| > If you've been put away for committing crimes, and the conditions for staying free... Abstraction is often useful, but its application here seems reductionist to the point of being deceptive. This 15-yr-old girl (Grace) was not "put away for committing crimes" - she didn't narrowly avoid incarceration, then violate the terms of her parole. She wasn't "put away," in the first place, because her "crimes" weren't worthy of incarceration. She got in a fight (hair-pulling and biting a finger) with her mother - who's currently distraught that her daughter's not at home - and stole a cellphone (which was later returned) from a schoolmate's locker. > If ... the conditions for staying free are doing your homework, you _better_ do you homework. Grace was allegedly locked up for not doing her schoolwork, however her caseworker later mentioned that they didn't actually know (or even attempt to check) whether or not her academic requirements were being met. Additionally, her teacher stated that her performance was in line with most of the other students in her class (despite her losing the extra academic support she received due to her ADHD when her school switched to online classes). In any case, she had definitely not failed to meet the academic requirements dictated by her school. I wonder how her studies are going now that she's locked up. I don't think the title seems "clickbaity" - I think your comment seems like a callous and misleading apology for authoritarianism. It brings to mind the "Black Codes" [1] that were passed throughout the South, following the U.S. Civil War - specifically policies related to vagrancy laws [2] and convict leasing [3] - whereby many black Americans were legally kept in conditions similar to those of their prior enslavement. By making it illegal to exist without a proven means of support (frequently only attainable via employment on the plantations of former slaveholders), and instituting forced labor as a punishment for committing said crime, Southern states were able to partially perpetuate their antebellum social and economic structure. Put differently, If you've been put away for not working the cotton fields, and the conditions for staying free are working the cotton fields, you_better_work the cotton fields. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States) 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagrancy#United_States 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_leasing |