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Didn't we have like two trustee's escape awhile back. In New York. One killed and one badly wounded before he crossed the Canadian border...

I work at a max security state prison in PA for juvenile delinquents and I teach the kids how to fly tie. If they get their off grounds privileges I take them fishing all the time. I take them steelhead fishing in the fall, trout fishing in the spring and even take them ice fishing in the winter. I always thought about teaching a few of them how to play warmachine but I'm not sure if I can talk the state into spending the money. I'm not allowed to bring anything in to the facility so bringing my own stuff is not a option.

 Verviedi wrote:
The vast majority of prisoners in the USA are in for nonviolent crimes such as marijuana possession or tax evasion.

Do you have stats for tax evasion and marijuana possession accounting for the percentage you claim?

Relapse wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
The vast majority of prisoners in the USA are in for nonviolent crimes such as marijuana possession or tax evasion.

Do you have stats for tax evasion and marijuana possession accounting for the percentage you claim?

Talk about a major derailment and gripefest that would slide into a 2nd Amendment debate, police brutality, police murderer's getting away and all kinds of testy subjects that would come into play

This is 40K....in prison..

Relapse wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
The vast majority of prisoners in the USA are in for nonviolent crimes such as marijuana possession or tax evasion.

Do you have stats for tax evasion and marijuana possession accounting for the percentage you claim?

Depends if we're talking federal or state. You'd have to dig for really clear breakdowns but the trends are generally known. While "Vast Majority" is certainly hyberbole you've got more non-violent offenders than violent ones, at least for the specific crimes they're in for. I'm gonna dig deep for it but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States wrote:7.9% of sentenced prisoners in federal prisons on September 30, 2009 were in for violent crimes.[22] 52.4% of sentenced prisoners in state prisons at year end 2008 were in for violent crimes.[22] 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails in 2002 (latest available data by type of offense) were in for violent crimes. Among unconvicted inmates in jails in 2002, 34% had a violent offense as the most serious charge. 41% percent of convicted and unconvicted jail inmates in 2002 had a current or prior violent offense; 46% were nonviolent recidivists. [26]

While it isn't necessarily marijuana specifically the 80s/90s drug scare tactics did a lot to harden america's "You gotta be tough on crime" stance even further with a lot of mandatory minimum laws. This causes a bit of pileup as holding all the murders and rapists for 25+ has certain demands, holding all the folks who get caught with pockets full drugs is another much bigger task. It's not like there was room for judicial discretion in this. If you're a small time facilitator of a local drug operation let's say you distribute to 5 dudes you know who sell a little on the side, that's life without parole in Alabama if you have any priors.

And we're off

My slip. Apologies.

Doesn't this fall under "art therapy"? Shouldn't those kinds of supplies be stored under lock and key when not in use for therapeutic purposes? Also....wtf is a prisoner doing with a TV or a game console?

There are only 2 acceptable courses for prisoners, imo...

1. Engage in daily, disciplined self improvement with the goal of becoming a better member of society.
2. Live in abject misery.

Art therapy helps with the first. Xbox helps with neither.

Even prisoners still have Rights and what not. Nothing been stripped of them. I'm a firm believer in Correction Actions but there are limits one can go for Corrective Actions. Even as harden as I am that's a line I would not cross. Even those who are illegal here and being held by ICE before Deportation have the same Rights as those who are US Citizen and Incarcerated.

 Verviedi wrote:
To be honest, American prisons are a horrorscape. Instead of focusing on turning criminals into productive members of society, they are designed to maximize incarceration rates, to allow the corporations running the prisons (More of Our Corporate Overlords) to make more money.

There are some folks in prison that shouldn't be there. There are some decent people who get wrapped up in awful mistakes and doing their time and reforming. There are a lot of folks who really are in for simple possession of controlled substance, with no real intent to distribute any more than is needed to fund a personal habit (with a few perks). Most of the time, you feel genuinely sad when you hear these folk's stories.

There is also a huge portion of the prison population made up of people who are savage and self serving to a degree that most of us cannot even comprehend. They cannot be turned into productive members of society because they have no desire to become productive members of society. They take what they want, when they want, from who they want. They will kill you over pride and ego, imagine what they would do for monetary gain. Never forget that the institution of prisoners, much like the institution of policing, is a reflection of the society from which it comes.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

There is also a huge portion of the prison population made up of people who are savage and self serving to a degree that most of us cannot even comprehend. They cannot be turned into productive members of society because they have no desire to become productive members of society. They take what they want, when they want, from who they want. They will kill you over pride and ego, imagine what they would do for monetary gain. Never forget that the institution of prisoners, much like the institution of policing, is a reflection of the society from which it comes.

If you were to give a description of the average criminal that "most us cannot comprehend" what's the picture of that in your mind? What's he in for? What were the basic circumstances of the crime? What was trial like? Ya know "Just the facts Ma'am" sort of stuff. If it's too hard to think of one give us two or three sort of conceptual generalizations. We'll assume you're not talking about serial killers here or other such particular rare folks. The examples have to be drawn from folks who'd actually make a substantive ("Huge Portion") part of the prison population.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I'm not the one assuming they did some terrible thing to someone. Of course it matters the crime they committed. There's a big difference between theft/vandalism and murder. They already work full time and they're being educated. Prison is rehabilitation as much as punishment. I doubt there'd be any kind of consideration to their wanting a hobby if they were a violent criminal, or had done something terrible. Even if they had, if they've been in prison for a long time and shown good behaviour why can't they have a little hobby to pass the time? Yeah you should lose certain rights if you commit a crime, especially a serious one, but should you never be able to earn them back? What even is the point in prison then, if not to rehabilitate people? Prison shouldn't be fun but it's not like they'd be gaming 24/7, they have a job, and they're learning.

And again, if what they'd done was so terrible, the prisons main worry wouldn't be 'they might sniff the glue'.

Again why should they get these perks ? This is the price you paid for committing crimes. If the crime wasn't that big of an issue then you need to take that up with the laws set in place. So back to what I said again ? What happens to the Victims ? Modeling is a Hobby not rehabilitation. Yes, they can get there stuff back after they serve their time. There is an old saying. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.". You cannot change this based on the merits of this law system in place that put them their but, don't trey to play them as the victim. Because they are not.

 Sammoth wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
I'm not the one assuming they did some terrible thing to someone. Of course it matters the crime they committed. There's a big difference between theft/vandalism and murder. They already work full time and they're being educated. Prison is rehabilitation as much as punishment. I doubt there'd be any kind of consideration to their wanting a hobby if they were a violent criminal, or had done something terrible. Even if they had, if they've been in prison for a long time and shown good behaviour why can't they have a little hobby to pass the time? Yeah you should lose certain rights if you commit a crime, especially a serious one, but should you never be able to earn them back? What even is the point in prison then, if not to rehabilitate people? Prison shouldn't be fun but it's not like they'd be gaming 24/7, they have a job, and they're learning.

And again, if what they'd done was so terrible, the prisons main worry wouldn't be 'they might sniff the glue'.

Again why should they get these perks ? This is the price you paid for committing crimes. If the crime wasn't that big of an issue then you need to take that up with the laws set in place. So back to what I said again ? What happens to the Victims ? Modeling is a Hobby not rehabilitation. Yes, they can get there stuff back after they serve their time. There is an old saying. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.". You cannot change this based on the merits of this law system in place that put them their but, don't trey to play them as the victim. Because they are not.

A criminal can absolutely be a victim as well though labeling them as such in this particular case would likely be an overstatement. That said even assuming you don't buy into the idea that punishment for punishment's sake isn't some noble goal, from a practical standpoint we're still probably better served by erring on the side of permissiveness and high QoL during correctional sentences.

You lock someone in a tiny shithole box, with little entertainment, limited avenues of stress relief, and non-existent levels of agency and you're just going to get out someone more jaded, with less impulse control and less invested in society than when they entered. Even a law-abiding, even tempered citizen would be more likely to come out unproductive than productive in that situation. That you allowed them vocational training or the like would probably relatively immaterial. Seriously think of yourself in that position for a moment. How would you be feeling, what would your perspective be at the end? Now obviously we don't put law-abiding citizens in prison... hopefully..., but it's a good way to get a frame reference for what that might do to somebody who for whatever reason (and there are a lot of different complex reasons), was already inclined to break the law.

On the other hand consider a situation where you're held to normalcy or at least reasonable model thereof. Your conditions and expectations of you more/less reflect what we want out of people on the outside. When you're in compliance the reactions and rewards to that behavior mirror the benefits that we all get for being law abiding citizens out in the general population. That's going to be far more likely to produce a healthy mindset and untrain poor learned behaviors. When you look at some of the justice systems that do the best in terms recidivism rates and overall criminality they tend to be the more humane and permissive ones "Forgiving" even, if you wanna use that term. Which isn't to say we wanna let criminals run around doing whatever the hell they want, whenever they want it. However, the conditions we force them into and demand compliance with should probably reflect the way we want them to live on the outside. This would include things deciding for yourself when you get take dump or use a shower, getting real returns on honest work which you can can exchange for things like miniatures or video games or whatever.

When someone breaks their legs, the rehabilitation to teach them how to walk is not to confine them to a chair and talk to them how important walking is. You gotta give them support and a shot at doing that. You're not going to create productive members of society by stripping them of everywhere we have in society and going "You sure shouldn't have done that crime" it just won't work.

A scene from the Shawshank Redemption comes to mind:

 Jihadin wrote:
Didn't we have like two trustee's escape awhile back. In New York. One killed and one badly wounded before he crossed the Canadian border...

Yes and no, I'd say. There was indeed a prison break in NY a while back, and yeah, they were trustees, but I think it's more reasonable to say it was because they were hooking up with a female prison employee and she and another prison employee gave them equipment to assist with the breakout (hacksaw blades, drill bits, screwdrivers, pliers, etc).

So while the point that "trustees aren't always" is fair, this was sort of an unusual example; as even trustees shouldn't had access to the stuff they had.


So far as the topic, I'd have no problem with 40k for prisoners who have earned it. At least in the US, we've tried being "tough on crime" for a while and it's really not worked out super well. I'd like to try meaningful rehabilitation for a while and see how that works out.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
To be honest, American prisons are a horrorscape. Instead of focusing on turning criminals into productive members of society, they are designed to maximize incarceration rates, to allow the corporations running the prisons (More of Our Corporate Overlords) to make more money.

There are some folks in prison that shouldn't be there. There are some decent people who get wrapped up in awful mistakes and doing their time and reforming. There are a lot of folks who really are in for simple possession of controlled substance, with no real intent to distribute any more than is needed to fund a personal habit (with a few perks). Most of the time, you feel genuinely sad when you hear these folk's stories.

I thought only the outcomes matter for you


EDIT : Hm, my English seems broken. Matter, mattered... I forgot

 Sammoth wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
I'm not the one assuming they did some terrible thing to someone. Of course it matters the crime they committed. There's a big difference between theft/vandalism and murder. They already work full time and they're being educated. Prison is rehabilitation as much as punishment. I doubt there'd be any kind of consideration to their wanting a hobby if they were a violent criminal, or had done something terrible. Even if they had, if they've been in prison for a long time and shown good behaviour why can't they have a little hobby to pass the time? Yeah you should lose certain rights if you commit a crime, especially a serious one, but should you never be able to earn them back? What even is the point in prison then, if not to rehabilitate people? Prison shouldn't be fun but it's not like they'd be gaming 24/7, they have a job, and they're learning.

And again, if what they'd done was so terrible, the prisons main worry wouldn't be 'they might sniff the glue'.

Again why should they get these perks ? This is the price you paid for committing crimes. If the crime wasn't that big of an issue then you need to take that up with the laws set in place. So back to what I said again ? What happens to the Victims ? Modeling is a Hobby not rehabilitation. Yes, they can get there stuff back after they serve their time. There is an old saying. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.". You cannot change this based on the merits of this law system in place that put them their but, don't trey to play them as the victim. Because they are not.

I didn't play them as a victim, I 'played them' as a human. I'm not saying give them 'perks', they aren't getting any extra rights or anything. You seem intent on just punishing people for punishments sake, which really isn't the point in prison. Why even have prisons in that case, why not just execute every criminal? Why should they have the 'perk' of life?

It's about rehabilitation, which ain't gonna happen if you just leave people to rot in a box. I would almost say I doubt victims of things such as burglary would really care if the people who committed the burglary are building models in prison. They're still in prison. And I say that as someone who knows people who have been victims of such crimes.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
To be honest, American prisons are a horrorscape. Instead of focusing on turning criminals into productive members of society, they are designed to maximize incarceration rates, to allow the corporations running the prisons (More of Our Corporate Overlords) to make more money.

There are some folks in prison that shouldn't be there. There are some decent people who get wrapped up in awful mistakes and doing their time and reforming. There are a lot of folks who really are in for simple possession of controlled substance, with no real intent to distribute any more than is needed to fund a personal habit (with a few perks). Most of the time, you feel genuinely sad when you hear these folk's stories.

There is also a huge portion of the prison population made up of people who are savage and self serving to a degree that most of us cannot even comprehend. They cannot be turned into productive members of society because they have no desire to become productive members of society. They take what they want, when they want, from who they want. They will kill you over pride and ego, imagine what they would do for monetary gain. Never forget that the institution of prisoners, much like the institution of policing, is a reflection of the society from which it comes.

As a Christian I don't believe any human is beyond hope or reform of character. Our prison systems in both the U.S. And U.K are supposed to be based on this premise.

 Sammoth wrote:

Again why should they get these perks ?

Because hopefully it'll make them a better member of society when they come out? If they have an interest which involves patience, care, respect and pride in their work, they'll carry that mindset onwards. You may find that by giving them a decent source of escapism they'll do that when they are out instead of going back to whatever got them locked up in the first place. It gives them something positive to look forward to, and to talk about in job interviews and so on.

As said, locking them in a hellhole for years and letting them out expecting them to be anything but jaded and unemployable is only going to go one way.

Herzlos wrote:

 Sammoth wrote:

Again why should they get these perks ?

Because hopefully it'll make them a better member of society when they come out? To reduce reoffending and the cost to the public purse...........

There you go chum, I got that for you.

I have to say one of the major reasons for me not playing more carefree with the law for personal benefit would be the loss of models and the associated tools/sharp knives to clean/prep them with. Though that would be a devilish punishment; a 20 year stretch with mould lines/flash showing though paint work. I get shivers just thinking about it!

 notprop wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Sammoth wrote:

Again why should they get these perks ?

Because hopefully it'll make them a better member of society when they come out? To reduce reoffending and the cost to the public purse...........

There you go chum, I got that for you.

I have to say one of the major reasons for me not playing more carefree with the law for personal benefit would be the loss of models and the associated tools/sharp knives to clean/prep them with. Though that would be a devilish punishment; a 20 year stretch with mould lines/flash showing though paint work. I get shivers just thinking about it!

Ha ha ha! Until I read that article I thought a spell in the slammer was the only way I would ever get the pile of unpainted plastic put together. Was planning all sorts of dastardly dreads. Now I'm squeaky clean and modelling onwards!

Finally someone could have a use for the citadel mold line remover

My wife has often said painting model soldiers is a fit occupation for prisoners.

This proves her wrong!

Anyone running a company producing prepaint figures/models could do well utilizing cheap prison labor.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Anyone running a company producing prepaint figures/models could do well utilizing cheap prison labor.

That's frown upon

There's lots of people in lower security jails that aren't a safety risk, lots of people are in jail with non-violent sentences for possession, fraud, theft, dodging child supprt, drunk driving, etc. Those types of crimes don't make them into hardened killer criminals waiting to shank people at every opportunity. There are lots of jails that aren't anything close to super max facility. I've seen several documentaries about US prisons that have work or hobby programs for prisoners that do all sorts of stuff like auto body work, woodworking, or model building as a constructive way of passing time beside watching TV. In at least one prison they have people working on amazingly complex models of wooden sailing ships that the prisoners can sell at auction which allows them to buy small items or food in the prison.

It's certainly not a level of income that a job on the outside would offer, but it keeps them occupied and out of trouble. I think the biggest restriction on gaming would be on the amount of personal possessions that prisoners are allowed, a single model or two wouldn't be a problem but as most of us probably know very few gamers can make due with just an occasional model. We tend to need cases worth of stuff and boxes of terrain, even if the tables and terrain are provided by the store they still take up storage space somewhere and it's probably more than a jail would want to deal with, where allowing somebody to work on a single ship, or a tank model would be far less demanding.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I didn't play them as a victim, I 'played them' as a human.

Soft on crime! This guy's soft on crime!

 Ouze wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
I didn't play them as a victim, I 'played them' as a human.

Soft on crime! This guy's soft on crime!

I'm assuming you're joking, but in seriousness it depends on what they've done. But if this guy was some kind of violent insane criminal, like I said earlier, I doubt the prisons main concern would be that he might sniff the glue.

Whatever, you're soft on crime!

Haha