The reason for prison

We all think prison is a necessity of society I assume. There are a lot of people that complain about how good prison is, though. Cable TV, professional gyms, no bills to pay etc. What this debate boils down to is whether you think prison is for rehabilitation or for punishment. Should a prison be designed to turn a criminal into an acceptable member of society again, or should it be for the purpose of punishing them for their crimes? And how should a prison go about trying to rehabilitate or punish them?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Unfortunately, the "rehabilitation" approach of all these happy-go-lucky touchy-feely pinko commies (yeah yeah, overgeneralization... just laugh) doesn't seem to work all that well. (although really, prison as a rehabilitation center actually originated with the Quakers... dang them and their oats!!!)

I know I may sound old fashioned, but I think that criminals should be put to good use in hard labor. If they are going to waste our tax dollars, they might as well give something back to the system rather than suck it dry.
Although, prison as punishment should have 2 roles: 1.) Justice being served, and crimes repaid and 2.) a learning experience for people to "know their place" so to speak. Violation of the law should not be a free pass to luxuries that many inner city people do not have.

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Good call on the labor, Fjordor. I think that drug use is the only offence that really warrants rehabilitation, and, at least in Canada, police seem to be caring less and less about that anyway. I don't know about it doing any justice, but people in prison aren't hurting people somewhere else, which is what I think is the point. The best way to improve the prison system in my opinion would be to make it harder for high chance reoffenders to obtain parole, as the majority of crimes I hear about are committed by people who have already been to prison, and are clearly not any better for it.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It sucks that rehabilitation doesn't work, but I don't think punishment would really be that much more effective unless we're talking about torturing people.

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What gets me is how big a hole the US prison system is where money is thrown into it without any decent return on that investment save keeping the "bad guys" off the streets for a while. With the number of prisoners rising as fast as they are, more and more money is being spent to simply house them rather than help them. But I'll leave that for another time.

A prison should be concerned with making the inmate able to live a normal life once his term is up. Teach him basic skills so he can get a job, and more than register training so he can ask if you want fries with that. Clerical work, auto repair, public services, anything. Provide some therapy, no matter how little, so they can get to the root of why he commited his crime and how he can stop himself from doing it again. If the guy is going to be released and starts robbing the next day, was anything really accomplished?

It is a ridiculous concept that each inmate should get some time to be visited by a doctor, but I see no other means to help them overcome their problems. Even if the average term for an inmate is five years, if they go back to commiting crimes right after they get out, the prison system is still nothing but a revolving door.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I feel that those who commit crimes should be punished. Maybe this is through making them do things they really don't like (like making them work, as Fjordor suggested). Rehabilitation is unavoidable. Sometimes, prisoners slowly develop remorse for what they've done and seek redemption. The only way to stop that would be to make prison into paradise, which no tax-payer is going to allow.

Maybe the Romans had it right with gladiatorial combat...

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The problem with prison is, once you go once, you lose the fear of going back. I always thought to help fight the cost of keeping a prisoner in a prison, make them pay for better accomidations. Imagine paying $50/day to have a private cell that is separate from "the evil people". I will bet that anybody who has the dough, and hasn't been to prison before will gladly shell out 50 bones a day to have a certain comfort level, and still feel the fear of running out of money or doing something in prison to get them tossed in with the people worse than them.

Another big problem is in prisons, most prisoners just learn how to commit crimes better. "So you thought you could get away with robbing that bank? Let's see what happens when we stick you in a room FULL OF BANK ROBBERS!" I mean, come on. Prisoners need proper rehabilitation techniques and guidance on how to better their lives outside of the prison. Most people who land themselves in prison usually end up poor by the time they get out, and have to resort to a life of crime to get themselves back on their feet. Go figure.

How ya doing, buddy?

While it's nice to assume we can lock them up and throw away the key, we have to remind ourselves most of these people will be released back into society. So unless we give them some help, we will be wasting our money even putting them there in the first place.
Prisons are made for correction and punishment, it's just unfortunate that those who gripe about treating prisoners at least partly humanely forget that those same people could become your neighbor (they forget the fromer purpose of prison). Quite possibly worse than they were when they went in.
Even lifers and death row inmates deserve some good treatment. Treating people like an misbehaving object you can just lock up is potentially a worse judgement than the decision that the inmate made that led them to prison.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Unless you've spent some time behind bars, how are you to know the conditions people behind bars live under? So they have cable t.v. uhh big deal? That's not a clear perception on living conditions at large. It's just a generalization.

The vast majority of people locked up in prison probably should not be there. They're not threats to society. Only to themselves. All thanks to the War on Drugs in the US. Prison should be reserved people that are threats to law and order.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Actually TV is one of the biggest bargaining chips in prison. When my friend Drew spent time in prison, he made sure to go to bed early each night to wake up early enough to do as many chores he could get done before most of the other prisoners woke up. The guards liked him so much, they made sure that Drew controlled what channel was on the public TV set. "If I get what I want, you can all watch NASCAR. In the meantime, we will watch the History Channel and get some education out of this place." Power isn't always controlled through raw muscle.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You have to try to rehabilitate prisoners. A significant percentage of prisoners return to prison after serving their original terms. If you give prisoners the skills they need to be self-sufficient, they shouldn't commit any more crimes.

And to whoever talked about having prisoners perform labor as part of their punishments, you're absolutely right. I don't see any reasons why prisoners aren't doing some sort of labor to repay their debts to society. There was, however, some controversy many years ago about chain gangs and the work they did. That type of prison labor was outlawed because guards were treating their prisoners harshly. But now I see no reason why a legitimate form of prison labor can't be established that is humane.

How ya doing, buddy?

The hardest part about prisons is reintroducing prisoners back into the real world. The hardest part of this is funds. Prisons barely have enough food to keep up with their overpopulation, so there is VERY little room for rehabilitation programs. Most prisoners have to take an initiative on their own if they want to be something on the outside.
Prisoners adapt to their new life in prison, and when they're released they have a hard time re-adapting to the real world. The same rules don't apply. This argument works better for long-time prisoners who are released.
When short-time prisoners are released, they often come out smarter criminals than they were when they went in. They learn from others how not to get caught. Prison these days, because of lack of funding, has become a training ground for thugs. It's all they know in some cases!
If they were taught and given opportunities that were worth a shit in the real world, it may benefit society in the long run. The problem is convincing the general public that more funds need to go to prisons and not to schools. Obviously, schools are the better choice. Since the people in jail already screwed up, lets all give the kids the chance they deserve so they don't end up in the prison cycle.
Most of the time you're viewed as a lost cause or a catch-22 in prison. With that mentality on you while you're there, it's tough to motivate yourself to beter yourself.
I'm pretty damn sure that last line was in an 80's after school special. -_-;

How ya doing, buddy?

Prison is a place to keep all the felons off the streets. Sure, the whole justice system has flaws up the wazoo, but I guess its the best have until someone thinks of a totally genius plan.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Jack The Ripper

Prison is a place to keep all the felons off the streets. Sure, the whole justice system has flaws up the wazoo, but I guess its the best have until someone thinks of a totally genius plan.

Way to take on a proactive attitude there, chief!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Should a prison be designed to turn a criminal into an acceptable member of society again, or should it be for the purpose of punishing them for their crimes? And how should a prison go about trying to rehabilitate or punish them?

Prison is itself a punishment for crimes and a way of getting the scum outta the streets. As for rehabilitation...well, depends on the crime and/or the person.
If you're speaking about, let's say, thieves, then rehabilitation is a valid option.
But if you're talking about terrorists, rapists and so, they deserve to rot in prison for the rest of their lives.

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Originally Posted by Fjordor

I know I may sound old fashioned, but I think that criminals should be put to good use in hard labor.

I agree.

Actually, if I were in prison, I'd be all for having to do something truly productive instead of watching TV and getting bumraped.

But what kind of labor can they do that doesn't require a decent amount of training? I mean, I don't think any new railroads need to be built.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

People seem divided on whether people should go to jail for punishment and rehabilitation, or for revenge. This was really brought into focus when Milosevic died in prison, and everyone was upset because "justice hadn't been done." Considering that he was almost certainly looking at a death sentance, what they wanted there wasn't "justice", they wanted revenge, plain and simple.

Here's the rub: if you're not going to take measures to reform a criminal, you may as well just kill him or lock him up forever, because he's just going to break the law again. Some people behave after getting out, but they tend to be the minority. But prison doesn't do a very good job of rehabilitating the people you send there, which is why the system is so dysfunctional.

The goal of rehabilitation keeps getting tripped up again by people who can't decide what jail is there for. You've got measures and policies being passed by those who think jail time = revenge, those who think jail exists as punishment to demonstrate to criminals that what they did was wrong, and those who blame the victim and think it's wrong to be mean to lawbreakers.

The most glaring example: the death sentance and life without parole exist simultaneously. Why? Both sentances mean that the state does not believe you can ever be reformed. If you have a death sentance on the books and the criminal will always be dangerous, why not just kill him and save the taxpayers money? The only reason to issue a life sentance in such a situation is if you believe that the legal system exists to exact revenge, and that both sentances are merely degrees of vengance.

I don't use the word "justice" because I don't really see locking someone up as such. The jail part is just to segregate the dangerous person from the rest of society until you've rehabilitated them. Recompension, either to the victim or the state, is justice, which is why I also think they need to put all these cons to work.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Fjordor

Violation of the law should not be a free pass to luxuries that many inner city people do not have.

I actually saw this on the Rikki Lake show when I was like 9, where these homeless and inner city people would burgle, steal and basically greviously harm people so that they would get sent to jail for the sole purpose of getting 3 square meals a day, a solid roof over their heads and not have to worry about money.

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Originally Posted by FallDragon

Should a prison be designed to turn a criminal into an acceptable member of society again, or should it be for the purpose of punishing them for their crimes?

It really depends on the individual immate as well as they time they have to serve. For instance, someone that has to serve a few months for robbery should be "deprogrammed", so to speak. However, a serial killer shouldn't be rehabilited. There's just no point. That person should be left under the jail with no cable TV and gyms and stuff.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

And how should a prison go about trying to rehabilitate or punish them?

Rehabilitation should most definitely consist of psychological therapy. Therapy seems to help people for other stuff, so why can't it be used on prisoners? Punishing them (based on the severity of their crime) should consist of nothing to past the time. I've heard that being in solitary is the worst thing a person is made to endure.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.