In some cases yes. In others it seems to be mostly government-sponsored vindictiveness or embarrassment avoidance.
I agree that it’s difficult but it doesn’t change the fact that various countries have significantly lower recidivism rates than the US. What are they doing that the US isn’t?
I would guess much better social safety nets.
In the US you are let out of prison with no good future prospects (society shuns you, employers will not hire you). It is no surprise many turn to crime to get by.
I agree. The recidivism rate of any country (among other metrics) isn’t a brute fact that can only be accepted, not bettered or worsened.
I think the key factor people need to focus on is that prisons are not the problem. Asking how we should fix prisons in order to eliminate crime is like asking how we should fix hospitals in order to eliminate disease.
If you want to reduce disease, you need to identify and fix the factors that are making people sick out in society which results in them going to a hospital. If you want to reduce crime, you need to identify and fix the factors that are making people commit crimes out in society which results in them going to a prison.
I agree that the best way to deal with crime is stop people from needing or wanting to commit it in the first place but something still has to be done to make sure the people currently incarcerated don’t get released and continue to break laws. We can address both at the same time.
We can but it costs money and most of Americans are not keen on paying taxes to rehabilitate a criminal. It is shortsighted but that seems to be most of America these days.
The problem is a lot bigger than a simple unwillingness to spend money.
The real problem is what I mentioned earlier; there is no simple process of rehabilitation, where you can do something and turn a person who commits crimes into a person who doesn’t commit crimes. If that process existed, I can assure you we would be using it and happily paying the price.
Rehabilitation in the real world works like this. People (including me) put a lot of effort (and spend a lot of tax payers’ money) into trying to rehabilitate somebody who has committed crimes in the past and turn them into a person who won’t commit crimes in the future. Occasionally (let’s say five percent of the time) we succeed. When that happens we get no credit for our work. Most often (ninety five percent of the time) we fail; the person who was committing crimes before they came to prison gets released and goes back to committing more crimes. And then we are given the blame for the crimes they commit even though they were already committing crimes before we ever met them. And people inevitably say “Hey, I’ve just had a brilliant idea that nobody has ever thought of before! You guys should try rehabilitating these people!”
Here’s my suggestion. The next time you feel the urge to say this to somebody who’s literally devoted decades to rehabilitating people while you were doing nothing, why don’t you instead go to a school and tell the teachers that society would be better off if they tried educating children or go to a hospital and tell the doctors and the nurses that maybe they should try to cure their patients. I’m sure they will appreciate your original insights. Oh, and make sure you tell them to stop torturing their students and patients, because that’s what you’ve heard goes on in schools and hospitals.
Moderating:
While I’m sympathetic to your frustration, this part of your post is leaning towards attacking the poster. Please try to keep your comments directed at the posts, and not at the posters.
Thanks.
You got a lot out of one sentence I wrote that was not even responding to you. I think you also very much missed my point.
I never denigrated the work people do to help prisoners reform. I criticized what happens after those prisoners are released and no longer under the care of people like you (out on their own, not in the prison any more).
It is not a new debate by a long shot whether prisons are meant for punishment or rehabilitation. I think in the US the public wants them for punishment and barely give a nod to rehabilitation (which includes a lot more than what you or any one person can do…it is a society thing).
Recidivism will always be a thing but we can look at other countries who have markedly lower rates. Either they are doing the whole process better or their criminals are just less…criminal than US criminals.
Moderating:
Please don’t continue a personal squabble that’s already been moderated. Please discuss the topic and don’t get personal. This is close to a warning.
Regarding prisons used in films, here’s one that’s been used, including when it was still in operation: