That article was fun on mobile.
Cheaper than my rent. Where can I sign up?
Commit a non violent felony that doesn’t step in to federal jurisdiction. Hire a good lawyer that can convince a judge to let you continue under your own recognizance working while you’re living in jail awaiting trial. Every time you’re trial date approaches push for an extension or a delay. Enjoy living in the premium cell at the zoo.
But living conditions and quality of life is so extremity better here in the Netherlands, so I’ll stay here :) Plus, for at least the coming 4 years I wouldn’t want to step foot in the US anyway.
Eh you’d be fine. Doesn’t really matter who’s in the white house if you’re just visiting. The president has very little actual impact on day to day life. Who’s in the white house is a symptom of the health of a country, not a cause of it. And, like herpes, one symptom may subside but the country is still infected.
What I’m saying is, if you wouldn’t visit under trump, maybe reconsider visiting at all. Though I maintain that as a visitor you’d find the people you meet to be mostly polite and even kind, if maybe a little extra interested in you because you have an accent.
Definitely don’t fucking move here though holy shit what an awful mistake that would be. In fact, if you ever do visit take me back with you. I’m cool, I’m handy, I make a mean chili. My wife loves to garden you’d basically have no chores!
I’ve seen many places around the world. I would like to see certain places in the US too but there are too many reasons I’d rather go somewhere else.
Why don’t you leave by yourself? Plenty of really good countries you can go to. The Netherlands is nice but we have the biggest housing crisis of the EU, so maybe check other places first :)
I went to American public School.
I speak precisely one language, with maybe a passing interest in a few others. My wife doesn’t even have that. Her job requires her to be able to communicate effectively. So that limits us to English speaking countries, Canada, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. Of those, New Zealand and Ireland are tempting, though our careers aren’t in high demand in either location.
Emigrating to a country we’d buy be interested in would be expensive and time consuming, and we have neither the time nor the money to accomplish that. Not to mention our families and friends are all here. We both have decent careers here.
Nah, you’d be fine in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries too. Poland, Portugal. Everyone speaks English, loads of jobs where just English is fine. There are maaaaany expats who only speak English. There’s no need to speak the local language at all. It’s nice if you learn, but I have friends who live here for 7 years and only speak English and their own language (French, Swedish, German, Spanish, Portuguese). They say it’s too hard to learn Dutch because everyone automatically switches to English when they hear you’re not Dutch, so it’s hard to practice. There are many Asian countries too where just English is fine as well. An American friend of mine is living out his pension on the Philippines with his wife. Doesn’t speak a word which isn’t English. My ex is from Mauritania, she’s slowly learning German now that she’s been living in Berlin for over 10 years, but it’s hard not to pick up some German when you live there for so long. But most conversations are still in English.
So you’ve got loads of options! Most of them with better healthcare and no one owning guns. Many countries have special programs to help expats to settle. Help with taxes, finding a job and a house, etc. US citizens are very welcome in most countries in Europe, some even have special treats. Like in the Netherlands, there’s a tax cut for expats with specialized jobs (like in tech).
Just avoid France and Southern Italy. In Northern Italy everyone speaks English, in the south they don’t. And in France most people don’t speak it or are to proud to speak it (unless in big cities but even there it’s not too great). But in most countries rural parts have a lower quality and quantity of English speakers (not in the Netherlands though, here a non-English speaker is a rarity, mostly boomers).
I thought you were joking and then I did the math… Unfortunately I lose my pay if I’m locked up so I’ll go back to looking at campground commuting…
$3k a month? in rent? Are you renting a 5 bedroom house in Manhattan?
That’s a 200 sqft studio with no kitchen in Manhattan.
Shit my rent is 2400 and that’s considered a steal for the place I live.
🤮 jesus christ
$3k a month gets you a small 2br apartment 45-60 minutes from Manhattan
Ask how I know
lol 3k$/mo is a studio apartment in manhattan.
It’s insane to me that even the “luxury” jail looks like a horrendous dungeon, and the implied solution in the article is that everyone should be in the even worse county jails. It’s no wonder the US has the recidivism rate that it does. All of the cells for all prisoners need to be upgraded to something that looks like a living space if there’s going to be any hope for the persons in them to be able to reintegrate into normal society when they’re released. Being afraid of getting raped and murdered everyday while living in a gray concrete box doesn’t exactly produce well adjusted individuals. I thought the punishment was supposed to be the incarceration itself, not the added daily violence in jails. It’s so barbaric, people who manage to get out of these places and become productive members of society seem almost superhuman to me.
But what started out as an antidote to overcrowding has evolved into a two-tiered justice system that allows people convicted of serious crimes to buy their way into safer and more comfortable jail stays.
The most hilarious part is believing that this is not the system behaving exactly as expected.
I hate everything about this, but the part I hate more than everything else is how ‘normal’ jails being rife with violence and abuse is just treated as a matter of fact, not as something that needs to be fixed.
“They tried to tell me he was afraid of the general population … but that’s part of jail,” he said in a recent interview. “That’s what makes you not want to go back, it being such a horrible experience.”
No it fucking shouldn’t be, what the hell is wrong with these people?
Yeah the reason you don’t want to go back is that you aren’t allowed to leave for an extended period of time. We need to be fostering jails that leave people capable of reintegration to society.
Yeah, prison reform is very badly needed in this country.
Essentially torturing people and subjecting them horrific conditions has never left a person better off than they were before.
This is why we need educated, qualified, and ethically motivated people to make decisions about how places like prisons are run. Not greedy, soulless, corporate husks who exist purely to accumulate money.
The for profit prison system needs to be abolished.
we dont have a justice system. we have a revenge system. it all makes sense when you view it from its reality.
Well if we had reform oriented prisons we would run out of slave labor, duh. That’s why it’s in the constitution 🦅🦅
In Australia we don’t have the slave workhouses you have in the states, but our justice system is still focused on retribution rather than rehabilitation.
Unsurprisingly, both countries started in part as British penal colonies for debtors and convicts.
Hurt people hurt people on a cultural scale
…stop being right!
You ever been to jail?
GOOD point.
They forgot the part where only people who have been in jail can comment on it.
I’d like to gauge how informed someone is on a topic before taking them too seriously.
EXACTLY. And only former prisoners can be informed on the topic of jails/prisons.
No, I haven’t. I don’t see how that has any relevance, but if you have and disagree with me, please explain why?
To be clear (and head off one potential objection), I’m not saying all jails are actually as awful as they make them sound (as I really don’t know), I’m referring specifically to the tone of the article, which definitely paints a very specific picture and then normalizes it.
Well it’s fine to have the sentiment you have (no violence in jails) but I’m really interested in how you’d propose to achieve that?
Well, you’re completely missing the point of the comment you were originally replying to, so this is really another topic entirely. I don’t have all the answers, but there are other countries who seem to have it closer to figured out than we do, so we could start by taking notes from them. Acting like this is an unsolvable problem isn’t helping anything.
What was the point of your comment then? I’m sorry I missed it.
Tangentially then, I’d suggest to you that while it is useful to adopt more therapeutic models of inmate care through a rehabilitation focused correctional centre, ultimately the effort required to change behaviour at the point of incarceration is inordinate. (Take a read: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.3.081806.112833)
Crime (and violence) is and remains a social problem and directing funding and effort near the end of a criminal episode (at the point of incarceration) is not as effective as providing a decent social safety net that provides for a stable household and gives children a chance denied to their parents. (Old paper but gives you an idea as to the complexity and unreliability of solving this: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/171676.pdf)
If I have given the impression that I think this is unsolvable I apologise, that’s not at all my position.
The original comment was really just intended to point out the shit take in the article. It spends a lot of time talking about how bad people can pay money to get jail accommodations that are less awful, but its tone is overwhelmingly that the problem is that nicer accommodations are available for people who pay (which I do agree should not be a thing), but its implication is that everyone should have to be subject to the same awful conditions, not that the conditions should be improved for everyone regardless of their economic position. It sounds like they’re saying, ‘Some criminals are able to spend their time in jail in conditions that aren’t awful and dangerous, isn’t that terrible? You should be angry about that.’
The stance I was taking is that if we’re going to be mad about something, it should be that jails are so awful by default.
(Take a read: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.3.081806.112833)
I don’t have access to this journal, unfortunately.
(Old paper but gives you an idea as to the complexity and unreliability of solving this: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/171676.pdf)
This seems to suggest that low-effort, generic solutions don’t work, but that more personalized, targeted solutions tailored to the individual are effective. That tracks with what I think we all would assume to be true.
I think it’s also worth noting that the article is talking about jails, not prisons. In theory, criminals sentenced to time in jail, rather than prison, would be the prime candidates for a focus on reducing recidivism, rehabilitation, and re-integration into society.
What kind of question is that?
See This comment
There was a weird thing in England that if you were found not guilty and released from prison, you’d have to pay the prison boarding costs because you had no right to be there in the first place
So you had no right to be there but definitely didn’t have the right to not be there
Same thing for Germany.
Someone is currently suing the Bavarian government for 750,000€ for 13 years of wrong imprisonment (he only received 400,000€ in damages, or 75€ per day).
Now the government is demanding 100,000€ back - 50,000€ for food and accomodation and 50,000€ for the total wage he received from mandatory prison labor.
They’re suing his WAGE back for work he still did???
It’s not like he had any rights to do his mandatory 2€-per-hour job. Completely understandable /s
If I saw an article with the title
UK man has $80,000 room and board bill from prison after being found not guilty of murder.
I’d be looking to see if it was from the onion.
Holy shit.
He explained that his compensation was also calculated on the assumption that he would never have worked and would have received benefits.
Fucking monsters.
Probably to regain the lost funds into the imprisonment fund from the compensation fund for wrongful imprisonment. Might be more of a dumb than an evil thing.
No, it’s evil.
Another person replied with a real story where it happened. They also did this to the guy wrongfully imprisoned 25 years
He explained that his compensation was also calculated on the assumption that he would never have worked and would have received benefits.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy31pk1w0lo
Edit: And I could see maybe its hard to assume he’d become a lawyer or Dr with high wages, but no job with only benefits, and then room and board subtracted? Savage.
Washington may be the most expensive state to be behind bars, as it charges up to $100 per day just for room and board, according to Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior counsel at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. Maine, which charges around $80 per day, may be the second most expensive, she added, but it’s not clear because many states don’t report the exact amounts. “Most states don’t provide the exact amount; they call for ‘full cost of incarceration’ or ‘a reasonable amount,'” Eisen told Truthdig. “In reality, these states which don’t provide real numbers may demand the steepest already very difficult for people with a criminal record to get a job, even if they committed a nonviolent crime, so steep fees can add to their struggles,” she said.
Also the idea that we as the taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for incarceration is ridiculous. We need to bear these costs to ensure we’re incentivized to minimize overincarceration
It’s ridiculous. I’d say you should be the one paid compensation (although I think it is usually deducted from compensation you are awarded by the court anyway, but still ridiculous that they have the audacity)
I’ve lived in the UK my whole life and I’ve never heard of this. I’m going to have to ask for a source because it really does sound like an urban myth.
This was real until very recently.
Compensation for the wrongly convicted could be reduced by the savings on room and board you get for being locked up. Given how much money people spend on rent in the UK, this could massively reduce the compensation received.
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Send them an invoice for your consulting services. Or, sue for kidnapping.
Reading this shit as European…
Ghost of Christmas Future bud.
Because the USA is more advanced than Europe
In capitalistic decay? Yeah, totally.
In the sense of an advancing disease, yes.
Seriously, the most American article I’ve read today. Time for a nap, just after I scrub my brain.
Holy shit. Every time I think we can’t go lower I see something that blows my mind despite deep cynicism.
After he pleaded no contest to statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl who attended his South L.A. church in 2011, Leonel Pelayo, then 45, compiled a list of every pay-to-stay jail he could find.
“County jail, you’re verbally abused, physically abused by everybody,” said Pelayo, who was a church leader. “I didn’t want to spend one day there.”
Is this an Onion article?
Which also goes to show what kinds of offenders will be able to afford this kind of princess treatment. Church leader that raped a teenager deserves better than someone caught with a dime bag.
If you want your blood to really boil, look up some of the leaks about how Josh Duggar gets whatever he wants. That TLC money goes a long way behind bars. (He had the Peter Scully video on his hard drive btw - with children near Daisy’s age.)
compiled a list of every pay-to-stay jail he could find
was he doing a youtube top 10 video?
Is this the real life…is this just fantasy…
In the Bible Belt, you pay to stay and perform free or seriously underpaid labor for garbage cells, and phone calls are expensive.
This is a Cali thing, as far as I know. It’s meant to reduce overcrowding.
This would not fly in some other areas of the US, like the south.
So… In other jails in the US, probably for profit, it costs money to stay and they don’t give the option for a better room
I’m not willing to Google search this but, is this a cheap Marriott? Or a more expensive county jail
Well the room looks pretty crappy, but versus a dormitory with 8 bunks in a room, this is a Marriot.
A possible dystopian future will have the actual Marriott brand running these pay-for-premium jail cells. Future advertisements will boast about using credit card reward points to book fancier accommodations while awaiting trial for white collar crimes.
