NEWS: No Sex? No Pizza? What Is This, a Prison?

Inmates of Mexico's La Palma prison, a maximum-security facility just west of Mexico City, allege that federal agents have abused them both physically and psychologically during the government's crackdown to regain control over its penitentiaries. Over the past month, President Vicente Fox has sent troops into prisons across Mexico, including La Palma. In cell-by-cell searches, soldiers have stripped inmates of their illegal luxuries, which included mobile phones, flat-screen TVs and Pizza deliveries. Conjugal visits also have been halted.



It is about time they cracked down on these kinds of criminals. What did they expect prison to be a Country Club? I hope this crack down will also prevent them from running their drug operations from jail as they have done in the past. If it were me, I would have given them a death sentence that is what drug dealers deserve if you ask me.

Originally posted by shots

It is about time they cracked down on these kinds of criminals. What did they expect prison to be a Country Club? I hope this crack down will also prevent them from running their drug operations from jail as they have done in the past. If it were me, I would have given them a death sentence that is what drug dealers deserve if you ask me.

I admit that drug dealers are a problem in society, but dont you think it is a bit harsh to give them the DEATH sentence? Rehabilitation and education are the only things that we can do to stem the drug problem.

I do agree that these people should have their flat screen tv's taken away, and any other thing that they shouldnt have. Prison is supposed to be a PUNISHMENT.

as posted by shots
What did they expect prison to be a Country Club?

Might want to talk to Martha Stewart, and a few others rich celeb's, politician's, etc. that have gone to prison.



seekerof

Let's see here - I work 2 jobs, and have enough to get by, but a vacation for us is a day at the sea shore and a stop at McDonalds on the way home. And that takes away what little gravy money there is left over.
These criminals get all of the aforementioned things, plus college educations, plus library privelidges, plus workout equipment, plus 3 square meals a day. Want to know what I think?
I think that enough food to keep them from dying.
Temperature controlled just enough to prevent dying from heat/cold.
No TV.
No privelidges whatsoever - NONE.
They are in jail for a reason, and if they don't like it - too bad.
Rehabilitation? Not sure how I feel about that. I believe everyone deserves a second chance, but you hear so often of repeat offenders. Is the a high repeat offender ratio because they live better in jail than on the street? I don't know. But ALL privelidges should be taken aeay IMHO.

Originally posted by superdude
Let's see here - I work 2 jobs, and have enough to get by, but a vacation for us is a day at the sea shore and a stop at McDonalds on the way home. And that takes away what little gravy money there is left over.
These criminals get all of the aforementioned things, plus college educations, plus library privelidges, plus workout equipment, plus 3 square meals a day. Want to know what I think?
I think that enough food to keep them from dying.
Temperature controlled just enough to prevent dying from heat/cold.
No TV.
No privelidges whatsoever - NONE.
They are in jail for a reason, and if they don't like it - too bad.
Rehabilitation? Not sure how I feel about that. I believe everyone deserves a second chance, but you hear so often of repeat offenders. Is the a high repeat offender ratio because they live better in jail than on the street? I don't know. But ALL privelidges should be taken aeay IMHO.

I agree with you 100%. When I said rehabilitation was key, I meant to the drug problem. I fully agree that repeat offenders should be locked up for good. I was just saying that drug dealers shouldn't be put to death - I think that is a bit extreme.

When I said rehabilitation was key, I meant to the drug problem. I fully agree that repeat offenders should be locked up for good. I was just saying that drug dealers shouldn't be put to death - I think that is a bit extreme.

Then we are pretty much in agreement with one exception. A drug dealer that sells to children. An adult that sells to children....Off with their heads!

Unbelievable! Prison is supposed to be hard! I can't even believe that it got to that point to start with! WTH is wrong with those people! Your supposed to be afraid of going to prison, not see as a resort for awhile!

Most definetly no TV. I can see allowing full access to library books. With no TV to watch, many of these goons might take a stab at literacy and discover a world beyond Jerry Springer and pornography.

In Pennsylvania there is the First largescale prison in the US. Formerly I supposed local 'jails' were used (similiarly, the Romans didn't have jails, merely holding pens for people awaiting trial, confinement was not metted out as a punishment).

Its layout is brilliant and its intention revolutionary, at the time anyway. It is why prisons are called Penitentiarys.

It was laid out as a practical way to have a 'panopticon' prison, one wherein all the movements and activities of the inamtes are monitored by a very small staff. What they did was to build the prison-blocks as spokes, radiating from a central hub. Standing at attention in the central hub, a single guard could monitor nearly everything, and even more with the addition of a system of mirrors (or am I recallign that mirror bit wrong?).

Prisoners were not allowed to communicate with each other or the guards (but were not in solitary confinement so to speak). They stayed in their cells, one per cell, all day, except during exercise periods, during which a door at one end of the cell was unlocked and they were let out onto a small, private lot outside, in which they could excercise, not play basketball, not lift weights, not play chess, but do necessary excerisese for health. They didn't work in the kitchens, mailrooms, or laundry rooms. They were also required to learn a skill, liek shoe cobbling and the like. They were allowed books, they had windows that permited natural sunlight. Because they were in the cells most of the time, there was no inmate-guard tension. All the functions of the prison were provided by the prison staff. The idea was that they were to spend their prison time in quite contemplation of why they were there and to be pentitent. The prison itself was seperate from the city, but high on a hill, as a sort of reminder.

Brilliant. Didn't work for long tho, because it was widely expensive to feed and care for these guys with regular employees. In the end it became more like a modern prison, with work projects and communal meals and exercise.

Al Capone, by the way, was held there fora short while, and his cell had luxuries put into it, like carpeting, radios, expensive chairs and the like.

Anyway, not entirely relevant to this mexican crackdown, but I think that the idea might deserve reconsideration today. Prisons breed crimes. They don't reform criminals. THey are a mixing pool for criminals, and they are a market for the consumption of criminal goods.

" Conjugal visits also have been halted. "

I'm a free man and I don' t get conjugal visits.

People need to realize that there is a HUGH diffrents in State pens and Fed pens.

State prisons are Hardcore compared to Fed. Fed Prisons are the "country clubs."

Originally posted by LogansRun
I admit that drug dealers are a problem in society, but dont you think it is a bit harsh to give them the DEATH sentence?

Rehabilitation and education are the only things that we can do to stem the drug problem.

I do agree that these people should have their flat screen tv's taken away, and any other thing that they shouldnt have. Prison is supposed to be a PUNISHMENT.

No I do not think the death peanalty is harsh at all. According to the story we are talking Drug Lords not your ordinary street jockey. Granted some of them might be street sellers, I am talking about the Drug king pins. Even US federal law has laws that state drug king pins can be put do death, so do Singapore and other countries. Why not Mexico, that is after all where a large portion of ilegal drugs enter this country?

gosh i love capitalism

I take it the old stereotype of Mexican Prison is now crumbled to ruin?

Boy, I thought prison was a punishment or at least a deterrent -- these guys live better than me.

jm

Yeah, these scum who commit crimes live better than most of us. I wish I had all these perks paid for. I guess all I need to do is commit some agregious act to get them. Real fair, eh?
Bring on the death penalty!

I'm a free man and I don' t get conjugal visits.

Thats funny me either

Some of the prisons in Australia have cable, work that one out.

You people have so much hatred for drug dealers. Why blame them? If it weren't for a government that denies people the liberty to do with their body what they want (without hurting others) then drug dealing wouldn't be a shady underground enterprise.

Plus you all view this situation from only one viewpoint. People are born into the state of nature and are forced to adhere with the laws of a government that "owns the land" that a person was born on. Well, what if they don't agree with the laws, there are certainly laws in the USA that I don't agree with. Where are people supposed to go who think that governments are too authoritarian and restrict personal liberty too much.

Don't take this post to say that I don't think having some laws isn't a good thing. I of course believe that anybody who hurts another person (however they do so) needs to be punished.

Some inmates may be locked up for crimes that hurt no one, and you wan't them to just be locked away without anything.

How about being more human?

- Attero

Originally posted by Attero Auctorita
You people have so much hatred for drug dealers. Why blame them?

Because Drugs are illegal and they should not be sold that is why.

Some inmates may be locked up for crimes that hurt no one, and you wan't them to just be locked away without anything.

How about being more human?

- Attero

Prisons are for rehabilitation not entertainment or haven't you heard?.

shots: It's great that you're so concerned with maintaining human liberty. Some people don't wish to give up their natural rights for those imposed by some group claiming authority. But hey, step into line and don't act up. It's great that your so willing to be a proletariat. Some people just can't handle not being told what to do.

You obviously missed my point on prisons, let me spell it out. If a government is going to claim authority over a land and it's peoples, it sure as hell better respect them and their living conditions if it robs them of their free-will.

Then again, I don't expect you to understand my views, they are probably too open-minded.

- Attero