August 4, 2009

  • How Cruel should Prisons Be?

    I am going to try to write more short posts that are less polished, but have interesting topics for debate. How cruel and punitive do you think prisons should be? On the one hand, prisoners must be punished for their crimes. On the other hand, surrounding a prisoner with many other criminals and treating them harshly gives them little chance to rehabilitate their lives. If you could revamp the criminal justice system, how would you change it?

Comments (23)

  • This is a great essay question for a criminal justice university program.

  • @Blessed_Enigma - Ha, true. I have a longstanding interest in public policy systems and how they can be improved.

  • @GreekPhysique - Hmm, am I speaking, perhaps, with America's Next Top Politician? 

  •  Retribution vs. Rehabilitation is a serious issue. With the average prisoner reentering society after their incarceration with less of a chance of obtaining gainful employment than prior to entry, with a gap of time out of society itself, and most without a positive support system; the question comes into play, is how we are "doing prison" safe for society in general? The system is set for failure to readjust to society and reentry into the system, so the system self perpetuates. Give someone a hundred or so dollars and throw them back out into society with a good luck and dont do that again.....and then wonder why they didnt learn their lesson. You would think by now we would have learned ours.....

  • I would have to know more about the current situation. But from what I know (or at least, think I know) I would make them generally a bit more cruel than they are now. I believe they should be more cut off from the world in the sense that they shouldn't have video games or tv or movies. But there should be a basic education system for those who want it. Kind of like free schooling for manual jobs. Or teaching them how to learn easier, then they might have a desire to go back into the world and get at least a basic education. Something they can be proud of. Maybe then they will realize that working with society (in general) in beneficial to everyone involved.

    It should be better than just punishment, but it shouldn't be a free vacation from the troubles of the world.

  • I don't think it helps anyone but our own sense of vindictiveness and vengeance to have prisons be cruel, and fueling that side of society doesn't help anybody.

    They should be punished, but most criminals are also individuals who obviously need a lot of help - punishing them cruelly isn't going to give them that help.

    It's an excellent question.

  • I put in a lot of isolation cells. Abuse another prisoner and that is where you stay your entire sentence. The rest live in what is close to a secured campus. But it only takes one offense to to be put permanently in solitary

  • ... More and less cruel. More, in the sense that certain liberties -- television, outside contact, etc should be more severely limited (say, to those in prison for minor offenses). Less in the sense that more effort should be made to protect prisoners from each other.

    I think prison should be more like boot camp; each man should be "broken down and built back up." Most criminals are high school drop-outs with low IQs and few job options, and no normal life skills. Prisons should require inmates to care for themselves -- make their own beds every morning, clean their racks, maintain their hygiene, have routine inspections, work in the galley, etc. This teaches not only discipline, but life skills that can be carried back into a normal life. They should also be required to attend training for things like how to attain a GED, how to make a budget, how to get a job, basic parenting skills. If they fail these courses, their parole boards should be delayed. Freedom should be contigent upon their willingness and ability to be reintigrated into society, not upon the extent of their crimes. Statistics are pretty clear that offenders who do not fully reintigrate only go on to commit more severe crimes than their previous offenses; simply punishing them for crimes committed doesn't do much to protect them from going back to prison for a worse crime or protect society from them.

    I also think the prison chaplaincy program needs to be a fully intigrated part of the prison system for members of all faiths; religious counseling (or even secular counseling from a religious member) is necessary to treat the inmate like a full person, rather than simply a criminal. But, that's another issue altogether...

  • I live less than 5- 10 miles from about 5 prisons & what we see is just a cycle. The ppl go in & its really bad there, bad enough to make guards go bad when they weren't. Guards & prisoners get something they call kool-aid there ,a mixture of body fluids, they throw on them while passing by.
    Its a hard nugget school more than punishment, so increasing the punishment wouldn't really do any good.
    What you could do is make punishment really stick & give "better" sentences, instead of letting them back out to start it all over again.

  • I dont' think they should be cruel at all.  Just firm.  As in, prisoners should work hard, be given simple nutritious food, and have no distractions except for the type that improve their minds, like good books and a variety of classes.  I would be in favor of No TV or video games, since if they are working hard and improving their minds, they wouldn't have time for them anyway.  I agree with the person who said there should be more protection from each other, but that could happen with all the money they save on TVs, air conditioning, and other unnecessary items.

    I admire that sheriff in Arizona http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/miracopjail.htm   though of course, he's been pounded by all the civil rights groups.  He may not do everything right, but at least he is on the right track, IMO.  Prisoners are there because they are messed up.  They need retraining, and the only way to do that is to be tough with them, just as you would with rebellious children.  They need encouragement to change.

  • I would force them to watch the 700 club.  That is both punishment and beneficial.

  • @linnelleum - excellent answer

  • I don't think cruelty is the answer.  I have a close family member who has been in prison four times in South Africa. Our prisons are inhumane with 70 to 300 men stuffed into cells that were designed for 40 - only two toilets in these cells.  Corporal punishment and two meals (one of which is dry bread) a day.  A person can even get used to and find comfort in that.

  • I think some of the niceties like cable tv and newspapers should be done away with.

  • I would make sure each person in the system got evaluated for mental illnesses. I would require them to participate in programs that are educational in order to earn every extra item or activity they are allowed to have. In other words a prisoner would get a cell a bunk, food etc. but if he wanted anything else, even if he paid for it himself he would have to earn the right to have it and after that earn the right to keep it. I would encourage businesses to participate in fresh start programs in the only way that works... I would give them tax breaks, or grants if they did. Prisoners are human beings and if we can educate them, counsel them and treat them as human beings many of them would really like a chance to start over. If we abuse them and send them back out into the world with no way to change then all they have to go back to is crime.

  • I think that, unless you plan to lock them up and throw away the key, the emphasis has to be on humane rehabilitation.  I see this as the only practical way for society to go about it.  I think there should be ample opportunities (and even requirements) for the attainment of an education, basic marketable job skills, and life skills.  I think there should also be an atmosphere of strict, but directed, discipline.  Since the average citizen has to work 8+ hours a day, prisoners should expect to be productive for at least as many hours.  (By productive, I don't mean slave labor.  I mean activity that produces positive personal growth.)  I also think that prisoners would benefit from a positive, compassionate mentoring relationship.  Mental, learning, and physical disabilities should also be addressed more than ever.

    That's a tall order, of course.  All that would be hard to implement and very expensive.  But I think we already pay a high price for recidivism.

  • I love talking about this stuff.

    Unfortunately I'm less verbose when I'm not on my own computer, so I'll have to come back and input my $2 (cuz I have way more than two cents to say about this!!)

  • the purpose of prison should be to rehabilitate criminals so that they can function in the outside world. so no, i dont think prison should be cruel. even if what the person did was horrible.

  • i wouldn't let them have as much entertainment, you get to go out, you get to exercise but no you don't get tv. you only can make calls in the allotted hour, you have to work for food, books, etc. every prision must work on resume writing and rehabitative thearapy... prisions are too soft in the wrong places. most criminals come out worst than when they went in!

  • These are the things that I (John) think about the prision system:  Lessening the time of a sentence with good behavior has its flaws.  Its a no brainer that child molesters get off with good behavior...reason being that there's no children in prison giving them no reason to have bad behavior.  Kind of easy.  I like that there are some states that have levels where the prisioners have chances to be rehabilitated.  The good inmates have more privelidges and live in a comfortable enviroment which they earned.  It might be because we aren't dealing with the root of the problem.  We're incarcerating people and they think that is the answer, that they will magically have good behavior.  

  • I haven't really decided what prison should be like, but I know prisons shouldn't be anything like they are here. Here in Canada, from what I've heard, a lot of prisons are more like country clubs...inmates get access to computers, TVs, gyms, and very nice meals, adn even free university educations! (Karla Homolka...I'm sure you've heard of her and Paul Bernardo, charged with raping and murdering 3 girls and chopping them to bits to hide the evidence...got a free university education while she was in jail. They should have made her pay back all the education fees once she got out and got a job. It's not fair that murders should get free education and good honest citizens have to pay out the ass for it).

    Many prisoners live better, more comfortable lives than some regular people. They have it so good that some people don't want to leave prison! How the hell is THAT rehabilitation? Nice to know my tax dollars are hard at work. 

  • I gotta say, after being to jail twice, that it's hell. I never made it past the booking area, or holding cells..into "actual jail" if you will. But unless you've been there, it's hard to comprehend the hell that it is. As far as the criminal justice system, I would take the word justice out completely. It is not a system based on justice. It is a system solely intent on treating you like a criminal, and overall it is more about convictions than truth, fairness, or justice. Everything gets indicted, all charges. . . no matter how stupid or silly or frivolous, and sometimes not even investigated. Thus, until you have been through, or accused of a crime you didn't comment, be careful about judging prison inmates. I would bet every dollar I owned that there are plenty of innocent people in jail. Sure their are plenty of guilty ones too, but in the end God's grace is extended to them all. 

  • Focus on rehabilitation. The recidivism rate is horrible.

    For those that can't be rehabilitated use special housing.

    For rapists, paedos, and murderers lock them in a room together.

Comments are closed.

Post a Comment