5 comments

  • MichaelNolan6 minutes ago
    Just out of college I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I took a job at a prison near Phoenix AZ. It was outdoors, the cells had no AC. In a 10 hour shift in 115 (46c) degree weather I would go through 1.5 gallons (5.6 liters) of water. Every single day at least one inmate would pass out from the heat. At least they got heat for the winter.<p>Thankfully I left all that behind a long time ago. Though I just checked and they still don’t have AC.<p>There is a fairly famous quote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • boredatoms6 minutes ago
    The US needs to get over this whole ‘punishment’ view of prison. It either a social-safety quarantine, or a rehabilitation
    • mrits2 minutes ago
      It&#x27;s punishment. Any society that thinks otherwise is going to have to relearn the hard way.
  • zamadatix19 minutes ago
    Director Lumpkin should be criminally responsible for these conditions and deaths he has been indifferent to.
    • 0xDEAFBEAD5 minutes ago
      &quot;TDCJ has acknowledged that at least 23 people died from heat-related causes in its facilities between 1998 and 2012 — a likely underestimate, Pitman wrote in his order last year. Inmate advocates say at least 10 additional deaths between 2022 and 2025 can be attributed to the high temperatures, including three people whose autopsy reports reference heat as a possible contributing factor.&quot;<p>(from OP)<p>Meanwhile in Europe tens of thousands are dying: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;econofact.org&#x2F;factbrief&#x2F;fact-check-do-tens-of-thousands-of-europeans-die-each-year-due-to-heat-related-illnesses" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;econofact.org&#x2F;factbrief&#x2F;fact-check-do-tens-of-thousa...</a><p>&quot;European A&#x2F;C regulations have been ruled cruel and unusual punishment by the state of Texas&quot;
    • Wistar17 minutes ago
      Such an appropriate-sounding name he has.
  • jimbo45618 minutes ago
    The only truly endless resource is man&#x27;s inhumanity to his fellow man.
  • QuercusMax48 minutes ago
    I don&#x27;t understand why Texas voters support such inhumane conditions. All these &quot;Christians&quot; who support this kind of cruel punishment need to have a &quot;come to Jesus&quot; moment, literally.
    • dkural5 minutes ago
      It&#x27;s because Texas is the OG of human suffering. Texas gave up territory than end slavery: This is why Oklahoma looks so weird (the &quot;panhandle&quot;). After the so-called Missouri compromise, in order to remain a slave-state, Texas gave up that piece of land. Also, Texas declared independence not once, but twice, to remain a slave state. First, from Mexico: &quot;Many Anglo-American settlers were from the southern United States and brought enslaved workers, using legal loopholes like indentured servitude to bypass Mexican restrictions against slavery. They feared Mexico would abolish the practice entirely&quot;. And then, famously, of course, fighting to remain independent during the Civil War.
      • ceroxylon0 minutes ago
        Your point is valid, but it is worth noting that the panhandle territory was a notoriously inhospitable place to try and exist (&quot;no mans land&quot;), so it wasn&#x27;t like Texas was giving up a gem, none of the surrounding states wanted it.
    • sfiganio12 minutes ago
      Why does anyone enjoy cruelty? It seems to be innate to the human animal. People are cruel to prisoners because they enjoy being cruel to prisoners, their stated reasons being excuses (free will is incoherent; there is no logical connection between what people do and what should be done to them except on consequentialist grounds; mass incarceration and poor prison conditions seem to <i>increase</i> crime). Take away the shame that normally keeps it in check and people&#x27;s bloodlust rises to the surface. It is a rare person who chooses to deny themselves pleasure on moral grounds.<p>If we are to have prisons, let&#x27;s be honest about why they exist: people like them.
      • NoMoreNicksLeft6 minutes ago
        &gt;People are cruel to prisoners because they enjoy being cruel to prisoners<p>I don&#x27;t enjoy being cruel to convicted criminals. I would much prefer they not commit crime, and that there be no need for the punishment.<p>&gt;especially given that free will is inconceivable;<p>I too, have no free will in the matter. I am just a clockwork mechanism, operating as the random universe has not only ordained, but I cannot operate otherwise. Coincidentally, the nature of my mechanism makes me immune to your arguments, and no change in behavior is forthcoming. Fun, huh?<p>&gt;mass incarceration and poor prison conditions seem to increase crime<p>Statistics say otherwise. Crime is down across the board the last few decades.<p>&gt;If we are to have prisons, let&#x27;s be honest about why they exist: people like them.<p>I agree. I like criminals being locked away from the rest of us.
    • francisofascii14 minutes ago
      There is so much nuance with this. On the one hand, Texas has hot enough days where it is inhumane&#x2F;dangerous to not have A&#x2F;C. But also plenty of days that are hot, but bearable. There are plenty of citizens not in prison that live without AC and make due with fans. HVAC systems are ridiculusly expensive. $1.5 billion is about $10K a person. Too bad they can&#x27;t just give each prisoner a window unit for $200 a piece.
    • iAMkenough11 minutes ago
      These are Nationalist Christians (Nat-C’s), not actual followers of Jesus.
      • pixl978 minutes ago
        &quot;They are hurting the right people&quot;. This is 100% their mentality.
      • jastanton2 minutes ago
        But largely supported by people that would call themselves actual Christians FYI, and not even right wing extremist either.
    • ihsw14 minutes ago
      [dead]
    • NoMoreNicksLeft11 minutes ago
      &gt;I don&#x27;t understand why Texas voters support such inhumane conditions.<p>I&#x27;m in Texas. I&#x27;m a little confused as to why you think I should care. For those wrongly convicted, I don&#x27;t want them to get air-conditioning in prison... and for those correctly convicted, I&#x27;m not especially worried about making them more comfortable.<p>The entire point of punishment is the cruelty. It doesn&#x27;t really work without it... it&#x27;s unclear if you&#x27;re quibbling over the amount of cruelty, or if you think that there exists some sort of cruelty-free punishment that the rest of us just haven&#x27;t heard of.
      • RiverCrochet1 minute ago
        1. Even correct convictions can later be found to be wrong. Death is irreversible and financially restituting someone&#x27;s death can never benefit one wrongfully killed.<p>2. Unless death is the sentence, a sentence should not result in death. If you don&#x27;t closely control and monitor when the state can do something, it increases the risk of misuse of that power by the state.<p>3. If cruelty and punishment really worked, crime would decrease over time, not increase.<p>4. The AC can be set to 75. That&#x27;s not luxury but won&#x27;t kill anyone with heatstroke.
      • v649 minutes ago
        The US Constitution has a whole bit about forbidding cruel and unusual punishments.
      • ericd9 minutes ago
        And here I was thinking that prisons should be about keeping people who can&#x27;t operate in society without damaging society away from society. I mean, even better would be to find a way to help them operate in society, but apparently we&#x27;re not even all at the baseline.
      • platinumrad9 minutes ago
        &gt; For those wrongly convicted, I don&#x27;t want them to get air-conditioning in prison<p>???
        • pixl975 minutes ago
          The user just posted<p>&quot;Run from me, I will hurt you and I will enjoy it&quot;<p>Which is insanely ironic, that&#x27;s the exact same kind of person he&#x27;d throw in jail.
        • BeetleB5 minutes ago
          I think he meant they should be freed.
      • peezd7 minutes ago
        Comes down to your level of empathy I guess.<p>I think there&#x27;s a basic floor for how we should treat other people, regardless of the circumstances. Things like access to food and water, shelter, etc.<p>I&#x27;m going to disagree that the point of prison (as punishment) is cruelty. It absolutely can work without it, but I&#x27;ll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can&#x27;t be rehabilitated effectively.
      • iAMkenough9 minutes ago
        Might as well make every criminal offense a capital punishment, if rehabilitation isn’t the point anymore.<p>Why even waste your money on for-profit prisons if you want the prisoners to die?
        • phil213 minutes ago
          Rehabilitation has never really been the point of the US prison or even correctional system at all.<p>The fact you can serve your time, earnestly work on rehabilitating yourself, jump through all the hoops, etc. but still be under the economic death sentence more or less summarizes how people feel about it.<p>It’s basically NIMBY applied to the justice system. Everyone loves to pretend they want rehabilitation but also wants someone else to do it. This shows up in hiring, apartment leasing, social benefits, etc.
        • gumby2712 minutes ago
          This guy doesn&#x27;t want them to die, he wants them to suffer.
      • gumby2716 minutes ago
        &gt; The entire point of punishment is the cruelty<p>Jesus fucking Christ
      • dwaltrip10 minutes ago
        The point of imprisonment is cruelty? Many would disagree. I can think of a few other reasons for it...
      • pixl977 minutes ago
        All fun and games until is you in the prison.<p>Maybe start here <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;innocenceproject.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;innocenceproject.org&#x2F;</a> before you let everyone around here see how much of a sociopath you are.