[giraffe_lady]

fuck offffff seriously.

The hardships aren't self-imposed, our justice system is specifically and intentionally retributive, imposing punishment for its own sake rather than imposing consequences with the goal of rehabilitation. And we're talking here of additional ad-hoc social punishments beyond the terms of the sentence that make finding a job harder.

The level of personal discipline it takes to get released and stay "good" on probation is far beyond what we expect from workers in general and almost certainly stricter than either of us requires for ourselves. The level of humility and, frankly, debasement it takes to find a willing employer with a felony conviction is if not heroic at least saintly.

[mynameishere]

The level of personal discipline it takes to get released and stay "good" on probation is far beyond what we expect from workers in general and almost certainly stricter than either of us requires for ourselves.

Yeah, it's part of the corrections system. You go on probation or parole and they keep you on a leash. It's intentional. If you don't like it, you can serve out the whole term.

"Saintly". For god's sake people. Listen to yourselves. How many cars I gotta jack before people start calling me a saint, anyway?

[mellavora]

The "saintly" is not because they committed a crime, it is because they are willing to endure a "level of humility and, frankly, debasement it takes to find a willing employer" instead of going out and jacking a car.

They have to put up with people with opinions like yours, which do not allow them any hope of redemption.

I wonder what you are like when you need forgiveness? I do hope you get some, and even more that it opens your eyes and heart.

[Jiro]

You might argue that the hardships imposed by the justice system aren't self-imposed. But this was about hiring criminals. Aside from certain special cases (like laws which prohibit hiring felons for certain jobs). any hardship that results because someone won't hire the criminal is self-imposed; the criminal's own actions are why potential employers don't trust him.

[oceanplexian]

> The hardships aren't self-imposed, our justice system is specifically and intentionally retributive

If you want to know why this is, I would recommend Discipline and Punish by Foucault. Our present systems of justice go back hundreds of years, when a crime was considered an attack on the sovereign, aka the King, or the Prince. Back then crimes were punished by Hanging, or Torture, and it was done as an exercise of terror. The primary purpose of this wasn't the prevention of crime (Do you really think royalty cared if peasants killed each-other?), but rather punishment for disobeying the King.

All modern systems of Law are essentially still medieval systems, and it's why crimes that happen exclusively between two people are prosecuted as Person v. State of Whatever. The process of justice isn't for the criminal, it's to remind the rest of us of the total power of the State.

[orthecreedence]

That's a very interesting historical viewpoint of the justice system. I've often wondered what in our culture (in the US at least) lead to such a draconian system. I think the thing I take issue with most isn't even the system proper itself as much as the culture around it: stripping felons of voting rights (in a country billing itself as the "Land of the Free"), using prisoners as slave labor (we have protected slavery in the bill of rghts!), and treating them almost like lepers after they have served their sentence/punishment. It's sickening.

[throwaway0a5e]

>Do you really think royalty cared if peasants killed each-other?)

Kinda hard to raise an army to fight the adjacent royal when one town's contingent hates some other town's contingent more than they hate the enemy.

But yeah, they mostly let the peasants do whatever so long as the particular whatever wasn't potentially bad for them.

[floxy]

>it's why crimes that happen exclusively between two people are prosecuted as Person v. State

That's to eliminate the inter-generational blood feud's that were previously common when it wasn't the case that violent crimes were crimes against the state.

[RickWolter]

we are always looking for folks such as yourself to help with underdog devs.

https://www.underdogdevs.org

and on Twitter @UnderdogDevs

[RBBronson123]

Right on, G!