Comments by Wrench
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Posted on March 8 at 12:25 a.m.
A huge number of people incarcerated in county are awaiting sentencing. Why are we depriving people who have not been convicted of a crime of letters from their friends and family?
The job of the sheriff and jail staff is to guarantee both the security of inmates AND their full rights to meaningful communication. Taking away mail rights in the name of security is disgusting. It means the Sheriff is failing in his duty.
"Vindicated", tell your boy Bill hi for me. You're not fooling anyone.
Posted on August 10 at 4:52 p.m.
Come on liberals and democrats, wake up. I'm all for banning Chik-Fil-A for their homophobic bs, but seriously, you tolerate a lot worse every day, and even benefit from it, seemingly without a second thought. We tolerate Raytheon, the deportation of migrant folks, companies like ATK making depleted uranium weaponry, police harassment of homeless folks while buildings sit empty, the UC's involvement in the development and manufacture of military technology including nuclear weapons... you even accept the sponsorship of shady companies for your cushy elite events, pride fest, and political campaigns. Are these politicians really talking social justice or are they just jumping on a convenient issue to look self-righteous? Ban Chik-Fil-A but don't leave the war profiteers and military/police/surveillance and other shady corporations around to fund your next ga...
Posted on August 10 at 4:44 p.m.
No one should be put in a cage, especially for public art. If you don't like it paint over it; that's what graffiti is all about. People with the spine to make their surroundings look how they like while the rest of you just call the cops if your walls ain't nice, clean and boring.
Posted on August 8 at 10:34 p.m.
You know people are wrong when they base their arguments around a single typo instead of substance.
Posted on August 3 at 3:35 p.m.
The art was the work of participants in the Occupy Santa Barbara movement, acting in solidarity with Anaheim residents currently in struggle against the brutality of their local police, who recently shot an unarmed man in the back and the head, and when neighborhood residents met at a bbq to discuss a response, the Anaheim police arrived and shot the crowd (including small children) with rubber bullets and a police dog. Occupy Santa Barbara chalk artists also distributed literature calling for strong and democratic civilian oversight boards to punish rogue police, and for the organization of accountable, diverse and directly democratic neighborhood security forces as an alternative to traditional unaccountable government policing.
Posted on June 7 at 10:31 a.m.
The SBPD describes "generating arrests" as "output"?? And brags about it? This is disgusting, but revealing. "Productivity is up, sir! We've imprisoned hundreds of poor people!"
If homeless people make you uncomfortable, fight homelessness as a societal problem; arresting individual homeless people only creates more pain and hardship.
Posted on June 29 at 12:57 p.m.
Best article I've seen in the Independent in a while. In depth, relevant, honestly looking at the complexity of the issue... in a time when Independent stories tend to be shallow and non-controversial. We need more writers like this. Maybe soon Independent writers will start aggressively investigating the police.
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Posted on March 8 at 8:21 a.m.
@skaterspoint - you want to stop gangs, but you want to limit incarcerated people's contact with the outside world so the only strong ties they can keep are with all the other people in jail?
And your concern is gangs, but you're happy to see all prisoners face harsh penalties, despite the large number of county jail inmates that are still awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime?
Even if you believe that people do not deserve letters from their families, don't the families still have rights to meaningful contact? Why further punish a child and deprive them of parental contact for the unrelated actions of their parent, who may or may not have even been convicted yet? Do you have any idea what the effect of incarceration is on families and how much reduced parental contact increases the chances of young people committing crimes themselves?
People who support this ban support it because they have dehumanized imprisoned people, and they have false beliefs about the efficacy of punishment and imprisonment.
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