This is what goes through my mind on a slow work day. If a natural disaster were to take out a prison, do we as a society let the captives out? Before you answer… The make up of the prison is violent offenders; Murders, rapists, anti-social types (DSM version). The prison is a large one and houses hundreds, maybe thousands of inmates. There is NO time to transfer them to another location. Only time to release them, and save yourself (where ever you may go). And the disaster (doesn’t matter what it is, although we are certain it will kill all of them if they stay housed in prison) is inevitable. Do we let them out to at least try and save themselves? Knowing that anyone of them are violent enough to harm society at any given time?
The movie The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), that was based on the memories of a missionary in WWII; showed that when the Japanese invaded, a Jailed friend of the Missionary escaped and was pardoned on the spot when a Japanese shell killed more than half of the inmates.
IMHO, as the jailers in real life tried to do, we let the criminals go. If they were not condemned to death, we as a society should not then decide on the spot that it would be ok to let all prisoners die. One also has to take into consideration, that even in the American system, a small percentage of inmates are really innocent.
Also, In a disaster of monumental proportions, the future victims are dead, and attacking other people is not a priority for a criminal who is also running for his/her life.
In WWII, the missionary’s friend then gave his life to save the missionary and the orphans, I think the released prissioners will be busy trying to salvage what would be left of their families, never forget that they are also human.
In the UK, to not let prisoners out and allowing them to die would be manslaughter - and I’d guess the same would be true in many other cases. The prison authorities & guards still have a duty of care, which includes preservation of life. To give them the choice of leaving prisoners to die would be allowing extrajudicial execution.
Well, I still feel it’s a bit hypothetical. The first link, it stated that the prisoners had to escape. And the other, the prisoners were simply released into the court yard. I’m talking a full on release out of prison and fend for yourself type situation. In which there is a full understanding of what’s about to happen. With the tsunami, there was no understanding of the devastation it would cause. My hypothetical stated that it was known what was coming, and that death was certain for inmates.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this post. Maybe something along the lines of debating vigilante, death penalty views and beliefs. And how someones views may have to take on a different shape in the event of a disaster. I myself would let the prisoners go. But in knowing how radical other peoples views can be to my own, there are probably a good amount of people out there who disagree with me 100%, and would rather keep the inmates in prison and “get what they deserve”, and to save yourself.
Hopefully I made that clear enough, but I feel most people on this board are better then that, and would most definitely let the prisoners go. There may be no debate here, but I’m bored, so what the heck? So, if you’re of the “get what they deserver” variety, speak up and state your reasons.
I see what you mean. But is there not the possibility that after the criminals have saved themselves from a disaster, who’s to say the criminals won’t attack regular civilians afterwards to get what they “need”, by committing murder regularly without the fear of law enforcement. This could be the debate of a proponent to keep them in jail and face the consequences of their crimes to deter future crimes after a disaster has occured.
This is an interesting topic that hits home. I live a couple of miles from Folsom State Prison which sits in the shadow of the Folsom Lake Dam. If the dam suddenly and without warning began to fail (unlikely, I might add), should the warden open the doors and let the inmates flee into the community? Due to the topography of the area, such a dam breach could flood the prison but leave my home unscathed- which means that 6000 prisoners would be fleeing right towards my neighborhood. Is it likely that, once out of harm’s way, all of the prisoners would willingly allow themselves to be peacefully reincarcerated? No, many would probably prey upon my family, friends and neighbors in order to gain the means to avoid capture.
Taking the safety of my family and friends in consideration, I’d be inclined to say leave 'em in and let 'em drown. But, it’s hard to come to this conclusion, as I’ve had family and friends that have spent time behind bars and none of them would deserve such a death.
There was a recent proposal to relocate at least some of the death-row inmates from San Quentin (where the facility is aging and seriously overcrowded) to the newly expanded and somewhat less crowded Folsom Prison. Some locals protesting the relocation claimed that it would increase the likelyhood that Folsom Dam would be a terrorist target, not by Al Quaeda, but by anti-death penalty activists. Let’s see…thie logic of this doesn’t quite parse out: folks against the death penalty are going to blow up a dam and kill thousands of inmates, most of which don’t deserve to die for their crimes, all in the name of preventing the deaths of violent criminals? :rolleyes:
I’m no criminal mastermind, but if I was in Folsom for 40 - life, and I had a chance to escape, I wouldn’t hang around raping and pillaging. I’d be running for the nearest border I could find. The only thing necessary to steal would be clothing.
I’m not saying that nothing bad would happen. but the prison must have some kind of evacuation plan in event of natural disaster - they wouldn’t just open the gates and let them all scatter.
Despite the concerns for the safety of my family, I’m actually inclined to feel the same way and let the prisoners free (my previous post came out sounding more wishy-washy and conflicted than intended).
The nearest (international) border is well over 500 miles away. An escaping prisoner would need transportation, which would probably entail carjacking someone to get their car. A prisoner with the police hot on his heels may also be inclined to take a hostage. That being said, I know that a good number of folk in this town are very well-armed and any escaping prisoner would do best to bypass the residential areas and literally head for the hills, yet another reason I’m not too worried.
I’m sure that the authorities have contingency plans for such a disaster, and it’s not an issue that keeps me awake at nights. I know some of the guards that work there, I’ll have to ask them what those plans are. The vulnerability of the dam is apparently real enough that the federal government forced the closure of the road that traversed the top of it after 9/11 in order to restrict terrorist access to it.
Now, a 21st century/realm of sci-fi solution to the problem would be to slap on locked ankle bracelets containing GPS-linked locators on every prisoner…
Well, as long as the people are aware of the prisoners fleeing (assuming it somehow is terribly mismanaged by prison staff, which I don’t think is likely), I agree with you that they could defend themselves, or at least be aware of the danger.
No, no, that gets implanted into your head at birth or the next time you go to the dentist and get gassed.
Exactly. The authorities will have all details, including photographs etc., which could easily be circulated to the relevant media (and also to all relevant people dealing with borders, immigration to neighbouring countries, etc.)
Splendid. However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that someone with your excellent good sense would probably have the requisite judgement to avoid committing a crime that would put you in prison in the first place.
We have plans for all kinds of natural disasters. In this country most disasters don’t occur with some kind of warning. The few they do (an earthquake or a terrorist attack) usually occur so suddenly there’s no chance to do any kind of evacuation, planned or emergency. But I have personally dealt with situations involving the unexpected evacuation of an entire prison in a matter of hours. The only time I’ve seen a plan involving “letting them all go” was a post-nuclear war scenario in which civilization collapsed and we were unable to feed the prisoners.
