# Get Rid of Prisons... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 21, 2002, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188 "2002-12-21T05:46:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/41 "2002-12-23T01:30:51Z")
In addition to what **Lissa** just said, not all child molesters are male; what would you cut off? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/42 "2002-12-23T02:55:18Z")
You know, **Susanann** , it _is_ possible to criticize some aspect of U.S. law, government, or society without asserting that the United States is the most evil society in the entire history of the human race. You could make a perfectly good critique of the U.S. criminal justice system; you could compare us to other industrialized democracies–of _course_ we don’t want to be in the same league as totalitarian dictatorships, or even in the same league as quasi-democratic states like post-Soviet Russia–and we come off pretty poorly. But instead of arguing sensibly, you indulge in breathless hyperbole; then, instead of backing down gracefully when you’re called on it, you start flailing around wildly. > [@](#): > > If you want to open up this topic, and now to include “labor” camps or “concentration camps” of a countries own people, instead of just “prisons”, which is what the topic is supposed to be(“prisons”), then dont forget about the first “concentration camps”, i.e., the INDIAN RESERVATIONS! OK, the topic is, “Which is worse, the United States or Soviet Russia?” You opened with the U.S. prison system, I saw you (and raised you) with the Gulag Archipelago. You counter with the Indian wars; I raise you the Sovietization of Outer Mongolia, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the conquest of the Baltic states, the Russo-Finnish War, the annexation of eastern Poland, the Katyn Massacre, the seizure of Bessarabia, the NKVD “blocking detachments”, the behavior of the Soviet troops who overran eastern Germany, the satellitization of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, the establishment of North Korea and support for the North Korean invasion of the South, the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the invasion of Afghanistan…and that’s not even getting into all the pre-Soviet Russian imperialist aggression which resulted in the Russian _Empire_ (plus assorted Tsarist internal oppressiveness, anti-Jewish pogroms, and support for the most reactionary elements of Europe in 1848); or the _post_-Soviet levelling of Chechnya. I mean really. This is just plain silly. ---
**Author:** ![Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/db5fbb/32.png) [@Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fred)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/43 "2002-12-23T03:23:27Z")
It’s odd the extent to which convicted felons have been dehumanized by many of the participants in this discussion. **Lissa** said “Violent felons may be evil, horrible people, but they’re still people.” I’d even go a step further and just leave it at “Felons are people like any other, except that they have been convicted of a felony.” I am _horrified_ by suggestions of torture and exile. ---
**Author:** ![IndependentVoter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e9a140/32.png) [@IndependentVoter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IndependentVoter)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/44 "2002-12-23T03:34:48Z")
> [@](#): > > “Felons are people like any other, except that they have been convicted of a felony.” False. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/45 "2002-12-23T11:52:19Z")
Why? ---
**Author:** ![IndependentVoter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e9a140/32.png) [@IndependentVoter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IndependentVoter)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/46 "2002-12-23T14:51:29Z")
You really believe that serial child molestors are the same as the parents that raise the child?? Are kidnappers the same as the housewife who has raised three kids and is now working to put them through college? Is the guy who is willing to cut your throat to get the $30 in your wallet the same as the doctor who is going to bust his ass trying to save your life? Violent felons are not merely people who have been “convicted” of a crime. It’s not like they are in jail because they won a raffle. They are people who have shown a blatant disregard for human life. At the very least, they are different than other people merely by the threat they pose to society. ::disclaimer follows:: The previous post is directed at VIOLENT felons. I would not included non-violent offenders who broke laws prohibitting consensual behavior. I would have just a slightly different take for non-violent white-collar thugs who are just as low as violent thugs. (but just in a slightly different way) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/47 "2002-12-23T14:57:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IndependentVoter \* > **You really believe…? > Are…? > Is the guy…?** This isn’t about what I believe; it’s about you expanding on your monosyllabic post, which you have now done; thank you. ---
**Author:** ![rampisad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@rampisad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rampisad)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188/48 "2002-12-23T15:14:56Z")
Somewhere in this thread, there was a question asked about alternatives to incarceration, before we learned so much about what’s evil in America. Someone raised an SF story by Robert Heinlein, and I’d like to do a similar thing, bringing up “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. It is exactly about this subject, talking about “curing” criminals. It’s a brilliant book, and was a brilliant Stanley Kubrick movie. Bottom line - there is no cure, you have to learn to live with it. Jail-time is just a way of lowering the opportunity for crime, not of stopping individual criminals from doing their thing. The longer they’re inside, the fewer crimes **they** will commit. Once they’re out, it’s back to square one in the vast majority of cases. Just another observation - America has a larger rate of incarceration because they define “crimes” differently. Britain, as a specific contrast, has much lower jail rates, but they get there by moving the goal posts, progressively reducing the number of criminals by reducing the number of things that are called crimes. A piece in the WSJ last week said that London today is one of the most dangerous cities in the world at night, on a par with Johannesburg. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-rid-of-prisons/144188.md?page=2)