- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Very weird that I am so old and have literally never heard this mentioned in a TV show or book or movie or anything.
In four out of five states, if you go to prison, you are literally paying for the time you spend there.
As you can guess, this results in crippling debt as soon as you’re released.
The county gets back a fraction of what they hold over your head the rest of your life until you commit suicide(or die naturally and peacefully with the sword of damocles hanging over your head).
$20-$80 a day according to Rutgers.
Counties apparently sue people and employ wage garnishment to get back the money that majority of people obviously cannot pay back.
https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees
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Shouldve shopped around for a prison within your means
I just heard about that for the first time a few days ago, and I couldn’t believe it was real. As horrible as I think the United States of Ferenginar is, they always manage to surprise me and be worse.
I have to keep asking people not to compare American Capitalists to the Ferengi
The Ferengi have a rule book dictating the ways they are and aren’t allowed to rip you off, American Capitalists would call that level of honesty and integrity Far-Left Socialism
The Ferengi are also perfectly happy to break any and all of the rules if it means more profit - that’s probably one of the rules.
Most of the rules have a counter, opposite rule. IE, war is good for business, peace is good for business.
I think they’re “War is profitable” and “Peace is profitable”. Which I guess isn’t really contradictory. They’re profitable in different ways.
It’s literally “good for business” on both
There’s nothing more dangerous than an honest business man.
Does being honest about being dishonest count? Probably.
The US is in free fall. Kinda crazy to see how passive the people are there.
Americans are protesting and many are getting physically assaulted and arrested for protests everyday, and there are many civil rights and labor rights groups constantly bringing lawsuits against the government, actively changing policy.
Unfortunately the government has been very busy snatching up essential liberties and writing bullshit laws, and it’s almost impossible to keep up with the protests and lawsuits. The politicians get paid to be there, and can spend all of their time on legislation. Once they pass something, boom, it’s in effect. Then it costs organizations and citizens tons of time and money to protest and appeal what was so easily done by the legislators.
Fortunately, there are a lot of people who don’t give up because stuff gets hard.
True, but we’re losing ground.
And gaining ground in other areas.
It’s the long and arduous process of fighting for and maintaining civil rights, nobody is going to snap their fingers and make everything better.
So many people get a hard-on about the 2nd Amendment but they’re all too spineless to invoke it.
What can I do?
Just to really fuck up your life when you get out
In particular, to force you back into crime, to be able to pay for that debt.
just declare bankruptcy
great solution
So felons can do that, but students can’t with crushing loans. Cool
cool and normal
I wish i knew why you were being downvoted but nobody offered a counter point. Bankrupcy seems like a logical solution for this situation.
I hope kbin never federates downvotes because I couldn’t care less
but it’s probably people who got scammed with student loans they can’t discharge with bankruptcy.
Absolutely, I mean I’m already a felon, what’s one more barrier to credit and gainful employment?
@aodhsishaj @metaStatic bankruptcy is by far not the worse thing you can do. Often trying to unbury yourself will take longer to get back to solvency.
We had to medical B out. Get cancer these days, particularly with a $6K+ deductible for a PPO and you’re toast. We managed to switch to a HMO before surgery and we were still toast. And I had a Good Job.
File, get a pre-paid card then some high-interest you barely use, then some “normal” credit and it builds faster than you know
If you think bankruptcy is bad, look at all the rich people and corps that do it as often as possible
Edit: I mean Herr Trumptard has filed no less than six times to avoid paying people
Rich people never pay what they owe, especially if they owe it to the gov’t. Unlike poor people, the police doesn’t knock on their door to get the money.
This golden oldie, “all hail the job creators, creators of all jobs.”
Did Donald file for personal bankruptcy or did a Donald business file for bankruptcy? It might be like stealing: legal and cool if you are a corporation and the victims are poors.
Corporations have more rights than the people, and rich people hide behind their companies. So, without looking it up, I’m guessing trump business.
Bankruptcy without a lawyer, a permanent address and transportation to the courts is a serious hurdle. People rotating out of prison are already at a disadvantage. My point is they shouldn’t be in debt when they leave prison in the first place. The whole point is that they paid their debt to society.
This isn’t, oh shit I’m in over my head in a cornerstore, restaurant, family warehouse, what have you. It’s very tone-deaf to not address the elephant in the room of these people entering society at a grave disadvantage.
The services below should not be necessary for every person incarcerated by the state. The system is broken.
https://legalbeagle.com/5666136-file-bankruptcy-prison.html
https://library.nclc.org/article/bankruptcys-role-alleviating-criminal-justice-debt-0
Debtor’s Prison is illegal… happens anyway
Bankruptcy isn’t a bad option if you don’t have any credit or have bad credit already. You can turn things around in a couple of months. Also I am unaware of employers performing a credit check as a basis for employment.
@Trollception @aodhsishaj they do if there’s a gov’t clearance or you’re touching corp money involved. But in most cases they’ll let you explain what happened.
You’ve chosen your username well.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/credit-score-employer-checking
Felonies also don’t help with getting a job. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/02/08/employment/
Bankruptcy, without a lawyer is not just a couple months. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-score/bankruptcy-on-credit-report/
Also another place where credit can affect your chances is housing https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/credit-score-needed-to-rent-apartment?op=1
And when it’s that bad you can just move into a relatives house right? https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11290&context=ilj
Wait, are you unironically advocating for people not to declare bankruptcy after leaving prison with crippling debt?
I’m saying it shouldn’t be necessary in the first place. You’re supposed to have paid your debt to society by being in there. Federal amd state tax money pay for you to be there, charging room and board is predatory.
Just declare bankruptcy bro! Is a very tone deaf response to what is essentially bonded labor.
Depends on the company. Background checks can include credit checks. Any job with money or security clearance will check credit and large employers sometimes do as well.
Common in IT roles as well.
Blows my mind, credit has nothing to do with IT skills?!
The system is working as intended
The US is starting to sound made up
It’s called the American Dream because you’ve got to be asleep to believe it
I honeatly think that a lot.
I left America over a decade ago due to a laundry list of grievances that I developed while having only ever lived in America.
Once I started living in other countries, I finally developed context to compare my American life with. And it just made things look so much worse than I had previously thought.
And now it feels like not a day can go by without learning some new awful truth about my former home.
Where did you go, if you don’t mind me asking? It’s certainly something we’ve talked about…
I hopped around Southeast Asia until I landed in Japan.
It’s not easy here, and it’s not without its own problems, but it works much better for me.
(I’d probably still be in Singapore were it not for the heat. The food is 10/10 and dirt cheap, but I missed seasons.)
(I knew that answering this question would make the jerks upset somehow.)
Do you have to struggle with the insane only work, no life, salary man/woman problems? Or did you find something that doesn’t follow that “life style?”
No, I see it but I don’t have to deal with it.
It’s also not as much of a constant as it used to be.
It’s unfortunate you left… When good people leave, we’re stuck with more of the bad gaining power.
If we lose this country to the bad people even more than it’s already been lost, then the entire world may pay dearly as a result.
If he left a solid red or blue state, it doesn’t really matter. Our minority representation, first pst the pole voting and electoral college means that a lot of smart people from cities or solid blue areas can leave and nothing will change.
Plus OP’s an outlier, most of us can’t afford to relocate like this.
It was. Everywhere was.
Yes, but the more I live and hear things about the states it starts to sound like satire or as if it’s a joke to see what other people will believe.
You’re just getting older, haha. The longer we live, the more we can’t help seeing what’s right in front of us.
Nah, it’s exactly the other way around. Except for a tiny minority. All the others have to ignore what’s around them in order to not go insane.
I can understand why it seems that way, but the broad American public supports civil and labor liberties, green energy, healthy and equitable policies in general; it’s the vocal minority that is subverting the will of the more fair-minded, rational and compassionate majority(sure would be nice if more than one out of every three or four people voted).
And I don’t even think most conservatives believe in the policies they support so much as they don’t comprehend what they’re supporting and they are afraid of relinquishing control over what they narrowly perceive as “power” and “freedom”.
The ones I’ve talked to don’t.
I feel like most of them only vote R because they’re getting bamboozled into believing that the Rs stand for conservative, Christian, family values.
Anecdotally, ignorance and fear seems to be significant factors supporting conservative beliefs.
When I tell a liberal something that they aren’t expecting or that they didn’t know, they’ll respond with “what? How do you know that? Really?”
Then with a conservative, I usually get “No, no. Really? Well, I don’t know about that, anyway…”
And that’ll be some hard truth or contradicting statistic that the conservative doesn’t want to address or learn about because it will fly in the face of a fear or ignorance based belief.
I’d like to believe that. Social Media did a great job of reprogramming people.
Media did a great job before that, and humans tend to get conservative as they age, so I think there’s a lot of factors working together to make people more cynical than they ought to be.
If only that were true for everyone.
It’s real and I’m here. Pls save me.
I’d love to invite you up north but we need to get some housing first.
We all have housing. It’s just a matter of prying the leeches off first.
As long as the leeches are still there then we really don’t.
Got any salt?
The finest.
WTB 1 salt. 5k /wave2 /glow:green
isn’t every country made up after all?
But this has begun sounding like made up details, like someone heard how we feel and they decided to play into those concerns to see how much we’d believe before calling them out.
Privatized prisons are an abomination.
rationales justifying these fees routinely do not recognize them as a form of punishment and instead policymakers see pay-to-stay as financial reimbursement to the state by portraying incarcerated people as using up system resources. The justification allows pay-to-stay statutes to survive legal arguments alleging double punishment.
It’s actually worse than that… I went looking for a list, I found this:
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/26/8660001/prison-jail-cost
“Forty-three states allow inmates to get charged for “room and board” — the cost of their own imprisonment. Thirty-five states charge inmates for at least some medical expenses. Taken together, at least 49 states have a law on the books that authorizes at least one of the two. (Hawaii, as well as DC, doesn’t have statutes that explicitly address pay-to-stay.)”
I have a friend who was in. Outrageously expensive! Paid ‘rent’, paid for various classes he was required to take, and paid for each mandatory random drig test. Plus, what they have to pay for phone calls is crazy!!
Yeah that is totally crazy.
I’ve obviously heard from movies and stuff that you have to pay for your phone calls, but not once have I sienna depicted prisoners paying for their jail time and paying for the classes they take prison.
It’s totally insane
You mean the prison forgives your prisoner debt if you make license plates?
What do you mean by your comment “I think it’s forgiven if you take the job making license plates at $2/hr sometimes $2/day”?
I’m missing something, because all of your comments are way out of context.
Were you trying to respond to somebody else initially?
$12 for a 15 minute phone call, more if it’s considered long distance.
Let me guess - long distance is if it’s outside the prison? /s
Lol at those citations. low bar.
That’s the beauty of both ruling parties being 100% in support of the prison industrial complex. In fact, our current president even helped usher through the '94 Crime Bill, which keeps prisons nice and full for his golf buddies and institutional donors.
RAVE act
Remember, though, that people, opinions, and political landscapes can change. Yes, Biden was pretty shit back in the 90s, but it actually feels a little bit like he’s trying to move back in the other direction. Don’t gotta forget the bad, but also can’t forget the (attempts at) good
Remember, though, that people, opinions, and political landscapes can change.
Yeah, but Biden hasn’t.
Remember when he mocked ‘Defund the Police’ in his first state of the union address?
He’s an authoritarian. Always has been, and he’s been a reliable vote in favor of every regressive piece of legislation that’s led the country to this point, where fascism is becoming normalized.
Oh, please. If he was an authoritarian, he would behave like Trump or any other authoritarian ruler out there.
Remember when Trump was president? He would kick reporters out of the white house, or tear gas people in front of the white house for a photo op. He said stuff like “I totally won’t do this,” then the very following day, he would do that. His speech was divisive. Should I go on?
Just because Trump was more personally belligerent doesn’t change the fact that Biden is an authoritarian.
You just spotted my flawed argument. True. Biden is not authoritarian, though.
Tell me how is Biden authoritarian, Russian Agent #4557?
Going ad hominem just makes you look sillier.
And yet, the only person I’m thinking of mocking is you
Liberals hate the fact they openly support a right wing segregationist authoritarian
They don’t hate that fact enough, unfortunately.
He’s had some policies I agree with, that move us towards a less police state level. I admit, I haven’t followed him super closely, he’s less interesting than things have been lately, but at least the federal decriminalization of marijuana and pardons (I know they were effectively useless, didn’t really do anything - we can get into exactly why) show he’s at least trying to do what constituents want, which is a far cry more than a lot of other politicians.
Can he, should he, do more? Yeah. But credit where it’s due, he seems like he’s trying to steer two giant ships - his own past biases, and the United States political climate. Both of those are slow and hard to do, so anything moving in that direction should be celebrated.
Don’t be fooled, Joe doesn’t give a shit about decriminalizing any substance, after all, he wqs the biggest proponent of the RAVE act
See, this is EXACTLY my point. We all get obsessed over the things of the past, and while those can help inform us of the present, they’re not actually the present.
Yes, he was a proponent of the RAVE act. That’s one of those “don’t forget the bads” that I mentioned. We can accept that, and also accept that he seems to have lightened up on that BS in recent times.
No one’s perfect, everyone changes their minds about things. You did horrible things in your past too, almost certainly. That’s not you, we can accept that, but for politicians it’s this unchanging thing - you supported one thing, you will always continue supporting that thing.
Let people grow. Let ideas be brought up, and shot down. Let mistakes be in the past, and start focusing on what’s actually happening in the present.
It’s not about “being obsessed with the past” it’s about paying attention to history, particularly a certain person’s history. Joe biden had not been even remotely interested in legalization/decriminalization until he started running for office. Joe Biden was already an old man when he pushed for enforcement of the RAVE act along with other drug bills, I can maybe understand his “concrete jungle” statements from the 70’s, but we are literally talking about barely over 20 years ago.
All I am saying is to be cautious and not too trusting, ESPECIALLY of politicians.
Right. As I said, you can use the past to color your present, but the thing that matters presently is present actions and, to a lesser extent, words. So, judging him based on his actions during presidency, which should show us either his current beliefs or, at least, his willingness to listen to constituents.
During his presidency, he’s been… Well, I won’t say stellar, but his actions have been more in line with someone who actually wants better, rather than someone who wants to cling to old habits. Again, could he do more, yes. But his record -recently- has been, for a politician, pretty good.
You bring up the RAVE act. That was 20 years ago. 20 of the most eventful years in at least modern history. Do you think someone is incapable of change for 20 years? I know I’ve changed drastically just in the last 2 or 3 years. I mean, yeah, he’s old, but I’ve seen old people change too. Might not come full revolution, change is slow, but again - any progress is worth acknowledging and celebrating.
Is there something he’s done during his presidency that leads you to believe he’s still got those same values from prior? We can talk efficacy of some of his planned solutions, and some of his lack of a spine, but I think overall his actions are consistent with his words, in this regard.
People change as the issues become more apparent, when Obama was elected he said he “Respected the LGBT Community” but firmly believed “Marriage is between a man and a woman”
This same president gave us Gay Marriage in all 50 states
When in most of our lifetimes has the u.s. presidental election not been ‘the lesser of two evils’?
This excuse, to me, seems to emphasize the necessity of a third-party vote even more.
Right it’s important to remember 94 was literally 30 years ago. Attitudes can change significantly in that time.
Yeah, he wants to be known as a good guy. Look at GW Bush. They all want to be known as good guys late in life. Gates, Buffet, et al.
so then vote for trump, right? gtfooh
I vote third party.
Choosing between a giant douche and a turd sandwich isn’t very appealing to me.
Also, people like you pretending you didn’t need the votes of people like me is how we got Trump in the first place.
Blah blah blah same propaganda, same lies. Even a fool could say you’re trying to get Trump elected.
sure. hold humanity hostage because you can’t get exactly what you want, traitor. i’m not going to kiss your ass to vote for practical results. if you’re too blind to see what you’re doing, you can live with the consequences. i have a feeling you have a lot more time left on this planet than i do, junior.
Jesus Christ, you’re calling another person a traitor over… this. XD
You Americans are like a bad parody. What a terrible farce this is.
In a two party system, voting third party will only ever result in your vote being thrown out. It is taking a stand against reality for the sake of your own personal idealism.
A lot of left-aligned voters learned that lesson the hard way in 2016. If you didn’t learn the lesson, you either weren’t paying attention or your idealism is more important to you than the actual outcome of the vote.
Doing that willingly, despite (or maybe because) the rest of your side screaming at you not to fuck this up again, is absolutely a level of betrayal.
Yea OK, just keep voting for same parties over and over again. Let’s just maintain the shitty status quo where nothing really gets better regardless of who is in office!
So your solution is to vote in protest for a party you know won’t win.
I’m actually curious now, what possible good do you think that’s doing?
Yeah, this whole explanation is just you saying “Our country is broken and I don’t want to fix it”.
More like “you think you’re helping but you are not”
Oh no! somebody criticized Biden!
criticize him all you want… after he’s elected.
we all hate the either/or state of american politics, but it’s still the reality. live in reality, ppl.
after he’s elected
what?
what don’t you understand about my statement?
Re-elected, of course.
You consent to all these issues with your vote for Dems. I on the other hand will express democracy by voting for a candidate that opposes this: Jill Stein.
Biden or Trump winning is a major loss. Instead build a better party instead of complaining.
People should do that… After this election that is.
Biden or Trump winning is a major loss.
They aren’t equal. They’re both shit, but they aren’t equal. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather keep my right to vote, which is under threat thanks to the likes of Trump.
Instead build a better party instead of complaining.
Not seeing anything you’ve built. All I see is you complaining about Biden and Trump.
If you want better, we need electoral reform. Our current system is mathematically biased against third parties.
you mean to tell me you’re going to vote for jill stein in november? what state do you live in? it better not be a battle ground state
Absolutely, because she is the candidate of the largest party I agree with.
do you understand how american elections work? are you in a battleground state?
They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison Following the rights movement, you clamped on with your iron fists Drugs became conveniently available for all the kids Following the rights movement, you clamped on with your iron fists Drugs became conveniently available for all the kids I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch right here in Hollywood (Nearly two million Americans are incarcerated in the prison system, prison system of the US) They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison (For you and me to live in) Another prison system Another prison system Another prison system (For you and me) Minor drug offenders fill your prisons you don’t even flinch All our taxes paying for your wars against the new non-rich Minor drug offenders fill your prisons you don’t even flinch All our taxes paying for your wars against the new non-rich I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch right here in Hollywood (The percentage of Americans in the prison system, prison system, has doubled since 1985) They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison (For you and me to live in) Another prison system Another prison system Another prison system (For you and me) For you and I, you and I, you and I You and I They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison for you and me Oh, baby, you and me Oh Oh All research and successful drug policy show that treatment should be increased (Oh) And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences (Oh) All research and successful drug policy show that treatment should be increased (Oh) And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences Utilising drugs to pay for secret wars around the world Drugs are now your global policy, now you police the globe I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch right here in Hollywood Drug money is used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison (For you and me to live in) Another prison system Another prison system Another prison system (For you and me) For you and I, you and I, you and I You and me They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison They’re trying to build a prison for you and me Oh, baby, you and me
Yeah that’s a good one.
You can separate the lines so it’s not all clumped together by adding double spaces at the end of the line.
I had to do that once when I posted a message like this, haha.
I felt like a dingus tapping out all the spaces, but it was very satisfying when it was properly formatted.
For music the backslash at the end (
\) is also useful, as it allows you to split verses without a new paragraph. For exampleverse 1\ verse 2 verse 3\ verse 4appears as
verse 1
verse 2verse 3
verse 4TIL. Thanks, that’ll be very useful.
You can separate the lines so it’s not all clumped together by adding double spaces at the end of the line.
I’m fully aware of this and saw what it did when I pasted it in…however…
I felt like a dingus tapping out all the spaces
I was also aware of this before I even began to, so I didn’t bother.
Did you see that slash trick
another commenter saysif you throw a after a line
all of the following lines will beAutomatically formatted
Correctly
For song lyrics Not this one thoughOh, but you still have to throw a after every single line. \
Isn’t the US famous for their prison for profit, where prisons are privately owned and states need to pay if there are fewer incarcerated people inside?
To me, this sounds straight from 1984.
I don’t remember prisons being mentioned in 1984. They just vaporized people and then acted like they never existed
Yeah, the states is the most country with for-profit prisons, and not coincidentally incarcerates the 6th highest percentage of its population of any country, just about half a percent of the total population at any time, or somewhere under 2 million people.
But boy howdy, do those percentages change when you control for economic class and ethnicity.
It’s less than ten percent of federal prisons. Police unions (including correctional officers) have a greater impact.
So they can sponge off any legal judgements you get for false imprisonment
not sure which ones, but at least one charges you per day for the length of your sentence even if you’re let out early
