Nobody Got Sentenced To Death By Communicable Disease
We owe people in prison protection -- no more punishment than they'v been assigned by state. This means we need to protect them against rape & other crimes & also give them adequate healthcare. Prison on burglary charge should not be death sentence bc of state abdication of duty. https://t.co/ztmGNguVmz
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) March 23, 2020
Here's a question. And the answer is when you make people wards of the state, in cages, the state also has a duty to feed, clothe, and protect them physically and medically.
When it comes to care, there's going have to be a hierarchy of importance. Who gets looked after first? The law-abiding citizens or people in prison? Maybe we can do both, but citizens aren't being looked after yet.
— John Johnson (@DudeDudeologist) March 23, 2020
My answer in this tweet exchange says it:
It's just not right if it was due to prisoners not being adequately separated and not being given protective wear. To be for human rights is to be for all people's rights, even those who have done reprehensible things. Prison sentences are in years, not rape, violence, disease.
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) March 23, 2020
There've probably been books about this from 1918 and other events. There are tales this months of jails and prisons disgorging prisoners pretty rapidly… Governments don't want the liability.
Crid at March 23, 2020 10:38 PM
Relevant tweet about Harvey.
Crid at March 23, 2020 11:15 PM
Yet another reason to move criminals to indentured servitude and community service instead of warehousing them.
Ben David at March 24, 2020 12:03 AM
Be sure the killers who escaped the death penalty for truly horrific crimes have medical care as well as three hots and a cot, no matter what the economy does.
While their victims shelter. Wait in lines for treatment if they can afford it - and if their paperwork is filled out. The clerk is not sick.
Radwaste at March 24, 2020 2:14 AM
Wasn't he just hauled off like a week or two ago? He could have gotten it in court.
NicoleK at March 24, 2020 2:26 AM
How far down the rabbit hole do you want to take the state’s duty to protect *anyone* never mind the incarcerated?
If my kid picks up a communicable disease in a state mandated government school should the government (I.e. the taxpayers) have some sort of strict liability for that as well?
And I say this as someone who could not have voted to convict Harvey Weinstein. I just don’t think the evidence was there.
Isab at March 24, 2020 3:50 AM
Indentured to whom? Serving where? And who will take care of the security arrangements for criminals working alongside civilians? Warehousing is efficient and convenient, even if a bit inhumane and brutal. It's cost-effective if you don't let the prison guard union become the most powerful union in the state and loot the taxpayers for excessive pay and benefits (yes, California, I'm looking at you).
With a 14-day incubation period, Harvey probably did not catch this in jail. However, he may have infected other prisoners who were not sentenced to the infectious disease ward; and not just prisoners. Being moved about for trial, he would have come into contact with a variety of courthouse personnel - lawyers, clerks, deputies, bailiffs, etc.
The problem with convicting Weinstein is that you just know some of his accusers willingly slept with him to further their careers and are now on the #MeToo wagon to do the same; anything for another moment of public adulation. However, others didn't and were genuinely hurt by him. How do you separate them?
Conan the Grammarian at March 24, 2020 4:47 AM
COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease. Everyone is going to get it. The only question is when. How much liability should the state take for an inevitable event?
Ben at March 24, 2020 6:11 AM
The prison population should be *checks notes* in lock down, and socially isolated.
Other than being permitted to go to essential shopping locations, there isn't a lot of difference between being in prison and not, depending on your locale and how seriously the constabulary is enforcing the lock down.
Petty and not so petty crimes: not interested.
Violating the lock down: very interested.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 24, 2020 7:32 AM
Conan:
Indentured to whom? Serving where? And who will take care of the security arrangements for criminals working alongside civilians?
---------
We've discussed this previously on this blog - me citing Biblical precedent, and Goddess citing modern European approaches that reduce recidivism.
Even when it looks like punishment, Biblical "tort" law focuses on reparations to the victim - often completely missing from modern law, which bifurcates a crime into criminal and civil proceedings and talks of a vague "debt to society".
One is "sold" into indenture if one is unable to compensate their victim for the 5 types of damages assessed:
Physical damage to self or property
Pain
Medical/repair/replacement costs
Lost wages, opportunity cost
Embarrassment/defamation
Indentured servitude = citizenship minus some rights. The message to the criminal is "you must accommodte themselves to society - and if your own family/community didn't show you how, here's another example". In agrarian societies the indentured servant lived on an active homestead or in the house of a craftsmen, alongside apprentices.
In the modern version, suitable criminals are housed in supervised group homes and may be tracked electronically. They get vocational training and exposure to better models of social behavior.
Obviously more dangerous repeat offenders would be handled differently - more tightly supervised, isolated work details like road gangs, waste processing, etc. Certainly they have even steeper damages to pay off.
No criminal should be sitting on their butts. Even if they can't be retrained, at the very least they should be learning something about paying their own way in life.
Ben David at March 24, 2020 9:11 AM
This is just more evidence that statism is a mental illness. And that politics makes people stupid (and make them act evil).
People who get off on the thought that others are being punished are some of the nastiest people there are-- whether they are right-statists or left-statists. They are completely antisocial.
Kent McManigal at March 24, 2020 9:52 AM
Nope. They're at no more risk locked down in prison than at home. Actions have consequences, and prison-where you may get sick, at any time- is one of them.
All my patients are currently locked in their alf rooms, with meals brought to them, no non-medical visitors allowed, and the possibility of infection even with precautions taken. Why are criminals deserving of better care than the elderly who are paying thousands of dollars a month for this privilege of being locked up and isolated? Why should society prioritize VERY limited medical resources on those who intentionally harm society? Nope. Disaster triage isn't pretty, but it's necessary, and prisoners should rightly be far down the list.
Momof4 at March 24, 2020 10:00 AM
Sharing their feelings in a safe space.
> some of his accusers willingly> slept with him to further their
> careers
Are the allowed no resentment, can they take no pleasure in his conviction?
If private contracts were truly so inviolate, must of us would suffer at some point, if not in the Weinstein style.
Crid at March 24, 2020 12:05 PM
T—
Crid at March 24, 2020 3:38 PM
COVID-19 justifies releasing criminals? What about other infectious diseases encountered in jails? E.g:
-Tuberculosis - 1,400,000 deaths/year worldwide.
-Meningitis - 380,000 deaths/year worldwide.
-Norovirus - 60,000 hospitalizations and 700 deaths/year in the US.
-Hepatitis A.
-Hepatitis B - 2,000 deaths/year in the US.
-HIV/AIDS - 16,000 deaths/year in the US; 780,000 worldwide.
-Strep throat.
-Enterovirus - 10-15 million infected/year in US; tens of thousands hospitalized; can be life threatening to the frail and elderly.
-Tinea (ringworm).
-Impetigo.
-C. difficile - 12,800 deaths/year in the US.
-Lice.
-Scabies.
-Pneumococcal disease - 3,600 deaths/year in US.
-MRSA - 11,300 deaths/year in the US; 400,000 hospitalizations. I remember when public health authorities were freaking out about this. Now 5% of hospital patients and 2.4% of children carry it.
-Influenza - 36,000 deaths & 350,000 hospitalizations/year average in the US. In the 2017-2018 flu season, over 80,000 deaths, 810,000 hospitalizations- 460,000 more than usual. Hear many stories about overwhelmed hospitals? Shortage of beds and respirators? Travel restrictions? National Guard, field hospitals and Navy hospital ships deployed?
COVID-19 isn't a "death sentence". There's no idea how many people are infected - but a hell of a lot more than have been counted. In Iceland and China, where they've been able to do extensive testing, from one-third to one-half of people infected have no symptoms, i.e. it doesn't make them sick. Of those who have symptoms and positive test results more than 80% have mild symptoms, like a cold. For old people and people with existing serious illnesses it's life threatening, like many of the diseases listed above.
If COVID-19 kills fewer than 30,000 people in the US will the totalitarian interventions have been justified?
Ken R at March 24, 2020 4:59 PM
That Kentucky law really needs to be quoted in full. Pull a word here and pull a word there means you can make anything say anything.
----
Section 253 Working of penitentiary prisoners -- When and where permitted.
Persons convicted of felony and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary shall
be confined at labor within the walls of the penitentiary; and the General Assembly shall
not have the power to authorize employment of convicts elsewhere, except upon the
public works of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, or when, during pestilence or in case of
the destruction of the prison buildings, they cannot be confined in the penitentiary
----
How the heck does that say to release all prisoners? It just means they are now permitted to work outside of the prison.
Ben at March 24, 2020 5:57 PM
I've asked him, we'll see.
Crid at March 24, 2020 6:28 PM
Me-
24 minutes ago
Replying to @aaronlittman
Where does it say anything about release of sentenced prisoners? Can't find it in your cites, which concern prisoners working outside of prison.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=6881
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/Law/Constitution/Constitution/ViewConstitution?rsn=290
Him—
Aaron Littman @aaronlittman
4 minutes ago
Replying to @Cridmo
Correct — it authorizes work release of sentenced prisoners (those in the penitentiary). And subsection (1)(e) contemplates that outbreaks of disease may mean that people cannot be confined in a facility and therefore will need to be placed on work release.
Aaron Littman @aaronlittman
2 minutes ago
Replying to @aaronlittman @Cridmo
The Governor also has the power to grant sentenced prisoners reprieves — temporary relief from their sentences — under Ky. Const. § 77. Use of work release means that they remain in custody, albeit not in prison.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Crid at March 24, 2020 6:53 PM
I can't find (1)(e)
Crid at March 24, 2020 7:02 PM
Oh, it's not a separate doc. Duh.
So he's saying that (e) below—
… Means that they gotta spring 'em.I think it's a reach, but who knows.
Crid at March 24, 2020 7:20 PM
20 vaccines in development around the world already. Human testing has begun in Seattle.
Damned high-speed world-record vaccine development! This thing will be over before Trump can be impeached again!
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 24, 2020 8:50 PM
> This thing will be over
In the 80's Fauci warned us that HIV solutions could be decades away, which was the right thing to say... But the drugs were ready for Magic Johnson in '91.
We got lucky. And we need even faster luck now. Like, this week.
Crid at March 24, 2020 9:56 PM
I accept the read that prisoners should be placed on work release. That doesn't mean just release them into the general populace. It means they are placed in a location other than the prison. Traditionally that meant work camps (without cars you had to camp near the road project) or farms.
I also accept that the governor can pardon people.
Hopefully the judge was misquoted or taken out of context. The way things were presented the first time was not good.
Ben at March 25, 2020 6:28 AM
Headline: "apocalyptic surge in NYC as 13 die in 1 day"
Meanwhile, roughly 1500 people in NYC died of diabetic complications yesterday.
Today's rough numbers are 69197 infected, 1026 deaths. .01482 mortality so far.
Measles has mortality rate around 2%, and we allow people to refuse vaccination for it, and take their kids to Disneyland to spread it.
Momof4 at March 26, 2020 11:48 AM
Leave a comment