North Carolina Death Row Inmate Writes Letter About Life of 'Leisure'

Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. was found guilty of murdering 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009 and was sentenced to death on Nov. 18, 2011.

Quote :

""Is the public aware that I am a gentleman of leisure, watching color TV in the A.C., reading, taking naps at will, eating three well balanced hot meals a day," Hembree asked in the letter. "I'm housed in a building that connects to the new 55 million dollar hospital with round the clock free medical care 24/7." "

full article: http://news.yahoo.com/north-carolina-death-row-inmate-writes-letter-life-152637993--abc-news.html

My opinion:
I don't really have to make a comment about this. You already know how disgusted I feel about this.

1/25/2012 9:22:52 PM

He should be nominated for troll of the year, IMO.

[Edited on January 25, 2012 at 9:26 PM. Reason : what a sick fuck, but he is definitely trying to make rotting away in a 4' x 8' cell sound like fun]

1/25/2012 9:25:41 PM

good thing he has access to that 24/7 medical care so he can get the necessary daily anus retightenings

1/25/2012 9:31:03 PM

Let's give attention and credibility to death row inmates, and adjust our processes and procedures based on their lunatic ranting!

That's the solution!

1/25/2012 9:43:09 PM

Jail =/ Prison.

And if he liked prison so much, he wouldn't be hankering for a way out. Prison in NC is not the cup of tea he makes it out to be.

1/25/2012 10:31:37 PM

You jelly?

1/26/2012 12:04:21 AM

USA #1





War on Drugs introduced by Nixon in 1971. For-Profit prisons introduced by Reagan in 1984.






Leading For-Profit Prison earnings













Some more fun facts:

There are more black people, TODAY who are in prison than there were enslaved black people in 1850.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander-more-black-men-in-prison-slaves-1850_n_1007368.html


Nearly one out of three kids today will be arrested before the age of 23

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-19/youth-arrests-increase/52055700/1

Schools in Texas now have their own police force, tasked with arresting students for disrupting class:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-schools?newsfeed=true



Seriously, goddamit, man.

[Edited on January 26, 2012 at 2:03 AM. Reason : ]

1/26/2012 1:58:15 AM

I bet if they didn't count drug offenses we wouldn't be near the top.

1/26/2012 2:03:23 AM

1 out of 3 kids get arrested. THAT'S AMAZING! I can't get over that. I mean, it sounds about right, though.

1/26/2012 2:08:20 AM

and that number is sure to go up once we start bringing home our military equipment and passing it down to the state level so that we can militarize our local police districts.

I'm looking forward to the day when military drones are patrolling our cities.

1/26/2012 2:10:00 AM

Quote :

"I'm looking forward to the day when military drones are patrolling our cities."

Oh you mean:






and

1/26/2012 4:02:24 AM

Also, can someone please list the differences between

jail
prison
penitentiary


I use the words interchangeably and it wasn't until this thread that people had a problem with it.

1/26/2012 4:05:15 AM

well, it is all in the wording.

P.S. dont let life get you down; you're going to die unhappy while eveeryone else is having fun

1/26/2012 8:09:41 AM

Jail - Locally run, used for holding prisoner for first appearances and some sentences; I believe sentences less than 120 days.

Prison - State or Federal; Sentences greater than 120 days, felonies.

On another note, I wouldn't doubt that this guy is bragging about the posh conditions of prison. Despite all the control(s), the prisoners run a prison, not the state or its guards. There are thousands of prisoners in a facility and only a handful of guards; it makes sense to keep the majority happy.

1/26/2012 8:34:01 AM

^Yep, that's the distinction.

And the way he makes it out to be, prison is a cakewalk. What he doesn't say are that those 3 meals a day are prepared by other prisoners, and often are infested with roaches, etc. before you eat it. That the cable you get to watch is in a room of like 60-100 guys, and usually it's daytime television. Torture for just about anyone. You're lucky if your cell has electricity consistently, and if you get to shower regularly. And for most of them, there are no contact visits and you might get a phone call every 6 weeks. But it's not torture, there's a clause in our constitution that prevents that.

1/26/2012 9:48:34 AM

I like how he specifies color TV as if black and white TVs are still common.

however, if he's stuck watching Standard Definition TV, that's pretty rough.

1/26/2012 11:30:21 AM

Dat prison-industrial complex. Drugs will never be legalized. Individuals working in the incarceration industry have built their lives around locking up innocent people. The same can be said for law enforcement.

Some policies just aren't likely to be ended through democratic means. Revolution or economic collapse are really the only ways out of this vicious cycle.

[Edited on January 26, 2012 at 11:43 AM. Reason : ]

1/26/2012 11:37:01 AM

Strictly speaking I guess it is a "life of leisure," because you get shit for free and, to my knowledge, don't have to do any work.

In this case, though, there's a distinction between "leisure" and "fun."

I still say we stick a needle in his arm and be done with it. Not because of this real life trolling, but because he's a fucking murderer.

1/26/2012 6:44:49 PM

Quote :

"Oh you mean:"

Are you being dishonest/disingenuous, or just fucking stupid?

1/26/2012 11:24:50 PM

I'm sure he was joking.

But.....http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211

Quote :

"Reporting from Washington — Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said. Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties. He also called in a Predator B drone."

1/26/2012 11:43:32 PM

I'm just glad that the technology we've spent our tax dollars on to murder innocent hillbillies in Pakistan can be applied to murdering innocent hillbillies in North Dakota.

1/27/2012 12:30:19 AM

"innocent hillbillies" is a stretch. Most people smoked by drones are neither.

In fact, I believe the hunt for bin Laden was a primary impetus for the development of armed UAVs (Preds, I think) back in the 90s.

1/27/2012 2:39:21 AM

^

Quote :

" Year-----# attacks--#killed (min---max) 2005-------2--------6--------7 2006-------2--------23-------23 2007-------4--------56-------77 2008-------33-------274------314 2009-------53-------369------725 2010-------118------607------993 2011-------70-------378------536 2012-------3--------14-------16 Total-------286------1,731----2,696 "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan

That's just in Pakistan. Doubt they're all terrorists.

There's no fucking way all these people were guilty of terrorism.

This is an interesting watch (on the topic of drones) http://youtu.be/TyJoJUs14bc?t=10m59s

[Edited on January 27, 2012 at 3:13 AM. Reason : ]

1/27/2012 2:59:17 AM

As we all know, the point of prison is to humiliate and break down the people that are put in there, so we as a society can indulge our sadistic, collective revenge fantasies.

1/27/2012 9:20:52 AM

Mothafucka think I can't jail!?

1/27/2012 10:16:33 AM

As we all know, the point of prison is to humiliate and break down the people that are put in there, so we as a society can indulge our sadistic, collective revenge fantasies. make life as miserable as possible to deter a prisoner from wanting to come back.

If the worst thing that can happen to you is "watching color TV in the A.C., reading, taking naps at will, eating three well balanced hot meals a day" for killing, robbing, and stealing, then not a single person is going to learn.

Being in prison should be at least as hard as being unemployed with no free medical care.

1/27/2012 12:36:18 PM

That dude was just trolling. Here's what he told his family and it's a much different story:

http://www.gastongazette.com/news/hembree-66578-letter-death.html

1/27/2012 12:48:17 PM

Quote :

"As we all know, the point of prison is to make life as miserable as possible to deter a prisoner from wanting to come back."

Sorry Geniusboy but you're dead fucking wrong. The US has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world, at 60%. You know why? Because when you treat prisoners sadistically and try to make their life in prison Hell, they emerge even worse and more broken people than before, more likely to commit a crime than they were the first time around. The USA is the master of imprisoning people in terrible conditions, so your theory of "Punishment = fear of committing more crimes" seems to fail completely, as more than half of the people who serve time in the US end up serving it again. That strikes me as stunning ineffective at its stated purpose.

Quote :

"If the worst thing that can happen to you is "watching color TV in the A.C., reading, taking naps at will, eating three well balanced hot meals a day" for killing, robbing, and stealing, then not a single person is going to learn."

If you want to teach them maybe we should provide them, oh I don't know, some education and therapy instead of constant misery. And seriously, a bed, AC, TV, and hot food is luxury? What would you have them endure? Medieval dungeon conditions?

Quote :

"Being in prison should be at least as hard as being unemployed with no free medical care."

Why? All that accomplishes is it makes the inmate more bitter, possibly crazier, unhealthier, and angry. In other words, an even more undesirable member of society and more likely to commit another crime. The whole "harsh punishments discourage criminals" theory, however correct it may sound in theory, is simply dead wrong in practice.

Have a look at Norway:

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-inside-norway-luxurious-halden-jail/20110729.htm

They basically put prisoners into a situation where, although their freedom is restricted, they're kept care of and encouraged to learn a trade, educate themselves, read, join clubs, socialize, attend therapy, and basically live like normal people but in a more controlled environment. You know, they actually try to make the prisoner less of a fuck-up instead of (as in the US) more of a fuck-up. The result? Norway's recidivism is 20 fucking percent.


It depends on whether you care more about revenge against the criminal, or removing the criminality from the underlying person. The latter strategy, where you focus on rehabilitation and education instead of torture and deprivation, works a hell of a lot better. This of course wont get through to you, as pretty much every person who takes the "harsh punishment = less crime" stance is almost always secretly a sadist and little more, that's why they're impervious to empirical data that shows it's more effective to give the prisoner a hand up rather than smack them down further.


[Edited on January 27, 2012 at 4:26 PM. Reason : .]

1/27/2012 4:19:02 PM

^ gg wasting a bunch of time on a troll post.

1/27/2012 4:26:06 PM

It's not a waste of time because I know for a fact this message board is filled with sadists who are legitimately appalled when any prisoner is treated like a human being.

1/27/2012 4:27:13 PM

See, here's where I think you're wrong. People aren't sadists. They're economical. We've got a finite amount of money to go around, and how it's spent has to be prioritized. I don't think it makes a person sadistic to put "people who have committed serious crimes" as a lower priority that many other things the government does -- entitlements, defense, education, infrastructure, emergency services, etc. Who wants to dump money into educating prisoners when we're already not doing a very good job of educating our kids?

If you and synapse both get poisoned and I only have one antidote, and you have kicked me in the testicles in recent memory, I'm going to give the antidote to synapse. Not because I'm going to revel in your death, but because a rational part of my brain figures I'm better off helping the guy who hasn't already fucked me over. Crime is the fucking-over of society.

Now, it's probable that this sort of thinking is short-sighted, and that investing more money and effort into the prison system would pay off in the long run. But once again, I'm not going to call someone a sadist just because they lack the vision or information necessary to take the long view on these matters.

---

The system requires attention and improvement, but the approaches you're taking are horseshit.

Educational opportunities are not alien to the US prison system, but they're underutilized and largely useless when a felony conviction makes a person all but unemployable. Meanwhile, there's the simple fact that society already tried to educate these people, mandatory and free of charge, in school. If they didn't take advantage of it then, what reason to believe that they'll do better this time around, when they're surrounded by other criminals and have essentially no responsibilities? I can see why people are leery of making the investment.

Using the example of Norway is a joke. It's a homogeneous country with a high, consistent standard of living and a relatively small population. It lacks the longstanding glorification of criminals present in our society (is there a Norwegian Bonnie and Clyde? A Scandinavian Jesse James? Do Norwegian musicians gain credibility by going to Halden Jail?). It has a communal mindset that is absent from American thought. I'm faintly shocked that it has any criminals at all.

Even under the best conditions, where we dramatically reduce the prison population by decriminalizing most drug offenses while initiating reforms, replicating the Norwegian system would be vastly more expensive without nearly such dramatic results. You know how you get Norwegian results? You have to become Norway.

1/27/2012 4:51:35 PM

Quote :

"Using the example of Norway is a joke."

Not really. And I'm surprised you cite cost as a reason to be cruel. 60% recidivism is not cost-effective.

Quote :

" It's a homogeneous country"

Homogeneous in what way? Racially? What are you trying to say?

Quote :

" with a high, consistent standard of living"

Thanks to generous social programs. It's almost as though when people don't live like animals, they don't act like animals.

Quote :

" and a relatively small population."

Irrelevant.

Quote :

" It lacks the longstanding glorification of criminals present in our society (is there a Norwegian Bonnie and Clyde? A Scandinavian Jesse James? Do Norwegian musicians gain credibility by going to Halden Jail?)."

The fuck is this? Seriously, you think people commit crimes because of movies? Lol

Quote :

" It has a communal mindset that is absent from American thought. I'm faintly shocked that it has any criminals at all. "

Communal mindset? More pseudo-sociological hogwash like the rest of your post. Is it really that hard to understand that you can reduce recidivism by enriching and giving therapy prisoners rather than actively placing them in traumatizing and degrading conditions for years on end?

Quote :

" Educational opportunities are not alien to the US prison system, but they're underutilized and largely useless when a felony conviction makes a person all but unemployable."

A felony conviction wouldn't make somebody unemployable if our prison system didn't so reliably make criminals into even worse people by the time they get out.

Quote :

" Meanwhile, there's the simple fact that society already tried to educate these people, mandatory and free of charge, in school. "

Just baseless cynicism here, no grounding in reality. You simply believe criminals are shitty, nonredeemable human scum. There's a pretty good chance that whatever made them do a shitty job at public school also probably compelled them to commit a crime.

Quote :

"If they didn't take advantage of it then, what reason to believe that they'll do better this time around, when they're surrounded by other criminals and have essentially no responsibilities?"

Public education isn't equal, it's funded by local taxes, and crime rates tend to be higher in poor neighborhoods which, surprise, have shittier schools. Not to mention kids in these neighborhoods often have responsibilities that get in the way of school, like working part time to help pay bills or *gasp* selling drugs to put food on the table.


Again, you're just full of baseless cynicism and impervious to evidence that your method, the sadist method, is counter effective and creates more repeat offenders than it prevents.

Quote :

" I can see why people are leery of making the investment."

How is an investment with a 60% chance of failing a good investment? How are you so impervious to the implications of our prisons leading to 3x the recidivism rate of a country that actively tries to make better people out of their prisoners?

Quote :

"Even under the best conditions, where we dramatically reduce the prison population by decriminalizing most drug offenses while initiating reforms, replicating the Norwegian system would be vastly more expensive without nearly such dramatic results. "

If you're basing this on the flimsy reasoning above then I'm afraid I'm not convinced.

Quote :

"You know how you get Norwegian results? You have to become Norway."

Maybe we should instead of being the defiant manchild of the world who refuses to admit mistakes and make positive reforms.

[Edited on January 27, 2012 at 5:14 PM. Reason : .]

1/27/2012 5:05:43 PM

You seem passionate about the subject.


and I assure you, people in this country are 60% recidivism because their punishments don't fit the crimes 60% or more of the time.

all that other crap you wasted your time on indicates nothing except that the United States is not a free country.



[Edited on January 27, 2012 at 6:02 PM. Reason : .]

1/27/2012 5:59:51 PM

As long as we're sending drug offenders to jail, the whole system is going to be fucked up. Not even worth talking about prison reform until we release these innocent people.

1/27/2012 6:09:26 PM

Quote :

"And I'm surprised you cite cost as a reason to be cruel. 60% recidivism is not cost-effective."

It's already getting harder to take you seriously, since you're clearly ignoring big chunks of what I've said, including "Now, it's probable that this sort of thinking is short-sighted, and that investing more money and effort into the prison system would pay off in the long run. But once again, I'm not going to call someone a sadist just because they lack the vision or information necessary to take the long view on these matters." Clearly I'm aware that the current system may well not be cost-effective.

Quote :

"Homogeneous in what way? Racially? What are you trying to say?"

Racially, culturally, economically, pretty much any way it's possible to be homogeneous. What I'm "trying to say" is it's harder to smoothly run a society the more distinct groups there are in it. Doesn't matter what the groupings are, if people can divide themselves up they will form competing interests.

Quote :

"Thanks to generous social programs."

Social programs that could be afforded in no small part because they have a lot of oil and a small population about which to divvy the profits. The other advantages they had vis-a-vis stability and wealth also played into that. And why the fuck am I even talking to you about this? Your plan seems to be "completely restructure American culture and economics from the ground up," which is a far cry from "reform prisons."

Quote :

"The fuck is this? Seriously, you think people commit crimes because of movies? Lol"

No, I think the deterrent effect of prisons is much different in a communally-oriented society where criminal behavior is universally a source of disappointment and disdain. As opposed to, say, a country where significant subcultures have learned to idolize criminal behavior and frequently consider it par for the course.

Quote :

"Is it really that hard to understand that you can reduce recidivism by enriching and giving therapy prisoners rather than actively placing them in traumatizing and degrading conditions for years on end?"

I said very clearly that I thought reforms in that direction would probably reduce recidivism, but that I thought it would not have nearly such a profound effect as you are implying (which in turn brings up the question of whether or not the effect is worth providing enough competent shrinks for our prison population).

Quote :

"Maybe we should instead of being the defiant manchild of the world who refuses to admit mistakes and make positive reforms."

You miss my point, which is that we don't become Norway because we can't become Norway. We have a different history and cultural makeup. We could emulate their system in every particular and we wouldn't get the same results. Your whole idea here seems predicated on creating a New Man, which has been tried before and which as resulted in prison systems far less pleasant than ours.

---

The rest of your rambling I'll respond to broadly. The main thrust of my post is was to explain the reasons people are averse to spending money on prisons. It's funny that you keep talking about "baseless cynicism" when your theory is that the modern prison system exists because of widespread sadistic tendencies of the law abiding population. I was offering an alternative (and far more realistic) explanation, which is that people would rather spend money on programs and people that haven't violated the law. This isn't sadism, it's an economic calculation. I've already admitted that it might not be the most accurate calculation, but that is better explained by the fact that most Americans are not criminologists, psychologists, economists, and sociologists, as opposed to your theory that they're all sadists.

1/27/2012 9:00:38 PM

Quote :

"President Barack Obama has signed legislation Tuesday that modernizes the nation's aviation system, speeding up the nation's switch from radar to an air traffic control system based on GPS technology. The law also opens up the skies to military, commercial and privately-owned unmanned drones... ...Under the new law, the FAA must by Sept. 30, 2015, begin permitting unmanned drones controlled by remote operators on the ground to fly in the same airspace as airliners, cargo planes, business jets and private aircraft."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/obama-signs-bill-moderniz_0_n_1278594.html


Welp, that was quick. Speeding tickets for everyone! Yaaay.

How long until they arm these things?

[Edited on February 16, 2012 at 3:05 AM. Reason : ]

2/16/2012 2:48:19 AM

I'm sure they will be immediately. It's not going to be too long before an unmanned drone is used to fire a missile into a meth lab or something similar. Of course, any accompanying death will be used to justify tacking murder onto the various drug charges that will already be piled onto the person who owns said house/operates said drug business.

2/16/2012 5:15:46 AM

yeah, but what happens when they get bad intel and bomb an innocent family?

2/16/2012 6:40:10 AM

^^i'm ok with this. might as well get protection from gangs and crime with unmanned drones. sort of a free 'preventative healthcare' if you will.

2/16/2012 8:45:37 AM

Quote :

"yeah, but what happens when they get bad intel and bomb an innocent family? "

Have you learned nothing from the Iraq, Afghanistan/Pakistan wars?


Nobody gives a shit about innocent families except the families themselves. Give them money and shut the press up and everything is a-okay.

2/16/2012 12:53:06 PM

^ exactly. same applies to the USA too

just give us 'govt sponsored health care' aka free money and we'll all just shut up and be happy finally



[Edited on February 16, 2012 at 1:12 PM. Reason : -]

2/16/2012 1:10:08 PM

hmmmmm

[Edited on February 21, 2012 at 1:50 AM. Reason : .]

2/21/2012 1:47:22 AM

experiencing envy/hatred at the comfort of prisoners or welfare or whatever deserves one of those colorwheel memes. perhaps a guy in a USS Abraham Lincoln ball cap with head shy children. did 10-20 years working for the military sucking off the public tit and doing nothing for society but hate ppl buying steak with foodstamps.

2/22/2012 4:31:38 AM

^try typing that again sober

2/22/2012 9:22:56 AM

Quote :

"According to an internal DHS document released by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the department and/or a DHS subcontractor is searching social networks like Facebook and Twitter for all kinds of keywords, which are then made into reports about "items of interest" (IOI). The list of terms is HUGE, and according to the blog Animal New York, "the DHS can also add additional search terms circumstantially as deemed necessary." Here are some of the keywords; you can view the full list at Animal New York. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Secret Service (USSS) Assassination Attack Domestic security Drill Exercise Cops Law enforcement Hazmat Nuclear Chemical Spill Airport AMTRAK Violence Gang Drug Narcotics Cocaine Marijuana "

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/819547/the_department_of_homeland_security_searches_your_facebook_and_twitter_for_%22marijuana%2C%22_other_keywords/

3/2/2012 4:00:33 PM

damn...that graph at the top listing prisoners per 100k people is interesting.

the japanese sure know how to behave themselves

3/2/2012 5:08:53 PM

Maybe it's the cynic in me, but what reason do the powers that be have to reform prisons? It's a source of good, cheap labor. What is worrying me is that private prisons are becoming more and more popular. Profit-driven prisons is where I draw the goddamn line.

3/6/2012 6:45:16 PM

Quote :

"Maybe it's the cynic in me, but what reason do the powers that be have to reform prisons? It's a source of good, cheap labor."

The small amount of labor we derive from prison inmates is pretty expensive, when you count "the cost of running an entire goddamn prison system."

You are half right, though: as I said above, there isn't a lot of incentive to improve prisons. Voters are unsympathetic to people who break the law, and when the time comes to dole out money, there's always something more popular for it to go to.

3/6/2012 10:51:31 PM

I was talking to a woman the other day who does a lot of her research on the privatization of the prison system and is a fan.

BAT SHIT CRAZY.

3/6/2012 10:55:00 PM

set em up

[Edited on March 6, 2012 at 11:45 PM. Reason : ]

3/6/2012 11:42:14 PM