Jackson Jambalaya

They can invest in all the programs they can afford. They can hold all the crime summits they want. Nothing, but nothing is going to stop this direction of criminality. What no one seems to want to admit is there is a breakdown in the social fabric within a culture of people, and there is no way to correct it.

Cultures can be changed.

Re-entry to felon again.

Every prison system, every jail, is merely a reflection of the behaviors of its society.

The worst of all reasons to talk about a prison is the number of guests and the cost of operating it.

If the number of D.O.C. customers doubles next week along with the cost of operating the industry, those things are certainly no reason to open the gates or worry about the cost or to stop enforcing our laws and the penalties associated with breaking them. Liberals like Salter should know this.

If members of society will not behave themselves, society needs to build as many cells as are needed to house behavioral problems at whatever cost is required. Period.

We can hold 'attitude adjustment' and 'come to Jesus' classes day and night at all our prisons, yet the effectiveness of that is a roll of the dice.

We cannot force feed adults with the things they should have learned before they were six years old.

I am not saying youre right or wrong 8:38, but how would you go about changing a culture?

Realistic and actionable items that could fix this lack of morality...no snark, genuinely curious.

There is no evidence that 'cultures can be changed', but if that IS possible, it must be from within, not as a result of any external effort.

"Cultures can be changed." Agree, but it is a lengthy process usually fought against by those you wish to change. Good luck with that plan.

8:38 - not when it is this far out of control. Review all the programs and initiatives to slow the growth of crime that have been initiated in the last 50 years, and look at where we are today.

As a kid growing up in Mississippi, I remember a phrase that has been handed down forever:

"Some people just ain't gonna do right".

Trying to unpack that reference to bad people will take someone a lot smarter than me but, it really is that simple.

Watch the movie Cool hand Luke for a good description of inmates and prison.

Sid Salter needs to move out of Mississippi.

Simple way to lower the prison population. Bring back the death sentence and execute those on death row faster.

I have a friend who regaled me with a story of a relative that is in their 30s, mid-divorce, and was just arrested for destruction of spouse's property in a retaliatory manner.

I expressed my dismay how someone of that age range could have so little impulse control. I cannot fathom not having the ability to see the consequences of such, and therefore NOT taking such immature actions.

He further explained there is a neglected child in the middle of this.

It is just generation after generation of abysmal parenting that gets us here. And I do not think society has the intestinal fortitude to right this problem.

We are a weak and coddled nation and the solutions are not.

“The court found that the physical facilities were in such condition as to be unfit for human habitation, that racial discrimination was practiced by the penal authorities in the assignment of inmates, that the medical staff and hospital facilities available to penitentiary inmates were far less than minimal, and that the inmates, under the protection of few free-world personnel, had to work under guns placed in the hands of other inmates who were trusties.”
Rising crime and the rising perceptions of crime and declining public safety gave birth – nationally and in Mississippi – to legislation that had unintended consequences.

If the above was so true (and I do remember the Judge) and the conditions were so deplorable, I can't think of any reason better than to stay the hell out of trouble and avoid going back. But, I was raised differently, apparently. I used to work a prison ministry and we always asked the prison to send us their worst. Of course they all blamed the legal system but what I could tell, they needed to be there. I'm not sure how bad the prison is matters; it society outside that determines this. Go back to the LBJ years and compare two parent homes to today. That's the deplorable part.

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”, Baretta.

sid just can't strap on the fact that , by definition, prison systems are ugly places to be no matter what new and improved ''path'' the state chooses to take.

Our justice system is designed to deal with crimes committed by the individual. We don't jail groups of people or classes of people. Every single inmate in our prisons is there because of a choice they made, and they are paying their debt for having made it. But alas, some people like to look at the prison as a unit and they start acting surprised there are actually prisoners there. Then they start counting and creating little statistics about how many or what kind of prisoner is there, etc. That's where we lose our perspective. Prison isn't supposed to be a country club. It is a place of punishment, and a place that would-be criminals should want to avoid.

The idea that we have too many prisons and too many people in prison and we need to lower the number is not very smart. How many thugs actually go to prison for their first criminal act? How many times does a person have to be convicted of a crime before they go to prison? Why do judges give out a certain amount of time for a crime then automatically drop the amount of time? Why can't we set a certain amount of time in jail for each crime, no matter who you are or who you know?
Maybe we should have a set time in jail for each crime and stand firm on that time? Why not put the person in prison who is convicted of a crime the first time instead of letting them commit several crimes before they go to jail?
We do not have a problem with our prisons. We have a problem with our people.

They need to sit down and have a meaningful conversation with Mr. Benny Ivey.

Crime has gotten to the point that the perpetrators no longer consider the consequences (if they ever did). Our laws, punishment specifically, have not kept up with the increased violence in crime. Meaning that punishment is no longer a deterrent. This must be changed if we have a chance at all.

Stop recidivism, don’t let them out of prison.

8:10 We are talking about people. Individuals. We do not jail groups no matter their "culture". To say that a "culture" that favors criminality cannot be changed is complete bullshit. The "culture" these people decry has only manifest itself in a couple of recent generations largely affected by circumstance, sometimes beyond the individual's control. Those circumstances can change and so can the individual. History shows that some of the greatest men and women arose from horrible surroundings and/or lineage which others called "trash" or "undesirables". They changed their own trajectory. No one is condemned to a foul culture. To believe otherwise is to spit on history and Christianity.

12:05 - yes, individuals within a culture can change, however, an entire culture that has gotten to this point is doomed. There are just too many that are out of control. Violence has become a way of life. And you can blame it on whomever or whatever you want, but it gets back to personal responsibility, and they have none. And if it could change, don't you think a solution would have been discovered by now?

When the goals of young people, are to emulate the vulgar lyrics of rap songs, the end result will be death, or imprisonment. When the desire to emulate the actions of rap songs are reinforced by violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, the effects of those desires will be more widespread.

When criminality is glorified by the associates of our young people, when street cred is one of the most important achievements of your running buddies, when there is no rebuke of these patterns of a dysfunctional lifestyle from our church pulpits, the only end will be prison sentences, or an early death.

I read a while back that the vast majority of state prisoners have severe personality disorders, e.g., psychopaths, sociopaths, etc. On the other hand, I never hear about inadequate conditions in federal prisons.

Can anyone please explain to me the reason for this disparity?

12:33 Who are you talking about? The Irish? The Jews? The Germans? The Mandarin Chinese? Maybe the Poles? Italians? Better still, Sicilians? The Gypsies? Remember the Mongols? The stiff-necked Hebrews? All kinds of people were once condemned as a hopeless culture at one time or another in history by someone else then in a better position. Whoever you are, at one time or another your ancestors were thought "doomed". Thank God only God can Doom anyone.

@11:09 AM, I agree with you and entirely so. The problem does become, though, that we can't build prisons fast enough to hold them all. I am not being facetious when I say to hold all the malefactors imprisoned like you and I know should be done, the State would have to wall off some entire county and turn it into a prison. I'm not certain that there is any other solution, but I don't see that happening ever.

Changing the subject somewhat, having spent some time in prisons -- not done time but had to be there for purposes of work -- I have never heard a criminal say anything like "that burglary I committed" or "I shot a guy." It was always "I caught that charge." It didn't matter the charge, homicide, burglary, robbery, none of them ever "did" or "committed" anything; instead it was "I caught a charge," even if they pled guilty to it.

The choice of words, how they phrase it as something like an illness, is telling and interesting. They rarely, if ever, simply admit to having engaged in criminal activity.

2:49 PM, bring back and actually use the death penalty would help quite a bit. What good does it do either us or the thug who commits several murders and is sent to prison for several lifetimes? They are of no use to anyone. We have no shortage of thugs so why crowd up the prisons with people who are supposed to spend the rest of their life in prison?

@12:05; I thought you might make a good point or two. Then I read this: "The "culture" these people decry has only manifest itself in a couple of recent generations largely affected by circumstance, sometimes beyond the individual's control."

"The culture" he writes of, wasn't caused or created - It simply manifested itself.

And I wasn't surprised that the writer placed blame on external factors - no personal responsibility. He wrote, "..recent generations largely affected by circumstance, sometimes beyond the individual's control."

'recent generations'. Assuming he meant three generations, that's at least 60 years they were 'affected by circumstances', nothing within their personal control'. WOW!