Yup. There’s a song by Jedi Mind Tricks called Shadow Business. He says:
Slavery is not illegal, that's a fucking lie!
It is illegal, unless it's for conviction of a crime.
The main objective is to get you in your fucking prime.
And keep the prison full and not give you a fucking dime.
But they the real criminal keeping you confined.
For a petty crime but they give you two-to-nine.
I never really understood the lyrics until another article posted on HN recently and was shocked at how truthful the lyrics were.
This comes up a lot and comes down to the fact that we overload the concept of a prison sentence with both punishment and reform. Sadly, they are typically not conducive to each other. Recidivism rates in the US are terrible because we have very little focus on reform despite the lip service it receives.
The thing that makes people emotionally happy is to punish wrongdoers, and while punishment has its place as a disincentive it does not provide a good framework for reform--none of the causes of the crime being punished are addressed and the prisoners are often in worse situations coming out of prison than they were going in.
At the end of the day, if we want punishment we shouldn't expect much in the way of reform.
>> At the end of the day, if we want punishment we shouldn't expect much in the way of reform.
I completely agree. Equally if you focus on reform, as some European countries do - by growing the person's self-esteem, ups killing and training, treating them like a human, and fostering good social skills - you need an environment that doesn't appear to be particularly punishing.
Of course there are also different reasons for being in prison in the first place. Drug offenses (should they be classified as prisoners of war?), non violent crimes, violent crimes, sex crimes, mental illness etc.
This clouds the issue - if I say "prisons should be hell on earth", because I'm thinking rapists, and you say "prisons should be places of reform" because you're thinking "marijana possession" then we can both be right.
Yes, different prisons exist, and some lean rehab, some lean punishment. Some inmates expect to be released in "reasonable time", others are in for life.
While prisons could, and definitely should, be better - I would argue that the whole justice system needs overhaul. Its too easy to be sent to prison for minor offences. Sentences are generally too long - they remove hope, and without hope there can be no reform.
But equally society is crowded, living together in small space means we need rules, re-offending rates are high, and some folk just don't want to be reformed.
In short, it's a complicated question, with no simple one-size-fits-all answer. The current approach seems to be failing on many levels.
>”There is a one-size-fits-all answer, and it's rehabilitation.”
Some people can’t be rehabilitated. Some people just need to be kept away from the population at large. More than simple “punishment”, incarceration also serves as risk management. People need to accept that some humans are simply asocial psychopaths. Albeit a small number, but they do exist. Just look up the heinous crimes of serial killers.
>”Even for rapists, thieves and murderers.”
This sounds like moralizing. Would you, you personally, really be okay with said people moving in next-door to you and your family? It’s easy to take the high-road, knowing the odds of having to be in close contact to “rehabilitated” rapists and murderers is quite low.
Feels the same as the state teaming up with a red light camera company for a cut of the tickets generated, no?
A financial incentive so perverse that you could imagine a locality shortening the yellow lights to create more offenders & revenue, at the expense of drivers’ wallets and sometimes even contributing to serious accidents[0].
It’s not surprising that local officials would be so corrupt, right? After all they are only human, just like the people in their prisons.
For the law abiding tax payer who has to pay a lot of money for unrehabilitated prisoners with high recidivism rates whose reason for incarceration is petty crime and whose reason for recidivism is a lack of a job?
No, this sounds like a scrapbooking cruise but for lowlifes instead of soccer moms. I don’t want to live next to anyone who’s done time in a place like this.
