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A. Probably not, but if he was, it was probably through inaction.

B. Absolutely, but that wouldn't be enough. Sitting in an 8' by 10' cell with a small window for the next ~20 years of his life would be more fitting.

 Yodhrin wrote:
It really can't be more complicated that that

Sure it can.

I don’t think that as a matter of policy. I’m no advocate of vigilante justice. What I was referring to are situations where the system has broken down completely in the face of violence and corruption. A community has a right to defend itself no less so than an individual person. This is as far as I can tell a blessedly rare circumstance in this day and age. But then again the example I gave was from 1981, not the Old West.

From first hand experience in these institutions I’m gonna throw these thoughts out there:

- Federal law enforcement retirement is a pretty big motivator and people don’t throw their job away on a whim.
- Despite what people think, Epstein wasn’t the worst person in the federal prison system right now. feth, he wouldn’t even be the worst pedophile in the system right now. And in what seems like it must be a pretty shocking surprise to some, we actually don’t go around vigilante killing people we don’t like in our prisons. Heck, I’ve had 90,000 federal inmates rotating through my facility last year alone. Somehow nobody in my facility has managed to go vigilante in any of them, and we’ve get EVERYONE in the federal system here.
- Correctional Officers are also a gossiping bunch, and if this was a vigilante killing someone would have already bragged at the bar about it. If it was a contract hit there would have been so many people involved that it also wouldn’t be a secret anymore 8 hours after it happened.
- The most likely scenario, backed up my own experience, is that it is 98.796% most likely a case of “we can’t keep this place staffed, so work overtime until you fall over” that ended up being the main case that contributed to his suicide.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
From first hand experience in these institutions I’m gonna throw these thoughts out there:

- Federal law enforcement retirement is a pretty big motivator and people don’t throw their job away on a whim.
- Despite what people think, Epstein wasn’t the worst person in the federal prison system right now. feth, he wouldn’t even be the worst pedophile in the system right now. And in what seems like it must be a pretty shocking surprise to some, we actually don’t go around vigilante killing people we don’t like in our prisons. Heck, I’ve had 90,000 federal inmates rotating through my facility last year alone. Somehow nobody in my facility has managed to go vigilante in any of them, and we’ve get EVERYONE in the federal system here.
- Correctional Officers are also a gossiping bunch, and if this was a vigilante killing someone would have already bragged at the bar about it. If it was a contract hit there would have been so many people involved that it also wouldn’t be a secret anymore 8 hours after it happened.
- The most likely scenario, backed up my own experience, is that it is 98.796% most likely a case of “we can’t keep this place staffed, so work overtime until you fall over” that ended up being the main case that contributed to his suicide.

 d-usa wrote:
- The most likely scenario, backed up my own experience, is that it is 98.796% most likely a case of “we can’t keep this place staffed, so work overtime until you fall over” that ended up being the main case that contributed to his suicide.

To be clear, I agree with this 100%. The most likely explanation is simply incompetence in maintaining total control over a prisoner who would exploit any lapse in control to kill himself. I'm just saying that if, for some reason, you insist that it can't possibly be a mistake then "someone looked the other way while he killed himself because child-raping s" is much more believable than "the Clintons arranged his death before he could testify against them".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
I am curious how many here called (a) believe Epstein should have been killed by a vigilante (b) do you think the crimes for which he was charged merit the death penalty?

Previously, I thought we were discussing (a) but looking back over the comments above it seems closer to (b).

a) No. Perhaps if he had escaped punishment again and the system had demonstrated that it is unable to produce a just outcome when someone sufficiently rich and powerful is involved, but that's not where we were yet. And on a practical thought, the information he could have provided was still useful and it's unfortunate that it is gone. But I'm not going to shed any tears over someone making the world a better place by removing him from it, even if that action is not something that should be endorsed as general policy. And, more relevantly, I'm not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend that the only possible motive anyone could have for killing him (or looking the other way while he killed himself) is bribes from the Clintons.

b) Yes and no. His crimes were awful and I don't believe there's any realistic hope of rehabilitation. This wasn't an impulsive crime of passion or exceptional circumstances that are unlikely to happen again, it was calculated and organized rape of children and abusing his wealth and power to do it. On the other hand, there's the problem that imposing the death penalty for crimes other than murder just encourages rapists/robbers/etc to kill their victims and remove the potential witness since they're already facing the death penalty if they get caught and it can't get any worse.

 Manchu wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
It really can't be more complicated that that

Sure it can.

I don’t think that as a matter of policy. I’m no advocate of vigilante justice. What I was referring to are situations where the system has broken down completely in the face of violence and corruption. A community has a right to defend itself no less so than an individual person. This is as far as I can tell a blessedly rare circumstance in this day and age. But then again the example I gave was from 1981, not the Old West.

Well not to sound callous, but that has to be seen as "cost of doing business". Systems made by imperfect humans can never be perfect, that doesn't mean they aren't orders of magnitude superior to the alternatives - what happens when a community "defends itself" and a relative of the scumbag they kill off takes umbrage and plots revenge? Which may well prompt that community to "defend itself" again. Etc, etc, etc.

Not to mention that if you permit that kind of thinking to become tolerated, what happens when a community decides it has a right to "defend itself" from the presence of gay people, or black people, or atheists, or people who vote for a particular political party? You can make a perfectly well reasoned and rational argument about how none of those is the same, that none of those constitutes a "real' threat, but in the minds of some people they are a threat, and once you've established the principle that a community can "defend itself" outside of the law if they feel the law isn't protecting them fully, you don't have any control over how any given group chooses to interpret that principle's applicability to their own situation.

You personally might feel ambivalence towards or even outright support a given instance of vigilantism, but that doesn't mean it can ever be allowed to be "complicated" from the perspective of the justice system - murder has to be murder. Negligence has to be negligence. "But I think he was a badman" cannot be any kind of defence against those charges or you open the whole system up to personal interpretations of badness and what justifies killing.

Has anybody here attempted to stop a person from committing suicide? If not, good fething luck. When people get motivated about this particular thing, it is hard to stop. VERY hard. Think like "Oh my god did anybody check to see if she had toe rings on?!" sprinting back to the room to make sure. You have to think of every possibility before they do and even then you have to sit somebody with them 100% of the time if you are serious about it at all.

Having been on suicide watch several different times I can tell you that they are generally some of the most uncooperative people you will ever meet in your life and depending on the person they will get very physical with you about it. You have to take almost EVERYTHING away from them. Shoes, anything they could swallow and choke on, anything with an edge to it, or any way for them to get significant elevation. Those are just the things off the top of my head, I am sure I am missing a ton of stuff that would have to be removed.

Unless Epstein had two people in the cell with him at all times I am going to have a hard time believing any conspiracy theory. Especially when it deals with the underfunded and mismanaged Prison system we have in this country.

Would it shock me if it turned out this was a hit? Not at all. Do I think it is possible? I think it is highly unlikely.

I’d really recommend you take a look at the link I posted earlier.

The criminal justice system is nothing more than the institutionalized form of a community’s self defense. When that system sufficiently breaks down, the community still has the right to defend itself — this is the exact same right upon which the institutions themselves were set up; not a contrary principle. In such a circumstance, it’s not a matter of someone having to answer; certainly not “the law,” which absent the reality given to it by the consent of the governed is, after all, just an abstraction. In these cases, everyone involved must only answer to every other person involved. There cannot be a “criminal conspiracy” involving virtually every member of a given society; that would just be called government.

This is pretty much what happened in Skidmore, MO, back in 1981. Trena was the only person in town who objected.

“What about if a mob attacks X or Y” type arguments are actually about a different matter. Racist lynchings, for example, did not target lawless individuals who made the peaceable co-existence of lawful society impossible.

 d-usa wrote:

- The most likely scenario, backed up my own experience, is that it is 98.796% most likely a case of “we can’t keep this place staffed, so work overtime until you fall over” that ended up being the main case that contributed to his suicide.

And incidently the guards watching him had been on serious overtime work before the event...

Conspiracy theories just overcomplicates things just for sake of overcomplicating things.

 Manchu wrote:
I am curious how many here called (a) believe Epstein should have been killed by a vigilante (b) do you think the crimes for which he was charged merit the death penalty?

No and no.

tneva82 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

- The most likely scenario, backed up my own experience, is that it is 98.796% most likely a case of “we can’t keep this place staffed, so work overtime until you fall over” that ended up being the main case that contributed to his suicide.

And incidently the guards watching him had been on serious overtime work before the event...

Conspiracy theories just overcomplicates things just for sake of overcomplicating things.

So. Given most U.S. prisons are run for profit, it was corporate America that killed him. However, unlike the theories, it wasn't through malicious conspiracy. Just through greedy incompetence.

I'm sure the blame of which will be put on the shoulders of overstretched workers and maybe their managers. Responsibility will not be put to those pushing so hard for profits that managers are forced to overwork their staff or staff and management lose their jobs. It's blackmail; increase profitability by 10% or lose your livelihood.

Hierarchical systematic problems unveiling further hierarchical systemic problems. With such debasement and greed, feeding off the people, it is easy to see how the vampire myth of those in power came to be.

I think the concern here stems from the UK's very own Operation Yewtree.

Here's a link to the Wiki (salt to hand if you please) for those unfamiliar with it

To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, no such watershed has yet occurred in the US. So when someone seemingly incredibly very guilty suddenly manages to 'conveniently' top themselves, one can understand why eyebrows are raised, and accusations made.

Who did he die to protect? Quite possibly, just himself. Didn't fancy a long stretch in Prison. Could be he was assassinated. Could just be a stairwell bashing for his alleged crimes being covered up by the Authorities.

nareik wrote:
So. Given most U.S. prisons are run for profit, it was corporate America that killed him. However, unlike the theories, it wasn't through malicious conspiracy. Just through greedy incompetence.

Form what I have seen I don't know that the MCC is a private for profit prison.



Also, some of this thread kinda read that due process is out of favor.

The criminal justice system is nothing more than A. N. Other repressive ideological state apparatus.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
The criminal justice system is nothing more than A. N. Other repressive ideological state apparatus.

Considering the states one is mostly run by corporations, how can you really state that it is a repressive state apparatus?

I cannot speak for Switzerland, but in none of the U.S., U.K. or Canada is the criminal justice system administered by anyone but the state. The state also sets the rules and sets the sanction for breaking those rules.

For profit 'corrections' corporations exist, but aren't part of the criminal justice system. Courts, judges, public defenders etc. etc are.

While people are angered by pedophilia I don't think I ever saw anyone call Epstein the worst prisoner in the prison system. The issue seems to be more that he was probably the most connected at the upper levels in prison. That level of networking has made this entire event (even more) political in nature, which is also why I'm surprised this thread isn't locked tbh. Even POTUS was recently tweeting conspiracy theories about it.

As if that's extraordinary and his defining.characgeristic isn't unhinged, swivel-eyed rants on the Twitters.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I cannot speak for Switzerland, but in none of the U.S., U.K. or Canada is the criminal justice system administered by anyone but the state. The state also sets the rules and sets the sanction for breaking those rules.

For profit 'corrections' corporations exist, but aren't part of the criminal justice system. Courts, judges, public defenders etc. etc are.

For proffit correction corporations are by that margine, atleast to me, part of the "Repressive" judical system.
I don't split off the speaker of law from executioner of law.
But that is semantics and hinges upon definition and principles that the state in question follows imo.

The whole thing feels like the plot from a season of Daredevil.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I cannot speak for Switzerland, but in none of the U.S., U.K. or Canada is the criminal justice system administered by anyone but the state. The state also sets the rules and sets the sanction for breaking those rules.

For profit 'corrections' corporations exist, but aren't part of the criminal justice system. Courts, judges, public defenders etc. etc are.

For proffit correction corporations are by that margine, atleast to me, part of the "Repressive" judical system.
I don't split off the speaker of law from executioner of law.
But that is semantics and hinges upon definition and principles that the state in question follows imo.

Properly, the penal system is an entirely different repressive ideological state apparatus.

Personally it seems awfully convenient that he partook with "Exit".

However okhams razor and such.

 ScarletRose wrote:
How is this not a political topic?

Why does it matter? Just let people talk about the things they wish to discuss. If it isn't something that one finds interesting, one can always go to one of the other threads strung across this whole website?

Anyways,

I hate to see humans celebrating the death of another human, no matter how vile they might have been. It always sickens me. This man was deeply troubled, committed terrible atrocities and was generally an awful person. Sometimes it is hard to process just how sick someone can be.

Hey if you are surprised about what happened, imagine how surprised Epstein was!

 Excommunicatus wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I cannot speak for Switzerland, but in none of the U.S., U.K. or Canada is the criminal justice system administered by anyone but the state. The state also sets the rules and sets the sanction for breaking those rules.

For profit 'corrections' corporations exist, but aren't part of the criminal justice system. Courts, judges, public defenders etc. etc are.

For proffit correction corporations are by that margine, atleast to me, part of the "Repressive" judical system.
I don't split off the speaker of law from executioner of law.
But that is semantics and hinges upon definition and principles that the state in question follows imo.

Properly, the penal system is an entirely different repressive ideological state apparatus.

The penal system is a subset of the criminal justice system. Criminal justice covers everything from investigation through to parole and offender management.

Maybe to a layperson.

Not in actuality though.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Maybe to a layperson.

Not in actuality though.

Soooo. Prisoners managment falls under what category then?
Not state supervised but done by privates? (USA)

Because that would imply that basic rule of law would just go poof and the monopoly of pwer of the state breakdown....

 Togusa wrote:
How is this not a political topic?

Why does it matter?

 Togusa wrote:
Just let people talk about the things they wish to discuss. If it isn't something that one finds interesting, one can always go to one of the other threads strung across this whole website?

Because Off Topic has rules and one of them is that political posts are not allowed; this isn't esoteric.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
How is this not a political topic?

Why does it matter?

 Togusa wrote:
Just let people talk about the things they wish to discuss. If it isn't something that one finds interesting, one can always go to one of the other threads strung across this whole website?

Because Off Topic has rules and one of them is that political posts are not allowed; this isn't esoteric.

I'm aware of the dumb rule.

 d-usa wrote:

- Despite what people think, Epstein wasn’t the worst person in the federal prison system right now. feth, he wouldn’t even be the worst pedophile in the system right now. And in what seems like it must be a pretty shocking surprise to some, we actually don’t go around vigilante killing people we don’t like in our prisons. Heck, I’ve had 90,000 federal inmates rotating through my facility last year alone. Somehow nobody in my facility has managed to go vigilante in any of them, and we’ve get EVERYONE in the federal system here.

Epstein isn't the worst of the worst here... but, he's certainly probably the most explosive case in politics and culture in quite a long time.

The fact that the government didn't treat it as such is troubling as the victims would want the full justice meted out, as well as civil recompense.

Managing the penal system is still a state responsibility, but in practice large parts of it (at least in the U.S. and U.K.) are subcontracted out to private firms.