61–70 of 104 posts
The system is working as intended. I've seen a lot of talk recently about crime and calls for various people to be imprisoned; everyone from carjackers to right-wing vigilantes. In the midst of these conversations, please remember: prisons exist to torture prisoners. Excerpts from another recent Marshall project article: > An officer who broke his baton hitting a prisoner 35 times, even after the man was handcuffed,…
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You're expected to feel the limit. What is the sufficient punishment for a 2nd murder? Does it include being arbitrarily robbed of your work? What is the lightest transgression that deserves being treated with implicit promises about basic freedoms followed by taking them away without a warning?
I would even go so far as to call that cruel and unusual.
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No!
Prison should be either removing you from society because you don't fit (being and having act on liking to kill people for example) OR for forced education/correction of social behavior.
Prison in your sense is torture not justice
> A software change in my prison-issued electronic tablet ate up my drafts I didn't realize that prisoners were allowed tablets. Evidently there is a business that will give prisoners tablets at no charge, but then basically charge them to use those tablets. This seems like something a non-profit could do a lot better job of.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are several philosophical approaches to the purpose of prison. 1. Revenge 2. to keep society safe from dangerous/anti-social people 3. to provide a safe space for rehabilitating people for re-integration. I tend to view (1) as the worst possible option, even discounting the fact that we are completely 100% aware of the existence of false convictions. You are entitled to believe that revenge is a valid society c…
I don’t fully buy into rehabilitative Justice. I’ve not read an account of how to handle one off crimes. Things like manslaughter or negligence. Crimes with extremely low rates of recidivism. Should people who commit these crimes be let off without consequence? If the point is character building, do you simply keep people imprisoned until their character improves. I’m not saying you have these answers but I haven’t s…
This means removing your freedom to move and not necessarily turtoring you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are several philosophical approaches to the purpose of prison. 1. Revenge 2. to keep society safe from dangerous/anti-social people 3. to provide a safe space for rehabilitating people for re-integration. I tend to view (1) as the worst possible option, even discounting the fact that we are completely 100% aware of the existence of false convictions. You are entitled to believe that revenge is a valid society c…
I don’t fully buy into rehabilitative Justice. I’ve not read an account of how to handle one off crimes. Things like manslaughter or negligence. Crimes with extremely low rates of recidivism. Should people who commit these crimes be let off without consequence? If the point is character building, do you simply keep people imprisoned until their character improves. I’m not saying you have these answers but I haven’t s…
There are two things I feel about this, first is prisons as they are in many countries are really bad for the employees, lots of suicide etc. As a prisoner being put away for years with minimal contact with the outside world is a really heavy punishment even if you live a life without constant fear.
A society that mistreat people is not something to strive for, and making prisons as bad as they can get will affect society as a whole. Paying prisonguards a little extra to take the risk of suicide seems really rotten to me.
Edit: this extends to warcriminals.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90794291/e2808be2808bwhat-a-penn...
I always have trouble with posts like these, the comments are full of people who ask why prisons exist, and seem to imply they would rather crime and criminal behavior not be punished at all. They also chafe at the idea that prisons should be allowed to inhibit their inhabitants’ freedom in anyway. As if prison should actually be a really nice free hotel that we send people who commit murder and rape. I totally get t…
Don’t generalize that no one wants no prisons. Our prisons should not operate like Abu Ghraib. Why are drugs, weapons, sexual assault and violence occurring in what is supposedly secure facilities? Why are prisons allowing/encouraging tribalism along racial/ethnic lines? Why is rape and sexual slavery permitted?
Our tax dollars fund all of this.
Other industrialized nations have better training for law enforcement and much better prison systems, which don’t operate like hellholes.
They don’t promote a private prison industry which lobbies for longer sentences so that their firms get to bill the state and enrich their owners.
The system is working as intended. I've seen a lot of talk recently about crime and calls for various people to be imprisoned; everyone from carjackers to right-wing vigilantes. In the midst of these conversations, please remember: prisons exist to torture prisoners. Excerpts from another recent Marshall project article: > An officer who broke his baton hitting a prisoner 35 times, even after the man was handcuffed,…
Non violent and violent offenders should be treated differently. Hurting someone’s car is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. The author of this article killed someone. Making sure he is comfy is a bit disrespectful to the deceased and their family. I don’t know all the details but it has always seemed a bit messed up that someone can hurt or kill you and your societies main concern would be how to rehabili…
I always have trouble with posts like these, the comments are full of people who ask why prisons exist, and seem to imply they would rather crime and criminal behavior not be punished at all. They also chafe at the idea that prisons should be allowed to inhibit their inhabitants’ freedom in anyway. As if prison should actually be a really nice free hotel that we send people who commit murder and rape. I totally get t…
If it's possible to do so and sufficiently discourage crime up front, still reduce recidivism, and keep society from harm, then yes, absolutely.
Being the real world and lacking such a perfect solution doesn't mean that can't still be the direction we aim in.
The goal is maximizing net benefit to society.
There's absolutely some amount of benefit to the satisfaction the punitive approach can have for those harmed, there's definitely benefit to getting people to choose to not commit crimes due to consequences (but with diminishing returns), and there's absolutely benefit to keeping actively dangerous individuals separate from society. However, when we make prisons so bad that people come out as dangerous or more dangerous than they went in, has society actually benefitted on the balance?
Are we, collectively, better off because one murderer was made utterly miserable for 15 years who is just as likely to murder again than we are if that same murderer was made moderately inconvenienced for 10 years, but is less likely to murder again?