Olympic Bomber complains about prison conditions

Really! Maybe there are a couple of bombs somewhere that he didn't use up that might solve his problem?

"Using solitary confinement, Supermax is designed to inflict as much misery and pain as is constitutionally permissible," he wrote in a letter.

Um....yeah, that is the point you There is no rehabilitation where you're at. It IS about punishment and keeping you away from society forever. Get over yourself - you don't DESERVE any better!

I think the condition of our prisons says less about the people detained in them than it says about the people who created the prisons and who maintain them. The purpose of prison is detainment and punishment by detainment; prison is not meant to be painful. It's a box where you place bad people so they're away from the rest of society. There are varying levels of security, of course, as some people warrant stricter conditions than others, but all in all a basic level of humanity is expected to be maintained. Prisoners do suffer abuse, humiliation and degradation in prison, but typically at the hands of fellow prisoners; they are not put in prison to be beaten, raped or degraded. While I don't think prison should be a fun place where everyone sits around having fun parties, I also don't think prisoners should suffer anything more than the effects of incarceration (boredom, withdrawal from society, etc.).

We often say "well, why should we treat them well? Why should we treat our prisoners humanely? They didn't treat their victims humanely." The thing is, though, we're not the ones in prison. We understand what it means to be humane; we ought to understand what it means to be compassionate -- regardless of what the prisoners did in the first place. Why should we stoop to their level, in other words? Aren't we supposed to be demonstrating that we're better than they are?

Now, for all I know this guy is just complaining because he can't receive his subscription to Forbes magazine or because they made him eat meatloaf two nights in a row, but if the conditions really are deplorable and inhumane, shouldn't we, as supposedly humane people, try to improve them? Not because we believe the prisoners deserve better treatment, but because we, as their caretakers, are supposed to be better than the people we incarcerate.

Aww...bless his poor little heart I could seriously care less if he rots there! I say we let him spend a little time in a 3rd world country's version of prision and see if he complains then about how good he has it at the prision he's in now! Punk!

I feel absolutely no compassion for him. He's where he belongs, and doesn't deserve better.

Seriously - did he think prison was going to be this nice little place where he gets gourmet meals, cable TV, field trips, whatever, all for free to reward him for being an American terrorist? He's lucky he's still alive, as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe the whiny little terrorist prisoner should have thought about possible consequences BEFORE choosing to explode bombs that killed or severely injured a whole bunch of innocent people!

I think all convicts in Prison should be forced to endure forced Hard labor.

This letting them all sit around doing nothing is stupid IMO.

They should be on chain gangs.

Well geez what did he think prison was???

Prision is NOT a country club, although there are some prisoners who believe that is what prison should be because many of them are spending the rest of their lives there. If he thinks that the prison conditions are below par, perhaps we should send him to a Chinese prison, then let's see him complain.

Olympic bomber, If you can't do the time, don't do the crime!
Our tax dollars are not meant to make YOU live in the lap of luxury.

If his prissy little hide doesn't like prison, then MAYBE he should've thought about that before the bombs.

I hope they keep his conditions the same. If they try to appease him I'll be angry.

Oh yeah. THANK YOU for that post.

Prisoners should not have the same kinds of lives that we have - no way, not at all. But to make ourselves just as bad as they are is not excused by the fact that we have the law on our sides.

I challenge anyone who thinks that prisoners have it easy to spend half an hour in an actual prison. I think that you would leave with a very different perspective.

And, I hate to say this, but our justice system is not infallible. What about the people in prisons doing hard time, who are actually not guilty of the crime of which they were convicted? Do they deserve living hell for the rest of their lives?

No, in a civilised society, prison should be about incarceration and keeping the convicted out of society where they could do more harm. It is NOT about the violation of basic human rights. It is punishment enough to never be allowed out, to never be safe, to have no privacy, to have to live in prison IS about restricting rights, privileges and lowering the standard of living. Prisoners do NOT have a good time - it's not all roses and chocolates.

Prison, however, is not about keeping people in hellholes, abused, mistreated and in conditions unfit for any human. They create enough of that for themselves as inmates without us imposing it on them, too. Where is our compassion? Where is that quality that makes us different from them? It's too easy to say, `Well, they had no compassion toward their victims'. That is not relevant. That is saying `They did this, therefore so can I - and it's ok because I am on the right side of the fence'. Isn't our capacity for humanity, for forgiveness, what makes us better than them? That we can be compassionate even though our souls cry out for revenge?

I get tired and frustrated with the prevailing attitude that people who commit crimes should be locked up, forgotten about and the key thrown away. Not only that, but also should be tortured, abused and made to suffer as much as possible. Who are we to be so almighty and point the finger? Who are we to know the circumstances and situations that led to the crime in the first place? We're not, and until we spend time with these people and learn about them, we'll never know what their lives were like and what led them to commit crimes. Many people will protest at this - why should we learn? Who cares what led them to it? Well, we should care. For in understanding grows education, and if we can learn what to do as individuals and societies to help these people before it's too late, then we can have some hope of prevention in the future. People are not born evil, they are led to evil through bad decisions, bad circumstances, bad parenting, bad upbringings - a number of reasons and terrible situations most of us couldn't begin to imagine. To prevent crime, especially violent crime, we need to understand the reasons it happens.

I am not being the bleeding heart for criminals here. People who commit crimes deserve to be punished. But let's be honest. We need to show why we are better than the people who commit crimes against us. If we sentence men and women to lives of suffering and misery above and beyond what is expected and deserved in prisons - regardless of what they did in the first place - we have no right to call ourselves a civilised society.

Although there are many cases of prisoner abuse, I do believe that prisons in the US, as compared with some other countries, are definitely easier. Just because he was sentenced to solitary confinement does not mean there was no compassion involved in his sentence. This man is dangerous.

Talking about prisoners who are sent to rot away because they were too poor to have adiquate counsel to prove their innocence or those who are sitting there in cells because they had a biased jury is one thing, prisoners who have committed brutal crimes like this are quite another.

When you choose to commit a heinous crime, you have choosen to make ALL of your rights as a citizen of society null and void. Many things we consider "rights" are actually "priviledges" that come with choosing to be a part of society and obeying the rules of that society. I think the problem is that, especially in the US, prison is not taken seriously, so many people take advantage of those priviledges and believe prison is a cakewalk.

You know, I was talking to my best friend who spent 8 months in jail and we arrived at this conclusion: jail and prison most often rehabilitates those who have already accepted responsibility for their crimes. Those who don't accept responsibility are far less likely to become rehabilitated. I mean, she is angry that she has to go to counseling. "If anything," she says, "It makes me more angry than when I was sitting in jail because the therapist wants to find the reason why I committed the crime. I have already come to terms with the reasons--and it wasn't because my father died or some man molested me. I just want to move on."

While I don't agree that prisoners should suffer abuse and I believe that there should be certain human rights given to prisoners, at the same time, criminals who have been proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt already heard these prison stories prior to committing crimes they were guilty of committing, but they treat it like a joke. I have a cousin who went to prison and he KNEW what could happen if he got involved in crime, but he did it anyway. Maybe the problem isn't just the way prisoners are treated, but how our society has softened the image of prison.

Either way, this guy gets no sympathy from me. He is there to be punished. He understood that when the gavel came down on his judgment.

He is not being abused. He is not being tortured. He has 3 squares (meals), a cot, a sanitary place to relieve himself, and is kept safe from himself and others. He thinks this is not enough for him. He's a whining puke who wants yet another 15 minutes of fame. I guess the notoriety of the bombs isn't enough for him anymore. Being in solitary confinement took away his audience - he can't even get the adoration of fellow prisoners that he most likely feels he deserves. (Yes, I am delving into this, based on a lot of reading on the criminal mind, and based on the snippets that the media has given us. He seems to have a typical narcissistic sociopath personality that is seen in many serial killers/rapists - that what applies to the rest of the world doesn't and shouldn't apply to him in his mind.)

He gets the same treatment as the rest of the violent convicted killers in the Supermax in Florence. He is not treated any worse than the others. He just thinks he's better than the rest of them.

Heidi, I do understand that - and I didn't even read the article, so I guess I wasn't commenting on that per se. My post was more about the ideals of prison in general, and what people seem to think is acceptable. It reminds me of a thread quite some time back in here, about prisons and prison conditions, where I had the same argument and met with the same resistance!!

I am glad that this prisoner is getting what he deserves - and that he is not getting what he doesn't deserve (if that makes sense). I must reiterate - I am not against prisoners being punished - far from it! If he was whingeing about his lot in life in prison, then, well, that's too bad. I guess he should have thought of that a bit earlier.

I most wholeheartedly believe that if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. My hope, though, is that the punishment is made to fit the crime, that's all.

One of the victims, from one of his abortion clinic bombings was blinded, maimed and disfigured - what about HER living conditions?

Eric Rudolph spent his time on the run sleeping in the woods, scrounging through Dumpsters for food. It seems to me that he actually IMPROVED his standard of living, by going to prison.

Give him some good old Medieval torture!

I sometimes think bringing back the stocks would be a good idea
I'm torn. On the one hand its not right to lower ourselves to their level. On the other I do kinda think they deserve it. Prisoners should definatly do hard labour ie building more prisons (england is running out of them) or digging roads etc.

If he doesn't like solitary confinement, I guess they would just let him out into the regular prision population. See how long he lasts..... he could ask Dahlmer about that.

lol, i like the way you think! I say we hang him in the stocks or give him a little one on one time with the guilletine

I googled medieval torture to see some of the tortures we did here in the Tower of London and they were shocking I sat here thinking " Yes, that one sounds good for someone who abuses animals, that one could be for a rapist "

Oh yes, they were quite ingenious about how to make people suffer, weren't they? The Iron Maiden in and of itself is a testament to that. And being drawn and quartered was simply horrifying. But I'll tell you what...I would sure think twice before doing ANYTHING wrong if I knew that they could do that to me!!

Weren't they just!, i liked the idea of the thumb screws

http://medieval-castles.org/index.ph...bscrew_torture

But your right Heidi, things like this would make people think twice and i'd love it to be brought back.