Prison is for punishing

Great Debates
21

I was the foreman of a jury last week that sentenced a guy to prison. If he were to serve his full sentence, he would be 93 when he gets out. The factors in the things the jury considered:

  • Get him off the streets until he’s too old to rob again. This was by far the main consideration.

  • Punishment - not really a consideration.

  • Rehabilitation - not a consideration.

  • Deterrence for others in society - the prosecutors tried to play this up a little, I threw it into the discussion during deliberations to see what everyone thought, and everyone dismissed the idea out-of-hand.

22

I have talked at length with an aquaintance of mine who used to be in the corrections administration, and although he is a pretty conservative guy and I’m as far to the left as I can get without being a card-carrying socialist, we found quite a lot to agree on.

  1. It is very hard for people to change bad habits, no matter what the deterence or the encouragement. Most of the time neither works.

  2. Putting non-violent offenders in with violent offenders creates more violent offenders.

  3. Faith-based prison programs are idiotic, unconstitutional and unfair, especially as(according to him) model prisoners who had earned things like transfers to less dangerous facilities were being passed over in favor of those simply claiming to be ‘converted’.

I’m all for a certain degee of punishment in prison, but I think it should be limited to being locked up in a very dull, boring place where years of your life are going to waste. I do not think the punishment aspect should include being under constant threat of rape, intimitation, beatings or death from your fellow inmates, or brutality and unnecessary humiliation from the guards. And whenever possible I think prisoners should have work to do, and access to self-improvement.

23

We forget the new incentive,profit. Privatizing the prisons have provided incentive to keep the prisoners in as long as possible.They dont want the expense of rehabing. The just want to max out the profits.

24

We talk about punishment, we talk about rehabilitation, but I think we all know the real purpose of incarceration is incarceration. It takes dangerous people out of circulation for a while and puts them where they can’t commit any crimes, except against other convicts. Has anyone ever come up with an alternative system, even an idea for one, that would serve that purpose?

25

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
We talk about punishment, we talk about rehabilitation, but I think we all know the real purpose of incarceration is incarceration. It takes dangerous people out of circulation for a while and puts them where they can’t commit any crimes, except against other convicts. Has anyone ever come up with an alternative system, even an idea for one, that would serve that purpose?
[/QUOTE]

First, not everyone in prison is there because they are dangerous. IMO we should be trying different methods on people who steal or do drugs than on people who commit assault, rape and murder.

As for the second group, incarceration is about the best we can do right now, as the kind of intensive therapy that might help some of them is impractically expensive. Some ‘Brave New World’ types of solutions involving drugs or even implant devices that squelch violent tendencies may turn up in the next few decades. Disturbing idea, isn’t it? :eek:

26

I used to work as a mental health counselor in a prison, my caseload was specialized in that the inmates had an Axis 1 disorder, and had a year or less on their sentence.

I am a firm believer that they should leave with more “tools” than whenb they came in. I’m all for college or vocational training. Might just solve the problem for some repeat offenders.

27

That’s so eighties. Seriously, prison privatization was a fad - the companies that tried it found there really isn’t that much money to be made in running a prison. By the time they paid their overhead expenses, they weren’t being run any cheaper than comparible government owned facilities. So their profits disappeared and many of these companies went bankrupt.

Prisoners can still commit crimes against people other than their fellow prisoners - they can commit them against me and casdave and Qadgop and our colleagues.

But on your question, there was a historical alternative to incarceration that fulfilled the same purpose: transportation. You took all your convicts, shipped them to a island on the other side of the world, and dumped them there confident in the knowledge that they wouldn’t be breaking any more laws in your neighbourhood anyway. The pluses were low overhead, no abuse of poor prisoners by evil guards, and eventually you had a new country in your empire. The minuses were no chance to punish and/or rehabiliate anyone and eventually you run out of remote islands.

I believe in offering opportunities to prisoners as well. But my long experience in prisons have made me aware that most of them will decline to take up the opportunities they’re being offered. And I have no belief that you can force a person into rehabilitating.

And I also believe the tool box only holds a finite number of tools. If I’m giving out college educations and vocational training, I’m going to offer them to the guy that’s been working in a liquor store before I’m giving them to the guy that held up that liquor store.

28

Sorry to ressurect a dead thread, but I’ve been out of town.

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
We forget the new incentive,profit. Privatizing the prisons have provided incentive to keep the prisoners in as long as possible.
[/quote]

This makes no sense. Why should a private prison care if inmates have long or short sentences? It’s not like there’s a shortage of criminals. There will always be a constant stream of them no matter how short or long their sentence may be.

Secondly, prisons (even state ones) would probaby rather not have “lifers”. Medical care for elderly inmates is a crushing expense.

True-- private prisons are required by law to have certain standards, but they generally don’t offer much beyond that.

They’re still around.

My Hubby recently got a job offer from a private prison corporation. His salary would have been thrice what he’s presently earning, but he would have been the warden of three prisons. (State prisons have one warden each.) He was told that the guards made around seven dollars an hour, many times less than a guard makes at a state prison and minus any benefits. (Which leads to a lot of corruption, of course.)

He was told that these prisons used a “pod” system-- instead of guards circulating in the population, inmates are basically confined to a large area with a small number of guards watching from a perimiter. Needless to say, violence is very high. From what informatgion Hubby gleaned, it sounded like the places were very differently run than state prisons.

Since I don’t know all that much about private prisons, I can’t make a judgement, so I’ll just say that it didn’t sound like a place one would want to work if there were other options.

The salary difference really amazed me. In the state system, executive salaries aren’t all that high. (Some of the guards make more than Hubby does because of overtime.) At the private prison, it really was like a corporation in the pay structure: the guards making a pittance while the warden made six figures.

29

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
We talk about punishment, we talk about rehabilitation, but I think we all know the real purpose of incarceration is incarceration. It takes dangerous people out of circulation for a while and puts them where they can’t commit any crimes, except against other convicts. Has anyone ever come up with an alternative system, even an idea for one, that would serve that purpose?
[/QUOTE]

Capital punishment. You get zero recidivism, and even other criminals aren’t going to be victimized by the person so sentenced.

30

[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
Do you think prisons should be solely used for punishment? Or do you think that they should be used as places where real efforts can be made to teach convicts the ‘errors of their ways’ and to try to make them ‘functioning members of society’?
[/quote]

I don’t think they should be used for punishment at all. Vengeance is barbaric; making a criminal “pay” for his crimes doesn’t benefit anyone except sick bastards who get off on seeing others suffer.

31

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that abroad in our society - most of it very, very well sublimated.

32

[QUOTE=Mr2001]
I don’t think they should be used for punishment at all. Vengeance is barbaric; making a criminal “pay” for his crimes doesn’t benefit anyone except sick bastards who get off on seeing others suffer.
[/QUOTE]

I’m caffeine-deprived at the moment. Is this a whoosh?

33

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Capital punishment. You get zero recidivism, and even other criminals aren’t going to be victimized by the person so sentenced.
[/QUOTE]

This would actually create more problems than it would solve.

  1. It would virtually guarantee less convictions because juries would be hesitant to kill someone if the evidence was even a* little* shaky or if the crime didn’t seem “bad enough” to warrant death.

  2. It would crush our already-overburdened system because it would require more jury trials. Most cases are plead out, but very, very few people will plea if the sentence is death. They’ll take their chances with the jury who might vote to acquit if the only option is death and the evidence is not rock-solid. (Which few cases are.)

  3. Special facilities would have to be built to house more death row inmates. They’re not just put in general population until their number comes up-- they’re housed in special, segregated facilities with higher security.

  4. It would be more expensive on the judicial end. You’d have to have special death penalty lawyers to work on the case.

  5. The potential for an innocent person to be killed by the state exists.

  6. The inequitable nature of the death penalty itself would be further aggravated by making more crimes eligible for it.

  7. The “brutalization effect” could increase.

34

Well, yeah, I’m not in favor of frying people willy-nilly as a solution to crime. What I really think we should do is rehab people, and for the people for whom that isn’t working, capital punishment.

I don’t see prisons as a good in-between: they sure don’t have a good track record for changing criminals’ behavior for the better (for the worse, yes); and they are in many cases more cruel than a humane killing.

Then there’s the high likelihood of different standards for different people / classes of people, etc.; kill off the lower-class criminals while giving the well-to-do Yet Another Chance in the rehab program, etc

I really don’t know the answer, but I think prisons are among our worst mistakes. They just don’t do many of the things we wanted them to.

35

[QUOTE=Lissa]
Medical care for elderly inmates is a crushing expense.

[QUOTE]

Oh yeah. Geriatric care is very costly and time-consuming. And in my state (Wisconsin), the number of geriatric inmates is skyrocketing.

We had one inmate turn 89 the other day. He’s a new inmate who just came in a few months ago. He’ll be chewing up a few resources between now and the time he is released/dies.

36

[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I’m caffeine-deprived at the moment. Is this a whoosh?
[/QUOTE]

Nope. There’s a fine line between making prison a place people don’t want to be, in order for the risk of imprisonment to act as a deterrent against future crimes, and punishing people who have already committed crimes in order to “make them pay”. The former is fine, but the latter is sadistic.

37

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
I don’t see prisons as a good in-between: they sure don’t have a good track record for changing criminals’ behavior for the better (for the worse, yes); and they are in many cases more cruel than a humane killing.
[/quote]

I’ve always said that if I was charged with a crime which carried a life sentence or death and it looked like I’d be convicted, I’d make myself appear to be as evil as possible to* ensure* I’d get the death penalty. In my opinion, life in prison would be a far worse punishment. (Which, ironically, is one of the reasons I’m against the death penalty.)

That said, I think you may be expecting too much from the criminal justice system. NOTHING can change a man if he doesn’t want to change. Just like the proverbial horse, you can lead him to rehabilitative programs, but you can’t make him partake.

It’s also a little unfair to expect prisons to offer real rehabilitation for offenders. In a way, you’re blaming a legless man for not running fast enough. The prison system simply does not have the funding or manpower to give each inmate the help that they need. In some cases, there really isn’t much help they could give, even if they had time for intensive therapy with each inmate. You can’t “cure” a character disorder, especially if the inmate doesn’t want to change.

That is one likely outcome, yes. There really isn’t much of a way to change the inequitable distibution of sentences. Juries will come down harder on people who “look” like criminals or if the victim was cute and cuddly, forever and ever amen. The only way to eliminate that would be to remove any discretion in sentencing, but then you would have gross miscarriages of justice in which people are serving hard time for crimes which may fit the technical definition but weren’t really deserving of it.

What, exactly, did we want them to do? Make people sorry for what they did? Impossible. Deterrence? Ridiculous-- no one ever thinks they’ll get caught. Make them want to change their lives? Maybe-- but we make them outcasts when they’re released. The only real purpose of prisons was to seperate criminals from society and deny them some of life’s pleasures as punishment.

38

[QUOTE=Crafter_Man]
Prison certainly acts as a deterrent to crime for some people. But even if it didn’t, prisons are here to stay. Two reasons:

  1. When a person is in prison, they can’t harm anyone.

  2. Right or wrong, society believes “justice” must be served when a crime is committed. It’s based on societal morals. Prison time = justice.
    [/QUOTE]

I just noticed this.

Crafter, I have to point out a flaw in your first assertion. While in prison, multiple crimes are committed by offenders. They may assaullt other inmaets, sexually or physically, rob them or extort from them.

But, since these are just other inmates, many people don’t care, or in many ways, wish it upon criminals they despise. This is itself despicable.

In addition to this, and IMHO more importantly, everyone always seems to forget about the employees in a prison. It is at least twice a week that my husband receives a call saying an officer/staff member was spit on, had urine thrown on them or was in some other way assaulted by an inmate. Most of these crimes go un-prosecuted because the public does not care what goes on inside the prison. Now, my husband runs a huge prison with a mental health unit for severely mentally ill and this increases the amounts of staff assault, but if you extrapolate the data to an entire state, every year 100’s, possibly 1,000’s of staff are victimized by inmates.

I know you did not mean anything by it, but I hope you can understand how when people say they can’t harm anyone, it makes correctional professionals and loved ones feel like they are not people worth thinking about.

Always remember, brave men and women venture into prison every day, outnumbered at times 100 to 1 (in total staff at the prison). My husbands first post was a dorm of 249 inmates (rapists, murderers, violent criminals) and him.

I just wish all the “get tough” crowd would also pony up and chip in the 10% tax increase it would take to really make prisons safe for staff.

39

Once you have someone in prison he is a known. You make money every day he stays. That is incentive to extending their time.
We miss one point. drugs. If we got substance abuse traininng in prison it would be helpful. We spend tons in inforcement ,but neglect rehab. Outside of prison ,we have a shortage of alcohol and drug programs. This would be the area to attack.

40

[QUOTE=Lissa]
Crafter, I have to point out a flaw in your first assertion. While in prison, multiple crimes are committed by offenders. They may assaullt other inmaets, sexually or physically, rob them or extort from them.

But, since these are just other inmates, many people don’t care, or in many ways, wish it upon criminals they despise. This is itself despicable.
[/QUOTE]

  1. If we don’t put them in prison, they will hurt people who are not in prison (like you and me).

  2. If we put them in prison, they will hurt people in prison.

So take a pick… would you prefer #1 or #2?

I choose #2. It is the lesser of two evils.