Prisons should NOT be for punishment.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

I have seen people call for punishment so many times. I don't understand it.

The prison system in its current state is detestable. They conditions are shitty, and inmates can do most whatever the hell they please if they play their cards right. They can rape others (something which I've seen people applaud for and condone), not to mention the numerous assault and murder cases within prisons.

So many people view our prisons as a system of punishment. And in their current state, they are. But they shouldn't be. Prisons should be a method of rehabilitation for those who are capable of it, and a safe way to remove those who aren't from society. A Prisons goal should be simply that. 'Fix' those that can be, and for those that can't simply give them somewhere to live where they can no longer hurt anyone.

I understand the thought that people who have done terrible things should be punished for them. But really, what's the point? It gives no comfort to those they have wronged (unless some sort of sadistic pleasure is gained), other than the fact that they are away from others, which can be achieved without violence.

This is indeed a rant of sorts, however I think it is a very important issue for us as democrats, but also for us as human beings.

[ixion]

1. I agree... if you are not violent, you shouldn't be behind bars

there can be other types of penalties arranged, but tossing decent people into that gaping maw is not the solution.

[Blaze Diem]

2. Agreed on both posts. Violent crime and crimes against

children. The prisons are full of people who did neither of these things but ermerge with the same stigma forever.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. But...

Throwing all and sundry, who transgress, behind bars is a hell of a good business. Makes a lot of folks quite wealthy.

Of course, it wasn't the initial reason for forming a justice system, but hell, we really don't have a justice system anymore. It's more of a revenge/slave labor/taxation and user fee/new stock market segment system.

[cali]

8. what about white collar criminals like the enron crooks

and dozens of others?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Confiscate their assets.

That's gonna hurt MORE than jail time for THOSE people.

[physioex]

13. Like the poster below...

Would you considers Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld "white collar"?

[cali]

18. they're in a class all their own

but in any case, I do think white collar criminals belong in jail, if only as a deterrent.

[Heywood J]

47. Right on.

Steal the pensions of poor people, insider trade shares when you have secret information, defraud Grandma Millie out of her money to pay bills, and do what you can to ensure rolling blackouts across the country - crippling the economy while lining your own pockets. It's even better if you do so while poisoning children with deadly toys and toothpaste or feeding soldiers expired food out of trucks used to transport festering, liquefied corpses, before you ship them home to live in squalor.

Then you know society won't do a damn thing to you other than to confiscate the assets you leave out as bait, while you continue to walk around for the rest of your life, potentially flying off to the Caymans or Paraguay to make a withdrawal from that secret off-shore account and live out the rest of your days on the beach as a free man. Just like Josef Mengele.

Yeah, there's an ideal justice system. No prisons!



(The :sarcasm: tag applies to some of this post)

[Trillo]

4. Prison labor should be outlawed.

Prisoners and prison administrators shouldn't be allowed to compete with non-imprisoned workers in any field of endeavor.

If someone's picked up a gun and murdered someone else, I think there's a very reasonable argument that the murderer, once convicted, should be separated from the rest of civil society.

Are you arguing otherwise?

[physioex]

11. It is that simple but not that simple.....

I read somewhere that a large percentage of prisoners never even graduated high school. Most are illiterate and can't even read. Sure there are elements that do as you say, but we can go along way in reducing the numbers.

[Trillo]

20. Maybe. But it might not be so simple :)

I've seen those reports about the lack of high-school graduation increasing chances for incarceration. It's fine with me if prisoners have a prison school to go to, and a library of classics to read from, legal texts, fiction, etc. Seems like a constructive thing for them to be exposed to.

But what, really, does having a high-school diploma do for you? Qualify you for a burger flipping job? Or a ditch digging job? The stats also don't show much if any monetary value added from a high school diploma.

Another thing to consider is why did those imprisoned dropouts dropout in the first place? Was school too punitive? Too inflexible?

I'm imagining a chicken and egg problem. Would the violence have been an outcome had compulsory education not been in their picture at all? If they violently rebelled because of some things they didn't like about school, it seems there might be a lesson in school, meant just for them, that the ways of civil society (which currently includes some compulsory and punitive education) didn't work. What are they left with? (answer: breaking the law, 'cause following the law didn't work) Perhaps they violently broke laws as a statement to others about tyranny in society's larger sense, simply because school was the only thing they'd yet experienced of the greater society around them, and school itself was unjust.

Why should compulsory schools be allowed to expel kids, but the law still require attendance? If that's not outright Stupidity, it is sanctioned Hypocrisy.

[varkam]

31. With respect to prisoners, however, I think you are discounting...

...other possibilities for why they did not complete their education. You seem to infer that it is something about school per se that caused them to not finish school, whereas I think that there are a multitude of different possibilities that can affect one's ability in the classroom (such as unstable family life, drug use, etc).

[Trillo]

34. Merely pointing out that correlation is not causation.

Drinking milk can negatively influence behavior in classrooms, if you're allergic to milk, that is. There are clear ethnic differences in tolerance for cows' milk.

It's entertaining to look at correlation and say it means something, but what precisely does it mean? As you point out, and as I thought I did singularly, there are many possibilities.

[varkam]

35. I understand that.

I may of misundertood your argument, as I only saw the explanation that there was something wrong with the way schools are run that could cause people to drop out.

[flashl]

28. How do all those dumb prisoners made all these neat things for Unicor to sell?

unicor

Furniture, clothing, electronics, shoes, computer circuit boards, limousines, data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria's Secret -

[Trillo]

36. Big difference between school and doing something.

I don't think it's primarily about "dumb" versus "smart":

• K-12 school is abstract


• making something is real

All those things prisoners are making are taking jobs away from those who aren't imprisoned. Additionally, the wages it's alleged they're paid seems like an incentive to imprison more.

Lawyer slams prison wages

J. Tony Serra, celebrated by filmmakers and fellow lawyers as an advocate for the downtrodden and jailed by the feds for dodging his taxes, was out of prison and back at work Wednesday -- suing over the low wages federal inmates earn and citing the 19 cents an hour he got for watering penitentiary gardens.

"I'm angry at a system that perpetuates, from my perspective, slave labor," Serra, 72, said at a news conference in his office on Broadway in San Francisco's North Beach. Behind him was a prisoner's painting showing a shackled and grimacing inmate in the hands of two guards.
(more)

[flashl]

42. Exactly

Our $60 billons in tax dollars for corrections takes jobs from individuals OUTSIDE of the prisons because of low wages. It enriches stock holders and endownments for institutions like Yale. Cprrections companies are the #1 U.S. employer.

[BlueJazz]

5. There's a lot of Folks behind bars simply for the fact that they're poor....

...and could not afford a decent defense for their trial.

Also..even the ones that have committed no violent acts should be stuck in a place that is not a path to rehabilitation

[jgraz]

6. Can we just leave one for Bush and Cheney?

Those two are beyond any sort of help.

[ixion]

9. I would label both of them as violent

and definitely a danger to society.

[jgraz]

14. Has anyone ever measured the value of punishment for society?

Seriously, I think having Bush and Cheney hauled around in stocks from town to town and handing out rotten tomatoes at each stop would have a huge salutary effect on the nation's psyche.

[varkam]

7. K&R

I am a bit disheartened with seeing normally reasonable people frothing at the mouth over certain crimes and demanding that the offenders be skinned alive.

Retribution, in my opinion, should never be the sole consideration when determining an appropriate sentence as essentially all that does is take an already damaged person and just make him more damaged - as if that somehow benefits anyone.

What should be the main consideration is whether or not a certain individual is a threat to others. If so, then he or she should be locked up until it is determined that they are no longer a threat. Other important considerations are deterrence as well as affirmation of societal norms and values.

I think people tend to lose sight that criminals are still people, regardless of what they have done. I understand why that is, as some crimes that are committed, especially those against children, are despicable in nature and consequently outrage us. But I think what people need to try to understand is that even if we affirm that these people are still human beings and should be treated as such, that doesn't mean that we have to condone their actions - rather it means that we can apply sentencing fairly and with a basic sense of humanity.

As far as prisons are concerned, some serious attempts at reform need to be made. Currently, it is essentially a human warehousing operation with a recidivism rate of 60-70% and an annual price tag of 60 billion dollars. Our current system is neither serving victims, offenders, or society-at-large. I think disagreeing with that purely on emotional grounds is really an immoral thing to do.

[Evoman]

16. Agreed.

Moreover, torture, rape, and murder are wrong, no matter who it is done to.

[varkam]

21. Even to torturers, rapists, and murderers.

I'm reminded of the Nietzsche adage that when slaying monsters take care not to become one yourself. When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

37. I like that quote BTW.

:thumbsup:

[mudesi]

10. That's too coldly logical for conservatives to understand

They are ruled by their emotions, nothing more. Just look at the number of people right here on DU, who call themselves liberals/progressives who still support the death penalty.

It's textbook GOP manipulation.

[Zoigal]

15. Agree totally

Prisons should be for rehabilitation and educating for those who can make it back
to society; a decent holding place for those who aren't able to function in normal society.
Have never thought that the "country club" prisons for white collar crimes was fair though
considering the conditions that regular prisoners live under. p

[immoderate]

17. Reforming prisons is not enough.

We have to redistribute the work. Some of these people are superfluous and that leads to trouble.

--IMM

[H2O Man]

19. Respectfully disagree.

While I think that the US prison system is run in a terrible way, and think it requires a significant amount of reform, I disagree that one of the purposes should not be punishment. Our entire legal system is based on the idea of justice, which includes consequences for one's actions. If a person is pulled over for a speeding ticket, they may be fined, and have an increase in their insurance. That is punishment. There would be little reason to obey the speed limit if all a police officer could do is pull you over and give you a warning that involved no consequence.

People who are convicted of crimes of fraud may have to repay the money they stole. That's a consequence. People pay for their criminal activities. That is part of their punishment. Likewise, those who show a disregard for others, and who end up behind bars, are facing a consequence. Incarceration is punishment.

The sad thing is that our prison system is breeding more violent criminals, for a wide variety of reasons. Those who straighten their lives out will almost certainly do it in spite of the prison, not because of it.

[varkam]

22. I think that you and the OP might actually be in agreement.

Of course, I do not speak for the OP but I think that the grips with the correctional system is that it seems to be primarily for punishment with little to no focus on things such as rehabilitation, educational programs, treatment groups, etc. I think punishment and retribution are inherent in the system, and cannot be removed, but that seems to be where our system stops.

[Hydra]

23. You know, a properly minded felon could come out of prison MORE dangerous

than as they started. The conditions inside lead to a dog eat dog mentality(the exception being banding together for increased protection- gangs). A person who is not feeling too guilty of what they did or didn't do could emerge smarter, more patient and with a better idea of how to get away with it the next time(dead victims tell no tales).

In their lust for blood, I think many people forget that hellholes breed bigger monsters. C'est La Vie- our society is dying already- why not let it fall to this?

[sandnsea]

40. That's been proven

There are studies that prove that people who go to a local jail for a petty crime do not change the way a person who is sent to a prison for the same crime. I remember we had a client who we put through out-patient drug treatment, and was sentenced to prison anyway. After he finished his prison sentence, they told him he had to go to a 1 year in-patient drug treatment to undo the psychological damage from being in prison. Crazy. But that's what our system does and it's damn hard to convince people otherwise.

[Raejeanowl]

24. I'm Open to Viable Alternatives

Prisons have always been about punishment. In an idealized system, the least punishment exacted was deprivation of liberty, removal from general society, and life in generally less than luxurious conditions.

My personal view is that only a small percentage of a prison's violent offender population is interested in or capable of rehab, and that the most violent incarcerated offenders are those who might have otherwise received the death penalty for their crimes on the outside, if the justice system weren't decades into its erosion in favor of the restoring/protecting the offender vs. restoring/protecting the victim.

We're compounding the problem by imprisoning smaller-time or non-violent offenders with the violent, teaching them jungle survival skills, and getting them confused with the truly irredeemable. This is where we need to focus the rehabilitation efforts.

If I had a loved one taken from me violently, I wouldn't waste a moment of my time in sympathy for the guilty party (the guilty party's family, perhaps) and what they'd face in a violent prison population. While I would ultimately cringe from "sadistic pleasures," being enacted, the tortures of the damned would surely cross my mind. At minimum, I'd demand that the society in which I live agreed with me that taking my loved one's life was totally unacceptable. Giving the offender another chance when my loved one had none wouldn't quite do it.

[Hydra]

27. 2 things

1. The logical extension of your idea is execution for violent offenders, which I have no problem with...but

2. Our police seem to have a bad habit of putting the wrong people away

Makes it very difficult to deal with in any fair fashion, as things stand now.

[Perseid]

25. Prison is for punishment, but

should also be for rehab, counseling, therapy, medications, etc.

Not just punishment. It's ridiculous

[Perseid]

26. forgot to write

prisons have turned into the home for the mentally ill, and it's not "right".

[SergeyDovlatov]

29. Prisons

Not in a particular order

1. Keep dangerous peoples locked up
2. Punish (with the hope to deter crime)
3. Punish (as a retribution for the victims)
4. Rehabilitate
5. Pay their debt to society (if prison labor is allowed)

I think arguments could be made to support any of the reasons above.

[varkam]

32. I think all of those are valid...

with the exception of rehabilitation. I don't know if you've ever been in prison or not, but there's not a lot of rehab going on AFAIK. As it stands right now, it's essentially a warehousing operation with no focus on teaching inmates skills that they will need to survive independently of the system - which could even be something so simple as balancing a checkbook. I think that, when looking at a recidivism rate of 60-70% and a system that costs taxpayers 60 billion a year, we're dealing with a system that is broken.

[flashl]

41. Prisons

1. Billion dollar businesses
2. According to Barron's great to add to stock portfolio
3. Operates based on U.S. Census data

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. We see this see saw in US History

right now we are seeing the pressure towards redemption and reeducation

My view is... 99% are comming out, give them the tools to stay out.

;-)

[varkam]

33. Which I think

is a consequence of the "lock-em-up and throw away the key" mentality the began in the Reagan years.

[sandnsea]

38. Rehabilitation facilities for people who need help

That's what we need. Addictions, mental illness, sexual offenders. The violent sociopath needs to stay in prison, and they're the only ones who should be in prison. We'd be a lot better off with an entirely different system that recognizes how few people really need to be in prison.

[cynatnite]

39. I actually think it should be a combination of both...

punishment and rehabilitation. I want those who break the law to learn their lesson, but I also want them to go out in the real world as socially responsible adults who understand and appreciate the need to follow the law. That takes rehabilitation.

Our prison system is a symptom of how our society has failed. It goes back to the homelife, the economics, the environment and other factors where our society and government has so ignorantly savaged humanity that we're stuck with the problems we've created. It will take several lifetimes to make a start in order to fix it.

[BoneDaddy]

43. Some criminals can be rehabbed

others cannot. Some people deserve punishment.

[JerseygirlCT]

44. I agree with you nt

[jpgray]

45. In some cases it should. Most serial killers lose the urge to kill by late middle age

Yet if someone kills thirty people, that person shouldn't be let out even if rehabilitated, in my view. Some crimes are so horrific that the perpetrator's likelihood of committing such again ceases to be the determining factor for parole.

[BadgerLaw2010]

46. That's "incapacitation" not "punishment"

Incapacitation - Person cannot play well with others, so we protected others from him.
Punishment - Person didn't play well with others, person gets time out because he's "bad."

[piedmont]

48. I don't think you read his post. nt