Why don’t we just build more prisons? Well we actually do build more prisons. But speaking from experience it is not a system that really cares about rehabilitation but instead just a place to warehouse people for a time and then send them out to commit more crimes so they can retrun and keep the big wheel turning. Simply put, it’s an industry built to provide fairly well paying jobs to a lot of people with little more then a high school education. It also encourages those incarcerated to learn other valuable skills such as new crimes to commit and networking with other criminals. There are only 2 kinds of people that come out of prison, those that decided that is not the life they want (which is rare) and make the effort to rehabilitate themselves and those that really only care to get out long enough to taste a little freedom and commit more crimes. They have no fear of returning to prison. In a lot of cases they have more in prison then they did on the outside. Because of the way prisons are set up it can be a very traumatizing thing. If you’re one of the weak you will most certainly be exploited by the other convicts. If you’re one of the people doing the exploiting prison is a place that is very comfortable to you. Cable/sattelite tv, 3 meals day, a warm bed, etc. (the list goes on but it really depends on where you are incarcerated as to what things you can have). It’s an industry that lines a lot of pockets with a lot of cash. If the real goal were to discourage people from coming back it would not be run like it is. Has anyone ever heard of any kind of incentive programs for wardens and their staff to reduce recidivism through the way they run their facilities? No? Didn’ think so. Job security comes to these people because of recidivism. In my opinion if it was truly a goal to discourage someone from returning to prison then there would be 2 kinds of prisons, maximum security and minimum security. Most people would be held in isolation with no contact with other prisoners, of course just like max they would be given their 1 hour a day out of the cell in a small exercise area, perhaps even provided closed circuit television to attend some sort of educational programs, and many other things that could be accomplished by closed circuit to do with drug counseling, etc., and provided with plenty of reading materials but no entertainment tv of any kind. And absolutley no contact visitations. Drugs are brought into prisons through visits. I know this for a fact. Without contact there would only be one other way for people to get drugs in and that would be through the prison staff (it happens but is very rare). Those that prove themselves to be rehabilitating themselves and have very little time left to serve could be given the oppurtunity to be housed in a less secure place, but I’m not even convinced that should be allowed. And if they were to be and then violated rules they should be put back in maximum security and no chance for parole after that. This may all sound harsh but I would bet anyone here this would cut down on recidivism tremendously and in the long run allow for FEWER prisons and less crime. Of course there really is no rehab for a certain percentage of people. They just can’t or won’t have it. In that case, fine, live out your life in isolation. I suppose if you want to build a prison for lifers (those whose cases have exhausted all of their appeals and have no hope for ever getting out) you could allow them to live in a community setting. I don’t know why would allow that because violence against each other and the staff will certainly follow. Best to just isolate them until they die. I really see no reason to provide comfort to a sociopath. They chose to do the crime, let them rot for life. What’s the alternative? Aww! poor little fella! He’s going to be there for life so let him have a tv to watch and be entertained! Screw that. Let him write to those on the outside and tell them how miserable and unappealing it is and that they’d better not chose the same path he did.
Ouch, wall of text time.
Or drive them psychotic, like often happens with prisoners put in isolation. Somehow I doubt that driving people insane and then dumping them on the streets will reduce recidivism.
You presume that they or the people you are trying to terrorize will actually think that him committing crimes had anything to do with his punishment. For that matter, you assume that the people you want to intimidate will believe he committed a crime in the first place. Especially since I guarantee that the well off or female won’t be sent to your punishment factories, and probably far fewer whites than other races.
The American justice system is too blatantly unfair for any variation of “do the crime, do the time” to work; too many people simply won’t believe it.
Edited for readability. 'Cause I care for the community, see ?
The majority of serious crimes (both inside prison and in society) are committed by a small minority of career criminals. So going after those criminals I can understand.
However the other 80% are an eclectic bunch. Many committed few crimes or are first time offenders. Many are seriously mentally ill. Something like 25% of people in prison are mentally ill and there are more mentally ill in prisons than hospitals. Then you have all the people who are in prison due to psychological trauma or drug addiction causing them to act stupid who need to learn self control and boundaries, etc.
Building more prisons is pointless IMO. We tried that in the 90s.
On top of that most serious sex crimes never even get reported. So while you are locking up the mentally ill, drug users and first time offenders, we have a society with a large scale public health crisis of secret sex abuse going on underground.
So suffice it to say it is a complicated issue.
Psycotic? I didn’t say a Vietnam type torture prison. So please provide proof of that statement. You do realize these prisons I’m advocating already exist? They’re called maximum security. God forbid we stop all the gang violence happening all over the prison population where the people are allowed to co-mingle. Your reasoning is flawed and blatantly untrue.
Your second point: HUH? What the hell di you even say? People I am trying to terrorize? You mean criminals I assume? WTF? I have no idea what the last 2 paragraphs are even saying. As far as far fewer whites, the well off and females, um, all righty then. If you say so. If you want to talk about that stuff then I have no idea why you are addressing it towards me since I made no mention of these things. Besides if this is your belief then surely you already believe it is happening now that “far fewer whites, the well off and women” are treated differently. My heart doesn’t bleed for any person of any color that commits crimes. If you want to argue what should be considered a crime then we could open another thread on that. But I suppose since the system is already so unfair we should close all jails and prisons and let everyone go until you tell us a better way.
You’re correct - government’s primary role is meant to be the protection of its citizens.
And it worked. Increasing the numbers in prison reduces crime.
Levitt, Steven D. (Winter 2004). “Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not” (PDF). Journal of Economic Perspectives 18
But the same paper also concludes that (a) it is not the most cost effective method (b) it’s likely to have long term negative social effects (c) it is a method that probably has sharply diminishing marginal returns.
Well, yes, but he is Mean Mr. Mustard. 
The horse has only bolted if you believe that there is no positive correlation between crimes committed in the past and a willingness to commit crimes in the future.
Isolating an individual from any and all social contact whatsoever will turn him into a raving nut in short order if he wasn’t one to begin with. If only because, without a social network to tell you when your behaviour is nutty or unacceptable, you naturally tumble further and further into nutty behaviour. Ask any guy who lives at home in his underwear. Ask him how long it took before he ate off of dirty, unwashed plates & stopped bathing :p.
Knowing this, completely isolating criminals for 1, 2, 5 years ; then sending them into regular society overnight is possibly the absolute worst thing you can do with them. It’s the ultimate culture shock. They’ll hardly ever fit back in.
There’s also a reason why sensory deprivation is a torture method : we, as a species, can’t be alone with ourselves. We all need something to stop the over-thinking and the little voices.
Conservatives: how about instead of building more prisons, you use the same amount of money to hire more cops and provide them with better training and equipment?
Oh really, I am not suggesting that no-one at all should be imprisoned, ever. But by “the horse has bolted” I did not mean that the prisoner has escaped, I meant the crime has already been committed. The harm has been done. There are far more sensible and efficient ways of preventing people from becoming criminals than imprisoning them after they have already committed a crime, especially considering that most convicts come out of prison as more hardened criminals than they were when they went in. (It is pretty much inevitable, after having been cooped up for months or years with a bunch of criminals.)
Anyway, sending criminals to prison may be better than not punishing them in any way at all, but only very slightly better. In some cases there are no better alternatives, but in many cases, there are. It is in society’s interest to use prison as sparingly as possible, and America currently has the balance very wrong.
Speaking for myself, I like the little voices.
What’s that?
–djklj-- djkwioe-- Kobal2 — ghsoios!!!
Oooh, the little voices don’t like Kobal2…
No, it has not. The crime is the symptom, not the disease.
If someone is willing to break into houses now, he’s probably going to be someone willing to break into houses a year from now, unless you do something to stop him. To stop him, you must remove either the will or the capacity to break into houses.
Make abortion free and on-demand. Fifteen years from now, you’ll notice the difference.
Damn, y’all sure read a lot into my OP.
Allow me to clarify:
I was not referring to the mentally ill. Nor to drug abusers (unless they are incarcerated not for the drug abuse itself, but for criminal activity they have committed). You may have noticed my reference to “career criminals” and the “criminally minded” in the OP.
Convicted murderers, rapists, pedophiles, batterers, drunk drivers (yeah, that’s right), etc. should server their full prison sentence in every instance. Whether this requires more prisons, or perhaps another solution, this is what I based my OP on.
I’d love to hear your examples of “victimless crimes”.
Nola,
What you write is the truth. My father was a warden and I grew up on the grounds of a prison. I don’t think the average Joe armed with statistics can’t truly know the scope of the prison problems we are facing.
We are building more super max prisons but it is like putting a band-aid on cancer.
The sad thing is that we had a handle on the prison situation and the left wingers made them to much into motels for gang members. It was in the 30’s I think where they said the prisoners had the right to refuse to work? Chain gangs were shown as being cruel. I know it was hard work but sometimes hard work can make a person think twice about ever going back.
At the prison my father ran they used to turn a profit every year until they passed that bill. It was a womens prison and the incarcerated women raised cattle and crops and sold the surplus to market. Everyone in the prison had to learn a trade, whether it be a laundress, a teacher, a farmer, a butcher, a baker or a candle stick maker… just kidding on the last part.
Very few women were repeat offenders back then. They also left with a skill. Then in the 60’s when they started giving out methadone to the heroin addicts it became a revolving door for hookers. If they couldn’t get dope on the streets they would write a bad check and get their dope on the inside.
When we made prison comfortable we created a monster. When we said it was unfair to make them work for their keep we made them lazy and institutionalized. When we gave them free dope we just made it too easy. I don’t know if they still give out methadone but they used to.
What makes you think that most people in prison come under those categories?
Using marijuana is one of the more common examples given of one.
When, exactly, was that?
As for the OP… you answered your own question. It’s expensive to build and even more expensive to run a prison. Seems like we’ve elected to what we, collective, feel is the best trade-off between building prisons and tolerating criminals on the street. Not to mention that we can, and do, operate the existing prisons beyond the capacity for which they were built.
The crime rate has been going down for many years. We have a huge prison population because we so casually throw people in there, not because there is a huge crime wave.
That’s just disgusting, slavery or something very close to it. Nor have we stopped using prison labor unfortunately; which is yet another reasons incarceration rates won’t go down; profits. Both from the prison labor, and the huge sums the prison guards unions pull in. It’s an industry.
Except we haven’t; instead, we’ve become more and more obsessed with punishment and profit.