[lbo-talk] Kafka land

[Joseph Catron]

I've had several friends serve federal minimum-security time, a
routine punishment for certain political offenses like vandalism of
federal property. Many such prisons dispense with security measures
like fences; a friend sent to one in Pennsylvania joked that she would
have preferred a longer sentence, as prisoners serving for two or more
years were eligible to be trained as EMTs for service in the
surrounding communities. Minimum-security is really based on the
assumption that the judicial disincentives for escape will suffice.

One ex-con of this sort opined to me that minimum-security
imprisonment is the most psychologically taxing form, as the one
preventing the prisoner's escape is the prisoner him- or herself.

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Joanna<123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> a friend writes:
>
> ... and this News of the Weird item caught my eye:
>
> The normal way that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons transfers "low-risk"
> inmates between institutions is to buy them bus tickets and release
> them unescorted with an arrival deadline. In the last three years,
> reported the Las Vegas Sun in May, 90,000 inmates were transferred
> this way, and only about 180 absconded. Though supposedly carefully
> pre-screened for risk, one man still on the loose is Dwayne Fitzen, a
> gang-member/biker who was halfway through a 24-year sentence for
> cocaine-dealing. (Since the traveling inmates are never identified as
> prisoners, Greyhound is especially alarmed at the policy.) [San Jose
> Mercury News-Las Vegas Sun, 5-23-09]
>
>
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>

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