Prisons - Jail

Prison is a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government, either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence. A facility in which inmates are locked up or forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment after being convicted of crimes. Penology is the branch of criminology concerned with prison management and prisoner rehabilitation.



Detention is the process whereby a state or private citizen lawfully holds a person by removing his or her freedom or liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges preferred against the individual pursuant to a prosecution or to protect a person or property. Detention is the action of detaining someone or the state of being detained in official custody, especially as a political prisoner, which is someone imprisoned because they have opposed or criticized the government responsible for their imprisonment. Ignorance is a Prison.

Constraint is the state of being physically constrained or the act of constraining someone. A device that retards something's motion. The threat or use of force to control the thoughts or behavior of others.

Restraint is the act of controlling by restraining someone or something. A rule or condition that limits freedom. Kidnapped.

Confined is not free to move about. Confine is to place limits on someone in extent or access. To restrict in quantity or scope. To prevent from leaving or from being removed. To close in. To deprive of someone of freedom and to limit someone to within certain bounds and physically prevent them from moving. Confinement is the act of restraining of a person's liberty by confining them. The act of keeping something within specified bounds, sometimes by force.

Minimum Wage - Solitary Confinement - Mental Health - Isolation

Captivity is the state of being imprisoned. The state of being a slave.

Detain is to be deprived of freedom or taken into custody and held by the police. Detainee a person held in custody, especially for political reasons.

Coop is an enclosure made of wire or metal bars in which birds or animals can be kept. A farm building for housing poultry. Confine in or as if in a coop.

Cage is an enclosure made of wire or metal bars in which birds or animals can be kept. Something that restricts freedom as a cage restricts movement.

Enclosure is a structure consisting of an area that has been enclosed for some purpose. Zoo.

Internment or concentration camp, is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial.

The Prison System is a Racket

Mass Incarceration in the United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate.

More than 10.35 Million People are in Prison around the world.

December 31, 2013, the United States held an estimated 1,574,700 persons in state and federal prisons, an increase of approximately 4,300 prisoners (0.3%) from 2012. This was the first increase reported since the peak of 1,615,500 prisoners in 2009. Less then 300,000 in 1980. And there are millions of people stuck in the justice system who are not in prison, just in a prison of a different kind. United States Incarceration Rate (wiki).

Corporate criminals created laws to attack minorities, which made it legal for police and the justice system to violate peoples constitutional rights and violate human rights. And at the same time, the same corporate criminals built more prisons that they could use to jail minorities. This way they can profit from the abuse and the punishment that they caused. The same criminals were also the biggest supplier of drugs, which they flooded poor areas with, so that police had reasons to arrest minorities. The same criminals also used laws to make it hard for people to get help and services that were needed in order to have a life after prison, thus creating more desperation and more despair, which they could exploit. The same criminals also reduced funding for minority schools and housing, thus creating more desperate people with very little education with very few choices to find good housing and find good jobs. People screamed in horror when they learned about how the Jews were being systematically murdered by the Nazi's during WW2, and now in 2020 over 75 years later, here we are, still. What causes people to do bad things? What would help people to do good things?

The War on Drugs is a Racket - Wars are a Racket - Rackets are what psychopathic criminals do.

Death Without Conviction shed light on flaws in Texas' system of review for deaths in county jails, where inmates have not been convicted of a crime. Palestine Herald-Press Editor Jeffery Gerritt won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing.

America's Annual Price Tag for Incarceration is $80 billion, each U.S. resident is paying about $260 per year on corrections, up from $77 per person in 1980. 

Total Cost of incarceration in the U.S. is more than $1 Trillion.

The Human Stories behind Mass Incarceration: Eve Abrams (video and text)

Short Lifespan: Why do Prison Officers only live a couple of years after retirement?

International Foundation for Protection Officers - Improve Training

“For too long, we built modern jails instead of modern schools, and we invested in permanent punishment instead of smartly investing in permanent reformation.” - Devon Puglia.

Private Prison is a place in which individuals are physically confined or incarcerated by a third party that is contracted by a government agency. Private prison companies typically enter into contractual agreements with governments that commit prisoners and then pay a per diem or monthly rate, either for each prisoner in the facility, or for each place available, whether occupied or not. Such contracts may be for the operation only of a facility, or for design, construction and operation. Private prisons are controversial, such as GEO Group and CoreCivic. The main argument for the contracting of prisons to private operators is that it can save money. The main argument against contracting prisons is concerns that the rights and care of inmates will be compromised.  Dream Defenders - Activism.

Criminal Justice Reform in the United States refers to reform aimed at fixing perceived errors in the criminal justice system. Goals of organizations spearheading the movement for criminal justice reform include decreasing the United States' prison population, reducing prison sentences that are perceived to be too harsh and long, altering drug sentencing policy, policing reform, reducing over criminalization, and juvenile justice reform. Criminal justice reform also targets reforming policies for those with criminal convictions that are receiving other consequences from food assistance programs, outside of serving their time in prison.

Incapacitation in the context of criminal sentencing philosophy is one of the functions of punishment. It involves capital punishment, sending an offender to prison, or possibly restricting their freedom in the community, to protect society and prevent that person from committing further crimes. Incarceration, as the primary mechanism for incapacitation, is also used as to try to deter future offending.

Youth Detention Center is a secure prison or jail for minors under the age of 18, often termed juvenile delinquents, to which they have been sentenced and committed for a period of time, or detained on a short-term basis while awaiting court hearings and/or placement in such a facility or in other long-term care facilities and programs. Juveniles go through a separate court system, the juvenile court, which sentences or commits juveniles to a certain program or facility.

Reformatory is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. National Institute of Corrections.

Reform School was a penal institution, generally for teenagers mainly operating between 1830 and 1900. In the United Kingdom and its colonies reformatories commonly called reform schools were set up from 1854 onwards for youngsters who were convicted of a crime as an alternative to an adult prison. In parallel, "Industrial schools" were set up for vagrants and children needing protection. Both were 'certified' by the government from 1857, and in 1932 the systems merged and both were 'approved' and became approved schools. Indoctrination (assimilation).

Florida School for Boys was a reform school operated by the state of Florida in the panhandle town of Marianna from January 1, 1900, to June 30, 2011. A second campus was opened in the town of Okeechobee in 1955. For a time, it was the largest juvenile reform institution in the United States. Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued. After the school failed a state inspection in 2009, the governor ordered a full investigation. Many of the historic and recent allegations of abuse and violence were confirmed by separate investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2010, and by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice in 2011. State authorities closed the school permanently in June 2011. At the time of its closure, it was a part of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. (The Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (AGDS)). Money and Crime - Corporate Crime.

Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners

International Human Rights Standards Protecting Prisoners

Punishment - Bail

Juvenile Treatment

Death Penalty - Pardons - Leniency

Ghost Detainee a person held in a detention center, whose identity has been hidden by keeping them unregistered and therefore anonymous. Such uses arose as the Bush administration initiated the War on Terror following the 9/11 attacks of 2001 in the United States. As documented in the 2004 Taguba Report, it was used in the same manner by United States (US) officials and contractors of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003–2004.

Mental Illness

Education for Prisoners - Repeat Offenders

Films and Videos about Prisons - Justice System

One of the main reasons why we have prisons is to isolate people who are a threat to the general public. But if you look at all the things that are a threat to the general public, you will find that there are a lot of people who should be in prison who are not. There are certain people who work in government and for corporations who actually believe that they are above the law. A person can murder someone and be in prison for life. But a government leader or CEO can murder thousands and never be brought to trial or even charged with a Crime. This can no longer continue. When people are not held accountable it creates chaos. Stopping corruption is absolutely necessary. But we also have to attack the source of all corruption, which is education. If we never improve education we will never improve the world.

Department of Corrections is a governmental agency tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the incarceration of persons convicted of crimes within a particular jurisdiction. Each State DC aims to provide proper care and supervision of all offenders under their jurisdiction. Department of corrections doesn't really correct anything. Only a high quality education can correct errors in thinking and judgment. Death Penalty just adds to the ignorance. People who commit crimes must do things that would benefit people and benefit communities so that they can make up for their mistake, and at the same time, make the world a better place. Most people would right a wrong if they were just given the chance to do what is right. Now put that in your hat and correct it. Effective Prison Management.

Corrections are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes. These functions commonly include imprisonment, parole and probation. A typical correctional institution is a prison. A correctional system, also known as a penal system, thus refers to a network of agencies that administer a jurisdiction's prisons and community-based programs like parole and probation boards;. This system is part of the larger criminal justice system, which additionally includes police, prosecution and courts. Jurisdictions throughout Canada and the US have ministries or departments, respectively, of corrections, correctional services, or similarly-named agencies. "Corrections" is also the name of a field of academic study concerned with the theories, policies, and programs pertaining to the practice of corrections. Its object of study includes personnel training and management as well as the experiences of those on the other side of the fence — the unwilling subjects of the correctional process. Stohr and colleagues (2008) write that "Earlier scholars were more honest, calling what we now call corrections by the name penology, which means the study of punishment for crime."

Life Imprisonment or imprisonment for life, life in prison, whole-life tariff, a Life Sentence, a life term, lifelong incarceration, life incarceration or simply life, is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted persons are to remain in prison either for the rest of their natural life or until paroled or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Life After Prison.

Nationwide, Law Enforcement made an estimated 12,408,899 arrests in 2011. An estimated 12,196,959 arrests in 2012. The highest number of arrests were for drug abuse violations. Nearly 74 percent (73.8) of the persons arrested in the nation during 2012 were males. In 2012, 69.3 percent of all persons arrested were white, 28.1 percent were black, and the remaining 2.6 percent were of other races.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 95 percent of inmates in state prisons eventually get out. Studies show that inmates who maintain strong family contact are significantly more likely to land jobs, find housing, and reintegrate into society after prison. Many inmates families pay $1.22 per minute to talk on the phone thanks to giant phone corporations who've signed contracts with many prisons. Profiting from Abuse, like war profiteers.

Our Justice System has Serious Problems

Just like cops with their ignorant ticket quotas, the justice system has a conviction quota, and they don't care if the person is innocent. Bad Prosecutors.

Enforcement Discretion is the power to choose whether or how to punish a person who has violated the law. The biased use of enforcement discretion, such as that based on racial prejudice or corruption, is usually considered a legal abuse and a threat to the rule of law.

Suspect or Perpetrator is a known person accused or suspected of committing a crime.

Routine Activity Theory is a sub-field of crime opportunity theory that focuses on situations of crimes.

Mandatory Sentencing certain crimes must be punished with at least a minimum number of years in prison.

Sentence in law refers to punishment that was actually ordered (or could be ordered) by a trial court in a criminal procedure. A sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process as well as the symbolic principal act connected to their function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine, and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime. Those imprisoned for multiple crimes usually serve a concurrent sentence (in which the period of imprisonment equals the length of the longest sentence where the sentences are all served together at the same time), while others serve a consecutive sentence (in which the period of imprisonment equals the sum of all the sentences served sequentially, or one after the next). Additional sentences include intermediate, which allows an inmate to be free for about 8 hours a day for work purposes; determinate, which is fixed on a number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated, which mandates the minimum period be served in an institutional setting such as a prison followed by "street time" (i.e., period of parole, supervised release or probation) until the total sentence is completed. If a sentence is reduced to a less harsh punishment, then the sentence is said to have been "mitigated" or "commuted". Rarely (depending on circumstances), murder charges are "mitigated" and reduced to manslaughter charges. However, in certain legal systems, a defendant may be punished beyond the terms of the sentence (e.g., social stigma, loss of governmental benefits, or collectively, the collateral consequences of criminal charges). Statutes generally specify the highest penalties that may be imposed for certain offenses, and sentencing guidelines often mandate the minimum and maximum imprisonment terms to imposed upon an offender, which is then left to the discretion of the trial court. However, in some jurisdictions, prosecutors have great influence over the punishments actually handed down, by virtue of their discretion to decide what offenses to charge the offender with and what facts they will seek to prove or to ask the defendant to stipulate to in a plea agreement. It has been argued that legislators have an incentive to enact tougher sentences than even they would like to see applied to the typical defendant since they recognize that the blame for an inadequate sentencing range to handle a particularly egregious crime would fall upon legislators, but the blame for excessive punishments would fall upon prosecutors. Sentencing law sometimes includes "cliffs" that result in much stiffer penalties when certain facts apply. For instance, an armed career criminal or habitual offender law may subject a defendant to a significant increase in his sentence if he commits a third offence of a certain kind. This makes it difficult for fine gradations in punishments to be achieved.

Criminal Justice System consists of three main parts: (1) Legislative (create laws); (2) adjudication (courts); and (3) corrections (jails, prisons, probation and parole).

Frances Jalet-Cruz represented Texas inmates in a number of suits against the Texas Department of Corrections and became one of the central figures in the Texas prison reform movement during the late 1960s and 1970s, leading to broad changes in the Texas prison system in the 1980s.

Corporal Punishment is a punishment intended to cause physical pain on a person. It is usually inflicted in settings with a substantial disparity of power between the partakers. Corporal punishment is commonly practiced on minors, especially in home and also school settings, usually employing more modest forms. Common methods in this regard often include spanking or paddling. Gulag was a Soviet forced labor camp systems during the Stalin era, from the 1930s until the 1950s.

Persecution s the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group.

Law and Order in politics refers to demands for a strict criminal justice system, especially in relation to violent and property crime, through stricter criminal penalties. These penalties may include longer terms of imprisonment, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes laws, and in some countries, capital punishment.

Cook County Jail is the Largest Jail for Mentally ill people in the US. Houses about 6,500 prisoners and employs 3,900 law enforcement officials and 7,000 civilian employees. Specific alleged violations that have resulted in Federal sanctions and/or class action lawsuits include: Systematic beatings by corrections officers. Poor food quality. Inmates' being forced to sleep on cell floors due to overcrowding and mismanagement (resulting in a $1,000 per inmate class-action settlement). Rodent infestation and injury caused to sleeping inmates by rat and mouse bites. Violations of privacy during multiple invasive strip searches. Failure to provide adequate medical care, including failure to dispense medications. Invasive and painful mandatory tests for male STDs (resulting in a $200 per inmate class action settlement). Unnecessarily long waiting time for discharge upon payment of bond, completion of sentence, or charges' being dropped. Wait times are currently routinely in excess of 8 hours, nearly all of which is spent with many inmates packed into tiny cells. Mental Health.

Bail Trap

Bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail (and possibly be brought up on charges of the crime of failure to appear).

Bonds - Highway Robbery

What if we Ended the Injustice of Bail? Robin Steinberg (video and text) - On any given night, more than 450,000 people in the United States are locked up in jail simply because they don't have enough money to pay bail.

Bail Project helps people get out of jail whose only crime is being poor.

Poverty is a crime against innocent people that is being committed by ignorant criminals with wealth and power, and these criminals want to punish people even more than they do already by implementing bails and other unjust laws. "When a human feels no shame about committing crimes against other people, they are the worst type of terrorist that money can by. It's not just the law that is an act of terrorism, it's the people who enforce these laws and the people who fund and support these laws".

Inside America's For-Profit Bail System (youtube)

Debtors' Prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt.

Each year about 1,000 Americans die in Jail. 810 people have lost their lives in Jail so far in 2016.

Bail Help

Activists Are Using Technology to Help People Make Bail.

No more money bail works with community groups to pay for bail.

Bail Bloc is a cryptocurrency scheme against bail using your computers spare power to get people out of jail.

Legal Help

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Mandatory Minimums (HBO) (youtube)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Public Defenders (HBO) (youtube)

A prosecutor's vision for a better justice system (video and Text)

A prisoner dies every 5.5 hours in India. India's 1,401 jails held 419,623 prisoners as against their total capacity of 366,781. There are three times more mentally ill and 61 per cent more women prisoners in the country compared with the figures 15 years ago.

National Center on Institutions and Alternatives (NCIA)
Justice Policy Institute

Women On Death Row (2006) This film takes a look into the personal lives of women currently awaiting execution on Death Row. Though each woman is convicted of committing society’s ultimate crime, there is often another side of the story.
Aired: 01/08/2006 | 1 hr. 28 min.

The Proven Way to Keep More Innocent Teens From Confessing to Murder (and Why Police Won't Adopt It). Standard interrogation, which includes badgering and lying to suspects until they confess, is psychological torture for the young and mentally frail. The American style of interrogation is guilt-presumptive, accusatory, and confrontational. Now there's a better way called PEACE (an acronym for the five steps involved—Planning and Preparation, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure, Evaluation), Since 1989, two hundred twenty-eight people in the United States who made confessions have been exonerated.

The Empire Files - Enter the biggest Prison System in History 27:47
The Empire holds by far the most prisoners than any other country on earth, in both absolute numbers and per capita. Abby Martin explores the dark reality of conditions in America's prisons, who is warehoused in them, and how things got this way. Featuring interviews with Eddie Conway, former political prisoner unjustly incarcerated for 44 years, and Eugene Puryear, author of "Shackled and Chained, Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America."

The Secret US Prisons you've never heard of before (video)
Communication Management Unit (CMU)
Will Potter

Illinois spending on incarceration is ineffective & costly to all
The Private Prison Project

The U.S.'s incarceration rate of 716 prisoners per 100,000 population is the world's highest. Thirty-six of our states also have higher incarceration rates than any country in the world. Prison Population (wiki).

Drug War - Mental illness - Crime Stats

More Than 100 Police Chiefs And Prosecutors Unite To Cut Prison Population

Because of Rockefeller-style laws, the nation's prison population exploded from 330,000 in 1973 to a peak of 2.3 million. That meant building hundreds of new state and federal prisons. By 2010, more than 490,000 people were working as Prison Guards. A Prison System that costs between $63 billion and $75 billion a year. Half a million Americans are serving long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Those inmates make up 48 percent of the inmate population in federal prisons. Rehabilitation and Education.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Immigrants For Sale (youtube) - Imprisoning people for money and profit, so criminals are locking up people. Private prisons such as the CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) own over 200 facilities in the nation and makes a profit close to 5 billion dollars per year on inmates. They rely on anti-immigrant laws like Arizona's SB1070 and copycat laws across the nation for fresh inmates and continual profit. American Legislative Exchange Council.

Approximately 700,000 inmates are released from prison in the United States. Yet 40 percent end up back in prison within just 3 years, according to the Rand Corp.

Justice

Let us not confuse justice with revenge. Justice is finding the cause of the problem and then trying to keep the problem from happening again by improving education and informing the public. Justice should have nothing to do with punishment. Punishment and revenge are ignorant acts of desperate people who feel they have no choice. But that feeling of having no options comes directly from a persons lack of knowledge. An educated person pursues choices. An undereducated person acts more with their emotions because that is mostly what they know. If people knew more they would see better choices and better alternatives. Learning to increase your Knowledge increases hope and potential. Not learning and reducing one's knowledge decreases potential and hope leaving only despair. Keep learning my friends. 

Social Justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges. The concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive what was their due from society.

How to be a Judge

Just is used especially of what is legally or ethically right or proper or fitting. Fair to all parties as dictated by reason and conscience. Free from favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception; conforming with established standards or rules. Of moral excellence. Indicating exactness or preciseness. Absolutely. Exactly at this moment or the moment described. 

Equal Justice Under Law

Fair is being free from favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception; conforming with established standards or rules. Not excessive or extreme. Very pleasing to the eye. Gained or earned without cheating or stealing. In conformity with the rules or laws and without fraud or cheating. 

Validity - The Truth - Negotiation's - Cooperation's - Sustainable - Sharing

Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government, responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice in the United States, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department was formed in 1870 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration. The Department of Justice administers several federal law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The department is responsible for investigating instances of financial fraud, representing the United States government in legal matters (such as in cases before the Supreme Court), and running the federal prison system. The department is also responsible for reviewing the conduct of local law enforcement as directed by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The department is headed by the United States Attorney General, who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is a member of the Cabinet.

Federal Law Enforcement in the United States empowers a wide range of law enforcement agencies to maintain law and public order related to matters affecting the country as a whole. Power Abuses.

"If you judge, investigate" (Seneca) - "Be just, and fear not." (Shakespeare's King Henry the VIII)

Every Law can be Debated, this is why we have Courts

To be a Judge is to be an investigator, not just knowing the facts of the law, but understanding the facts of society. Our understanding of the world has increased. And our abilities to communicate and learn has also increased. That gives us more options and more choices. A Fair Trial should be just that, fair. Not to judge, just confirm the facts. Don't misrepresent the facts, and don't leave out any facts. But when people ignore this responsibility to respect each other then you have people being victimize by a system of justice, a system that people helped create by allowing the abuse to continue. If you act like criminals and then try to pretend that you're providing a service that the public pays for, you're not convincing anyone, so you see, you are on trial as well, the law applies to you too, and so do the laws of nature, and good nature as well. When you can't justify your behavior, then who judges thee. Society must have the power to hold officials accountable to the responsibilities of their position, and their responsibility to respect the freedom and the rights of all people. 

Repeals - Amendments - Truth can be Debated

Intervention is a procedure to allow a nonparty, called intervenor (also spelled intervener) to join ongoing litigation, either as a matter of right or at the discretion of the court, without the permission of the original litigants. The basic rationale for intervention is that a judgment in a particular case may affect the rights of nonparties, who ideally should have the right to be heard.

Sacrificial altars of the 21st century are the judges bench's were punishments and death sentences are given on a daily basis, but not to ward off evil spirits, but to victimize and control citizens using fear and punishment, just like the sick practitioners and leaders have done before for hundreds of years. This isn't justice, this is just another horrible side effect of an ignorant society, a society that is ruled by money instead of being ruled by logic, morals and decency.

Legal Minefields. We make laws and rules to make each other aware of things that may be dangerous to life. Rules are more or less a guide. But laws and rules were never meant to be this complicated, or used as weapons, or used as a method of control. This is what happens when people are not educated enough to understand the problems that have been created, so people are unable to solve these problems, or stop more problems from being created. So the problem is not laws, the problem is how laws and rules are interpreted, and how they are used. Just like everything else in our world, there are some people who abuse things, which is our fault, because we are not educating people enough.

How the Bail trap victimizes and discriminates the poor. Every year, thousands of innocent people are sent to jail only because they can’t afford to post bail, putting them at risk of losing their jobs, custody of their children — even their lives.

Jury Tampering

"I did not break the law, the law was already broken before I got here, so one cannot break what is already been broken. When Laws are use as weapons, we no longer communicate as humans, a law is to give reasons and not supposed to deny people their reasons. Laws are supposed to provide guidance in society, laws should not be used to attack people. How can a law deny reason?"

"Every Law Not Based on WISDOM is a Menace to the State" 

Judge - Courtroom Knowledge - International Laws - Criminology - Prosecutor

"Our justice system is sometimes out of control, and too many people are abused, unless you pay the extortion fees, or what they refer to as fines, which is another problem."

"Every Supreme Court Decision must provide Reasoning, otherwise Supreme Court Justices are just as criminal and corrupt as the people they owe favors to."

Crime Prevention starts with improving education and making sure everyone has access. Torturing people with Psychological Pain in order to Deter them is just showing how ignorant people are in our Justice System.

Freedom Project - Violence

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery, whether formal or informal.

You can't punish people for having problems, all you can do is try to help people by using all the resources and all the skilled people that we have available. Making peoples problems worse will not help people. You're not a wild animal and people are not dogs.

Problem-Solving Courts in the United States addresss the underlying problems that contribute to criminal behavior and are a current trend in the legal system of the United States. In 1989, a judge in Miami began to take a hands-on approach to drug addicts, ordering them into treatment, rather than perpetuating the revolving door of court and prison. The result was creation of drug court, a diversion program. That same concept began to be applied to difficult situations where legal, social and human problems mesh. There were over 2,800 problem-solving courts in 2008, intended to provide a method of resolving the problem in order to reduce recidivism.

65 Million Americans have an arrest record, which makes it extremely difficult to get a job. - (PDF)

Background Check is the process of looking up and compiling criminal records, commercial records and financial records of an individual or an organization.

Alice Goffman: College or Prison, two destinies one blatant injustice (video)

Life After Prison

Project More provides a structured and systematic process to reintegrate ex-offenders into the community and to provide services to their families.

Rehabilitation - Education - Forgiveness - Transitions

Each year, more than 700,000 people are released from state and Federal prison in the U.S.A., while another 9 million cycle through local jails. Statistics indicate that more than two-thirds of state prisoners are rearrested within three years of their release and half are re-incarcerated. High rates of recidivism mean more crime, more victims, and more pressure on an already overburdened criminal justice system. Between 60 to 75 percent of former inmates find themselves jobless up to one year after being released.

Reentry - Recidivism - Repeat Offenders

Prisoner Reentry Programs: Ensuring a Safe and Successful Return to the Community.  Corrections & Reentry.

G-Dog (2012) - (01/01/2012 | 1 hr. 32 min. video)
Homeboy Industries
Isidore: Creating Jobs 4 the Formerly Incarcerated
Friends Outside
Life in and after Prison (videos)
Employment Services exclusively for people with Criminal Records
Formerly Incarcerated
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prisoner Re-entry (HBO) (youtube)

Code for America working with thousands of tech industry professionals to help 100+ local governments serve their communities better.

Government Agency's - Media Literacy

Subversion and Containment is a concept in literary studies introduced by Stephen Greenblatt in his 1988 essay "Invisible Bullets". It has subsequently become a much-used concept in new historicist and cultural materialist approaches to textual analysis. Literary critic Louis A. Montrose writes that the terms are often used to refer to the "capacity of the dominant order to generate subversion so as to use it to its own ends". Human Rights - Social Abuses - Prisoner Dilemma.

Punishment - Side Effects on the Young and Vulnerable - Abuse

Punishment is the authoritative imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, in response to a particular action or behavior that is deemed unacceptable or threatening to some norm.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment describes punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisdiction, but typically includes punishments that are arbitrary, unnecessary, overly severe compared to the crime, or not generally accepted in society.

Psychological Torture - Child Abuse - Torture

Every year, thousands of children are suspended from preschool, privately-run preschools and daycares.

School Corporal Punishment refers to causing deliberate pain or discomfort in response to undesired behavior by students in schools. It often involves striking the student either across the buttocks or on the hands, with an implement such as a rattan cane, wooden paddle, slipper, leather strap or wooden yardstick. Less commonly, it could also include spanking or smacking the student with the open hand, especially at the elementary school level.

Condemnation is the action of condemning someone to a punishment or sentencing. Social Justice.

Condemn is to express strong disapproval of. Declare or judge unfit for use or habitation. Demonstrate the guilt of (someone). Pronounce a sentence on (somebody) in a court of law.

Demerit is a type of symbolic punishment given to someone for a fault or an offense or bad conduct. A quality of being inadequate and having a feature or fact deserving some type of censure.

Inflict is to make someone do something unpleasant.

School Discipline Laws & Regulations by Category

Majority of States Ban Corporal Punishment

National Association of School Psychologists - Tiger Mom

School to Prison Pipeline is the disciplinary policies and practices that create an environment for school-to-prison link to occur disproportionately affect Latino and Black students which is later reflected in the rates of incarceration. Describes the increasing patterns of contact students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a result of the recent practices implemented by educational institutions, specifically zero tolerance policies and the use of police in schools.

Help for kids the education system ignores: Victor Rios (video and interactive text)

Rethinking School Suspensions: Researchers have found that when educators and administrators focus on creating a positive school climate, the likelihood of a student being suspended decreases by approximately 10 percent.

Child Discipline is the methods used to prevent future behavioral problems in children. The word discipline is defined as imparting knowledge and skill, in other words, to teach. In its most general sense, discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. To discipline means to instruct a person to follow a particular code of conduct.

Adultism is prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people.

Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center

Classical Adlerian Psychology a values-based, fully integrated theory of personality, model of psychopathology, philosophy of living, strategy for preventative education, and technique of psychotherapy, involving both depth psychology and an appreciation of practical, democratic principles in daily life. Its mission is to encourage the development of psychologically healthy and cooperative individuals, couples, and families in order to effectively pursue the ideals of social equality and democratic living.

More than 110,000 students, including disproportionate numbers of black and disabled students, were subjected to paddling or a similar punishment in the 2013-14 school year.

Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection

School Violence  is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved. It includes violence between school students as well as physical attacks by students on school staff.

Bullying

School Discipline is a set of actions by a teacher towards a student (or groups of students) after the student's behaviour disrupts the ongoing educational activity or breaks a pre-established rule created by the school system.

Assertive Discipline is an approach to classroom management developed by Lee and Marlene Canter. It involves a high level of teacher control in the class. It is also called the "take-control" approach to teaching, as the teacher controls their classroom in a firm but positive manner. The approach maintains that teachers must establish rules and directions that clearly define the limits of acceptable and unacceptable student behavior, teach these rules and directions, and ask for assistance from parents and/or administrators when support is needed in handling the behavior of students.

Sisyphus was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back to hit him, repeating this action for eternity.

Positive Behavior Support is a behavior management system used to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior. People's inappropriate behaviors are difficult to change because they are functional; they serve a purpose for them. These behaviors are supported by reinforcement in the environment. In the case of students and children, often adults in a child’s environment will reinforce his or her undesired behaviors because the child will receive objects and/or attention because of his behavior. Functional behavior assessments (FBAs) clearly describe behaviors, identify the contexts (events, times, and situation) that predict when behavior will and will not occur, and identify consequences that maintain the behavior. They also summarize and create a hypothesis about the behavior, directly observe the behavior and take data to get a baseline. The positive behavior support process involves goal identification, information gathering, hypothesis development, support plan design, implementation and monitoring. Parenting.

Positive Discipline is a discipline model used by schools, and in parenting, that focuses on the positive points of behaviour, based on the idea that there are no bad children, just good and bad behaviors. You can teach and reinforce the good behaviors while weaning the bad behaviors without hurting the child verbally or physically. People engaging in positive discipline are not ignoring problems. Rather, they are actively involved in helping their child learn how to handle situations more appropriately while remaining calm, friendly and respectful to the children themselves. Positive discipline includes a number of different techniques that, used in combination, can lead to a more effective way for parents to manage their kids behaviour, or for teachers to manage groups of students. Some of these are listed below. Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is a structured, open-ended model that many parents and schools follow. It promotes positive decision making, teaching expectations to children early, and encouraging positive behaviors. Positive discipline contrasts with negative discipline. Negative discipline may involve angry, destructive, or violent responses to inappropriate behavior. In the terms used by psychology research, positive discipline uses the full range of reinforcement and punishment options: Positive reinforcement, such as complimenting a good effort; Negative reinforcement, such as ignoring requests made in a whining tone of voice; Positive punishment, such as requiring a child to clean up a mess s/he made; and Negative punishment, such as removing a privilege in response to poor behavior.

Praise

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act states that children, youth, and families involved with the juvenile and criminal courts should be guarded by federal standards for care and custody, while also upholding the interests of community safety and the prevention of victimization. National Center for Juvenile Justice.

Youthful Offender System is a maximum security prison in Pueblo, Colorado. YOS houses male and female offenders between ages 14–25.

CRDC Discipline (pdf)
Impact of School Suspensions is a form of punishment that people receive for violating rules and regulations.
Police Problems
Classroom Management
Progressive Discipline is not a learning method
America Has A Juvenile Justice Problem — Here's What You Should Know

When a 16-Year-Old Is Locked Up in a Supermax Prison | Stickup Kid | FRONTLINE (youtube) - District Attorney Ed Jagels is an idiot and a moron, why do we have so many ignorant scumbags in the Justice System?
Education for Everyone

Assembly Line Justice
Right to Counsel for Juvenile Prosecutions

Legal Defense
Collective Punishment Hurts Everyone

Schools are overusing restraints and so-called seclusion, particularly on kids with emotional or intellectual disabilities.

Schools Suspensions Cost Society Billions (PDF) - Nearly 3.5 million public school students were given an out-of-school suspension at least once. Of that number, 1.55 million students were suspended multiple times. They were sent home from school for a spectrum of offenses, ranging from minor misbehaviors, like disrupting class, to more serious ones, like possession of drugs. Just one suspension makes a student significantly more likely to drop out of high school, and later, get involved with the criminal justice system or receive public assistance. On a national scale, this results in foregone national income, foregone tax revenues and an increase in crime and needed social services. Not only will school districts increase graduation rates and generate billions of dollars in economic activity if they stop suspending so many students.

More than 160,000 children were disciplined using corporal punishment in public schools in the United States in the 2013-2014 school year. Corporal Punishment is still legal (and used) in US public schools in 19 states. PDF

The Civil Rights Project - Proyecto Derechos Civiles

Harsh school discipline, suspensions, expulsions, and school arrests most immediately come to mind. Many believe paddling is an archaic punishment from a long-gone era. Federal education data confirms that incidents of Corporal Punishment reported by schools have declined significantly in recent years. But the practice is still widely in use—and for tens of thousands of public-school students, discipline that “deliberately inflicts pain upon a child” is not uncommon. As a result, education groups, activists, and parents—including those victimized by the practice—are demanding that corporal punishment be outlawed in schools to protect children’s physical and emotional health.

Many of America’s largest school districts are hiring more security officers than hey are counselors. In four of the top ten largest public school districts in the country, including New York City, Chicago, Miami-Dade County, and Houston, security officers outnumber school counselors.

Black girls are punished at school at rates that are even more disproportionate than those experienced by black boys.
For example, they are suspended six times more often than white girls.

The Rate of Return to the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program an early intervention program targeted toward disadvantaged African-American youth.

Trauma
HighScope Educational Research Foundation

Mental Health and African Americans
Minority Health Resource Center
Black Female Mental Health within the UK

Restraints (bondage)

National studies have shown that students are more likely to drop out if they are arrested, and many advocates have long criticized harsh discipline as part of what they call the “school to prison pipeline.”

Draco was the first recorded legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece 7th century BC. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and blood feud by a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. Draco was the first democratic legislator, he was requested by the Athenian citizens to be a lawgiver for the city-state, but the citizens were fully unaware that Draco would establish harsh laws. Draco's written law was characterized by its harshness. To this day, the adjective draconian refers to similarly unforgiving rules or laws, in English and other European languages.

Juvenile Justice System is the primary system used to handle youth who are convicted of criminal offenses. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.

Expelled from Preschool
Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014
Early Childhood Consultation (PDF)

Fear is not a good teaching method, what other methods can you help someone aware of danger without using scare tactics?

Mistaken Identity (false arrest)

Connecticut to open prison for 18-25 year olds. A prison to focus on youth brain development using behavior-modification curriculum. If we just improve education then we can avoid using prisons as schools, and schools as prisons.

Fast Track Project 
Impact of Early Intervention on Psychopathology, Crime, and Well-Being at Age 25

Punishing people is a very ignorant and ineffective teaching method. Punishment causes more problems then it solves.

"There is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, no such thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that human beings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantly progressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. therefore justice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in present time for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more or less similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed the offense, and therein must be no justice." Edward Bellamy (unless of course you're continually acting like an a**hole).

Zero Tolerance is the militarization of schools using School Resource Officers. Zero tolerance is the same as zero brains. 

School to Prison Pipeline 

Failed Policies is how politicians get away with murder and abuse.

Zero Tolerance (2014) Movie Aired: 03/02/2014 | 1 hr. 19 min. - In an attempt to avoid another Columbine, 'zero tolerance' states have brought in armed police to patrol hallways and enforce classroom discipline in public schools. The results are disturbing.

Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from 10 years of exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing.

Punishment does not solve problems, it usually makes problems worse. Wasting time, money and resources.

How many juveniles are held in residential placement on a given day in the U.S.? Nationally, 54,148 juvenile offenders were held in residential placement facilities on October 23, 2013.

Electronic Tagging (wiki)
Electronic Monitoring (PDF)
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Making people pay for a mistake does not necessarily mean that that person will learn from that mistake. So why are we still making people pay for their mistakes?

Resolve

Teachers need more Training and all Students also need Training and Education on How to Resolve Conflicts.

Diplomacy - Active Listening - Anger Management - Communication - Problem Solving - Leniency

Improve Police Training

National Data Confirm Cases Of Restraint And Seclusion In Public Schools: Restraint and seclusion were used at least 267,000 times nationwide. That includes 163,000 instances in which students were restrained. Mechanical restraints were used 7,600 of those times. Schools reported they placed children in seclusion rooms about 104,000 times. In 75 percent of the cases, it was kids with disabilities who were restrained or secluded.

Restore

Restorative Practices reduce crime, violence and bullying, improve human behavior, strengthen civil society, provide effective leadership, restore relationships, repair harm.

Restorative Justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community. This contrasts to more punitive approaches where the main aim is to punish the offender, or satisfy abstract legal principles.

Rehabilitate - Educate - Group Counseling - Leniency

Restorative Justice - Restorative Justice Project 

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support
Positive Behavior Support
Pro-Publica

The National Dissemination Center

Developmental Disability News

Special Education (special needs)

1. Crime is a violation of people and relationships. (As opposed to a crime against the laws of the state.)
2. Violations create obligations. (Such as restitution, repair of harm, perhaps apology).
3. Restorative justice engages victims, offenders and community members — all those affected by the crime — in an effort to put things right.

Paying youth to stay out of trouble Comprehensive Homicide Initiative

Basic Income (free money?)

The Youth Have Rights. They have a right to a high quality education so that they can choose any job they wish, and not have someone else choose a job for them. When you are dependent on others finding you work, or dependent on others to provide you with a job, that means you have very little options, and what you end up with may be doing more harm then good. You can't have Truancy from an education that is dysfunctional and inadequate. No more prisons, just better schools. So that you are free to learn any where that you want for the rest of your life. If we improve the education curriculum in every school in America, we will fix every problem that this world is currently faced with. And that's a guarantee. That's the power of knowledge, and the potential that comes from people having access to a high quality education. Everyone benefits, everyone. Of course this will not happen overnight, the transition will take many years. But most people will see the benefits within their lifetime.

Retired Superintendent shows the ignorance of Americas Prisons (youtube) - Only 20% of Norway's prisoners end up back in jail within 2 years compared to 50%–60% in the UK and US

Many students in the juvenile justice education system have emotional or health problems that affect their ability to learn. According to 2010 data, 37 percent of incarcerated youth had visual, hearing, or dental problems, 30 percent had experienced physical or sexual abuse, 72 percent had issues with drugs and alcohol, and 45 percent had problems paying attention at school or work. However, in an education system that is decentralized, disorganized and rarely prioritized, the needs of these students often were failed. Education in Prison.

Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program (JJEEP) - Southern Education

The U.S. Sends 2 Million Kids to Prison Every Year. Incarcerating more youths than in any other nation by a 5-to-1 ratio. That's the average, and 95 percent of the children never even committed a violent crime.

Films by Youth Inside - FYI Films Program (youtube)

Status Offense is an action that is prohibited only to a certain class of people, and most often applied only to offenses committed by minors. Refers to an offense such as a traffic violation where motive is not a consideration in determining guilt.

Quasi-Criminal refers to "a court's right to punish for actions or omissions as if they were criminal.

The average juvenile facility costs society $88,000 a year, which is not even effective as educating prisoners to reduce Recidivism. A Person In Need of Supervision is a person in need of support, guidance and education.

A prison does not say that you're a bad person, being in prison just says that you were caught doing something bad, or caught doing something illegal, which does not always mean that you were doing something bad or that you're bad person, because some laws can be unjust or unfair under certain circumstances. This is something we need to improve.

If kids do things that resemble anything that can be misconstrued as violent, or something that can be considered to be a precursor for bad behavior, they are most of the time punished, that is what ignorant teachers and parents do, they punish kids instead of learning from kids. In order to understand why kids do what they do, you need to talk with them and find out why. If you punish someone instead of trying to understand them, then you are then actually influencing bad behavior, and at the same time, hurting and confusing the child or person. This is why prisons don't work, it is simply an ignorant reaction by ignorant people who believe that punishing people is somehow related to learning. And mostly the only thing that kids learn when they are punished, is that too many adults are ignorant a**holes.

Behind Japan's 99% Conviction Rate Published on Dec 12, 2015 (youtube) - In Japan, crime rates are low and the state incarcerates far fewer people than in other rich countries. But when people are accused of a crime they are almost always convicted.

Interrogation

Interrogation is interviewing with the goal of extracting useful information. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a rapport with the subject, to outright torture. Police interrogation is sometimes like a ponzi scam, because they are not always there to help you, it seems they're just there to swindle you using trick questions in order to force you or intimidate you into doing and saying things that are not true or accurate, which they can then use to exploit you. All because they believe that it will make it look like that they're doing their job, when in fact, there's nothing in their job description that says that they have a right to violate a persons human rights or due process.

Confessions - Forced Confession - Plea Deals - Prosecutorial Misconduct - Investigations

The Most Compelling Police Interrogations - Port, Huguely, Wozniak (youtube) - Police Abuses.

Deposed is when someone is asked to make a deposition under oath. A pretrial interrogation of a witness, usually conducted in a lawyer's office. Deposed can also mean forced to quit.

Resistance to Interrogation is a type of military training to British and other NATO soldiers to prepare them, after capture by the enemy, to resist interrogation techniques such as humiliation and torture. The trainees undergo practices such as hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation, prolonged nakedness, sexual humiliation and deprivation of warmth, water and food. Many of these techniques are against international law if used in interrogations. In such interrogation sessions, the subjects must maintain dead silence regardless of the practice being inflicted on them. Only three pieces of information can be ever surrendered: name, rank and serial number. Both the subjects and the practitioner have a right to insist for a return to unit every hour.

California Proposition 47 recategorized some nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors, rather than felonies, as they had previously been categorized.

Realignment, Incarceration, and Crime Trends in California Public Policy Institute of California 2016. - PDF.

Mental Health

Prisons across America have more people with serious mental illnesses then state hospitals do. We need to remove people with serious mental illness out of jail and into treatment instead.

The-Processing-and-Treatment-of-Mentally-Ill-Persons-in-the-Criminal-Justice-System (PDF)
Mental Health Problems of Prison and Jail Inmates (PDF)
Treatment Advocacy Center
Adult Forensic Mental Health
Smart Justice
Smart Justice
Smart Justice Alliance

We need to Train every Police Officer about Mental Health
Cit International
Memphis Model
Improve Police Training

At midyear 2005 more than half of all prison and jail inmates had a mental health problem, including 705,600 inmates in State prisons, 78,800 in Federal prisons, and 479,900 in local jails. Roughly 350 Mental Health Courts nationwide. Correctional institutions are generally not set up to provide treatment for mentally ill prisoners.

America's 3 Largest Psychiatric Facilities Are Jails. Nearly half of the people confined in U.S. jails and prisons have a mental illness.

Mental Illness - Diminished Responsibility

Impact of Law Enforcement in Transporting Individuals with Severe Mental Illness. Faced with limited community treatment options and a dire shortage of psychiatric inpatient beds, those in need of mental health treatment may not receive it until a crisis occurs and law enforcement intervenes. Approximately one-third of individuals with severe mental illness have their first contact with mental health treatment through a law enforcement encounter. Law enforcement officers are thus now often on the front lines of psychiatric care, charged with responding to, handling and even preventing mental illness crisis situations. An average of 10% of law enforcement agencies’ total budgets was spent responding to and transporting persons with mental illness in 2017. The average distance to transport an individual in mental illness crisis to a medical facility was 5 times farther than the distance to transport them to jail.  Nationwide, an estimated $918 million was spent by law enforcement on transporting people with severe mental illness in 2017. The amount of time spent transporting people with mental illness by law enforcement agency survey respondents in 2017 sums to 165,295 hours, or more than 18 years. 21% of total law enforcement staff time was used to respond to and transport individuals with mental illness in 2017. Law enforcement officers waited significantly longer — almost 2.5 hours longer — when dropping a person off at a medical facility than if transporting to a jail. Some officers reported having to wait with the individual for 72 hours or more until a bed becomes available. Survey respondents drove a total of 5,424,212 miles transporting individuals with serious mental illness in 2017 — the equivalent of driving around the Earth’s equator more than 217 times. Alternatives to Incarceration and Diversion.

Solitary Confinement - Hostage

Solitary Confinement is not Justice, it's Inhumane. - Child Abuse - Terror - Torture - Forced Marriage

Solitary Confinement is a form of imprisonment in which an inmate is isolated from any human contact, often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is mostly employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, usually for violations of prison regulations. However, it is also used as an additional measure of protection for vulnerable inmates. In the case of prisoners at high risk of suicide, it can be used to prevent access to items that could allow the prisoner to self-harm.

Isolation Dangers - Space Travel - Boredom

White Torture is a type of psychological torture that includes extreme sensory deprivation and isolation. It involves putting the prisoner in "a completely white, soundproof room." This type of torture is designed to deprive all of the senses. As stated in the name, everything is white. This can go as far to include the walls, floor, and ceiling of the prisoner's cell, as well as the occupants' clothes and food. The room is often soundproofed so that the occupant can hear nothing, and guards wear padded shoes so as to not make any noise. The prisoners are prohibited to talk to anyone, nor can they hear anything except for themselves. The lighting is designed so that it does not cast any shadows. Although it may not be the most common or popular form of torture, there are many adverse effects that come with it. Carrying out this type of torture makes the detainee lose personal identity through long periods of isolation, and it can even cause hallucinations. Prisoners are kept in these rooms for months or even years.

Stir Crazy is being psychologically disturbed, especially as a result of being confined or imprisoned.

Kidnapping the unlawful act of capturing and carrying away a person to an undisclosed location against their will and holding them in false imprisonment. This is a composite crime. It can also be defined as false imprisonment by means of abduction, both of which are separate crimes that when committed simultaneously upon the same person merge as the single crime of kidnapping. The asportation/abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear. That is, the perpetrator may use a weapon to force the victim into a vehicle, but it is still kidnapping if the victim is enticed to enter the vehicle willingly, e.g., in the belief it is a taxicab. Kidnapping may be done to demand for ransom in exchange for releasing the victim, or for other illegal purposes. Kidnapping can be accompanied by bodily injury which elevates the crime to aggravated kidnapping. Immigration.

Hostage is a person who is held by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against war. In contemporary usage, it means someone who is seized by a criminal abductor in order to compel another party such as a relative, employer, law enforcement, or government to act, or refrain from acting, in a particular way, often under threat of serious physical harm to the hostage(s) after expiration of an ultimatum. A person who seizes one or more hostages is known as a hostage-taker; if the hostages are present voluntarily, then the receiver is known as a host.

Human Trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, especially women and children, and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another.

Stockholm Syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity. These alliances, resulting from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time spent together, are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. The FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System and Law Enforcement Bulletin shows that roughly 8% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.

Child Abduction is the unauthorized removal of a minor (a child under the age of legal adulthood) from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians. The term child abduction conflates two legal and social categories which differ by their perpetrating contexts: abduction by members of the child's family or abduction by strangers.

Child Slavery is the slavery of children. The enslavement of children can be traced back through history. Even after the abolition of slavery, children continue to be enslaved and trafficked in modern times, which is a particular problem in developing countries where it is obvious, but not so obvious in developed countries where slavery comes in many different forms.

Aggression is overt, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other unpleasantness upon another individual. It may occur either in retaliation or without provocation. In humans, frustration due to blocked goals can cause aggression.

Risks of Solitary Confinement - Isolation Dangers

Imprisonment is the forcible confinement with a variety of denied freedoms under the authority of the state. American Friends Service Committee.

Restraint

Medical Restraint are physical restraints used during certain medical procedures. Medical restraints are designed to restrain patients with the minimum of discomfort and pain and to prevent patients injuring themselves or others.

Physical Restraint refers to means of purposefully limiting or obstructing the freedom of a person's bodily movement. Usually, binding objects such as handcuffs, legcuffs, ropes, chains, straps or straitjackets are used for this purpose. Slavery.

Straitjacket is a garment shaped like a jacket with long sleeves that surpass the tips of the wearer's fingers. Its most typical use is restraining people who may cause harm to themselves or others. Once the wearer slides their arms into the sleeves, the person assisting the wearer crosses the sleeves against the chest and ties the ends of the sleeves to the back of the jacket, ensuring the arms are close to the chest with as little movement as possible. Torture.

Schools Restraints Seclusions - Restraints (PDF)
Restraints Seclusions (PDF) - Laws (PDF)
Restraint Techniques
Restraint - Restraint and Seclusion in Hospitals
How Extreme Isolation Warps the Mind
6x9 a virtual experience of solitary confinement
Our Voices Are Rarely Heard, anguish and monotony of solitary confinement (video)

What we know: On double-celling, double-bunking, and prison downsizing
Doubling Up Prisoners In 'Solitary' Creates Deadly Consequences

About 1,000 people die in American jails every year, and about a third of those are suicides. Suicide Rates Higher In Jails Than In Prisons In 2012.

Rapes in Prison

Prison Rape Elimination Act Eliminating Prison Rape Would Save Society $50 Billion Per Year.

The Invisible War (2012) (video) - How To Avoid Rape In Prison - Men's (youtube) - Sex Crimes

Death Penalty - Execution - Capital Punishment

What's the point of a Death Sentence? We all have a death sentence, so why is speeding it up so important? Revenge is just a waste of time, people and resources. It just perpetuates our ignorance and encourages our social diseases to continue. The death penalty does not make anyone safer or does it stop murder. It creates ignorance, it creates hatred and it makes murder seem justified in a society that is already plagued by too many social diseases. Enough is enough. It's time we educate our citizens and put an end to our social diseases. Stop the confusion and stop the torment. Let prisoners provide the work that the world desperately needs. If a prisoner chooses death then make sure that they are given a chance to donate their Organs to someone who needs them, and then give them an Environmentally Friendly Burial so they can die with some respect.

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right - Murder is Illegal - Ethics Code

Capital Punishment is a government sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes or capital offences, and they commonly include offences such as murder, treason, espionage, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Etymologically, the term capital (lit. "of the head", derived via the Latin capitalis from caput, "head") in this context alluded to execution by beheading. Fifty-six countries retain capital punishment, 103 countries have completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 30 are abolitionist in practice.

Video about the Death Penalty (youtube) - Death Penalty Info

Lethal Injections- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (youtube)

Lethal Injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broader sense to include euthanasia and other forms of suicide. The drugs cause the person to become unconscious, stops their breathing, and causes a heart arrhythmia, in that order. Assisted Suicide.

Corporations Kill thousands of people every year with processed food, polluted water, air pollution, toxic products and other negligent actions.

Draconian relates to the Athenian lawmaker Draco whose code of laws prescribed death for almost every offense (circa 7th century BC).

David R Dow: Lessons from Death Row Inmates (video)

Death Row is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime.

The Final Words Spoken Directly Before Execution.
Positive Emotional Language in the Final Words Spoken Directly Before Execution.

Execution Chamber is a room or chamber in which a legal execution is carried out. Execution chambers are almost always inside the walls of a maximum-security prison, although not always at the same prison where the death row population is housed. Inside the chamber is the device used to carry out the death sentence.

TROM - 2.9 Justice (youtube) - TROM - 2.8 Laws (youtube)

Michelle Lyons was a Prison Reporter, she watched 278 executions by lethal injection over 10 years. Though some people do watch Decapitation Videos and the Beheading of People, most people do not watch, mostly out of respect for the the victim, family and friends. Just because some idiots watch these crimes, this does not make them relevant or important. Facebook Likes and Youtube Views don't justify these acts of ignorance. Popularity is not a measurement of Value, or is it an accurate judgment of our human character. Some humans have problems and they lack morality and understanding, which we now know is the result of an ineffective education. Murder provides no benefit at all, Executions Create More Victims. PDF. And besides that, we have to talk about all the other negative influences that society is plagued with, like Violence on TV, Violence in the News, Violence in Video Games, Violence in Sports, Child Abuse, War, Torture Methods, Discriminations, Punishment, Inequality, Corruption, ineffective education, we can no longer ignore the importance of learning the most valuable knowledge at the right times in our lives.

Malicious Encouragement of Suicide, Suicide Baiting. The baiting crowd in episodes of threatened suicide. 

Suicide Jumper is a person who plans to fall or jump (or already has fallen or jumped) from a potentially deadly height, sometimes with the intention to commit suicide, at other times to escape conditions inside (e.g. a burning building).

"A person can serve his country better above ground then under it" (Abraham Lincoln)

Rehabilitation - Educating Prisoners

Rehabilitation in penology is to restore to useful life, as through therapy and education, or to restore to good condition, operation, or capacity. Restore is to return something to its original or usable and functioning condition. Restorative.

Rehabilitate is to help to readapt, as to a former state of health and good reputation. To restore someone to a state of good condition, good operation, good health and a normal life by using education, training and therapy.

Prison Education should encompass a number of educational activities. These educational activities should include both vocational training and academic education. The goal of such activities is to prepare the prisoner for success outside of prison and to enhance the rehabilitative aspects of prison. Educational programs offered inside prisons are typically provided and managed by the prison systems in which they reside. Funding for the programs are provided through official correctional department budgets, private organizations (e.g. colleges, nonprofits, etc.), and the prisoners or their families, if the prisoner is pursuing education through a correspondence program. Educational opportunities can be divided into two general categories: academic education and vocational training. (also known as Inmate Education and Correctional Education).

What if the Prison was your Mind? What type of high quality education would you need that would release you from the prison in your mind? Everyone on the planet needs an intervention at least one time in their life.

You can't rehabilitate a person that was never fully educated to begin with. So most people have to start over from the beginning. If you don't make a repair the right way, then you will have to keep making repairs again and again. If you didn't do it right the first time, then you better do it right the second time.

Reeducate is to educate or to teach someone again, especially in order to correct bad practices that were never learned or understood the first time.

Adult Education is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. It can mean any form of learning adults engage in beyond traditional schooling, encompassing basic literacy to personal fulfillment as a lifelong learner. In particular, adult education reflects a specific philosophy about learning and teaching based on the assumption that adults can and want to learn, that they are able and willing to take responsibility for that learning, and that the learning itself should respond to their needs. Driven by what one needs or wants to learn, the available opportunities, and the manner in which one learns, adult learning is affected by demographics, globalization and technology. The learning happens in many ways and in many contexts just as all adults' lives differ. Adult learning can be in any of the three contexts, i.e.: Formal – Structured learning that typically takes place in an education or training institution, usually with a set curriculum and carries credentials; Non-formal – Learning that is organized by educational institutions but non credential. Non-formal learning opportunities may be provided in the workplace and through the activities of civil society organizations and groups; Informal education – Learning that goes on all the time, resulting from daily life activities related to work, family, community or leisure (e.g. community baking class.)

Get Paid to Learn - Social Learning

Recovery Approach emphasizes and supports a person's potential for recovery. Recovery is generally seen in this approach as a personal journey rather than a set outcome, and one that may involve developing hope, a secure base and sense of self, supportive relationships, empowerment, social inclusion, coping skills, and meaning.

Recidivism (repeating bad behaviors) - Relapse - Readmission Rates - Life After Prison

Open Prison is any jail in which the prisoners are trusted to serve their sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and are often not locked up in their prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment while serving their sentence. In the UK, open prisons are often part of a rehabilitation plan for prisoners moved from closed prisons. They may be designated "training prisons" and are only for prisoners considered a low risk to the public. A Look Inside Brazil's Prison With No Locks (youtube) - While in mainstream prisons the repeat offending rate is 80%, APAC's is closer to 5%. Compassionate Release.

Harm Reduction is a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal.

Treatment Court is a unique program to keep individuals out of jail and on the road to a healthy, law-abiding lifestyle. Each participant in Treatment Court is assessed for a wide variety of supportive services, primarily drug and alcohol and/or mental health treatment.

Therapeutic Community is a participative, group-based approach to long-term mental illness, personality disorders and drug addiction. The approach was usually residential, with the clients and therapists living together, but increasingly residential units have been superseded by day units. It is based on milieu therapy principles, and includes group psychotherapy as well as practical activities. Therapeutic communities (TCs) are a common form of long-term residential treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs). Residential treatment for SUDs emerged in the late 1950s out of the self-help recovery movement, which included groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

"If and when I know, will I still follow the rules? Of course, the path of least resistance is always more pleasurable."

Prison Education Programs Study
Academic Programs Serving Incarcerated Adults 
Chicago Cred
Assessing Correctional Education Programs
Pell Grant eligibility for the incarcerated
Educating Prisoners Reduces Recidivism and also Saves Tax Payer Money.
Prison to College Pipeline (P2CP)
RAND Correctional Education Project
The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
Bard’s Prison Initiative
Quality Education in Juvenile Justice Secure Care Settings (PDF)
Why open a school? To close a prison: Nadia Lopez (video and interactive text)
From Death Row to Law Graduate: Peter Ouko (video and interactive text)
Educational success curbs effects of child abuse, neglect, but only if they learn the right things at the right time. Tests.

Learn your Lesson is to acquire a greater understanding of the world through a particular unpleasant or stressful experience. But you need more than just experience to learn, you need knowledge and information.

Education Improvements

Prisoner Community Reentry is the process by which prisoners who have been released return to the community. Many types of programs have been implemented with the goal of reducing Recidivism; from 2001 to 2004, the United States' federal government allocated over $100 million for reentry programs. Many such programs have been found to be effective for this purpose. Other reentry programs focus on improving health among ex-prisoners, which tends to be significantly worse than that of people who have never been imprisoned. A 2001 study found that these programs were generally inadequate, with a few exceptions. The "Returning Home Study" conducted by the Urban Institute from 2001 to 2006 found that ex-prisoners who worked before imprisonment, and those who find employment soon after release, are less likely to be reincarcerated within a year of release. The same study found that releasing prisoners to parole supervision both reduces the likelihood that they will engage in substance use and makes it easier for them to find employment after release. A 2015 article from the New York Times Magazine commented, "It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that this looming 'prisoner re-entry crisis' became a fixation of sociologists and policy makers, generating a torrent of research, government programs, task forces, nonprofit initiatives and conferences now known as the 're-entry movement'

"Prisoners should not leave prison with the same mind they entered with." After Prison.

Prison should not be about Punishment, prison should be a place for Recovery, which supports a person's potential for recovery. Recovery is generally seen in this approach as a personal journey rather than a set outcome, and one that may involve developing hope, a secure base and sense of self, supportive relationships, empowerment, social inclusion, coping skills, and meaning. Fairness - Justice.

It's what people don't know that's killing them, and hurting them, and hurting others. Most people are unaware of the mistakes that they make. A lot of times people have no idea how much damage they do to themselves, or how much damage they do to others. If people are not given better choices, or if people are not aware about other choices that are available, then making the right decision becomes almost impossible. The good news, is that this problem can be solved through the dissemination of knowledge. People need access to knowledge and information that would benefit them. It's the lack of knowledge and information that is causing all the problems. So if we make knowledge and information more available, knowledge that people need, then we will solve all our problems, not over night, but gradually. Learning takes time.

Leniency - Pardon - Redeem

Leniency is being tolerant and not strict or stubborn. Leniency is the quality of mercy or forgiveness, especially in the assignment of punishment as in a court case.

Dismissal (clean record) - Amnesty - Some People are Above the Law

Expunge is to erase or remove something completely, especially something unwanted or unpleasant. Erase is to remove something from memory or existence. Not the same as censorship.

Expungement is a court-ordered process in which the legal record of an arrest or a criminal conviction is "sealed," or erased in the eyes of the law. When a conviction is expunged, the process may also be referred to as "setting aside a criminal conviction."

Record Sealing is the practice of sealing or, in some cases, destroying court records that would otherwise be publicly accessible as public records. The term is derived from the tradition of placing a seal on specified files or documents that prevents anyone from reviewing the files without receiving a court order.

Forgiveness (stop the hate) - Stigma - Mistakes (repentance) - Educate - Resolve.

Mercy refers to benevolence, forgiveness and kindness in a variety of ethical, religious, social and legal contexts.

Clemency is leniency and compassion shown toward offenders by a person or agency charged with administering justice.

Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise.

Exonerations By State Map (image) - Exonerations in 2016 (PDF)

Exculpate is similar in meaning to exonerate. When you exonerate someone, you clear a person of an accusation and any suspicion that goes along with it.

Pardon is a government decision to allow a person who has been convicted of a crime, to be free and absolved of that conviction, as if never convicted. After Prison.

Absolution is a formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment. Absolution is a traditional theological term for the forgiveness experienced by Christians in the life of the Church.

Retraction is a disavowal or taking back of a previous assertion. The act of pulling or holding or drawing a part back.

Commute is to reduce a judicial sentence to one less severe, specially a sentence of death. Exchange a penalty for a less severe one.

Commutation of Sentence is the substitution of a lesser penalty for that given after a conviction for a crime. The penalty can be lessened in severity, in duration, or both. Commutation is the substitution of a lesser penalty for that given after a conviction for a crime. The penalty can be lessened in severity, in duration, or both. Unlike most pardons by government and overturnings by the court (a full overturning is equal to an acquittal), a commutation does not affect the status of a defendant's underlying criminal conviction. Although the concept of commutation may be used to broadly describe the substitution of a lesser criminal penalty for the original sentence, some jurisdictions have historically used the term only for the substitution of a sentence of a different character than was originally imposed by the court. For example, the substitution of a sentence of parole for the original sentence of incarceration. A jurisdiction that uses that definition of commutation would use another term, such as a remission, to describe a reduction of a penalty that does not change its character. A commutation does not reverse a conviction and the recipient of a commutation remains guilty in accordance with the original conviction. For example, someone convicted of capital murder may have their sentence of death commuted to life imprisonment, a lessening of the punishment that does not affect the underlying criminal conviction, as may occur on a discretionary basis or following upon a change in the law or judicial ruling that limits or eliminates the death penalty. In some jurisdictions a commutation of sentence may be conditional, meaning that the convicted person may be required to abide by specified conditions or may lose the benefit of the commutation. The conditions must be lawful and reasonable, and will typically expire when the convicted completes any remaining portion of his or her sentence. For example, the pardon may be conditioned upon the person's being a law-abiding citizen, such that if the beneficiary of the commutation commits a new crime before the condition expires the original sentence may be restored.

Amnesty is a pardon extended by the government to a group or class of persons, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of persons who are subject to trial but have not yet been convicted.

Compassionate Release is a process by which inmates in criminal justice systems may be eligible for immediate early release on grounds of “particularly extraordinary or compelling circumstances which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the court at the time of sentencing. Also known as medical release, medical parole, medical furlough and humanitarian parole, compassionate release programs generally address the benefit to terminally ill prisoners as well as cost savings to the state.

Mitigating Circumstances are conditions or happenings which do not excuse or justify criminal conduct, but are considered out of mercy or fairness in deciding the degree of the offense the prosecutor charges or influencing reduction of the penalty upon conviction.

Extenuating Circumstances is any information or evidence presented to the court regarding the defendant or the circumstances of the crime that might result in reduced charges or a lesser sentence. Unlike a legal defense, it cannot lead to the acquittal of the defendant. The opposite of a Mitigating Factor is an Aggravating Factor, which is any circumstance attending the commission of a crime or tort which increases its guilt or enormity or adds to its injurious consequences, but which is above and beyond the essential constituents of the crime or tort itself. Aggravated assault, for example, is usually differentiated from simple assault by the offender's intent (e.g., to murder or to rape), the extent of injury to the victim, or the use of a deadly weapon. An aggravating circumstance is a kind of attendant circumstance and the opposite of an extenuating or mitigating circumstance, which decreases guilt.

Insanity Defense is arguing that the defendant is not responsible for his or her actions due to an episodic or persistent psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act. The insanity defense Should Not be confused with Incompetency. And this is not saying that someone is Above the Law or has Immunity.

Irresistible Impulse is a defense by excuse, in this case some sort of insanity, in which the defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions that broke the law, because they could not control those actions, even if they knew them to be wrong. Religious Excuse.

Excuse is a related concept which reduces or extinguishes a person's culpability and therefore a person's liability to pay compensation to the victim of a tort in the civil law.

Culpability is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. Culpability marks the dividing line between moral evil, like murder, for which someone may be held legally responsible and a randomly occurring event, like earthquakes, for which no human can be held responsible. One formulation of the concept is as follows: A person is culpable if they cause a negative event and (1) the act was intentional; (2) the act and its consequences could have been controlled (i.e., the agent knew the likely consequences, the agent was not coerced, and the agent overcame hurdles to make the event happen); and (3) the person provided no excuse or justification for the actions. Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault (culpa). The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom, and free will. All are commonly held to be necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for culpability. Capacity.

Reduce My Sentence

Right of Asylum which a person persecuted by their own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries which is a shelter from danger or hardship.

Salvation is the state of being saved or preserved from harm. Immigration.

Redemption in theology means to repurchase or  buy back. Refers to the deliverance of Christians from Sin.

Redemption is the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil. The action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.

Redeem is to restore the honor or worth of someone. Rehabilitate (educate) - Resolve

Absolve is to forgive someone of a Sin.

Redemptive Suffering is the Catholic belief that human suffering, when accepted and offered up in union with the Passion of Jesus, can remit the just punishment for one's sins or for the sins of another, or for the other physical or spiritual needs of oneself or another. Like an indulgence, redemptive suffering does not gain the individual forgiveness for their sin; forgiveness results from God’s grace, freely given through Christ, which cannot be earned. After one's sins are forgiven, the individual's suffering can reduce the penalty due for sin.

John Legend: "Redemption Song" (video and interactive text)

Bad people are not bad, most people are just in bad situations, which causes bad decisions, sometimes out of desperation, and other times just from the lack of knowledge and information. A bad person is actually a good person who hasn't yet realized that they are in fact a good person. So there are no bad people, just good people who forgot what good is, or good people who never learned and fully understood what Being Good is. Observation Flaws - Punishment Flaws - Education Flaws.

Appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and interpreting law. Appeals.

Plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system.

Legal Knowledge - Plea Bargain is mostly for the wealthy and powerful.

Confession is the acknowledgment of having done something wrong, whether on purpose or not.

Forced Confession - Intimidation - Interrogate

Diminished Responsibility is a potential defense by excuse by which defendants argue that although they broke the law, they should not be held fully criminally liable for doing so, as their mental functions were "diminished" or impaired. Capacity.

Waiver is the voluntary relinquishment or surrender of some known right or privilege. Regulatory agencies or governments may issue waivers to exempt companies from certain regulations. A written waiver is a disclaimer, which becomes a waiver when accepted. When the right to hold a person liable through a lawsuit is waived, the waiver may be called an exculpatory clause, liability waiver, legal release, or hold harmless clause. Disclaimer.

Liability Waiver is a legal document that a person who participates in an activity may sign to acknowledge the risks involved in his or her participation. By doing so, the company attempts to remove legal liability from the business or person responsible for the activity. The enforceability of such a waiver depends on state law, a jury, and the language of the waiver.

Mistaken Identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was someone else. The defendant may question both the memory of the witness (suggesting, for example, that the identification is the result of a false memory), and the perception of the witness (suggesting, for example, that the witness had poor eyesight, or that the crime occurred in a poorly lit place).

Ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed. Conversely, a form of ex post facto law commonly called an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts. A pardon has a similar effect, in a specific case instead of a class of cases. Other legal changes may alleviate possible punishments (for example by replacing the death sentence with lifelong imprisonment) retroactively. Such legal changes are also known by the Latin term in mitius.

Amnesty Law is any law that retroactively exempts a select group of people, usually military leaders and government leaders, from criminal liability for crimes committed. Most allegations involve human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.

Films about Prisons

Punishment: A Failed Social Experiment (youtube)
Forensic Psychology - Aberrant
Angela Patton: A father-daughter dance ... in prison (youtube) 
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prison (HBO) (youtube)
Jeff Smith: Lessons in business ... from prison (youtube)
Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an Injustice (video) 
The Lady Lifers: A moving song from women in Prison for Life (video)
The Insight Garden Program's Vegetable Garden at San Quentin State Prison (video)
Dan Pacholke: How Prisons can help inmates live meaningful lives (video)
Insight Garden Program
Planting Justice
Garden Tips

The Bet (short story) about a banker and a young lawyer who make a bet with each other about whether the death penalty is better or worse than life in prison.

Social Impact Bond (public service)

Toby Eccles: Invest in Social Change (video)