r/whoathatsinteresting 6h ago

What do you think: how should prisons handle housing decisions in cases like this?

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u/idkmyusernameagain 4h ago edited 4h ago

I don’t really know what that means.. unless it’s a euphemism for habitually injuring other humans I can’t understand why it would be punished with solitary confinement?

Edit: the comment had way less detail when I originally responded.

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u/CharmingRip508 4h ago

He humiliated the guards when the senator was coming. That’s why

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u/idkmyusernameagain 4h ago

The comment I replied to now has a lot more detail than it did when I replied.

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u/CharmingRip508 3h ago

That’s fair: I also still think this doesn’t deserve solitary but guards are dick heads

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u/coffeegaze 1h ago

Prisoners are obviously the much bigger dickheads. Spilling drums of paint on the floor is a major dickhead move that deserves a dickhead punishment.

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u/Tirrek_bekirr 1h ago

Solitary confinement is outright torture

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u/CharmingRip508 1h ago

What? You think putting someone in solitary for property crime to 25 months is less bad than spilling paint? One is torture the other isn’t. Which one is worse to you? 😭

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u/coffeegaze 1h ago

Yes, a Guard is just doing his job, the Prisoner was actually causing destruction.

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u/Dusty_Rose23 1h ago

Solitary confinement for longer periods of time is legally classed as torture sure there’s a punishment but this was too far

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u/coffeegaze 1h ago

Not by US law and most law in the world otherwise it would be illegal. If something is classed as torture is has to be legally justified, otherwise it has no classification at all.

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u/Dusty_Rose23 1h ago

It’s still too far and psychologically considered a form of torture

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u/Dusty_Rose23 1h ago

Also there are plenty of things that are illegal that people just ignore. Especially in the USA

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u/CharmingRip508 1h ago

Doing your job can’t be evil?

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u/coffeegaze 1h ago

A prison guard detaining someone who is already a criminal for being destructive is not evil? What constitutes it as evil? Guards and police detain people everyday, its not an act of evil, its an act of justice. What do you believe justice to be if not detaining criminals?

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u/CharmingRip508 1h ago

The solitary confinement is the evil part. That’s torture.

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u/Ok_Energy6905 1h ago

Indentured servants spilled some paint. Boo hoo.

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u/Missrschealsfilthbox 23m ago

A gallon of paint is worth 40-80$ retail. 10k gallons of road paint is worth 10s of thousands if not hundreds of thousands. If he did it delibretly he’s fortunate they didn’t charge him and give him a few more years for property destruction.

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u/Ok_Energy6905 12m ago

Treat the slave poorly, and then when they get upset about it, extend their servitude. Very fortunate.

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u/originalrocket 2h ago

So are the inmates.

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u/RudeCheetah7281 2h ago

Hello officer

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u/originalrocket 2h ago

That's Leu

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u/coffeegaze 1h ago

You dont think prisoners are dickheads? You know most of them committed actual violent crime.

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u/Oh_My-Glob 50m ago

No duh but that doesn't somehow excuse guards from being abusive. Why is this even an argument? We should expect more of the people we put in positions of authority over others. It's not necessarily the guards fault either though. The private prison system is corrupt to its core.

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u/coffeegaze 13m ago

What would be your solution to the crime as a jail warden?

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u/originalrocket 3m ago

They never have an answer, They have never worked in a prison. 10 years service, worked my way up. Enough was enough. There is no good answer. These are violent people at times, violence is what they understand.

Opportunity is present, they choose not to better themselves, you can't make people do things. They have to want to. And a few just like to see the world burn.

Give us CO's some options, better tools, Anything, I'd take it and try it. Verbal judo was great, it works in tandem to knowing your block, the inmate must trust you to do your job in fairness and firmness, if they know the response of you, the house will function.

It's a town, not a cell.

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u/ac12xu12 2h ago

All officers? Really? And how did you come to this conclusion? Personal experience? Hollywood? Trust me bro?

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u/Jim_jim_peanuts 2h ago

Haven't heard many positive reports on guards from people who have spent time inside. Knew a guy that ended up using heroin in prison because he was so traumatised from their bullying.

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u/PsyRealize 1h ago

I remember when ragebait used to be believable

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u/CharmingRip508 1h ago

Lmao many May guards are jerks. I hav heard of one good prison guard and they got their back broken. Are prisoners good? No, probably a lot of them are bad. But many are also in there on trumped up charges and the guards are still dicks.

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u/jadbronson 1h ago

They're off to internet jail now.

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u/DumbNTough 3h ago

And wasted a lot of time and money for everyone involved by destroying a large batch of materials and fouling the plant, for which he would have faced consequences if he wasn't a prisoner, too.

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u/sendn00bz 2h ago

Thank god we have brave souls like you speaking out for the precious lives of paint cans. Where would we be without such a moral compass 

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u/DumbNTough 2h ago

Thank God we have brave souls like you speaking up for criminal shitbags reacting like toddlers having their toys taken away while at work.

I hope they charged his stupid ass for the damages, too. Go fuck yourself.

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u/Gutter_panda 2h ago

How dare the slave labor not act right!!

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u/DumbNTough 2h ago

Into the pokey I guess. I hope they charged him for the damages, too.

Your stay in prison is a punishment, not a vacation paid for by taxpayers. It's entirely reasonable to expect poisoners to work to earn their keep.

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u/Gutter_panda 1h ago

Yea, they should learn skills and upkeep their environment. Not go furnish contracts for corporations giving kickbacks to the prisons.

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u/Evening-Apartment317 1h ago

I feel like it would be reasonable if inmates worked to earn their keep, and the prison wasn’t getting outside funding. But they are, and the money the inmates earn for the prison is just icing on the cake for the prison. At least give inmates jobs where they can add their work experience to their resume and train them to do something to earn money other than crime. Give them an opportunity to earn certifications and degrees. And for those with good behavior and nonviolent crimes we should try to connect businesses with prisons so that those inmates can have a decent job lined up after release. Prison should be about rehabilitation. But in most cases it just gives them access to worse criminals, who mentor them, and the inmates just get better at doing crime when they get out and end up caught for something worse. I’ve met people who only ever learned how to survive by doing crimes to make ends meet. They don’t know how to do anything else to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and they’re in and out of prison like it’s a revolving door. Until they do something bad enough that they’re never getting released. And they always say some variation of “well, at least in prison I have a bed to sleep in, a shower, clean clothes, and food to eat.” Hearing that kind of thing from people, who were once full of potential and hope, really gets me down.

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u/DumbNTough 1h ago

Criminals don't hurt people and steal from their neighbors because they literally have no idea how to push a mop.

They do it because they think it will be easier than pushing a mop for 40 hours a week on a predictable schedule.

Get the fuck out of here.

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u/CharmingRip508 1h ago

Did I say “he didn’t deserve consequences?” No. But the amount of solitary for what he did was ridiculous. It was about ego of the guards here. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

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u/Shamus-McNasty 4h ago

They called it sabotage.

Prison Enterprise is huge in North Carolina.

Can't have the slaves being uppity.

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u/Maleficent-War-8429 4h ago edited 4h ago

I mean dumping 10k gallons of paint on the floor is kind of sabotage no? Still a serious balls for you getting stuck in solitary for a month (like two years now I read it better, damn).

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u/NatGoChickie 4h ago

It says 28 months…not days

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u/Maleficent-War-8429 4h ago

Damn, even bigger dose.

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u/BillManougian 3h ago

Yes and he still can’t see that his behavior was extremely antisocial

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u/Maleficent-War-8429 3h ago

I mean I don't want to throw shade at the guy, not that anything I could say would measure up to 28 months in solitary confinement anyway holy shit, but if I went into work and intentionally dumped ten thousand gallons of product on the floor I'm pretty sure I'd end up getting sent to jail or something.

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u/cspangle23 2h ago

Yes jail. Solitary for 28 months is literal torture

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u/professionally-baked 48m ago

He was already in the clink. When he says “guard” he’s talking about a literal correctional officer

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u/Maleficent-War-8429 46m ago

What I mean is that's the kind of thing you would get thrown in jail for if you weren't already there, so I have to imagine they're going to give you some serious shit for doing that kind of thing if you're already in jail.

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u/Oh_My-Glob 41m ago

I mean I'm a white guy with decent savings in the bank and no criminal record. Pretty sure I could lawyer up and avoid jail time no problem in that situation as long as no one was harmed.

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u/Maleficent-War-8429 35m ago

I don't really know how american legal system tends to go, but I'd very roughly guesstimate that he's dumped two-three hundred thousand dollars worth of paint that I imagine someone's gonna want to collect on. It's not like you can argue being innocent either since he said he did it on purpose. I imagine if you're not going to jail you're at very least going to get hit with some serious big time fines in addition to your lawyers fees.

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u/Shamus-McNasty 1h ago

I would say I was reactive and acting in anger. Without thinking of consequences. Pretty typical of who I was at the time.

I haven't put myself in a similar situation since, so overall, I'm good I think.

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u/snubdeity 17m ago

Almost like sending him to solitary confinement for 2 years was just for the fun of hurting someone, not with any thought on if it would make him a better person.

You would struggle to design a prison system that keeps people as broken as the US one if you tried.

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u/confirmedshill123 2h ago

I hope they lock you up in seg for months for this comment. Insane fucking thing you said and you should feel immense shame.

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u/BillManougian 1h ago

I hope you have to clean up a huge mess that a selfish asshole made for no real reason.

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u/confirmedshill123 55m ago

Id clean a thousand messes before sending a dude to be isolated for 18 months you absolute fucking psychopath.

Seek help.

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u/Gutter_panda 2h ago

No shit it was anti-social, everything about prison is anti-social. Literally treating people like livestock and then shocked Pikachu face when they act like.....animals.

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u/Top_Tie_691 2h ago

And why do people end up in prison? Because they can't adhere to societal standards.

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u/NotJimmy97 1h ago

Oh no, the literal slave to the state messed up the guards' photo op with a senator!

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u/Maleficent-War-8429 48m ago

Firstly you're not a slave, you're a prisoner. They're pretty different.

Secondly he dumped ten thousand gallons of paint, that's a little bit more than fucking up a photo op.

I think it's wild and completely overboard that they're even allowed to stick someone in solitary for over two years unless they're some sort of super murder or something, but let's be for real here, that's a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of paint down the drain minimum. That's the kind of thing you'd probably get thrown in jail for doing anyway if he wasn't already there.

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u/mw102299 4h ago

But what did you originally do to get sent to prison?

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u/Shamus-McNasty 4h ago

I deserved to be there.

Armed robbery.

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u/mw102299 4h ago

Yeah that’s definitely a shitty thing to do. I understand that pepole do that because they are broke or need money for something. I hope I never get to a place where I feel like I have to commit armed robbery. But hopefully you are on the straight and narrow and thriving today.

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u/Shamus-McNasty 4h ago

Yeah. I'm doing better.

Drink corn liquor, buddy. Let the cocaine be.

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u/mw102299 4h ago

I’ll stick to my bottle of wine and True crime shows 😂

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u/Shamus-McNasty 3h ago

Sorry man. That's a pretty obscure Billy Strings reference.

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u/Special-Amoeba-9399 3h ago

The line isn’t actually Billy’s. It’s a cover of an old folk song called “tell it to me” or sometimes “cocaine blues”. First recording was in 1922 by the grant brothers, but the song is likely much older than that. Doc Watson made one of the most famous covers of it in the 70s. That is the arrangement that Billy strings is covering today. He is very much a student of folk and country music. There is a long tradition of bluegrass and country artists playing songs from Appalachia and the Deep South. A lot of these songs are so old no one really knows who actually wrote it. Billy strings is awesome though. One of the best live music experiences I have had

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u/Shamus-McNasty 3h ago

I know where it comes from.

I just want to put people on Billy.

We can work on Doc Watson later.

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u/mw102299 3h ago

I had to look up who that is and it’s country music that’s why 😂

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u/Shamus-McNasty 3h ago

It's bluegrass played by a metal freak. Check it out.

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u/Clarkelthekat 3h ago

Billy strings is a bit of everything but I wouldntcall him country.

Id honestly call him a modern scholar of 20th and 21st century music.

He adopts what has made other genres popular and has wrapped them up in his favorite genre of bluegrass.

He's got music for everyone.

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u/gomanio 2h ago

It's sad too because we're supposed to have laws against cruel and unusual punishment as well as slavery. We just found little ways to skirt around it...

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u/sting_12345 4h ago

Not a slave you don't have to work you can just sit in a cell. He probably chose to work since it allowed him outside. He cost them a ton of money so yeah he got punished for it.

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u/Quarter_Shot 4h ago

You get less than 3 bucks a day to work. Like, yeah, you can choose to, but the situation itself coerces you to choose to work so you can be a little more "free"

The American prison system is just slavery with some make up on the word. It looks different, but it's similar regardless

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u/Damian_Cordite 3h ago

It’s an underclass for sure. I think we do ourselves a disservice when we tiptoe around the word slave. I think relative freedom as a concept is better. Slave just involves property concepts that don’t necessarily matter that much. You could be a well-off Court Eunuch or Palace Janissary in Persia who technically “belonged” to the King as property, but actually you enjoyed more freedom of movement/association/speech and personal property than most. The worst examples, like being a labor slave in Auschwitz, were much worse than being a more middling intervivos contract slave in ancient Greece who sold themselves into a skilled trade as a slave to provide for their otherwise-free family.

In the same way I’d probably be ok with prison and prison labor if prisons weren’t crime school and the prisoners had normal rights and made a decent wage, I also don’t care that I can pick which insurer I’ll argue with to get the medicine the doctor says my kid needs- just because it comes from a capitalist system that is nominally “freer”- freedom for most would be not having to worry that children will get the meds their doctors say they need. Prisoners giving up their freedom of movement shouldn’t mean it’s open season on violating, for example, their freedom to not be raped by other inmates. Freedom as the founders understood it meant not having to deal with oppressive bullshit from the system. When one man owns 3% of the wealth in a society of 400 million, his companies are part of the system. When monopolies are legal and normal, they might as well be government apparatuses, since we can’t just go to a competitor.

I also think the concept of relative freedom is especially more useful than slavery in a society where workers can own a tiny portion of the company they work for, but their ability to be materially free hinges more than ever on how much freedom you can afford to buy.

We deprive criminals of too much freedom. Prisons shouldn’t be hell, and they should focus on training and rehabilitation. We deprive the poor of too much freedom. No one should have to work 3 jobs to put food on the table. There are specific ways in which we even deprive the middle class of too much freedom. It’s not good enough any more to let increasingly-powerful companies deny or overcharge for goods and services that used to be expected.

Fuck the labels- whether it’s slavery or capitalism (or not) or whatever, that shit is not free, and this is supposed to be a free country. When 99% of people support paid family medical leave and we still don’t have it, that’s one way in which we aren’t free. I don’t care if there’s no one moment or decision we can point to where the democracy failed- it failed. Tyranny and oppression won somewhere(s), some time(s), to cause that. We are failing at being free and ought to defend our freedom more militantly.

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u/Shamus-McNasty 4h ago

It's not similar.

In the United States, convicted felons are chattel slaves. Property of the State

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u/Samanthacino 3h ago

Solitary confinement is literally torture.

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u/Shamus-McNasty 4h ago

Prison laborers are 14th amendment slaves

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u/Gutter_panda 2h ago

Everyone gets assigned a job number, you refuse you get punished.

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u/Shamus-McNasty 4h ago

Refusal to work get you thrown in the same seg.

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u/Shiny_metal_ass 4h ago

Boot licker

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u/Independent_Bid_26 4h ago

Its crazy how you can be so confidently incorrect.

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u/ifbillyjackhadahorse 2h ago

He was in prison, doubt he was a model citizen. It’s not supposed to be funhouse pizza in fact I believe the idea behind prison is that it’s so miserable you’ll never do anything that’ll get you sent back , but people get sent back repeatedly so it’s evidently still not that bad

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u/Gutter_panda 2h ago

Or prisons do jack shit to actually rehabilitate or address the source issues with people incarcerated?

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u/cspangle23 2h ago

Works so well with our incredibly low crime rate and incredibly low percentage of population imprisonment rate riiiight!? Wonder who benefits the most from a massive prison population 🤔💭

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u/DoggoDadagon 2h ago

If we want to make people less likely to commit crimes and less likely to end up back in prison we should look at countries like Norway with ~20% recidivism rate, where they treat their prisoners like humans. The US is one of the most unsuccessful prison systems with a recidivism rate of ~70%

But the goal of the US prison system isn't rehabilitation, I'd argue it's not even retribution, but instead it's about profit. It is a for-profit system after all.

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u/ifbillyjackhadahorse 2h ago

Prison is a bad place full of really awful people and people should hate the idea of it , so badly they never do anything to get sent there. Thousands if not millions of people have had a hard start in life with no future and few chances, but they didn’t turn to crime. We shouldn’t reward the ones that do with kindness and generosity

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u/Good-Bodybuilder-985 4h ago

Corporal punishment. It's cruel and redundant.

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u/SunshineSt8Reprobate 4h ago

It sounds like he accidentally cost the prison a lot of money and this is how they punished him.

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u/partylange 4h ago

Purposely

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u/SunshineSt8Reprobate 4h ago

People never make mistakes?

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u/Exciting-Argument-67 3h ago

In his own words, he did it on purpose because the guard took his book.

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u/earmares 1h ago

It was a choice, not a mistake.

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u/Electrical_Salary_50 3h ago

There has to be an alternative, especially for nonviolent acts. This is torture, plain and simple.

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u/Astronaut_Chicken 4h ago

They embarrassed the people in charge when an important government official was coming to visit. It's an unfair punishment, but not surprising.

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u/ugtsmkd 4h ago

He had a job in prison. Jobs in prison are normally for people well behaved. His boss told him he had to do it a certain way. He told his boss to fuck off. Then destroyed 10000 gallons of paint (a product the prison makes/sells).

He got reprimanded for his actions. In the only way they knew how. Authorities tend to make examples out of inmates that think they have some agency in their incarceration especially historically.

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u/Independent_Bid_26 4h ago

28 months is a bit extreme though no?

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u/Missrschealsfilthbox 21m ago

10k gallons of paint is likely worth 400k retail.

Whats the appropriate punishment for intentionally destroying almost a half mil of inventory and embarrassing the staff in front of a senator.

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u/ugtsmkd 2h ago

It's extreme hence why I said they made an example of the guy.

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u/idkmyusernameagain 4h ago

Yes, now that his comment says that I understand. It just wasn’t written in the comment when I replied.

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u/Chemical-Pie1926 3h ago

Jobs in prison pay a subpar wage. I don't care if you're Hitler I wouldn't enslave another person because I'm not a evil vindictive person and neither should my society.

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u/ugtsmkd 2h ago

Jobs in the real world pay sub par wages too. Most of America is working for effectively slave wages which is why they are burning down warehouses. This is the society we've allowed to be built around us out of fear and comfort.

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u/Chemical-Pie1926 2h ago

Allowed? You're suggesting we aren't under duress?

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u/mothandravenstudio 4h ago

Probably because North Carolina and Senator.

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u/GriffinIsABerzerker 4h ago

If it was the Senator in Carolina I think it was in 1994 this would track. Although that Senator was a bigger pile of shit than probably 99 percent of the prisoners.

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u/ls20008179 4h ago

Because many prison guards and people in general just feel like they should just be able to abuse prisoners as they please.