Do We Still Need Prisons?
volteface.me
Do We Still Need Prisons?
1–10 of 105 posts
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#2Yes.
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#3Are you kidding? Think of all the prison guards with no skills who would be unemployed if we closed prisons!
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#4Seems like the cost-benefit analysis of caning looks pretty positive
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#5We're always going to need some prisons. Because as much as many people are possible to rehabilitate, there's always going to be a (rather small) percentage that are simply dangerous to just about everyone and everything around them. See, some of the worst examples of serial killers. You don't really want to risk the possibility of letting them near anyone else, and house arrest (or a traditional psychiatric ward) might not be secure enough in a few cases...
But we should be sending a far lower percentage of criminals to prison, yes.
On another note, could virtual reality potentially be an interesting punishment here? There are a few articles online about the possibility of having someone experience what feels like 10,000 years in 8 hours, and the concept could potentially be used for literal imprisonment too (like say, in The Matrix). You could give someone who's simply impossible to rehabitate a virtual life that fits their own worldview...
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#6Are you kidding? Think of all the prison guards with no skills who would be unemployed if we closed prisons!
As tongue-in-cheek as this is, it raises a valid point. Corrections industry unions are large and powerful.
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#7"...the Dutch are housing Belgian and Norwegian prisoners to fill their prisons"
Exporting prison space! Wow!
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#8Spoken like a truly out of touch academic.
Here's an incident that took place last week in a town near me:
A man with a beer and a condom approached a random couple on the sidewalk and declared his intention to have sex with the woman. When she declined, two of his brothers and a fourth man appeared from behind a bush, beat the man into submission and dragged the woman back to their apartment. They barricaded the door and raped her. The criminals had multiple previous charges including DUI and were illegal immigrants AND they had sneaked into the U.S. a 2nd time.
But I suppose letting them "live with and be closely supervised by a family" will straighten them out. /s
What the author doesn't acknowledge is that prison is the best thing we have come up with so far. We all want something better, but we don't have it. And his touchy-feely concepts are perhaps adequate for shoplifters and soft-drug offenders, but not a family of gang rapists.
The true problems with the prison system are the overwhelming numbers of non-violent offenders who are disproportionately ethnic minorities. It would also be a good idea to improve rehabilitation efforts.
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#9We're always going to need some prisons. Because as much as many people are possible to rehabilitate, there's always going to be a (rather small) percentage that are simply dangerous to just about everyone and everything around them. See, some of the worst examples of serial killers. You don't really want to risk the possibility of letting them near anyone else, and house arrest (or a traditional psychiatric ward) mi…
That sounds more like we need insane asylums not prisons.
Politically we find it easier to deal with people that can't function in society as criminal than sick and historically Insane Asylums have been really nasty places. However, I don't see the advantage of keeping criminals in the same place as the insane.
Re: Do We Still Need Prisons?
#10I think author forget that prison ALSO means that we are isolating someone dangerous, someone that is dangerous for society, that's why we lock him up. There will be no other solution/place for murderers etc. Period.
I really would like that authors of that kind of articles go to areas where there is a lot of gang activities and live there for couple of months. I am sure they would change their mind.