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Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#31

Post by crusso »

mabbo wrote: post #11

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people, then we're going about it in a very strange way. Lock people away in a cell for a decade, deny them a lot of basic human rights (like books) then when they're good and messed up in the head from it, let them lose on the public. If they re-offend, well, that's clearly a sign that they are just a bad person . Best lock the…

if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people

You imply that rehabilitation is the only reason for prison and that there are proven methods of rehabilitation.

Rehabilitating people is hard and we don't know of any great ways to do that. Removing criminals from society is easy and straightforward.

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#32

Post by thatswrong0 »

crusso wrote: post #31
mabbo wrote: post #11

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people, then we're going about it in a very strange way. Lock people away in a cell for a decade, deny them a lot of basic human rights (like books) then when they're good and messed up in the head from it, let them lose on the public. If they re-offend, well, that's clearly a sign that they are just a bad person . Best lock the…

if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people You imply that rehabilitation is the only reason for prison and that there are proven methods of rehabilitation. Rehabilitating people is hard and we don't know of any great ways to do that. Removing criminals from society is easy and straightforward.

> Rehabilitating people is hard and we don't know of any great ways to do that.

Other countries have lower recidivism rates. Why not copy their leads? (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why...)

If the point of our prison system is to lower crime rates, it isn't doing a very good job.

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#33

Post by maxerickson »

ceejayoz wrote: post #20
SteveGerencser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they should. If you are going to give away a college education it should probably start with the people not in prison and even earlier before they begin to commit crimes. I understand the desire to rehabilitate people, but when those in prison have more services and resources handed to them than the general population gets then there is a serious problem. If we started earlier in the education process and young st…

The national average cost to keep someone a prisoner is $31k/year. http://www.reentryeducationnetwork.org/advocacy-platform.htm... > New York State college in prison programs have also proven effective, with only 7.7% of incarcerated people who attended college classes re-incarcerated compared to the 29.9% recidivism rate of those who did not attend any college classes. A 75% reduction in recidivism will pay for comm…

The RAND meta analysis at your link (reference 3) rates the quality of the studies it analyzed. Among the groups that were assigned randomly (to have educational intervention or not), the reduction in recidivism was about 40%.

(I had wondered how self selection factored into the numbers...edit to add: I did not mean to suggest that the 40% I quote is directly comparable to the numbers in your post, I meant to share the factoid that the effect was strong when a quality control for self selection was present)

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#34

Post by netcan »

mabbo wrote: post #11

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people, then we're going about it in a very strange way. Lock people away in a cell for a decade, deny them a lot of basic human rights (like books) then when they're good and messed up in the head from it, let them lose on the public. If they re-offend, well, that's clearly a sign that they are just a bad person . Best lock the…

There are a bunch of reason. Different people rank them differently. Deterrence, Removal from society. Justice. Rehabilitation is a tricky one. It's hard.

But in any case, I think there's absolutely no to torpedo rehabilitation in the way that we often do in prisons.

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#35

Post by tptacek »

ceejayoz wrote: post #12
mabbo wrote: post #11

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people, then we're going about it in a very strange way. Lock people away in a cell for a decade, deny them a lot of basic human rights (like books) then when they're good and messed up in the head from it, let them lose on the public. If they re-offend, well, that's clearly a sign that they are just a bad person . Best lock the…

The Governor of New York proposed giving prisoners in essence a community college education while incarcerated. Outcry from the public and lawmakers made him shelve the concept, despite studies showing massive drops in recidivism from such things.

Moralism aside, there's a point at which prisoner benefits can create an incentive to commit crimes. Not rape and murder, of course, but if you're 18 years old and driftless and already weighing the costs and benefits of, say, a commercial B&E, the fact that your worst case scenario includes a college education will have an impact. I'm not silly enough to think it would make criminals out of people who weren't already, though.

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#36

Post by lotsofmangos »

Retra wrote: post #29
SteveGerencser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they should. If you are going to give away a college education it should probably start with the people not in prison and even earlier before they begin to commit crimes. I understand the desire to rehabilitate people, but when those in prison have more services and resources handed to them than the general population gets then there is a serious problem. If we started earlier in the education process and young st…

Maybe we shouldn't give prisoners free room, board, and healthcare over the public while we're at it.

There are already some attempts to charge those in custody for room, board and medical procedures, even going as far as trying to charge for involuntary procedures involved in searches. Or police requiring $3,000 for property damage for getting blood on their uniforms after beating up a guy with a different middle name as who they were looking for.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/us/in-riverside-california...

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/14/new-mexico-ma...

http://www.elpasotimes.com/latestnews/ci_26100843/aclu-woman...

http://www.npr.org/news/documents/2014/DAVISINF.PDF

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#37

Post by lazyant »

tptacek wrote: post #35
ceejayoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Governor of New York proposed giving prisoners in essence a community college education while incarcerated. Outcry from the public and lawmakers made him shelve the concept, despite studies showing massive drops in recidivism from such things.

Moralism aside, there's a point at which prisoner benefits can create an incentive to commit crimes. Not rape and murder, of course, but if you're 18 years old and driftless and already weighing the costs and benefits of, say, a commercial B&E, the fact that your worst case scenario includes a college education will have an impact. I'm not silly enough to think it would make criminals out of people who weren't alread…

that's what the biggest welfare system in the US is for (the military)

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#38

Post by cmdkeen »

KaiserPro wrote: post #15

And ofcourse Mr Grayling has done his best to destroy Judicial reviews that highlight this kind of problem. Basically if you want to challenge a law, a judicial review is the only way you can go about it (going through the political process, writing to an MP and the like leaves you open to the whim of the press and "public opinion") http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/18682/... If this law goes thro…

At what point has the judicial review become merely the means for judges to disagree with government policy? This wasn't a law change, this was a change to an existing policy about what prisoners could receive in parcels. Judicial review seems to have become an all too regular occurrence used by people who don't like what a particular government is doing.

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#39

Post by cmdkeen »

bainsfather wrote: post #8
Shivetya wrote: post #4

The one issue brought up which I think it a legitimate concern is, how do you insure the book is not used for improper purposes. Those would be but not limited to, concealment of prohibited objects, drugs, and messages? You can screen for some, but I would expect all parcels to have some limited form of search. I would tend to think a better option would be to fix the availability of library services to prisoners, pe…

In the uk, prisoners get sent other parcels, they of course are screened. No real reason for not allowing books. This ban was just the prisons minister playing to the tabloid press. "a better option would be to fix the availability of library services to prisoners" - alas, this is not even a bad joke. In e.g. high security prisons, you might get to visit the library once every 4 weeks. If (or these days, more often t…

And the article talked about upping the number of books a prisoner can keep in their cell, which seems a better solution for all prisoners than the few who have people who will send them books.

I wonder how many prisoners are being sent the poet laureates work anyway?

A far better solution is to fix prison libraries, perhaps if all the heat being generated by literary types was directed at that, rather than "OMG they banned books" types protests, we might be able to get more books.

For instance there are literary trusts that donate sacks of books to all children at various points in their life in parts of the UK. Why not set up a prison literary trust that donates books to all prisoners? Get it signed off by the state as an "approved source" and a real change occurs. But then protesters wouldn't get to protest.

Re: Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court

#40

Post by atmosx »

tptacek wrote: post #35
ceejayoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Governor of New York proposed giving prisoners in essence a community college education while incarcerated. Outcry from the public and lawmakers made him shelve the concept, despite studies showing massive drops in recidivism from such things.

Moralism aside, there's a point at which prisoner benefits can create an incentive to commit crimes. Not rape and murder, of course, but if you're 18 years old and driftless and already weighing the costs and benefits of, say, a commercial B&E, the fact that your worst case scenario includes a college education will have an impact. I'm not silly enough to think it would make criminals out of people who weren't alread…

To me is strange for anyone to choose a life where he is absolutely not free, just to get a college degree. Degree or not, having jail time in your resume will have a (extremely?) negative impact.
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