They say it doesn't constitute an extraordinary circumstance

March 19, 2008 8:39 PM

Jayci is ten years old. She's about to die of an incurable brain cancer. Her dying wish is to see her daddy one last time. But daddy in prison on a drug charge, and won't be released until August. By which time Jayci will be dead. Federal prison rules allow for furloughs in "a family crisis." But only at the warden's discretion. "They say it doesn't constitute an extraordinary circumstance".
posted by orthogonality (157 comments total)

This is an Rorschach test of ethics, I guess: do you see a drug felon who needs to "do the time", or the little girl hoping to see her daddy before she dies?

I guess I take this a bit too personally. I've been in that hospital bed too. Not, thankfully, dying of cancer. Just having a heart attack, and thinking I was dying. So I know how lonely it is to be in pain and fear of death, without your loved ones around. Fortunately, my mom was only a few hours away.

And I wasn't a ten year old for whom Dad's four and half year prison sentence is nearly half a lifetime.

I can only imagine how bereft and alone and afraid Jayci feels. Maybe her father should be punished (indeed, he's willing to double his sentence if he can just she his daughter alive one last time), but the daughter too?
posted by orthogonality at 8:40 PM on March 19, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

This one is a no-brainer. The child comes first. After she's gone, Daddy can go back to serve out the rest of his debt to society. The little girl's done nothing wrong, goddammit. What the hell is wrong with you Mr. Warden?
posted by illiad at 8:51 PM on March 19, 2008 [11 favorites has favorites]

Kinda torn on this, to be honest. On the one hand, his daughter has only a few months to live and the penal system should acknowledge this as an unusual circumstance.

On the other hand, the guy was running a meth lab and is thus about the worst kind of scumbag, and this makes for a good morality tale. "You get five years. You figure that you can do a nickel with your eyes closed. But what if it meant never seeing your family again?"

This wasn't a victimless crime or a spur-of-the-moment poor decision. He's a bad, bad man. I'd be more supportive of a furlough if it were a less egregious crime, I think.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 8:54 PM on March 19, 2008

Torn, really? It's not for him. It's for her. The nature of the crime is irrelevant, unless he was a danger to her, and there's no evidence of that.
posted by bowline at 8:57 PM on March 19, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

> On the other hand, the guy was running a meth lab and is thus about the worst kind of scumbag, and this makes for a good morality tale.

Making an example out of people has never worked as a means to deter others from committing crimes.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:58 PM on March 19, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Incarceration frequently burdens the family of the incarcerated. There's nothing qualitatively different about this case.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:00 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I don't know if it's stuff like this that impelled Pastor Wright to say "God damn America", but it sure provokes me to say the same.
posted by orthogonality at 9:02 PM on March 19, 2008 [23 favorites has favorites]

Torn, really?

Did I stutter?

I'm sure that there are all sorts of families who are hurt by family members being in prison. The breadwinner goes away and the rest of the family loses the house. The single mother steals from work and the kids end up in foster care. It's all a matter of degree. Put simply, family hardship is a secondary consideration at best in the penal system.

And the nature of the crime is entirely relevant; whether he's a danger to the child is actually less important to me than if he's a danger to society. By the nature of his crime, he is.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 9:03 PM on March 19, 2008

Making an example out of people has never worked as a means to deter others from committing crimes.

General deterrence doesn't work? An awful lot of people disagree with you...
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:05 PM on March 19, 2008

I think the perspective of the law is that meth offenders are unreliable. Someone addicted to meth with a dying daughter is (because of the effects of the drug) thinking "my dying daughter could let me get some meth."

That might not be the case in this instance, but simply painting the law as unreasonable ignores the likely experience they have gathered.
posted by Cosmo7 at 9:06 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

And the nature of the crime is entirely relevant; whether he's a danger to the child is actually less important to me than if he's a danger to society. By the nature of his crime, he is.

Where are you getting this from? He was convicted of a drug charge, he's serving in a minimum-security prison, he'll be released in a year anyway, and he has every incentive to be on good behavior while on release. He doesn't sound at all like a "danger to society."
posted by brain_drain at 9:09 PM on March 19, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

Not letting a dying little girl see her father one last time totally shows all those crankheads out there. That'll win the war on drugs. Fuck yeah.
posted by Mikey-San at 9:09 PM on March 19, 2008 [27 favorites has favorites]

Cosmo7 writes "I think the perspective of the law is that meth offenders are unreliable. Someone addicted to meth with a dying daughter is (because of the effects of the drug) thinking 'my dying daughter could let me get some meth."

The guy's due to be released to a halfway-house in August. This implies he's gotten time off for good behavior. If he's safe to run around the neighborhood in six months, he's too dangerous to be escorted bu guards to his daughter's bedside today?
posted by orthogonality at 9:10 PM on March 19, 2008

To be completely cynical here, how much more would it cost to have the father processed and escorted to meet his child?

How much money would it cost to have guards waiting with him beside his child until she dies?
posted by porpoise at 9:12 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Cosmo7: Your concern is reasonable, but the issue could be avoided by assigning him a police chaperone, giving him an ankle bracelet, etc. In fact, I suspect that's how these furloughs are generally done. I don't think someone doing hard time gets the equivalent of bail even for a "family crisis."

All in all, I consider his offer to double his sentence in exchange for seeing his kid more than reasonable.
posted by jedicus at 9:14 PM on March 19, 2008

I honestly don't see quite what the significance of her being about to die is. Perhaps the warden didn't either. It seems clear that the girl very much wants to see her father, but a lot of little girls very much want to see their incarcerated father, but that's really just a reason for their father to stay out of prison.

I'd welcome an explanation.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:17 PM on March 19, 2008

Fuck our prison system. Fuck our "war on drugs" if we had reasonable drug laws and weren't trying to win the "most citizens in prison" award, we'd never need hear of this story. If we didn't grind our poor down to the point that cheap, debilitating drugs were the only outlet, there wouldn't be some power hungry warden refusing to let his serf out of the fiefdom to see his dying daughter.

God fucking bless America, the land of the free.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:17 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yankton Federal Prison Camp officials said they had no comment on the situation.

Yankton cocksuckers.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:18 PM on March 19, 2008 [18 favorites has favorites]

I honestly don't see quite what the significance of her being about to die is.

How about; the penal system isn't for punishing little girls dying of brain cancer?
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:18 PM on March 19, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

Another glorious victory in the war on drugs.

the guy was running a meth lab and is thus about the worst kind of scumbag

Interesting. Worse than a child molester? Worse than a killer? Worse than Dick Cheney? Really? I'm hate to have to stick up for a meth cook, but there are degree of scumbag, and a former meth cook certainly doesn't top that list.

Also, there's this -

They even asked for him to be put on electronic surveillance while was in Lincoln, and he offered to serve double his remaining time when he went back.

I'm sorry, but if Scooter fucking Libby never saw the inside of a cell, surely the state can find a way to let this guy grant his dying little girl's last wish. What's to be torn about? How can his daughter be punished for what her father did?
posted by EatTheWeak at 9:19 PM on March 19, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Where does it even say "meth lab"? All I see is "meth charges," which isn't necessarily a lab.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:20 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

How about; the penal system isn't for punishing little girls dying of brain cancer?

No, that doesn't really work. The penal system isn't for punishing any little girls, really (except the handful who commit crimes). Innocent little girls and little boys and wives and husbands suffer all the same, and it's a fundamental and unavoidable part of our system of justice.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:22 PM on March 19, 2008

Fine, *whatever* Mr. Warden. Hope you don't need a favour anytime soon
posted by John Shaft at 9:24 PM on March 19, 2008

The war on drugs makes prisoners of us all.
posted by Avenger at 9:25 PM on March 19, 2008

it's a fundamental and unavoidable part of our system of justice.

Unavoidable? Of course it's avoidable. Give the guy his limited release and let him see his daughter. Bingo, avoided.

If you're worried about a slippery slope, I think "dying child who may not ever see her father again outside of prison" is a unique enough situation that we needn't worry about opening the floodgates by allowing a release in this case.
posted by brain_drain at 9:27 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America writes "I honestly don't see quite what the significance of her being about to die is."

Why do charities send dying kids to Disneyland, and not all kids?

Because Jayci's life, through no fault of her own, is coming to a painful and all-too-early end. And what see wants more than anything is so easily in our power as a society to supply. Because she's not going to be getting the next 60 years that most 10 years olds will get. Because she won't have another 30 years or whatever to talk to her dad, see her dad, be a daughter who has a father in the picture.

Because in August, when her dad gets out of prison having paid his "debt to society", Jayci's not gong to be able to rise from the dead to spend time with him. She's going to die alone, without her father, who no matter what he's done is the person she loves more than anyone else in the world, and it's just cruel and unnecessary to let her die without seeing her daddy.

You honestly don't see this?
posted by orthogonality at 9:29 PM on March 19, 2008 [29 favorites has favorites]

I'd welcome an explanation.

Perhaps your own general inability to acknowledge, let alone welcome in the humanity in others, does not necessarily mean you are obligated to enforce your failure on them through legal mechanisms.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:31 PM on March 19, 2008 [10 favorites has favorites]

Unavoidable? Of course it's avoidable. Give the guy his limited release and let him see his daughter. Bingo, avoided.

It's unavoidable that innocent people will suffer because of other people's incarceration, unless we incarcerate only those people who absolutely no one else cares about, which would be quite a shift in philosophy.

If you're worried about a slippery slope, I think "dying child who may not ever see her father again outside of prison" is a unique enough situation that we needn't worry about opening the floodgates by allowing a release in this case.

Conceptually, I don't see why to make the exception. I agree this girl is suffering, but the point is that plenty of innocent people suffer due to the operation of the criminal justice system, and there's no suggestion that this exception be extended to cover all cases. I want to know what makes this suffering so fundamentally different than it deserves an exception, but the other instances don't.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:31 PM on March 19, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I think "dying child who may not ever see her father again outside of prison" is a unique enough situation that we needn't worry about opening the floodgates by allowing a release in this case.

I disagree. I guarantee that this excuse would be used many more times in the future ("Hey, that guy got a furlough to see his dying daughter, so maybe I should try that!"), and in most cases it'd be bullshit. I think it is worthwhile to deny this case in order to prevent the costs of investigating future cases.

FWIW, I'm not torn anymore. I'm usually swayed more readily by lousy excuses from one side than good ones from the other.

Where does it even say "meth lab"?

It was a federal charge, so it had to have been manufacture or interstate distribution. I don't consider one any better than the other.

The war on drugs makes prisoners of us all.

Yeah, because all drugs are equivalent. I'm anti-prohibition myself, but we're talking about fuckin' meth here, not BC Bud.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 9:34 PM on March 19, 2008

Dr. Steve, you're kind of arguing that one can't complain about how shitty the system is, because that's how the system is. Right, and it sucks.

Yes, the man broke the law - and many of us are pissed because that law should either not exist at all or at the least be punished far less severely.

Yes, the warden has discretion - and many of us are pissed because the warden is using that discretion in a way which punishes a dying child in order to prove to a prisoner who's boss.

Yes, all families suffer when one member is incarcerated - and many of us are pissed because the guidelines here specifically mention "extraordinary circumstances," but the officials are jumping through hoops to avoid following that language here, again, just so that they can be dicks to this guy, and by extension, punish his daughter.

Yes, all of this is legal. Many of us are pissed because that's exactly the problem. Telling us that's just how it works doesn't mean a hell of a lot.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:34 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Keeping the father from the girl is punishment for the father. He's a bad guy. Fair enough.

Keeping the girl from the father is punishment for the girl, who will never again have a chance to visit him, which is unfair on her.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:35 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is an Rorschach test of ethics

It's also a Rorschach test on compassion, which is not a widely respected virtue in our society. So the girl will die without seeing her father. Heck of a job, drug warriors.
posted by homunculus at 9:38 PM on March 19, 2008 [13 favorites has favorites]

No, he doesn't, because he's tuff on crime.
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:39 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Prison is absolutely filled with vicious sadists.

Let me assure you most fervently, most of them aren't the ones behind bars.
posted by Malor at 9:40 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Mr. Prez Steve guy:

I'm not sure why you don't get it, because it's just so crystal clear to me. And I don't think anyone else here can be any clearer than they have in explaining it to you.

Maybe you don't understand that circumstance and context are both continuums, and that also applies to prison convicts. Maybe you just see it as black and white. I think that's wrong, and I hope you're not involved in the justice system, such as it is.
posted by illiad at 9:40 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Worse than Dick Cheney?

Yeah. So?
posted by homunculus at 9:41 PM on March 19, 2008

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America writes "Conceptually, I don't see why to make the exception. I agree this girl is suffering, but the point is that plenty of innocent people suffer due to the operation of the criminal justice system, and there's no suggestion that this exception be extended to cover all cases. I want to know what makes this suffering so fundamentally different than it deserves an exception, but the other instances don't."

Well 1) the inability to right every wrong, or to show compassion in every case, should not be used as an excuse to never right any wrong and to never show compassion.

And 2) The Fedearl Buereau of Prisons already has rules in place to allow furloughs for family crises. It's not that there's no mechanism, just that the warden doesn't care to make use of it.

And 3) I imagine if this were a Marc Rich or a Cas Weinberger or a Scooter Libby (who lobbied for Rich's pardon before he got his own commutation), a way would be found to do the right thing.
posted by orthogonality at 9:43 PM on March 19, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

why can't the daughter visit the prison?
posted by wantwit at 9:44 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

To say that things are unavoidable is to say that no one can make a difference.

Here, we have a warden who can make a difference, but will not.
posted by zippy at 9:46 PM on March 19, 2008

I want to know what makes this suffering so fundamentally different than it deserves an exception, but the other instances don't.

Compassion doesn't come out of applied logic. There's often no rational reason to show compassion, which makes it such an admirable trait in people.

Plenty off innocent people suffer all the time, crime or no. This is about showing the face of compassion and kindness to someone who is suffering. It is to tell the child that we care about her and won't to pile on additional cruelty when nature itself has dealt her such a horrible blow.

To coldly debate the pros and cons and say "since others suffer anyways, she must suffer too" seems like a rather immature response to me. Yes, yes, world is unfair, &c, but we don't always have to be. Humans are allowed to be inconsistent in their behaviour.

I think that Warden is power tripping, myself. Hopefully the public pressure will get to him.
posted by Salmonberry at 10:00 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

From what I can see there is a very large group of Americans who intensely believe in the value of prison terms and long prison terms in particular. If any of us think we will change their minds today we will be disappointed.

This is a matter of faith, and not the slightest quarter can be given. There can be no exceptions whatsoever. I think that's how a greater proportion of Americans have come to be imprisoned than any other country on Earth.

It's not a rational thing, so to expect rationality around it, or even humanity, is probably unreasonable.
posted by bowline at 10:05 PM on March 19, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Wantwit - because she's dying of cancer, is probably in need of regular hospital care of some kind and prisons are not exactly well known for their ability to handle a pain-ridden ill child who may or may not need 24/7 care? It may be difficult for her to travel. It may be IMPOSSIBLE for her to travel.

Hell, prisons aren't well known for their ability to handle pain-ridden ill ADULTS who presumably at least deserve to be in prison who need some kind of medical care. What makes you think they'd be able to handle a fragile ill kid?
posted by FritoKAL at 10:05 PM on March 19, 2008

orthogonality: You honestly don't see this?

I appreciate the attempt to explain, but no, I honestly don't.

Jayci is going to die regardless of what the penal system does. Much of your reply to me was focused on the sadness of a child dying, but nothing can change that. I just don't think it's relevant to the decision here.

If her father is released on furlough, it would make her final days happier, clearly, but I don't see that her terminal illness puts her in a privileged position. Clearly, I'm in the minority here and I'm catching a lot of flack, but I need something a little more principled than "it's a really sad situation" as a basis for a government official's decisions.

Well 1) the inability to right every wrong, or to show compassion in every case, should not be used as an excuse to never right any wrong and to never show compassion.

I understand your point, but we're talking about a structural flaw of the penal system. Suffering little girls is part of the deal. There's no sense in getting cold feet about it now.

And 2) The Fedearl Buereau of Prisons already has rules in place to allow furloughs for family crises. It's not that there's no mechanism, just that the warden doesn't care to make use of it.

Perhaps he conceives of the rule as best applied to correct relatively unique or unexpected harms (e.g. releasing a prisoner on furlough to donate a kidney). Leaving unsatisfied the desire of a child to see her imprisoned father is part and parcel of locking up fathers, so it's quite possible that the warden doesn't see this as a "crisis" in the sense meant by the rule.

Salmonberry: Compassion doesn't come out of applied logic. There's often no rational reason to show compassion, which makes it such an admirable trait in people.

I confess that I don't see the advantage of a government official discharging his duties irrationally, paying attention to his feelings, not principles.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:06 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

There's no sense in getting cold feet about it now.

That's right: When a process is broken, keep doing things the Wrong Way. Don't Get Cold Feet. Stay The Course.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:19 PM on March 19, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

I think the debate here far exceeds the available facts.

Her last wish is to spend what time she has left with her father

That's not a quote, nor is it something that a dying 10-year old would likely say.

There is not enough data here to warrant this debate. If her father was a violent repeat pedophile nobody would want him out. If he was the loving, hard-working, made-one-bad-choice father we all would imagine him to beeveryone would want him out. I think it's a fair bet his inclinations are somewhere in between those two extremes.

I think illiad said it best:

circumstance and context are both continuums
posted by Rafaelloello at 10:23 PM on March 19, 2008

Compassion doesn't come out of applied logic. There's often no rational reason to show compassion, which makes it such an admirable trait in people.

On the other hand, there is something irrational, even sociopathic, about deliberately, knowingly being cruel in the face of rational (and emotional) attempts for alleviating someone's suffering in their last moments on earth.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:23 PM on March 19, 2008 [11 favorites has favorites]

Thanks FritoK. I didn't read the article and hence was unaware that of her brain hemorrhages. Not all brain tumors are created equal.

That said. My bet is the penal system is hoping that if they don't grant the request then he'd be less likely to restart a meth lab once he's out because he'd blame himself for not being able to be there. Basically it sounds like for some reason the guy pissed off the Warden since he's scheduled to be released to a half-way house in August.

Perhaps the news could report what exactly his meth charges were that he was found guilty of. I haven't been able to find a single article (via Google) that could tell me what charges the Fed found him guilty of.
posted by wantwit at 10:27 PM on March 19, 2008

Doesn't this fall under that whole cruel or unusual punishment thing?
posted by Tenuki at 10:29 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

well, for one thing, you'll never be able to troll her, will you?

It's an odd confusion, when contrarianism for its own sake is so frequently and mistakenly conflated with thoughtfulness. I'm reminded of the time when Terry Schiavo was in the news, and some twit here said all of Metafilter be singing and dancing once she had been removed from life support, or of Robert McNamara in The Fog of War, cooly describing firebombing hundreds of thousands of human beings.

There's a point at which responding to these kinds of emotionally and ethically immature people grows past tiresome, beyond to the realm of fascination, imagining someone so divorced from humanity as to espouse these sorts of ideals.

Can someone like that really, truly exist? What is their day like? How do they put their pants on in the morning? Is the defeatist view really just autism, or another form of brain damage? Is it an emotional defect of another more vapid, banal sort?

It is depressing to learn that strawmen of this caliber and character (loosely applied) do indeed exist in reality, and are often in the kinds of positions held by, for example, the warden of the prison holding this girl's father.

Perhaps penal systems, or any large organized system, for that matter, need this kind of cold, inhuman, bureaucratic mindset, in order to keep the show running. "Of course we need to do things this way — you asked for it, after all." Don't get cold feet now. Stay the course. Don't think, just trust and obey. Sorry, those are the rules.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:44 PM on March 19, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

I suppose if the system is set up for furloughs to be at the wardens discretion then its up to him. If he wants to be a dick then he gets to be a dick.

I guess we could all just write words on the internet or if it's really important to you than you could write the warden. A public shaming might get something done.
posted by Bonzai at 10:58 PM on March 19, 2008

General deterrence doesn't work? An awful lot of people disagree with you...

General deterrence seems like it would work in cases where a sane potential criminal performed a risk assessment, and weighed the rewards of a crime against the probability of capture and the magnitude of the punishment. By scaling up the punishment, we hope to prevent both crimes of increasing reward or desirability, as well as crimes unlikely to result in a capture. Seems reasonable.

However, if this is all true, I'd suggest three kinds of circumstances under which general deterrence would not work:

1. Crimes without forethought. Because general deterrence requires an act of judgment prior to the crime, it obviously can't deter actions where there is no component of forethought or premeditation. Crimes of passion, violent fits of rage, second degree this, third degree that - these sorts of impulsive, unpremeditated actions don't have a neck to wear the leash, so to speak.

2. Irrational agent. Some people, whether acting at the behest of gods or devils, tortured by psychosis, or just estranged from normal, sane paths of reasoning, break the scale. We can't count on them to heed an argument of deterrence designed for Everyman, because, at least according to professionals, they don't inhabit the same psychological space that we do.

When someone molests, kills, and eats another human being, claiming to heed the ciphertext of a pop song, we may be mistaken in thinking that a death penalty somehow purges their evil, and wards off future occurrences. The people who persist in doing these things seem to be totally divorced from reality and consequence. They won't care a whit that they may die for their crimes - after all, they probably have plans for the afterlife. Your punishment abets their martyrdom.

For the saints, demons, and martyrs, punishment fails. Maybe they need a shrink, a room with soft walls, medicine. Maybe they can't live within the bounds of any human society.

3. Desperate agent. The desirability of a crime can vary greatly depending on circumstance, and what might be trivial to one person is an absolute need to another. If you're hungry enough, and have no other options, that loaf of bread might be worth your hand, or even your life. Thus, when ratcheting up the scale of punishment, we meet with diminishing returns. If, in order to run a zero-tolerance society, we increase punishments well beyond the reciprocal, we will still end up in the odd drama of stoning adulterers, crucifying thieves.

4. Finite punishment. We only have one life to give, in spite of how many life sentences an inmate can wear. At a certain point, somewhere inside our prison walls, we just run out of punishment. And in view of how many rapes, murders, and assaults take place in American prisons - crimes so numerous they've warranted a report by UN Human Rights Watch, right next to the reports on genocides, mind you - how can we use more fear to restrain people already living in hell?

There are other situations, however, where general deterrence seems to fit very elegantly - in particular, crimes that are marked by careful, economic reasoning. Financial crimes, for example, must have carefully levied penalties to be deterred. If there's any chance that a securities fraud, or an insider trade, might be more profitable than its probable cost, it ceases to be crime, and starts to be smart business.

But we're left with the question: From the above, some of the most repulsive crimes of all - yes, crashing planes into skyscrapers, brutal rapes and murders, serial butcherings, and so on - seem like they'd be completely immune to general deterrence, right? And if that's the case, why subject the best of us to a code of laws that can't deter the worst? When the weeds are immune to the poison, do we keep spraying?
posted by kid ichorous at 11:00 PM on March 19, 2008 [27 favorites has favorites]

Jayci needs to write to her senators and congressman. This is where they are most useful.

How sad.
posted by caddis at 11:01 PM on March 19, 2008

Er, make that Four! Four kinds of punishment. /Spanish Inquisition
posted by kid ichorous at 11:02 PM on March 19, 2008

I guarantee that this excuse would be used many more times in the future ("Hey, that guy got a furlough to see his dying daughter, so maybe I should try that!"), and in most cases it'd be bullshit. I think it is worthwhile to deny this case in order to prevent the costs of investigating future cases.

The US Marshals Service says they require documentation that the person's illness is terminal before they allow the furlough. It looks like some states have restrictions about distance and crossing state lines; I suspect that's a factor in this case. Oh, and it also looks like the costs for security, etc. must be paid by the family.

There's a strong "lock 'em up and throw away the key, since they're all animals anyway" mentality. But that attitude isn't helpful when you have to eventually release these people after you've spent the duration of their incarceration reminding them that they are less than human. I know it's kind of pie-in-the-sky to think that prisons these days have any hope of effectively rehabilitating people, but the idea that real men don't engage in compassion is a crappy lesson to drive home to people who are about to be released into society.
posted by stefanie at 11:07 PM on March 19, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

the idea that real men don't engage in compassion is a crappy lesson to drive home to people who are about to be released into society.

And buttress this thought with the other myth - that convicted men don't deserve any compassion - and you have the whole sad house of cards.
posted by kid ichorous at 11:13 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

What happened to the Blue? Is it metafuckingsnopesfilter.com now? Jesus on an Allah-fucking pogostick already.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:31 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

On the other hand, the guy was running a meth lab and is thus about the worst kind of scumbag, and this makes for a good morality tale.

Don't get terminal cancer if your father moves drugs?
posted by owhydididoit at 11:37 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

This article about "The Unburdened Mind" from Damn Interesting is, I think, relevant here; and I'm not referring to the father.

It's about psychopaths, and how the psychopath is rather more prevalent in society than we'd like to believe.

"And as much as we would like to think that people like him are a rare aberration, safely locked away, the truth is that they are more common than most would ever guess."

Previously on MetaFilter.

You can draw your own conclusions as to why I think it's relevant.
posted by WalterMitty at 11:48 PM on March 19, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America: Perhaps he conceives of the rule as best applied to correct relatively unique or unexpected harms (e.g. releasing a prisoner on furlough to donate a kidney). Leaving unsatisfied the desire of a child to see her imprisoned father is part and parcel of locking up fathers, so it's quite possible that the warden doesn't see this as a "crisis" in the sense meant by the rule.

Most children who desire to see their imprisoned fathers aren't dying of brain cancer. It's part and parcel of locking up the father, but unless the father is serving a very long sentence (eg, a life sentence) or is on Death Row, the child will probably have a chance to see their father once he is released from prison.

I can see your point, and I respect your position, but I have to disagree. There is a precedent for this kind of furlough - I can't provide any specific examples myself, but I can point to this excerpt from the Dictionary of American Penology by Virgil Williams:

For decades, prisons have occasionally granted short furloughs to inmates who were suddenly faced with a severe family crisis such as a death or grave illness in the immediate family. Furloughs of that type are treated as special circumstances, and often the inmate must be accompanied by an officer as part of the terms of the temporary release.

stefanie's link above also establishes precedent for this kind of furlough at the federal level, and additionally lays out a set of (IMO) reasonable rules and conditions. As long as Jayci's father abides by those rules, I don't see a problem with granting him his furlough.

Jayci's father's punishment was limited to serving time in prison. Being denied a visit to his dying 10 year old daughter is an additional punishment, and a cruel one at that. He will have a chance to rejoin society at the end of his prison term. He will not have another chance to comfort his child and give her one last hug.
posted by I Said, I've Got A Big Stick at 11:50 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Prison is absolutely filled with vicious sadists.

As, it turns out, is Metafilter.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:56 AM on March 20, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America writes "but I need something a little more principled than 'it's a really sad situation' as a basis for a government official's decisions"

What ? You just said the principle yourself

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America writes "The penal system isn't for punishing any little girls"

There you have it. The girl didn't commit the crime, yet she's suffering from the punishment of the crime. Why should she suffer from that punishment , if she is not guilty of the crime of the father (and she can't be, otherwise she would be in jail too) ?

Wheter you "feel" for the girl or not is irrelevant, the punishment must not involve innocents. Yet, as the only way not to punish the innocent would be, in this case, to not put the father in prison to begin with, then one rational compromise must be reached. Ordinarily, that would be allowing the girl to visit the father ; the extraordinary circumstances are given by illness of the girl, so it must be the other way around.
posted by elpapacito at 2:05 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

ten pounds of inedita: He's a bad, bad man.

Well, he's a man, who did a bad thing, involving a pretty bad drug. He may be a bad, bad, man, but he may also be a foolish man, or a weak man. But let me caution against hysteria with regards to meth. Now, before people jump on me, I know full well the effects of the stuff; I'm not saying that it is good in any sense, but let's pull back from assertions which indicate that involvement with it is among the most heinous of crimes. It is most certainly not.

And the nature of the crime is entirely relevant; whether he's a danger to the child is actually less important to me than if he's a danger to society. By the nature of his crime, he is.

Do you honestly worry that, during his furlough, he's gonna set up a meth lab and start distributing? Whether or not to grant him leave is not a public-safety issue.

Salmonberry: There's often no rational reason to show compassion, which makes it such an admirable trait in people.

Because incompassionate people nevertheless have an abundance of compatriots who will help them face the vicissitudes of life. Oh wait.
posted by Tullius at 2:57 AM on March 20, 2008

Oh, fer chrissake, ten pounds... society judged him and found that his punishment should be five years in prison, which ain't GREAT, but it's hardly the sentence you'd give a hardened killer.

His eight year old daughter is dying, and he's just asking to be furloughed a few months early so he can say goodbye in her home and not a skanky old prison that's really hard for her to get to. He's not trying to escape his time.

I really think you people who are saying he shouldn't get out must never have enountered the justice system, and I doubt very much you've known a young child of yours was dying and been unable to do anything about it. Prison is supposed to be punishment (and even that's arguable: once upon a time we believed in rehabilitation instead of just giggling about "pound them in the ass federal prison"), but... even if you're in the punishment crowd, it's not supposed to be torment.

Anyone arguing to keep that man in jail has an empathy deficit so severe that .... well, I almost feel sorrier for you than I do for him.
posted by Malor at 3:12 AM on March 20, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

Curiously ... this story, which I've seen on dozens of online sites, has not even been mentioned in our local newspaper ... where it's actually happening.

/Understandable, I guess, since it doesn't have anything to do with college football or smoking bans.
posted by RavinDave at 3:25 AM on March 20, 2008

I can't read all these comments. A litmus test, for sure. Some of you have misplaced your humanity.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:37 AM on March 20, 2008

I have misplaced my undies.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:05 AM on March 20, 2008

As a parent reading about this poor soul I'm interested in learning how someone travels down his hellish path that I might avoid my kids doing the same. Where does it start? What are the signs? Is there a smell I should look out for? Was he influenced by his peers?

It would break my heart to watch a loved one turn into some kind of Mr. President.
posted by hal9k at 4:06 AM on March 20, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Malor writes "Anyone arguing to keep that man in jail has an empathy deficit so severe that .... well, I almost feel sorrier for you than I do for him."

But, but ...he's a criminal! Why should he be sent to see his daughter, when the average joe that doesn't have money can't go see his far away away relatives ? Why are prisoners getting a free ride, while Honest Joe gets a free nothin' ?

So goes Honest Joe rationalized envy, that doesn't see that if the prisoner gets harsher treatment that doesn't imply he gets treated any better, but by comparison he lives the illusion he is treated better, which is more enjoyable then realizing you live in a country that isn't as seen on TV.
posted by elpapacito at 4:08 AM on March 20, 2008

So we all agree that if the father was released on furlough he wouldn't commit any crime. But you know, there is a chance that he might--I'm sure some addicts do just that when they are released. (I'm assuming that his furlough would be unsupervised.) If you were in the position to release this person, would you put your job on the line betting on a convict's behavior? Now, maybe everyone would give you a pass if something goes wrong since his daughter had cancer, but maybe not.

I mean, you keep him in prison, you're not compassionate. You let him out, something goes wrong and you could have just flushed your career down the toilet. I have to think that this line of reasoning is given quite a bit of weight in the warren's head.
posted by sexymofo at 4:17 AM on March 20, 2008

"On the one hand, his daughter has only a few months to live..."
...but on the other hand, his daughter has only a few months to live.

That'll teach ya, druggie!

Of course, that's an awfully uncompassionate attitude to have, but you do have to wonder... why are we so prone to grant dying wishes of kids?!

What if their dying wish was to die because of how much pain they are in? Or if their living wish was for health insurance so they could see a doctor before their cancer metastasized? Or what if they were a relatively kind, decent adult instead?!

Not so hot there, really.

The ultimate problem here is that compassion in American society is usually viewed as a zero-sum game, with someone else's rights always being seen as being imposed upon to grant said compassion.

People overlook the fact that the compassion and consideration they receive directly coorelates to that which others receive.
posted by markkraft at 4:18 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I doubt if anyone would fault the warden on the wild chance that something would go wrong.

One can safely assume he'd have at least one beefy escort -- probably two, the warden could pretty much set the demands here -- along with monitoring devices. I'm sure private funding could be raised in a matter of minutes. Frankly, I don't see it as doing grace for the prisoner, but for the girl.
posted by RavinDave at 4:25 AM on March 20, 2008

So we all agree that if the father was released on furlough he wouldn't commit any crime. But you know, there is a chance that he might...

He's going to be released in August. How are the intervening five months of incarceration going to affect the chance that he might commit a crime then? He's already been in prison ten times that long, and he would go back and finish his sentence after the furlough.

I'm assuming that his furlough would be unsupervised.

Why are you assuming that?

It's just as ortho said in the first place: "...do you see a drug felon who needs to "do the time", or the little girl hoping to see her daddy before she dies?"

Except that he's going to do the time in any case.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:30 AM on March 20, 2008

Was thinking about sociopathy as I read the comments as others have already pointed out. Issues with capacity for empathy, human attachment, indifference etc. like this are concerning to me.
posted by mahniart at 4:43 AM on March 20, 2008

Seeing things in black and white is a problem that extends beyond racism.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:48 AM on March 20, 2008

Oh, so THIS is compassion fatigue. I thought it was just a buzzword.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:14 AM on March 20, 2008

I think, at least personally, that a rehabilitated inmate who's set to be release due to his good behavior would be more likely to commit crimes against a state that wouldn't let him see his little girl before he dies. It's counter-intuitive to the whole process of turning criminals back into producing members of society to make an enemy out of the state.
posted by scabrous at 5:22 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

The cynic in me says if the girl dies while he's still in prison, that will satisfy the "extraordinary circumstances" requirement for the warden. The warden still gets to show he's a sadist, the criminal still gets his punishment, and the state still gets to pay for the furlough. And the little girl gets to die without seeing her father again.

Isn't the point of the penal system to improve society overall?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:27 AM on March 20, 2008

I'm assuming that his furlough would be unsupervised.: Why are you assuming that?

The only prison furlough story I know of was unsupervised (or supervised poorly). If this isn't the case these days, then, yeah, there is a lot less risk that the warden would have to accept.

He's going to be released in August. How are the intervening five months of incarceration going to affect the chance that he might commit a crime then?

My opinion (based on intuition and not facts) is that it will have no effect. But still, there is a difference, from the warden's perspective, of a someone committing a crime while on furlough the warden approved and a someone committing a crime after his sentence has been completed. My guess is that wardens are more willing to error on the 'tough on crime' side.
posted by sexymofo at 5:28 AM on March 20, 2008

Rorschach test indeed. And, predictably, most MeFites have an almost instinctive reaction against any assertion of sovereign power, especially when it's enforcing an unpopular law. Well guess what: part of being sovereign means you can do things to you that you don't like and there isn't jack shit you can do about it. We live in a republic, not a democracy, but even a democracy doesn't give individual citizens the authority do demand anything they want from the government.

I'm fascinated by how everyone seems to be going off on how this means the "War on Drugs" is a bad idea. I happen to agree with that conclusion, but I fail to see how this particular case supports it. I too am anti-prohibition, but methamphetamine would almost certainly be illegal even under a far more liberal drug regime, as unlike things like marijuana and cocaine which can at least arguably be used recreationally, meth always destroys you. Every time.

I agree that it is awful that this man will likely not be able to see his daughter. But I fail to see how this is anyone's fault but his own. He is a prisoner, and though there exist discretionary measures under which he can leave prison under specific circumstances, he has no right, civil or otherwise, to enjoy such treatment.

The family isn't asking for a few hours so he can see her once before she dies. They're asking for a month. A month of supervised release. If the few supervised releases Yaeger has enjoyed already cost hundreds of dollars for a few hours, do you have any idea how expensive that would be? A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation assuming it costs $100 an hour for supervised release would mean that a month would be $72,000, and that's a pretty low estimate. As there isn't any way that the family would reasonable be able to afford this, it seems to me that what they're really asking is for the warden to pay for the release himself. So as unpopular as MPDSEA's views seem to be around here, he's right: the warden doesn't actually have to do this and given the circumstances, probably shouldn't. If the family were asking for another afternoon, the warden would probably be more likely to grant the furlough, but given what they are asking, he really can't agree.

The conclusion here should not be "The FBP is awful and the warden is a bastard and the "drug war" is a farce," but "Jason Yaeger made a really stupid decision which is going to cost his daughter terribly," or, more simply, "Crime doesn't pay." Yaeger and no one else is responsible for his actions and all of their consequences. The penal system cannot be forced to take into account any circumstances of a prisoner's situation except those immediately relevant to incarceration, namely his sentence and personal health. Doing otherwise would make it impossible to incarcerate anyone, and though I do happen to believe that the prison system is deeply flawed (What's crueler, giving someone twenty lashes and cutting them lose, or locking them away for ten years? I'd say the latter is far more damaging to a life than the former.), I don't believe that even a perfectly-functioning prison system would give this family what they want.

This goes to prove the old adage, "Good cases make bad law." Sympathetic enough facts can lead any jury, as it did this one, to conclusions that are entirely unsupported by the law and that lead to consequences that are completely unmanageable. The system may well be broken, but this case isn't why.
posted by valkyryn at 5:43 AM on March 20, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

He's getting out soon. I am not sure what this guy might be thinking, but I know that if I had nearly served my time, worked on good behavior, and generally got my act together, then something like this occurred, I would cry, say I understood, and serve the remainder of my time.

Then, when I got out, I would do my halfway house deal, serve my parole, move to the Warden's hometown, and work very, very hard to get his child and all of his little buddies hooked on meth and possibly become dealers themselves.

Be careful of what you do to people in prison - some of them actually get out.
posted by adipocere at 5:49 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Valkyryn, this has *nothing* to do with sovereign power. There are statues on the books that allow the warden to be compassionate. Intead, he's an asshole.
posted by notsnot at 6:01 AM on March 20, 2008

There is no argument in favor of the warden's position -- absolutely none.

If he would commit a crime on furlough, he would also commit a crime in 6 months when he gets out. If you are afraid that we will commit a crime when he's out, then you could take him up on his offer to double his sentence. Then, if he commits a crime on furlough, he would've committed the crime anyway, but now you have him in jail for a lot longer afterwards. And if he doesn't commit a crime, then hey, no harm done. And if you aren't afraid that he'll commit a crime, then there's no harm in the first place. So no extra harm could result from giving him furlough, unless you have some reason to believe that he's a psychopathic pedophile, which you don't have.

And there is, in fact, a policy about furlough in exceptional circumstances, and what would be exceptional circumstances if not this? So there is, in fact, no problem of policy here.

And Mr. Steve etc., your whole argument boils down to: "Felons' families often suffer, so this felon's family should suffer". Which is like saying: "I got run over by a car. Why shouldn't you get run over by a car? People sometimes get run over; why should you be an exception? I honestly see no qualitative difference." Do you see now? Your position is not as rational as you think it is; it is, in fact, not rational at all. First of all, the policy allows for the degree of situation -- that's what the phrase "exceptional circumstances" is intended to account for. That is the difference that you are looking for. And second of all, the facts you are stating, like "families often suffer", is not an argument for why this felon's family should suffer such an extraordinarily callous fate when it is easily avoidable and there is, in fact, a policy in place specifically to avoid it. You are arguing for being gratuitously cruel to a felon and his little girl, above and beyond what punitive policy or considerations of harm require.
posted by creasy boy at 6:04 AM on March 20, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Pph! He'll be out in August. He can make a new daughter then.
posted by mazola at 6:14 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

There's one more thing Yaeger said her daughter needs -- her father, Jason. But he's in federal prison in South Dakota and has been denied repeated attempts to grant him a 30-day release

I'd like to thank valkyryn who is apparently the only other person to read this part of the article: the little girl is not asking to see her father one.last.time, but rather the girl's mother is asking for 30 days. You can be compassionate as hell, and still recognize that 30 days is an unreasonable request.
posted by 2bucksplus at 6:33 AM on March 20, 2008

I don't post much on here, mostly because this always feels like a tough community to break into, and partly because many of the veterans of this site seem so much smarter than I, so it makes a lot more sense to do more reading than talking.

That being said, all of these arguments in favor of the warden have made me utterly appalled at the lack of humanity on Metafilter today.

Anyone who seriously thinks that involvement with a powerfully addictive drug should disqualify you from seeing your dying little girl needs to, in my opinion, seriously rethink their opinions on basic humanity.

I grew up in central MN, and most of my small-town friends got involved with meth at one time or another. Every single one of them was, and is, a good person. None of them would deserve to be kept from their dying daughter. Most of them have since recovered, some at the hands of the courts, and some by their own decision. Some of them are still on a bad path.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how some of you can reach the conclusion that anyone of them should be kept from visiting a dying child.

Who are you people?
posted by AbnerDoon at 6:39 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

meth always destroys you. Every time.

Oh, for fuck's sake, they put it in a nice pill and give it to little kids with ADD. Self-destructive behavior always destroys you, not meth.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 6:49 AM on March 20, 2008

From the first link:
The father "offered to serve double his remaining time when he went back."

He's only got a year left, and he's happy to stay in for two more afterwards. So take him up on it. So instead of a month, give him a day, a week, an hour with her, whatever. She's bedridden and listless with hemorrhaging brain tumors (to those of you who have suggested she visit him in jail, write her congressman, etc.)--and just about the only thing I think this little girl is probably certain of right now is a primal need for her daddy.

I doubt many other children will be able to fake "in the final death throes of an aggressive brain cancer" to force another extraordinary circumstance like this very soon.
posted by availablelight at 6:52 AM on March 20, 2008

Well guess what: part of being sovereign means you can do things to you that you don't like and there isn't jack shit you can do about it.

we are citizens, not subjects - and i can most certainly vote no on the next proposal to expand the county jail with my tax money - in fact, i have and i will and the county still doesn't have a new jail

I'm fascinated by how everyone seems to be going off on how this means the "War on Drugs" is a bad idea.

we're paying too much for it, financially and spiritually

unlike things like marijuana and cocaine which can at least arguably be used recreationally, meth always destroys you. Every time.

i've done it - didn't destroy me - i've known others who did it and it didn't destroy them either

He is a prisoner, and though there exist discretionary measures under which he can leave prison under specific circumstances, he has no right, civil or otherwise, to enjoy such treatment.

he has a moral right to compassionate treatment if it is possible - and in this case, it is

i might point out that as a general rule, these people are being waived by state enforcement and penalties and put under federal enforcement and penalties so they can be more severely dealt with - and transported farther away than they would be - putting them under the same system responsible for waterboarding, extraordinary rendition and other obscenities - that's right, instead of the state handling the problem, the u s government is doing it, with all the care and compassion they've shown in iraq

that's the "war against drug people" in a nutshell

The conclusion here should not be "The FBP is awful and the warden is a bastard and the "drug war" is a farce," but "Jason Yaeger made a really stupid decision which is going to cost his daughter terribly," or, more simply, "Crime doesn't pay."

or "abuse power against a people long enough and you'll have a terrible price to pay"
posted by pyramid termite at 6:52 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Although this pulls at my heart strings, it isn't the sweetest of sounds. Maybe it's my heart that is out of tune, maybe it's just the rainy day.
"We've never asked them to release him early. Never asked them to change anything. We've asked them to just give him some time to be here," Vonda Yaeger said.
Jayci Yaeger has been allowed three escorted visits with her father, but each trip lasts only a couple of hours and costs the family hundreds of dollars. Requests for longer furloughs have been denied.
They are asking for an entire month, which in my opinion does seem unreasonable. Does anyone know if the military would grant a month long furlough to a soldier who is serving if his daughter was dying? What about employers? Also I'm confused by the notion that one can predict when exactly a cancer patient dies. As someone who recently lost both my Father and Mother to cancer, it seems like a very inexact science to figure out when the month should start and end.
posted by HappyHippo at 7:04 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Damn; some American's really love their prisons. You're number 1!
posted by chunking express at 7:08 AM on March 20, 2008

Also I'm confused by the notion that one can predict when exactly a cancer patient dies.

I think that's why they're asking for 30 days. If it were a more exact science, they'd ask for less time.

I just don't get the people who are against letting him out for a while to see his dying child. Today is Mister Rogers' birthday... what do you think he'd do?
posted by MegoSteve at 7:26 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

ten pounds of inedita writes "On the other hand, the guy was running a meth lab and is thus about the worst kind of scumbag"

My niece ran a meth lab for a while. I got into some trouble myself when I was younger, but not quite like cooking up meth. Anyway, she got through it and has children now, and she's doing great. She was never busted, though. It would be a damn shame if she had been put in prison. Cooking meth is typically done out of desperation and/or to try to support a habit, which is how my niece got into it. A prison term would not have helped her and would have torn up our family.
posted by krinklyfig at 7:28 AM on March 20, 2008

valkyryn writes "We live in a republic, not a democracy"

As long as you're going to be pedantic, a republic is a type of democracy. Of course we have a democratic government. This is a false meme that has spread very quickly in the last eight years or so.

"I'm fascinated by how everyone seems to be going off on how this means the 'War on Drugs' is a bad idea. I happen to agree with that conclusion, but I fail to see how this particular case supports it. I too am anti-prohibition, but methamphetamine would almost certainly be illegal even under a far more liberal drug regime, as unlike things like marijuana and cocaine which can at least arguably be used recreationally, meth always destroys you. Every time. "

Well, it didn't do that to me, either. I don't think it's a good idea, but putting people in prison for meth doesn't really solve the problem any more than it does for any other drug. It doesn't matter what your personal opinion of the drug is. What matters is what effects such laws have, and whether we are achieving anything by doing what we're doing.
posted by krinklyfig at 7:33 AM on March 20, 2008

Seeing things in black and white is a problem that extends beyond racism.

But it sure makes decision-making easier.
posted by LordSludge at 7:45 AM on March 20, 2008

[few comments removed - if you're just going to call one user names, take the callout to MeTa.]
posted by jessamyn at 7:46 AM on March 20, 2008

I'm anti-prohibition fond of the odd spliff myself, but we're talking about fuckin' meth here, not BC Bud I still support an inequitable status quo.

Fixed that for you.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:01 AM on March 20, 2008

Still nothing in the local newspaper.
posted by RavinDave at 8:06 AM on March 20, 2008

That's pretty damn heartbreaking. The warden should let the child see her own father.
posted by TheSpot at 8:09 AM on March 20, 2008

I read two lines, and now I want to cry.
posted by sfts2 at 8:11 AM on March 20, 2008

Let's repeat for those of you who can't bother to read the whole thing: the woman is not asking for an afternoon for one last reunion. She is asking for a 30-day supervised release. I'm not aware of any situation in which such a request has been granted.

pyramid termite (and the rest of my detractors): Yes, you do have the legal right to vote no in an upcoming election if the government is doing something you don't like. If enough people agree with you, you'll get what you want. But if your favored position loses, that's it, you lose, and the government can do whatever the hell it is you don't want them to do and there's nothing whatsoever you can do about it. Our form of government is indeed representative, but it is nonetheless sovereign. Political representation is not the right to get what you want from the government; having a say != getting your way. Within the quite expansive limits of the Constitution, Congress and state legislatures can pass any damn law they want, all of which you must obey, and if you don't, they can throw you in jail. End of story.

Frankly, I don't care what this man did: he violated a duly-enacted law and is paying the duly-enacted price. If you don't like that, you're allowed to win a damn election. But his wife is asking for an exorbitantly expensive special dispensation, one for which the law makes no provision, regardless of circumstances. I'm utterly unconvinced that "compassion" always dictates giving people what they want.

Yes, it's terrible that this girl isn't going to get to see her father. No, that doesn't mean things should be different. The universe hasn't promised and doesn't owe you a magic pony. Shit happens.
posted by valkyryn at 8:12 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Damn; some American's really love their prisons.

And; some Canadian's really love their misplaced punctuation. (Sorry, couldn't help myself).

Anyway, arguing about the war in drugs, or whether someone in prison should ever be allowed furlough is kind of beside the point; the regulations already provide furloughs in times of "family crisis." The real issue here is how any reasonable interpretation of "family crisis" does not encompass a situation where a 10-year-old child is about to die.
posted by pardonyou? at 8:12 AM on March 20, 2008

valkyryn, I follow your argument and don't disagree with much of it. However, your main objection seems to be over the unreasonable length of the request. What length would be acceptable to you? And, if your answer is nothing (which your "utterly unconvinced that 'compassion' alwasy dictates giving people what they want" suggests), based on my point above, why even have the "family crisis" exception?
posted by pardonyou? at 8:17 AM on March 20, 2008

This is sickening - both the situation, and the cold, heartless responses of some of the folks on here.

Make your opinion known to the folks at the Yankton federal facility where Yeager is incarcerated:

605-367-2201

or

605 668-3354

Ask for Warden Jacobs or Warden Dooly. Tell them how you feel.
posted by dbiedny at 8:20 AM on March 20, 2008

pardonyou?: If the warden were refusing to grant an afternoon's supervised release, paid for by the family, I would instantly join the chorus condemning his cold-heartedness. I think this exactly the kind of circumstance which the exception was created to accommodate, as this does constitute a "family crisis;" there doesn't seem to be any reasonable interpretation which would hold otherwise. But I would argue that he should get to use this circumstance as a get-out-of-jail card no more than twice: once now to say goodbye, and maybe once for the funeral, each time only for a few hours, under supervision and paid for by the family.

Asking for more puts a burden on the penal system which it is under no obligation to shoulder.
posted by valkyryn at 8:31 AM on March 20, 2008

My counsin is serving state time for meth charges. My grandparents died within two months of each other last year. He was allowed out for both funerals. He was escorted in by deputies shortly before the service started, was allowed to speak to family members for a few minutes after, and then was taken straight back to jail. It wasn't a get out of jail free card and he had no access to drugs or any other contraband. He was there to say goodbye.

Yes, I think 30 days out is excessive, but the warden has the discretion to dictate the terms of the furlough. He's being an ass.
posted by lemoncello at 8:41 AM on March 20, 2008

Oops, got that first number wrong. Here's the right one:

605-369-2201
posted by dbiedny at 8:43 AM on March 20, 2008

valkyryn: we get your point that you think a month is too expensive. Maybe you're right about this; I would like to see real numbers about how expensive furlough is compared to how expensive it is to keep the guy in jail in the first place (which is also expensive) and about actual furlough precedents. Do you think the guy or his family would reject compromises of, say, a week, a week-end, an afternoon? Also, I don't think we need to pay for too much supervision of this guy; it's unlikely that he'll be building a meth lab in his month off. And when eventually does get out we'll be paying for his half-way house anyways. And if this issue makes or breaks his rehabilitation (I could easily imagine that it would) then if we don't grant him this furlough we'll be paying for his future crime and his future jail time. We need to see the cost of furlough in perspective. Also maybe we would also be more sympathetic to this point if we weren't already overburdened by prison costs. It's a little weird that we can afford to lock up 1 % of the population, often for ridiculously long sentences for non-violent offences, but suddenly this guy's furlough to see his daughter in her last days is too expensive. And, finally, we would also be more sympathetic to Mr. Steve Elvis if he had presented your argument about cost rather than his argument, which was basically, "everyone suffers so why shouldn't these people."

If you can present numbers about actual furlough cost minus jail cost and compare this to half-way house costs, then we might have a discussion about whether a month is too long; and then the issue is how much of a compromise to make; not just to keep the guy locked up because fuck him.
posted by creasy boy at 8:46 AM on March 20, 2008

And, finally, we would also be more sympathetic to Mr. Steve Elvis if he had presented your argument about cost rather than his argument, which was basically, "everyone suffers so why shouldn't these people."


I have to say, I understand his argument and don't think it was as callous as many people said (and he certainly doesn't deserve to be called as many names as he was for his calm argument). Many families do suffer as a by-product of incarceration. All of that suffering is sad and it's hard to quantify emotional damage from one family to the next. I can see the position of the warden too.

I think the best solution here would be to let him out for an afternoon or a day to see his daughter one last time. I do think a month is too expensive. Also, what if she is still alive after a month is out? Will they demand more time, cause her last moments are not here yet?
posted by agregoli at 8:52 AM on March 20, 2008

Besides which, valkyryn -- this just occured to me -- the warden is also not saying "forget it, it's too expensive, a month-long furlough just doesn't happen; come back with a more reasonable request". No, what the warden's saying is "this isn't an exceptional circumstance". So you're the only one presenting your rather lucid argument about costs, an argument based on numbers you made up.
posted by creasy boy at 8:55 AM on March 20, 2008

Perhaps penal systems, or any large organized system, for that matter, need this kind of cold, inhuman, bureaucratic mindset, in order to keep the show running. "Of course we need to do things this way — you asked for it, after all." Don't get cold feet now. Stay the course. Don't think, just trust and obey. Sorry, those are the rules.

It's not just penal systems, though, is it. If this attitude was simply linked to people who have their attitudes coursened by continuous exposure to the worst of the worst, it might be understandable. Every few years, the media would expose their more egregious actions, and we'd have a quick bout of reform until the pendulum swings slowly back in the opposite direction.

Sadly, the reality is that America is a place that not only doesn't have a problem with this type of inhumane treatment of its poorest and its most vulnerable -- it actually celebrates it.

I was struck yesterday, by the contrast between the Obama post, and the arguments about how only in America can an immigrant go from Tent City to the White House. It's part of your national mythology, your national identity, and it's how you judge yourself as a nation.

As an outsider though, it's never really struck me as a very good indicator of anything other than rampant capitalism. America is no more a meritocracy than we are, with our privileging of the old school tie and family connections. But America likes two things: it loves a winner, and it's happy to tolerate anybody that will make them a dollar.

So I was struck between the contrast between the attitudes on display in that thread, and those displayed in response to the homeless/tent city article, which largely amounted to 'so what? the homeless have always been with us?'

Well, it might just be me, but I don't judge a nation by the way it treats its brightest and best -- even if they are immigrants. I judge it by the way that it treats its weakest and most vulnerable. It's stupid and its criminal. And the dominant attitude to this stuff is, 'it doesn't matter what happens to those people, whether they end up living in tents at the side of the road, or locked up in jail until they rot or go crazy.' And not only do those people stand no chance of ever making it to the White House, the odds against them even being housed or getting a job are heavily stacked against them.

People break the law for a huge variety of reasons. Some people are raised in an environment where running a meth lab is the norm. Others might do it because they've got a kid with cancer, and so find themselves with enormous medical bills to pay -- or simply because they want to give their dying daughter a few moments of pleasure before they die.

This much I do know, though. If you're raised in an environment where you've never had to worry about money, or where you take for granted the fact that you'll earn enough to meet your needs without resorting to breaking the law, then the temptation to do so is much less great. Of course, many of these people do precisely that -- your Michael Millikens, your Enron guys, etc. They steal phenomenal amounts of money, from people who can ill afford to lose it, and we give them a slap on the wrist and send them off to a local country club. When they get out, the people that they shielded will take care of them economically, and their life will go on pretty much as it did before.

Your meth dealer though, will probably come out on parole, struggle to earn a living, with little or no network of social support. The chances of reoffending are high, as are the chances of ending up back inside.

So, while prison has a punitive function, it also should have a rehabilitative function. When we sentence somebody to prison, the sentence is the loss of their liberty, not the complete stripping of their human rights and emotions. Prisons should be striving to keep families together, to ensure that these relationships continue, and that they aren't destroyed by blame and recrimination. Part of that process is showing that the system is both fair and humane, not cruel, arbitrary and capricious.

By allowing a prisoner to visit his daughter for a period prior to her death, you aren't 'going soft' -- rather, you're making an intelligent investment in his rehabilitation. This is something that your system does all the time when it comes to middle class white men, or people with money. It gives them the opportunity to put their affairs in order and schedules a date for their sentence to start -- at a time that's convenient to them. But God forbid that a drug dealer should get such treatment. After all, it's not like he killed somebody or robbed somebody.

Some people are also whining about the potential costs and the need for supervision. This is a guy at the end of his sentence. He's just got a couple of months to go. He's not going to run, but even if he did, so what? He'll dodge the remaining few months for a while, but he'll get picked up at a later date and serve even more time. These people, in the main, aren't rocket scientists. They wouldn't be cooking up bathtub meth if they were, they'd be running Big Pharma and marketing it as Adderall.

But the warden makes his decision not on the basis of what's best for the prisoner and his family, and consequently, what's in the long term interests of society. Instead, he makes the decision on the basis of what's best for his political masters, and what the media are likely to say if it all turns to shit. And they write what they write on the basis of what appeals to the lowest common denominator in your culture, which appears to be things like anxieties over race, over crime, over other people's drug use (but not our own, never our own. That's different somehow.)

And so what does it matter if a ten year old kid dies without having seen her daddy one last time? What does it matter if the family splits because the constant recriminations about daddy having been in prison during the hour of greatest need? What does it matter if what small potential for rehabilitation is lost, drowned by a father's righteous anger over the denial of a visit to his child during their dying hours?

And what does it matter if that same father, having had his own capacity for empathy stripped by a society that refused to recognize his humanity, internalizes that lack of humanity and refuses to recognize it in others, resulting in a rampage of rape, robbery, assault and murder?

And it's far from impossible that one day, some other ten year old child might find themselves facing such a man. Stripped of his dignity and his humanity, and desperate to avoid going back to the prison system that dehumanized him, that he regards as profoundly unjust. And in that moment, he's going to have to make a decision: does he respect the rights of this child, to live free from misery and intimidation by others? Or is she also just a pawn in a system that exists to perpetuate injust political power and a conservative status quo?

That's why we do the right thing in those countries that *do* do the right thing in these circumstances. Not simply because it's good for the prisoner and his family, but because it's good for all of us.

But yeah, just like Obama, only in America....
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:08 AM on March 20, 2008 [17 favorites has favorites]

See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a dozen leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport, which I had shown at the town-hall. I had to do it. I went to an inn. They said to me, `Be off,' at both places. No one would take me. I went to the prison; the jailer would not admit me. I went into a dog's kennel; the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a man. One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the fields, intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars.

Perhaps the above quote does not apply directly to this situation, but it seems relevant to a more general pattern I've noticed lately in the treatment of convicts who serve their time and (presumably) pay their debt to society. This seems to be particularly the case with drug convictions, as if the only response to the failures of the drug war is a disproportionate increase in the severity of punishment and the stigma of incarceration.

It worries me when our society starts to resemble something from a Victor Hugo novel.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:14 AM on March 20, 2008

Or, what PeterMcDermott just said.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:15 AM on March 20, 2008

They are asking for an entire month, which in my opinion does seem unreasonable. Does anyone know if the military would grant a month long furlough to a soldier who is serving if his daughter was dying? What about employers?

The FMLA entitles employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave to care for a child with a serious health condition. Not sure about the military. I think a federal prison can find someone else to make license plates for a few weeks while this guy is on furlough.

But his wife is asking for an exorbitantly expensive special dispensation, one for which the law makes no provision, regardless of circumstances.

Incorrect. As pointed out several times previously, prison regulations expressly authorize furloughs. One basis for a furlough is "to be present during a crisis in the immediate family, or in other urgent situations." Other grounds include "to reestablish family and community ties" and "to participate in selected educational, social, civic, religious, and recreational activities which will facilitate release transition." There's no question that the authority exists to grant a furlough for a prisoner to be with a dying child.

As for the expense of release, it seems there's a difference between non-furlough and furlough releases. Prisoners not entitled to a furlough (for whatever reason) still are allowed to be released for funerals, etc., accompanied by federal marshals or other security. This is certainly an expensive proposition. Furloughs, however, are by definition "an authorized absence from an institution by an inmate who is not under escort of a staff member, U.S. Marshal, or state or federal agents." They can be authorized for more than a day -- not sure 30 days is typical, but the regulation clearly contemplates more than day-trips. The regs also say that furlough expenses are paid by the inmate or his family, which include transportation, food, lodging, and incidentals. So there's no basis to the argument that release would be expensive for the prison/government/taxpayers.

All of this assumes, of course, that the father is otherwise eligible for a furlough -- e.g. he's on good behavior, he isn't deemed a flight risk, he isn't violent, etc. If he doesn't satisfy the normal standards, then I fully understand the rationale for not releasing him to see his daughter, as painful as that result is for the child. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine a situation where temporary release is more appropriate.
posted by brain_drain at 9:16 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Kinda torn on this, to be honest. On the one hand, his daughter has only a few months to live and the penal system should acknowledge this as an unusual circumstance.

On the other hand, the guy was running a meth lab and is thus about the worst kind of scumbag, and this makes for a good morality tale. "You get five years. You figure that you can do a nickel with your eyes closed. But what if it meant never seeing your family again?"

The more people suffer, the better it is! Certainly, if a crime has a 5 year sentence then if the actual costs are increased exponentially that's even better, because people who commit crimes, regardless of how minor, should all be put to death really. Furthermore, when anyone commits a crime they are a danger to society, up until the moment they are released, when they will cease to be. So letting a guy leave prison on a furlough six months before their release date would just be devastating to society.

Meanwhile, not letting a ten year old girl not see her dad before she dies will not be devastating to any members of society.

I'm glad we've got that all cleared up.

---

On a more serious note, I'm not quite sure why someone running a meth lab is the "worst kind of scum" Presumably, it would depend on the quality of their product. Properly made methamphetamine is an FDA approved drug used for treating ADD. If it was harmful, it would not have been approved. The choice to take the higher doses used to get high is the choice of the user.

I certainly see why it would be a good idea to illegalize clandestine meth production, but on the scale of 'scummyness' it ranks far less then, say, being a rapist, a murderer, or anyone who has a direct victim.

Conceptually, I don't see why to make the exception.

FAIL. Seriously, what difference does it make that you can't see it? It seems obvious to everyone else, and it's quite clear. Your lack of human compassion isn't a justification for anything in particular.

So we all agree that if the father was released on furlough he wouldn't commit any crime. But you know, there is a chance that he might--I'm sure some addicts do just that when they are released. (I'm assuming that his furlough would be unsupervised.) If you were in the position to release this person, would you put your job on the line betting on a convict's behavior?

But duh, he'll be released in August anyway. If he was going to commit a crime on his furlough, he would just do it 6 months anyway. And if he did commit a crime, the person who released him would still have a good excuse for letting him out.

as unlike things like marijuana and cocaine which can at least arguably be used recreationally, meth always destroys you. Every time.

You mean other then the times it's been legally prescribed for treating ADD, including in children? Methamphetamine has been an FDA approved drug for decades. The FDA does not approve drugs that "Destroy" you. Please.
posted by delmoi at 10:13 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Our form of government is indeed representative, but it is nonetheless sovereign.

no it is not - WE are sovereign and our government serves US - "WE THE PEOPLE ... ordain and establish" our government

and yes that does mean that if enough people, even a minority, feel that they are being oppressed by a government or majority, then their right to change it isn't necessarily constrained by what that government is willing to allow

if we'd listened to people like you we'd still have the queen on our money

Shit happens.

and if enough shit happens, revolutions happen, too
posted by pyramid termite at 10:20 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

(Assuming all points, as brain drain said, that the father is otherwise eligible for a furlough)

“The universe hasn't promised and doesn't owe you a magic pony. Shit happens.” - posted by valkyryn

No, shit happens because people make it happen.
The laws of man are NOT the laws of nature or the word of God.


“He is a prisoner, and though there exist discretionary measures under which he can leave prison under specific circumstances, he has no right, civil or otherwise, to enjoy such treatment.”

Actually, prisoners have a number of rights, the state has a duty to protect them from harm while incarcerated for example, and his daughter has every right to petition for this kind of visitation.
This is not for him, it’s for her.

“How much money would it cost to have guards waiting with him beside his child until she dies?”

Fair question. I’d pay it. 30 days? No problem.

This situation is one of the reasons so many people feel alienated and disaffected and don’t believe in the system. Folks say “these laws are for your own good” meanwhile there’s no compassion in extremis.
Power does not create its own legitimacy.

What possible incentive is there not to be an absolutely ruthless uncompromisingly selfish individual in return?
Well, one reason for not doing so is the presumption of equitability and being cut a break under extreme circumstances.

Reminds me of the cop stopping and giving the guy a ticket who’s wife was hemmoraging while giving birth and they lost the baby.
But y’know, he was breaking the law, right? Sometimes innocents suffer. Why should he be privileged to speed just because his wife and child are dying?


“I honestly don't see quite what the significance of her being about to die is.”

Tell you what. You’re going to die in five minutes, but you can make a phone call.
Think that phone call is of any significance?

Key point here - I don’t HAVE to let you make a phone call.
It’s a human decision whether to do so or not.

Same thing with the law - the option exists legally for the warden. And there’s plenty of precedent and codification for doing so. It’s not uncharted territory - which belies the idea of the extension of “privilege.” He’s got no legal reason not to do it.
He chooses to do harm however.

It’s not that the nearness of death puts anyone in a privileged position, it’s that the law in principle is to codify compassion. It exists - as its foundation - as a way for people to deal with each other in a fair and equitable manner and to prevent them from harming each other wherever possible and, crucially, to protect the innocent more than prosecuting the guilty (hence ‘innocent until proven guilty’).

The very fact the warden is granted the power to release in extremis to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering of innocents is proof of that.

The fact he chooses not to exercise that power shows not a flaw in the law or an unwillingness to extend extra-legal privilege to a dying child on principle, but the lack of his own personal compassion.

“Does anyone know if the military would grant a month long furlough to a soldier who is serving if his daughter was dying?”

Uh, yeah. It does.

“By allowing a prisoner to visit his daughter for a period prior to her death, you aren't 'going soft' -- rather, you're making an intelligent investment in his rehabilitation.”

Very, very well said PeterMcDermott.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:05 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Does anyone know if the military would grant a month long furlough to a soldier who is serving if his daughter was dying? What about employers?

In Canada employers give 6 weeks paid compassionate leave to care for a gravely ill child, parent or spouse, via a federal government program. No idea how we'd handle something like this prisoner and his dying child. Hopefully we'd be more reasonable & humane. It's irrational to say an 8 yr old with a fatal brain tumour is not an exceptional circumstance.
posted by zarah at 11:57 AM on March 20, 2008

(All this would make a great Country song though)
posted by Smedleyman at 12:09 PM on March 20, 2008

This story wouldn't be getting this much press if they weren't white.

It's a sad story; we should be outraged. But it happens all the goddamn time in communities with large numbers of people returning from prison. Here in Rhode Island, more than 50% of men, and about 70% of women incarcerated are parents (pdf). What do you think happens to their children?

I'm glad this issue is getting some press, but let's not forget that this is far from a single incident. It's all too common.
posted by lunit at 12:40 PM on March 20, 2008

lunit, although your general point is well-taken, it's likely not common to find a situation where (i) a parent is incarcerated, (ii) the parent's child is terminally ill, (iii) the child is expected to die while the parent is incarcerated, (iv) the parent is not a violent felon or flight risk who can't be released, and (v) the parent's request for limited release to be with the child is denied by the relevant authorities.
posted by brain_drain at 12:59 PM on March 20, 2008

Seriously, nothing is less convincing than self-righteousness.

Peter McD has made the best argument: that it's an investment in his rehab. But I'd still argue against it just to spite the smug, sanctimonious pharisees who've chosen to vomit forth their ad hominems in this thread.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 1:04 PM on March 20, 2008

Yeah, there are a lot of particular circumstances in this case. But I still think it's probably more common than we'd like to think. If you replace terminal illness with deaths due to drug or gun violence, especially. Of course, there are no statistics which will show that, because this kind of thing doesn't get much press/attention.

That being said, the very specific circumstances of this case lend themselves to media sensationalism - and sympathy. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it's hard not to be frustrated by the out-pouring of outrage about this story when families are ruined every day by the war on drugs. And the media doesn't do shit to cover any of those stories.

Also, "relevant authorities" in prisons are dicks. Film at 11.
posted by lunit at 1:10 PM on March 20, 2008

But I'd still argue against it just to spite the smug, sanctimonious pharisees who've chosen to vomit forth their ad hominems in this thread.

Wow, not only are you blasting people for being humane, you're calling them pharisees.... who came into conflict with Jesus because they were intent on following the letter of the law instead of its spirit.

I'm reasonably sure, from your phrasing, that you actually think you're on Jesus' side. Wow.

Of all the possible similes you could have drawn, you picked the single one that undermines your arguments the most effectively. I suspect there must be a little bit of empathy left in your subconscious, leaking out in subtle ways.
posted by Malor at 1:36 PM on March 20, 2008

I did look it up, ten pounds, to be absolutely sure I understood it, mostly because I couldn't believe you would use that simile in this situation. That's why I said what I did. I just went a little deeper into the word than you intended.

You've explicitly stated that you'd like to prevent this guy from seeing his dying daughter, just to spite the people in this thread. I can't easily communicate just how utterly that appalls me. It reminds me very much of a person who, in the middle of an argument, once wished that someone I loved would die, from something I thought was safe, 'to teach me a lesson'.

Were this a thread about animal abuse, the equivalent statement would be, "Damn, you sanctimonious hypocrites piss me off. I'm gonna go torture some puppies just to show you assholes what's what."

To preserve my own sanity, I'm going to assume you've never had children of your own.
posted by Malor at 2:52 PM on March 20, 2008

If I were in prison and not be allowed to see my dying daughter for a single day, even if I offered to have my sentence doubled, I would dedicate the rest of my free life to burning down the entire fucking establishment.

But maybe that's just me.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:55 PM on March 20, 2008

This does indeed qualify as a "family crisis," but until somebody can be convinced, how about writing a letter, Dad?
posted by Julie at 2:56 PM on March 20, 2008

This story wouldn't be getting this much press if they weren't white.

Well, we can adulterate this with other hypotheticals too, like: "I bet they'd have let a *mother* go on furlough," but it does nothing but play into preconceived worldviews, so we should consider the numbers.

With an estimated (238 * 10^6 * 487/100000) incarcerated whites versus (38 * 10^6 * 3042/100000) blacks, this particular star-crossing of rare tumor and asshole warden would affect as many (or as few) white inmates as black inmates. This means that if the news media took a flawlessly racist outlook (showing only white stories, and refusing to air black ones, with no error), we'd still see a full half of all the cases. That is, the frequency of this sort of thing could only be twice as much as we're seeing now, assuming that media racism is the source of error. And since I can't bring myself to believe in a perfectly racist media when cases like the Jena Six drew so much publicity, the influence of race would doubtlessly count even less.
posted by kid ichorous at 4:17 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Today's Google News headlines for black prison inmates (1,560 hits)

Today's Google News headlines for white prison inmates (459 hits)
posted by Law Talkin' Guy at 4:44 PM on March 20, 2008

As for kid ichorus' assertion that general deterrence isn't effective in some cases, I offer the following:

While you're quite right that irrational minds, crimes of passion, or acts of desperation aren't always susceptible to general deterrence through the example set by another's harsh punishment, I'd say that's at best only half the story. In at least as many cases, if not more, we deal with the type of reasonable utilitarian calculus of risk vs. reward that you adverted to. I don't think general deterrence has to be abandoned because it doesn't fit with all potential crimes. We'd be hard-pressed to find any correctional philosophy that's 100% effective, especially when the difficult cases you discuss are concerned.

Moreover, the sentencing rationales eventually start to bleed into each other given enough abstraction. General Deterrence and Protection of the Public can be very similar in their objectives and implementation. Specific Deterrence and Rehabilitation (dare I even mention it?) can often occur together. Just Punishment and Specific Deterrence can likewise be indistinguishable. So in some cases, the things done to achieve General Deterrence might also serve other ends, and vice versa.

All this having been said, I do disagree with the decision to not give this prisoner the opportunity to be with his dying child. He was sentenced to time in prison, not consignment to miss the last opportunity he had to see his daughter.
posted by Law Talkin' Guy at 5:12 PM on March 20, 2008

If this prisoner weren't so audacious as to not be wealthy, he'd naturally have immediate and full access to his dying child.

Silly people, thinking this is about laws and compassion and such. Those are archaic ideas. They do not apply to the modern justice system.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:20 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This guy is just a pain in the ass. Next week I'm going to have to wade through a hundred comments on why he is being furloughed to attend his daughter's funeral but wasn't allowed to visit her while she was alive.

Have no clue about what sarcasm tags are. But if I did....
posted by notreally at 6:55 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

[few comments removed - all the fuck off and counter fuck off talk needs to go to metatalk, thank you]
posted by jessamyn at 7:49 PM on March 20, 2008

STILL not mentioned in the Lincoln newspaper. Curious, eh?
posted by RavinDave at 6:59 AM on March 21, 2008

By allowing a prisoner to visit his daughter for a period prior to her death, you aren't 'going soft' -- rather, you're making an intelligent investment in his rehabilitation.

Quoted for truth. This guy is getting out of prison, reasonably soon. He'll either be grateful that accommodations were made for him to visit his dying child, or bitter forever at a draconian system with no compassion for the dying daughter of a model prisoner who had almost served out his sentence. If we are at all interested in helping him become a productive member of society and not a permanent meth-head, this seems like an easy call to me.

Give him an electronic monitor, double his remaining sentence, make him raise the money to reimburse the state for the extra expense--fine. But you don't keep dads away from dying daughters when it can be helped. You just don't.

We'll see how this warden feels about furloughs and exceptional circumstances when he's in hell.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:45 AM on March 21, 2008

Maybe I just don't understand the point you're trying to make, Law Talkin' Guy, but pointing to the difference in number of stories for white inmates and black inmates doesn't refute my point. Of course there is more coverage of stories about black inmates - it's part of the image constructed by the media of black criminals. Just watching Cops will show you that. Most coverage of inmates is negative publicity. This is positive publicity. Conflating the two is ridiculous and unhelpful.

My point was that this positive, sympathetic story about an offender wouldn't be getting so much attention if they weren't white. I've heard nothing to convince me otherwise on that point.
posted by lunit at 10:03 AM on March 21, 2008

Y'all might enjoy this.
posted by vsync at 2:18 PM on March 21, 2008

Local paper FINALLY got around to covering this.
posted by RavinDave at 8:42 PM on March 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Very informative article, RavinDave. Worth highlighting:

Jason Yaeger has visited his daughter three times since her condition was declared terminal last fall, once in October and twice in the past month. Each visit cost the family $200 to $300 for the guard and expenses.

So this family is already covering the rent-a-guard? Would they be expected to cover the furlough costs as well? If so, there's no merit to ruling it out as too expensive.

Gov. Dave Heineman has expressed his empathy to the Yaeger family, said spokeswoman Jen Rae Hein, but the matter is federal. Nebraska’s congressional delegation also received many calls. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry’s office requested a clarification of the term “extraordinary” from the Bureau of Prisons, said Fortenberry spokesman Josh Moenning. [...] Ed Yaeger said all decisions appear to be left to federal prison officials, who upheld the Yankton warden’s recommendation.

“It appears the Bureau of Prisons does not answer to anyone but the president,” Ed Yaeger said.

This is the darker side of federalism - taking decisions out of the hands of people directly accountable to a community and its welfare, and giving them over to a distant, insulated bureaucracy. Apathetic governance-at-a-distance is the stuff of empires. /axegrind
posted by kid ichorous at 11:13 PM on March 21, 2008

Yeah ... but Heineman is a weak governor looking for an excuse to avoid this issue entirely. Calling it a Federal matter is merely a convenient pass-the-buck dodge.
posted by RavinDave at 11:33 PM on March 21, 2008

From the JournalStar article

I think the thing to stress is that Jason is in a minimum-security prison. There are no bars, no walls. He has to cross a busy public street to get between the buildings.”

When he transferred from a prison to the Yankton site, Jason Yaeger was given a furlough and “put on a Greyhound bus.”

So the argument for not granting furlough for a little girl to face death with her father comes down to cost.

Lower than vermin.
posted by fullerine at 11:34 PM on March 21, 2008

UPDATE: The father is now appealing directly to Bush for clemency.

Good luck with that. This is the guy who, with frat-boy demeanor, coldly mocked Karla Faye Tucker's plea for mercy with that simpering Beavis & Butthead cackle of his.
posted by RavinDave at 9:42 PM on March 22, 2008

Put the blame where it's due.. at the feet of the father. He put this problem upon himself and as a result, the child. He's had several visits and phone calls. Sure, it's a tough situation but spare us the bullshit.
posted by wkearney99 at 3:29 PM on March 23, 2008

Calling it a Federal matter is merely a convenient pass-the-buck dodge.

which part of "federal prisoner" in a "federal prison" convicted in a "federal court" on "federal charges" don't you seem to understand?

the governor is powerless to do anything - his only option is to express disapproval
posted by pyramid termite at 4:04 PM on March 23, 2008

Spare me your half-wit condescension. The governor can easily exert pressure. Particularly in an election year.


Of course, you knew that ... just couldn't pass up an opportunity to display your dazzling snottiness, eh?
posted by RavinDave at 8:42 PM on March 23, 2008

The governor can easily exert pressure.

on this president?

Particularly in an election year.

who's not up for re-election and has a record of doing whatever he wants?

blame the people who're responsible, will you?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:17 PM on March 23, 2008

Interesting that TI, arrested for murderous things is released on bond. And that without having a dying daughter. I believe TI just wanted to participate in the Easter egg hunt.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:03 PM on March 23, 2008

TI has yet to be tried, much less convicted.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 11:33 AM on March 24, 2008

Coda:

Jason Yaeger visits dying daughter Wednesday
posted by RavinDave at 1:14 PM on March 27, 2008

From the article:

Jayci has been unresponsive since last week and is at a Lincoln hospice facility

So there's really no reason to give him a furlough anymore, right? It was for her benefit, not his, after all.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 1:38 PM on March 27, 2008

ALSO from the article: "Jason Yaeger was able to be alone in the hospice room with his daughter, and the family reported that her breathing became labored and heavy during his visit."

So, who knows?

Yeah, it could be their imagination. Or maybe not. Anyone who's been in that situation -- and I have -- knows that hearing is one of the last thing to shut down; it takes no effort and is near the last source of blood as the body reroutes from the lesser organs . Exactly when it goes, is impossible to say. It might very well be their imagination, but it's not unreasonable to imagine she knew he was there.
posted by RavinDave at 2:10 PM on March 27, 2008

FWIW, TI has pled guilty.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:22 PM on March 27, 2008

Jayci Yaeger loses cancer battle Friday morning


.
posted by RavinDave at 8:51 AM on March 28, 2008

Bummer. :(
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 3:32 PM on March 28, 2008

It's a small consolation, but at least he did finally get to see her one last time (albeit for less than an hour). The media attention would seem to be a double-edged sword: the guards apparently didn't feel safe letting him stay longer than 45 minutes with it, but he might not have had a visit at all without it.

Rest in peace, Jayci.

.
posted by I Said, I've Got A Big Stick at 3:58 PM on March 28, 2008

I hate to sound ungrateful, but what a shitty ending. Fuck the guy over by letting him go too late to make it too late for a real goodbye. I'm not even sure that's a small comfort: he arrives while she is literally in the process of dying. No chance to say a last "I love you." Man, watching one's child physically dying would be torture enough. How much worse to not have said goodbye?

I guess we wouldn't want him to be fully grateful to us for giving him a break in a truly exceptional circumstance. Add time-and-a-half for one day to say goodbye, one day for the dying (be prepared to move him from prison to hospital expeditiously), and one day for the funeral. He'll be grateful for the respect, and "pay" for his having been a criminal in the first place. Win-win situation.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:21 PM on March 28, 2008

All the . I can muster.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:07 AM on March 29, 2008

.
posted by WalterMitty at 5:25 AM on March 29, 2008