As bad as they may be, do criminals deserve nice luxuries in prison?
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
On one end, prisons need to be punitive. ...On the other end, prison does need to be rehabilitative.
That's a great theory and nobody would argue with it. The problem is it's also not possible to achieve with the constraints of today's society. In other words, in order to make prisons so punitive that they are worse than the "outside world," you would have to make it possible for us to legally starve someone, as they did in the olden days. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how "boring" prison is, anyone would rather be "bored" than hungry. Or you might say, "prison is terrible, you could get killed or raped in there, so clearly nobody would want that." Actually, lots of prisoners feel more at home in that environment than they do outside of prison because they know how to navigate those waters.
And on the other end, when you say prison should rehabilitate people, absolutely. Of course, there's no actual way to do so. In other words, it's a total hit or miss proposition. If someone does happen to change their ways, it's entirely up to them. There is no system where you can magically transform someone into a law-abiding citizen who loves to go to work from 9-5 and pay taxes when a year ago they were mugging people or raping women.
Either way, I think everyone involved can agree that having prisoners laying around on lawn chairs and sunbathing doesn't meet either of your objectives.
That's a great theory and nobody would argue with it. The problem is it's also not possible to achieve with the constraints of today's society. In other words, in order to make prisons so punitive that they are worse than the "outside world," you would have to make it possible for us to legally starve someone, as they did in the olden days. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how "boring" prison is, anyone would rather be "bored" than hungry. Or you might say, "prison is terrible, you could get killed or raped in there, so clearly nobody would want that." Actually, lots of prisoners feel more at home in that environment than they do outside of prison because they know how to navigate those waters.
And on the other end, when you say prison should rehabilitate people, absolutely. Of course, there's no actual way to do so. In other words, it's a total hit or miss proposition. If someone does happen to change their ways, it's entirely up to them. There is no system where you can magically transform someone into a law-abiding citizen who loves to go to work from 9-5 and pay taxes when a year ago they were mugging people or raping women.
Either way, I think everyone involved can agree that having prisoners laying around on lawn chairs and sunbathing doesn't meet either of your objectives.
I don't agree that we would need to starve people in order to make prison worse than the outside world. Loo, I'm a humanist and I support human rights, but I don't think it's too harsh to take away meals as punishment for bad behavior within prison. I don't think they should be missing days worths of meals, but if they're constantly causing problems, only give them breakfast and make them sit in their cell alone all day. And I do think this would mean cracking down on the "prison culture." Even non-violence should be punished if it promotes that culture. Not excessively harshly. As I said, I think boredom is a better punishment that you're giving it credit. I mean genuine boredom. They have cells where they're alone; nothing to read, nothing really to look at. They can't talk to anyone or hear anyone. They just sit there. They don't know what time it is and they don't really have anything to do.
But, that alone can't change behavior, which is why rehabilitation is important. Rehabilitation looks different crime to crime and person to person. For some, they just need patience or whatever. Who knows; I can't diagnose the need without specifics, obviously. Slightly different but still relevant, I think we need to re-evaluate sentencing laws. If you compare our prison times to other European countries, we put more people in jail for way longer. To me, most prisoners shouldn't be in there for more than 5 years, even fewer for 10. My reasoning, it's expensive and not helpful. If they're truly an unstoppable danger, sentence them to 15 years and make a need for rehabilitation a requirement for release. Deny them rehabilitated status (unless they think otherwise of course) and suddenly you have a life sentence without even having to give it. My theory there is that if someone really wants to break old habits, telling them they'll never leave the prison doesn't exactly inspire the desire to put effort into that. If there's hope, some people will try.
I'm not naive enough to think every prisoner can or wants to be rehabilitated and our system should have a method for dealing with that. As I said, requirements for rehabilitation should be expected, particularly with violent sentencing. I also think a second offense should be taken incredibly seriously for violent crimes. I can see a possibility that someone caught for breaking and entering twice could maybe still get their life on track. But getting caught with rape twice? My sympathy for you has been dramatically reduced to basically none. As I said, I think refusing the possibility of future freedom can make things worse, but we shouldn't be naive: at a certain point, there's nothing we can do.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
