Prison: A Waste of Human Life

[High_Gravity]

Both men I currently write to were in gangs as kids and that's how they got in trouble. Both are changed men. IMO, it is a waste of tax payer dollars to keep them in prison. They could be working, benefiting society and paying taxes.

Jarvis is an exceptional man.

So everyone who is locked up who undergoes a "change" should be released?

 

[Sky Dancer]

Both men I currently write to were in gangs as kids and that's how they got in trouble. Both are changed men. IMO, it is a waste of tax payer dollars to keep them in prison. They could be working, benefiting society and paying taxes.

i couldn't agree more; they'd be of much more utility dead.

It happens to cost more money to execute a prisoner than to house them for life. Go figure.

The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for capital cases. This process is needed in order to ensure that innocent men and woman are not executed for crimes they did not commit, and even with these protections the risk of executing an innocent person can not be completely eliminated.

If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole*, which costs millions less and also ensures that the public is protected while eliminating the risk of an irreversible mistake, the money saved could be spent on programs that actually improve the communities in which we live.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

 

[del]

Both men I currently write to were in gangs as kids and that's how they got in trouble. Both are changed men. IMO, it is a waste of tax payer dollars to keep them in prison. They could be working, benefiting society and paying taxes.

i couldn't agree more; they'd be of much more utility dead.

It happens to cost more money to execute a prisoner than to house them for life. Go figure.

pay per view

 

[Sky Dancer]

Both men I currently write to were in gangs as kids and that's how they got in trouble. Both are changed men. IMO, it is a waste of tax payer dollars to keep them in prison. They could be working, benefiting society and paying taxes.

Jarvis is an exceptional man.

So everyone who is locked up who undergoes a "change" should be released?

I'm not saying that. I think they should be evaluated thoroughly. Anyone who knows Jarvis feels the same way about him that I do.

He is well respected by all who know him.

 

[Sky Dancer]

i couldn't agree more; they'd be of much more utility dead.

It happens to cost more money to execute a prisoner than to house them for life. Go figure.

pay per view

You'd like to watch executions? Go to Iran.

 

[del]

Both men I currently write to were in gangs as kids and that's how they got in trouble. Both are changed men. IMO, it is a waste of tax payer dollars to keep them in prison. They could be working, benefiting society and paying taxes.

Jarvis is an exceptional man.

So everyone who is locked up who undergoes a "change" should be released?

I'm not saying that. I think they should be evaluated thoroughly. Anyone who knows Jarvis feels the same way about him that I do.

He is well respected by all who know him.

then send flowers to the funeral

 

[High_Gravity]

Both men I currently write to were in gangs as kids and that's how they got in trouble. Both are changed men. IMO, it is a waste of tax payer dollars to keep them in prison. They could be working, benefiting society and paying taxes.

Jarvis is an exceptional man.

So everyone who is locked up who undergoes a "change" should be released?

I'm not saying that. I think they should be evaluated thoroughly. Anyone who knows Jarvis feels the same way about him that I do.

He is well respected by all who know him.

Putting the case of Jarvis aside, instituting something like this would place alot of murderers and criminals on the streets, professional criminals are very smooth talking fellas they can sell ice to an eskimo, there really is no way you can tell if a person is being serious behind bars, those guys lie all the time.

 

[Sky Dancer]

So everyone who is locked up who undergoes a "change" should be released?

I'm not saying that. I think they should be evaluated thoroughly. Anyone who knows Jarvis feels the same way about him that I do.

He is well respected by all who know him.

then send flowers to the funeral

Blah, blah, bla. del one-liners.

 

[High_Gravity]

Same case with alot of the Blacks who convert to Islam behind bars, when they are released some stay commited to their new Islamic life style, but others will go back to drinking, smoking weed, fucking women and going back to the same behaviors that got them locked up.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Here is one of Jarvis' stories. I'm a writer, I can't help it if I appreciate his work.

Drunken Boat | Jarvis Jay Masters

 

[Sky Dancer]

Same case with alot of the Blacks who convert to Islam behind bars, when they are released some stay commited to their new Islamic life style, but others will go back to drinking, smoking weed, fucking women and going back to the same behaviors that got them locked up.

That is often true. That doesn't mean that it is impossible for a man or woman to change radically while they are incarcerated.

 

[whitehall]

Everyone in prison is innocent. Didn't you see "The Green Mile"? What else would we do if it wasn't for prisons? Drug therapy, lobotomies? The modern prison system sometimes rehabilitates people and most important, protects society from monsters who prey on the defenseless.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Everyone in prison is innocent. Didn't you see "The Green Mile"? What else would we do if it wasn't for prisons? Drug therapy, lobotomies? The modern prison system sometimes rehabilitates people and most important, protects society from monsters who prey on the defenseless.

That's not true. We all know that everyone in prison is NOT innocent. Some are. The system is not perfectly just.

Some who live in prison, change.

 

[Skull Pilot]

just because inmates have had a coming to jesus moment... does not lessen their crimes.

Sentences are pass out for the crime... not for the person they "become" in jail. The person they "become" has no bearing on ...anything.

Exactly. These scumbag criminals are punished for their acts not their shining personalities.

 

[zzzz]

Prisoners are the dregs of society. I would like the prison system better if prisoners did the exact time they were sentenced to day for day with no time off for good behavior or anything else. 20 years to me means 20 years. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Prisoners in this country have it way too easy. Prison isn't intended to be a country club. It's where "bad eggs" go and depending on the crime, it's where they should stay.

Its bad enough controlling prisons today where the guards are outnumbered 10 to 1 or more. officials need some way to control the population or you will have more Attica's or New Mexico's. Giving prisoners incentives to behave or to take educational or vocational programs is one aspect. Sure some people are incorrigible. Some have committed unthinkable crimes. But there are many who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or were influenced by the wrong people or where controlled by drugs. Some have mental problems and there are many vets in there too.

Over 90% of these people get out and half of those go back in, some repeatedly. Yet another 40% never get into trouble again including some violent offenders. Some where helped by those programs in prison, others by conversion and others just grew up.

As to the death penalty, i think it should be used selectively. In most states murder of officials in prison is death penalty and rightly so. This is part of the carrot and stick approach. But usually this should be reserved for mass murders or serial killers or terrorists.

Prison can change people. Yet the sentence was handed down as punishment not as rehabilitation. This counties prison systems have evolved from rehabilitation as the main focus to warehousing human beings. Get em in and get em out. There has been some attempt in recent years to change that focus back to rehabilitation and with some success. In an ideal world people would be released back in society and behave but we do not live in an ideal world.

 

[Avatar4321]

Prison is a waste. But you end up in prison by making poor personal choices. There is no one to blame but oneself if you end up in prison.

But many people are in prisons. Not prisons of rock and metal. But prisons of our own making. People are prisoners of their addictions. They are a slave to their poor choices. They are prisoners of their debt. They are prisoners of their fears. Etc.

Those Prisons are just as much a waste of human life. And we should do all we can to be released and to release others from those prisons.

 

[High_Gravity]

Prisoners are the dregs of society. I would like the prison system better if prisoners did the exact time they were sentenced to day for day with no time off for good behavior or anything else. 20 years to me means 20 years. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Prisoners in this country have it way too easy. Prison isn't intended to be a country club. It's where "bad eggs" go and depending on the crime, it's where they should stay.

A big reason why prisoners are let out early is because our prisons are overflowing, we simply don't have the room so alot of them get out early, when I was in California unless you commit something serious like murder you will almost never do your full sentence, dudes were getting out after serving 6 months on a 12 month or 18 month bid.

 

[syrenn]

Jarvis Masters is an extraordinary human being. Whether he is ever released from prison or not, he benefits others.

Executing him is wrong.

It does not matter what he claims to be now... he is being punished for what he already did.

Executing is not wrong. Think of it as HIS karma.

 

[syrenn]

Jarvis Masters is an extraordinary human being. Whether he is ever released from prison or not, he benefits others.

Executing him is wrong.

he conspired to commit murder.

like any rabid animal, he should be put down.

At the time, he was mean enough to do it, willing to do it, but he didn't do it. Further, the two men who actually did the stabbing of the prison guard got LWOP, and Jarvis got life.

He isn't a "rabid animal". He is a completely peaceful and transformed individual whose life is valuable to many others, whether he is ever released or not.

You don't know much about this man, I do.

So he tells you... i don't believe a word of it. You don't know if he did or did not do. To bad the others two are not sharing his death sentence. Don't complain that he is being punished worse... complain that the other two are not right there with him in line for execution.

What he is or is not... makes no difference. Coming to jesus/bhudda moments should come BEFORE you do shit to get you where you are. His life is forfeit to his crimes. He should have though about the "value" of his life to others before he conspired to kill someone else.

 

[syrenn]

I write to prisoners and I am friends with a few. What I'm struck by is that the sentences don't always match the crime and that the innocent also wind up in prison.

I would like to discuss the transformation that sometimes occurs to remarkable prisoners as a result of their incarceration.

Some truly self-heal, and IMO, it is a waste of resources to keep them locked or to execute them.

Jarvis Masters is the author of Finding Freedom. He is one such remarkable man, living on Death Row in San Quentin Prison.

Prison work has been part of my spiritual path for ten years.

Your thoughts?

Some people can truly change behind bars, however that doesn't lessen the severity of their crimes. People look deep in themselves in tough situations, hell I know people that have changed by going on deployments in the Military.

Amazing what people will do to pass the time. Criminals who never read a book in their lives.... wow... read books in jail. They go to church....wow.

They also make weapons to kill guards and other prisoners......