Yale Daily News

I hope Ms. Gordon has been scared off to write about safe topics after her pummelling over last week's article on phallic worship.
Isn't there a causal link between the high prison rate and a phallocentric society?
Indeed hasn't the female prison sensus risen in tandem with the feminist movement's insistence on equal access for women to the stresses and temptations of the phallocentric power structure?
Similarly, hasn't female blood pressure also risen in accordance with the epidemic of feminist insistence on equal access to a phallocentric capitalism which choreographs constant castration anxiety---from daily Dow Jones' micro-analysis, to Global warming overload alarms, to the hypochondiac
cavalcade of pharmaceutical remedies (whose risks are more alarming than the illnesses they purport to cure)which greet viewers of prime time television each day?
Prison? Materialism is a jail without bars.

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

Also: the author is ripe for re-education; you know, "A Liberal is just a Conservative that hasn't been mugged yet."

Further: should the author decide to make a family some day, will she then be strong enough to recant and renounce her views? Children make one swing conservative--at least where it comes to crime.

All those nifty palliatives sound so great when nothing is at stake, but once something close and personal is at risk--or hurt--liberating the underclass somehow becomes so...secondary.

Frankly, the burgeoning prison population indicates to ME that prison, currently, just isn't so bad... Want to reduce the population there? Reduce the incentives, i.e., make prison far starker and harsher than it is today.

[My plan for most non-capital offenses in a nutshell:
1st strike = extremely harsh but relatively short prison stay with the offense expunged from one's record after a successful post-prison probationary period.
2nd strike = much harsher and longer sentence, but still shorter than the non-productive stays prisoners "endure" today.
3rd strike = life imprisonment with no creature comforts.

Overall, btw, Leavenworth would provide the minimum acceptable conditions for a prison.

See? Yale supports all KINDS of differeing viewpoints!]

Heironymus is a conservative jerk who likes to respond to anyone slightly liberal... I don't think he even goes to Yale. This is coming from someone with a best friend who's conservative.

Prison's necessary for most crimes, but there are many people who ARE put into prison unfairly for minor offenses, usually because of race. The author's not suggesting eliminating the prison system, but she's pointing out to the extreme racial imbalance. You want to reduce prison populations? Help the populations at higher risk by providing better education, etc.

I don't know what we do without your voice of reason in this morass of liberal relativism and hypochondria. Thanks G-d for conservatism, which according to conventional wisdom (the only kind conservatives approve of), is the end result of old age, children, and being mugged. Yes, children are basically like being mugged, especially when they go to Yale.

Unfortunately, we still have to figure out to do with all those older, liberal, formerly-mugged parents. They destroy our clean-cut conception of the world. Let's just ignore them, that sounds efficient, and efficiency is good.

Or we could come up with arguments that are based on reason rather than coy witticisms.

"Prison's necessary for most crimes, but there are many people who ARE put into prison unfairly for minor offenses, usually because of race."

Prove it.

I say we build more prisons and pass tougher drug laws.

I am profiting tremendously from my stock in corrections corp. and because the competition is eliminated, I can charge a higher premium on the blow I fly into the country.

#3: This column was not "slightly liberal." It was a rant and proposed no solution to reduce crime or improve the criminal justice system. I have no idea whether Hieronymus is affiliated with Yale, but his 3-strike plan sounds like a decent proposal with concrete suggestions for improvement, and if fleshed out, it could have made an interesting, thought-provoking column.

#6, did you read the entire column? I believe the last paragraph was a list of concrete suggestions.

What is this garbage?

I thought prisons were supposed to punish criminals and protect law abiding citizens?

To #8: Those were not quite viable; or, if you think THOSE were viable, I offer the countersuggestion:

Given that humans are free to make decisions pertaining to their lives, rather than get drug treatment, I proffer "drug reservations," i.e., places where any individual can, at government expense, receive ANY and ALL drugs desired. And all one has to do to indicate a desire/readiness to exit the reservation is to remain drug-free (via tests) for, say, three months.

That you think prisoners need "treatment" indicates the usual Liberal "I know best" stance, denying individual's rights and preferences. If someone likes drugs, well, by all means--let them toast their brains to smithereens, and let us help them do so in a way that keeps them from needing to perpetrate crimes against those who choose otherwise.

You will likely find some flaw in this argument, but I suggest that it is simply the other side of YOUR coin, and much more practical AND practicable.

Who are YOU to say what is a "right" or "wrong" choice for an individual with regard to that individual's life choices?

It is easy to talk about any subject before it has personally touched you. Conservatives never commit crimes or go to prison?
Conservatives don't consider the nation's extremely high incarceration rate their doing? Something to be proud of? I thought they ran the Country, in the most correct way.

Does the writer of this article need to be reminded that at Yale we are constantly reminded that we shouldn't EVER walk around town by ourselves? According to all of the recent articles about crime in the city, a lot of the criminals here are people who have already been in jail for violent offenses.

Should we feel so concerned for the criminals well being and liberty that we should happily resign ourselves to riding around in a university shuttle all the time?

first, a point of correction. whether or not prisoners "need treatment" shouldn't be closely related to this discussion. rehabilitation is no longer a goal of prison in the USA. this has been stated recently by the federal sentencing commission. the goals of imprisonment are deterrence, incapacitation and retribution.

second, and more importantly, the justice system is racist. most people who have any clue about drug policy see this as a non-issue. most saliently, there's a huge disparity in sentences meted out for crack and powder cocaine-related offenses. second, the fact remains that pretty much the only people prosecuted for drugs in this country are blacks and Hispanics (when was the last time you heard of a Yale student getting arrested for drugs?). empirical evidence regarding enforcement indicates that drugs in this country are pretty much legal for white people, especially wealthy whites, but not for minorities.

especially given that the racial makeup of the US prison population is so different from the racial makeup of the country as a whole, the burden should rest with those who dispute the system's racism, rather than those who acknowledge it.

The very same people who cry the loudest about the prison system, are the very same people who will pay the most to stay out of it.

To #13

Oh gawd you are SUCH a tool; can you regurgitate any OTHER dogmas you've been feeding on? Are you able to engage in or cite your own original research or observations, or must you rely on what your teachers and profs have been drumming into you ad infinitum?

#15:

I love how you attack me personally, and consider it a legit criticism of what I wrote. These aren't dogmas, they're facts. And you don't need to do "original research" to figure it out (what a ridiculous suggestion!) because the everything I cited is so readily available and so commonly known. I may as well have said "the capital of France is Paris."

Perhaps you'd like to cite your own research to counter some of the claims made by Yale 08?

#15

great. call someone you disagree with "a tool" and accuse them of being dogmatic. especially when they're saying things that are completely taboo in this country. you are the one refusing to question the prevailing wisdom of this great country of ours...

look at the facts. prison are failing. people are being put there for a few months and years and can't get a job afterwards. the parole system is screwed up. those are hardly disputable.

as for the "a liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet" it is perhaps the dummest saying EVER. the most conservative people (and those most worried about terrorism) are not those who live in new york city, chicago or los angeles. they're voters in regions with little crime (and in the case of terrorism, very little threat of being attacked).

a conservative is a liberal who doesn't have to think about the world he is living in.

This was a truly excellent piece, focusing on a group of the population that unfortunately we ignore too easily. The skyrocketing prison population and the disgraceful conditions found in prisons are a source of shame for this country. Bravo to Claire for speaking out on the issue. Too bad our politicians rarely do the same.

Claire,
You speak about a subject, that you no nothing about. I work at Northern (CT's Supertmax) , and the prisoners there are evil men. They are there because they are assaultive. The have to participate in programs in order to leave and go to a lower level facility. You can't get all of your information from statistics. You did not talk to anybody that works for the Department of Corrections. Your research is incomplete.