Redstate

One difference is that these guys are trained killers, as most inmates - even violent ones - aren't. But what makes them qualitatively different is that their religious/political ideology makes them impossible to deter and thus much more likely to engage in organized attacks on the guards even while incarcerated.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

Yeah, we saw from the Zarqawi video just how far that training goes.

At any rate, this story doesn't sound like anything that couldn't be solved by better prisons. I find it hard to believe that two "properly handcuffed" inmates both just happened to be able to slip their cuffs at the same time. And a response time of somewhere between 20 minutes to an hour is fairly ridiculous.

The idea that our prisons aren't equipped to handle brutal inmates seems absurd. And the idea that we're dealing with large numbers of highly trained supermen even more so.

Guantanamo has a few truly dangerous people, and a lot who aren't.

Lots of poor innocent poverty stricken immigrants, falsely accussed by an inhuman dictator, yes? Poor little things, let's free them immediately!

absentee

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with that ridicule, but are you denying the well-documented & generally accepted fact that Guantanamo held a few very dangerous people and a lot more who were not dangerous (hundreds of whom have already been released into freedom) ?

Whether they're poor, or "immigrants" (from where? to where?) or who they were accused by is irrelevant.

35 have been recaptured or killed attempting to kill our soldiers again. That's just the ones who we know about. How many more of those "hundreds [who] have already been released" went back to what we caught them doing the first time?

These are illegal combatants who have been taken prisoner. You might want to read the Geneva Conventions. They are not granted any rights by any law or treaty ever signed by the USA (or anyone else I can think of). It would and has already been, the height of stupidity to release them before the end of hostilities. And outright stupidity to bring them into US prisons, which would give them access to the US legal system (well, more access, rather) and better propaganda use for the enemies of this nation.

"Always be honest with yourself. Even if you are honest with no one else."
--me

...when we're too busy paying for the incarceration of criminal aliens:

"In 1980, our federal and state prisons
housed fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. By the end of 1999, these same
prisons housed over 68,000 criminal aliens.1 Today, criminal aliens account
for over 54 percent of federal prison inmates and represent the fastest
growing segment of the federal prison population. Over the past five
years, an average of more than 72,000 aliens have been arrested annually
on drug charges alone."

...

"Incarceration of criminal aliens cost an estimated $624 million to
state prisons (1999) and $891 million to federal prisons (2002), according
to the most recent available figure from the Bureau of Justice
Statistics."

"The New York State Senate Committee on Cities estimates that the annual
criminal justice costs for criminal aliens in New York is $270 million.
The Committee has called for a national moratorium on immigration to
help alleviate this problem.2 According to the Illinois Governor’s
Office, Illinois spends over $40 million just on the incarceration of
criminal aliens. The cost to Florida’s judicial and correction system for
criminal aliens was $73 million in 1993. 3 In 1988, there were 5,500
illegal immigrants in California’s prisons. By fiscal year 1994- 1995, that
is estimated to have increased to more than 18,000 illegal immigrants in
state prisons—a three-fold increase. California taxpayers have spent
over a billion dollars in the last five years to keep these convicted
felons in prison, and the FY 94–95 cost of incarcerating these offenders
exceeded $375 million.4 The federal government has begun to reimburse
heavily alien-impacted states for some of the costs of illegal alien
prisoners in their state prisons. For 1996, Congress appropriated $300
million for this program."

Yeah, what we really need is more criminal aliens in our prisons.

http://www.oregonir.org/CriminalAliens.htm

A non-ideological serial killer who just happens to like to kill people for fun, can be "deterred" because he doesn't have that jihadist ideology. A mentally unstable & retarded violent criminal who was abused his whole life and now lashes out to hurt people, can be "deterred" simply because he doesn't have that super-special jihadist ideology. A drug dealer whose gang is in a fight of honor with another gang, and happens to be placed in the same cell block as some of their members, can be deterred from attacking the guard who tries to separate them, because his gang loyalty and honor isn't an "ideology" like those jihadists have.

Is far less likely to coordinate with others and ends up being a single actor.

A guard who steps in between members of warring gangs is either stupid or is supported by several other guards and aided by the fact that the gang members are distracted by trying to kill each other. Also, the guards
are aided by the fact that your average gang member doesn't want to die.

Jihadists face none of those constraints. They will work with anyone who will assist them in killig Americans, even other Americans. They don't care about dieing and even welcome the prospect (72 virgins anyone?). And they are, on average, as bad as, if not worse than, the most hardened member of the worst prison gang. They have no compunctions about who they kill or how.

This all adds up to one of two possible outcomes in typical prison populations.
They will either unite the various gangs and execute a very powerful, coordinated prison riot and potential escape.
Or they will convince the other gangs that they are too dangerous and will be eliminated.

I am sure everyone here is hoping the prisoners opt for choice #2 if the Jihadists Are incarcerated in American prisons.

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

...undeserved privileges and freedoms. I also think prisoner-on-prisoner violence must be reduced. But none of these reforms should come about as a result of the prison system's response to murder, mayhem and proselytizing by Jihadi prisoners. Are you also OK with the huge surge in prison rape that is bound to come with the Jihadis?

he's real tough on women as well as little kids.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

we let him spend the night in a cell with some of his terrorist friends..
====
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison

But then my faith in the 16th amendment is even more shattered.
The entire Constitution hangs by a thread awaiting the pleasures of a band of rapacious neo-con Goths and Vandals. Freedom is extinct, terror reigns, little children are hidden in closets, doors bolted and double locked before sleepless nights interrupted by the screams of the innocent and the pounding of hob nailed boots in the streets.

And many Americans, unable to stand it anymore, rush to their drugstores to purchase ample supplies of both laxatives and sedatives. An idea potentially beneficial to some.

"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville

in our prisons.
Let's see.. mix gasoline fumes and a match... wonder what will happen.
====
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison

Only illegal combatants and suspected illegal combatants (aka terrorists).

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.