Ben Carson Is Concerned That U.S. Federal Prisons Are Too Comfortable

Republican presidential candidate, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, speaks at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Saturday, July 18, 2015. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
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According to Ben Carson, the problem with American federal prisons is that they’re just too comfortable for the prisoners’ own good.

“I was flabbergasted by the accommodations — the exercise equipment,
the libraries and the computers,” he said in a speech Tuesday to teenage Republicans in Arlington, Va., according to the Washington Post.

Carson said he learned that “a lot of times when it’s about time for one of the guys to be discharged, especially when its winter, they’ll do something so they can stay in there.” He also added that “a lot of people that we incarcerate don’t need to be incarcerated.”

Following his speech, Carson told reporters that U.S. prisons may be too comfortable, according to the Washington Post.

“I think that we need to sometimes ask ourselves, ‘Are we creating an environment that is conducive to comfort where a person would want to stay, versus an environment where we maybe provide them an opportunity for rehabilitation but is not a place that they would find particularly comfortable?'” he asked.

Carson has opined on how he thinks prisons affect inmates before. In March, he said he believes that being gay is a choice because because some people enter prison straight and start identifying as gay while in prison.

“Because a lot of people who go into prison, go into prison straight — and when they come out they’re gay,” he said. “So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”

H/t Mother Jones

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Notable Replies

  1. Carson should know about comfort, because he provides it for whites in the Republican party.

  2. And the rapes. Don’t forget the rapes, Ben. This guy is a real asshole.

  3. Oh, yeah. Make sure they’re uncomfortable, don’t give them any real way to exercise the body or mind. That way when they come out they’ll be resentful and angrier than when they went in. State prisons can tell you how to do that.

  4. Ben’s a puzzle—the only and only thing his brain is useful for is fixing other people’s brains. For any other purpose he might as well have a skull filled with hamster bedding.

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