World, Writing, Wealth discussion

If a friend were convicted and sentenced would you remain friends, if s/he didn't do anything wrong to you personally or that would be it? Would you go visit him/her in jail?

Entirely possible, especially if I could mine his prison experiences for an upcoming novel...

"So your cell mate, is he attractive? Now be honest..."

Mind you, one of my actual ancestors was both a convict and a famous smuggler in Tasmania in the 19th C....

So no laughing...

Graeme wrote: "Mind you, one of my actual ancestors was both a convict and a famous smuggler in Tasmania in the 19th C....

So no laughing..."

But to be friends with him/her you need a seance -:)

I certainly hope I never get a visitation...

Hope what you hope doesn't happen doesn't happen. On the other hand if they smuggle you out to Tasmania, it's not an extreme trip back home -:)

Tasmania is a lovely place to visit - especially in summer. Bit cold at the moment. Really lovely food, wine, etc, peaceful, laidback easy-going and relaxed.

I'd love to go there, especially to see the devil

A lot of Australians have ancestors like Graeme's. As for Nik wanting to see the devil, is he seeking some sort of Faustian deal to sell more books????

Don't know whether these guys can help selling books: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasma... , but I'd like 2 c 1 -:)

Exactly how a guy with facial tumour disease could help sell books eludes me. In fairness, Nik, I was fully aware of that devil, but I could not resist brining Mephistopheles into play.

They are kinda cute and have an odd gait when they run.

I've always wondered if there's a bit of shame to having an ancestor among the former prisoners in Australia...if it's sort of seen like finding a slaveowner in your family tree here in the States...

Ian wrote: "Exactly how a guy with facial tumour disease could help sell books eludes me. In fairness, Nik, I was fully aware of that devil, but I could not resist brining Mephistopheles into play."

Maybe some desperate authors would gladly do a deal with Lucifer Publishing LTD, if it guaranteed sales

Or even Lucifer Publishing Unlimited :-)

J.J. wrote: "I've always wondered if there's a bit of shame to having an ancestor among the former prisoners in Australia...if it's sort of seen like finding a slaveowner in your family tree here in the States..."

Not that I'm aware of. Lot's of convicts were at worst petty criminals whose biggest crime was to be poor.

Convicts = White Slaves.

Convicts aren't necessarily any worse than the rest of us. Every day, people drive home after too many drinks and get home safely, wake up the next day wondering how they made it home. Then there's the guy who had a few too many, had an accident, and killed someone. Same behavior; different consequences. One's home free; the other's a convict.

I worked as a Paralegal for 30 years-and did not think about what I would do if someone I knew went to prison. Then my adult son at age 21 committed a crime for which he was sentenced to 8 years. I have since met many wives and mothers of inmates and have a whole different perception. 22 months to go.

Lizzie wrote: "22 months to go..."

Hope they pass fast ...

I had a distant cousin who was incarcerated in Northern Ireland back in '91. I used to write to him, but have lost touch since he was released after the Good Friday accords......just hope he's doing okay.

Lizzie, my heart is with you. Sons will do what they choose to do, thinking they have a right to live their lives, not acknowledging that they're dragging their moms along with them through all the pain.

Scout wrote: "Lizzie, my heart is with you. Sons will do what they choose to do, thinking they have a right to live their lives, not acknowledging that they're dragging their moms along with them through all the..."

When he got straight and stayed that way, he actually acknowledged what he had done and how good i was to him despite his stupidity and that it was not a failure on my part. Sadly, it took another inmate to provide him with that role model and to help him stop and stay straight. His dad, my ex, is an alcoholic who sees nothing wrong with booze but thinks drugs are awful.

My son has apologized, which is a start . I have talked with other parents whose children dont take responsibility and are still blaming everyone else. One of the problems is society treats addiction as a moral failure rather than a disease.

Sounds like your son is on the right path. I do have to ask you how drug addiction is a disease. Is it because it's genetic? Honest question, because I always tell my son he has a choice to make, and it's up to him to make the right one.

Scout wrote: "Sounds like your son is on the right path. I do have to ask you how drug addiction is a disease. Is it because it's genetic? Honest question, because I always tell my son he has a choice to make, a..."

Yes, genetics, but other reasons as well. I don't want to get on my soapbox in here. If you are interested, i can send you a message. As we know from the news, opiate addiction is transferring to heroin as a more attainable substitute an America is facing an epidemic.

OK

What about you: would a jail sentence mean the end of friendship or depends on what had happened?

For me, it would depend on what happened, but equally contact, other than by letters, would probably be suspended while the person was incarcerated because there are no local prisons here, and I would be unlikely to make the effort to go to visit unless there were really special circumstances.

How would you feel if you made a mistake and ended up in jail and your friends gave up on you? Everyone makes mistakes. It seems you would need your friends more than ever and would find out who your true friends were. Many people need that "wake up" incident to turn their lives around. Guess it depends on the crime. Murder or a violent crime would be tough.

Graeme, sounds like you've got a book there with your ancestor's story.

Redemption, reintroduction to society and a very current example

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51010708

A murderer at a rehabilitation event helped stop the recent London Bridge terrorist.

as some of you know - I work on a large prisoner contract in UK regular contact with prisoners before and after conviction - all the prisoners have families. The statistics show that one of the best methods of preventing reoffending is to ensure family and friends remain in contact.

We have all done stupid things in our lives. Most of the time they are petty and we probably got away with them. At one point petty shop lifting was a right of passage for teenagers. If caught and prosecuted life would have changed.

The drink driving example is another case. Once upon a time this was common now its rare, but the consequences can be terrible for the injured and life changing for the convicted.

There were some in for manslaughter that got less time than my son. (FYI - we are in the parole stage; he came home in May. No problems except the consequences of "prison think" which is the result of longterm incarceration and growing into a man in that type of environment.)

In regards to the original question, I would remain friends with someone depending on the crime. Selling drugs to school kids, abusing children or women, planned murder, I am out of that friendship. The rest of it, much would depend on whether they keep doing the same stupid shit that put them in prison to begin with. The other part that would affect my ability to be a friend would be their own attitude towards their crime.

Not all crimes are equal, regardless of it being the same charge. Manslaughter because of constantly driving drunk is not he same as manslaughter resulting from reckless driving (i.e.,driving to fast for conditions). In American, prosecutors throw everything they can think of at the defendant, then aim for a plea, and if a trial then they go to the highest charge they can prove and all the lesser ones that go along with it.

As Philip wrote, we all have done some stupid stuff. As young teens, we broke into a summer house on a lake and took the liquor and change lying around. Almost got caught by the cops, but we didn't.

As an adult, I consistently speed and some of those speeds could end up in criminal charges if caught, but I only ever had one actual speeding ticket. Lots of warnings and several traded off for higher fines but wasting finite resources and similar things. The end result, I have never been to driving school or had points on my license. I doubt I would lose my friends over some jail time for driving 100 mph, but it could still be a felony charge. Some of my friends would say, I told you so!

My brother was a convict. We're still friends. I read recently in Wired Magazine that prisoners are scamming money from veterans using cell phones in prison. The solution would be to block cell signals from the prisons, but it's not being done.

Cell phones and drugs find their way in. A lot of that is the guards. Pay them a real wage and provide real training and then get rid of the bad ones.

Now many states provide tablets. Allegedly, they can't access anything outside of educational materials, downloaded books and music, emails and photos, and certain prison things such as ordering from the commissary and the balance of their account. I expect in reality that there will be enough talented inmates that they will gain open access to the internet.

I agree that blocking is the answer. But, the only way to prevent signals is to incorporate materials into the building structure that prevent it. In AZ we can't even get them to fix the locks properly (while the top tier diverts funds from building repairs to somewhere else).

Whatever it takes to block cell signals from prisons should be done. Here are these criminals supposedly paying for their crimes, yet they're still able to scam innocent people for money. Specifically, they send a veteran a sexy photo of an underage girl. If he replies to her, not knowing she's underage, he's on the hook and then extorted for money by her "parents" and threatened with prosecution. Some of these guys have committed suicide. Prisoners need to be completely cut off from unsupervised communication with the outside world. Period. Surely there's a way to do this.

Scout wrote: "Whatever it takes to block cell signals from prisons should be done. Here are these criminals supposedly paying for their crimes, yet they're still able to scam innocent people for money. Specifica..."

One would think there would be a way. Two issues. 1) They can't even keep illegal cell phones and drugs out of the prison so how can we expect more? and 2) Don't most things come down to costs? They system and the taxpayer isn't willing to pay more to make it happen.

Blocking/Jamming of mobile phone signals is used; however, it tends to cause issues with the neighbours legal phone signals - same with Wi-Fi to stop drones delivering packages. In larger countries where prisons are built in remote areas it is not such an issue but many of Europe's prisons are in city centres

I don't know about the feds, but our state prisons and county jails certainly do not. They are closing our oldest prison because of the cost for building repairs - it was built in 1909 and has been in use since then. Many of our prisons were built before the technology moved cell phones into the mainstream and prior to the world wide web.

I guess it's too much to ask that prisoners not continue to victimize innocent people. There's something very wrong about that.

From my work experience we have several groups of prisoners and they behave and rehabilitate (or not) differently.
Hard core criminals - prison is part of the job and lifestyle - they don't cause trouble (no violence to guards etc) and on release are back to criminality - they want to get out as quickly as possible and they will be involved in criminality on the outside i.e. they want the mobile phones or contacts
Drugs and Alcohol - without treatment they will be back in because they will use crime to fund habits - on drugs in prison too
Young and stupid - good chance if you can get them away from gang culture - education
One off criminals i.e. crimes of passion, drunk drivers or other one off incidents - white collar tend to be in this group. They won't be back unless they fit elsewhere e.g. drink addicts
Innocent - split in two - innocent of crime convicted but guilty of other things - see hard core - and actually innocent a depressingly larger percentage than any of us would like to contemplate

Thanks for that info, Philip. Could you address the fact that incarcerated people continue to victimize innocent people via cell phone connections to the Internet? What's the solution?

Illegal conversation do go on with smuggled phones. Some of our prisons have in-cell technology allowing phone calls but these are monitored. Issue here tends to be control of criminal activity using codewords etc.

Intimidating of witnesses and victims is not such a big issue as far as I am aware. The victim/witness can easily report such activity and any phone/internet privileges can be removed. Not saying it does not happen but it is preventable. Clearly via an illegal phone would not be prevented but would prompt search action from the authorities.

Of course this activity happened before with visitors and even guards induced to carry out or continue criminal activity.

It would depend on the criminals offense. I do have felons as friends and some of them are very good friends. I also have no go areas that does not matter how much I love them, I would be done with them. I had one of those. The funny thing is that almost all of the ones that I do know are good people that had done not so good things. It makes no sense to me either.

Papaphilly wrote: "The funny thing is that almost all of the ones that I do know are good people that had done not so good things. It makes no sense to me either...."

There are maybe not so many living saints left. Allowing for relativity of "bad" & "good" people, the former are probably more prone to misbehave, however the latter are far from being immune either...
Agree with Philip's thesis : ".. We have all done stupid things in our lives. Most of the time they are petty and we probably got away with them. At one point petty shop lifting was a right of passage for teenagers. If caught and prosecuted life would have changed. .. "

I read something recently that said we shouldn't be defined by our worst action. I've always known that people do bad things all the time; only those that get caught go to prison. It's the luck of the draw. So I'm sympathetic to prisoners unless they've committed a heinous crime. Or unless they continue to commit crimes against the innocent once they're incarcerated.

I do believe certain classes/races are more likely to receive the stick rather than the carrot when it comes to crimes charged and penalties for conviction. But, also a lot of things have changed. When I was a teen in the 70s, smoking a joint got us a lecture but didn't send us to jail. Now a days, get caught doing that in college and you are kicked out and lose everything, including your freedom, though if you are in premed with a wellknown family heritage, other arrangements are made and you can simply end up going to a different school and a misdemeanor for something else.

In the early 2000s, when working in criminal law and I saw how much the law had changed as a result of the tough on crime laws, I was astonished. Those college students in the 70s are mostly well-respected professionals. These days it can derail your whole life.

So, part of the problem is what we define as crimes and part of the problem is that justice is not blind. So as to the original questions of remaining friends, I cannot judge anyone based on them being convicted and sentenced. I choose my friendships on my own experiences with that friend or family member.

I still say that those in prison should not be able to use the Internet to commit crimes. That's wrong and should be stopped.

Scout wrote: "I still say that those in prison should not be able to use the Internet to commit crimes. That's wrong and should be stopped."

No one should be allowed to use the internet to commit crimes.

I understand that your meaning is that there are inmates who have access and continue to stalk and harass their victims. It is a crime and if they are found out in prison they will be charged. The problem is that like drugs, cell phones are smuggled in constantly.

It never ceases to amaze me that we want to build a wall to keep out illegal aliens but we have built thousands of walls across the USA (called prisons) and we can't keep out drugs and cell phones.

I agree. Have those in charge of prisons just given up on controlling drugs and cell phones? Are the inmates running the prisons?

I write as someone who has spent more than 25 years as a prison volunteer teaching creative writing and business, in two different maximum security state prisons and a federal prison. I agree: No one should be allowed to use the internet to commit crimes.

But many of these writers seem to be making unsupported (and unsupportable) generalizations. There are prisons and there are prisons, just as there are inmates and there are inmates—a handful are so damaged they are unfit to live in society; most in my experience would rather go straight.

A prison in which the guards are able to smuggle in cell phones or drugs or both is a failure of the state's Department of Corrections, the warden, and the staff. That failure, of course, may extend to the legislature that has not taxed the population heavily enough to pay the correctional officers a competitive wage or provided sufficient training.

So, Scout, in which prison do the inmates use the internet to commit crimes? How do you know it? And how widespread is the problem?

I spent 30 years in the legal field and the last 8 years as the mother of an inmate. in state medium and minimum. I know more than I want to know about how the prisons are run in Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois and a few other states.

1st, There are not enough guards to enforce the rules. 2nd, Guards are people, and like all people, there are good and bad. No matter their pay, there are always bad apples or simply guards who are easily manipulated. Interestingly, our local deputy sheriff who was in charge of the county jail was arrested by the FBI about 8 years ago - he was part of group bringing drugs across the border. We see reports across the country of guards who have forced inmates to fight, sold the items they create, committed rape, and engaged in many other illegal activities. Since those are only the ones that we learn about, imagine how much of that iceberg we don't see.

Admittedly, AZ pay is lousy, and the private prisons pay even less to their guards. They don't get enough training. We spend a huge amount of money warehousing criminals and our system is unable to police itself and puts too little into rehabilitation. They when they are released we make it difficult for ex-cons to find reasonable employment and housing. The recidivism rate is excessive and a lot of that is because of the system and our societal attitudes.

But, the guards rely on the inmates to self-police in many ways. Here it was divided by race; in other states, it's by gang affiliations. Every dorm has an inmate who is in charge and is overseen by the yard head, who is overseen by that prison's inmate heads, who is overseen by someone higher up and so on. The head of each race is usually someone who is in maximum, possibly for life. Money gets distributed on up with everyone taking a cut. Every yard has an "inmate store" run by each race.

Those inmates who weren't damaged, many become damaged if they do a length of time. They have to survive. To survive they do things that they wouldn't normally do. It's not that they don't want to go straight, it's that the system and our society, combined with our attitude toward addiction, makes it very difficult. When they get out, it's very difficult to change their way of thinking. For instance, in prison, nothing is free. So they learn to think in terms of what's in it for them vs. simply helping someone because it's ok to be kind. Soon they forget that in the real world, a neighbor helps because it's the right thing to do and it's not all about who owes who. They learn from day one, with a movie, in prison if someone offers you something you will be paying for it down the line.

While I don't know statistics on inmates using the internet to commit crimes, phones are huge in facilitating everything from threats to those inmates who don't fall in line to money being collected and processed through the inmates.