A few of my friends have spent some time in jail / prison due to smoking pot and the "three strikes" rule along with it. They were in there ranging from overnight to a few weeks to months.
One developed PTSD from it and has had major issues since he was released 15 years ago. The other one hasn't quite came back mentally either, will not talk about it and is so much worse off now than ever. After he was released, but before his court date where he knew he wasn't going to have to go back, he was contemplating suicide.
They all said they would rather die than ever go back for any significant time. I'm not sure what significant means in that respect, but dying seems to be the general theme they share now.
After working at a jail for a bit, I'm not sure I blame them at all. I like to think I'm mentally strong, but I don't know how long I could do it. I am sure I would have the same mentality they do now after spending time in jail / prison.
Those sound like abnormally severe reactions, though in some locations life in jail or prison is much more severe - but in most of the U.S. it's not the violent, drug fueled rape-fest popular media might have you believe.
I spent 7 years in prison, most of it in a maximum security facility. I once spent 3 straight weeks on 23 hours cell confinement - no tv, no books, no other people aside from a guard walking by doing rounds. The other 1 hour was allowed in essentially just a larger cell.
I've known many other inmates - before, during, and after incarceration. No one was keen on going back, but I don't know anyone who developed any significant PTSD from their experiences, and no one who would choose literally death over re-incarceration.
I did know one guy who got PTSD after being shot 7 times by the police for trying to drive away from them. None from being in jail for a few months, though.
>> My daughter didn’t ask to have a writer for a mother, but that’s who I am. Amputating parts of my experience feels as abusive to our relationship as writing about her without any consideration for her feelings and privacy.
This part got me. To me that article definitely makes it sound like she's a writer first, and mother second. I just hope her child grows up to be a better person than that, or I hope I'm misunderstanding that article.
>> I'm sure they'd love to pursue perfection if they were paid decent wage and not pressured to be as fast / cheap as possible.
That and depending where you live, there's next to no money for road work.
At the local county govt I worked at, the first department that would get gutted was the highway department. It can easily cost millions to redo a few miles of road, and you need to fix a bridge that doesn't get used much (but it is becoming a hazard because it's been neglected for so long), magically most of the road budget is already gone for that year. Now add in the unknowns like salt prices, the equipment to do anything, maintenance, and everything else that comes with it.
Things here become "just good enough" because no one wants an increase in taxes to pay for it.
I want to believe that isn't the case for every local govt, but it is for the few smaller ones I've worked with around here.
I felt that I was paid well during my time in road work (entire family still works there). Then again, I don't need useless things like most people in society, so I'm naturally satisfied with any quantity of federal reserve notes that I'm allocated.
I agree with you that it's all being neglected.
We had to steadily taper off the traffic into one lane before night time work began in the summer. I remember specifically one time I was slowing down traffic on the interstate by setting out the warning barrels - someone from out of state passing through was just so angry from having to slow down to 55mph for 10 minutes of their life. Flipped me off, along with the most rotten glare I've ever seen.
I guess nothing else matters except for everyone getting out of THEIR way so THEY can get to THEIR destination. I'm sorry that I'm taking the gas tax we've all been paying in order to renew a 10 mile stretch of the interstate so you can do just that - travel INTER state (bump free).
It sucks so bad. My brother and I got parasites from water at some restaurant in GA.
Down there they were able to help him, but up in the north, the Drs have no clue on how to deal with parasites. The most help I got was the Dr calling the pharmacy for me.
So my brother got meds from his Dr, sent them up here to get rid of the parasites. Now I'm dealing with some bacterial infections that no one can figure out.
I asked to have the same test done that my brother had that found all his issues relating to this. They replied with "Yes, we can do that test." Then they sent me to CT and for a colonoscopy which took 2 months before I could get in... all the while they couldn't "give advice" because they "don't know what my system is like."
I'm seeing the 4th opinion next week. It's been 4 1/2 months now, so maybe this one will care.
This is with the "good insurance" I keep hearing about.
Depending on when I call them during the month, I might owe money or I might not....
Before the colonoscopy, they said I would owe $500 for my deductible, which is correct.
Then I got there, they said I didn't need to pay anything, and I just got a bill yesterday for $2700. The insurance line items say they covered about $1300 of it. Now I get to fight insurance again because I shouldn't be paying anything over $500. I have 30 days before collections too.
I love paying for the privilege of fighting for insurance coverage.
I've seen something similar in regards to a normal DUI case. The defense lawyer talking about 1970's RADAR tech in airplanes, NTFS filesystems, Windows Server, "md5 hashing protocols" and other items "related" to the case.
The judge was all sorts of confused and "phoned a trustworthy friend who worked in a fortune 500 company" for clarity.
That guy got out of a DUI after 5 x 2-3 hour sessions in court. 10+ hours of court to get out of a couple hundred dollar ticket, if that.
I really wonder what the lawyer fees were though. No way was he doing that for free or cheap. It was his first offense and this state is very lenient on DUIs.
Showed me exactly why I never want to be in court, on either side.
/leaving a lot of details out, but man, was it depressing to watch.
DUIs can be a lot more serious than just a few hundred dollar fine. They can result in the loss of your license (and consequently your ability to work), possibly several months in jail, and bar you for life from some countries (Canada won't let you visit if you've gotten a DUI.)
Spending many thousands of dollars on lawyer fees to get yourself out of a DUI can make a lot of sense unless you're in a jurisdiction that doesn't take DUI seriously. Of course it makes a lot more sense to only drive when bone dry sober.
I would propose "rational". The level of animosity and punishment directed at checkpoint victims in most of USA is really quite amazing, and totally out of proportion to any reasonable understanding of the risks of automobile travel.
I barely noticed it back in the day too. I had a friend who was into piracy quite a bit more who complained about getting the wrong movie or getting the wrong mp3s.
I don't know if I ran into that issue, but I wasn't really downloading a lot of mainstream stuff compared to him either.
I'm also interested if OP will post their medical history, since they don't mind it being public. But I doubt anyone making that argument would actually do that.
Kind of a rough argument, but maybe it's just because they have never been beaten or harassed over something about their medical history. Which is good for them, but not the world most of us live in.
I've worked with a few small town USA type law enforcement agencies. No big city ones, so think towns around a few thousand people total, or a county with 15k people total. This won't reflect the majority of the US, but it does seem to reflect the majority of arrests in this location.
A lot of criminals (again, around here at least) are that stupid. The detectives have solved many cases just by searching for the suspects name on Facebook. Some examples were: seeing the stolen items right in their profile pic, drugs with the suspect standing there while holding a gun, a video of a friend recording someone breaking into a car, hell, they had to get CPS involved because a parent had a video of them hitting (it was hitting, not disciplining) their own child. All of that just on Facebook. The hardest they had to work to get those pictures was add them as a friend under a fake profile.
Now career criminals are a completely different beast. The law enforcement here (luckily) doesn't have many or any "advanced" criminals around here. There are definitely plenty of low hanging fruit here to keep law enforcement busy, and being in small town USA, once they know who you are, they KNOW who you are and who you hang out with.
The detectives always said that if most of these people left their phone at home, didn't take any pictures, and didn't tell their friends about what they did, that crime may not get much priority (or any) depending on what the crime was.
I don't have raw data to back that up, but it does happen here. I do agree with you about the career criminals though, but there are still A LOT of stupid people out there or maybe it's something in the water here.
I've been toying with the idea of getting into ham radio type stuff, so it's always been interesting to me.
After working with the local detectives / police, it isn't "very" difficult to find where a jammer is. /I never got the chance to work directly with them on that issue though, but they said it's happened once before.
Anyway, it took them one call to Verizon and less than a day later they found who was jamming one area. Did the police thing, and no more jamming. They had the pull because no one could call 911 with a cell phone in that area, and when the squads were out, they'd lose reception around that area too. Both big no nos if you want to stay hidden.
I can imagine if it's a country with adequate resources, it would not be much of an issue.
One developed PTSD from it and has had major issues since he was released 15 years ago. The other one hasn't quite came back mentally either, will not talk about it and is so much worse off now than ever. After he was released, but before his court date where he knew he wasn't going to have to go back, he was contemplating suicide.
They all said they would rather die than ever go back for any significant time. I'm not sure what significant means in that respect, but dying seems to be the general theme they share now.
After working at a jail for a bit, I'm not sure I blame them at all. I like to think I'm mentally strong, but I don't know how long I could do it. I am sure I would have the same mentality they do now after spending time in jail / prison.