An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse: An Essay On Prison Reform from an Insider's Perspective

Prison 

Policy Initiative

An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse: An Essay On Prison Reform from an Insider's Perspective

 

By Jens Soering
Lantern Books, 2004
113 pages, $12
reviewed by Stephen Healy and Peter Wagner 

   

For more than a decade, the Prison Policy Initiative has been at the forefront of the movement to expose how mass incarceration undermines our national welfare. With a lot of hard work and generous support from a small network of individual donors, we've won major civil rights victories in local governments, state legislatures and even the Supreme Court.

When Virginia lifer Jens Soering released his second book, An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse: An Essay On Prison Reform from an Insider's Perspective he fired a warning shot across the bow of the prison industrial complex. An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse is the best short, readable, fact-drive summation of why prisons don't work, but what makes the book so powerful is that it is written by a conservative Christian addressed to other fiscal conservatives.

Fiscal conservatives define "good government" as "small government", so by using a simple cost-benefit analysis, Soering shows that locking up 2 million people fails to justify the $57 billion cost. While progressives may oppose the current criminal and penal systems for social and ethical reasons, Soering's arguments have the potential to split the Republican party's fiscally conservative base from its "get tough on crime" leadership.

Using fresh analysis and groundbreaking arguments to bring sometimes dry statistics to life, Soering's book is organized around six myth-busting chapters:

• There is no problem,
• They may be expensive, but at least prisons prevent crime,
• Crime prevention does not work,
• Rehabilitation behind bars does not work,
• There are no alternatives to prison, and
• Criminal justice issues are so important that no one would dare mislead the public about them.

Soering, a German citizen serving two life terms, brings a unique perspective that allows him to challenge common ideologically derived assumptions from both the right and the left. Soering place the US prison in an international context to show precisely how US prison policy fails us. While all modern societies have a "crime" problem, the United States stands virtually alone in relying solely on expanding its punitive incarceration system to address the problem. Soering explains that the prison population has grown not because of a growth in crime, but because of a complete systemic failure to prevent people already in the system from re-offending. The majority of prisoners who are released either fail to successfully complete parole or are shortly returned to prison after committing a new crime. Judged by any standard used in the marketplace, "corrections" is an abysmal failure.
One good conservative solution? Fiscal incentives.

Reducing poverty has proven results in reducing crime, because people with something to lose are less likely to commit a crime. But reducing poverty has been anathema to neo-conservatives like Bush. "The poor do not deserve it, and we can not afford it anyway," they say. But from a fiscal conservative perspective, it makes good economic sense to end poverty. After all, the poverty line in the U.S. for a family of three is $13.22 a day per person. That's supposed to pay for everything. By contrast, incarceration costs on average, $55.18 a day. Soering asks whether reducing poverty would be both cheaper and more effective at reducing crime. And of course, in some places incarceration costs far more than the average. In the Fairfax County, Virginia, jail, incarceration costs $130.00 a day. That's quite a decadent expenditure by society, particularly considering that a night's stay in a Walt Disney World no-frills resort can be had for only $119.33.

In an age where conventional "liberals" have adopted the neo-liberal "welfare reform" program, it is ironic that one of the clearest defenders of the social safety net is a writer with an ideological tie to the people who opposed Johnson's War on Poverty. But as Soering points out, spending on education and other social services for the poor -- not mass incarceration -- is more in line with fiscally conservative social principles because social services do lower criminality and its associated costs. This is simply that the stitch in time saves nine.

Beyond the title, drawn from that of a white paper issued in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher's conservative English government, the book contains very little moralizing about "bad" people. That title will no doubt make some progressives wince, but it's also a reflection of the genius of the book. It's a fact of reality that conservatives believe some people are "good" and some are "bad". While progressives might not agree with the fiscal conservatives about why crime exists, we can certainly agree that that the $57billion a year spent on corrections isn't improving public safety.

This isn't a radical book that questions how we define crime or one that imagines a new world where prisons don't exist. Instead, the book is a highly effective indictment of the prison industrial complex as a massive failed experiment whose time has come and gone.

How to Detect Virtual Spies and Spying

 

How to Detect Spies

Make no doubt about it, online spying is becoming more prevalent and more sophisticated. It is important to understand that there are different levels of spying. For example, Alexa, popular software owned by Amazon.com doesn't actually log your keystrokes or take system snapshots but it does record some surfing activity. However, programs like Spector are very skilled at stealthily gathering information including passwords, surfing history, and even chat logs and e-mails. If you have not done so already take a moment to read our Introduction to Spyware located here here.

So how do you know if you are being spied upon? We list the key points below on how to monitor your system and check for the signs of spy software.


1) Work Environment: Assume you are being monitored. Most workplaces have the right to do this so by default so get used to the fact that someone is monitoring you. There are several ways employers can monitor employees. Some use activity logging software to see what programs are being accessed and for how long. Naturally, many will use spy software programs also known as "snoop ware" or a key-logger to take snapshots and log all keystrokes. An employer may actually monitor internet traffic as it moves across an intranet. Responsible employers will have policies on monitoring posted on monitoring practices, P2P file sharing, IM or chat usage and e-mail and web surfing.

2) Anti-Spy Programs: A popular way to find out if someone is spying on you. Anti-Spy programs look for signatures or traces that are specific to certain spy software. Some simply do text string scanning to find them, and others actually extract and attempt to remove the spyware. Be careful of the ones that use only text string scanning. Text string scanning can give false positives and in some cases it actually it can accidentally target anti-spy software! Beware! There are a number of rogue anti-spyware applications that will inject spyware into your system instead of removing it.

Of course, Anti-Spy software can be a double-edged sword! Many spies will actually buy anti-spy software to scan and check to make sure their spyware is not being detected. There is a hidden arms race that rages between spyware vendors and anti-spy companies.

3) System Resources: Poorly written spy software will usually put an enormous drag on system resources. Watch out for poor system resources, running out of memory, lots of hard disk activity or a screen that "flickers". This is caused by some spy software programs as they take snapshots of the computer screen that requires system resources.

4) Machine Access: Watch for people trying to gain physical access to your machine. Many software programs are designed for spying but require physical access to the target machine.

5) Installation Monitors: Currently on the market are software programs that will log every installation that occurs on your machine. It is best to leave these hidden on the system. It is possible to catch the installation of many spies in this way.

6) Anti-Virus: Many anti-virus programs can catch prolific spy software because they are often classified as "Trojan Horses". Keep spy software up to date and make sure it is running in the background. This might not protect you against from some spy software but it may let you know if any repurposed Trojan horses have been installed. Keep in mind that Trojans (see below) like NetBus or DeepBO are also classified as spy software because they open up a system to outside connections. Don not be lulled into a false sense of security because you have one installed. They are helpful but there is no such thing as 100% foolproof protection.

7) Personal Firewall: In today's treacherous Internet it is very helpful to also run a personal firewall. Firewalls will alert you to both inbound and outbound activity. You can control programs allowed in and out of your system. Watch for suspicious programs you do not recognize trying to send data out of your system.

8) Downloading Smarts: Simply put use common sense when downloading and avoid sources you cannot trust. If you are someone who frequents "warez" or crack sites you will more than likely encounter a Trojan or virus. The same applies for Peer-two-Peer applications as well.

9) Common Sense: Be careful about what you install on your system. Don't run e-mail attachments and read the EULA (end user license agreement). Keep an Up-To-Date Anti-Spy Package on your machine.

10) Spy Software: Ironically, you can monitor for spy software by installing spy software on your system first! Since spy software can record all keystrokes it can monitor and record the installation of another spy software. Again, this turns into a virtual arms race, but keep in mind that many spy programs are vulnerable to anti-spy attacks.

Intro to Greynets and Spyware

 

Intro to Greynets and Spyware

There are a lot of differing opinions on what the definitions of Parasiteware Spyware, Adware and Malware should be.

In order to help you we have provided brief definitions in this miniature spy primer.

Greynets

Actiance considers IM, P2P and spyware part of a larger, fast-growing set of unsanctioned applications called "Greynets." Greynet applications are downloaded and installed on end user systems, without expressed permission from, or awareness by IT (and often without even the end user's awareness - as with spyware) and then use evasive encryption and port agility techniques to traverse the network. Greynet applications include instant messaging, P2P file sharing, web conferencing, SKYPE, web mail and adware/spyware and anonymizers.

Greynets Landscape

 

 

Greynets Market Study

Actiance Communications and NewDiligence, a market research company, conducted a Greynets Research Study compiling data from 622 IT managers and 564 end users across small, medium and large businesses to learn about the corporate use of Greynets and the impact of spyware and virus incidents within organizations. (Data collected May through July of 2005.) Key findings can be found below.

Request the complete results of the Greynets Research Study.

Key Findings:

• Enterprises are spending on average $130,000 per month in IT time fighting spyware problems.
  
  
• In general, end users believe they have the right to install Greynet applications at the workplace. They also believe IT has any security issues associated with Greynets under control. 87% of the same end users reported a spyware or virus problem resulting in slow internet response times, pop up ads and corrupted files.
  
• Among IT managers who have rolled out perimeter security, consisting of gateway AV, URL filtering and IDS/IDP, 77% have had either a virus or spyware incident in the past 6 months.
  
• According to the research findings within the next 6 months virtually all end users will have deployed some type of Greynet application and 8 in 10 end users (78%) now use one or more Greynet applications; based on stated intentions this number will rise to 93% in the next 6 months.
  
  
• 3 in 10 IT managers who experienced a virus incident, report that IM has been associated with such occurrences. A similar proportion report that IM has been associated with spyware.

Expected Growth and Adoption of Greynet Applications By Endusers

Number of Greynet Apps In Use At Work Locations

Source: Actiance Greynets Research Study, Aug 2005

ParasiteWare

 

ParasiteWare is the term for any Adware that by default overwrites certain affiliate tracking links. These tracking links are used by webmasters to sell products and to help fund websites. The controversy is centered on companies like WhenU, eBates, and Top Moxie, a popular maker of Adware applications. These companies have release their software to assist users in getting credit for rebates, cash back shopping, or contributions to funds. To the end user ParasiteWare represents little in the way of a security threat.

Adware

Adware, also known as an Adbot, can do a number of things from profile your online surfing and spending habits to popping up annoying ad windows as you surf. In some cases Adware has been bundled (i.e. peer-to-peer file swapping products) with other software without the user's knowledge or slipped in the fine print of a EULA (End User License Agreement). Not all Adware is bad, but often users are annoyed by adware's intrusive behavior. Keep in mind that by removing Adware sometimes the program it came bundled with for free may stop functioning. Some Adware, dubbed a "BackDoor Santa" may not perform any activity other then profile a user's surfing activity for study.

AdWare can be obnoxious in that it performs "drive-by downloads". Drive-by downloads are accomplished by providing a misleading dialogue box or other methods of stealth installation. Many times users have no idea they have installed the application. Often Adware makers make their application difficult to uninstall.

A "EULA" or End User License Agreement is the agreement you accept when you click "OK" or "Continue" when you are installing software. Many users never bother to read the EULA. 

It is imperative to actually read this agreement before you install any software. No matter how tedious the EULA, you should be able to find out the intent BEFORE you install the software. If you have questions about the EULA- e-mail the company and ask them for clarification.

Spyware

Spyware is potentially more dangerous beast than Adware because it can record your keystrokes, history, passwords, and other confidential and private information. Spyware is often sold as a spouse monitor, child monitor, a surveillance tool or simply as a tool to spy on users to gain unauthorized access. Spyware is also known as: snoopware, PC surveillance, key logger, system recorders, Parental control software, PC recorder, Detective software and Internet monitoring software.

Spyware covertly gathers user information and activity without the user's knowledge. Spy software can record your keystrokes as you type them, passwords, credit card numbers, sensitive information, where you surf, chat logs, and can even take random screenshots of your activity. Basically whatever you do on the computer is completely viewable by the spy. You do not have to be connected to the Internet to be spied upon.

The latest permutations of Spyware include the use of routines to mail out user activity via e-mail or posting information to the web where the spy can view it at their leisure. Also many spyware vendors use "stealth routines" and "polymorphic" (meaning to change" techniques to avoid detection and removal by popular anti-spy software. In some cases Spyware vendors have went as far as to counter-attack anti-spy packages by attempting to break their use. In addition they may use routines to re-install the spyware application after it has been detected.

Malware

Malware is slang for malicious software. Malware is software designed specifically to disrupt a computer system. A trojan horse , worm or a virus could be classified as Malware. Some advertising software can be malicious in that it can try to re-install itself after you remove it.

For the purpose of simplicity Malware is software specifically engineered to damage your machine or interrupt the normal computing environment.
Examples of Malware include:

Page Hijackers

Hijackers are applications that attempt to usurp control of the user's home page and reset it with one of the hijackers choosing. They are a low security threat, but obnoxious. Most Hijackers use stealth techniques or trick dialogue boxes to perform installation.

Dialers

A dialer is a type of software used by pornographic vendors. Once dialer software is downloaded the user is disconnected from their modem's usual Internet service provider and another phone number and the user is billed. While dialers do not spy on users they are malevolent in nature because they can cause huge financial harm to the victim.

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