French prisons worse than Club Gitmo??

ive heard about this before. france has long had a reputation for the harshest prisons. there was a history channel special about one in the caribbean, which was particularly awful. forget the name, but i think someone wrote a book about it.

Club Gitmo is part of the the club medd “latin package” complete with daily buffet, room, work out rooms. If your good they will put you in a movie. France on the other hand shows their true humanity when you see how they treat prisoners. They champion the rights of Saddam and defend Iraq from our Imperialism to maintain the close ties of trade and MONEY that flows to France, while in their own prisons they do everything except BBQ people alive with an apple in the victims jaw. A mormon friend of mine lived there for 2 years and said the streets are littered with dog feces and the streets are never cleaned. while in Germany nearly every morning large trucks with soapy water clean all the streets. I hate to think how these french prisions are kept up.

It’s funny watching Americans decry the prisons of another nation.

It would be if i was but being a German still may have some merit in your eyes. After all we were opposed to the war with Iraq as well. Unfortunatly, we didnt look like a jackass because we didnt also trade with them, while maintaining our pathetic “right of sovereign nation” lies. WE actually had a backbone to our incorrect policy of appeasement.

It’s funny watching Americans decry the prisons of another nation.

its funny that you are so prejudiced that you cant make a fair assessment. im not pulling this outta my ass, ive heard numerous times that france has notoriously bad prisons. american prisons truly are like healthclubs in comparison, in some cases. and im not talking military prisons, like gitmo. im talking about regluar prisons. i dont know the current state of french prisons (as in the modern ones) but the old ones are hellholes. makes sense that the US has better prisons, with a higher population, they continually need to build more. and with the insane amount of protest groups and human rights groups that decry the state of our prisons, even as they are, they continually make them more livable.

americans arent the only ones who think so either:

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=159847578&p=y59848z84

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20617451.htm

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/53/2692/2005-10-24.asp?wid=53&nid=2692

LMFAO!

Dont let the door hit you on the way out CC!

CC, I’m a bleeding heart, and I’m telling you: US prisons are nothing compared to some European countries. Italy and France especially.

Read the book “Catch me if you can”. Part of the story is an account of prisons in America, France, and Sweden.

@Imperious:

…. Unfortunatly, we didnt look like a jackass because we didnt also trade with them, while maintaining our pathetic “right of sovereign nation” lies. WE actually had a backbone to our incorrect policy of appeasement.

Do i have to stand these blatant insults on my nationality?
And the insult is the emigrant (or traitor?) who who holds Nazis in high esteem to pretend he would still be a german, when he speaks and understands nearly no word of it. …

… why again should i refrain from pouring shit over US’ans ?

… why again should i refrain from pouring sh*t over US’ans ?

Because you are smart enough to know that IL does not represent all (or even most) Americans. That and you also are smart enough to realize he is trying to get a response out of you. :wink:

@Janus1:

It’s funny watching Americans decry the prisons of another nation.

its funny that you are so prejudiced that you cant make a fair assessment.

i can’t make a fair assessment? Of what?
It certainly does not sound like French jails are a picnic. It does seem to me that Americans have some work to do in this regard before they use a French prison to justify their own penal shortcomings (pun intended).

Now don’t get me wrong - i think that the Canadian justice system is at times a complete joke, and from the security guards and prisoners i’ve talked with in the ER/OR, our prisons are not nearly dissuading enough. Still, Gitmo should not stand until all of its prisoners have had a speedy trial and compensation for those found innocent who have been held there. Or do the French ALSO believe that people should not get a trial before going to jail

oh yes Imp-y. You certainly handed me my a$$ back there.

Does France have a death penalty, or is America the only industrialized country left that has a state-sponsored method of killing innocent people? How can Americans even think to judge other countries’ penal systems when we still have something as barbaric as the death penalty in place?

You guys have no idea how bad French prisons are. Don’t try to make this a death penalty debate, it’s not. Thats a seperate issue.

Imagine being isolated in a concrete room, one meter by one meter. It is wet, cold, and completely dark. You share the space with rats. Once or twice a day, the door opens and some guard brings you something that barely qualifies as edible. Now imagine this concrete room for months or years at a time. Also imagine this in the context of a justice system which presumes guilt before innonence.

That is what we’re talking about in terms of French prisons. US prisons are a walk in the park compared to them.

You guys have no idea how bad French prisons are. Don’t try to make this a death penalty debate, it’s not. Thats a seperate issue.

Good point lets not go that direction with this. A French prison must be infinately better than what Club Medd (Gitmo) offers, and much better than Saddams prisons before we swept up that mess.

@Yanny:

You guys have no idea how bad French prisons are. Don’t try to make this a death penalty debate, it’s not. Thats a seperate issue.

Imagine being isolated in a concrete room, one meter by one meter. It is wet, cold, and completely dark. You share the space with rats. Once or twice a day, the door opens and some guard brings you something that barely qualifies as edible. Now imagine this concrete room for months or years at a time. Also imagine this in the context of a justice system which presumes guilt before innonence.

That is what we’re talking about in terms of French prisons. US prisons are a walk in the park compared to them.

Imagine being killed for something you didn’t do. Imagine having electrodes on your balls and a confession paper a corrupt detective wants you to sign.

“One of the 13 exonerated Illinois inmates, Anthony Porter, spent 15 years on death row and was within two days of being executed before a group of student journalists at Northwestern University uncovered evidence that was used to prove his innocence.”

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/31/illinois.executions.02/

What kind of torture do you want? Bad food and water? A cramped cell? Sitting on death row, waiting to be killed? You would like to ignore the death penalty because it makes America look hypocritical, but any talk of prisons, must also include death row. How hypocritical to talk about another country’s failed prisons and ignore the thousands waiting to die in our own.

Its nice to dig up some example of a few items that are not in fact the pattern of how our prisons work. The french example looks like the common display of how they do things, while in every prison there are people who are innocent and latter get off. In France we see what happens every day because it is in fact “the pattern”.

On balance I would say that considering capital punishment as part of the US system is a valid point. People getting off for something they didn’t do is one thing, but evidently that kind of instance is happening more and more in the US death penalty system. Mary has posted an old article, but that student group is still running, has freed around 160 death row inmates based on DNA evidence, and are about to turn their work into a US national project. The Republican Illinois governor actually suspended all capital punishment because of their efforts.

Now, regarding French v. American v. Guantanamo, I’m rather agnostic. The French treatment of prisoners is likely worse once you’re inside, but the US appears to incarcerate a disproportionate number of its citizens. But, then, I think we’re talking about shades, if not flavors, of “bad.” Prison is bad anyway you cut it, but how it is bad depends on the inmate. Is it the psychological toll it takes, the brutal prison social system, or the social stigmatism after one leaves? And is it even possible to compare these? I think so, but it’ll take a more nuanced approach than we’ve seen here.

This has become interesting to me in many respects.

First, I find myself totally in contradiction with Mary - I’m for the death penalty (in rare circumstances only) and against abortion. Mary, unless I am mistaken about your views (correct me if I am wrong) you take the opposite view. I’d really like to understand how you conclude that abortion of an innocent baby is OK, but capital punishment for the worst mass murdering crack-addicted pedophile imaginable would not be acceptable. I’m not making light of your viewpoint, I just would like to know how you reconcile this.

Secondly, I really think the point about normal procedures vs. rare exceptions does apply. It is rare (I hope and the few statistics available tend to show this) for atrocities as you describe in the US. And how do you know this doesn’t happen in France? And at what rate in France? As these things are usually hidden, we probably will never know for certain, but it seems the normal cell is better in the US than in France in all ways Chengora described. But again, the comparisons of the % of population favors France. Also, the death penalty is a rare occurance, even in Texas, and usually takes several decades of appeals. When people can die of old age before their penalty, I’m not sure why this is an issue.

How can Americans even think to judge other countries’ penal systems when we still have something as barbaric as the death penalty in place?

I’m also not sure why the absence of the death penalty somehow makes the prison system more humane. Why is it barbaric? Some prisoners want to die because of guilt for their crimes - a life sentence could be viewed as worse. If we take the approach that prison should be a deterent to crime, perhaps this is better?! :o For that matter, how can France think to judge us (both in the States and Gitmo) if this is the best they can do for their prisoners? It does cut both ways here, although to be fair I am not sure how much of the Gitmo criticism is from France and how much from other places.

Finally, Chengora is right,

it’ll take a more nuanced approach

to answer all the questions brought up.

What kind of torture do you want? Bad food and water? A cramped cell? Sitting on death row, waiting to be killed? You would like to ignore the death penalty because it makes America look hypocritical, but any talk of prisons, must also include death row. How hypocritical to talk about another country’s failed prisons and ignore the thousands waiting to die in our own.

first of all, the quality of the prisons is a seperate issue from the justice system. there is a connection, but you can not conflate the two to the point where you start discussing a justice system which incorporates the death penalty, and incarcerates innocent people at times, as equal to a PHYSICAL prison, where the conditions are as harsh as some french prisons. since what we are discussing is the PHYSICAL prison, and not the justice system that puts people there.

but since you INSIST on bringing a seperate issue into this, fine, lets talk about it.

in 2003, 3369 people were on death row in the US. only 65 of them were executed that year. this is a trend that has been continuing for many years

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm

you also assume a point of view where the death penalty is “barbaric”. i dont believe this at all. and i dont ignore the death penalty. i celebrate it. there must be an ultimate punishment. the current system needs revision, but i absolutely agree with the death penalty in general.