[ SECRET POST #2949 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2949 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.
[Persona 4]


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02.


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03.
[Howl's Moving Castle]


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04.
[True Detective]


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05.
[Homestuck]


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06.
[Jane the Virgin]


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07.


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08.
(Transformers Armada)


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09.


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10.


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11.


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12.
[Hannibal - Richard Armitage/Lee Pace]


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13.


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14.


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15. [ SPOILERS for Into the Woods ]



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16. [ SPOILERS for Dragon Age ]













Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #421.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[sabotabby]

They almost certainly are innocent, though.

I don't think writing to prisoners is creepy, anyway. I used to have prison pen pals. Not as a groupie thing; I published a 'zine and we gave free subscriptions to prisoners, as well as sending free books. I had no idea if any of them were guilty or not (I mean, they probably were, but statistically, they were probably guilty of things that shouldn't be crimes in the first place) but they were mostly sad, lonely people who wanted contact with the outside world.

[lb_lee]

Yup! One of us has a prison pen pal through Pink and Black. He has never said what he's in for, and we've never asked. 'Sad and lonely' describes it pretty well.

I'm really conflicted about the prison system in a lot of ways.

--Rogan

[sabotabby]

I'm mostly a prison abolitionist. In the case of violent offenders, I suppose, at least until we find a better way to deal with them. But for non-violent offenders? There are definitely better ways that make more sense ethically and economically.

[philstar22]

Okay, maybe you are a good person to ask. I have friends who are prison abolitionists, but I don't really get it. I'm as liberal and socialist as they come in most things. And I think the prison system is fucked up and prejudiced and and needs to be completely overhauled. But I'm not against the idea of prison, used the right way. I think there are crimes that should lead to imprisonment (not drug crimes, things like rape and murder mostly).

So I don't completely get prison abolition. Like, what do you do with people who would continue to rape or murder if they get out and can't be rehabilitated? And are you completely against the idea of punishment as a concept? I'm anti-death penalty, but I do think there are crimes where punishment is a legitimate goal of criminal justice even if it shouldn't be the only or even primary one.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I think locking people up for non-violent crimes is stupid. Community service is a much better punishment for them, IMO. They give back to the community and they get punished. Now, rapists and murders should definitely be locked up.

[sarillia]

When do you decide that it's impossible for a certain person to be rehabilitated? I'd like to see greater emphasis on rehabilitation before making decisions about how effective it is or isn't.

[philstar22]

Oh, I completely and totally agree. I'm all for rehabilitation. I think it is underutilized (and should especially be the primary focus when it comes to juveniles). I think using it works, and I think it actually saves more money than building more prisons. It should always be the first resort and attempted.

I just think that sometimes it isn't possible and also that sometimes it should happen within prison because I don't think risking the lives of other people while you wait for rehabilitation to work is okay.

[sarillia]

Risking the lives of others while trying for rehabilitation wouldn't be a problem in how I'd like to see things because I'd still want to separate them from potential victims and from the environment that helped trigger the behavior during the rehabilitation process.

Alll the rape/abuse/child molestation warnings

[lb_lee]

Enh, I don't know very much about assault and murder sort of thing, but I do know a little about rape, abuse, and child-molestation. Basically, the more offenses a perp commits, the more rock-solid their internal justifications become. After someone's molested two or more kids, it's pretty much a given that they will never be rehabilitated.

For instance, my grandfather molested children for at least thirty years, with at least four victims. (This is only the numbers that I'm SURE of. It could've been as much as fifty years, and god knows how many vics.) By the time he got to me, I am absolutely certain he had absolutely no guilt or reservations about what he was doing, and that he no longer saw me as a human being, merely an object to use or share. He was pretty much the classic pedophile child-molester.

From what little I've read, a good abuse rehabilitation program actually mostly focuses on warning their victims and doing damage control, because they very rarely actually rehabilitate an abuser. Because in the abuser's mind, everything they do is justified, and the sort of ego shock that comes from realizing, no, you're a terrible person, is generally too much.

So yeah. I honestly believe that the only way someone like my grandfather would've been safe to be around is if he was kept away from all children forever. There was no way that man would ever have seen what he was doing as wrong.

--Rogan

Re: Alll the rape/abuse/child molestation warnings

[sarillia]

That's fair. My opinions on this are still forming. I can live with the idea that some people aren't going to change. I just don't like the system we have now and there are some icky attitudes that some people pass through on the way to the same conclusions you've made that I'd like to challenge.

And I'm sorry you and so many others went through that. You've said you're doing better now before, and I hope the healing process keeps going well.

[sabotabby]

The issues you raise are why I can't fully call myself a prison abolitionist. I think you could massively reduce the amount of crime by decriminalizing drugs and treating addiction as a medial issue, and by providing a minimum standard of living for everyone.

So, subtract non-violent offenders from the equation, and then probably a further percentage of people whose violent offences stem from poverty or the drug trade. You can then focus the money spent on locking them up on making the remaining prison system work better and be more humane. Rehabilitation and prevention ought to be the ultimate goal. I don't claim to have all the answers, but the current system in North America isn't helping either victims or offenders.

This said, I'm human, and have pretty vengeful instincts. Do I want to see rapists strung up by their balls? Oh yes. And there are certainly times where I feel that four walls is three too many. But that's why I just make suggestions and shouldn't be put in charge of things.

[philstar22]

For me it is human traffickers. That has always been my pet issue (well, not so much anymore), but I've done a lot of reading on it. But I've always been interested in human rights stuff, and there are big things like trafficking that I think the only reasonable solution is prison.

I like your suggestions, though. The system does need to be completely and totally overhauled. I just don't want it gone altogether.

[sabotabby]

I don't think having it gone altogether is realistic, at least in my lifetime. But it can be less bleak, pointless, and dystopic than it currently is. There are models in other countries that work better than in Canada, where I'm at, and most work better than those in the States.

[(Anonymous)]

What about "non-violent offenders" like Bernie Madoff or Ken Lay? Or corrupt officials like Rod Blagojevich? Or church hierarchs and administrators who kept sending predator priests on to new parishes where they found new victims, because protecting the reputation of the Church was more important to them than protecting children? These people might not get their hands dirty by committing violent acts themselves, but they do a massive amount of harm--should they just get off with a slap on the wrist?

[elephantinegrace]

Really late to the game, but I don't think that the justice system, at least the way it is in the United States where these three were locked up, is sufficient. The judges in my county are elected, which means they can't be considered soft on crime, the jury is comprised of people who don't understand legal terms (I've had one lawyer tell me that "malice aforethought" doesn't mean the perpetrator planned out a crime, just that they attacked with the intention of hurting someone at some point before they hurt the victim, which...really is every single attack ever) and get a repetition of the legal jargon when they ask for an explanation (because apparently, a lawyer using layman's terms is using his/her own interpretation of the law, which may or may not be the actual law), and that's not even getting into the racial aspect of it. And then there's the fact that prisoners are thrown into an environment designed solely to punish them, not to rehabilitate anyone. So then even people committing low-level crimes will find themselves in prison for years and come out with no life skills whatsoever, low job prospects (who wants to hire an ex-con?), and probably financial problems, which means that their only option is more crime, and more jail.

[lb_lee]

In my case, my main concern is that certain rapists and child molesters would be considered 'non-violent' offenders, if they relied on coercion and the vic's vulnerability. They already get far too much benefit of the doubt, in my experience, and I'd rather they not get lumped in with folks who are less dangerous.

But I'm kind of a utopian anarchist, who hopes that one day, humans will grow enough as a species to no longer need nonconsensual government. It will never happen in my lifetime, may never happen at all, but I still hope one day. It's probably a pipe dream though.

--Rogan

[sabotabby]

That's a problem, but then again, they usually don't go to jail now as it is. I'm generally of the opinion that we need to be tougher on rapists and drunk drivers and look at drugs as a medical issue, not a legal one.

I hope we can grow that much as a species! I've spent too much time working in anarchist organizations to really believe in anarchism, but it's still a great ideal.

[lb_lee]

Sad but true, for sure. I really hate how rape cases are handled in general, and also the societal backlash against victims. It's just ugly as hell. And ugh, drunk drivers. That crime just pisses me off because for Chrissakes, it's SO PREVENTABLE. It's so easy to NOT hurt people that way, and yet some chucklefuck thinks it's a great fucking idea and nothing bad will ever happen. Ugh.

Yeah, I've done some time with anarchist organizations, zine libraries, radical mental health stuff, Internet cafes, and I still don't actually know whether I'm a "proper" anarchist or not. All I know is that they seem statistically more likely to be interested in running events I'm interested in at a price I can afford. So I keep hanging around.

--Rogan

[(Anonymous)]

In my country there's an issue with prisons overcrowding that has lead to many non violent criminals not paying any prison time.

Fines and house-arrest are being used as alternative punishments (and first time offenders can get away for the time being), but (unsurprisingly) the result is that crime has actually rose.

The problem here is that they're improvising, but it's pretty much obvious no one has any idea of an alternative that works so as much as I think the prison system needs to change, I can't get behind the idea of abolish it.

[sabotabby]

Be careful with correlation and causation, though. Crime stats can quite often have nothing to do with punishment; violent crime dropped dramatically in the US about 16 years after abortion was legalized and lead removed from pipes. Is whatever causing prisons to be so overcrowded that these measures were taken what is also causing the crime rate to rise in general?

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

The overcrowding is the result of criminals that can't pay their way out (because yes, corruption is also part of the issue) and too many nonsensical sentences that gave excessive punishments for small crimes.

Now that prisons are overcrowded, they didn't decide to revise the old sentences but to be lenient towards present non-violent crimes (and towards some violent ones too).

Now we're at a point were criminal bands operate in the same area for months or even years and not matter how many time they get caught, they return to do the same thing.
(And I mean this literally. Hell, I can point to three armed robbers that operate in my neighborhood and I have seen them being arrested more that once. The news are full of similar cases.)

It's ridiculous and it's only the top of the iceberg (but I'm too sleepy to explain it well, so let's just say the lack of prison time for many crimes is the official confirmation that "crime pays" is a fact in this damn country)

[sarillia]

I was going to get a pen pal through Pink and Black a while back but then I realized I still live at home and my mom has the typical prisoner=criminal=probably rapist or murderer=inhuman monster mindset (which I hate and want to see abolished) and would probably be difficult. I'm still hoping to sign up when I'm finally on my own.

[lb_lee]

Enh, you could always have a friend take the mail for you, if you rather. Or the good ol' PO Box trick.

--Rogan

[sarillia]

I am so dependent on my family right now, it's pathetic. I don't drive and there is no public transportation within walking distance and nothing else besides homes and horse ranches either. I hate it. And my one friend whose house I can walk to went away to grad school last month.

[lb_lee]

Aw, ass! That's a sucky situation to be in; you have my condolences. The great Suburban Wasteland, ugh.

(Seriously, public transit is solid gold. Part of why I'm hoping to move is because the public transit here is not so great.)