SB 2017-068 - Criminal Justice Reform Act 2017 (Final Vote)

[Anna Komnene]

I'm pretty concerned about the gender identity section if I'm being honest.  I'm sympathetic to those concerns but, in this case, we're sometimes literally talking about convicted sexual predators... and we're just going to ask them to check a box "what gender identity are you?"  Even if most people are telling the truth, all there needs to be is one liar that slips through.

[Anna Komnene]

I think that it would help, yeah, and I guess that segregation based on violent crimes already happens in Blair's bill that we passed.  However, it's worth noting that even violent criminals shouldn't be put in a potentially dangerous situation.

Maybe if we took more action to document a person's past history with gender identity, but that wouldn't take into account people who have been in the closet for a long time or just more private about their identification.

I guess another possibility would be to have separate holding facilities for trans individuals, though in that instance I might be concerned about there not being very many of them and/or being more subject to discrimination for prison workers.

On another note, I think that I would rather strike the drugs part from this bill and introduce that in a more comprehensive fashion in another bill.  It's kind of totally unrelated and feels like a rider.

[Anna Komnene]

Not really an expert on constitutional law but the whole idea of a private prison seems antithetical to the social contract to me.  If you believe in some sort of implied consent that people allow themselves to be subject to laws because they live in a jurisdiction, are citizens/residents, etc, it doesn't really hold water to allow people to be imprisoned by private corporations or individuals.  I mean I guess technically the government can approve of private prisons, but I still don't think anyone has consented to that.

And I agree with PiT that it might be something under eminent domain.

[Anna Komnene]

Nay.  I think The Federal Penitentiary Reform Act of 2017 is sufficient.

[Anna Komnene]

I object to allowing the vote changes.  Isn't there supposed to be a 72 hour limit on the vote?