# What works better than prison ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 2, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436 "2010-09-02T22:12:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![maslowcat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@maslowcat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maslowcat)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/1 "2010-09-02T22:12:27Z")
Is there anywhere in the world where prisons work in regard to helping people not be criminals again ? My limited experience of working in prisons helped reinforce the idea that prisons are a place that at best dehumanize and negatively affect people and at worst serve as a training institute for creating better criminals. So is there something better to do with people who break the law or who are a threat to society ? Locking them away is expensive and I think mostly ineffective. Alternatively, has anyone found or suggested a model of prisons that is more effective at reducing recidivism and creating good citizens ? ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/2 "2010-09-02T22:26:45Z")
[Restorative Justice](http://www.restorativejustice.org/) has a lot of success, and I have seen it working very well in the prison system. That statistics on RJ are very good. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/3 "2010-09-03T01:22:39Z")
I don’t have a cite but I don’t think anyone who was executed ever offended again. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/4 "2010-09-03T01:53:55Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > I don’t have a cite but I don’t think anyone who was executed ever offended again. Some never offended before either, most likely. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/5 "2010-09-03T13:33:41Z")
Prison is a very blunt tool where one size is supposed to fit all. That’s why it is not all that effective, every prionser has a differant story, differant personality, what will work with one, will not work with another. Prisons are largely not flexible enough, although attempts are made to identify matters of individual concern - this is done through sentence planning where targets are set and sentence progression is mapped out. Trying rehabilitation out would cost far more, and politically it is not acceptable to spend such resources on what the public sees as the utter dregs of society. Rehabilitation is not something that is time bound, one convict might never be completely free of a pattern of behaviour, but it might be moderated, and another prisonersmight simply need someone to talk to once in a while, many many prisoners need lifelong support which could be very extensive. Prisoners as a whole have abysmal numeracy and literacy levels, along with very poor problem solving skills, they are often very fixed in their thinking and most have several social and personality disorders which are made worse through substance abuse. Locking them up for 4 years, and then adding perhaps another two years supervision under licence is simply abandoning them, and the public, to their fate. Legal systems in Western Europe do not have a mechanism to have the kind of monitoring, scurtiny and support that an offender needs to stay out of trouble - once you have finished your term, then you are on your own, that is one of the cornerstones of our legal system. It is easy to think of much more deserving causes to direct our resources, you do not win votes by spending money on offenders. Only reason that offenders give it up, if at all, is age. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/6 "2010-09-03T13:37:15Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > I don’t have a cite but I don’t think anyone who was executed ever offended again. If you don’t count vengeance carried out on behalf of the martyrs. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/7 "2010-09-03T14:10:00Z")
There’s some pretty good evidence that intensive drug and alcohol abuse treatment for appropriate offenders results in much greater reductions in recidivism at a much lower cost than incarceration provides. However this approach is not politically popular, as many feel it does not adequately punish the offender. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/8 "2010-09-03T14:10:37Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > > [@drachillix](#): > > > > I don’t have a cite but I don’t think anyone who was executed ever offended again. > > If you don’t count vengeance carried out on behalf of the martyrs. Um…I’m notoriously ignernt, I know but…What? ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/9 "2010-09-03T14:49:37Z")
Actually, prison works very well-- as long as the criminals are in prison. (I’m only partially sarcastic-- one of the best explanations for the great reductions in the U.S. crime rate over the last two decades is simply that more criminals were incarcerated for longer sentences. It’s very much a “duh” statement, but it’s easily lost among many searching for trendier alternative explanations for the drop in crime rates). ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/10 "2010-09-03T14:50:44Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > > [@Ruminator](#): > > > > If you don’t count vengeance carried out on behalf of the martyrs. > > Um…I’m notoriously ignernt, I know but…What? Maybe he’s talking about [this guy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_List_(The_X-Files)#Plot). ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/11 "2010-09-03T16:13:19Z")
> [@](#): > > one of the best explanations for the great reductions in the U.S. crime rate over the last two decades is simply that more criminals were incarcerated for longer sentences. Given that many prisoners are inside for drug supply and drug related offences, and they continue with this behaviour, this is significantly misleading. Many offenders can make plenty of money in prison, there are plenty of assaults and other activities that would also be considered to be criminal. These crimes are not recorded in the national figures, and it also explains why, upon release, prisoners are not resuming their careers following a break, rather, they are continuing them without interruption You perhaps might also be inclined to believe that at least the public are protected from them, but, many prisoners suffer deleterious effects from others and are entitled to be protected and, it costs lots of money to operate prisons, and the public has to find that money - crime costs in more ways than just direct offending. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/12 "2010-09-03T17:17:45Z")
Norway has good experiences with open prisons, putting strong emphasis on resocalisation. [Here](http://www.daserste.de/weltspiegel/beitrag_dyn~uid,qdl4p9tw0jk6zlp2~cm.asp)’s a German report about [Bastoy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastoy_Prison)prison, and [here a clip](http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/11/22/norway-a-deleted-scene-from-michael-moores-sicko/) about Bastoy from Michael Moore’s Sicko movie. [Quote=from the Weltspiegel report] Und die Zahlen geben Nilsen Recht. Nur etwa zehn Prozent der Gefangenen werden nach dem offenen Vollzug rückfällig. Im geschlossenen Strafvollzug dagegen kommen 30 Prozent wieder ins Gefängnis. _And the numbers confirm Nilsen. Only about 10% of prisoners are redicisve after open prison. In closed prison systems, 30% return to prison._ “Die maximale Strafe in Norwegen beträgt 21 Jahre. Die kommen also alle irgendwann raus. Wir können uns fragen: wen möchten wir dann als Nachbarn haben? Einen Resozialisierten oder einen, mit dem wir nichts unternommen haben”, erzählt Jan Strømnes, der stellvertretender Gefängnis-Direktor von Halden. _The maximal prison time in Norway is 21 years. So they will all be released eventually. We can ask ourselves: who do we then want to have as neighbour? A person that has been resocalised, or somebody, with whom we didn’t do anything." says Jan Stromnes, the vice-direktor of Halden._ [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/13 "2010-09-03T17:55:48Z")
I agree that helping people is the best answer, however the problem is simple. How can you justify offering services to people who harmed others and/or broke the law and deny them to those who are honest and never hurt anyone. This was the reasoning why one state stopped offering college classes to inmates. They couldn’t justify allowing inmates to attend college at tax payers expense while charging the law abiding for the same thing. It becomes a vicious cycle and it’s not just prison it’s many things. How do you help people without enabling them. How do you help people while being fair to those who didn’t need that help. As I said it’s not just criminals it’s everything. Look at our healthcare, we’ll pay for a person who comes into an ER with a heart attack, but we don’t pay for him to get a yearly office visit to check his cholesterol and treat his high blood pressure. Those are a mere fractions and MAY have prevented the heart attack or at least made it less severe. But we don’t do that. The last problem is some peope aren’t going to be able to be fixed. We as humans hate to wash our hands on anyone, but some people are in fact, beyond help. They have to be removed from society. But when do they get to that point? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/14 "2010-09-03T18:53:11Z")
The central issue is that you can’t rehabilitate another person. All you can do is offer them the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves. And some prisoners will not want to do this. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/15 "2010-09-03T19:28:39Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > I agree that helping people is the best answer, however the problem is simple. How can you justify offering services to people who harmed others and/or broke the law and deny them to those who are honest and never hurt anyone. That’s not only a non-Christian ethic and logic, it’s also not helpful in the long run. Your country is better off long-term if you help resocalize the criminals and help the people outside suffering to live in minimum comfort, too. But since most people believe the propaganda myths and keep quiet instead of rising up, this practice continues to work despite. You might want to read [this article](http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/the-clod-and-the-pebble-and-the-politics-of-resentment.html) for a different view. > [@from Fred Clark](#): > > Anyway, the story. What happened was that 78 poor children whose fathers are incarcerated received free back-to-school supplies provided by three area churches. Their dads were permitted to be on hand to help present these presents, getting a rare chance to spend a few hours with their young kids. > > This is, unambiguously, a Good Thing. “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the needy have their needs met, children are prepared to learn, broken families experience healing, the poor have good news brought to them.” > … > Here is my approximation of the unhappy response to that story. This is not entirely a product of my invention or imagination – it’s based on having seen thousands of such reactions in the online comments to newspaper stories, in letters to the editor and on cable news. I’m not sure it’s the most generous representation, but I don’t think it’s inaccurate: > > ``` > Why should the children of criminals get something for free? Something that I, as a hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizen had to pay for? I just spent two weeks driving all over spending my hard-earned money on back-to-school supplies for my kids and nobody gave me anything. This is how the world works and it's unfair to me. I follow the rules and I always get the short end of the stick. Meanwhile, those people get handouts. The game is rigged in their favor and I'm getting screwed yet again. Freeloaders. Lucky duckies. I resent them. I resent them and I am convinced that they are the reason I have to work and scrape and scramble as much as I do. > > ``` > > This angry resentment is periodically a major force in American politics. It is a destructive force – destructive of self and destructive of the whole (self-destructive people always have bad aim). The Resenters rejoice when others mourn and mourn when others rejoice and their politics of resentment has the crabs-in-a-bucket effect of making things worse for everyone, themselves included – making sure that nothing ever improves, that no problem is ever solved. The politics of resentment can never be for anything. That which benefits others will provoke resentment, even if it benefits all, including the Resenters themselves. They will still manage to resent the benefit to others – mourning at their rejoicing – convincing themselves that they might have benefited more if those others hadn’t also been unjustly included in the common good. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/16 "2010-09-03T20:41:59Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > > [@Markxxx](#): > > > > I agree that helping people is the best answer, however the problem is simple. How can you justify offering services to people who harmed others and/or broke the law and deny them to those who are honest and never hurt anyone. > > That’s not only a non-Christian ethic and logic, it’s also not helpful in the long run. Your country is better off long-term if you help resocalize the criminals and help the people outside suffering to live in minimum comfort, too. But since most people believe the propaganda myths and keep quiet instead of rising up, this practice continues to work despite. > > You might want to read [this article](http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/the-clod-and-the-pebble-and-the-politics-of-resentment.html) for a different view. You might want to read that article yourself. It’s talking about giving aid to children not to prisoners. And it illustrates the point that there are people, like those children, whose needs are greater than those of people in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/17 "2010-09-03T21:17:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The central issue is that you can’t rehabilitate another person. All you can do is offer them the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves. And some prisoners will not want to do this. [QUOTE=Arlo Guthrie] …but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words: (“KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?”) [/QUOTE] For the record, I think the best and most cost-efficient way to reduce crime and the prison population in the US would be to legalize most drugs and treat drug addiction as a medical rather than a legal problem. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/18 "2010-09-04T05:45:27Z")
On the other hand, I do think that there ARE prisoners who are very dangerous sociopaths, who we need to just give bread and water and lock in Supermax for the rest of their lives. Or even put them on a deserted island or something. Oh, and to those people who are all " legalize it and the crime will go down!" Granted it would break the organized crime crime…but what about crime associated with being high? It wouldn’t do anything for the times when a desperate addict shoots his supplier or whatever. Granted addicts are mentally ill…but you can’t commit them to rehab. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/19 "2010-09-04T06:28:36Z")
I think the idea of prison was based on punishment and incarceration. Rehabilition seems like a modern idea. I’ve heard of the concept of rehab back to colonial America, but don’t recall that idea getting traction until more recently that that. We still put people in prison who haven’t caused people physical harm. In cases like Martha Stewart, I don’t see any fear that she had to be seperated from the public. Wouldn’t that be only punishment? Or rehab of the ‘think twice before doing that again’ kind? Rehab sounds like a great idea, but it doesn’t seem to be the real reason people are put there. Punishment seems to be the main factor even for the people too dangerous to be allowed out in society. We let them out after they’ve served their time, even though they may be just as dangerous as they were when they went in. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436/20 "2010-09-04T15:27:08Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > For the record, I think the best and most cost-efficient way to reduce crime and the prison population in the US would be to legalize most drugs and treat drug addiction as a medical rather than a legal problem. If we go that route, then we should bring back the opium den. You can go into the building and get whatever drugs you want, but you can’t take them out of the building and they don’t let you out of the building until you are straight. Also there is no food or medical care in the building. The real addicts should all OD or starve to death in a year or so. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-works-better-than-prison/552436.md?page=2)