Debate Now What should be the goal of our prison system?

What say you?

  • Reformation

    Votes: 6 13.0%
  • Hard time

    Votes: 7 15.2%
  • A mix of both

    Votes: 21 45.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 12 26.1%

  • Total voters
    46
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
 
Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie.
There is a delusion of "intellectual property" rights to the proprietary software of the computer game, and great animosity to free and open source software, but that is irrelevant to the local shop owner, to whom it is sitting on the store shelf as as a shrink wrap package as inventory, and must be declared as a loss and replaced if it is physically stolen.

Some people "pirate" proprietary computer games online, and others work hard to hinder, sabotage, and prevent the development of free and open source computer games that might otherwise compete with their proprietary paid offerings.
 
Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie.
There is a delusion of "intellectual property" rights to the proprietary software of the computer game, and great animosity to free and open source software, but that is irrelevant to the local shop owner, to whom it is sitting on the store shelf as as a shrink wrap package as inventory, and must be declared as a loss and replaced if it is physically stolen.

Some people "pirate" proprietary computer games online, and others work hard to hinder, sabotage, and prevent the development of free and open source computer games that might otherwise compete with their proprietary paid offerings.

There are two types of Intellectual property rights.

The first is basically used to create monopolies, and is basically the control of thinking. The idea that you can control 'thought' is ridiculous to me.

This was first practiced by the British. The Royal Crown had opened the business of production of Salt. So they created the first intellectual property law, by saying that the Royal companies that benefited the Crown, had a patent on selling Salt.

But saying that only I, and I alone, can find a way to sell salt, is ridiculous. But that's what patenting thought is. Some comes up with a thought, and then patents it.... and no one else of the 8 billion people can come up with that thought? Ridiculous.

So I'm entirely against all of that intellectual property.

But copy right... copy right is a different thing. If you wrote a book, and had it published, and you are making a few thousand a year selling it.

Then I came along, digitized your book, and started selling it online for $5. Because $5 bucks is good money for me since I put in barely 20 minutes digitizing your work.

Meanwhile your sales of your book that you spent 10 months working on, fall to a trickle, because I'm under cutting your book sales, with copies of your own book.

So that kind of intellectual property I fully support.

As it relates to computer software.... the only people who believe there should be no copy right laws on software, are people who have never tried to make any software.

Early in my college life, I made the mistake of thinking I could be a programmer.

I spent 20 or 30 hours coding, and then dozens of hours debugging, and trying to make a program work exactly how I wanted.

And you want to copy my hard work and effort, for free and use it?

You put in weeks worth of hard work, and endless checking, and re-checking code, and fixing mistakes, and debugging problems, and then have people take and use your software for free. See how you like it.

So no, I fully support copy right laws. You want software that isn't free... then you pay for it. You don't, then you shouldn't get it, and you should be tossed in prison for taking it.

You don't want to pay $60 for what is just a video game? Then don't buy it. Do without. But stealing is not justified in my book. Those programmers and artists, and musicians that are spending sometimes 5 years of their life, pouring in 50 hours a week... and you want it for free? No.

Now if you want free software, there is software out there for free. But it's not big companies making free software suck. Free software sucks because no one is going to pour 5 years of 50 hour weeks, to make it awesome for free.
 
Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie.
There is a delusion of "intellectual property" rights to the proprietary software of the computer game, and great animosity to free and open source software, but that is irrelevant to the local shop owner, to whom it is sitting on the store shelf as as a shrink wrap package as inventory, and must be declared as a loss and replaced if it is physically stolen.

Some people "pirate" proprietary computer games online, and others work hard to hinder, sabotage, and prevent the development of free and open source computer games that might otherwise compete with their proprietary paid offerings.

There are two types of Intellectual property rights.

The first is basically used to create monopolies, and is basically the control of thinking. The idea that you can control 'thought' is ridiculous to me.

This was first practiced by the British. The Royal Crown had opened the business of production of Salt. So they created the first intellectual property law, by saying that the Royal companies that benefited the Crown, had a patent on selling Salt.

But saying that only I, and I alone, can find a way to sell salt, is ridiculous. But that's what patenting thought is. Some comes up with a thought, and then patents it.... and no one else of the 8 billion people can come up with that thought? Ridiculous.

So I'm entirely against all of that intellectual property.

But copy right... copy right is a different thing. If you wrote a book, and had it published, and you are making a few thousand a year selling it.

Then I came along, digitized your book, and started selling it online for $5. Because $5 bucks is good money for me since I put in barely 20 minutes digitizing your work.

Meanwhile your sales of your book that you spent 10 months working on, fall to a trickle, because I'm under cutting your book sales, with copies of your own book.

So that kind of intellectual property I fully support.

As it relates to computer software.... the only people who believe there should be no copy right laws on software, are people who have never tried to make any software.

Early in my college life, I made the mistake of thinking I could be a programmer.

I spent 20 or 30 hours coding, and then dozens of hours debugging, and trying to make a program work exactly how I wanted.

And you want to copy my hard work and effort, for free and use it?

You put in weeks worth of hard work, and endless checking, and re-checking code, and fixing mistakes, and debugging problems, and then have people take and use your software for free. See how you like it.

So no, I fully support copy right laws. You want software that isn't free... then you pay for it. You don't, then you shouldn't get it, and you should be tossed in prison for taking it.

You don't want to pay $60 for what is just a video game? Then don't buy it. Do without. But stealing is not justified in my book. Those programmers and artists, and musicians that are spending sometimes 5 years of their life, pouring in 50 hours a week... and you want it for free? No.

Now if you want free software, there is software out there for free. But it's not big companies making free software suck. Free software sucks because no one is going to pour 5 years of 50 hour weeks, to make it awesome for free.
Thank you, I never knew about that bit with the English crown/salt being headwaters of intellectual property law. Knowing this, I may need to reconsider my views on intellectual property. I appreciate the time you took to lay this out.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?
Well said.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

LOL!

Well one problem, the people who want to build a wall around it, are not trying to build a wall to keep people in. Nor is the wall even to keep people out.

We are not trying to make the US into a prison. You can leave any time you want. And people can come here.... LEGALLY.... any time they want. Anyone can apply to get a VISA and move to the US, whenever they wish.

You just can break our laws to come here, and enter illegally.

As the rest of it, yeah it sounds like they are pathetic worthless trash, that wants to be coddle cradle to grave by the mommy tits of Government.

It is pathetic.

But the wall isn't to keep people trapped in a prison, like East Berlin, or an island prison like Cuba. This isn't the North Koreans shooting defectors trying to escape.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

LOL!

Well one problem, the people who want to build a wall around it, are not trying to build a wall to keep people in. Nor is the wall even to keep people out.

We are not trying to make the US into a prison. You can leave any time you want. And people can come here.... LEGALLY.... any time they want. Anyone can apply to get a VISA and move to the US, whenever they wish.

You just can break our laws to come here, and enter illegally.

As the rest of it, yeah it sounds like they are pathetic worthless trash, that wants to be coddle cradle to grave by the mommy tits of Government.

It is pathetic.

But the wall isn't to keep people trapped in a prison, like East Berlin, or an island prison like Cuba. This isn't the North Koreans shooting defectors trying to escape.
Not now it isn't, but what about later?

I'm not saying open borders, I'm saying watch that shit real, real close...... because walls can work both ways. And take a hard look at who you are going to be stuck in there with, if it comes to that.
 
Well I'll put it this way. Back when I went to high school in South Carolina we had a local chain gang guard named Josh. Now Josh looked just exactly like you can imagine he would, a straw hat, bib overalls, mirror sun glasses, shot gun laying over his big fat belly. I'm sure you've got the picture because Josh was stereotypical. After about a month on Josh's gang out in that hot South Carolina sun swinging a swing blade or doing other road work people just didn't scew up any more because, as they say they "got their minds right". Therefore in that small town or anywhere else in the county for that matter, no one locked their doors simply because there was no need to. You could even leave your car keys dangling in the ignition because no one would even think of entering your home uninvited or stealing your car. That was simply because they just might get to spend 30 days or so with Josh and very few dared to risk that.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

LOL!

Well one problem, the people who want to build a wall around it, are not trying to build a wall to keep people in. Nor is the wall even to keep people out.

We are not trying to make the US into a prison. You can leave any time you want. And people can come here.... LEGALLY.... any time they want. Anyone can apply to get a VISA and move to the US, whenever they wish.

You just can break our laws to come here, and enter illegally.

As the rest of it, yeah it sounds like they are pathetic worthless trash, that wants to be coddle cradle to grave by the mommy tits of Government.

It is pathetic.

But the wall isn't to keep people trapped in a prison, like East Berlin, or an island prison like Cuba. This isn't the North Koreans shooting defectors trying to escape.
Not now it isn't, but what about later?

I'm not saying open borders, I'm saying watch that shit real, real close...... because walls can work both ways. And take a hard look at who you are going to be stuck in there with, if it comes to that.

It would have to be much much later. Even the French, with their wealth tax, where thousands of wealthy french packed up and left.... they repealed the wealth tax, before they started building walls to keep people in the country.

I do not see the US getting to the point where they try and prevent US citizens from leaving. Could happen, but I doubt in my life time.

Do you realize that Texas alone could fight off half the rest of the country?

It would be more likely that we would have a civil war, and dissolving of the Union.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

LOL!

Well one problem, the people who want to build a wall around it, are not trying to build a wall to keep people in. Nor is the wall even to keep people out.

We are not trying to make the US into a prison. You can leave any time you want. And people can come here.... LEGALLY.... any time they want. Anyone can apply to get a VISA and move to the US, whenever they wish.

You just can break our laws to come here, and enter illegally.

As the rest of it, yeah it sounds like they are pathetic worthless trash, that wants to be coddle cradle to grave by the mommy tits of Government.

It is pathetic.

But the wall isn't to keep people trapped in a prison, like East Berlin, or an island prison like Cuba. This isn't the North Koreans shooting defectors trying to escape.
Not now it isn't, but what about later?

I'm not saying open borders, I'm saying watch that shit real, real close...... because walls can work both ways. And take a hard look at who you are going to be stuck in there with, if it comes to that.

It would have to be much much later. Even the French, with their wealth tax, where thousands of wealthy french packed up and left.... they repealed the wealth tax, before they started building walls to keep people in the country.

I do not see the US getting to the point where they try and prevent US citizens from leaving. Could happen, but I doubt in my life time.

Do you realize that Texas alone could fight off half the rest of the country?

It would be more likely that we would have a civil war, and dissolving of the Union.
I have fought as infantry in 2 counter-insurgency wars; you're going to look long and hard before you find someone that knows more about this shit than I do. I know what it smells like, and what it looks like.

I know exactly what type of a shit-show that this could degenerate into if we don't start fixing shit.
 
Well I'll put it this way. Back when I went to high school in South Carolina we had a local chain gang guard named Josh. Now Josh looked just exactly like you can imagine he would, a straw hat, bib overalls, mirror sun glasses, shot gun laying over his big fat belly. I'm sure you've got the picture because Josh was stereotypical. After about a month on Josh's gang out in that hot South Carolina sun swinging a swing blade or doing other road work people just didn't scew up any more because, as they say they "got their minds right". Therefore in that small town or anywhere else in the county for that matter, no one locked their doors simply because there was no need to. You could even leave your car keys dangling in the ignition because no one would even think of entering your home uninvited or stealing your car. That was simply because they just might get to spend 30 days or so with Josh and very few dared to risk that.

Yeah, exactly. I'm constantly shocked by the level of facilities that prisons have.

That one guy, that killed that 60s year old prison employee... he was doing yard work on her property, as part of a "good behavior" program. That's insane to me.

Back in the day, working for the prisons was absolutely miserable, and it should be. Why work hard labor for free, when you can work hard labor for really decent pay?

As far as I'm concerned, they should have a billboard saying "If you worked this type of job outside prison, would have earned $300 today." or whatever the going local wage is for the same type of work. Just to remind them, once you get out, you can get a job, and earn decent money.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

Not sure what you mean by people wanting to go to prison for free food, free education and place to stay.

If that was the case homeless people would do crime to get of the cold winter days in far north to get free food and warm prison cell.
 
Well some jails and prison do help inmates get their GED or high school diploma but sadly in today’s world that GED or high school diploma does not mean much by today’s standard.
Under the organized codes of omertà and respect that govern criminal America and the carceral state, a college degree is absolutely worthless (or even of negative value) with any sort of arrest or "brush with the law" on one's record, let alone a conviction or mental health adjudication. Some ex-felons who have not been adjudicated as mental defectives are able to find jobs in the trades with some technical schooling, but untrained work, even if ex-felons or adjudicated mental defectives are permitted to apply for such jobs, can scarcely pay for basic human needs as food, clothing, and shelter in this day and age.
Sounds bad. You mean that criminals brought societal judgement upon themselves, in excess of the criminal justice system, to the point that noncriminals do not want them in their midst for the rest of their lives? This is not actually new news. What is the matter with some people's mind, intelligence or upbringing that would make them take up crime in the first place. Sounds like a shitty life on the outside, as society protects itself from the afflicted individual.

No he saying many of these people have hard time keeping jobs and education will do nothing. They will come to work late and miss lot of work.

If they are violent offenders than many jobs they will not take because of safety.

Jobs like the military, police, FBI, fire, EMS, Doctor, Nurse, Airplane pilot, school teacher, daycare will not want violent offenders because of safety that they will not trust them that they may do crime again in the future and sexual assault or physical assault some one at work.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

Not sure what you mean by lack of life skills and training to survive out side prison and life of crime.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.
Your response makes me nervous, as it sounds like WMWLR to me. (Well Meaning White Liberal Racism) When we begin to talk about what people can’t do, or what limited expectations we should have for large groups (be that a race or individuals who live under the poverty line) I find that problematic. One of the most destructive forces I have seen in the lives of the men I have worked with is that those in authority around them have lower expectations of what they are capable of. There is an implicit message that without being saved by and taught “white culture”, or as you say the skills needed to succeed in this society, we should never expect these individuals to “save themselves”.
When we make excuses for why someone is less than, the main message is that they are less than. Are you old enough to remember Ebonics? Started as a way to express the minority culture in schools and turned into a a codified way to lower expectations of children of color. All in the name of leveling the playing field. Not quite affirmative action, n’est pas?

Not sure what you mean by white culture? and they need to be saved?
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.
Your response makes me nervous, as it sounds like WMWLR to me. (Well Meaning White Liberal Racism) When we begin to talk about what people can’t do, or what limited expectations we should have for large groups (be that a race or individuals who live under the poverty line) I find that problematic. One of the most destructive forces I have seen in the lives of the men I have worked with is that those in authority around them have lower expectations of what they are capable of. There is an implicit message that without being saved by and taught “white culture”, or as you say the skills needed to succeed in this society, we should never expect these individuals to “save themselves”.
When we make excuses for why someone is less than, the main message is that they are less than. Are you old enough to remember Ebonics? Started as a way to express the minority culture in schools and turned into a a codified way to lower expectations of children of color. All in the name of leveling the playing field. Not quite affirmative action, n’est pas?

Not sure what you mean by white culture? and they need to be saved?
I put it in quotes because it’s not actually a thing, but I was referring to the dominate cultural norms our society live by. It is a trap many well-meaning, usually upper-middle class, usually well educated liberal professional fall into. They are going to “save“ the poor under-educated, and under-represented. The problem with this is that it presupposes the need for white folk to drive change among other groups.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

Not sure what you mean by people wanting to go to prison for free food, free education and place to stay.

If that was the case homeless people would do crime to get of the cold winter days in far north to get free food and warm prison cell.

I'm just saying it does happen, and fairly routinely. I mean, 60 minutes did a documentary on this. I watched. They talked with people who intentionally committed armed robbery... specifically... to get tossed into prison.

Now as far as the homeless... very very few of the "Homeless" are actually homeless. Most are people who have made being homeless, into a career.



This is normal. Here in Ohio, the local TV station had a reporter track a number of "homeless beggars" and all of them walked blocks away from where they were begging, climbed into a car, and drove to someplace of residence.

The few true real homeless people, are usually people with mental illness. Ironically this is tied to drug use, which the left-wing supports.

But beggars make pretty darn good money. Between $15, and $30 bucks an hour. This is why if you ever watch the guys with the cups... they don't leave the cash in the cups. Watch them. I have. You drop a $5, $10, or $20 in the cup.... they'll wait until you are around the corner, out of view, and quickly slip the money into usually a back pack. Not in their pocket, because you would notice the bulge in their pocket from all the cash. Plus they sometimes are robbed too. So you often see them with backpacks.

But back to the prisons.


The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System

Amazing little book about how people in prison gangs, write letters to gangs in other prisons. Make connections between prisons. Even plan out people getting back into prison. It's a fascinating insight into how the system works.

But the point here is that this is all planned out. They know who is getting out when, plan for them to meet up with other people, and have letters of references... kind of like references for a job interview, except they write each other talking about this guy is good for these things, he really good a such-and-such activity, and he'll be like this in prison, and can get smuggled drugs or whatever.

So people openly go back into prison to be with their gangs. This is a real thing.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

I completely disagree with you. Because we have people here, that immigrate here from other countries, where their parents, their grand parents, and their great grand parents, were all in poverty.

They come to the US, they open a business, they make money, and they become wealthy.

How did they do that? Where did those magical skills to be "prepared or equipped for that environment".... when they came from an entirely different country, with different culture, with different language..... how did that happen?

Explain, I want you to explain to me, why poor people, from poor countries, with poor parents and poor grand parents, who came from poor people.... can come to this country, and become wealthy?

How does that happen? Where did their life-skills and attitude come from to lift themselves out of Generational poverty?

Is there something 'magic' about poverty in other countries that gives them all the skills and attitudes they need, that poverty here in the US does not bestow on them?

I met a couple from Laos. They fled socialists in Laos, and came to the US. Laos is 129th on the Economic Freedom index.

So they came here, without knowing English. They got a job, while they learned English. Then after this couple learned English, they learned how to do CNC Machining, and got jobs earning $50,000 a year, each one. So their combined income was almost $100,000 a year.

.... from Laos.... where the AVERAGE income.... is just above McDonald's wages. I think they are up to what.... $20,000 a year is the average income in Laos? That's the average. Meaning 50% of the country earns less than that.

From Laos... with no recognized US education... learning English as a second language.... with no family here in the US. Just two people, a Husband, and a Wife, from a 3rd world country.....

Six figure income.

Explain? Please explain that. Where did their magical attitudes and life-skills to lift themselves out of generational poverty, come from?

And how is it that a person in the US, going to a US public school, that knows English natively..... can't get the life-skills and attitude to life themselves out of generational poverty, but a impoverished immigrant can?

How does that work? Explain?

And by the way, that is one of dozens of stories I can tell.

How many dozens of people in our own nation, lifted themselves out of generational poverty? Chris Gardner?

This is man that was homeless. How did he magically gain the ability to lift himself out of generational poverty? Other than working very hard, and following the law..... what was the magic?

So no I don't buy that argument. Sorry, but that is wrong.
First off, we do have a multi-generational criminal sub-culture in this country and if you're going to pretend we don't, then I don't think we're going to be able to productively discuss this. I'm talking about sub-cultures not the entire culture, okay?

Those immigrants you talk about for the most part don't come from a culture that has been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations. They may be from a different culture but some of those cultures do value personal responsibility, hard work, and frugality, and some just plain don't.
Not all cultures are equal; some are just simply better than others.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Not sure how, but I was under the impression you were arguing the opposite of all that.

Yes, I agree with most of that.

If you never watched your parents or older relatives get up and go to work every day, where are you going to learn that behavior from? What examples are there for you to follow?

Well you don't need an example to follow.

Where do you learn it from?

Proverbs 16:26
"The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need an example.

Now don't get me wrong.... obliviously.... OBVIOUSLY... if you have a good example of a work ethic growing up, you'll do better. No question.

But you don't 'need' to have a good example. All you need is to be hungry, and have no other option but to work.

Cut welfare. Throw criminals in prison, or kill them.

When you look around and there is no free lunch anymore, and crime is a bad option because you go to prison for life.....

You'll work. You don't need an example. You'll be hungry, and do what you need to do, to earn some bread.

You realize that this is actually one of the earliest lessons, that was learned from the American colonies?

When they first established a colony, all the food was in a collective, and distributed equally to people. Well the result was, no one wanted to work. No one wanted to plant crops. No one wanted to labor. People were lazy, and complaining their back hurt, and their leg was injured.

The colony faced starvation. So the leadership of the colony decided to divide up the land to all the colonists, and everyone was to own the responsibility of feeding themselves. No more free food.

Shockingly, all the men that were 'sick' magically got up and worked. The people with injured legs, hobbled out into the fields, and started planting. Women and children both, which prior to this was considered taboo to have women and children working the fields... all went out to fields and started working the ground.

The Bible is right: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."

You don't need a good model. Yes a good model helps. No question. But people need, is no being fed for free... no more welfare, no more food stamps. And they need society to teach them through law enforcement, that crime is not an option.

Instead, we're doing the exact opposite, and the results are predictable.

Now I agree with you COMPLETELY... that culture matters. Like I mentioned in the other post, my father when he found I had shop lifted a game, that I already owned... he would have tossed me in Juvie. That black 'mother' (not sure how you can be a mother and openly promote theft), was teaching her kids that stealing was perfectly fine if you were not caught.

This is why prisons are so important. We need to make it clear that you will get caught. We need more enforcement. More policing. More tough laws on crime. More criminals executed or tossed in prison.

We need to make it so that, that black mother would NEVER encourage crime, because she knew it would get people in prison or executed.

I watched a 60 minutes years ago, specifically about people who intentionally committed crime, just to get back into prison. If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong.
"If people are trying to get into prison, we're doing it wrong."

Some of the loudest people in the country are demanding government provide free housing, free medical care, free education including college, food stamps (EBT or SNAP or whatever), and almost no guns anywhere.

Some others want to build a wall around it.


What does all of that sound like to you?

Not sure what you mean by people wanting to go to prison for free food, free education and place to stay.

If that was the case homeless people would do crime to get of the cold winter days in far north to get free food and warm prison cell.
They do.
They also claim to be suicidal when they're contacted on the street by police because that results in an automatic EDO (emergency detention order) and the cops bring them to the ER. And we, by law, have to assess them and determine if they are actually mental, high as fuck, or just faking for a warm bed and a meal. And when we determine they're faking, they are discharged and they are often upset about that, like the guy night before last.....
He refused to leave so the nurse got me to deal with him and when he swung on me, I put his head into the wall..... he decided to leave after that. He cussed me and talked shit the whole way out the door and down the street, but he did it walking.
Another member of the staff said he was pissed about losing his bed, but he was probably also embarrassed at being manhandled and punked out by an old white guy. He said, "You took his manhood from him."
And I think he was probably right about that.
 
You are cool. Agree with you 100%. Incarceration should be designed to break cycles of thinking and in extension behavior. Prison by itself is not the problem, our implementation of it is. For some inmates education, training and some form of counseling seem prudent. How do you read someone’s heart though? Some folks just have a “criminal mentality” and none of us can change until we are ready and want it enough to make sure it happens. How do we know when someone is ready to help themselves as opposed to working the system to get back at what landed them in custody in the first place?
USA needs far more prisons than ever before

Actually, we need to cut the number of prisons in half. We already have more people in prison than nation on this planet. China has four times the population and we have more people in prison than communist China! If you're going to participate in this, you really should read the thread so we don't have to end up beating a dead horse.

That not really true compared to Europe the US has major prison population problem but compared to the world many other countries that have a very high prison population are close to the US level.

world-map-country-with-largest-prison-population-700x676.jpg


When you look at the map it all comes down to poverty. The countries that have more poverty are worse.

You you cannot really look at China because it is communist country.

And even that, is really reversing the causal link.

Crime.... causes.... poverty. People that engage in crime, get fired from their jobs. Don't advance up the economic ladder. End up going to prison, have criminal records, which makes it even more difficult for them to climb the economy ladder.

The implication here is that if we can just eliminate poverty, that crime will go away. That is absolutely false.

You need to eliminate crime, and then poverty will go away.

When people stop engaging in crime, and instead start working for what they want, they'll naturally progress up the economic ladder.

So locking people up, and enforcing the law... and teaching right and wrong in the public, that there is no excuse for crime.... that is how you end up with people becoming wealthy. Because they'll start working lawfully for what they want.

The problem is morals, and a lack of law enforcement. We need to double the size of our police force, and start coming down hard on crime.

Then poverty will decline.

Additionally, we need to stop encouraging unwed mothers, and stop subsidizing the breakup of the family. That also has a direct clear impact on crime, which has a direct impact on poverty.

Those are the solutions. Family values, and enforcing the law.

what they need to do is send them to a military school that teaches education and rehab them than give them a TV and gym to workout in prison to get big and strong.

If you don’t get high school you are going to get low paying job getting less than 10 dollars flipping burgers, working at car wash ,taking out the trash, being house cleaner or working at dishwasher in fast food or restaurant.

You well lack of education and good paying job and you will be doing crime to support your self.

That's not true. I know people who worked those jobs, without education, and didn't need to do crime to support themselves.

ME... for example.

I have no education. I have no training. No skills. No nothing.

I have worked flipping burgers, working a car wash, taking out trash, and so on.

Never once did I think.... oh I need to engage in crime to support myself!

By the way, cleaning houses is not a low pay job. What the heck are you talking about? You realize that house cleaners of any decent reputation, make almost $50/hour? How much they make a year, only is dependent on how many houses they are willing to do a day.

Now it takes work. You got to work at it. But you clean 3 houses a day, putting in 2 to 3 hours at each house, that's $200, to $400 per day. You do that 5 days a week, that's $2,000 a week, or $100,000 a year.

Ask me how I know that? I know two women that do that. There is only one reason they don't make $100,000 a year, and it simply because.... they don't want to. They would rather do fewer houses, and have time with their family.

But that actually illustrates my point. Anyone in this country, even ex-convicts, can be wealthy. It's a matter of choice. If you go and clean houses, you can make good money.

The problem isn't this mythology that people can't earn enough and thus.... magically... they just simply have no choice but to commit crime! .... No. The problem is, people don't want to work.

It's that simple. They commit crime, because they simply have no morals and think they are "entitled" to what they want in life. That is it. All that "they have no choice!" crap is made up left-wing nonsense.
What motivates individuals is as varied as our worlds population. I have gone into my county jail for the past few years to help inmates earn their GEDs. Some go after it like they are starving and the books in front of them are hamburgers. Others are just looking for an excuse to get out of their block. Some can’t wait to get on with their life, find a job and work hard. Others get released and are back within 6 months. The only difference is that some are mature enough to say, I do not lIke my situation and will do whatever it takes to change (note they take responsibility). Others say exactly what they think the “authority” wants to hear and as soon as they are out and the door to the jail closes with them on the other side...they are in the wind. What accounts for this difference? The best answer I’ve ever heard is that you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And you know what, most of the the students that have succeeded were waiting trial for violent crimes ranging from murder to rape to human trafficking. You know who does consistently poorly? Guys who are serving 6 months for a DWI/not having the money or wisdom to hire a decent lawyer.
So what’s the answer? I help who is in front of me and hope they can make this the first step of positive change. I make no judgements because I have no idea what their history or specific circumstances are and I hope that if I ever found myself at the bottom of the barrel, someone would extend a hand to help me help myself.
The life-skills and attitudes of the people who are best able to survive in a prison environment, or in the sub-culture of the population most likely to be imprisoned, are totally different than the ones necessary to lift oneself out of generational poverty and to survive in a normal functional working society. They are simply not prepared or equipped for that environment, anymore than the typical suburban video-game playing 18 year old is ready for prison instead of college.
Now those skills and attitudes can be learned and adopted, but it takes a lot of effort and some good guidance by people that the individual is willing to listen to.
And it's hard to take even good advice from someone you know would never last a day in the environment you've been surviving in for years.

Not sure what you mean by lack of life skills and training to survive out side prison and life of crime.
What are some of the things you need to do to get and keep a job?
You need to look presentable for the workplace environment, and you need to show up on time. If you never saw anyone do that growing up, then these are not traits that you place any value in.

So you go to work in inappropriate clothing because you don't understand why you shouldn't.
And you're late, again because you don't get why it matters.

This behavior must be learned, and employers aren't going to waste time with people who don't already know this and live by it.
 
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