Convicted Spammer Jeffrey Kilbride Flees Prison 233
An anonymous reader writes with this news from California: "According to the article, 'Officials at the Federal Bureau of Prisons say an inmate escaped from a minimum security area of the federal prison in Lompoc. Prison officials say Jeffrey Kilbride, 48, was discovered missing at around 1:30 p.m. on Friday....A search is reportedly underway. Prison officials say Kilbride was serving a 78-month sentence for conspiracy and fraud. He was due to be released on December 11, 2015.'" Here's why Kilbride was in prison.
What an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Due for release in 2015? Not anymore.
Re:Good for Him (Score:0, Insightful)
GP is fine with being raped in a dark alley, because hey, at least nobody broke his legs.
Re: Good for Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Right they should just gas everyone with a 15+ year sentence
No, we should not be looking at incarceration as the default punishment for crimes. The only people that should be locked up are people that are a physical threat to other people. Anyone else should have an alternative punishment, such as working for victim restitution. No other country locks up as many people as America, and many other countries have lower crime rates.
Re:What an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Due for release in 2015? Not anymore.
Indeed, escape is a new offense, he will have to spend more time in prison in addition to completing his original sentence, and he will no longer be housed in a Club Fed. He'll be behind the razor wire now. Sucks to be him.
They'll catch him no doubt pretty soon... unless this was coordinated with someone on the outside. If so, he could be far away by now. But they'll catch him eventually. As many people have pointed out recently in many posts on many topics, it's hard to remain anonymous and hide in plain sight these days.
Re:What an idiot. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why was he there? (Score:3, Insightful)
He hasn't committed any sort of violent crime. There's no need to remove him from society.
Prison is not just for violent criminals, it's for people who break society's laws, and can not be trusted to behave withing society's rules without some motivation.
I suppose you think all non-violent criminals should be simply asked nicely not rip people off and otherwise "stop being jerks"?
Seriously, you're either a troll or a moron. Both?
Re:What an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Said every person in jail and every kid in detention."
Example of a false positive error. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox [wikipedia.org]. When your justice system pursues a high conviction rate rather than truth, there are likely more innocent people in jail than guilty.
Re:Why was he there? (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets be real. Federal prisons are an exception, but most areas of the US have heavily private prison systems, with a contract from the state guaranteeing a 90% bed occupancy rate in every jail, prison, or detention camp.
With this in mind, there are a lot of judges and DAs who -have- to prosecute otherwise pointless cases in order to keep their job. If not, the private prison PACs will be handing money to a candidate who will.
I live in one of these states that has a very sizable private prison system. At one private jail, COs make $8/hour, while over at the county lockup that is public, entry level deputies are making 2-3 times that out of cadet training.
Here in the US, punishments are way out of proportion for crimes. Ever wonder why home invasion stats are spiking? Because the penalty for that is the same as a burglary, and there is less chance of being caught (women in general tend to be easily cowed/threatened and won't report a crime.) Same with murders. If robbery is 20-life just as homicide, might as well have a chance of walking since there are no witnesses.
Want to fix the US system? Stop making it a life sentence of unemployment for even a night in the clink for PI. Also, actively work on rehab, because the primary reason why US crime is so high compared to Europe is drugs (or the crimes that happen when people want their next meth rock.) Fix that, and you will see crime across the board drop. And, no, fixing it is not throwing someone with a meth, smack, or crack addition into Pelican Bay or Limon for life.
Tin foil hat time (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, suppose he had been working with really bad people on the outside, e.g. the Russian mob. Let's say these people were angry with him and he got wind of an assassination brewing. So he flips on the bad people but then needs protection. So, the Feds fake a prison break and whisk hm away to witness protection. Or is that just too wacko?
Re:Going to PMITA prison! (Score:5, Insightful)
You truly want it to happen...
You want the less powerful offenders, the non-violent ones, the ones who aren't so dangerous, raped by the most violent and physically dangerous prisoners. You want those already most dangerous ones to get the message that a moderate amount of crime doesn't pay, but pedal to the metal violent overdrive has its perks. You want the guards to have to work around criminals who expect to be bought off with a supply of victims instead of staying in line for fear of more punishment. You want the prisons to be full of racist gangs constantly ready to riot, and using protection from the rapists on the other side as their chief recruiting tool. You want the rapists and murderers in there to get more practice at violence before their inevitable release, more confirmation that violence gets them what they want. You want prison to not be as bad for the worst of the worst, by making it hell for the rest of the people in there.
Yes, you want it, and now you know, deep inside, that your want has nothing to do with justice.
Re:Good for Him (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Good for Him (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice. You fucked over millions of people wasting hundreds of hours per person over the years adding up to about 50,000 lifetimes dealing with your shitty spam so we'll make you pick up crap on the side of the highways for the next millennium or so 24/7/365. I like it. Punishment actually fits the crime.
Re:What an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's money well spent. Spammers need to rot in jail and the longer the better. He's caused millions of dollars in damages with his spam shit and if he stays on the loose he'll be back at it. These guys never quit, they think they have the right to annoy us without end.
If that were true then the sentence should be life, not a few years.
Our justice system is extremely messed-up. It is about punishing people for past transgressions, and not about preventing future transgressions. If anything the way we treat people once they're out just makes them more likely to offend - do you think this guy could get a job running mail servers for a legit corporation once he's out? No, they'd never hire them, so that leaves what he's good at - sending more spam.
People who commit crimes should be kept under an appropriate amount of supervision until they've been rehabilitated to the point where they're not likely to commit future crimes. The right "sentence" isn't going to be the same for every criminal. Some criminals could probably be put on immediate probation for 2nd degree murder, and others might need 30 years in max security for shoplifting. It shouldn't be about punishments that fit the crime, it should be about rehabilitation that fits the criminal. There shouldn't be registered sex-offenders - people likely to re-offend shouldn't be let out at all, and those unlikely to re-offend shouldn't be treated as if they are likely to do so. Whether a criminal in rehabilitation is behind bars or not should depend on how likely they are to re-offend during rehabilitation, and how likely they are to comply with their rehabilitation activities. If they were trusted to be out on bail during their trial, I'd probably trust them to show up on time for their 8 hours a day of brainwashing until they do otherwise.
Re:What an idiot. (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea that the government should "keep people in jail until they change what they believe" is terrifying.
Agree 100% - what sane person wouldn't? Would I have used the term "brainwashing" if I didn't want you to be terrified?
No, we should NOT be judging people based on some arbitrary judges imagining whether they are likely to commit a crime in the future. Rehabilitation is a disgusting concept.
Sure it is a disgusting concept, but so is preying on the innocent, and locking people up forever, perhaps punctuated by letting them out for a few years to let them prey on the innocent until we lock them up again.
Why do we punish criminals at all? Who are we to decide that spending time to build a car is a legitimate way to obtain a car, and clubbing your neighbor over the head and driving off with their car is an illegitimate way to obtain a car?
The answer is simple - the former society is one where people actually spend their time creating things. The latter society is one where everybody lives in the dark ages defending their small plot of crops against poachers, pledging their fealty to the local warlord in exchange for "protection."
Since most people would rather live in a civilized society, it behooves us to take steps to keep society civilized. That basically requires brainwashing everybody from childhood into not doing anything you think you can get away with. Some people's brains seem to be wired in such a way as to make that lesson easier to learn than others, and some parents do a better job of teaching it. One way or another some people just don't get it and when they become adults they become problems. So, we can either treat them like problems for the rest of their lives and either live with them or lock them up anyway, or we can actually try to do something about them.
Whether you're a nice progressive humanist or a zealot who believe in blowing up the meeting-places of people of the wrong faith, and whether you believe in locking up thieves for six months or cutting off their hands largely depends on how you were brainwashed as a child. Since we're doing it anyway, we might as well do it in a way that results in a society we would want to live in...