Comic Strips

This is a problem that can be solved.

All the comments in this thread are focused on drugs but the bigger issue is that maybe we should not have non-violent felonies ruin a person's whole life. When you do the time after the crime and get released you are still being punished forever. That's the real injustice! A non-violent felony should be forgiven or expunged after a certain time.

• Abolish the death penalty. It has shown zero ability to deter crime, it costs much, much more than life in prison, and at minimum 4% of those executed are objectively innocent. There's zero valid reason to perform the death penalty if it fails to be either accurate or a deterrent, and it fails both.
• Stop making jokes that normalize prison rape. I know most people are on-board now with how tasteless these have been, but it really is gross the extent to which we've normalized extrajudicial punishment in jails as a society, let alone rape.
• Allow felons the right to vote even while serving their sentence. Not only are those convicted often innocent, but even if they weren't, they still deserve to have a say in how their life gets governed just like the rest of us. Disenfranchising prisoners and felons simply leads to worse treatment of prisoners. It also isolates them further from society, making it just that bit harder to reintegrate.
• Stop using prisoners as slave labor. In the long-term, amend out the part of the 13th Amendment that lets us do that.
• Socialize prisons. Private companies having their hands in this isn't good for the taxpayer, and it definitely isn't good for the prisoners. This includes even small but impactful things like price gouging prisoners for calls to their families and friends.
• Stop sending drug users to jail. At worst for destructive drugs, treat it as a public health issue and enforce some sort of treatment regimen if caught.
• Take some of the excessive funds given to the police and put them toward social services which improve people's lives and the community to reduce the chances they fall into crime to begin with. An ounce of prevention, etc.
• Make prison more like the outside world. Rigid standardization is still good for reform, but by giving prisoners a basic standard of living, you reduce recidivism and make prisons dramatically safer.
• Stop using cash bail. Either someone belongs on the street or they don't, and pre-existing financial situation should never determine that.
• End bans on government benefits for felons released from prison. These are arguably the people who need help to get back on their feet the most.

I know someone with a minor misdemeanor (no jail time, unrelated to drugs) and they've found that alone to be limiting for jobs... (Amazon delivery person to be specific)

You skept the forced labour stage during prison.

Now imagine how self-fulfilling it becomes when you overpolice a particular demographic to the point where a very high percentage of them experience an event like this. Imagine what happens when you do it for decades. Centuries maybe?

Then imagine what that means for their likely outcomes in society compared to other demographics.

Then imagine what an absolute piece of shit you must be as a member of another demographic losing your shit when someone starts to talk about systemic racism or white privilege, or when you fight against justice system reforms, social safety nets, and efforts at rehabilitation.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/press-releases/new-report-finds-imprisonment-rate-of-black-men-has-fallen-by-nearly-50-since-2000-but-pushback-threatens-continued-progress/

Spoiler! It did.

Panel 5.5: Trying to vote to improve the system, but can’t.

This is a good comic except for the gratuitous prison gay panic joke straight out of a crappy 1980s sitcom.

FUCK YES. So many people fail to understand this based on numerous conversations I've had. Cops especially don't seem to recognize what even a minor brush with incarceration or arrest can do to someone's life. (Or they like the power they have over the people around them. Maybe a little of column A a little of column B in that case.)