• LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The prison system must be reformed.

    That said, I’m here to nitpick about format: Stitching aside, in my opinion most “roses are red” memes are not clever/effective.

    The first two lines should be related - the original children’s rhyme is two flowers followed by two colors. Here we have a flower and color followed by a food and a flavor.

    Then the last two lines don’t have any relation to the first two. Just, well these rhyme so we’ll put them next to each other.

    In the original poem it’s something like,

    Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet And so are you

    The third line does mention flavor so kudos to this creator for at least tying that in. That said, I think what makes the original poem effective is it’s a sort of matter of fact inventory about the known qualities of the world, and all things which are related (in this case I guess “girly”/feminine things). Well, we know this flower is this color and that flower is that, and we all know sugar is sweet, and of course we all know you are too.

    So if we wanted to use all that to inform a poem about how fucked our justice system is, how about something like,

    Blood cells are red, Bruises are blue, Ancient egypt had slaves U.S. prisons do too

    Could use some work and maybe not zany enough for crossstitching, but I hope that shows what I mean.

    The first two lines are matter of fact statements about bodily function and colors that also mirror the original lines of the poem in terms of last word. The third line is a matter of fact statement no one would object to about a related subject and the last line while keeping the original rhyme introduces another matter of fact statement which is perhaps less universally agreed on (I think you’re sweet too!) but is actually the main reason the poem is being recited.

    • alphanerd4@lemmy.worldOPM
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      3 months ago

      it’s Beautiful

      Blood cells are red, Bruises are blue, Ancient egypt had slaves U.S. prisons do too

  • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Housing inmates also costs about $115 a day on average. Or around $42,672 of tax payer money. Might as well work to pay back society.

    Slaves didn’t have a choice. Felons did.

    • LowtierComputer@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      How do you feel about those convicted for selling marijuana or just having marijuana in enough of a quantity that the police decided they were selling?

      • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Completely different topic. My brother was a victim of this so I don’t feel very fondly about it. Like I said though, completely different topic.

        • Donkter@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          How is it a completely different topic? Do you think the choice to smoke or carry marijuana justifies being imprisoned and enslaved?

          • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            False dilemma. It would be like me saying “do you think pedophiles and mass murderers shouldn’t have to pay back their debt to society?”

            As far as marijuana decriminalization goes - I’m all for it. And I don’t even smoke.

            • Donkter@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I think the issue in this thread is that when you think of slavery, the only thing that comes to your mind is the worst of chattel slavery, which was worse than our current prison system. There are many other forms of slavery throughout history some were “better” than our current prison system, many were worse.

              • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                Curious if people in this sub would rather be in an American, Russian, or Chinese prison system.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Do you really think it’s all people that “deserve” it? Also, only 31% of the prison population is white. Do you think that’s a coincidence? Are POC that much more likely to commit crimes worthy of prison time? Or is the system maybe prejudiced in who it targets? None of this is a “different topic”. It’s all interconnected.

          • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world and it’s not really even close.

            • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              It’s not really even relevant. El Salvador has a smaller population than New York City (6M vs 8M) and statistics don’t really scale like that when you’re comparing a country of 6 million to a country of 333 million. The US has 4.2% of the world population and 20% of the world incarcerated population. We have more than 3 times more people in prison than the total population of El Salvador.

                • Ech@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  You’re acting like you’re intellectually superior here, but dismissing someone’s overall point because one thing they said wasn’t exactly correct is lazy and obvious, and your commitment to defending the exploitation of the unjustly incarcerated is gross.

    • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Most people in prison are there for crimes of poverty, or for “crimes” that rich people are not punished for. So you’re punishing people for their circumstances, not their actions. https://qz.com/1233966/new-data-clearly-illustrate-the-poverty-to-prison-pipeline Do you think white collar criminals are out working in regulation-free hard labor lines? No, no they are not.

      You know prisoners are charged for every day of their incarceration, right…? If they work a 12 hour day and make 25cents per hour, that’s $3 per day, but they owe $150+ per day for their housing and food expenses, they are being punished beyond their stay as they will be in debt and have garnished wages for life. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/paying-your-time-how-charging-inmates-fees-behind-bars-may-violate? , https://apnews.com/article/crime-prisons-lawsuits-connecticut-074a8f643766e155df58d2c8fbc7214c

      Maybe focus on not imprisoning people that do not need to be imprisoned rather than extracting cash and labor from people who have basically been kidnapped for profit.

    • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Might as well work to pay back society.

      But that work generally doesn’t get payed back to society, it goes towards enriching the for-profit prison owners, and enriching the businesses that use slave prisoner labor.

      Overall, nearly three-fourths (72.1%) of federal prisoners are serving time for a non-violent offense and have no history of violence.

      Non-violent offenses shouldn’t result in forced labor within a for-profit prison. That’s neo-slavery, with the prison owners motivated to change the laws to get as many people imprisoned as possible.

      That’s why we have such a high prison rate, and that’s why such a disproportionate amount of prisoners are POC.

      Slaves didn’t have a choice. Felons did.

      Felons didn’t perpetuate the prison industrial complex. They didn’t perpetuate the laws that made the dumbest non-violent crimes imprisonment level offenses. The people who enrich themselves off of prison labor did.

      • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Okay, so you are for forced labor on the hardened violent criminals, but lenient (no work) for the non-violent?

        What should they all do in their free time?

        If you are talking about justice reform, that’s a different topic and I completely agree with you.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Okay, so you are for forced labor on the hardened violent criminals, but lenient (no work) for the non-violent?

          No. Forced labor should be abolished. I was merely using the fact that the majority of “felons who made their choices”, are people who have no place being there in the first place. The prison industrial complex lobbied the legislatures to make laws which increase the prison population as much as possible. The end result being many non-violent “criminal” offenses land you in jail and enslaved.

          What should they all do in their free time?

          Rehabilitation, learning trades, work, reading, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But none of it should be forced.

          If you are talking about justice reform, that’s a different topic and I completely agree with you.

          All of this is justice reform. You can’t have justice reform without acknowledging that slavery is wrong.