![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-349558-100x100.png\")
A message to the inmates: if you don't like the prices, don't go to prison.
I'm sure the families you've affected by your actions would have other words for you.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1237829-100x100.png\")
@dialmelo: Yeah when you're locked up, you're fair game for every profiteering guard in the system? \"Human rights? For criminals?!\" Hope an absolutist like you doesn't get into policy-making.
![\"user-pic\"](\"/css/images/default.gif\")
@dialmelo: Significantly, the USA incarcerates its citizens at a rate 5 to 10 times higher than Canada and Western Europe. That's right: if you're an American, you are FIVE to TEN times more likely to be sitting in jail right now than if you live in Canada.
So, yeah, given that our prison population is GIGANTIC compared to other First World countries, and almost all of those people are getting out one day, you'd think we'd take a very keen interest in prison conditions. Like making sure prisoners don't come out feeling like they've been blatantly ripped off by profiteering suppliers.
But hey, as Americans, we're unaccountably proud of the hyper-violent, non-rehabilitative, isn't-rape-funny nature of our prisons. It's certainly one of the least attractive elements of our national character.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-16563-100x100.png\")
@jaket: I'm quietly stunned that there are people saying, Tough Cookies to the fact that demonstrably innocent people have been incarcerated, even killed, in their name. Or that the state is justified in trumping up unrelated charges to jail those it can't prove to an impartial judge. It's something I'd expect King George III, or the Crown's Star Chamber to embrace, not Americans.
Jeezus.
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-665956-100x100.png\")
@jaket:
If you're a minority and an American, your chances of going to prison are much higher than that. It's scary.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-781903-100x100.png\")
@dialmelo:
Many inmates are there for prohibition violation (being free) and nothing more. They certainly do not deserve the same ire as those in prison for actual violent crimes and white collar crimes.
@pahncrd:
I assume that by \"prohibition violation\" that you mean something along the lines of a drug possession offence. While it's true that that's the only thing many of them have been convicted for, part of that is because while many of them have done far worse things, the DA may choose to only prosecute the possession offence because it's so easy to prove. You don't need to try to find witnesses who will refuse to talk to you because they aren't \"snitches\", you just need to prove that they had the drugs in their possession without much additional testimony.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-2180-100x100.png\")
@Powerlurker: So you think that some vague number of drug offenders in jail are criminals otherwise? Why? What proof?
Sounds like you just like to feel better about people living in HORRIBLE conditions who haven't harmed anyone else.
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1004377-100x100.png\")
@mianne:
In order to answer to properly answer your question, I'll bring my argument down to a level that you can comprehend.
Enablers will always use your defense because, as history shows, in prison EVERYONE'S innocent and it's ALWAYS the system's fault. Did you know that by going to any prison, whether county, state or federal, you can find Jesus there, too? One innocent in a sea of thousands does not a trend make.
It's time to take off your rose-colored glasses and see that the world is not filled with nice people with a sweet, nougat filling. Some are bastards with crap filling who think nothing of taking from you or your loved ones because they feel entitled due to others enabling. Ask these people what they would rather be doing.
@dialmelo: Two things, firstly I think mianne's issue was your characterization of all inmates as the worst of them and simply choose to respond with the best of them, not nessisarially the most common. Secondly my issue with your first post is the fact you do not have to commit a crime against anyone to get in trouble with the law. Just to pull a random example, [www.video777.com] Now I don't think going to prison would be at all likely but it is possible to go to prison for \"illegially\" copying your own dvd for backup purposes.
@Kryndar: Great third post and already wishing for an edit button. Anyway the link was just to a screen cap of an FBI warning from a DVD.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-789724-100x100.png\")
@Kryndar: Personal use is allowed under Copright law, but with DVDs is prohibited under the DMCA (since you have to breech a copy-protection method (CSS)
The only kind that's criminal, is for commercial gain, oh, and some other laws that our politicians were bribed, sorry lobbeyed, into passing. Remember the workprint of Star Wars Episode 3 that leaked online the day before the premier? 5 people went to jail over that. None from Lucasarts or on the film side of things, where it was actually leaked, but all 5 were from a single torrent site that was one of many distributing it. It damaged the bottom line so much, that when it was top of the box-office charts in 2005, it only brought in 30% more than the next highest grossing film [www.boxofficemojo.com]
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-169958-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-782863-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-917643-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-417754-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-159929-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1288769-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-291961-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1503703-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-488475-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-396144-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1301600-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-98962-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-387985-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1237948-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-614388-100x100.png\")
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1221761-100x100.png\")
![[www.video777.com]](\"http://www.video777.com/images/general/FBI%20Copyright%20Warning%202.jpg.\"){kind=link}
\"Meanwhile, in federal prisons, where smoking has been banned since 2004, the underground economy needed to find a new currency to replace packs of cigarettes. That currency? Packets of mackerel. No, really.\"
ok you got me what do they do with the fish? i hope its just to eat it right?
@BB_User:
The fish is ground up to a fine point against the concrete wall and used as a shank.
@BB_User: I hope prisons also ship in fresh mint.
Otherwise, maintaining the regular versus menthol canned mackerel ratios will be QUITE the challenge.
@BB_User: They just use them as currency. They don't really get eaten. It's fascinating!
@BB_User: It's smoked fish. Try it some time. It's delicious.
@BB_User: More people should replace cigarettes with mackerel. Just saying.