Not one, not two, but three questions:
Is is possible to create a criminal justice system in which people are rehabilitated, instead of punished?
Is it desireable to do so?
How could we do it?
Jail time does not turn criminals into Productive Members of Society, I think we are agreed. Neither does the death penalty.
What should we give a try to? Intensive therapy? Hypnotic suggestions? Pavlonian ‘Clockwork Orange’ conditioning?
I think that many of the causes of inmate aggression are medical. Here’s an article that discusses some of the various organic mechanisms by which a person may become violent:
Some of the supposed triggers discussed in the link are genetic - maybe in the future, gene therapy and the like could cure or rehabilitate prisoners into less dangerous individuals.
However, the article also discusses the role of brain injuries in making people violent. I’ve heard that argument before, namely that severe head trauma can alter brain chemistry or function, making someone more prone to frightening behavior. If that’s the case, therapy for these individuals is more problematic.
But there’s also another kind of criminal - the kind who acted in a moment of passion, and have no medical reason for their crime. For those, I have no ideas.
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Sure, it is possible. In some ways our current system gives people plenty of chances at rehabilitation before locking them up for many years. Most people sentenced to lengthly prison terms have had more then one previous brush with the law.
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Yes, most prisoners will at some point be released back into society. It is in our interest to see to it that they no longer feel like committing crimes.
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There’s the million dollar question. Are there any proven methods of rehabilitation that we can use to deal with the bulk of our prison population? I don’t know of any. I’d like to see a system set up where violent and non-violent offenders aren’t serving sentences together. Of course I’m not sure if that is feasible budget wise.
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Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply remove someone from society for as long as possible. I don’t beleive everyone can be rehabilitated.
Marc
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I don’t know how much I trust a source that can’t bother to spell liar or animal correctly.
Marc
Instead of jail, why not deport them?
Of course, then you’d need something really harsh if you caught them sneaking back in.
Under the old English common law, returning to England from “transportation” was a capital offense. I think sometimes they’d transport you a second time, but that required unusual circumstances.
Where are you proposing the people be deported to?
First- let’s separate them out. Put repeat violent offenders & such in one set of prisons, and “white collar”, drug possession & such like in another. Also those “unlucky idiots” who do things like vehicular manslaughter, or killing their own kid by leaving them in a locked car, etc. Or the wives who finally snap & kill their abusive spouse. In other words, if your crime is not violent (and I could include some property crimes here, like home burgalry as “violent”) or is unlikely to be repeated- don’t lock those dudes in with the hardened criminals.
The career violent criminal is unlikely to be rehabiliated, and putting the lesser criminals in with him will do nothing but harden them, and subject them to violence by their fellow inmates.
Then, amoung the “non-violent” find those who turned to crime simply to “earn a living”, and train them for a good job.
It may cause a problem under that whole cruel and unusual thing in the constitution. If we could legally deport our criminals where would we deport them to? Canada has a lot of extra room but dropping off our undesireables is going to piss them off. Maybe we can send them to the Kessel Spice Mines or something.
Marc
I was thinking a 1-way ticket to the country of their choice.
as undesireable as some here might find it, i think one person to consult on this issue would be bill o’reilly. if i’m not mistaken, he did his PhD thesis on the rehabilitation system of alabama jails. he concluded eventually that rehabilitation does to a (statistically) significant degree reduce the number of second-time offenders.
** robertliguori ** - howbout Australia? (Again!)
Can’t find a cite, but I read of a program which seemed to be achieving some success whereby each released prisoner had a “mentor” in a kind of Master/Grasshopper way, someone who just behaved in a reasonable manner and provided some kind of example/talkshop. It was enormously expensive, but then again so is jail.
One must beware of solutions which fall under “cruel and unusual punishments”, but I would hope that ‘tag’ technology progressed to the point where, after release, a pulse-moniter/mobile phone device could be provided which would instantly put you at the scene of any crime. If an ex-con * knew * they would get caught next time, this might well have some effect.
Who would take them?
Marc
DrDeth
You perhaps betray a lack of knowledge about offenders, it is a bit of an oversimplification to state that one type of offender is responsible for one kind of crime.
That said, every prisoner is assessed with regard to the risk he(and it usually is a male) presents both to staff and other inmates, along with the possible escape risks and the severity of the offence, and placed in the lowest security rated prison appropriate for him.This means that terrorists, or serial killers, or serious sex-offenders, or organised criminals will not be placed alongside low risk inmates such as fine defaulters, or traffic violators.
Drug offenders are very often among the most violent, but yet also among the most petty and fairly harmless criminals, there is just such a wide range.
‘White collar’ criminals may be responsible for some horrific crimes, I can think of one in the UK who has swindled many thousands of elderly out of life savings, and the effect on them is pretty near to murder with all the worry and poverty he has caused.
There are those who have been caught up in one-off events, like a car driver who killed six cyclists a year or so ago, but then the risks he took with drinking meant that it was almost inevitable that he would be involved in a serious road incident.
There are so many crimes, so many criminals, all of whom are differant that you can only speak in the widest of generalities, but it is fair to say that around 80% of criminals return to jail after release, that their education is poor, that around 33% of the prison population were brought up in state care(around 66% of children who were in state care go to prison), that most started offending at around 12 years old, and the link between poverty both financial and in family life is very strong.
Poverty does not necassarily cause crime, so much as poverty is the result of crime, and poor education is also the result of crime, rather than what seems at first obvious that crime is the result of poor education.
Folk mistake cause and effect, and at present there is a huge push to bring better education to prisoners, but by the time they get to regularly spending time in adult prisons, they have been offending for a decade already.
Once a prisoner becomes a regular, it is about time to keep them out of the way until they are pretty fed up of jail, and that usually means until around 35 to 40 years age.
We keep letting them out, giving them more chances spending huge amounts in tackling the effects of their latest offences, finally trapping and reconvicting them, it’s all a waste of time, it would be cheaper to keep them inside for much longer in lower security prisons.
If you really want to keep them out of the career path of crime, then you would have to direct your resources toward things like preventing school truancy and ensuring that there is adequate teaching staff. (virtually every criminal I meet began this way)
With some children, 30 or so in a class is way too much, it would be better to reduce the student teacher ratios to around 10 or less to one.(but very expensive)
It is no accident that many fee paying schools in the UK have such staff pupil ratios, and that the wealthy regard these schools, whilst hugely expensive, as being the best education that money can buy.
I wouls also put a lot more effort into jumping on shoplifting, this is probably the main route into crime for most career criminals.
As I say, by the time they end up in adult prisons, its way too late and they may as well stay there until they grow out of it.