Imagine a person spends 10 years in that situation, and gets out, what the hell are they supposed to do now? They have no job skills, no life skills, they're psychologically damaged. The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad', it's high because we take people in bad situations, and break them further. We take someone almost-functional, and make them completely disfunctional.
And anyone who disagrees with this model isn't "tough on crime".
No, you have to ask, what does a prison like that gain from society?
Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense.
Think about that as you drive by a speed trap, that the police and city undoubtedly portray as a safety operation, but where the cops hide themselves because they're not trying to discourage speeding, they're trying to collect taxes.
Think about that when you see various police organizations stating their opposition to legalizing marijuana. Is their objection that it may promote other, still illegal drugs, or that it would reduce LEO job opportunities? Their only proper stance on the issue, as LEO organizations, is to enforce the laws that society tells them to.
Think about that as an apparently overzealous prosecutor bullies a plea bargain out of someone with the threat of life in prison. She's not overzealous, she doesn't care about society; the victim/defendant is merely a line on her resume. When a prosecutor's job performance depends on convictions (rather than truth), then she's going to maximize convictions.
Think about that as you, just a normal citizen who is no threat to anyone, are monitored, threatened and controlled by unconstitutional surveillance and police tools that are supposedly intended for, you know, actual terrorists threats.
> Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense.
Then why is it that other places in the world, such as Norway, prisons are not like American prisons? You're claiming that the state in America is simply an outcome of universal properties of Government, but this outcome is not universal.
You can't just flippantly say "Things are bad 'cause Gubmint'", when it's clear that other places have overcome these challenges.
I didn't say it's universal, and Norway is apparently a place where reason wins more than America. They are also differently structured governments and societies, and the people have different formative experiences.
We are not uniform, and no outcome is inevitable. The way things are in America are probably more likely in America than elsewhere because of our unique shared myths and the wieldability of government by evil people.
While I don't agree with the statement I think a lot of it has to with the sheer ruthless competition of interests in the American system each branch of whatever part of government seems to compete ruthlessly with the other branches.
There seems to be very little thought about what is best for society and far more what is best for whatever branch that person works for.
> Think about that as you drive by a speed trap, that the police and city undoubtedly portray as a safety operation, but where the cops hide themselves because they're not trying to discourage speeding, they're trying to collect taxes.
This is an interesting point that I have never considered before. I've often thought that police officers hide themselves as a deterrent - if a hidden police officer can ticket you at any moment, it is a good reason to keep your speeding under control. Interesting analysis though and I will have to think more about my own views. Thanks for your comment!
Hiding vs open: think about what happens when you drive by a manned speed trap and you don't see it: nothing. You don't slow down (assuming you're going somewhat above the limit, as almost everyone does), and some people get tickets. Mission accomplished (taxes).
Now think about what happens when you drive by one of those radar trailers that tell you your speed as you approach: most people slow down. Mission accomplished (safety).
If they wanted you to slow down, they'd be visible.
No, you have to ask, what does a prison like that gain from society?
All good. But let's not have whole conversations in this cynic mindset. Let's assume there is sufficient cumulative will to fix things, and let's identify ways to achieve that, however difficult it may seem.
Money, mostly. There is so much money in sending someone to prison it's absurd. Sure, it costs the taxpayers money, but we're always trying to transfer money from the lower and middle class up the chain.
And that's when it's on the up-and-up. Half the time it's horribly corrupt[0].
Although, there's always oppression. Occupy saw all kinds of police abuses, which transferred to these judicial abuses. Sure, this one woman has a voice, but she also knows her freedoms are at the whims of others, no matter the evidence (not allowed in court) in her favor.
Most people (a vast majority?) think people should pay for their crimes, and also don't want to see their tax money used for anything that could benefit to inmates. I'm actually surprised that it's not even worse than this.
It is in some states, like Texas. They do forced labor outside (hoe squad), and none of the buildings are air conditioned so the inmates and guards go bezerk in the 40deg C heat. Texas tribune keeps a list of inmates and almost everybody is in their for some petty drug crime.
Do you have a source for this? I have a good friend serving time in TDC, and his experience has been nothing like this. He's gone to school to get his associates degree for drafting, and he has a job - because he chose to have one - working in the commissary.
I worked at TDC for two years as a CO. I have not worked there in almost two decades but I remain close with people who do. I can tell you that the budgets for things like the Windham School System http://www.windhamschooldistrict.org have been cut in recent years. Libraries have been closed. And, that it is a smaller number of inmates that are actually enrolled and taking courses than what's been posted at the Wiki.
Yes, there is no "forced labor" but there definitely is "coerced labor", as there are some benefits that will be withheld from inmates who do not work. OTOH, many inmates are willing to work for the mere reason that it helps stave off the boredom.
There are few units with air conditioning, usually only medical units, and the units get dangerously hot during the summer. Your friend is lucky to have the commissary job, as it is one of few air conditioned places in most prison units.
In which unit did you work as a CO? Luckily, though my friend is in TDC, he's in one of the state jail facilities near Houston and not a prison. Does that make a difference as to the availability of educational programs?
It's just inhumane that they don't have air conditioning in Texas prisons, especially in the areas where the humidity is so high, like the gulf coast. The heat and humidity were enough to push me away from Houston even though I grew up there.
I worked at Beto I, Estelle, and Ferguson. I also transported inmates to/from medical facilities on occasion.
>he's in one of the state jail facilities near Houston and not a prison. Does that make a difference as to the availability of educational programs?
I don't know a lot of specific details about the state jail system.
>It's just inhumane that they don't have air conditioning in Texas prisons, especially in the areas where the humidity is so high, like the gulf coast. The heat and humidity were enough to push me away from Houston even though I grew up there.
It affects inmates and staff, and every summer there are a number of heat related deaths and injuries from both cohorts.
I didn't find a lot of good humane things about the way we imprison everyone for, everything.
The commissary is air conditioned, and commissary workers have the best access to limited supplies of "luxury" goods. Inmates at TDCJ aren't paid wages, but IIRC it may affect their "good-time earning class".
"Pay for their crimes" is extremely vague, if you steal a cigarette should you go to jail? Most people would say "no, just give him a fine". But it has cost 300 billons on tax dollars to capture, convict, and jail the 2 million people that lives in American prisons, which is 25% of the world prisoners, mostly because there is harsh punishments for soft crimes (drugs, minor robbery, etc)
"The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad'"
How do you know this? Certainly there are different kinds of people who do crimes for different reasons. Some people are in fact "bad" and will keep doing bad things, and the only way to protect the rest of us from their crimes is to keep them locked up, kill them, or banish them to distant lands. For others, incarceration is counterproductive and might lead to a higher likelihood of them committing more crimes after they are released. And incarceration for anyone under the conditions prevailing in some US prisons and jails is insupportable. But some kind of humane incarceration for people who are compelled to continue offending, until one day we learn to fix these people, seems unavoidable.
because many other developed countries have both lower crime rates and lower rates of re-offense.
America incarcerates more of it's people per capita than any other country, more than North Korea, more than South Africa and more than Russia, indeed you incarcerate 7 times more than the European average per captita.
From law school I learned the the purposes of prison, the "three Rs": Removal from society; Retribution for the crime committed; Rehabilitation from their criminal behavior. How it works in practice is a different story, however.
Perhaps people view prisons as a mode of punishment, rather than one of rehabilitation. It really is a vicious cycle, and as far as most of whichever society follows the "4 years of hell for an eye", it won't change.
Imagine you are HR (or hiring for your start up). Would you take a chance on your company on somebody that has been proven to fail (even if only once)? Would to take a chance on your company, your bottom line, your livelihood on this person?
There's also a line of fully qualified people that hasn't failed before.
"You can't even work out some social squabbles with your wife, she left you for your neighbor. Christ How the Fk is a jackass like you meant to code a suggestion algorithm if you can't keep that in check"
You got downvotes but you accurately voice society's discrimination. People with criminal sentences find it harder to get jobs, especially if they've been in prison.
I guess the downvotes are from people who recognise that discrimination and who would work to counter in when they employ people.
Did you read the article? I'm trying to understand the mindset that would think of what she experienced as "failure". Can you help me? What did she fail at?
You can draw your own conclusions, but what I see is somebody preparing, consciously, to use the force of slamming their elbow into a police officer's face in order to escape from that officer.
Perhaps you disagree with a lot of things -- police militarization, incarceration rates in this country, unequal outcomes and opportunities based on socioeconomic factors.
As the prosecutors say in that case: "This new arrest mirrors what was on display throughout the trial: the defendant’s utter contempt for the police and the important job they do on a daily basis."
Fact-free magazines like Cosmopolitan may display sympathy for people like Ms. McMillan, but here at HackerNews we should not.
I do see a cop coming up along side her and grabbing at her and then getting hit in the face. The handprint bruise on her chest paint a clearer picture than this grainy video. But we don't know what happened. I'll also say there's a big difference between an activist having trouble with the law and a thief or other criminal. She says she got grabbed and reacted, and didn't know who it was. She doesn't think you should hit cops either. Nothing you've brought up suggests other motives.
You can draw your own conclusions, but what I see is somebody preparing, consciously, to use the force of slamming their elbow into a police officer's face in order to escape from that officer.
What is the point of the wording "preparing consciously"? Can you prepare for something unconsciously? If someone gropes you from behind, some conscious effort is required to defend yourself.
Fact-free magazines like Cosmopolitan may display sympathy for people like Ms. McMillan, but here at HackerNews we should not.
Please don't use the term "we". I'm not a sociopath and I have sympathy for people who were treated unjustfully.
>What is the point of the wording "preparing consciously"? Can you prepare for something unconsciously?
The point was probably to emphasize the premeditation of it, and I agree it was needlessly verbose. But yes, you can prepare unconsciously, like when your body has the fight-or-flight response.
When you put yourself into such a situation as this, bad things can happen to you, and it may be you who must be prepared for those bad things and the consequences of your actions. Don't blame others for putting yourself into that situation.
You don't know what events led up to that officer grabbing her. If I show up a a protest, emotions running high, walking around with a sign and I'm suddenly grabbed from behind... I will attack without identifying who grabbed me. That's not something I should be arrested for. The person grabbing at me unexpectedly is the one who better be prepared for bad things to occur. Now if the officer approached her from the front and identified himself as an officer of the law and attempted to explain why he stopped her then suddenly she elbows him in the face, that's another story.
You would be most unwelcome at any protests I've been on.
The idea is to be arrested, and to passively resist that arrest. Go limp, let them drag you. You document any rough treatment you get and sue accordingly.
There is almost no justification for punching an officer and in almost all cases it's going to end badly for the puncher.
When you walk into a protest, with "emotions running high" to the point that police need to be there, bad things can happen. You put yourself in the middle and bad things can happen to you. Quit blaming others.
Who decides when the police need to be there? How can there be a protest without emotions running high? That's pretty much what a protest is; people who've reached their limit and want change. If whatever they're protesting wasn't so emotionally/physically stressful they probably wouldn't be protesting to begin with.
It doesn't matter. When you put yourself into such a situation, bad things can happen to you. Quit blaming others when you elbow a cop in the nose. Elbowing anyone in the nose will not bring you any good for that matter.
In this case, the cop felt the need to grab her to keep her from moving. No cop is going to do that without reason. Again, she put herself into that situation, too. That her breast was grabbed is inconsequential. Her article brings it up as if it was intentional or that she had every right to elbow someone in the nose over it. (The video linked to make the action itself questionable but I won't get into that.)
A jury of her peers has found her guilty. Why does this article need to be written as if she were innocent? She wasn't. Why is anyone trying to justify it?
I'd also bet there are far more facts not told in the article that the jury heard but we never will.
>>
It doesn't matter. When you put yourself into such a situation, bad things can happen to you.
Why does this apply to me and not the cop?
>>In this case, the cop felt the need to grab her to keep her from moving. No cop is going to do that without reason.
You're kidding me. Are you not aware of the many examples of excessive force by police? There are apparently plenty of cops that would do that without any reason other than getting off on their power-trips.
I'm sure you can find many examples of excessive force but you are assuming this is the case when no one else thought so, specifically a jury of her peers.
Yes, the police are mere automatons with no choice but to behave as they do, driven by inevitable forces of nature. It's always the fault of people who are abused by the police for being near police.
If pulling her away from where she was not supposed to go is abuse by the police, what is her action of elbowing a cop in the nose?
You are stating that the cop was somehow at fault for grabbing her. Can you state why the cop grabbed her in the first place? I'm sure you don't know but why are you so certain the cop grabbed her for a bad reason? How do you know what happened right before that? Was she warned not to go where she went but she did so anyway? Did the cop see she was getting ready to step on a broken bottle and actually rescued her?
You don't know but you have automatically deduced the cop was in the wrong, despite what the jury said.
"If pulling her away from where she was not supposed to go is abuse by the police"
This interpretation of events is not one I agree with based on video footage and the other available evidence. He was clearly very violently "pulling her away" to the point that that's not a very honest description of his act.
"You are stating that the cop was somehow at fault for grabbing her."
It does appear that way.
"Can you state why the cop grabbed her in the first place?"
Not definitively, though I'd assume it was some form of poor judgment.
"I'm sure you don't know but why are you so certain the cop grabbed her for a bad reason?"
Why are you so certain the cop was justified in the attack?
"How do you know what happened right before that?"
I don't know, though it doesn't matter. From the evidence and information I have available the cop wasn't justified in the attack regardless.
"Did the cop see she was getting ready to step on a broken bottle and actually rescued her?"
If this is the level of fever-dream required to justify his assault on her, it pretty clearly shows that justifying his attack is very difficult to do.
"You don't know but you have automatically deduced the cop was in the wrong, despite what the jury said."
Yes, we are actually permitted to disagree with juries. Juries have failed in their judgment often enough that it would be naive not to be skeptical. Understanding the basis by which jurors are selected, and the methods used by which prosecutors go about misinforming juries I don't have a lot of confidence in their decisions.
You've said, "It does appear", "I'd assume", "I don't know", but then you claim, "the evidence and information I have available". No, it doesn't sound like you have any of that but please produce it for us all to see and read.
"we are actually permitted to disagree with juries. Juries have failed in their judgment often enough"
So now you want to say the jury and the cop are wrong. Based on what? Though you have none of the information other than what you read in the article, you feel you know more than the jury? I think not.
"Though you have none of the information other than what you read in the article, you feel you know more than the jury? I think not."
As a matter of fact, I do know more than the jury. The judge suppressed key evidence in the case. There were photos of the cops abusing her that were never presented, and a slam-dunk photo of the cop grabbing her from behind that the jury was not permitted see, as well as more video that made it very clear how out aggressive and out of line the police behavior was.
I qualify what I say since I don't have a perfect view, only the bits and pieces of evidence that exist. Based on those I am assuming what is most likely, and you are doing just the same, as that's all any of us can do.
"You don't know but you have automatically deduced the cop was in the wrong, despite what the jury said."
One other point I forgot to mention - the judge suppressed key evidence in the case. There were photos of the cops abusing her that were never presented, and a slam-dunk photo of the cop grabbing her from behind that the jury was not permitted see.
Broad swaths of society hate protestors, because they threaten order, and order is something that everyone benefits from. I imagine you have this idea of protestors and revolutionaries leading society to higher states of justice, but more often they just indulge in chaos and violence (e.g. "pro democracy" protests in the middle east turning into support of islamic extremists; pro-republican protests in revolutionary France turning into the Reign of Terror).
How are you defining effectiveness? Many campaigns for justice take years if not decades, and can produce numerous protests during that time. Those protests are only 'ineffective' if you imagine that conducting a single protest march or camp might change the established order overnight. That is not the point of protests, which are instead designed to register contesting views with those in power, and promote those views to other potential supporters. In that way many protests are, in fact, highly effective, and non-violent to boot.
The view point which you are espousing, whether you believe it or not, is a time-worn tactic of disinterested or opposed parties who aim to curtail freedom of expression by claiming offences to public order. There are plenty of laws for dealing with violence against people and property, but also laws protecting people who are engaging in free speech, and the fact that someone happens to be promoting social change shouldn't be taken as an excuse to ignore the latter, or misapply the former.
Edited slightly to clarify my point: the vast majority of protests are ineffective; the ones that are effective lead to violent injustice more often than they lead to justice.
I'm struggling to think of a violent protest, at least in the western world that caused a change in government policy, beyond causing police departments to invest in watercannons.
Of course it's difficult to measure the effectiveness of a peaceful protest, but it wouldn't surprise me if vocal opposition to say the Iraq war had an impact on foreign policy for Syria for example.
Completely disagree. I assume you're imply protests around slavery/discrimination. I think those protests had to reach a boiling point before real change could occur. If it just stayed super-peaceful and nobody ever showed pure rage I doubt anything would have changed. In fact, when I think about history, I believe most major changes happened only after protests reached a boiling point because the people in power who benefit from the broken system won't be convinced with words alone. That doesn't mean I support wild violence, but I think that's just the unfortunate fact of society that a bad social structure can't be changed without it reaching extreme stress.
Perhaps we can use animal rights protests in the UK. These started off by increasing welfare for farm animals; reducing use of animal testing in cosmetics; reducing the amount of fur sold in department stores. But then other changes included tighter controls on what demonstrations could do and now UK government is hardline on supporting vivisection and denying rights to (even peacefully) protest such.
I would say something where people organise an event and bring placards rather than outright terrorism.
The difference is probably that a majority of people don't support the fur trade but most people support animal testing for medical research and it's unlikely that any form of protest would really change public opinion.
Doesn't make sense to interfere with ineffective protests.
As you can see in comments below, this leads some protesters to become badass revolutionaries and then dictators.
And you only helped them while discouraging good citizens from spreading their point of view.
I'm not saying it makes sense to interfere with ineffective protests (and I don't support doing so). I'm explaining why many, ordinary, people hate protestors.
By doing so they further tear apart the fabric of society which, when it rips apart, will destroy the Order they love so much.
To be precise, by demanding to narrow the feedback of the society and radicalize the protesters.
This isn't going to end well if that sentiment you describe is widespread.
Why? Obama is not very keen on protesters, and anyway next President would be Republican likely. What's the problem?
Compare that to countries where unrest is squashed and the same bad guy sits in the office for decades, and then bloody coup. You should be happy you still get protests.
I don't want to disagree with what you're saying, I just want to disagree with your methodology here. Just one point:
How can you start up ad hominem attacks on the woman here, "repeated problems with the law", while completely (and I'm hoping not knowingly) omitting all that similar information about the officer? I don't understand.
How can you be so slanted in your presentation? Let me just fill in the details, from your link [1], that you dropped:
Officer Bovell said that the police department’s Internal Affairs
Division had suspended him for five days without pay, docked him 25
vacation days, rescinded his second job as a bank security guard and put
him on probation for a year. He said that in addition to the three
tickets that he was penalized for, he had also fixed three other parking
tickets.
mcendella I despise you. Obviously you have never been the victim of the police. Even if she did a roundhouse kick knocking him down and teabagged him afterwards that would be no excuse for her treatment.
There is a difference between a violent protester and a violent policeman. The policeman is trained and armed. He is also getting paid to suppress the protest. The protester on the other hand has a non-commercial agenda, which might be idealistic and in a way not voluntary. The protester has no combat training, no armor. The protester does not choose to enter a violent conflict with the police. The police on the other hand chooses to act as a more often that not active, as opposed to passive, violent force opposed to the protest.
During duty, police officers do not deserve the protection of civil law. It can not be crime to insult, hurt or kill a police officer during a heated protest, as it is no crime for a police officer to insult, hurt or kill a civillian in the course of his duty.
To argue on this specific case, there appears to be proof that she was groped. So there should be a sexual harrassment charge (might be dropped due to "not on purpose"). She reacted violently, within seven seconds. In germany thats called "Affekt". Completely legal, actually she had the right to spontaniously choke the guy even if he was civillian (in germany, as long as she was fast enough).
So lets just say the cops had a reason to arrest her (btw on a protest cops usually arrest anyone for anything, because why not), they beat her up doing so.
Quote from your video: "Is she getting beat up?", "Yes, shes getting beat up."
So why are those guys not tried and sentenced to fucking death (what do you have the death sentence for again)? Even I could arrest that girl without hurting her ffs. These guys should be trained to do so.
To sum this up, the mind of a violent protester goes something like this:
"Fuck they're gonna hurt/kill me, im scared im enraged im panicking, i want to get out of this situation."
The mind of a police officer during a protest goes something like this (actually exactly):
"Fucking protesters, im standing here like an idiot, these fucking broad minded fuckers. Hey, wait, did she just kinda look violent? FINALLY a reason why I can assault one of these fucks."
I got hit by a baton once[1], trying to escape out of a "Kessel" (a circle of policement surounding protesters while throwing tear gas inside). Hit my leg, beside my leg being fucked, i weant deaf for ten minutes (might be an adrenaline/pain/shock think who knows). And thats nothing. I've seen 13 year old girls getting beaten by 4 cops with batons and cops spraying maze into your face from a 1 foot distance because you decided to shout at them.
These are not rare cases. This happens on every protest, its the police's job to make it happen on every protest.
If you ever get arrested during a protest, you can count on being beat up during that arrest. Also expect verbal assault. Unless you are verbally assaulted multiple times during arrest, you must have met a jesus-like cop.
Try it for yourself, there are some things that will get you arrested which will actually not be procecuted (in germany thats for instance being masked), also try to run away when they try to arrest you otherwise you might not get the whole getting kneed in the back while on the ground experience. Its a pretty weird feeling. Afterwards go to a doctor, tell him you've been beaten up. Watch their concerned facial expression while asking you "Who'd do such a thing?". I bet you don't feel nearly as violated as the doctor thinks you have been.[2]
So I must say, every time someone gets sentenced for hurting a police officer during protest:
BOO FUCKING HOO, poor little officer. Really. Poor personfied violence of the state. You got hurt, during your job, which is to hurt adversaries of the state. Someone should play a violin.
Edited, footnotes:
[1] I think I was 16, it was a counter protest against a Neo-nazi parade.
[2] Also first hand experience. I was 17, it was a student protest for better education. I have video footage. No charges against me but I have a medical certificate that I was violated.
PS: If you think I am a radical activist. Quite the opposite, the few protests I have been to made me stay far away of any kind of police presence (including protests) since then. Its telling that of five protests I've been to in my life, on four I would consider having seen serious human rights violations.
This rant has no relevance to the article or to anything much in general, save perhaps as an obvious illustration of projection and the proverbial chip on one's shoulder.
The maladjusted low-life vagrant in the article should consider herself lucky that all she got was a slap on the wrist for this. She very much embodies the majority archetype present at those protests: the entitled, middle class out-of-town suburbanite hell bent on stirring up trouble in a city which has up until then been extremely tolerant of the juvenile, disruptive behavior of extremists it's native population largely disagrees with. These dirtbags spent six months trashing, pissing and shitting on an iconic neighborhood with no real purpose to speak of. The only mistake the city made (and forced the police force to uphold) was allowing this charade to go out beyond the first day it started, at a massive monetary and logistical cost despite an overwhelming negative sentiment against this movement from the local population - the only one's whose opinions really matter.
What's is truly amusing are the many sentiments of those in the comments immediately rushing to condemn the police - clearly, non-native arm chair judicial hobbyists drawing the entirety of their opinions based solely on one-sided articles. Its amusing because save for a few of the pre-planned, large scale "demonstrations" (read: interference of traffic/public transportation and harassment of native New Yorkers just trying to get to work) the police were there NOT to keep the OWS protesters in check; they were there to PROTECT them from the rest of New York which was irate and on the verge of tearing them apart. Had they not been around to guard these parasites and ultimately clean up the filth and squalor they had created, the NYC Vigilante justice would have been far less measured in their response.
No one took kindly to these fuckers attempting to infiltrate and occupy their backyard and rightly so. Let's have assholes fuck, shit, piss, and bang drums right outside your door for over 6 months straight and see how you feel in the end. Then let's multiply that by 100 - let's see who you call to help sort that nightmare out.
Am I the only person that can't see anything in that video? Without hearing any explanation of what's going on in that video, I can't see it as proving, or disproving anything.
Name one important person who ended up in jail for more-or-less-violent protesting, and ended up having this as a "self transforming" experience. I can name at least one... Adolf Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler) ...and I think Mr. Joseph Stalin followed a similar career path, though I know less about the details (but here's a cute mugshot of him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin#med... )
So, here you go:
Q: How do you severely radicalize a random semi-moderate non-violent protester?
A: Send him/her to jail.
Thankfully this girl kept a cool head and drew a sane interpretation from it, but seriously, what are you Americans trying to do, 'cook up' the next generation of world-wrecking monsters in some insane social-engineering experiment?!
It's worth noting that the punishment here was pretty over the top even by US standards. In suburban middle America a college girl with no priors who bruises a cop will not ordinarily get charged with a felony. Some cities would even take the charge that she was manhandled by cops seriously and investigate it.
That seems like you're disputing the charge/verdict, not the punishment.
What is the normal punishment for felony assault of a police officer for someone with no priors?
The reason this distinction is important is because disputing the charge/verdict requires getting involved in the case and seeing the prosecution's evidence.
> The reason this distinction is important is because disputing the charge/verdict requires getting involved in the case and seeing the prosecution's evidence.
I don't agree at all but I also think we've seen enough of the evidence that there's not really much factually to dispute. (We know a lot more than the jury did, which is a very common and very depressing situation but also a separate topic)
Anyhow, felony charges are usually reserved for people who do a lot of damage, on purpose, and who have prior convictions. I agree that there's a distinction to be made between the seriousness of charges and the severity of those charges associated punishment - they're determined by different parts of government, if nothing else - but I don't think as much hangs on it as you seem to, vis a vis the way different places treat crimes more or less severely. Heavy handedness in one area correlates with heavy-handedness in the other, after all.
I'll agree not to charge you with a felony and potentially lock in you in cage if you agree not to have a third party examine the facts of this case, and instead plead to a misdemeanor and pay a fine.
Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system? I realize it's necessarily in some situations but the result is you are never not guilty of some crime. The prosecution virtually never loses. Truth and justice are nowhere to be found.
>Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system?
Prohibit prosecutors from going to trial with charges any higher than they offered in the plea deal. If they offer to (say) let you plead to only misdemeanor drug possession, then they shouldn't be allowed to then prosecute for felony drug possession, resisting arrest, plus anything else they can think of simply because you dared to ask for a jury trial. Sentencing can still be somewhat variable, which would offer an actual incentive to those that know they're caught-holding-the-bag guilty, but would not be such a ruinously life destroying difference that it would frighten the innocent into taking the pllea when they did nothing wrong. The argument against plea bargain reform from prosecutors is always along the lines of "the courts could never handle all those cases, so we have to discourage jury trials as best we can", and frankly, that line of reasoning is bullshit. If there aren't enough resources to offer a jury trial to every offender, then I say we have a crisis of constitutional proportions, and dealing with it by gaming the system to force people to forego their rights simply to improve efficiency is a far more evil thing than most of the crimes people plead to.
> The judge didn't allow evidence that my attorney wanted to show the jury, including a range of videos of the incident.
That's the part I find the most shocking in this article. Aren't trials supposed to be fair? What are the kind of evidences that are not allowed to be shown?
NYTimes: "Jurors were also shown several YouTube videos of Officer Bovell, 35, in March 2012 getting elbowed in his left eye by Ms. McMillan, 25, who is charged with assaulting a police officer. She has maintained that Officer Bovell groped her breast, and that she reacted without knowing he was a police officer. He has denied that he touched her breast.
The shaky videos showed Ms. McMillan, a labor organizer, in a bright green dress, jumping back and planting her elbow in Officer Bovell’s face.
“She crouched down and lunged backward, elbowing me in the eye,” Officer Bovell said. “It’s like a white light in the face.”"
I live in NYC and I didn't read the entire article, but what stood out for me (beneath the picture) was the $167K per year that each prisoner on Rikers costs NYC!
The story of her re-arrest for confronting a police officer in the NYTimes story mentioned in the first comment suggests some underlying contributing psychological issues.
the grad school -> prison movement isn't new.. i recall a friend who, as far as i know, went from a ritzy grad school to jail based on some fairly radical eco-"terrorism".... incarceration is a really scary thing, and there's a gamut of types there. i have a feeling that this was an experience for the article's author for sure, but, although it may be a platitute, i feel as though i ought to say, "it could be worse."
Sure you do. A person has the right to defend themselves when assaulted, even if the assaulter happens to be wearing a shitty tin badge and carrying a gun and night-stick. We should not mistake the so-called "authority" of the State as having any legitimacy that can trump our innate rights, of which self-defense is about as fundamental as they get.
prisons in the US are unconscionable. the abuse by guards, the prevalence of prison rape (by an HIV-positive inmate, no less), the capricious behavior by the staff. It is a shameful system.
Imagine a person spends 10 years in that situation, and gets out, what the hell are they supposed to do now? They have no job skills, no life skills, they're psychologically damaged. The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad', it's high because we take people in bad situations, and break them further. We take someone almost-functional, and make them completely disfunctional.
And anyone who disagrees with this model isn't "tough on crime".