As prison system inspectors visited Franklin Correctional Institution they discovered an incident from three years prior in which an inmate, 27-year-old Randall Jordan-Aparo, begged officer Rollin Suttle Austin, to take him to the hospital because of a blood disorder and the officer ordered him “gassed.” Jordan-Aparo died that night.

The inspectors rightfully found that the fiasco constituted “sadistic, retaliatory” behavior by the guards, but they allege that when they brought their findings to Florida Department of Corrections Inspector General Jeffrey Beasley, he told them he would “have their asses” if they didn’t back off. The involved officers remain on staff, although the U.S Department of Justice is investigating the situation.

That makes me feel so much better…

Feed 44:

• http://www.c4ss.org/
• http://www.youtube.com/user/c4ssvideos
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c4ss-media/id872405202?mt=2
• http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/smash-walls-radio/c4ss-media?refid=stpr
• https://twitter.com/C4SSmedia

Bitcoin tips welcome:

• 1N1pF6fLKAGg4nH7XuqYQbKYXNxCnHBWLB

Maybe it’s time to radically rethink the nature and purpose of criminal law itself. Maybe it’s time to look to another legal theory — contract law.

Despite sharing common roots, criminal law and contract law are different. In the United States, as in other jurisdictions, contrasting theory, substance, and procedure distinguish the two doctrines. Many people consider criminal behavior to be a breach of the social contract. If so, then why don’t we apply contract law principles to crime?

Crime as Breach of Contract

Consider Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s formulation of the “social contract”:

What really is the Social Contract? An agreement of the citizen with the government? No, that would mean but the continuation of [Rousseau’s] idea. The social contract is an agreement of man with man; an agreement from which must result what we call society. (General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, 1851)

Proudhon equates the social contract with social expectation: how do individuals expect each other to behave under normal circumstances? Indeed, every society establishes its own norms to which its members are expected to adhere. Yet to truly be a “social contract” the state must also be party to it.

Criminal behavior amounts to a breach of the social contract and a violation of implicit social norms. For example, we do not expect our neighbors to take our stuff. We denounce theft as an illegitimate means of acquiring property.

Contract Law Principles

In general, contract law attempts to put victims of breach in as good a position as they would have been if the contract had been performed. The “expectation principle” requires the breaching party to compensate the victim just to the point of making her as whole as she had expected to be (either by economic equivalence, restitution, or both) and not beyond.

The remedy for property crimes (as social contract breach) seems intuitively obvious: give the victim back her things. After all, the point of contract remedy is to compensate the victim, treat the breaching party fairly, and promote economic efficiency. As Oliver Wendell Holmes declared, “The duty to keep a contract at common law means a prediction that you must pay damages if you do not keep it — and nothing else.”

Penalty Clauses

Because of these broad principles, penalty clauses are not enforceable. A clause that reads, “If Smith does not pay Jones $20, then Smith must pay $100 instead,” would not be upheld in court. Holdings barring the enforcement of contractual penalties and quasi-penalties litter American case law.

Penalties have been questioned and derided for centuries. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the villainous Shylock agrees to loan Antonio money. However, under the contract, if Antonio defaults, he must forfeit a pound of his flesh.

Shylock: Go with me to a notary, seal me there
Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
If you repay me not on such a day,
In such a place, such sum or sums as are
Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me.

Why the harsh penalty? “If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.”

Antonio defaults. At trial, someone offers to pay twice the contract price to save Antonio from Shylock’s knife. Shylock, however, insists the court enforce the deathly penalty. After ostensibly honoring his wish, the judge cleverly turns Shylock’s argument against him, preserving Antonio’s life.

Social Contract Penalties

The social contract includes at least two penalty clauses. First, if a party breaches, then he is punished (the “criminal”). Second, if a party breaches, then the aggrieved party (the “victim”) is cast aside and ignored.

Under the current bifurcated system, a criminal caption reads State v. Smith, not Jones v. Smith. The victim is not a party to the suit. Instead, the state assumes its position as a placeholder for the victim, whether or not the victim approves. Like Shylock, the state then begs for the enforcement of penalty clauses. Someone breached the social contract. Punish her!

In equating justice with punishment, we forget about the victim. Sadly, with full enforcement of the penalty clause against the breaching party, the victim also suffers a penalty — she is cast aside and ignored. Our addiction to penalties has given rise to the largest prison population in the world. In contrast, a more rigid application of contract law principles would preclude the application of penalty clauses, focusing instead on fulfilling expectations, compensating for losses, and making the victim whole again.

Many crimes violate person, not property. How would we remedy social contract breaches such as battery, rape, and murder? While the answer is not clear, to enforce penalties seems dubious at best. Civil rights attorney Clarence Darrow once noted, “All communities and states are in reality ashamed of jails and penal institutions of whatever kind. Instinctively they seem to understand that these are a reflection on the state.” Perhaps Darrow was correct in thinking that “nearly every crime could be wiped away in one generation by giving the criminal a chance.”

Moreover, common law courts rarely award emotional damages resulting from a contract breach. Such damages fall into the realm of tort law. However, Hadley v. Baxendale, a seminal case from nineteenth century Great Britain, established the “foreseeability rule.” If damages resulting as a consequence of breach could have been reasonably foreseen, then they can be recovered. All parties to the social contract certainly can “reasonably foresee” the consequential emotional damages of violent acts like rape.

The law treats contracts differently than it treats crime. But should it? Isn’t criminal behavior just a breach of contract — the social contract? When a thief steals from his neighbor, doesn’t it make sense to repay the neighbor and restore her expectations? In criminal law, penalties deprive liberty without compensating the victim. We punish both the criminal and the victim; only the state comes out ahead. The common law refuses to enforce contractual penalties for good reason. Perhaps that principle should be applied to criminal law, as well.

Scavando tra i documenti della prigione, alcuni giornalisti hanno trovato diversi casi di abusi e di cosiddetti “usi impropri della forza”.

In visita all’Istituto Correzionale Franklin, gli ispettori del sistema penitenziario sono venuti a conoscenza di un incidente avvenuto tre anni prima. L’incidente aveva per protagonista un carcerato ventisettenne, Randall Jordan-Aparo, che chiedeva all’agente Rollin Suttle Austin di essere ricoverato in ospedale per via di un disturbo del sangue. L’agente diede l’ordine di “gasarlo” (pestarlo a sangue, es). Jordan-Aparo morì quella stessa notte.

Gli ispettori giustamente hanno definito il comportamento delle guardie “sadico e vendicativo”. Ma, dicono, quando i risultati degli accertamenti sono stati portati davanti all’ispettore generale del dipartimento penitenziario della Florida Jeffrey Beasley, quest’ultimo ha risposto: “vi faccio fottere” se non ve ne andate. Nonostante il dipartimento federale della giustizia continui con le indagini, gli agenti coinvolti restano in servizio.

Questo mi fa sentire molto meglio…

Un altro incidente vide coinvolto un carcerato con disturbi mentali, Darren Rainey; dopo aver defecato nella cella fu rinchiuso dagli agenti nel box doccia, “bombardato con acqua bollente,” insultato e lasciato a morire. Testimoni dichiarano di averlo trovato nel piatto doccia con la pelle a brandelli.

Questi incidenti di male puro sono considerati semplici storie da chi si sforza di giustificare lo stato prigione. Quanti altri esempi di abusi odiosi occorrono per capire che il problema è strutturale? Quanto altro sangue deve finire sulle mani dei carcerieri perché siano considerati, correttamente, nemici e non protettori di una società pacifica?

Se da un lato le vittime sono semplici nomi su un pezzo di carta per i vari funzionari di stato che fingono di interessarsi ai loro casi, dall’altro erano persone vere, in carne ed ossa, che hanno sofferto le pene della tortura per mano dello stato prigione. Randall Jordan-Aparo e Darren Rainey non sono semplici storie. Sono esempi di un problema istituzionale molto più grande.

Ecco perché i licenziamenti non risolveranno nulla. Gli abusi dello stato prigione, nella loro tristezza, sono una conseguenza prevedibile del fatto che la “giustizia” è affidata al monopolio dello stato. Lo stato prigione è un sistema oppressivo che rende normali gli abusi di potere e gli atti di terrore lasciando i carcerati alla mercé di guardie prive di responsabilità.

La mancanza di responsabilità, come nel caso dell’agente Austin, è un fatto normale. La logica interna del sistema carcerario monopolistico semplicemente non incentiva a tenere a bada le guardie carcerarie. Solo quando qualche giornalista esterno scava nei rapporti, il che accade raramente, lo stato è costretto ad agire “responsabilmente”. E anche allora la risposta è spesso più uno spettacolo fatto per placare il pubblico che un cambiamento reale. Dopotutto, un vero cambiamento comporterebbe l’estinzione del potere statale: l’ultima cosa che un funzionario di stato vorrebbe permettere.

Ci sono voluti tre anni perché la morte di Randall Jordan-Aparo venisse alla luce, e tutto quello che abbiamo è una “indagine”, il sonnifero preferito dallo stato. Un’indagine sembra una ricerca della responsabilità, ma in realtà non lo è affatto. Una vera e propria responsabilità si potrebbe avere solo con la dispersione del potere, ovvero con l’abolizione dell’intero sistema.

Lo stato reclama il monopolio della giustizia, ma non è così. La verità è che lo stato elimina ogni possibilità di giustizia.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Reporters digging deeper into the prison records found multiple incidents of abuse and so-called “inappropriate uses of force.”

As prison system inspectors visited Franklin Correctional Institution they discovered an incident from three years prior in which an inmate, 27-year-old Randall Jordan-Aparo, begged officer Rollin Suttle Austin, to take him to the hospital because of a blood disorder and the officer ordered him “gassed.” Jordan-Aparo died that night.

The inspectors rightfully found that the fiasco constituted “sadistic, retaliatory” behavior by the guards, but they allege that when they brought their findings to Florida Department of Corrections Inspector General Jeffrey Beasley, he told them he would “have their asses” if they didn’t back off. The involved officers remain on staff, although the U.S Department of Justice is investigating the situation.

That makes me feel so much better …

Another incident involved mentally ill inmate Darren Rainey; after defecating in his cell he was locked in a closet like shower, “blasted by hot water,” taunted and then abandoned by officers to die. Witnesses report he was found on the shower drain with chunks of his skin falling off.

These incidents of pure evil are deemed anecdotal by those who continue to try and justify the prison state. How many examples of despicable abuse will it take for people to realize the problem is structural? How much more blood will prison guards have to get on their hands until they are rightly viewed as enemies of a peaceful society, rather than its protectors?

While the victims are merely names on a paper for various state functionaries to pretend to look into, they were real, flesh and blood individuals who suffered sickening torture at the hands of the prison state. Randall Jordan-Aparo and Darren Rainey are not anecdotes. Rather, they are examples of a much bigger, institutional problem.

That’s why the layoffs are not going to solve anything. The abuses of the prison state, while sad, are a predictable consequence of handing “justice” over to a state monopoly. The prison state is a system of oppression that normalizes abuses of power and acts of terror, leaving inmates at the mercy of unaccountable guards.

Unaccountability, as in the case of officer Austin, is routine. There are simply no incentives for the inner workings of the prison monopoly to tend toward keeping guards’ power in check. Only when outside reporters delve into the reports — a rare occurrence — is the state forced to act “responsibly.” And even then, the response is often mere show to appease the public rather than actual change. After all, real change would involve relinquishing state power – the last thing state functionaries will allow.

It took three years for Randall Jordan-Aparo’s death to even come to light and now all we get is an “investigation” — the state’s favorite appeasement technique. While it looks like accountability, an investigation by a fellow state functionary is no such thing. Real, true accountability is only achievable through a dispersion of power — and that means abolishing the whole system.

The state claims a monopoly on justice, but that’s not the real truth. The real truth is that the state removes any chances of justice.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Nessuna Giustizia dallo Stato Prigione.