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JAY Z: PRISON REFORM ALLIANCE


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I just saw a news segment about Jay Z and Meek Mill launching the new alliance and it already has star power. Money has been pledged and rich donors, such as the Kraft family who own the Patriots are on board. As a veteran/victim of the criminal justice system, I am elated. However, I have not been absent from this struggle to reform prison. Even now, I am in talks with individuals who are interested in my program, PROJECT UPLIFT, and pushing to secure a grant for the program. It deals with Drug-Dealer Addiction which has never been studied before in great depth so the tenets of the program are innovative and new. I had to start from scratch and that is what I wanted. The program was developed while I was still confined and a 12 week pilot program  was successful.

 

To some, I know it may be a hard sell to believe that drug dealers are addicted, but they are. They are addicted to the lifestyle and are as powerless to quit as the user is to quit the use of drugs. Just ask any drug dealer who has money why he didn't quit.  What it comes down to is that they couldn't quit. There are professionals around who feel that no progress can be made in the war on drugs until drug dealing is viewed as a social disease. 

 

Again, there are countless people who believe prisoners don't deserve any help at all. I disagree, because I know there are innocent men in prison as I spent ten years inside for a crime I did not know anything about. I simply stepped out of my front door and it was a whole decade before I got back. 

 

At any rate, the struggle for prison reform continues so there is still hope.

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At it's basic level, to RE-FORM means to RE-STRUCTURE; and there are 2 essential things people should know before attempting to RE-form any institution:

1. Understanding WHO and WHAT established the institution in the first place; because this helps you to understand it's purpose for existing.

2. Knowing EXACTLY what you want to RE-FORM that institution into; because in some cases an institution shouldn't be RE-formed at all but simply ELIMINATED.

For example......
Slavery (forced labor) was actually RE-FORMED, when it should have actually been eliminated all together.

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On 1/25/2019 at 11:32 AM, Pioneer1 said:

At it's basic level, to RE-FORM means to RE-STRUCTURE; and there are 2 essential things people should know before attempting to RE-form any institution:

1. Understanding WHO and WHAT established the institution in the first place; because this helps you to understand it's purpose for existing.

2. Knowing EXACTLY what you want to RE-FORM that institution into; because in some cases an institution shouldn't be RE-formed at all but simply ELIMINATED.

For example......
Slavery (forced labor) was actually RE-FORMED, when it should have actually been eliminated all together.

@Pioneer1Shortening your rebuttals is a bust. Your brief analogy is a false equivalency.  Slavery and prison are technically not the same.  (And when was slavery ever reformed?) Brick and mortar prisons exist to incarcerate those who commit crime, and the principle of punishing those who do wrong is a tenet of all cultures.  Penal  institutions are a pillar of civilized society, made necessary by people who don't obey the law, and it would be disastrous to "eliminate" these places of confinement for outlaws. Obviously what's called for is more emphasis to be placed on rehabilitating  inmates, many of whom do improve themselves during their prison stays. But those with a criminal mentality or a killer instinct, are repeat offenders who are incorrigible.  These types are victims of personality disorders or of unstable upbringings that stem from poverty and negligence. None of this needs to be figured out.  It's obvious.

 

@Gibran  Court systems are certainly  what need to be shored up and more aligned with equality and justice and free of the racism that has spawned the privatizing of prisons and false imprisonment  Bottom line, the criminal justice system is symptomatic of a dysfunctional Society from whence all ills flow. Our class based society either aids and abets criminal behavior or is a party to the harsh punishment meted out to those who are defenseless.  And the chances of this changing  are shaky because humans are flawed and Life isn't fair.  Unfortunately, the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. i wish JayZ and Meek Mill, et al  well, however.  If just  one person benefits, that is a small victory.

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Just now, Cynique said:

@Pioneer1Shortening your rebuttals is a bust. Your brief analogy is a false equivalency.  Slavery and prison are technically not the same.  (And when was slavery ever reformed?) Brick and mortar prisons exist to incarcerate those who commit crime, and the principle of punishing those who do wrong is a tenet of all cultures.  Penal  institutions are a pillar of civilized society, made necessary by people who don't obey the law, and it would be disastrous to "eliminate" these places of confinement for outlaws. Obviously what's called for is more emphasis to be placed on rehabilitating  inmates, many of whom do improve themselves during their prison stays. But those with a criminal mentality or a killer instinct, are repeat offenders who are incorrigible.  These types are victims of personality disorders or of unstable upbringings that stem from poverty and negligence. None of this needs to be figured out.  It's obvious.

 

@Gibran  Court systems are certainly  what need to be shored up and more aligned with equality and justice and free of the racism that has spawned the privatizing of prisons and false imprisonment  Bottom line, the criminal justice system is symptomatic of a dysfunctional Society from whence all ills flow. Our class based society either aids and abets criminal behavior or is a party to the harsh punishment meted out to those who are defenseless.  And the chances of this changing  are shaky because humans are flawed and Life isn't fair.  Unfortunately, the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. i wish JayZ and Meek Mill, et al  well, however.  If just  one person benefits, that is a small victory.

How correct. The courts are dysfunctional. I also agree that prisons serve a function and like Richard Pryor once cracked in one of his comedy routines: "Thank God for the Penitentiary." As much as I hate being locked up, there are certain guys I met while inside, that if i were to see them walking down the street, I would kill them myself and consider it a public service. Certain individuals need to be jailed. On the other hand, there are innocent people inside, not to mention guys who were too harshly penalized.  On my last bid for drug conspiracy, I spent ten years in the joint and no drugs were ever produced. It  has gotten bad when you can get a life sentence for drug conspiracy and no drugs have to be produced. It's a conspiracy, right. All they need is to think that you may be selling drugs. Now, you can get convicted of murder without a body. NC was the first to do that in the 90s. It used to be that without a body, there can be no murder. And then the constant madness of prison itself.

 

Most people who break the law, such as so-called veteran crooks,  know the risks and  are willing to accept the consequences if  busted. Still, we want to be treated fairly as much as allowed by law, and when this doesn't happen-----well, what happens is that these guys sit around and invent new crimes to wreak havoc on the free world when they do get out. Carjackings, home invasions, etc. I was there when the blueprint for these crimes were hatched. People think that I just be writing books to be writing, but when I was writing from inside, these books had warnings.  COOCHIE, though a novel, was about a Russian pornographer recruiting nickel and dime pimps into a scheme to snatch black girls and sell them into the sex trade. That was not fiction.

 

So until, changes are made somewhere in the criminal justice system, then the free world will be nothing more to guys inside than a big old laboratory which they will use to work the kinks out the their new  criminal  schemes. I have said it countless times, but any time a convict is released without a support system, then someone's life or well-being is at stake. These guys are emotionally crippled, and cant think fast enough to survive in the fast-paced new world.Being unable to cope, they revert back to what they know---violence.

 

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Cynique

 

 

Slavery and prison are technically not the same. (And when was slavery ever reformed?)

 

Slavery (involuntary servitude) is a major part of the penal systems of many nations around the globe today including China, North Korea, and the United States where thousands are FORCED to work regardless as to how much or how little they are paid.
 

 

 

Brick and mortar prisons exist to incarcerate those who commit crime,

 

Correction:
They exist to incarcerate those who have been FOUND GUILTY of committing a crime whether they actually committed the crime or not.

 

 

 

and the principle of punishing those who do wrong is a tenet of all cultures. Penal institutions are a pillar of civilized society, made necessary by people who don't obey the law, and it would be disastrous to "eliminate" these places of confinement for outlaws.

 

This assumes that the laws you are expected to obey are just and correct in the first place.
But these laws didn't come from God, they came from other human beings with their own opinions and agendas.
And what is to be said about problems like poverty, lack of decent paying jobs, and improper mental health treatment that force people to commit crimes in the first place?

 

 

 

Obviously what's called for is more emphasis to be placed on rehabilitating inmates, many of whom do improve themselves during their prison stays. But those with a criminal mentality or a killer instinct, are repeat offenders who are incorrigible.

 

Although there is a killer instinct.....there is no such thing as a "criminal instinct".
Crime...just like laws..are man-made social constructs and the concepts of what's considered a crime vary from one society to the next. In the past, two men having sex with eachother would have been considered criminals, today they are just considered lovers.

 

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7 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

Although there is a killer instinct.....there is no such thing as a "criminal instinct".
Crime...just like laws..are man-made social constructs and the concepts of what's considered a crime vary from one society to the next. In the past, two men having sex with eachother would have been considered criminals, today they are just considered lovers. 

 

i didn't use the term criminal "instinct', i said criminal "mentality" which is different  in that it has to do with thinking it's ok to commit whatever constitutes a crime as long as you don't get caught.

 

In another post,  you said slavery should be reformed, but slavery and reform don't belong in the same sentence.  Slavery is what it is and freedom alone is its anti-dote. And the solution to eliminating  imprisonment and harsh sentences has nothing to with incarceration which is the end result of a trial.  Incarceration, per se,  is not the flaw in the prison system. Everybody agrees that the fault lies with and occurs in a  corrupt society where the court systems do not dispense equal justice under the law. Any other commentary is just a variation on the need to reform the criminal justice system, an endeavor which includes making a civilized society live up to what it is supposed to stand for.    

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Cynique
 

i said criminal "mentality" which is different in that it has to do with thinking it's ok to commit whatever constitutes a crime as long as you don't get caught.


Even so, it's still an improper term.   "Criminal mentality" implies that their sole purpose is to break laws when in actuality their purpose is to do what they WANT to do whether it's a crime or not.   The term "criminal mentality" is more "us against them" speech as if there's a group of born criminals out there.

The term you WANT to use is "anti-social" to describe the people you're speaking of.


 

In another post, you said slavery should be reformed, but slavery and reform don't belong in the same sentence. Slavery is what it is and freedom alone is its anti-dote.


I never said slavery SHOULD have been reformed, I said it WAS re-formed but SHOULD have been eliminated.


 

Incarceration, per se, is not the flaw in the prison system. Everybody agrees that the fault lies with and occurs in a corrupt society where the court systems do not dispense equal justice under the law.


There is fault to be found at EVERY level, including the level of incarceration where madness and injustice is ALLOWED to go on on between inmates.

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On ‎1‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:24 PM, Cynique said:

Sez  you, -  the well known authority on nothing,  using your personal definitions to try and prove your point; as usual    


You're welcome.
And the next time you're in the mood for more education, feel free to either ask a direct question or say just something else ignorant that begs for a correction...lol.
 

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Puleeze.  You're the last person in the world  who comes to my mind when i think of education. You still can't figure out that it's "etc", not "ect" or spell common words correctly, an indication of how disoriented your bird brain is. Good thing nobody takes you seriously.  

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Icoop

Slavery should be eliminated. It should not be allowed in our constitution at federal or state level.  It’s WRONG!  The criminals justice system must be reformed. Black Non violence criminals get life sentences when white multiple murders get less time in prison. White collar crimes get less jail and prison time than other crimes. Blacks get longer sentences than whites. Wake up America the criminals justice system in America is injustice to Bkack Americans 

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