The co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX pleaded not guilty to a seven count indictment charging him with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
An attorney for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said in federal court Tuesday his client has to subsist on bread, water and peanut butter because the jail he’s in isn’t accommodating his vegan diet.
Welcome to the American corrections system, abuses like this and worse happen every day and we just don’t normally hear about them because the defendants aren’t famous like this one is
Its not a corrections system, it’s a punishment system; unfortunately.
People aren’t reformed after leaving prison. Many ex-cons are forced into even worse situations and have to resort back to crimes to survive.
I don’t think a system that’s focussed on rehabilitation rather than punishment would be popular with American voters.
Countries that do focus on rehabilitation in western democracies, often hand out less long sentences and treat their prisoners relatively nicely. Their own cell, tv, etc. Still prison though, being robbed of your freedom is punishment in and of itself. On average that leads to better outcomes, lower recidivism, …
But on a case by case basis, discovering someone who committed a heinous crime was let out after 10 years? Sure, often monitored, evaluated, and with stringent conditions. Sure, only if the chance they’ll do it again is very low. But still. It doesn’t feel right. Same thing with nice prison cells. Show the average American a Norwegian prison cell, and tell them it houses a rapist, and they’ll be understandably offended. Think it isn’t fair. Which it almost certainly isn’t, but you don’t lower the chance of repeat offending by sticking someone in a cage for ten years.
Also, I do wonder if these kinds of prisons are possible in a country without a semi-decent social safety net. If jail’s better than being homeless, and homelessness is rampant, people will commit crimes just to escape. You end up rewarding criminals, because jail is comparatively nice compared to their existence outside jail.
The American political stance of “hard on crime” is why we will never see legislation reforming our prison system.
Start talking about prison reform, lowing mandatory sentences, zero tolerance, prisoner rights, and living conditions and see how hard you get attacked.
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They don’t have to be. That’s not the point of it: the point is to punish them or permanently keep them locked away. If we wanted to guarantee they’ll never hurt anyone ever again, we’d execute them and still do in some states.
YOU DON’T SAY!
It’s funny because the little shits like him who think they are smarter and above the law, are the same people who are going to power trip on him in jail. I really hope he spends the rest of his life there, see what it’s like to be shorthanded for once.
The article says that he can already get vegetarian and that they’re looking into getting vegan.
Most of the fruit, veg, rice, beans, oats, grits, bread, salad, condiments, pasta, juice etc. on the menu would be vegan any way. There might some mixed with milk or butter, but most is just going to be boiled, baked or fried in oil. Plus all the stuff from the commissary.
I think you vastly overestimate how many foods are made without animal products. I’m not even fully vegan and I often find it hard to get food that doesn’t have some kind of dead animal in it.
Well I linked the menu. It should be clear there are plenty of options
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I keep seeing the sentiment in this thread that if you go to prison you basically deserve whatever happens to you, which is a fucked up stance in itself, but more importantly:
Why do the cows, chickens, etc. deserve to suffer because someone is in prison? Does that make sense in any moral framework? How would you feel if we bagged random people not guilty of anything and forced prisoners to watch them tortured “on their behalf” as a form of punishment? That’s pretty much the same situation ethically and everyone would agree it’s fucked up.
Yeah I admit I’m very torn about this. On the one hand this idiot kid managed to blast through 50 fucking BILLION dollars of other peoples’ money and shows zero remorse. On the other hand, I’m wondering what the ethical responsibility of the state is for accommodating prisoners’ dietary needs from medical conditions, religious observation, and ethical/personal preferences eg vegetarian/veganism etc. I don’t like punishing people beyond what the court orders, and it is really disturbing when people cheer and joke about things like prison rape.
Seems to me it shouldn’t be too difficult to make a vegan “meatloaf” type food that checks all the boxes. Sort of like ordering the Kosher meal on an airplane. It’s not gonna be great but it’ll get you there.
It’s the same thing with the trans woman Jan 6th rioter. She deserves punishment, but it should be humane. No one should be forced to serve a sentence where they don’t belong, and we shouldn’t be OK with it in any instance just because we disagree with the person. We should take the opportunity to improve things for everyone.
(We can still appreciate the irony of a trans person supporting Trump/Republicans and then being upset that their gender is not being recognized, then asking MTG and that lot for help. It shouldn’t happen, but it is ironic.)
I didn’t hear about that. I’m trying to think of something funny or snarky in response but I got nothing. Some people 🙄
I’d quickly be tempted to adopt a personal conviction requiring medium rare sirloin, loaded baked potatoes, whiskey/cokes and similar fare. If there’s no economy of scale, that’s not my issue. Respect my religion. It’s very specific.
Veganism is considered a protected characteristic in the UK now (defended in court) so there is precedent for this. What religion or protected ethical stance requires you to follow such a diet?
Wait I’m legitimately confused about this.
I agree with you in the first paragraph.
I’m confused about what you mean by animals suffering because someone is in prison. Don’t they suffer regardless of if someone is in prison? Like, the animal would die and be eaten, regardless of where the meat is sent.
I’m pro animal rights and all that btw, I just don’t get the connection you are making here.
The meals will (I assume) be allocated on inmate numbers, so the animal will be reared, killed, transported, then thrown in the trash because someone doesn’t want to eat it.
More generally this is the weird ‘opt out’ culture of food, where vegan is considered the exceptional position, which is kinda stupid, in my opinion.
Why would the default be the diet of a small minority?
Because humans don’t need meat to survive.
Humans don’t need anything but nutrient slop to survive, but the prisons aim for something better largely because it keeps riots down.
Sure, but you could e.g. start with slop and then let people request something different. That’s what I meant by ‘default’. Perhaps there’s a better world?
I sure there’s a fancy word in psychology, but it’s like if everyone is given choice x automatically, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that x seems to be what people prefer.
I’ve noticed a similar thing in the Subway sandwich store: there are approximately the same number of vegetables and meats available, but if you look at the menu there is just one ‘veggie’ option, and a multitude of different meat combinations.
You could, but the only reason to do so would be to accommodate a small minority’s ethical dietary decisions, which is the opposite of a default.
No one’s going to chose the slop so there’s no point in having it.
As for subway, their menu is largely determined by sales. They do trial other options occasionally, and the ones that are popular stay.
They’re saying that animals suffer because people eat them. That, therefore, all humans should be forced to a vegan diet.
They did not say that at all. They said, if you are a vegan and consider animal slaughter a form of torture for animals and you are for some reason imprisoned, is it reasonable punishment to force you to accept this torture of a third party (the animals) on your behalf?
Ah ok, I get what you are saying now. Got it.
I think the missing link is that the prison warden doesn’t even think about the animals - they just think, this is food, eat the food. They aren’t intentionally causing animal suffering, its just a build in part of the system that society as a whole has accepted as normal. So someone not eating the food is just being annoying, in their eyes, regardless of their reasons.
Is this ethical? Fundamentally no, because it accepts animal suffering as a premise. But it makes sense why the prison isn’t accommodating them.
that is what you believe they think, it is not at all what they said.
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My friend you have not seen a slaughterhouse video, have you?
The Dominion movie will change the way you look at things, especially the carbon dioxide chambers they use to suffocate pigs. Shit’s whack, man.
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In these comments, People who:
- think vegetarian is close enough to vegan.
- don’t realise vegan items are no longer vegan if they’re for example, cooked in butter.
- want prisoners to rot in jail from the inside out, literally.
I have noticed for a supposedly progressive network, there are a lot of posts recently on news stories about prisoners supporting capital punishment and wishing prison violence on them. Very odd stuff.
I’m hesitant to say PINO but there is definitely a cadre of folks who want (for example) food and shelter for the homeless and for their enemies to starve to death in a ditch.
Yeah, it’s amazing how fast some people can dehumanise their perceived enemies yet stil think they’re the good guys.
This has been repeated in case studies around the world since then but the Nuremberg Trials were the first public use of “But of course the other officers at Auschwitz were terrible people but I am not a terrible person!” The psychology would be interesting if it weren’t so frikkin horrific. But I suspect SBF isn’t that so much as a complete and total narcissist and sociopath.
Some of these “enemies” dehumanise themselves very easily. Narcisistic sociopaths who actively and openly brag about manipulating “idiots”, saying they’re the best shit to ever grace the earth and downplay their crimes while laughing all the way to the bank to withdraw ill gotten gains? Yeah, real hard to believe they’d ever want to redeem themselves.
Couple that with the general feeling that rich assholes always get lightly punished whenever they’re caught and it’s even easier to understand the bloodlust for “proper punishment” against them.
I think it has more to do with rich people getting away with murder because they are rich while homeless people getting the worst punishment for stealing a loaf of bread or sleeping on a bench.
And the rest of society getting sick and tired of it, so I see their sentiment.
I don’t believe in capital punishment though, let alone a death sentence.
The thing is, if the rich are getting treated like this in prison, surely it’s going to be even worse for literally anyone else.
It already is
When you consider “let X rot in jail” as “capital punishment”, count me in.
I think it’s the “rot” that’s unbecoming to me there. Implicating you don’t think prisons should be hygienic and comfortable for prisoners.
Hell yeah there should be support for capital punishment.
Move to Iran then, you may like it there.
Do you really expect a jail to cook things in butter? If they could get away with it, they would probably cook things in waste oil from the next garage.
True enough, but it was just an example. More likely something like mashed potato will have milk or other dairy. Even vegetarian nutriloaf might not qualify as vegan.
Point is not everything that starts out vegan ends up vegan on the plate.
Most margarine isn’t vegan either.
It isn’t? What do they put in there to make it non-vegan? The whole idea was to get rid of the expensive animal parts…
They usually contain buttermilk or whey (on top of vegetable fat of some kind). They won’t be vegan unless they specifically say they are.
Seriously, this comment section makes me want to leave Lemmy forever. Why would I build a community with these people?
Unfortunately this isn’t just Lemmy, or even Reddit. People irl feel this way.
Actually, to Lemmy’s credit, I’ve seen way more pushback to that mentality here than I’ve seen anywhere else.
It’s like Reddit all over again. Guess we shouldn’t have too high hopes for humanity.
I will say that it gives me hope that so many people are pushing back in threads like this. I’ve been trying a lot of platforms in recent months, and places like Tildes, HackerNews, and even Beehaw seem to be better able to have constructive conversations about heated topics. So we’re not alone!
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I have a feeling the only reason this guy is facing consequences is because he defrauded other rich people.
That’s what happened with Elizabeth Holmes, too. She defrauded both her investors and the patients using her products. She was only convicted of one of those. Guess which one?
Yep. He fucked with the money.
Anytime a big corp gets caught fucking with poor people worse they get is a slap on the wrist fine maybe 10 of what they profited and maybe 1-2 years max in prison time for a few fall guys.
Wonder how chewed this dude is about to be.
I don’t believe his choices are THAT limited. Most prisons will have a self-service line with a choice of boiled veg, rice, beans, potatoes, pasta, fruit, grits, oats. Also, and just generally, boo hoo for him. Funny how his ethics extend to what he eats, but not who he steals from.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I was arrested when I was protesting in El Paso. They just brought trays of slop to us in our cells three times a day. It looked close to an '80s elementary school lunch but slightly lower quality. It really wasn’t reasonable. I was found not guilty because Americans are supposed to be able to protest. The FBI felt otherwise when they cut off part of the tape proving my innocence but got caught doing so without consequence.
Federal institutions have a national menu that they’re meant to provide. I’ve linked to it elsewhere and if inmates don’t receive it then there are avenues to complain through. And to be clear I’m sure even in the best of circumstances the food still sucks, but there is a menu and there is choice. It is also VERY clearly spelt out in the MDC Brooklyn inmate’s handbook on page 13 what the food is and an inmate’s options regarding it and any religious / dietician exemptions.
IMO this is SBF being a precious entitled asshole in prison thinking he’s above the conditions that everyone else in there is subject to. “Oh look at poor me I have to eat bread water and peanut butter”. Meanwhile reality says he’s lying. This is merely the latest incident of him attempting to control the narrative. He can’t tamper with witness so he’s holding a pity party and we’re supposed to care.
Yeah, local jails are bad, and juvenile facilities are even worse. Been in both (but luckily not a federal facility).
The entire criminal justice system in the U.S. is evil. It’s all about money and retributive “justice” to get votes/campaign money. It serves no purpose otherwise, because it sure as hell ain’t built to rehabilitate people. Any attention to the wrongs of the system is welcome, IMO.
Also bread and water is a vegan diet, lol
We never get news articles on how the common prisoner views the food. Fuck this billionaire thief and fuck NBC news.
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The only reason this is being talked about is because he was a billionaire. Boo hoo poor guy stole 7billion Dollars, and now can’t have the lifestyle he was used to
It’s funny how we want to be treated as human beings but when it’s about someone we perceive as “the enemy” human rights be damned. “We” should not be treated unfairly, but “they” deserve whatever they get.
Yup, people treat criminals like literal monsters so they don’t have to face uncomfortable moral dilemmas. It’s very black and white, and easy.
It’s also incredibly depressing, and goes to show how many people lack basic empathy.
“We” are following the rules society has agreed on. “They” are being selfish assholes and fucking up other people’s lives.
No one is saying criminals don’t deserve some form of punishment. I’m saying that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve basic humanity. Even if someone stole a lot of money I’m not ready to condemn that person to a life of constant pain and humiliation.
It’s not about what they “deserve”, it’s about the bare minimum humane treatment I would be willing to accept for any human being.
Spot on. The very reason I subscribe to the left wing is because I believe everyone deserves a decent life as far as possible, including people who’ve (allegedly) committed fraud.
I would prefer if everyone is treated equal. But it is clearly shown that rich people get special treatment. If you can let bring everyone up, bring the special people down
Is it accurate to call him a former billionaire? My understanding is that he essentially embezzled ~$50 billion investor money and never truly owned it himself. Didn’t he take a ~$1 billion “loan” from the company for example?
I think it’s more accurate to say “he had signature authority over accounts with billions in them” not “he was a billionaire” but idk…
Hate the guy, pretty much, but tbh if it’s true this isn’t okay.
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what is it with fraudsters and weird hair
Aliens.
what’s weird about letting your curly hair grow out regularly, it’s one of the regular styles of the world I thought
Could be an intentional filter. Those that are bothered by it won’t talk to them, so they don’t have to work harder to filter them.
oooooh - good call
My guess is mental illness
Jail should accommodate a vegan diet, but it also seems like they are to some extent. PB sandwiches are food. As long as he can cobble together a nutritionally complete diet, it isn’t cruel to have boring meals. Obviously JUST peanut butter sandwiches won’t do it but I have to think they have potatoes, beans, rice on the menu too, stuff like that.
Just because they’re on the menu doesn’t mean they’re vegan. They’re often made with meat or meat stocks.
Yeast is alive he should go with just water. Also fuck him and everyone like him.
They should get him those vegan meals the airlines have in economy class. That would work, no? Vegan enough for him to eat, but not enjoy.
Airplane meals aren’t really that bad.
It is just that at that altitude, the pressure causes your taste to work worse than on the ground.
So I’m afraid it wouldn’t really be a punishment.
Honestly, as a vegetarian myself (not vegan though), lots of airlines these days have a single meal that satisfies Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Low Sodium, Low Sugar, etc… I’m sure it saves them lots of money, but hot damn are they disgusting.
Absolutely the Best solution
So there IS a vegan option.
Bread and water.
Bread, PB, and water is a perfectly fine meal. That shit was a delicacy when I was a kid in post-soviet Europe.
Besides, he’s in jail because he fucked up his bond. He’s not there to have a good time.
Depriving someone of nutrition isn’t an acceptable punishment.
Who here said anything about depriving him food? He is depriving himself, because he is fixated on an idea that is 100% ideology, compared to just taking the vegetarian option.
It’s not a punishment. Jail is the result of alleged bond violation through witness tampering. The same meal that every other prisoner eats there is made available to him. He’s not deprived of nutrition. If there was a medical reason that requires a vegan diet (like the prescribed adderall), don’t you think his lawyers and the media would be crying about it? No, his veganism is most likely a lifestyle choice. Still on nutrition - he may dislike it, but he can survive on boring food.
It sounds like he’s depriving himself
Yeah, I object to that as well. It may not be easy having empathy for a billionaire vegetarian but ….
When my kids were little, they took tours to meet first responders and see the facilities and equipment. However when police got to the hold facilities, they decided it was a “scared straight” opportunity. Part of their standard procedure was to
stealmake you pay to buy youdisgusting greasy swilltheir choice ofkids mealtheir quantity at the nearest fast food place. You have no choice, no reasonably healthy options, no allowance for anyone not used to all that grease, and you have to pay for it. I guess spending the day half starving while sitting on the toilet is “justified” for people who haven’t even had a chance to face charges yet.…. Oh and they were practically gleeful to point out that after a certain time Friday afternoon, the magistrate wouldn’t respond until the next week, so you would be stuck.
…. Oh and they were practically gleeful to point out that after a certain time Friday afternoon, the magistrate wouldn’t respond until the next week,
I had that happen to me personally when I was arrested on a traffic charge (driving on a suspended license that I didn’t know had been suspended).
