Prisons and The Aryan Brotherhood

Yet another reason to have a healthy arsenal to my mind...

...though, um, not all liberals agree...

My friend Peter the Public Defender is a ridiculously smart guy. Downright wise even. Years ago, in a conversation, he referred to prisons as "monster factories," and that's always stuck with me. Here's how it works: first, take a bunch of murderous, psychopathic fuckwits. Then, add in some poor schmucks who were stupid or unlucky enough to get busted for smoking weed or whatever. You might have started wtih 50 psychopaths and 50 schmucks. But after a couple of years, you've got something more like 75 psychopaths and 25 (broken, PTSD-addled) schmucks. The policy of throwing a bunch of non-violent drug offenders in with murderous lunatics to play Lord of the Flies...well, not the smartest idea ever...

Among other bad things, this encourages people to join gangs just to survive. Now, I doubt that the Aryan Brotherhood really is a major threat. But it ain't good. It's not the sort of thing you want your policies to be promoting. It's like using public funds to feed people paint chips or something. Not smart. I'm fine with locking up real crooks. Hell, I'm all for it. I'm certainly not a liberal criminal-coddler. But the combination of (a) having a shameful prison system in which psychopaths can basically run amok, and (b) throwing a bunch of people in there who aren't even real criminals... Not smart. Hell, not even sane...

So, anyway, there's that link to brighten your day...