this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
181 points (98.9% liked)

News

23257 readers
3435 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A Texas prisoner accused of killing 22 older women over two years, preying on them so he could steal jewelry and other valuables, was slain Tuesday by his cellmate while serving a life sentence, prison officials said.

Billy Chemirmir, 50, who was convicted last year in the slayings of two women, was found dead in his cell at a prison in rural East Texas, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Hannah Haney said. He was killed by his cellmate who was also serving a prison sentence for murder, according to Haney.

Chemirmir’s death comes about two weeks after Texas’ 100 prisons were placed on a rare statewide lockdown because of a rise in the number of killings inside the facilities, which prisons officials have said were related to drugs.

Haney did not release the name of the cellmate, how Chemirmir was killed or what may have led to the slaying.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Rakonat 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Given the culture that surrounds prisoners, this isn't surprising at all.

The prisons themselves are just for profit with zero interest in rehabilitation or otherwise turning those in their custody into productive members of society. Yes, there are programs to teach skills or education to prisoners available, but in almost all cases these are either operated by outside organizations and thus don't cost the prison any money, or completing the program lets the prison take advantage of any certification or qualification earned, generating more revenue for the prison.

Prisons intentionally make people live in the lowest quality of life possible by law, and would reduce the conditions further to save money were there not laws to prevent that. They justify this because prisoners are being punished, even when that mentality is proven wrong time and time again, specifically in how wealthy or influential prisoners are allowed to make improvements to their own personal living conditions, rather than having to live like the general (poorer) population of the system.

Don't ever fool yourself into thinking US prisoners care one bit about a prisoner's security or safety, they would put all the prisoners into medicated comas and hang them up on meat racks if the law allowed it and it was cheaper than shoving them in cells. As long as they get paid for every day they hold a prisoner they don't care about any other aspect that doesn't cost them money to ignore. They only care about prisoners killing other prisoners because the state won't pay them to hold a dead body.

[–] Klinker 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

As a non American, what is the concept of for profit prisons?

[–] Rakonat 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same thing as for profit healthcare.

Taking a service of a civilized society, gutting it od everything that gives it value and charging obsense amounts of money for it.

Privatized anything just ende up being some corporation making somethint worse for money

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 2 points 1 year ago

Even worst... For profit prison companies go to poor towns, and promise jobs. And you need prisoners to have security jobs.

So you have this feedback loop where police arrest people and the courts give them prison sentences because well, we got a nice fancy empty prison and the town needs those jobs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They exist to generate profit from suffering. That's it.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago

The lemmy circle jerk is real when it comes to law enforcement and capitalism hate.

The idea is that rather than the government running prisons at a loss, private companies run the prisons, and the jobs the prisoners do make a profit for the prison's owners. The imprisonment itself just constitutes an expense.

It kind of makes sense on paper ("well they broke the law why are we paying all this money to support their lives!??"), but it's a bad idea in practice as it creates the wrong incentives. You end up with entities that desire more people in prisons because that's how they grow their profit margins... and that obviously comes with some sketchy implications (e.g. lobbying for more non-violent offenders to get jail time, longer sentences, etc).