By:
Advanced search…

Welcome to Detroit Sports Forum!

By joining our community, you'll be able to connect with fellow fans that live and breathe Detroit sports just like you!

Get Started
  • If you are no longer able to access your account since our recent switch from vBulletin to XenForo, you may need to reset your password via email. If you no longer have access to the email attached to your account, please fill out our contact form and we will assist you ASAP. Thanks for your continued support of DSF.

"We back the blue"

He is, but the Obama policy was enacted right when Black Lives Matter sprang up. Maybe Sessions didn't intend to make it sound like he was choosing blue lives over black lives, but that's what I - and I'm sure many that are much more sensitive to the cause than I am - heard.

And yes, at the end of the day I don't expect the government to side with any group above the police. Just a stupid thing to say, or at least way to say it. Plus I just think he's a dickhead and this is one step closer to fulfilling the "tough on crime" and "war on drugs" approach he's been yearning for. AKA pumping taxpayer dollars into police forces and the prison system so select groups can profit (and minorities can continue to be locked up at ridiculous rates, just a happy coincidence I'm sure).
 
deathroh said:
He is, but the Obama policy was enacted right when Black Lives Matter sprang up. Maybe Sessions didn't intend to make it sound like he was choosing blue lives over black lives, but that's what I - and I'm sure many that are much more sensitive to the cause than I am - heard.

And yes, at the end of the day I don't expect the government to side with any group above the police. Just a stupid thing to say, or at least way to say it. Plus I just think he's a dickhead and this is one step closer to fulfilling the "tough on crime" and "war on drugs" approach he's been yearning for. AKA pumping taxpayer dollars into police forces and the prison system so select groups can profit (and minorities can continue to be locked up at ridiculous rates, just a happy coincidence I'm sure).
Click to expand...

he was speaking to the National Fraternal Order of Police. I really think you are reaching with this one.
 
I'm not asking that he legitimizes BLM. And for the third time, I'm not saying he shouldn't support the police, he just chose a poor way to do so. Either intentionally or because he's a doofus, either way it was stupid. I understand that you're going to disagree.

Right, nobody's making money off the prison system. RIGHT. And pointing to crime rates doesn't tell the story. It's about the penalties associated with the crimes and who they adversely affect the greatest.
 
In other words, that's what those who only see or hear racism in everything heard. Newsflash to the terminally aggrieved race hustling snowflakes, you're overplaying your hand. It's not a stupid thing to say you support the police and not acknowledge or legitimize a marxist, terrorist organization built on a lie, particularly while speaking to the police. It's the right thing to do.

And it's not a happy coincidence, it just so happens that prison populations track crime rates almost perfectly. It's not a profit mechanism, it's a public safety mechanism. Here are some numbers:

Federal prisoners number 187,060 - roughly 10% of them (19,329) are in private correctional facilities and about 8% are in other types of facilities (I assume this means half-way houses, hospitals, etc).

So if there are 2.3mm people incarcerated in America and 7% of state prisoners are in private facilities, that means 147,906 state prisoners are in private facilities. That means 7.25% of all state and federal prisoners are in private facilities. That's not a huge number. The private prison industry's total revenues are roughly $4.8B with profits of $629mm. They spent roughly $8.7mm on lobbying over 6 years (2010-2015), so about $1.45mm per year at a time when the total lobbying dollars were roughly $3.2B per year. Now I'm not saying that's OK, I think money should be taken out of politics and lobbying should be illegal, but this is peanuts in the grand scheme of things and the private prison industry isn't nearly the great evil profit scheme it's being made out to be, nor does it have nearly influence over government budgets that some would have us think.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/locked-in-profits-u-s-prison-industry-numbers-n455976

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/
 
Last edited:
For profit prison system is a booming lol..Another group with a way to powerful lobbying force and now they have a attorney General and a president that will give the green light for more abuses of this corrupt system.
 
There are just way to many ways the for profit prisons can be abused . Judges have gone to jail for taking kickbacks. The abuses inside the institutions are well documented.
 
deathroh said:
I'm not asking that he legitimizes BLM. And for the third time, I'm not saying he shouldn't support the police, he just chose a poor way to do so. Either intentionally or because he's a doofus, either way it was stupid. I understand that you're going to disagree.

Right, nobody's making money off the prison system. RIGHT. And pointing to crime rates doesn't tell the story. It's about the penalties associated with the crimes and who they adversely affect the greatest.
Click to expand...

It's not a stupid way to say it - you'd find a way to make him racist in your mind no matter what he said.

Yes, people are making money off the prison system - that's what private companies do. that doesn't de-legitimize them in any way. Profits aren't evil. If they're able to lock up bad guys for less money than the government and make still make money doing it, seems like a pretty good solution.

Penalties should adversely affect criminals - that's the whole idea. If you look deeper at the numbers, you'll see that race isn't what's driving the differences. It's crime rates and prior criminal history that explains the differences in convictions and sentencing.
 
Last edited:
Spartanmack said:
It's not a stupid way to say it - you'd find a way to make him racist in your mind no matter what he said.

Yes, people are making money off the prison system - that's what private companies do. that doesn't de-legitimize them in any way. Profits aren't evil. If they're able to lock up bad guys for less money than the government and make still make money doing it, seems like a pretty good solution.

Penalties should adversely affect criminals - that's the whole idea. If you look deeper at the numbers, you'll see that race isn't what's driving the differences. It's crime rates and prior criminal history that explains the differences in convictions and sentencing.
Click to expand...

No I wouldn't.

Mandatory minimum sentences have nothing to do with it? Send an inner city guy away for decades for smoking crack while a guy in the suburbs gets a relative slap on the wrist for blowing coke. Then blame all of the problems in the inner city on the parents for not being there for their kids. Kids grow up with issues, walk out to the corner and can't avoid drugs (that I'm pretty sure inner city people aren't trucking in themselves) and start a substance abuse problem as the cycle continues. Meanwhile we're filling up prisons again just like the good old days, and now the government has a nice customer base for the unused conventional war military equipment that's becoming obsolete on the battle field...all so we can fight this terrible war on drugs!
 
deathroh said:
No I wouldn't.

Mandatory minimum sentences have nothing to do with it? Send an inner city guy away for decades for smoking crack while a guy in the suburbs gets a relative slap on the wrist for blowing coke. Then blame all of the problems in the inner city on the parents for not being there for their kids. Kids grow up with issues, walk out to the corner and can't avoid drugs (that I'm pretty sure inner city people aren't trucking in themselves) and start a substance abuse problem as the cycle continues. Meanwhile we're filling up prisons again just like the good old days, and now the government has a nice customer base for the unused conventional war military equipment that's becoming obsolete on the battle field...all so we can fight this terrible war on drugs!
Click to expand...

If Sessions gave anything short of what you'd expect Ta Nahisi Coates or Michael Eric Dyson to say to the cops, I bet you would call him out.

There are different penalties for crack vs powdered cocaine for good reason and it has nothing to do with race. The same penalties for crack apply to crystal meth (a drug abused by mostly poor white people). These policies including mandatory minimums came about because of the efforts of legislatures representing poor urban areas wanting to do something about the crack epidemic. And contrary to popular belief, people aren't doing hard time for getting high. They're going to prison for dealing drugs and while whites and blacks do drugs at roughly the same rate, it's not the case that they deal drugs at the same rate. And what would you have them do? Not lock up drug dealers who have kids? Would they be model parents? Are you blaming the prison system for the rate of single motherhood? Because that has WAY more to do with welfare than it does incarceration.
 
Last edited:
Spartanmack said:
In other words, that's what those who only see or hear racism in everything heard. Newsflash to the terminally aggrieved race hustling snowflakes, you're overplaying your hand. It's not a stupid thing to say you support the police and not acknowledge or legitimize a marxist, terrorist organization built on a lie, particularly while speaking to the police. It's the right thing to do.

And it's not a happy coincidence, it just so happens that prison populations track crime rates almost perfectly. It's not a profit mechanism, it's a public safety mechanism. Here are some numbers:

Federal prisoners number 187,060 - roughly 10% of them (19,329) are in private correctional facilities and about 8% are in other types of facilities (I assume this means half-way houses, hospitals, etc).

So if there are 2.3mm people incarcerated in America and 7% of state prisoners are in private facilities, that means 147,906 state prisoners are in private facilities. That means 7.25% of all state and federal prisoners are in private facilities. That's not a huge number. The private prison industry's total revenues are roughly $4.8B with profits of $629mm. They spent roughly $8.7mm on lobbying over 6 years (2010-2015), so about $1.45mm per year at a time when the total lobbying dollars were roughly $3.2B per year. Now I'm not saying that's OK, I think money should be taken out of politics and lobbying should be illegal, but this is peanuts in the grand scheme of things and the private prison industry isn't nearly the great evil profit scheme it's being made out to be, nor does it have nearly influence over government budgets that some would have us think.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/locked-in-profits-u-s-prison-industry-numbers-n455976

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/
Click to expand...

The private prison population nearly doubled (97.75%) from 1999-2012. It began to decline under Obama, but it's clear which way it's going to go again. I understand the dollars involved aren't overwhelming, but I believe it plays a role - along with appealing to a blood thirsty base. I just wonder what's going to happen now that there's a new devil to attack in opioids, and the perpetrators are much more diverse.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ison-population-has-declined-in-recent-years/
 
tinselwolverine said:
I don't have a problem with what Sessions I said at all.

I do however, think the NFOP should have invited the surviving members of NWA to give an alternative perspective with a rousing rendition of their all-time classic:
Click to expand...

"f'n with me cuz I'm a teenager with a little bitta gold and a pager"

Ice Cube, the urban Walt Whitman from the golden age of rap.
 
Spartanmack said:
If Sessions gave anything short of what you'd expect Ta Nahisi Coates or Michael Eric Dyson to say to the cops, I bet you would call him out.

...
Click to expand...

Blah blah blah. And the rest is revisionist history at best. Good day
 
deathroh said:
The private prison population nearly doubled (97.75%) from 1999-2012. It began to decline under Obama, but it's clear which way it's going to go again. I understand the dollars involved aren't overwhelming, but I believe it plays a role - along with appealing to a blood thirsty base. I just wonder what's going to happen now that there's a new devil to attack in opioids, and the perpetrators are much more diverse.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ison-population-has-declined-in-recent-years/
Click to expand...

but what's wrong with it doubling? particularly from a small base and especially if private companies can do it more efficiently? Doubling over 12 years in not aggressive growth. I understand that there are risks but it's not like they can't be monitored and managed - and it's not like there's any shortage of corruption in the state/federal prison system.
 
deathroh said:
Blah blah blah. And the rest is revisionist history at best. Good day
Click to expand...

what do you mean "blah blah blah". Sessions said nothing remotely racist or insensitive and you started a thread to point out how awful it was - is it really such a stretch to say you'd call him out for just about anything he said? And if anyone is revising history, it's the people who blame prison populations on racism.
 
Last edited:
Ultimately, we govern ourselves. And that's the exciting and terrifying reality. Whatever Sessions said in a speech will not change that, and neither will our reactions to whatever he said.
 
Drugs are killing more Americans than ever. Preliminary data shows that nearly 60,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016. Not only is that the highest drug-related death toll in our history, but it is also the fastest increase in drug deaths we’ve ever seen. For Americans under the age of 50, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death.
Click to expand...

The vast majority of which are opiate and heroin overdoses. Yet he'll continue to sound his trumpet about the dangers of marijuana. Sessions is a relic. Right up there with Devos and Pruitt when it comes to backward thinking.
 
sggatecl said:
The vast majority of which are opiate and heroin overdoses. Yet he'll continue to sound his trumpet about the dangers of marijuana. Sessions is a relic. Right up there with Devos and Pruitt when it comes to backward thinking.
Click to expand...

So do the stiffs get buried in private for profit cemeteries?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

About Us

Founded in 2011, Detroit Sports Forum is a community of fanatics dedicated to teams like the Lions, Tigers, Pistons, Red Wings, Wolverines, and more. We live and breathe Detroit sports!

Stay Connected

Forum statistics

Threads
32,848
Messages
1,108,330
Members
935
Latest member
Geriatric Makeover Trivia

Affiliates

    Discussion Hub
Back
Top