tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8107037609455779557.post4660372451820019616..comments2024-02-28T05:56:28.293-08:00Comments on California Correctional Crisis: The Benefits and Discontents of Incremental ReformHadar Aviramhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15200780666976305749noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8107037609455779557.post-55300102600851629872011-07-20T09:46:58.683-07:002011-07-20T09:46:58.683-07:00One thing I wonder about is if SHU goes or is radi...One thing I wonder about is if SHU goes or is radically transformed, what happens to the rest of the system? SHU was set up to deal with a gang problem that victimized and threatened inmates throughout the system as well as posing a security challenge and a public safety threat on the street. By definition, SHU prisoners would be expected to be better organized and connected, both between each other and to people on the outside, to organize this strike and get publicity for it. That's why they're in the SHU! Has SHU been overused, and does the process need fixing, especially with regards to how people get validated? Probably. I'm just hoping we don't wind up turning the clock back to 1983 in the process.<br /><br />Part of what I think, as compared maybe to the death penalty, or anything driven by fiscal concerns, delineates the public response to these different pushes is who benefits or who suffers the burden. Wrongful convictions could threaten innocent people. Anything that we can't pay for threatens the public finances. Those are things bad for the public. SHU? Life imprisonment of people who are guilty of murder (and whom we retain the ability to release if new evidence comes to light)? Not really as much "our" problem. There's something of an intuitive leap to make in explaining why it is "our" problem.<br /><br />The SHU protests in general have a particularly strong presumption to overcome. The system may be flawed, maybe badly flawed, but it's what we've got that says that these are the most troublesome and least correctable people in the system. By definition, it would follow that they'd take to any form of control less well, and would prone to giving the most "static" back about it. The case has to be made that less restrictive procedures wouldn't just give them an opportunity to go raising hell again. These aren't unreasonable suspicions with a population like this, and the burden sits on those arguing for a change to overcome them.<br /><br />I hear that they want to not have to debrief because they want to avoid "snitching," I'm reminded of that old Far Side strip about the demons complaining about someone in hell whistling happily while they work: "We're just not reaching that guy." (http://www.bardos.net/images/WhistlinginHell.jpg) "Snitching" is not supposed to be a bad thing... unless you're a criminal (or were a Communist subpoenaed before Congress back in the 1950s). It's hard not to take a position like that as evidence of an inclination to undermine or resist the security and public safety goals of the system. One can take such a position, but I can't see why either the correctional system or the public on whose behalf it's supposed to operate would reasonably endorse it. Again, all of this may be supposition, and I can acknowledge that the debriefing system may be irredeemably flawed as practiced, but that's the case that has to be distinguished and argued.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08067759626108987472noreply@blogger.com