Your video, Jeff Ross Roasts Inmates at Brazos County Jail, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Rich people aren't (for the most part) rich because they're smart.

Most of them are rich because their parents were rich, or they have no conscience (or likely, both). You think Paris and Conrad Hilton are smart? You think Donald Trump is smart?

It's not hard work, it's not intelligence. People mostly get rich by sheer callousness and luck.

There was a study a few years ago, where they tested prison inmates for psycho pathologies associated with criminal behavior. They then tested six and seven-figure earning executives.

The executives had over twice the rate of criminal-associated pathologies.

California's prisons are unconstitutionally overcrowded, yet court orders to expand its parole program were resisted by state lawyers on the grounds that slave labour is a key element of the state's efforts to fight wildfires.

"Perverse incentives" -- no shit, Sherlock.

when one of your first posts on this site is admitting that you don't give a shit about this community and that you admit that your sole purpose here is to push your Jesus agenda on the site, that tends to not win you too many friends.

Virtually everyone on this site has multiple facets to their personalty, like different things, talk about different subjects, do different things....

....whereas you are completely, utterly, fanatically focused on one...and one subject only. That tends to not win you any friends here.

...when your response to every question is to quote the bible instead of use any rational discourse. That tends to not win you any friends here.

in other words, you dug your own grave. You brought it on yourself. You've made poor decisions

you can spin it into your own persecution fantasy as you have before, but that's between you and your psychiatrist or your invisible sky daddy

But as @ChaosEngine has pointed out, since no punishments or administrative actions have happened. all the whining and persecution fantasies are just that.

It's getting to the point where I can't blame the inmates anymore for taking over the asylum when the warden is asleep at the wheel and refuses to enforce their own rules.

Once again, we see another user blatantly violate the rules....and nothing happens which proves my earlier point.

There have been rumblings for a long while now that the sift is in dire straits and we're seeing the fall of rome here. In this thread alone, we've had yet another user get fed up and abandon the sinking ship.

As for why the video itself isn't getting more attention. There are numerous sifts where the discussion has evolved far beyond the original video and took on a life of it's own. If you were an actual member of this community instead of a Bible Quote Robot, you would know that.

There are lots of things about this site you probably don't know because you've decided to be a One Note Charlie

I hope you enjoy the inmates running the asylum.

@Jerykk
i cant make heads nor tails what you are trying to convey.
are you making an argument for harsher prisons?
or an assertion that if they were less harsh people would WANT to go to prison?
that recidivism is irrelevant so we should just execute prisoners?

i agree that poverty leads to desperation which can lead to criminal activity.there is plenty of statistics to back that up,though interestingly those numbers are dropping in regards to poverty=crime.

as for your deterrence argument.
yeah..no.the numbers obviously dont add up.
right now there are more american citizens incarcerated than the soviet gulags of the 80's.in fact,america incarcerates more citizens per capita than any other nation in the world.

americas prison population=2.4 million..and rising.

which leads me to my next point.
what is the purpose of prison?
well,it should be to remove those violent elements from society and for the offenders who are non-violent a way to pay a debt to the society they betrayed (fill in the offense here ____).

when their time has been served (paid) then they are free to rejoin society and reintegrate themselves back into society.

but what if that system of punishment strips you of all dignity and humanity?treats you like an abandoned dog at the local animal shelter?physically beaten and spiritually shattered,just HOW to you rejoin normal society?

what then?
do you blame the inmate who was thrown into a inhumane system?or maybe..juuuuust maybe..it may be the SYSTEM which is the blame.

let us look at some stats shall we?
the private prison industry is the 9th largest lobbiest in the country.who lobby for stricter sentencing,zero tolerance and mandatory jail time.a new trend in this area is now regarding teens AND pre-teens.they also make contracts with the local government to have a certain % occupancy.(meaning that even if those beds are not filled,the company STILL gets paid).

and lets not forget those kick backs to the local judges.already 25 judges this year got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

the idea that prison is a deterrence has been debunked.
there are over 5000 federal laws NOT including state and local.so at any given time,in any given day,YOU have perpetrated a federal crime.

the idea the prison is for rehabilitation is utter bullshit,another liberal feel-good "look at the good we are doing" trope.

prison is a business.
based on the mafia principle.
it is about making the poor a commodity and exploiting their lack of resources to fight back.
recidivism?
thats just repeat customers.american prisons care zippo about recidivism.

again i reference the milgram experiment.
treat people like animals and they will soon behave like animals.
treat them with humanity and dignity and the outcome is far more positive for a society as a whole..we ALL benefit.

but the private prisons dont want that..it means less profit for them.

the norden is doing it right and the results are impressive.

@lucky760
um...what?
inmates are wild animals?

i guess i could get on board with your opinion if the parameters were exclusively directed toward extremely violent psycho/sociopaths.

otherwise your comment makes no sense.
2.4 million inmates in american prisons.the majority for non-violent offenses (think pot smokers),70% are non-white and to singularly lump them all as somehow being "wild animals" unworthy of participating in normal society,reveals a serious lack of understanding.

the american penal system dehumanizes and has zippo to do with rehabilitation OR corrections.
which is why i referenced the milgram experiment.

treat someone with humanity,even if they are paying a debt to society,and the results will always be a better outcome than what we do to prisoners here in the states.

the american penal system is a racket,a business.it commodifies the poor and those not deemed "of value" and its a travesty.something we should all be ashamed of,not celebrating.

Guards have the power to make it what they wish. Inmates do not. The guards choose to make it gross, dehumanizing, and worse. We should NOT feel sad or understanding for them, as they did it to themselves intentionally. Feel sad for the one's with 0 power to control the situation, less and less control over their own actions and surroundings, and the one's that are the victims of the system they didn't set up, not the one's perpetrating and perpetuating the one sided system set up to punish and control rather than correct and re-habilitate. Not the one's that lobby to create MORE prisoners for smaller and smaller crimes, including the crime of poverty.
BTW....boring is NOT more humane in most cases. Lack of stimulation leads to psychosis, behavior problems, and does absolutely nothing to re-habilitate. "Idle hands are the devil's tools..." and such. Just look at any study of what happens to those in solitary, a normal 'boring' type of imprisonment today. You don't get well adjusted citizens from that, you get angry, violent, paranoid, psychotic people out of that....and they go right back in. It's perfect for the prisons, but not for anyone else. I think private prisons should have to pay back part of their 'fees' if a prisoner re-offends. (EDIT: or better yet, they should have to re-imprison them for free, since they failed the first time and 'created' the re-offender by not re-habilitating them. Guaranteed, it would change overnight if that was the case.) It means they failed completely in re-habilitation, a large part of what they're paid for, and so they should not be paid in full.
'Would rather live out west'?....as opposed to living in prison? Um...yeah, I think most people would choose that.

Prison is no utopia for either guard or inmate. It is gross, dehumanizing and worse. If we take that into context, in theory, we should feel sad and understanding for both sides. Guards, like convicts, snap and is it any wonder why?

Also, the jails where I live are quiet, calm, boring. Oh the inmates hate it. It is actually funny to hear how boring it is and that they would rather live out West or somewhere. Like, really? (Boring means more humane btw.)

I think the bigger issue is not with difference in the facility that's housing inmates, it's the inmates themselves. That and the difference in the number of inmates being housed.

Prisons in America are filled with the closest that human beings can be to wild animals where their primal instincts guide most of their actions at all times. It's a cultural problem, in that such people are also like that before going to prison, so if they were placed into a luxurious retreat as shown in this video, it wouldn't work except with a small subset of prisoners.

Wild animals don't care much about being civil or civilized because that would mean demonstrating weakness, and a man in that position cannot afford to be made to look weak (as Mr. Woltz kind of said in The Godfather).

The primary goal of most prisoners in America with relation to everyone around them is to ensure they are perceived as tough. That means 10 prisoners sharing a living area will only be peaceful as long as it takes for someone to feel someone else is looking at them in a manner they dislike or until one guy bumps into another or one guy simply wants to assert his dominance as an alpha male by beating or shanking or raping another guy.

I don't think American prisoners need to be caged and punished like animals, just that when violent American criminals are being imprisoned, what you're doing in most cases is caging animals, regardless of how well or poorly the cage is designed.

'You are here because of your actions, don't blame the corrections dept, or the cops, or the judge...'
He intentionally ignores the fact that the corrections dept is the largest lobbying group in Washington and lobbies for more draconian laws and mandatory sentences because that's how they make money. No inmates, no dough.

'You gave up your rights by committing murder....committing rape....'
He intentionally ignores the fact that most convicts are in prison for non-violent drug crimes, not murder, not rape, not violent crime at all.

'This is prison utopia...for the inmates.'
He seems too dense and set in his 'us VS them' mentality to see that it's prison utopia for the guards too, and society in the long run because this prison doesn't create violent criminals, it creates well adjusted citizens.

Imagine that, treating inmates like human beings, because we want them to act like human beings when they're released. And big surprise, it works! Not only less recidivism, but less problems while they're in the system as well.
Thanks to privatization and profitization of prisons and lobbying by prison guard unions, and a mindset by so many that all 'criminals' are sub-humans that don't deserve proper treatment, we'll never see this in the USA.

There already are reasonable restrictions.

(I can't really ask to be exempt from laws that don't even exist. But I can ask for those new laws to not be written.)

Consider this.
Maybe /you/ are not special.
Maybe /you/ are not in this world to do with other people's lives how /you/ see fit.
Maybe /you/ should take the very advice you would give to violent offenders, and just leave people in peace.


Yes, this country has clusterfuckish problems.
But guns are not the cause.

We have a very high percentage of uneducated people. For example, my high school, in one of the nicest areas of the entire country, with the super easy U.S. curriculum, with the super relaxed and curved U.S. grading policy, 30% of kids that entered never graduated. And that's one of the better examples in the country.

The problem isn't even the education system. It's cultural. Kids show up to socialize, and smart kids get made fun of. Often they have no parental pressure to perform either. No amount of money can fix that kind of schooling, because it's not a schooling problem.

They don't just miss out on an education that helps them obtain gainful employment. The concepts of empathy and solidarity are essentially omitted.

There is a proverbial horde out there, many under strong financial pressures. Having the same consumer impulses that most people here have, they resort to augmenting their incomes with questionable activities.

The median *individual* income in the U.S. is around 26k / year. Half the population makes less than that... The cheapest unassisted rent in my area is ~800/month. Go to new york, and you could be paying 1600/month each with 3 other people for a rat hole. After water, electricity, food, fuel, you'd be wiped out. Any emergency (broken down car, medical expenses, whatever), and you are in the hole.

The nice areas you see on TV are a minority. Most of the country is a po-dunk shit hole, full of people that get desperate the moment things go bad. Which leads to restricted activities, and that tends to lead to violent encounters.

We have a very high percentage of arrested/jailed people.
When you're arrested, even if not convicted, you're not acceptable by a large proportion of jobs. The police even call your employer right away to let them know you've been arrested. You are essentially marked.

Like I said, 1 in 18 men are in the system. That's a LOT of people. Other than those on parole, they aren't working. Those that are working aren't making much money (on account of the undereducation and arrest record), and will likely be back in the system.

BTW, more than half of them are in jail for an activity that never even involved another person.
Most are there for harmless stuff.

Once these people do get out of jail, if they weren't already under financial pressure, they likely now are, and will stand a good chance at reinforcing the problem population.

(eg. Person with their life more or less in order goes to jail for having a bag of drugs, then they get out, can't get a job, and they need to resort to sketchy crap to make ends meet. Maybe get into violence, but often just return to jail.)

But, it's not by accident. Our jails are for-profit, with people in government making money from the jailing industry. Either by campaign contributions, lobbying, or by having financial stake in the companies.

The most self-serving thing the government can do, is keep the problem going, and tell people that they should rely on the government to fix it by getting tough. Then the govies make money on the jailing side, and they reinforce their public mandate.

The jailing companies themselves put inmates to work making cheap goods (ever bought a t-shirt that was made in the U.S.? It was probably inmate labor.), and then 'charge the inmates rent', effectively paying them a penny a day. Modern slavery.

All along the way, the taxpayers are paying the bills, and it's just a giant trough to feed from.

I hope you can imagine why I'm averse to making more ways to jail people that aren't being a problem.

It's also why I'm inclined to make drugs legal (pretty much try Portugal's approach). So as to bring that trade into the light, and end the gangster turf wars (which are a high proportion of the gun violence).

A lot of this could be fixed long-term by social engineering, using media to elevate the prestige of education and productivity. But we know that that is not going to happen when there is no money to be made on it.

-scheherazade

More philosophical wank citing junk analogies (lol, blowing up peoples houses with them still inside = drunken manslaughter in a bar fight?) to justify a position directly contradicted by people who should know...

http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-auschwitz-borders-revisited/7847

"The late Tommy Lapid, justice minister in Ariel Sharon’s government, caused an uproar in 2004 when he said that images of an elderly Palestinian woman in Gaza “crouching on all fours, searching for her medicines in the ruins of her house” demolished by the Israeli army reminded him of his own grandmother who perished at Auschwitz. Lapid compared the Israeli army’s writing of numbers on the arms and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners to the Nazi practice of tattooing concentration camp inmates. “As a refugee from the Holocaust I find such an act insufferable,” he said in 2002."

"Lapid, who was chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, also likened the routine harassment of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron to the anti-Semitism of pre-World War II Europe. “It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora bitter before they began to kill us,” he said in 2007, “but persecution, harassment, stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and scorn.” Lapid did not live long enough to see Hebron settlers attempt to burn down a house with a large Palestinian family trapped inside, an act witnessed on 4 December by Avi Issacharoff, reporter for the Israeli daily Haaretz, who called it “a pogrom in the worst sense of the word.”

or perhaps:

http://youtu.be/qMGuYjt6CP8

"Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town a German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."

He said the claim that many of the Palestinian victims were militants "was the reply of the Nazi" and added: "I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."

I'll take the word of people who lived through the Holocaust and the formation of Israel over you... = P

Not to speculate, but the bitch who mentions the sugar seems like a lawsuit chaser. Or at least vindictive and ready to lie. Like finding a finger in a McDonald's burger...oh wait that belonged to the people trying to sue McDonald's. The hard part is that the prison can't defend itself if this isn't true. People won't believe them anyways.

John Oliver sure as hell didn't need any proof to suck her tits. (And abdominal wounds do tend to ooze...just saying...)

In fact his blatant discrimination shows itself when he attacks the guy who made a joke--yeah the joke was tasteless, but it was made to emphasis a point, which it absolutely did. Did John make note of the valid point? That inmates sometimes lie? Fuck no. Did the other guy take a more balanced position, even admitting that some inmates claims are true? Yeah.