longer in the age group he is interested in, as Anna would not hesitate to take him back into the home.

Edited June 28, 2022 by ILoveJellybeans

[countressrascal]

Now Josh will have to send out visitors forms to everyone he wants to visit him, they have to return them to BOP to get screened then he can sign up for a visit. This process prior to COVID took 60 days after BOP received the forms back. He will be able to make phone calls within 10 days, only outgoing. Another thing-his beard is gone. The only way you can have facial hair in prison is for religious reasons. One good thing the food won’t be a shock to him. 

 

[Antimony]

11 hours ago, Jackie3 said:

I can certainly see why thiey'd worry about security risks. Since they are dealing with criminals, and all.  

You act like you are talking about orphans. These are criminals. Of course they need to look out for "security risks."

They should definitely read their letters.  How would it look if some inmates killed some guards, escaped, and it turned out they'd been writing to people on the outside, detailing their plans? "Leave the weapons by the fence outside the jail." 

These are child molesters, murderers, rapists, drug dealers. Why is it sad that they dont' have a cutting-edge email system? I think they're lucky to have email at all, particularly the murderers. Their victims can't use any email system at all, old or new.

Does it really bother you that Josh Duggar doesn't have the latest email system? Or access to the internet? Well, prisons are full of Josh Duggars--people who sneak, lie, lack empathy and hurt others. People who get off watching babies being tortured. Who cares if they have email at all? 

Maybe we should focus on conditions in foster care, or the elderly in nursing homes. They haven't harmed anyone and are still suffering. My sympathies go to them.

Personally, I'm delighted if Josh has to pay for his emails. 

Aside from the fact that this is all like, fear mongering, and I also didn't say that letters shouldn't be read, I just said I don't believe they are to any level of meaningful detail....

Edit: Maybe this wasn't clear. When I talk about letters being "scanned" being a for-profit scam, I am not talking about them being read for security risks. They probably aren't, honestly, because who the hell has the time to read all that in any level of detail? Certainly not COs paid nearly nothing to work 12 hour days. I am talking about companies that scan-and-print copies of letters instead of delivering the individual letters, usually at charge to the prison system (your tax dollars, folks!). They do this under the guise of "drugs" that could be, theoretically, I suppose, soaked into paper and snuck in that way. Except, that doesn't happen because prisons already throw out any letters with stains, warping, perfume, or water damage. (I even won't write pen pal letters when my hair is wet because of this!) Is it happening? Maybe a little bit. Certainly not enough to warrant the way we're responding...And, the fact that most drugs come in through COs or other means because....again...if you're being paid $11/hour and a friendly inmate offers you 3x the going rate for some weed than what it costs on the outside....it's a pretty big deal. It is a costly solution to a problem that isn't happening, only to produce profit for private companies at the expense of both tax payers and inmates (as in, parents can't get letters directly from their children, etc). (In fact, if you search for this problem, you'll see a common drug to blame this on is suboxone...used to treat heroin dependence...and then it just started to seem really sad...honestly)

This sort of "tough on crime" attitude only works if you believe that everybody in the prison system is a horrible monster. You can only believe that if you refuse to acknowledge that the prison system is largely made to impact and profit from the most poor and discriminated among us. You can only believe that if you think it's good and normal that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. To be okay with that, you have to be okay with the fact that our incarceration system is based on, rooted in, slavery. This only works if you want to ignore that we imprison children in this country and doom them to a cycle of incarceration. 

I also think I look at this differently. The way I treat people who are imprisoned doesn't tell me a lot about those people. It tells me about myself. It tells me what level if inhumanity I'm willing to treat a stranger with. There's a Bryan Stevenson quote about this, that I like, and I don't know if you have the same ire towards a civil rights lawyer as me, but;

Quote

“The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.”

If I am willing to condemn an entire class of strangers to cruelty, especially ones who are falsely convicted, or children who have been in this system at way too young an age, or people profiled based on race, that is something wrong with me. I just can't do it, sorry. I have no interest in eroding human rights because if I do that for people who are criminals, there may come a day --- and maybe soon --- where I am a criminal for aiding and abetting an abortion, or being too fucking queer, or protesting too loudly -- and it won't matter that my crime isn't "as bad as some others" -- they will take those rights away just as easily. A "criminal" isn't a set state, it is determined by the society around it, and criminality does not equate to immorality in all cases. There can come a day when the powers that be come for all of us too. It has happened before. It is starting to happen again. 

I see no reason to support unnecessary cruelty that doesn't restore justice. I see no reason to have a justice system that doesn't actually restore peace to victims. (I mean, it drives me batty that the fees 50K in Josh pays go to the court, not to any of his victims or an organization that helps these victims...maybe it "goes back to the prosecution" but it all gets lost in bureaucracy. Police don't even have to return stolen items to victims in criminal robbery.) I see no reason to allow a private, for-profit company to have a monetary interest in the incarceration of people. If you can't see how that is a conflict of interest, I can't help you, I guess. 

As always, when I talk about prison issues, I'm not talking about Josh Duggar. I'm not talking about any given person. I'm not talking about whatever criminal you think is most convenient to your point. I'm talking about structural problems.

Also, you seem to take a lot of my statements as some sort of moral opinion. Did I say anybody needed Gmail with the bells and whistles? No. I said it looks like a site from the 1990s because, well, that's what it looks like. It just does.  People were curious how jail email works. That's how it works. That's how it looks. 

But we've been over this, you don't really give a shit about talking about this in good faith. You give a shit about attacking me, and I'm a little bored of it now. But, as always, for those that actually are interest in conversations about this, I'm around. I have book recommendations and I also don't think any of these are easy questions. If you all think I woke up one day and became a prison abolitionist all at once, you're wrong. If you think there aren't inmates in the world that piss me off, you're wrong. If you think I didn't meet activists early on in this process and think they were absolutely out of their mind also, you're wrong. It's a long journey, and I understand that individual stories of justice or injustice are very compelling, but when it comes to prisons, I care about the structure being wrong. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water here, I'm pointing out that the bath water is poison and there might be some babies in it. 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Antimony

[Anne Of Gray Gables]

29 minutes ago, countressrascal said:

Another thing-his beard is gone. The only way you can have facial hair in prison is for religious reasons. One good thing the food won’t be a shock to him. 

I'm not sure about no facial hair in Federal prison. This is Josh's handbook; the only mention of facial hair is that inmates must be clean shaven "in facial areas where mustaches or beards are not worn."  Whatever that means.

https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/sea/SEA_fci_aohandbook.pdf

[Alisamer]

2 hours ago, Cam said:

Are prisons a terrible deterrent against crime? How many more people would commit criminal offenses without them? Crime is a part of society. Without prisons there’d be a free for all.  

I'm not anti-prison, but that's sort of like how the fundies are mystified by how anyone who isn't binding to their strict Jesus-rules doesn't go around killing for fun and fornicating in public all day. Without prisons there'd be crime, sure. But a free for all? Eh. Maybe. In some places, at some times, in some situations, but largely I think probably not. 

41 minutes ago, ILoveJellybeans said:

I think prisons are both good and bad, it depends on their risk to the public.

I do see the benefit of having a place to put people when they are too dangerous to be allowed out into society. it is safest if serial killers, terrorists, rapists and pedophiles are kept away from other people and watched over so they cannot harm others. Some people are so dangerous that keeping them in a place where they can be tightly monitored and controlling their communication with the outside world is the best option for public safety.

There still should be attempts to rehabilitate them, but also attempts to understand why people do what they do, and what led to them committing these crimes, so things can be done to stop other people growing up to join a terrorist group and blow up a building, or getting pleasure from stalking the streets at night and strangling people, or molesting children.

These people are only the minority of prisoners though.

I totally agree with this. There are a few people who are simply too dangerous to be allowed out in society. There are some people who have committed atrocities who, frankly, are safer in prison than out of it, and should be punished for their crimes besides. But I also agree that there are plenty of people in prison for ridiculous reasons (often drug and/or mental health related) who would be better off in rehabilitative programs, even if those are residential ones that restrict their freedom. 

But I'm pro-prison for Josh Duggar. He has extensive access to young children, with a new supply being born at a steady pace in his family. He's shown over time that his proclivities have seemed to escalate. He apparently enjoys watching the literal torture of young children. I'd prefer he get some serious therapy in prison, but just keeping him away from children is a start.

Like, I get that the prison system in the US is messed up. But at the same time I think prisons are necessary for some people. Rehabilitation, for those who can be rehabilitated, should always be the first choice IMO - but some people need to serve time alongside that. It sucks that it's a for-profit system and that inmates are being exploited. It sucks more that many of those inmates are there essentially as a result of mental health problems and addiction.

But there are some criminals who are dangerous and can't be rehabilitated who need to be kept away from society. And there are some who are evil and deserve to rot, IMO. 

[Coconut Flan]

Carry on here: