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Notes -
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/12/us/jordan-neely-daniel-penny-new-york-subway-death-charge/index.html
Daniel Penny, a 24-year old Marine, turned himself to police after being charged with 2nd degree manslaughter for the killing of Jordan Neely. It looks like I was initially wrong. I said that drugs may have played a role given that the original NYTs story, which I replied to, from a week ago said that Neely had been choked for only 2-3 minutes and released and was unresponsive. The updated story is that he was choked out for much longer, as long as 15 minutes, which would have def. been lethal, and the video is pretty bad.
So retract my original argument in which I posit drugs played a role. This is why you should always wait until you have all the information before forming an opinion. I didn't think the story would blow up like it did. I just assumed it was some random altercation. The video is why it went so viral. I think Penny is not without some guilt here. Keeping someone in a choke for so long is going to end in death. It's likely Neely was not rendered unconscious near-instantly from blood loss to the brain, such as from a sleeper hold as I assumed from the original story (I assumed Penny put Neely in a hold, and then Neely went limp in 20-30 seconds and did not come back), but far worse, had been suffocated to death, like being held underwater because his windpipe was restricted. That's why he was flailing around. It would have been more humane had Penny just shot him although that would have carried a worse charge.
A second degree manslaughter conviction is not that bad. only max 15 years for killing someone, and with parole Penny may only spend 5 years, which is a pretty lenient sentence for killing a guy, and not even in self defense or accident. By comparison, Ross Ulbricht faces multiple life sentences despite not killing anyone. I cannot say Penny is not without some blame in this matter. But In Penny's defense, the police took too long to come, and despite Marine training he and his accomplices didn't know what else to do.
I think he might be guilty of going too far. I expect a hung jury because these cases haven’t been working in NYC.
I think the bigger question is what should we be doing with people like Neely? He’s obviously a net negative utilitarian value on society harassing people all day with a potential to have a bad moment and throw someone in front of a train.
Just locking him in a cell seems a little mean and drastically increases his suffering. My solution sounds a little like slavery where we put people on a farm with supervision. He gets to do a little work like taking off vegetables etc. But is removed from society.
I have settled on what I think would be referred to as "nicer prison" if using honest verbiage. The important part for me is that people like him are separated from decent society. Once that decision is made, it seems obvious to me that this should be made no more unpleasant for him than absolutely necessary. If it's feasible for him to do a little work as you suggest, sure, that seems like a more meaningful life than some other options. If he wants to basically just play video games all day, that's pretty much fine by me. If he'd like to walk around the grounds, that's fine as long as he's not getting into fights with others too frequently. Ultimately, I would leave the administration of this to people with much more expertise and interest than I with the basic mission of, "don't let this guy out, but don't make his life any worse than it has to be". I'm fine with funding this at fairly high levels because I think the current policy imposes massive externalities. How much would I pay for a subway that didn't have angry vagrants, begging pests, and meth-addled lunatics? A lot.
The issue with your proposal is that you have to provide the guy with some form of due process, and you'd need to establish what is practically an entirely separate division of the court system to do this. One of the reasons institutionalization started to wane in the 1960s was that the existence of psychiatric drugs meant that a lot of the people who were previously hopeless were now capable of leading normal lives. These people obviously didn't want to continue to be committed to a nuthouse, and the state has no interest in supporting people who are capable of supporting themselves, but there was an impasse because many of these people had lifetime insanity commitments. So the laws changed to require periodic reviews to determine if there was still reason for commitment. These reviews, of course are expensive, as you need to have a judge available, a representative of the state available, get an advocate for the inmate appointed, get testimony from doctors, etc. For every inmate, like once a year. So the goal became getting people with mental health problems either on their own or into group-home type settings where they could potentially have jobs outside and lead somewhat normal lives. This is obviously only one factor in the demise of institutionalization, but it's the relevant one for my case.
By and large, the system has worked. Historically, the main institutions for the Pittsburgh area were Mayview State Hospital and Woodville State Hospital. Mayview had over 3700 patients at its peak in and Woodville had 3200. By the time Mayview closed in 2008 it had a mere 225. By contrast, the winter 2022 homeless population of Allegheny County (the most recent year for which data is available) was 880, and only about 250 of them had severe mental illness. You could house all of the county's homeless population at just one of the old hospitals, though I'd personally want to limit it to people with mental illness, drug addiction, chronic health problems, and physical disabilities. In one fell swoop you eliminate all the people who are wither causing problems or are charity cases in need of treatment (I'd try to keep domestic violence victims separate because they are neither causing problems nor in need of treatment).
I'd propose a system where if someone gets arrested for something minor and meets certain criteria, like having a history of being homeless and committing the kinds of crimes the homeless commit, the prosecutor gives them the option of living in a voluntary residential community similar to a state hospital. The person could also be referred by a social worker if they aren't causing problems but are chronically homeless and have health problems or disabilities. If they opt in they are evaluated and either put into a treatment program or labeled long-term if it's unlikely treatment is going to help. Once in, they'll be given treatment they need and plenty of recreational activities, etc., including the opportunity to work if they so desire. They're free to leave at any time. That's the carrot. The stick is that there is a crackdown on public disorder caused by homelessness. If you don't opt in you will be prosecuted, and your social worker ain't gonna save you, because she wants you in the program. If you opt-in the program but leave before your treatment program is over or before 2 years in the case of chronics, you'll forfeit your right to go back into the program and will be dealt with by the legal system. The place would be nice but just crappy enough that no one who can live independently would live there voluntarily. I'm thinking mid-level assisted living facility.
That probably takes care of about half the homeless population. With them out of the way, we can focus on housing and employment and all the other things without them getting fucked up by the problematic people. Housing a bunch of strangers in a large dormitory is a lot easier when you know that none of them have any particular inclination to use drugs or steal from other residents or harass the women. The goal here should be to make sure that they have a place to sleep and keep their stuff and take a shower and do laundry so they can stay presentable for the the job market and either keep their jobs if they have them or go back to work if they don't. These places wouldn't have all the amenities as the institutions but there would be no restrictions on coming or going and would be more like a college dorm. The only real difference is that you're still in "the system" and any arrests or violations of drug policy (I'm thinking obvious signs of use, not mandatory searches) would have you shipped of to the institution or to jail.
It would be expensive but, honestly, if the state was willing to pay for round the clock care for over 7,000 people in Allegheny County (plus a few surrounding counties) in 1967, then doing less for fewer than a thousand should be a no-brainer. Hell, with commercial real estate in the shitter you could easily take a few floors from a downtown office complex and use that to house the normal homeless. The problematic ones would have to be on an estate with grounds somewhere out in the countryside since you can't just bottle them up like it's a prison, and that could get expensive since the sites of the old ones are now all luxury homes, but hey, they shouldn't have gotten rid of them in the first place.
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