I ask death penalty opponents specifically since for us life in prison is the maximum punishment a civilised society should inflict on its criminals, so what life is like inside the prison is of supreme importance.
Inspired by comments by a criminal lawyer in the UK who says that those convicted of fraud, thievery, embezzling and a few other crimes should not be put in prison;
Do you agree with this professor? What should conditions be like inside prisoners for lifers - should we have separate classes of imprisonment for different crimes? Is it right to throw the fraudsters and thieves in the same building as the rapists and murderers? If you were given carte blanche over prisons, what would they look like?
I’d like to see white collar criminals be sentenced to jail time. I’d like to hope that it acts as a deterrent for similar white collar crimes.
I think throwing people in prison for a small amount of personal illegal drugs is wrong. A small amount of any illegal drug intended for personal use shouldn’t even be a fine. You’re only hurting yourself. I’m sure that would free up a lot of prison space in the US and free up police for more important activities.
Death penalty is the easy option, it feeds the basest desire for revenge in society, but worse than that, its nothing like as much a punishment as keeping the bastards alive for as long as possible.
Ashworth is wrong, at least with regards to theft. These are not victimless crimes he’s talking about, and at some point you need to stop someone ruining people’s lives instead of just leaving people to pick up the pieces.
To put it another way: imagine if someone decided they really didn’t like you, so they steal your car. They’re arrested, fined, and then they walk straight out of the courthouse and steal your car again. At some point, just getting your car back isn’t going to be acceptable - you’ll want the legal system to proactively prevent the next theft, and that means rendering him physically incapable of reoffending.
What do you do to thieves who don’t have any money to pay their fines? A homeless drug addict who’s funding his habit by breaking into homes isn’t going to care how many fines he racks up.
How does the professor plan on collecting restitution from the judgement-proof? If most criminals had the resources to make good on their thefts or other property crimes, would they make their living as criminals?
Edit: O.k., that’s really funny. Same time-stamp and everything.
In the case of thieves, unless they’re locked up forever, at some point we have to find a way to change them. Is putting them in prison more effective than not when trying to make responsible citizens out of them?
I find Professor Ashworth’s ideas interesting, but I’m not sure he’s selling them well by trying to convince people prison is disproportionate. He should start with the advantages everyone will enjoy, if there are any to be had.
I’ve known a few people that have gone to prison. It’s usually not some dramatic shootout with the cops that results in prison time. It’s just gradually not following the rules to the point where the system has to do something to the person. Usually it involves driving.
Someone is drunk driving or gets a lot of speeding tickets so they lose their license.
They drive without a license and get caught, now they get a fine and suspended sentence.
They drive without a license again. Another fine, another suspended sentence.
At some point the judge just gives up and sends them in for six months. It’s stupid all around, but I don’t see what other choice we have with people who just won’t behave.
Do we actually do this? I mean, I always assumed that fraudsters and low level criminals did time in lower security prisons/jails than those who committed horrible violent crimes.
I say the threat of prison/jail needs to be there for the guy stealing clothes from a shop. You give him a 6 month suspended sentence, he better keep his ass clean for those 6 months, or he’s going up the river. Having NO threat of jail is just a guarantee that these lowlifes will keep committing low level crimes, and making life crappy for everyone around them.
I’m amazed every time somebody “comes up” with this idea as if it’s the obvious solution to the problem of crime.
Seriously, do you think society hasn’t thought of this already? We all know that the best solution is to find a way to change the criminals so they don’t want to commit crimes anymore. Rehabilitation has been the primary goal of crime prevention since the 18th century. The problem is that in over two hundred years of trying, we haven’t found any method of rehabilitation that works reliably.
You’re correct. In general, prison systems try to separate prisoners into different security groups. It’s not just better for the prisoners but it also makes it easier to manage the prisons.
Professional criminals like this are probably the criminals who are most deterred by the threat of imprisonment. They look at a crime as a business and assess the risks and rewards. Other criminals commit crimes for irrational reasons and they are far less likely to be deterred by the possibility of imprisonment.
I just completed a plea bargain deal with two guys who went on a burglary spree, robbing houses from Nebraska, North Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma before we finally caught up to them in Texas. Cleaned out about $22,000 worth of stuff from just one house.
So, I guess we’ll just fine them, since it was “just property crime”, tell the victims it’s all good, and go our separate ways, then?
That would encourage people like Bernie Madoff, wouldn’t it? Doing a cost benefit analysis of fraud seems like it’s a pretty good deal if there’s only a financial penalty.
I would like to see mandatory life in prison without parole for everyone who is convicted of wrongfully killing someone else: all the way from the lowest degree of manslaughter up to first degree murder. However, the conditions they faced in prison could be better or worse depending on those different levels of crime.
You’re missing the point. I was responding to those who say “If we don’t put them in prison they’ll just do it again” with the point that thieves will be out of prison again one day anyway and presumably the aim is to rehabilitate all of them. I know some will just break the law again, but unless we never let them out, we’re effectively making the assumption that our efforts to convince them to give up on crime will be successful. I asked if prison plus rehabilitation is more effective in producing responsible citizens than rehabilitation without prison would be. I don’t imagine or claim that I’ve come up with any new ideas or solutions, but I think it’s entirely possible that, if our primary goal is keeping crime levels low and ensuring those in situations likely to lead to crime remain productive members of society while keeping our expenses down, fewer prison sentences could be an improvement on our current systems.
There’re more purposes to punishment than rehab or restitution though. Incapacitation is another. I agree with you (I think) that prison doesn’t really rehabilitate most criminals. I don’t think many, and probably most, criminals can be rehabilitated from committing in the near future, the type of crime that put them there. What can happen is that they can age in prison, isolated from the community at large, until they reach an age where they’re basically too old to misbehave. But you need that incapacitating effect, and I don’t think you’ll get it from a non-prison or other isolation form of punishment. What you can also do is remove entire sections of behavior from criminal sanction. Like the use of Some Drugs. This will lower the number of people that you have to incapacitate and expose to other, more harmful criminals.
I’d be interested to know what research has been done on recidivism after prison sentences compared to after a non-prison punishment, and what the reasons are for it occurring or not. For example, it would be interesting to know if it is indeed true that most criminals will return to crime unless they’re too old to do so.