The Unbelievable

[Sonny Clark]

South Carolina prisoners are given years in solitary for using Facebook

Facebook is causing serious problems for South Carolina's prison population. An investigation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation has found hundreds of prisoners in South Carolina that have been sentenced to solitary confinement for posting to Facebook from contraband phones. Those sentences can easily ballooned to ridiculous levels, sentencing one prisoner to the equivalent of 37 years of solitary, together with the equivalent of 74 years of lost visitation rights, for a total of 38 Facebook posts. Because of a given prisoner's sentence, the effective length of the punishment is often much shorter, but it still stands as a stark punishment for services many outsiders take for granted.

The repercussions are so steep because of a sentencing rule that requires a different count for each day in which an inmate posts, which each count registered as the highest possible level of offense. That means that two weeks of Facebook use could produce as many as 14 different counts, while assaulting a fellow prisoner would only produce one. Use of a contraband phone is also banned, but the public, continual nature of social media seems designed to rack up large penalties under the current rules, particularly when prison officials don't become aware of the posts until days after the fact. The EFF investigation also turned up new efforts to catch prisoners in the act: a document showed $12,500 paid to an outside agency for services related to social media violations.

South Carolina prisoners are given years in solitary for using Facebook The Verge

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

When the prison system is being used as a way to generate income - using prisoners to manufacture products and paying them $1.40 an hour to work - the government considers this a viable plan to compete with other Communist nations who also use their prisoners to manufacture products for export worldwide. You can see that it puts the US on equal footing with nations such as North Korea and China - therefore - keeping these prisoners as workers - is in the interest of the government. Sad but true. It's big business. The USA has the largest prison population in the world. That ought to tell you something.

How did the government get away with this? They used the argument that years ago prisoners made license plates. So yesteryear it was license plates and tomorrow it is tennis shoes, plasma televisions, etc. Welcome to their plan for "economic recovery'.

 

[Katzndogz]

These extended sentences are entirely voluntary.

 

[Sonny Clark]

These extended sentences are entirely voluntary.

Voluntary? What? Please explain. Thanks.

 

[BullKurtz]

Sheriff Joe still uses chain-gangs here in Phoenix and surrounding areas....the boys line up for that duty to get outside.

 

[Mr. H.]

And to think that Andy Dufresne got 30 days in the hole just for playing Canzonetta sull'aria over the intercom.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

When the prison system is being used as a way to generate income - using prisoners to manufacture products and paying them $1.40 an hour to work - the government considers this a viable plan to compete with other Communist nations who also use their prisoners to manufacture products for export worldwide. You can see that it puts the US on equal footing with nations such as North Korea and China - therefore - keeping these prisoners as workers - is in the interest of the government. Sad but true. It's big business. The USA has the largest prison population in the world. That ought to tell you something.

How did the government get away with this? They used the argument that years ago prisoners made license plates. So yesteryear it was license plates and tomorrow it is tennis shoes, plasma televisions, etc. Welcome to their plan for "economic recovery'.

I should add it looks like they are determined to keep "good employees" and keep the profits coming in.