Thousands of inmates released under new sentencing guidelines

[mrjarrell]

Excellent! This weekend the government is beginning to release over 6000 non-violent drug prisoners. Releasing these folks from onerous prison sentences will go a long way towards making us not look worse than Soviet Russia and their gulag system. This is a good start and should be continued for as long as it takes to put a significant dent in the US prison population.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...eased-early-are-heading-home-starting-friday/

Found it interesting that Chief Hite in Indy apparently doesn't know what's actually going on. Equating non violent drug offenders with violent criminals shows he's a bit clueless. Here's a hint chief, they aren't letting the violent ones out. They'll be serving their sentences.

Thousands of inmates released under new sentencing guidelines - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

 

[cbhausen]

How does this affect those who pleaded down from violent crimes? Are they eligible for early release?

Regardless, I'm having mixed feelings about this... I strongly disagree with the whole "victimless crime" argument. Addiction destroys lives and families and those who sell drugs for their own personal gain without regard for others' well-being deserve to pay for their crimes.

 

[cobber]

Yes, our system is so like the GULAG in so many ways.

 

[Leo]

That may be a mixed bowl of trouble. Not saying jail is the complete answer. Past Jail is another reality. Do we need another 6000 unemployed/unemployable people living in the streets? I have been actively involved in placing reformed convicts in real life situations. It is extremely difficult to find an employer willing to take a chance. Sadly, many times the guy you are trying to help get a second chance ruins his deal because of poor work ethic or being a less than agreeable employee. Bad record, low skill set, poor work ethic, and lack of humility are a difficult set of hurdles to navigate.

 

[IndyDave1776]

While I do not support drug use, I also see it in most cases as a highly profitable pre-crime that is pushed because of the extremely high return on investment rather than its actual need to be addressed through the criminal justice system, and also greatly misused in ways contrary to what we were sold up front.

1. Asset forfeiture was foisted on us with the cry that it was not possible to stop drugs when these 'kingpins' with more money than God can simply appeal local prosecutors into bankruptcy and walk away laughing. As a result, if I get caught with enough cash in my pocket to sustain me for a few days I will very likely see it taken with virtually no chance of ever getting it back.

2. Mandatory drug sentences, you know, the ones meant to keep bleeding heart judges from letting those dangerous druggies loose, flooded our penal facilities to the point that actual dangerous criminals were being released under court order on account of overcrowding while the cells were filled with end users hauled in for smoking dope.

3. If someone else wants to engage in self-destructive activity, how is that anyone else's business, including the government's, unless of course you buy into the notion that we are the property of the government, which stands in direct opposition to the concept of a free constitutional republic. If you want to argue, 'but the drug users steal/engage in other crime to support their habits,' you are missing the mark. Those other activities are already illegal with or without drug use standing as the apparent motive. Put them in prison for theft/burglary/robbery/whateverthehellelse they may have done.

4. Last, and perhaps most important, the 'War on Drugs' has stood as the most dangerous vehicle ever employed in the assault against the Fourth Amendment. Does that not give you pause when you call for doubling down on it?

 

[vitamink]

Any names of these Indiana non violent folks being released? I'd like to look some of them up.

 

[Dead Duck]

Time to buy more ammo.

Funny how the OP thinks criminals should just get a slap on the wrist instead of doing their time. Definitely sending the wrong message to other criminals out there.
Kinda backwards thinking.





Oh...It's MrJ.....never mind.

 

[vitamink]

The chick they talk about in the story was locked up with 155 kilos of cocaine, guns, and was laundering millions from years of buying and selling and transporting mass quantities of Coke.

 

[cobber]

The chick they talk about in the story was locked up with 155 kilos of cocaine, guns, and was laundering millions from years of buying and selling and transporting mass quantities of Coke.

So what's the problem? Sounds legit to me.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

We contacted the federal prison in Terre Haute to see if they are releasing any inmates. They have not returned our calls.

Terre Haute? Terre Haute takes non-violent drug cases??? At the FCI maybe?

Most of them here go to Forrest City.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Time to buy more ammo.

Funny how the OP thinks criminals should just get a slap on the wrist instead of doing their time. Definitely sending the wrong message to other criminals out there.
Kinda backwards thinking.





Oh...It's MrJ.....never mind.

The chick they talk about in the story was locked up with 155 kilos of cocaine, guns, and was laundering millions from years of buying and selling and transporting mass quantities of Coke.

All the way around, I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing. The devil is in the unintended consequences.

Back in the Dark Ages when I worked for the DOC, I recall a conversation with a particular inmate. She was in prison for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. I didn't ask whether or not she had actually been distributing, but she shared with me an interesting thought: She had been caught with a quantity which could easily be held in one hand which was above the threshold for presumption of intent to distribute which came with the same 20 year mandatory sentence as being caught with a semi truck full of cocaine. No, it would not make me feel safer knowing that this individual was safely locked up while a murderer/robber/rapist was roaming free turned loose by a federal judge on account of overcrowding given that he is guilty of a crime without a mandatory sentence.

I also have to raise the issue of how we can argue that the 155 kilos, guns, and money constitute a viable criminal offense in the sense that there is no victim, at least not without playing 6 degrees of separation. Once again, I do not support drug use, but I would much rather let people who are so inclined self-destruct than continue to prop up the biggest criminal enterprise in history (with the possible exception of the United States Government) with no one being harmed from the criminal enterprise in any way that is not already illegal on its own merit regardless of drugs being involved or not while seeing my constitutional rights ripped out from under me in the name of fighting the 'war on drugs'. No, I do not like drugs or their purveyors, but I do not dislike them enough to give up the Constitution in the name of fighting against them, especially when the fight is a guaranteed-to-fail Vietnam war type affair designed to self-perpetuate for financial reasons rather than to actually accomplish the declared goal in a reasonable amount of time.

Let me end with one question: Why is robbing you to buy drugs (the primary concern with those favoring laws and strict enforcement) more detrimental to you than robbing you to buy booze and chase women, to buy a car, to buy a house, to buy guns, or to buy the kids/grandkids/nieces/nephews super-expensive toys? Why is committing any other crime against you ancillary to drug sales and/or use more detrimental to you than committing the same crime for non-drug-related reasons?

 

[Leadeye]

I think the releases will bring an increase in burglary, robbery and theft. How leadership deals with that we'll have to wait and see.

 

[printcraft]

I think the releases will bring an increase in burglary, robbery and theft. How leadership deals with that we'll have to wait and see.

Its ok because they will job placement issues because of our soviet style backwards society and they need to make a living somehow.

 

[jamil]

Excellent! This weekend the government is beginning to release over 6000 non-violent drug prisoners. Releasing these folks from onerous prison sentences will go a long way towards making us not look worse than Soviet Russia and their gulag system. This is a good start and should be continued for as long as it takes to put a significant dent in the US prison population.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...eased-early-are-heading-home-starting-friday/

Found it interesting that Chief Hite in Indy apparently doesn't know what's actually going on. Equating non violent drug offenders with violent criminals shows he's a bit clueless. Here's a hint chief, they aren't letting the violent ones out. They'll be serving their sentences.

Thousands of inmates released under new sentencing guidelines - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Gulag? I can't imagine a sane reason to make such clames other than just to rile up the opposite ideologues. I am continually astonished by the moral equivalence you're willing to make.

 

[mrjarrell]

Gulag? I can't imagine a sane reason to make such clames other than just to rile up the opposite ideologues. I am continually astonished by the moral equivalence you're willing to make.

The United States currently imprisons, in overcrowded conditions, more people than the Soviet Union did at their peak. We are the worlds leader in throwing people into prisons. Something to really be proud of. Hell, China doesn't even come close to our rate of imprisonment. At least in the Soviet gulags the prisoners got go outside. Here we just warehouse them. And when they are finally released they aren't welcomed back into society. They are continually punished for their previous crimes and for the rest of their lives and have their natural rights curtailed. Yeah, it's just to rile up the proponents of the prison/police state.

 

[cobber]

The United States currently imprisons, in overcrowded conditions, more people than the Soviet Union did at their peak. We are the worlds leader in throwing people into prisons. Something to really be proud of. Hell, China doesn't even come close to our rate of imprisonment. At least in the Soviet gulags the prisoners got go outside. Here we just warehouse them. And when they are finally released they aren't welcomed back into society. They are continually punished for their previous crimes and for the rest of their lives and have their natural rights curtailed. Yeah, it's just to rile up the proponents of the prison/police state.

This is literally incredible... that someone living in 2015 knowing what is known could write this.


Sure. The prisoners were in Siberian labor camps or gold mines, getting starvation rations in subzero conditions, and got to go out to the building sites, lumber camps or mines.


God our prisons are truly hellholes compared to that. Too bad Solzhenitsyn didn't get to experience an American prison, or he wouldn't have been such an annoying whiner.


And of course once (if) you got out of the GULAG, it was all rainbows and unicorns. 'Welcome back comrade.' Your life resumed its previous happy-go-lucky pace.


Sounds like something one might read in Pravda back in the day. Happy Soviet prisoners, miserable American victims of rapacious capitalism.

Gulag? I can't imagine a sane reason to make such clames other than just to rile up the opposite ideologues. I am continually astonished by the moral equivalence you're willing to make.

Just wait long enough. You never know what you'll see...

 

[CPT Nervous]

Jamil and Cobber said all that needed to be said. I have nothing to add, except that I am anxiously awaiting Jarrell's rebuttal.

 

[Fargo]

Jamil and Cobber said all that needed to be said. I have nothing to add, except that I am anxiously awaiting Jarrell's rebuttal.

Let's also not forget that you usually went to the gulag for thought crimes with approximately 0 due process... Jury? Lawyer? Appeal? Confrontation?

 

[CPT Nervous]

Let's also not forget that you usually went to the gulag for thought crimes with approximately 0 due process... Jury? Lawyer? Appeal? Confrontation?

Of course! How could I forget? At least they didn't imprison people for drug related offenses. Or did they? Either way, apparently life in the Gulag is much better than life in our prisons. I know a few DOC corrections officers. Our prisons are like like summer camp, but with more amenities.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Of course! How could I forget? At least they didn't imprison people for drug related offenses. Or did they? Either way, apparently life in the Gulag is much better than life in our prisons. I know a few DOC corrections officers. Our prisons are like like summer camp, but with more amenities.

Yes, right down to the staff having less leeway than we have seen argued to be right and proper for a violent SRO dealing with a noncompliant teenage girl.