Private Prisons

Privatization of the Correctional field is one of the most talked about subjects in the criminal justice field. There have been studies to show that private prisons are both cheaper than state run prisons and that state run prisons are cheaper than private prisons. With no real definitive evidence for either of the sides, it can not easily decided with logic or reason. It must be solved and answered by opinion. 

I think the privatization of the prison system is in the same ethical dilemma of having the military being more privatized too. Are, essentially, mercenaries ethical and acceptable for us to use instead of our own troops or correctional employees? I believe so, yes. As long as there are still Government agencies that are overseeing and making sure that these private entities are staying on track with what the government is paying them for. These government agencies do exist and supervise both private correctional and military companies. 

I believe that using a private organization for corrections and military is a great idea. It gives the workers and the organizations the ability to move and evolve much faster than any government organization could ever imagine. If one company starts doing something that works better and is able to do the same work as the other companies, with less cost and thus cheaper for the State. The State simply has to wait until that contract is no longer active, or switch to a different contract with the new company. This change over time and process would be much faster than any government change over. If the State wanted to change something in it's processes, it would take years for that bill to pass through the legislature and get approval through out the different gov. organizations. All while this is going on, the old system is still being used and being inefficient. 

Even if the cost per inmate is the same for private prisons v.s. state prisons, the money saved in just the transitional time between new systems and old systems would be enough to make a dent in the budget. 

Thanks for listening

And as always,

Stay Vigilant, Stay awake

2/23

Hello to all handful of people that actually read this blog.

With yesterday being 2/23, I think it is a good time to talk about firearms. This will NOT be a rant on my views of firearms and the massive amount of politics surrounding them. It will however be a educational post on some of the misconceptions of the rifle and what it can and can not do. As all of my 6+ readers are intelligent, I am sure you can interpret my views without me explicitly saying them. Let the fun begin!!!

 As some of you may know, .223 Caliber is the standard caliber for the 'super scary, PTSD inducing, pure evil' AR-15. Granted there are many other pistols and rifles that use this caliber, the AR is the most commonly known type of rifle to use it. AR has been said to stand for a wide variety of things, most commonly standing for Assault Rifle. Which it does not. The A in AR is simply an abbreviation for the company that invented the rifle, ArmaLite, with the R in AR standing for rifle. Pretty simple right?!?!

Going back to the caliber of the rifle. I want to give a little information on what Caliber actually means. There are two ways to measure the size of a bullet. Caliber and Millimeters. They measure the diameter of the round that is being fired, measuring the largest part of the bullet, also known as the part that touches the barrel. Millimeters is the same as it would be for normal measurements. Caliber is essentially the empirical version of that, with Inches being roughly equivalent in diameter. There are also a wide variety of different types of rounds that are the same size. There are Full Metal Jacket (FMJ for short) that has the lead bullet coated in a copper shell only leaving the rear of the bullet exposed. There are also Total Metal Jackets(TMJ) that are completely coated in copper. Next, there are Hollow Points, which have a open cavity in the noise of the bullet so that when it hits a target harder than paper (usually people) it slows down, and mushrooms out, thus making the hole much larger, while also reducing the risk of the round penetration through the target and potentially hitting another unintended target. Now come the more interesting and 'fun' bullets. There are a wide variety of different types of bullets that do a wide variety of things. There are armor piercing, armor penetrating, tracer rounds(which glow when you shot them because the tip of the bullet is on fire), Incendiary rounds, and a wide variety of other rounds. All of which have their special use, but are far to expensive for my budget. All of these 'specialty' rounds have a color coated tip that helps people know what round they are buying and shooting.

This leads me into how the rounds are held and put into an AR( or really, any modern firearm with revolvers being the exception). Magazine v.s. Clips. I can probably write a 5 page paper on the difference between the two. I wouldn't be having to pay for college out of pocket if I had a dollar i heard or read someone improperly call a clip a magazine or visa versa. Bellow I have put in a link to a video that will help illustrate the difference between the two. Either way, the thing that hold the bullets and is put into the AR is called a MAGAZINE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoSNHe413rY

With that, I will leave you to ponder your own life choices and to go out and be helpful part of society.


And as always

Stay Vigilant, Stay awake. 

The idea of Fake News

I want to preface this blog post with saying that I do not agree with all of my President's plans or ideas and that I did not vote for him in the Primary (Rubio) or in the Presidential election (Johnson). 

Watching Trump's press conference, I know understand what he means by fake news. My impression of what he was talking about with fake news was when a news source, and they all do this as far as I am aware, will rush to put out a story, even if it is not complete or inaccurate. What Our President is talking about is this. Not about any news article in particular. He was simply expressing his lack of trust in the media and his own opinion of disliking how the media has became so reactionary and are worried about being first, and not getting the correct story and not the whole story.

On this, I agree with. I think that the Media has became a knee jerk reaction and is worried about speed and quantity instead of quality.

Our President (despite what some might want to say, he is the US's President) said he can handle bad press, as long as the story is true. Which I think is honorable of him to say. Essentially saying, 'yeah, if i really did something and you don't like it, then sure, write a story about it all you want. What I don't want is the Media doing is 1. jumping to conclusions on what is happening and 2. to create facts and information where there clearly isn't any.'

That, personally, sits with me how i think. I will confess to anything that is true about me. However, if you start to try and either put words in my mouth or say I did something where i clearly didn't or my potential motives behind one of my actions (when that someone didn't even bother ask me, which I would have told them my motive behind it). That is when I get upset.

Stay vigilant, Stay awake.

The Good, Bad and Ugly......of Documentaries in class

The role of watching a Documentary in any class has the Good, Bad and Ugly parts to it.

The Good being that it gives the professor a chance to sit back and either catch up on work or take a nap. Along with giving the professor a break from the monotony of lecture, it also breaks up the monotony of the student's experience of going from lecture to lecture. It gives the student a new perspective on a issue that isn't from a book and just the view point of the author. Chances are, are that the Documentary will have multiple interviews with experts and primary source interviews with people.

The Bad being that, like any class full of students, they will always try and find the easiest way to do a project or least amount of work to put into a class so that they get a acceptable grade. With watching a video in class, what i have observed, is that the instant the lights go out and the movie starts, half of the students heads go down and fall asleep, the other half blankly stare at the screen hoping that this Documentary will possibly have something interesting in it. However, this is always the one student that will be furiously taking notes during the entire Documentary and listening intensely. I am always curious why this student will always do this, and yet, refuses to raise their hand or speak up to participate in class discussions. 

The Ugly thing about watching a video in class is that there is only one real view point, and that is what the director wants us to see. With anything, there is always a bias. I have yet to watch a single documentary that will just lay out the raw numbers with no graphs or 'analysis' of these 'facts'. There has always been an expert that will say what the director wants us to hear and they will use big fancy science words to make their point even more important. There is no rebuttal to the documentaries view point and ideas. 

That, my friends, is why I personally do not like Documentaries or other things of that case. I much rather view the raw data, see how it is taken (to see if there is a bias in how the data was gathered, which is always important to look out for) and to make my own rationally based perception on what is going on in this situation.

I leave you all with a quote from Winston Churchill to ponder when you look back into your history books and data sheets. Churchill said that "History is written by the victor". In the case of bias and skewing the results, always think of that. 

Stay vigilant, Stay awake.