Apparently, according to some sparse news reports, this was the cause of death of two inmates at Attica Correctional Facility last week. The idea is that two inmates in separate cells coincidentally died of drug overdoses on the same day, and maybe a third almost died but was taken to the hospital.
That’s the idea. Maybe it’s just me, but it would seem a few details might be missing from this account. But an investigation is ongoing. So there’s that, then.
We’ll follow up on this as best we can around here, and as we have already. We note that this does not seem high on anyone’s list of concerns except ours, but we humbly persist anyway. We won’t prejudge, we have no agenda other than the unarguable concern that the people we lock up are not punished beyond that by some kind of abuse or neglect.
That is unarguable, right?
Lawyers on Strike 
I think our whole system of punishment needs to change. As it stands, once someone is convicted of a felony, regardless of whether or not the conviction was correct, regardless of whether or not it was a low-level or major offense, the “guilty” party will be discriminated against for more than long enough that they’ll go into crime (if they weren’t already) in order to survive because they’ll have few, if any, options for non-criminal employment; few, if any, options for legal housing, and when driven into poverty, only criminal means to support themselves for basics such as food, clothing, and shelter.
We need a system that first of all acts on the truth, the whole truth from all sides – victims, perpetrators, and society. Once the truth is understood, it needs to set the punishments to discourage future violations, reparations to restore the victims, and enable both victims and perpetrators to fully participate in society. A system of restorative justice would care about the well being of the “criminals” as well as that of the victims and society. Deaths would not go unnoticed in such a system.
A recent article about justice: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20537-grace-and-the-cycle-of-abuse
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Briliant point, Zarepheth, that the hounding of convicts ups the likelihood of their turning back to crime, once released, in order to survive. We even see this kind of extreme marginalization for defendants who have been acquitted, or dubiously convicted then released, and the media and public is greatly responsible for that in their creating and engaging with a twisted “fan base” for certain defendants’ trials. The post release/acquittal hypocrisy, where these ghouls have their radars up to pounce in glee and satisfaction if/when the defendant trips up again is itself a disincentive for a former defendant to take up a normal and productive life.
George Zimmerman is a classic case in point. Regardless of whether or not he is a jerk anyway, and has a propensity/history towards verbal or physical abuse, it is blinkered to deny that the excessive media and public scrutiny on his every bowel movement can only have had an exacerbating and possibly triggering effect on his tipping over into the ridiculously publicized litany of some, inconsequential, as well as disturbing run-ins he has had with law enforcement since his acquittal. Perhaps if he had been left alone, he might have dealt with his anger management issues and been able to limit his engagement with, let’s face it, women who appear to be exploiting his notoriety to expose a “told-you-so” self-fulfilling prophesy. Why his wife had to go on TV and make public what should have been a private divorce and turn it into a circus is very, very questionable. If she really wanted to distance herself from him, this was certainly not the way to go about it. If he is as volatile as she claims, then why increase the likelihood of his coming back at her in an unpleasant fashion? Tacky, very tacky…
Media and misguided fame-hungry relatives/girlfriends certainly have a lot to answer for….
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