American prisons ARE meant for torture. Don't get it twisted.
If they were for rehabilitation or treatment, then we would see to that, societally. But we don't.
This is a small piece of why our justice system is so absolutely fucked.
American prisons ARE meant for torture. Don’t get it twisted.
naw. not really. Prisons are meant to provide cheap domestic labor to the corporations running them. it's all profits.
Well both those things can be true.
Never forget, it’s actually legal to enslave prisoners according to the 13th Amendment.
yup. And there is a reason why laws are written to disproportionately affect certain groups- like how crack cocaine gets more jail time than powder, or marijuana convictions...
That's a part of it, yes. It's the slavery loophole in the 13th amendment.
Less of a loophole, more of an intended feature
Loopholes are things intentionally built into structures with the purpose of allowing something through. I find it weird so many people think loopholes aren't something intentional.
I'm having a lot of trouble finding a source that backs up this position. Everything I'm reading says that loopholes are typically oversights, not intentional inclusions.
That being said, the 13th amendment's allowance for prisoner slavery is not a loophole at all, it's an explicit allowance. Loopholes are not explicit, that's kinda the whole point of them. It's a bit like saying that the standard deduction on your taxes is a loophole. It's just an explicitly defined feature.
While that, in fact, does happen, when a large portion of loopholes benefit corporations are written by people employed, or otherwise invested in, those corporations you would have to be lying to yourself, or ignorant of the situation, to believe loopholes are generally unintended.
The above is one example of how this is done. Bills are written to model what the industry wants to get out of legislation. Then they use LLMs to construct legislation after being trained on those models. They then collude to push these bills to as many places as possible, greasing palms the whole way. Sometimes these are just out-right legislation for the purposes of enriching the industry, more often though they are bills written with carefully designed language to allow for specific technicalities, or for stipulations of compliance to be so vague as to be unenforceable, or to use a bunch of jargon and complex linguistics to make a law read one way to the laymen, but another to the professionals that will actually be interacting with these laws.
The torture is just a fringe benefit in the cops' eyes.
Cheap domestic labor isn't torture?
FWIW the vast majority of prisons in the US are not corporate run (>90%), but those majority government-run prisons still provide a lot of free/cheap manufacturing labor to private companies.
The government itself is to blame, not just private prisons.
13th amendment
i think you’re responding to a normative statement by making a descriptive statement.
for those unaware, here’s a quick explanation from wikipedia: a normative statement is “meant to talk about the world as it should be”, while a descriptive statement is “meant to describe the world as it is”.
If we could read we would be very upset.
the most niche grammar nazi
i wasn’t trying to talk about grammar at all, i was only trying to focus only on the meaning of what was said. but i probably could’ve made my point more clearly, so ill try to do that now.
here’s an “example”: one person says “things should be done this way” and the other person says “well things aren’t being done that way”. these two statements aren’t in opposition to each other. in fact, it’s perfectly possible both people agree with each other. maybe things aren’t being done a certain way, and they should be done differently.
the terms “normative” and “descriptive” might seem overly complicated to someone who hasn’t seen them before (they did the first time i saw them), but i thought i’d use them because they’re useful concepts to keep in mind. they’ve helped me communicate and resolve conflicts in my own life. i’ve been both people in the example above, and it’s helpful to be able to know when it’s happening.
The most based discourse nazi, singlehandedly preventing what could become a 30 comment deep argument where both sides fully misunderstand the other
Lemmy cannot read one word of your comment
Edit I'm fuckin stupid, leaving this comment up as a monument to my illiteracy
Making a comment like this about basic conversation and debate concepts is like driving and saying you can't read the speed limit signs. Like, maybe you should avoid actively participating altogether until you're actually able to
Huh? My point was many Lemmy users very commonly reply to someone's descriptive comment with a normative complaint, and freak out when it's clarified.
Wow I misread Lemmy as literally, I fuckered that one up bad lmao
i made the same mistake you did the first time i read their comment. your confusion helped me too!
American prisons ARE meant for torture. Don't get it twisted.
If they were for rehabilitation or treatment, then we would see to that, societally. But we don't.
This is a small piece of why our justice system is so absolutely fucked.
naw. not really. Prisons are meant to provide cheap domestic labor to the corporations running them. it's all profits.
Well both those things can be true.
Never forget, it’s actually legal to enslave prisoners according to the 13th Amendment.
yup. And there is a reason why laws are written to disproportionately affect certain groups- like how crack cocaine gets more jail time than powder, or marijuana convictions...
That's a part of it, yes. It's the slavery loophole in the 13th amendment.
Less of a loophole, more of an intended feature
Loopholes are things intentionally built into structures with the purpose of allowing something through. I find it weird so many people think loopholes aren't something intentional.
I'm having a lot of trouble finding a source that backs up this position. Everything I'm reading says that loopholes are typically oversights, not intentional inclusions.
That being said, the 13th amendment's allowance for prisoner slavery is not a loophole at all, it's an explicit allowance. Loopholes are not explicit, that's kinda the whole point of them. It's a bit like saying that the standard deduction on your taxes is a loophole. It's just an explicitly defined feature.
While that, in fact, does happen, when a large portion of loopholes benefit corporations are written by people employed, or otherwise invested in, those corporations you would have to be lying to yourself, or ignorant of the situation, to believe loopholes are generally unintended.
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/
The above is one example of how this is done. Bills are written to model what the industry wants to get out of legislation. Then they use LLMs to construct legislation after being trained on those models. They then collude to push these bills to as many places as possible, greasing palms the whole way. Sometimes these are just out-right legislation for the purposes of enriching the industry, more often though they are bills written with carefully designed language to allow for specific technicalities, or for stipulations of compliance to be so vague as to be unenforceable, or to use a bunch of jargon and complex linguistics to make a law read one way to the laymen, but another to the professionals that will actually be interacting with these laws.
The torture is just a fringe benefit in the cops' eyes.
Cheap domestic labor isn't torture?
FWIW the vast majority of prisons in the US are not corporate run (>90%), but those majority government-run prisons still provide a lot of free/cheap manufacturing labor to private companies.
The government itself is to blame, not just private prisons.
13th amendment
i think you’re responding to a normative statement by making a descriptive statement.
for those unaware, here’s a quick explanation from wikipedia: a normative statement is “meant to talk about the world as it should be”, while a descriptive statement is “meant to describe the world as it is”.
If we could read we would be very upset.
the most niche grammar nazi
i wasn’t trying to talk about grammar at all, i was only trying to focus only on the meaning of what was said. but i probably could’ve made my point more clearly, so ill try to do that now.
here’s an “example”: one person says “things should be done this way” and the other person says “well things aren’t being done that way”. these two statements aren’t in opposition to each other. in fact, it’s perfectly possible both people agree with each other. maybe things aren’t being done a certain way, and they should be done differently.
the terms “normative” and “descriptive” might seem overly complicated to someone who hasn’t seen them before (they did the first time i saw them), but i thought i’d use them because they’re useful concepts to keep in mind. they’ve helped me communicate and resolve conflicts in my own life. i’ve been both people in the example above, and it’s helpful to be able to know when it’s happening.
The most based discourse nazi, singlehandedly preventing what could become a 30 comment deep argument where both sides fully misunderstand the other
Lemmy cannot read one word of your comment
Edit I'm fuckin stupid, leaving this comment up as a monument to my illiteracy
Making a comment like this about basic conversation and debate concepts is like driving and saying you can't read the speed limit signs. Like, maybe you should avoid actively participating altogether until you're actually able to
Huh? My point was many Lemmy users very commonly reply to someone's descriptive comment with a normative complaint, and freak out when it's clarified.
Wow I misread Lemmy as literally, I fuckered that one up bad lmao
i made the same mistake you did the first time i read their comment. your confusion helped me too!