Conditions in jails.

  • wx12

    wx12 (10125)

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    chai latte:
    And another girl who was there had a really severe anxiety/panic type disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, and they refused her her medication.
    My grandmother was a nurse in a prison for about 3 years. She was a general health nurse at the time, but for the rest of her career she'd been a psych nurse, and she said she'd make recommendations for inmates to see psychologists or be admitted to psychiatric wards, and she said it never happened until something really bad happened (ie, a suicide attempt or psychotic episode that hurt someone). They just thought she was naive and being manipulated by inmates, because mental health problems were just a "cop out." That's actually why she left; she felt like working there was violating the terms of having a nursing license.
    of dru's being.:
    @ Kurtni
    That and the fact that you have to pay someone to sue someone. I can't get a public prosecutor for free, only a defender. It's bullshit.
    Yeah, and you'll need a lot of money for a good enough lawyer, because the government will have the best of the best. 
    (Dru, do you want this thread to be specifically about jails or the legal system as a whole? I feel like we keep bringing up other parts of the justice system, but if that's off topic of what you made the thread for, we can stop.)
    June 26th, 2012 at 05:25pm
  • folie a dru.

    folie a dru. (1270)

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    @ Kurtni
    It's not really what I made the thread for, just 'cause prison systems and jail systems are different. But maybe we should just make a 'legal system' thread.
    June 26th, 2012 at 05:32pm
  • chai latte

    chai latte (225)

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    @ Kurtni
    Mental health problems a cop out? Wow. That's absolutely mind-blowing. The scary thing is, is with this particular girl, the whole reason she was in there was for having a psychotic break and stabbing another girl in the chest and neck. By refusing her meds, they put not only her in danger, but everyone else, too.

    From what I've seen, the way jails/prisons treat mental health is absolutely astounding. I remember hearing about a 14-year-old boy who was in the same juvie I was in shortly after I got out. He had depression and he actually attempted suicide because he was treated so horribly by the staff. From what I heard, they still just blew it off like it was nothing.
    June 26th, 2012 at 05:40pm
  • Jewel Nicole

    Jewel Nicole (100)

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    @ of dru's being.

    If you're still interested in pursing a case against them you can try and look for a lawyer that will take on the case pro bono. I would suggest that you call different law firms and talk to them about your situation, maybe there is a lawyer that will be willing to do that for you.
    June 26th, 2012 at 07:40pm
  • folie a dru.

    folie a dru. (1270)

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    @ Jewel Nicole
    The additional issue is location. To sue, I would need a Texas lawyer since that's the state where it happened, but I'm located in Nebraska. It's not exactly easy to shop for a lawyer that's so far away. (I tried; mainly to sue the person who accused me in the first place. The cops wouldn't even let me file a report against said individual.)

    Thanks though.
    June 26th, 2012 at 07:43pm
  • fen'harel

    fen'harel (560)

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    I've been reading throughout the whole thread and on the books I've read about criminal psychology and recidivism, everything points out at not being an "effective" treatment (particularly for those who are classified as psychopaths, which compose roughly 20% of the prison population); however, in the books and articles, they fail to notice the actual lack of rehabilitation for those who commit minor crimes; the whole parole system doesn't provide proper training for parole officers to actually help them by either referring or providing therapy to the individuals. It's just: throw them back to society and if they do it again, it's 'cause they didn't learn their lesson the first time in prison.

    And this is how it reaches the high levels of recidivism due to the lack of proper therapy and treatment for prisoners in either jails or prisons. Minimum security prisons are the ones which actually have therapy programs, but the problem is that they are not adequate and personnel is not fully trained.
    June 27th, 2012 at 05:00am
  • The Master

    The Master (15)

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    ^ I'm right to suggest that many major crimes could have been prevented with appropriate intervention beforehand. I remember something in my forensics class which implied that say a rapist who broke into people's homes to do so would have been done for breaking and entering before and another example is like a person who was a violent rapist would have had a conviction for assault beforehand. It's vague but it sticks out in my head.
    June 27th, 2012 at 12:20pm
  • folie a dru.

    folie a dru. (1270)

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    I'm going to start a thread about prison systems because this thread is supposed to be for jails and a lot of the discussion here doesn't apply. (Namely, jails in the U.S. aren't really responsible for rehabilitation because they are for people who haven't been sentenced yet.)

    New thread.
    June 27th, 2012 at 05:35pm
  • kafka.

    kafka. (150)

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    Over one fifth of homeless people admit to committing crimes just so they would be incarcerated (source) - this is why people are outraged by the 'luxuries' prison / jail inmates get - because they are unaffordable luxuries for a lot of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong. The fact that we're not willing to give free housing, food, medicine, emotional / psychological support etc to somebody whose worst offence is being poor, but we're willing to offer it to anybody who rapes or kills somebody is outrageous - this is not to say that conditions in prisons / jails shouldn't improve, the fact that they should is a matter of common sense and basic human decency, but that there are many things wrong with a justice / legal / welfare system that only start paying attention to people who need help when they start hurting others.
    June 27th, 2012 at 07:21pm
  • JustMeAllMe

    JustMeAllMe (100)

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    @ of dru's being.
    wow!
    I totaly understand you.
    To be treted like tht is crazy.
    guilty or not.....we are human and we do deserve rights..even if we are criminals
    Sadly those who arent are still treatred like crap
    June 28th, 2012 at 11:33pm
  • based

    based (200)

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    No, I think that prisons and jails should not exist at all. The reasons that people commit crimes should be eradicated, not the so-called criminals. People commit crimes either because they're poor or mentally ill, and jail/prison is not going to help.
    August 19th, 2014 at 08:34pm
  • FuckNo

    FuckNo (100)

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    @ Jamboree
    I would honestly love to say that crime was as black and white as you seem to think it is. However, that is not the case. Is poverty an influence on the rate of crime? Absolutely, but that doesn't explain why rich people would commit crime at all. Does having a mental disorder influence whether someone commits crime? Yes, but stable people commit crime as well. The fact of the matter is that jails (for holding periods to await trial, people held on contempt, or just people who have been sentenced to less than a year) and prisons (people sentenced to more than a year) are absolutely necessary parts of society.

    If poverty and mental illnesses were the sole cause of crime, then criminology wouldn't need to exist, because we'd have all the answers. The harsh truth is that we still don't know. We can correlate things and we can study them, but not to a 100% and not with true experimental conditions to figure out what's going on. And on top of that, poverty/mental illness also just doesn't make sense for a lot of crime. There's no logical reason that poverty would lead someone to sexually assault another person.

    Cutting down on poverty (I think I'm too pessimistic to believe we can eliminate all poverty just yet) and figuring out a way to help the mentally ill, as well as cutting out drug laws, could significantly lower the jail/prison population. However, let's not pretend that that's the entire population, because it's not. Some criminals are mentally ill. Hell, even within serial killers, some of them were desperately mentally ill, but some just didn't care if they hurt people. In fact, hurting people was the goal.
    August 19th, 2014 at 09:43pm
  • FuckNo

    FuckNo (100)

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    @ dru is beautiful.
    Actually, jails are for both people that haven't been sentenced and people that have been sentenced if the sentence is a misdemeanor/under a year. Also people charged with contempt go to jail.
    August 19th, 2014 at 09:44pm
  • based

    based (200)

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    @ CallusedSilk
    Yeah that's true about the drug thing
    August 19th, 2014 at 11:13pm
  • FuckNo

    FuckNo (100)

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    @ Jamboree
    All of it was true, but thank you.
    August 20th, 2014 at 03:05am
  • folie a dru.

    folie a dru. (1270)

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    @ CallusedSilk
    Thanks, I didn't know that. :)
    August 22nd, 2014 at 04:44pm
  • FuckNo

    FuckNo (100)

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    @ dru is beautiful.
    I didn't know it either until one of my criminology classes, although right now I'm running on like crazy fumes 'cause I didn't sleep at all last night so I feel a compulsive need to also inform you that technically, 'cause I'm just remembering this, you can end up in jail theoretically forever. I say that since technically contempt is only like, 30-60 days depending on the jurisdiction, but it can just be renewed, like in the case of a journalist not giving up their source, for pretty much forever if a judge feels like it.

    I think those might be run-on sentences, but I'm gonna go pass out now.
    August 22nd, 2014 at 06:07pm
  • folie a dru.

    folie a dru. (1270)

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    @ CallusedSilk
    There's a guy in Texas jail who's been there for 15 years or something and has never officially been charged. Texas has more people in jail without levied charges than any other state.
    August 22nd, 2014 at 10:55pm
  • FuckNo

    FuckNo (100)

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    @ dru is beautiful.
    Jesus Christ, 15 years and no charges?

    God bless the USA.

    Land of the free, home of the brave, y'all.
    August 22nd, 2014 at 11:15pm
  • faster.

    faster. (300)

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    I spent 3 months in jail about a year ago (ir- this time last year I was locked up). Most of the food was terrible, and though I was on a dairy-free diet, I did still get a lot of things with some dairy in it (I don't think they knew, to be honest. Good thing I'm not deathly allergic or anything, just get stomach aches and all that). The beds and "pillows" were sooo uncomfortable too, When we'd get raided the guards would do completely unnecessary things to just fuck up our dorm more, fucked up our stuff, and make a mess. For example, sometimes the tables and trash cans would be knocked over or upside down. My books that my mom had sent me (so they were MINE and not from their library books) would sometimes be all bent up and shit, too, smh.
    December 20th, 2014 at 04:26am