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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2097
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 04:35 am: | 
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What do you all think? Should prison's should be racially segregated? Is this an issue worthy of consideration?
BTW: I wonder whether Martha Steward's cellmate is Black? And has 'Big Black Bertha' managed to turn the otherwise tuff Steward into her cowering prison b*+&#?
NYT EDITORIAL
November 14, 2004
Racial Segregation in Prison
he Supreme Court heard arguments recently in a challenge to California's policy of segregating inmates by race in their first 60 days of incarceration. Prison officials argue that the practice reduces racially motivated violence. But government-imposed racial segregation should be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, if at all. The court should strike down the policy.
When inmates arrive at California Department of Corrections facilities, either as new inmates or transfers, they are temporarily held in double cells at a prison "reception center." When cell assignments are made, the inmates are divided into four general categories: black, white, Asian and other. Inmates are almost invariably assigned cellmates of their own race.
The State of California says its policy, by which hundreds of thousands of prisoners were segregated last year, reduces violence in the cells. After 60 days, the state says it has enough information to decide whether particular inmates are dangerous. Of course, it is possible that the policy makes things worse. At oral argument, Justice John Paul Stevens asked what he called a "stupid question": whether, if California wants to discourage racial gangs, it wouldn't make more sense to house prisoners with members of a different race.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the policy. It invoked a Supreme Court precedent, Turner v. Safley, giving prisons broad authority in how they handle their inmates. California produced little evidence to support its segregation policy, but the court accepted as "common sense" the notion that there is a connection between segregating prisoners and combating violence.
The Ninth Circuit should have been far more skeptical. The courts have long applied "strict scrutiny," an onerous legal standard, to racial classifications. The Ninth Circuit wants to carve out an exception for prisons. But given the history of racial discrimination in American penology, from segregated prisons and work farms to chain gangs, the courts should be highly demanding in reviewing racial policies behind bars.
This case might be harder if California prisons used racial segregation rarely, and only in response to serious threats or instances of racially motivated violence. But a blanket policy that separates all new prisoners on the basis of race is unconstitutional." |
Rashena
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Rashena
Post Number: 107
Registered: 08-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 07:47 am: |
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Hmmm...good article! Maybe stickin a Compton banger with the Aryan Brotherhood would be a much better idea, and vice versa. Yeah, they would sing around the campfire and practice their weaponry skills on each other! |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 807
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 10:39 am: |
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It is a good idea. There is a total gang culture in prisons now and you cannot even stick members of enemy gangs of the same race in the same cell.
If you want a bloodbath, try to integrate it. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 810
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:08 am: |
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Another reason why they segregate them is because blacks outnumber whites in prison and often subject them to robbery and physical and sexual assault when they get them off alone.
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Lawchic
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lawchic
Post Number: 133
Registered: 10-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 12:53 pm: |
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Security issues aside, if the Supreme Court allows them to continue this practice under the guise of "it's a means to an end," that end being decreasing violence, we'll be one step closer to what we were talking about in that Education Collaborative report. I.e., if black students learn better with black teachers, let's put them in classrooms with black teachers and other black students. If white people enjoy the movie better without black people in the same theater making them uncomfortable, lets' have segregated movie theaters. You follow my drift? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 815
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 01:40 pm: |
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This is what you would put the black prisoners in with
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/nlr.asp?xpicked=3&item=nlr
Now imagine some young kid about 17 or 18 sent up for having a few rocks put in with one of these mothers.
I wonder if you would like to live next door to one of them--but you would throw young blacks in with them to satisfy some weird fear you have that it will end all integration-- |
A_womon
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 1160
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 01:44 pm: |
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Chris,
You're missing Lawchic's very good point! I think we are moving closer to a world that Lawchic describes than anyone would dare to imagine. I think the last election is another step towards that, as well. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 817
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 01:59 pm: |
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Lawchic ain't got no point.
Did you read the URL I posted? In order to satisfy some people's integrationist fantasies (because we have not had real integration, just desegregation, and there are still Country clubs blacks can't belong to, businesses that won't admit then and areas with restrictive covenants where they can't buy a home) and fears that they won't be able to lay up under white folks (you will be able to have them come around you. Even in dejure segregation they were free tocome around you. You just couldn't go around them)
you would invite a holocaust of violence in our jails and prisons.
I wish sometimes folks would think of somebody else.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1819
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 02:55 pm: |
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There is such a thing as voluntary segregation and it is becoming more prevalent now than ever. Black people are becoming secure enough to no longer feel the need to be validated by white acceptance. Segregation will never again be the law of the land, but preferring to be among your own kind is gaining favor as an unwritten law. As far as prison segregation is concerned, the end does justify the means because prisons are a controlled environment and an exception to the rule. In Chicago's county jails, upon being incarcerated, a new inmate is asked his gang affiliation and is then put on the same tier as he fellow gang members. Those with no gang connections are assigned to the "neutron" tier. This keeps the peace. In the public sector, if you prefer to be among your own kind, you are at the capricious mercy of voluntary segrgation. |
A_womon
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 1161
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 03:03 pm: |
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Being among your own is fine in theory, but it could never work until we get some real power. Not just monetary, the real power is grounded in the political arena.
Chris,
I didn't read the link, Im at work but I will read it later and reserve further comment on your post until then. |
Lawchic
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lawchic
Post Number: 137
Registered: 10-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 03:21 pm: |
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Cynique said: "As far as prison segregation is concerned, the end does justify the means because prisons are a controlled environment and an exception to the rule."
Lawchic: I'm glad someone picked up on what I was apparently ineptly trying to say. Prisoners do give up certain civil rights when they are convicted of a crime; hence, the prison system can take certain actions that would otherwise be deemed inappropriate in other settings. What I'm trying to say is that the Supreme Court should narrowly construe this decision so that it cannot be used as a legal springboard to overreach into other avenues of our society. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2103
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 01:35 am: |
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I'm somewhat torn on this issue. But I do think there are some issues here that bear exposition:
#1 - I question whether this is an issue that warrants Supreme Court consideration. Because, as some of you have already mentioned, prisoners forfeit certain basic constitutional rights. Thus, so long as what the counties/states do subscribe to the dictates of their prevail laws/judiciary and don't constitute what could be defined as "cruel/unusual", I'm inclined to think their decisions/acts should prevail without federal interference.
#2 - I think Chris' point about this being done to protect WHITE prisoners interesting. I wonder whether this segregation would occur if/when Blacks are the minority prison inmates.
#3 - By segregating the convicts, aren't the prisons helping to foster the very gang-related pathology that has cause many of the inmates to be where they are to begin with? Aren't the prisons effectively helping to empower the gangs and, thus, create MORE criminals? |
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