Dominican Prison - OOh - no thanks ?

melphis

Living my Dream
Apr 18, 2013
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If that picture doesn't scare you straight nothing will.
I could not imagine living in those conditions.
 

SKY

Gold
Apr 11, 2004
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That is the way it is if you are broke. If he has money it is a lot different.
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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It may seem draconian, but overpopulation can be alleviated or maybe eliminated if the DR applied the death penalty.

Until then, may the crowded prisons with mostly 20-somethings and 30-somethings men continue, with everything that implies where ever there's such a high concentration of testosterone, repressed horniness, and little to no moral limits.

A photo only tell a part of the story. We can only imagine what truly happens to those young men, both at the hands of their fellow inmates and the security officers themselves.

Then many are 'returned to society,' with no therapy for them to cope with the further demoralizations they were subjected to while in prison.
 

Kipling333

Bronze
Jan 12, 2010
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If there was a proper system of bail here ,many people in the prisons who have been imprisoned on minor charges and without a proper trial would not be in prison ,If the law of habeus corpus was applied properly there would be far less people in prison . If the law of perjury was a major criminal offence in this country there would be fewer people in prison. The court system as it is practised here leads to massive overcrowding of prisons . It is shameful that the 3 month detention period for the prosecution to prepare a case is extended by many many more months and finally when the accused man is brought from prison to court for his trial, the prosecution has not a slither more evidence than was produced in the first case . I do not know how the law and order process can be turned around ..I wrote about this some years ago in dismay that about 85% of prisoners have had no judgement made against them .
 

RonS

Bronze
Oct 18, 2004
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This may sound like a laughable question but, is there free legal counsel for the poor in the DR, something like a public defender?
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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If there was a proper system of bail here ,many people in the prisons who have been imprisoned on minor charges and without a proper trial would not be in prison ,If the law of habeus corpus was applied properly there would be far less people in prison . If the law of perjury was a major criminal offence in this country there would be fewer people in prison. The court system as it is practised here leads to massive overcrowding of prisons . It is shameful that the 3 month detention period for the prosecution to prepare a case is extended by many many more months and finally when the accused man is brought from prison to court for his trial, the prosecution has not a slither more evidence than was produced in the first case . I do not know how the law and order process can be turned around ..I wrote about this some years ago in dismay that about 85% of prisoners have had no judgement made against them .
You are aware that the typical Dominican believes that criminals are released too soon, often times without doing time, right?

Plenty of people complaining that the police arrests many criminals on one day, only for the residents to see the criminal walking free through the very spot he was arrested the day before.

Now you want to make it even more evident to the average Dominican by releasing an even greater number of criminals to the streets.

This is what's fueling the neighborhood lynchings of criminals, people are tired of the police arresting them and the judge releasing them the day after.

Even here on DR1 there are threads where expats themselves are expressing their displeasure of seeing well known criminals released too soon in their communities.
 

the gorgon

Platinum
Sep 16, 2010
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If there was a proper system of bail here ,many people in the prisons who have been imprisoned on minor charges and without a proper trial would not be in prison ,If the law of habeus corpus was applied properly there would be far less people in prison . If the law of perjury was a major criminal offence in this country there would be fewer people in prison. The court system as it is practised here leads to massive overcrowding of prisons . It is shameful that the 3 month detention period for the prosecution to prepare a case is extended by many many more months and finally when the accused man is brought from prison to court for his trial, the prosecution has not a slither more evidence than was produced in the first case . I do not know how the law and order process can be turned around ..I wrote about this some years ago in dismay that about 85% of prisoners have had no judgement made against them .

Kilpling, you make some very salient observations, which help us to understand why the jails look like that. the one about bail especially perked my ears up. people are languishing in prisons simply because they were too poor to make bail.

but guess what? the DR is a third world backwater, so these defects are to be expected. what is the excuse for the USA? it is one of only two countries in the world with a for profit bail system. because of that, numerous people are languishing in jails all over the country, because they were too poor to come up with bail money.
 

Kipling333

Bronze
Jan 12, 2010
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firstly yes ,there are defending lawyers for the poor ..However sometimes ,when there is a deferral in the case or more than one deferral, the defence lawyer representing the poor accused may change every time. Yes Gorgon, I agree with you entirely , and as far as the comments from NAL, they are just too naive.To think that accused people should be judged by the neighbourhood without the proper procedures of presenting evidence and testing that evidence is worse than what happened in the French revolution . Maybe she ,I assume NAL is a she ,could start a thread on why accused people are released too early in the opinion of DR1 readers or why public opinion should be more important than evidence tendered in court. The fact that police accuse innocent people of a crime is equally well known .
The criminal law system in the DR is desperately in need of an overhaul
 
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RonS

Bronze
Oct 18, 2004
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I've been involved in the US criminal justice system for most of my career. There has always been difficulty balancing the rights of victims and safeguarding the community, and providing the rights of due process and justice to the accused. After many years of US Supreme Court rulings tightening the rules and providing rights to criminal defendants, there has been a backlash. Those rights have now come under heavy scrutiny and some have been reversed. Bail, while not perfect, as has been said and as Sen. Kamala Harris of California has been recently pointing out, is not perfect, but some kind of reasonable bail system would help prevent the inhumane conditions in the jail shown in that photo. How bail would work in a system that is already riddled with corruption and dysfunction is totally unclear. I agree the system in the DR is in need of an overhaul, but, like many other DR issues and this one even less so, I seriously doubt that there is any political will to make it happen.
 

chico bill

Dogs Better than People
May 6, 2016
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Kilpling, you make some very salient observations, which help us to understand why the jails look like that. the one about bail especially perked my ears up. people are languishing in prisons simply because they were too poor to make bail.

but guess what? the DR is a third world backwater, so these defects are to be expected. what is the excuse for the USA? it is one of only two countries in the world with a for profit bail system. because of that, numerous people are languishing in jails all over the country, because they were too poor to come up with bail money.

Really who should put up bail ? A bail bond is a way for the accused to get out without having to pay bail (often very high). So a person, or his family may not be able to come up with $100,000 so they buy a bond, basically an insurance policy against their fleeing.
Who would put up money without some return? No one.

Gorgon you would not loan a stranger 10,000 with no signed papers and no return, and when a bonded accused does not appear the profit is lost by either having to hunt them or surrender to the court the full original bail amount which requires 10 more successful bonds of similar amounts to break even.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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Really who should put up bail ? A bail bond is a way for the accused to get out without having to pay bail (often very high). So a person, or his family may not be able to come up with $100,000 so they buy a bond, basically an insurance policy against their fleeing.
Who would put up money without some return? No one.

Gorgon you would not loan a stranger 10,000 with no signed papers and no return, and when a bonded accused does not appear the profit is lost by either having to hunt them or surrender to the court the full original bail amount which requires 10 more successful bonds of similar amounts to break even.

i am not going to get into a spat over who should risk losing the money put up for bail.

i made a simple statement. there are only two countries on earth with a for profit bail system. the Philipines is one, the USA is the other. i do not have sufficient interest in such matters to have researched how other countries do it, and if the USA should adopt their system, or vice versa. i have done some casual reading on the subject, and the opinions lean to the conclusion that such systems keep poor people in jail, even if innocent, because they cannot make bail.
 

the gorgon

Platinum
Sep 16, 2010
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Really who should put up bail ? A bail bond is a way for the accused to get out without having to pay bail (often very high). So a person, or his family may not be able to come up with $100,000 so they buy a bond, basically an insurance policy against their fleeing.
Who would put up money without some return? No one.

Gorgon you would not loan a stranger 10,000 with no signed papers and no return, and when a bonded accused does not appear the profit is lost by either having to hunt them or surrender to the court the full original bail amount which requires 10 more successful bonds of similar amounts to break even.

there are dozens of articles like this on the web..

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cash-bail-jail-deaths_us_57851f50e4b0e05f052381cb
 

Kipling333

Bronze
Jan 12, 2010
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The thread was undermined by NAL who suggested capital punishment as a way of reducing crowding in the prisons ..As the prisons have more 10 000 prisoners over capacity , those proposed executions should put the DR very much in the news. Of course conditions are horrific for most people in the prisons ..it is impossible to deny that ...but many should not be there .
 

southern

I love Hillary!
Dec 13, 2016
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I'm under this crazy notion that criminals that are arrested and put in prison do not deserve special attention and consideration. The old tired story that they will be more violent and predatory will not intimidate me into giving them special attention. Many of these losers go to jail ,get stupid jail house tattoos and want me to hire them. It ain't happening.