1y ago

Advocacy groups say Texas inmates are 'being cooked to death' in state prisons without air conditioning

www.usatoday.com

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240424120241/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/22/texas-prisons-inmates-air-conditioning-lawsuit/73419881007/

Texas @lemmy.world

FenrirIII @lemmy.world

1y ago

Advocacy groups say Texas inmates are 'being cooked to death' in state prisons without air conditioning

www.usatoday.com /story/news/nation/2024/04/22/texas-prisons-inmates-air-conditioning-lawsuit/73419881007/

24 comments

Somebody once said that if you want to know how free society is, you only have to look at how they treat their prisoners. When prisoners have rights, that means everyone in the society can be free. When prisoners are stripped of basic human rights, that means anyone can be imprisoned with out a legal or moral recourse.
- For anyone not aware:
  While the United States represents about 4.2 percent of the world's population,[5] it houses around 20 percent of the world's prisoners.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate
  How fucking insane is that?
  
  Land of the free, home of the enslaved
  
  To give just a little more perspective, the nation with the second highest, in terms of reported numbers of prisoners, is China. We lock up more individual people than the largest country on earth by a factor of almost 8 when comparing the two nations total population to their prison population.
  I guess US citizens are just the most criminal people on earth by a large factor..... /s
  
  Yep.
  For the "land of the free," we have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Singapore is at 156 (per 100k), Israel is at 168, Russia is at 300, Brazil is at 389, and USA is all the way up at 531.
Abbott: “uhh, nuh doy, they’re prisoners, you do the crime you do the time” [puts on cowboy hat, does wheelchair line dance, fires six-shooters into sky]
Absolutely nothing will be done about this and DeSantis is trying to one-up them by baking non incarcerated people alive
This has been a point of contention years here. Texas in general has very "loose" attitudes towards prisoner's rights. Even centrists and some liberals don't care about issues like this.
I don't think this will change unless we are forced by the federal government. Even then, the state government spent years fighting reforms to the CPS system, despite being in contempt of court the whole time.
- Even centrists and some liberals don’t care about issues like this.
  That's because Americans have been brainwashed to believe that if you're in prison, you're definitely guilty and if you're definitely guilty, you deserve whatever bad things happen to you in prison.
  Think about how many people, even people on Lemmy which has a pretty left-wing bent overall, make prison rape jokes when someone disliked ends up there.
  
  This has Puritanical/Evangelical Christian roots. If someone is suffering, then they must deserve it. Imprisoned? Must be an irredeemable criminal. Poor? You must be lazy or make frivolous decisions. Disabled? You probably aren't disciplined about your health.
  
  You’re absolutely right, and it’s deplorable. It’s like they think they’re immune to making a mistake, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time (or the wrong race according to law enforcement).
  Nations without barbaric prisons are successful in using incarceration as a means of forced rehabilitation. If you treat a person like an animal, they’ll eventually be forced to behave like one to survive.
Sounds cruel and unusual.
- They will get right on that after the solve the speedy trial problem.
I lived in a nice place with direct sunlight late in the day and no AC (Bay Area, it’s pretty common here). During a particularly hot summer, I felt trapped late in the day and literally had to leave the house during the day because it was hotter than it was outside. I felt terribly trapped and I could fucking leave. Locking people in a hot room is cruel.
- Now remember that many of these people are also mentally ill.
I’m sure that as soon as, eg, Donald Trump or some other prominent conservatism locked up we'll be hearing about how "unfair" the prison system is.
Sort of like how due-process and prisoner wellbeing suddenly became something Republicans cared about when J6 folks started getting thrown in predetention.
- Even on the off chance Trump does go to prison, he'll definitely be getting like 3 months in a white collar facility
  
  Several of his buddies have ended up in Riker's Island for lesser shit. Happily, I don't think we can be sure he'll get a cushy prison, should that come to pass.

24 comments