HobokenJ t1_iu4dyi0 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 1:50 PM

Reply to comment by stepsandladders in Jersey City ATM robber left behind his Hudson jail inmate ID by SoundMachineJC

Rooting for the recidivist?

Those years aren't being "taken away." He willingly risked them by committing a crime.

stepsandladders t1_iu6jzx2 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 10:51 PM

I think it's pretty fucked up that you're willing to condemn someone to lose years of their life based on a single incident you have absolutely no context for. Here's a thought experiment:

Imagine the worst thing you've ever done, ever. Now imagine that's all anyone knows about you and the only thing they think about when they think about you. Now imagine that because of doing that thing you are forced to spend months or years of your life in an institution well-known to be a site of physical, emotional, and sexual violence. Then you're released with no access to resources because you've been condemned by society to be a "criminal", and anything you do that might be seen unfavorably by the state has people foaming at the mouth to send you right back and call you a "recidivist". Pretty bleak existence!

I think the idea that "committing a crime" means risking "years of your life" is pretty fucked, especially for people who have no other options for meeting basic survival needs.

HobokenJ t1_iu99zxy wrote on October 29, 2022 at 3:37 PM

While I appreciate your empathy for the person in your scenario above, you know absolutely nothing about the actual perpetrator of this actual crime. You know nothing of their life, nothing of the crimes they've committed in the past. You don't know if they're violent; you don't know if they served time for assault or rape. It might be nice to think they're a Dickensian street urchin just trying to scrape by, but we just don't know.

He's a former inmate, according to the story. Left his ID at the scene. In other words, a repeat offender. But let's feel worse for him than the person he robbed.

stepsandladders t1_iua5zyj wrote on October 29, 2022 at 7:24 PM

You don't know anything about him either, and what difference does it make if they served time for assault or rape (unlikely, as those crimes are rarely convicted) vs carrying weed or excessive failure to pay fines (extremely likely)? Either way putting someone in jail or prison does nothing to address systemic issues of violence, inequality and deprivation that lead to actions deemed "criminal" by the state. Meanwhile, direct redistribution of money actually does exactly that. So yeah in general I'm on the side of people who have greater need and against dehumanizing people for having been put in jail or prison.

HobokenJ t1_iuav71m wrote on October 29, 2022 at 10:28 PM

Let's try another thought experiment:

Someone comes up to you from behind at an ATM, shoves you to the ground and steals $800. The police somehow catch the assailant.

Do you press charges?

stepsandladders t1_iubq8pb wrote on October 30, 2022 at 2:40 AM

Nope! Absolutely not. I wouldn't ever call the cops for any reason since data shows they are vastly more likely to escalate a situation and get someone hurt than defuse it and/or solve the problem. And besides, $800 would not impact my quality of life or the wellbeing of my family. You seem to be coming from a position of great ignorance about how prisons and police actually function in our society, so I'll stop replying now and suggest you read a book on the topic. A great accessible place to start is "Are Prisons Obsolete" by Angela Davis, but you can also just google "history of policing in America" and read a little bit about why police exist in the form they do. Best of luck!