prosequence

I personally think the justice system is a lame duck waiting to die. With that said, do you agree that convicted felons should keep civil, human rights after they violate another persons rights and freedoms? What would you like to see as the "lifestyle" within prison walls?

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cataklysm

Many people have an impression of prisons as a place where criminals are simply locked up for punishment. That opinion would have been true 50 years ago. After many years of experience and study, government and judicial systems have recognised the need for prisons to be places of change.

A basic question needs answering - what is the use of a prison system which returns an offender to the community the same if not worse than when he or she entered prison? The philosophy in most modern prison systems is to try and change the behaviour of offenders by developing in them skills which see all people live in the community without resorting to crime.

Of course this is the goal, whether or not it is working, I highly doubt.

Mantus

Well there are two paths to take. Either we use prisons as rehabilitation facilities, which seems to be the current trend. Or we use them as an object of fear to deter crime.

Neither of these concepts actually works. Prisons are a remedy of the symptom - not a solution to the problem. Crime is not a random occurrence; nobody walks down the street and suddenly decides to rob a back. Crime breeds from social decay and unrest.

Current rehabilitation programs are a joke. In order for them be effective we would need to infuse allot more capital into the system. The advantage of such a system, if we could get it to work, is that it will turn a good number of criminals into decent members of society. The flaw with the system is that the funding used for such an extensive program could be used for social reform, which prevents criminals in the first place.

Using prisons as a deterrent from crime is also not terribly effective. Crime happens because people are in desperate situations. Thus the amount of potential criminals on the street is still the same. Some will think twice about performing a criminal act, but since most crime is bred from desperate circumstance based on social decay, people who have nothing to lose will continue to commit crime no mater the consequences. The major flaw with a system that tortures and takes away all right of criminals is that it degrades the value of the entire society, which inflates social decay.

Either approach amounts to nothing more then a band-aid solution. Whether you want to heal the cut gently or threaten to use iodine the method doesn’t remove the thorn bush people are forced to crawl though. The solution to crime is removing the obstacle of social decay though social reform, which includes: education, Medicare, employment and social security.

tecoyah

I would like to see two types of prisons.

Petty crime and financial in todays prison system, without drug offenders
(I think most drugs should be legalized:see thread in tilted politics)

Escape from New York for sex, and violent crimes.

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WarWagon

Problem I see with two types of prisons is that often drug related crimes/violence can be intertwined in the grand scheme of things. I can also see wealthy criminals buying their way into the easier of the two.

That being said, I'm all for the scared straight approach. The idea behind prisons should be punishment, not tax dollars paying for a criminal to have a place to eat and sleep.

KellyC

I don't think they so. Like mantus stated. Doing so would degrade the society as a whole. I'd much rather prefer that the criminals are taught better moral values and just hope for the best.

Heres a thought. Instead of sending those guys to jail. Send them to the military? After an X amount of years in service, and that they showed substantial improvement, they can leave the military. Does any one know if this had tried before? Do you think it would work?

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sexymama

I do believe that prisoners deserve basic human rights. What I wonder is how do we define those rights? Is it truly a basic right to have cable tv in your rooms (true in a prison in Oregon.)? Is it basic rights to be allowed conjugal visits, when possibly the reason you are in prison is for killing the spouse of another person?

Basic rights, to me, are food, water, and shelter. The rest is icing on the cake.

That said, I'd love to see rehabilitation work; but where things currently stand, it doesn't -- at least not for the major crimes. I don't know how to change that reality, just think it would be nice. Maybe tecoyah is correct and we need two types of prisons.

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asaris

I think that prison needs to be both about punishment and rehabilitation. If it's only about rehabilitation, there's a lurking slippery slope -- we lock them up until they're 'better', and who decides what constitutes 'better'? But punishment is one-sided as well. More practically? I don't know enough about the system to know what would help improve it. Concerns about overcrowding aside, I'm not sure the current system is all that bad.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

raeanna74

I don't really have much faith in rehabilitation of criminals. Human nature is to stay within their comfort zone. We tend to stay with the behavior that we are used to and the life that we know best. The only thing that makes the difference is motivation. I think using prison as a deterrent is probably the best way of motivating criminals to change their behavior and the best route to rehabilitaion. I believe that we should also give rehabilitation a try but the "cooshy" lifestyle that criminals lead doesn't deter them much from crime. Television, exercise, and other things won't help to deter them. A VERY Simple boring lifestyle with ONLY the bare necessities is the route I personally believe would be more effective.

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My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

Mantus

I remember a while back there was murderer caught in our city. He raped, killed and cut up two girls. They showed a picture of his cell in the newspaper. After seeing the picture I went over to my dad and said,

“Dad, why does the murderer get his own VCR and a TV and I don’t?”

macro

Sadly, you are 100% correct.