Just Get Some Rope

[subdjoe]

Somehow, I just can't work up a lot of sympathy here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15068088

Two Somali pirates are expected to be sentenced to life in US prison on Monday, joining nine others who have just begun long sentences for their roles in hijacking attempts. What's in store for them as they enter the alien, unforgiving world of the American jail system?

Federal prison is a frightening, perilous environment of intrigue, violent gangs, terrible food and severe isolation, even for the most hardened criminal.

For men from a faraway land with little or no English-language skills and no prior familiarity with American culture, it will be especially hard, say lawyers for the men, and experts in psychology and the criminal justice system.
Barriers

Seven Somali men have already been sentenced to life in prison and two more to three-decade terms for their roles in hijackings of US-flagged ships. All the Somalis were brought to the US after their capture by the US Navy.

On Monday morning, Muhidin Salad Omar was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to his part in the hijacking in February of the yacht S/V Quest, in which pirates shot to death four American sailors.

Mahdi Jama Mohamed is scheduled to be sentenced later in the day in the same case, and on Tuesday, four more men are to be sentenced to automatic life terms in prison following their guilty pleas to piracy counts. More are to be sentenced in the autumn.

"Piracy involves armed hijacking on the high seas with a very real threat of death to those taken hostage," says US Attorney Neil MacBride of the eastern district of Virginia, who is prosecuting more than a dozen pirates.

"The US Congress has set the penalty for piracy as a mandatory life sentence, and we intend to prosecute these cases to demonstrate that anyone who chooses to engage in piracy against US interests will face severe consequences."

The men speak little English, if any, and were raised largely in abject poverty in villages an ocean and a continent away from the US.

Language and cultural barriers will make it difficult for the men to form the support groups and informal social networks that lawyers and social workers say are necessary to get by in prison.

"They have all the stressors associated with prison," says Frederic Reamer, a professor of social work at Rhode Island College with extensive experience working in prisons and a member of the Rhode Island state parole board.

"But unlike most inmates, they cannot just go into the dining hall and sit at a table and start conversing with people with whom they have some shared cultural experience. They are likely to be isolated in every imaginable way.

Likely these thugs, as guests of the US, will enjoy better food, better sleeping quarters, better medical treatment, than they ever had before.

Jean & Scott Adams, Phyllis Macay, Robert Riggle had no comment on this.

[OldSchoolRanger]

Somehow, I just can't work up a lot of sympathy here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15068088

Seven Somali men have already been sentenced to life in prison and two more to three-decade terms for their roles in hijackings of US-flagged ships. All the Somalis were brought to the US after their capture by the US Navy.

Likely these thugs, as guests of the US, will enjoy better food, better sleeping quarters, better medical treatment, than they ever had before.

Why aren't the liberals out demonstrating for their release? 
Oh, wait, they'll be chiming in soon.

subjoe,
I agree with you 100%

[powderman]

Boy do I feel sorry for those poor misunderstood scum. The only mistake made was capturing them alive. They should have been executed on the spot. POWDERMAN. 

[subdjoe]

Boy do I feel sorry for those poor misunderstood scum. The only mistake made was capturing them alive. They should have been executed on the spot. POWDERMAN. 

One guy on another forum said that this amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, maybe even torture.  Suggested that the most humane thing would be to put the thugs out of their misery right away.  It's the merciful thing to do, after all.

[SHOOTALL]

with the high rate of aids where they come from they may not be in prision long. but if you wish to release them no problem , take them about 20 miles off shore from their home land and let them swim home .

[powderman]

This is a subject that we could learn from the russians on how to deal with trash. POWDERMAN. 

[subdjoe]

This is a subject that we could learn from the russians on how to deal with trash. POWDERMAN. 

You mean like this?

By the way "Somali Coast Guard boat" means the same as "pirate vessel."

[jlwilliams]

So, they aren't going to enjoy prison?  Wow.  Too bad.
 
  I'll try, as a member of American society, to get over that.....OK, I'm good.

[powderman]

SUBJOE. Thanks. A fitting end to scum and should be done over and over til they are no  more. Ours will spend the rest of their lives with 3 squares a day, free clothing, medical care, etc, while WE pay the bill. POWDERMAN. 

[subdjoe]

SUBJOE. Thanks. A fitting end to scum and should be done over and over til they are no  more. Ours will spend the rest of their lives with 3 squares a day, free clothing, medical care, etc, while WE pay the bill. POWDERMAN. 

Can you imagine the howls of protest from Greenpeace, Earthfirst, etc, etc. if the US did that?  All the complaints about air pollution, water pollution, damage to habitat, blah, blah, blah.  And all the reports and investigations that would result...three rain forests would be needed for all the paperwork the greens would demand.

[jlwilliams]

  I was thinking more about this one.  The basic premise that these Somali pirates will be inhumanely isolated is ridiculous on it's face.
 
  First, there is a sizable Somali population in the United States.  Are we to believe that there are none in prison aready?  None?  Are we likewise to believe that there are no Somali language speakers willing to take a job for the corrections department teaching these individuals English?  None?
 
  Prisons in America (at all levels; Federal, state and local) have educational programs in them.  Anybody know how many inmates get their GEDs in jail?  I don't know how many, but it's a bunch.  The idea that these non-English speakers will be inhumanely isolated because their language is under represented in prison falls apart when you realise that we the taxpayers will teach them English.  Even if that means hiring a teacher just for them.  The Federal Government will do that.  Jail in America isn't just 3 hots and a cot.
 
  These guys could come out of their incarceration speaking English and ready for the book/movie deals and talk shows.  That's wayyyy more oportunity than they would have found in their home land. 

[Dixiejack]

Don't teach them anything and turn em loose into the general prison population.  "You do the crime, you do the time."  Frankly, I am surprised they were not returned to Somalia.