Prison

[Achán hiNidráne]

2) More education opportunities for prisoners. Getting a college degree in jail reduces recidivism to near zero.

While I certainly agree with you in spirit, that's not going to help in a culture that that brands those who've spent time in prison as pariahs. What good is a BA going to do you when employers won't hire an ex-con? You might as well go back to robbing banks or stealing cars.

 

[Lothian]

I would change major things;

1. Many fewer things would be felonies - I'd decimalize drugs .....

So you would only imprison people who sold it in ounces?

 

[BenBurch]

So you would only imprison people who sold it in ounces?

LOL. Damned iPhone keyboard.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

A long and contentious argument on this topic:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/08/merciless.html

Notice that the blog's author (SF writer Charlie Stross) has rather low opinion of United States, not just of its prison system. Some things may be hard to swallow, particularly specific example of Al Megrahi. But I very much agree with Stross on the topic of prisoner treatment in general, and particularly on (American) society's attitude to prison rape.

[OT]I cant see what's hard to swallow about the al Megrahi example. Almost certainly a miscarriage of justice[/OT]

On topic - pretty much what Fishstick said.

 

[Sunray Breaker]

I'm for complete legalization of all drugs...After all, there are way deadlier chemicals that are available to the public, that we're just sort of expected to use responsibly...Like drano, antifreeze, thermite (but only accessible with certified NWO identification) Robitussin, Tylenol PM, NyQuil and not to mention NEARLY ALL OF THE CHEMICALS NEEDED TO MAKE METH, are completely legal...

It's so silly when you really think about it.

I'm constantly dissapointed by the government being so far behind the times when it comes to drug legislation. I wish they'd take it more seriously. Instead of writing off Medical Marijuana advocates as just a bunch of hippies trying to have their cake and smoke it too.

 

[Fiona]

Violent crime in America has been trending downward for at least 2 decades and has reached multi-decadal lows. This is in large part due to longer sentences for criminals. Keeping criminals off of the streets and out of the general population does indeed reduce crime. Rehabilitation just doesn't work. It may work in some individual cases, but recidivism rates are very high.

Are you sure about this?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/lawnet/SENTENCE.PDF

The report concludes that the studies reviewed do not provide a basis for inferring that increasing the severity of sentences generally is capable of enhancing deterrent effects

<snip>

Such negative correlations between sentence severity and crime rates as were found to exist generally were not sufficient to achieve statistical significance.

 

[dtugg]

Are you sure about this?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/lawnet/SENTENCE.PDF

I don't think he was referring to deterrent effects. Just the undeniable fact that criminals in prison are not out on the street committing crimes.

 

[Baylor]

I think A Clockwork Orange -type program should be experimented with. Trying to rehabilitate deviant behavior through classical conditioning and other forms of social engineering. I'm dead serious. I'm kind of a mad (social) scientist in that respect.

 

[Fiona]

Well he said violent crime has been trending downwards because of longer sentences: so that means the violent crime rate is related to longer sentences, does it not? I do not see the evidence for this

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=...qJZXhD&sig=AFQjCNEo-KqYWMPSZ3MG1m4sH9nnSluDzA

The report asserts that we should accept the fact that there are no general demonstrations of crime rate reductions achieved by alterations in sentence severity
that are “within the [severity] limits that are plausible in [w]estern ocieties.”9 Given the remarkable increases in sentence severity found “plausible” in the United States in the past decade, it is unlikely that the changes in severity have been too anemic to
produce rate reduction effects. Pending new studies that overturn this conclusion, it seems that increasing the severity of sentences is not reducing the rate of crimes.

http://www.safetyandjustice.org/story/1158

For most of the 1990s, the states with higher than average incarceration rates experienced smaller declines in crime than states with lower than average incarceration rates,

This is interesting too:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090518111726.htm.

The study itself is only reported and I see nothing which controls for the likelihood of being detected: which is presumably higher for those on such a programme. It appears to show that shorter time served with a higher penalty for future crime is deterrent: but not for "more serious crime", which I take to mean crimes of violence because they use the word "dangerous" in describing this group

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/w...are-too-long-too-short-rarely-just-right.html

This does seem to support the incapacitation argument, however: but it is not whole hearted, even so.

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=...uggvJn&sig=AFQjCNGvOLU3Vt5rPElZxuZEfajHrPS9VQ

That is quite interesting too.

Conducted in 2003 it says that the use of prison and probation had increased by 1/4 since 1996: though the number of serious offenders had not much changed

The number of offenders found guilty of more serious offences – indictable
offences – has remained broadly constant. In 1991, 338,000 were found guilty.This fell in 1996 to 300,000, but by 2001 had increased again to 324,000.

and

The proportion of offenders sentenced each year with no previous convictions
has increased over the last decade. In 1991, 34 per cent of offenders found
guilty had no previous convictions. By 2001, this had increased to 42 per cent.

Does not seem that locking people up more reduced the number of offences: looks like other folk just stepped into that niche.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

"Poor Al Meghari, all he did was murder a few hundred people, why should he die in prison?

Perhaps, remember.

 

[roger]

While I certainly agree with you in spirit, that's not going to help in a culture that that brands those who've spent time in prison as pariahs. What good is a BA going to do you when employers won't hire an ex-con? You might as well go back to robbing banks or stealing cars.

He wasn't arguing opinion, he was stating a fact. Getting a college degree in prison nearly guarantees they don't come back. So, it does help.

I wonder how that is adjusted for correlation vs causation (one would expect somebody that wants to turn their life around to be more likely to pursue and achieve a degree, so perhaps they wouldn't have returned to prison anyway).

 

[Dragoonster]

That being said, we as a society owe prison inmates certain things. They should be able to expect safety which includes the expectation that they will not be the victim of rape. One thing that disgusts me is the way prison rape is a subject of humor instead of horror and how some people view being raped in prison as part of the punishment. That seems to be a widespread outlook shared by much of society, including politicians.

The "war on drugs" has had terrible consequences. At the very least, marijuana should be legalised, and simple possession of a drug should not result in a prison sentence. At most, drug possession should be treated like traffic or parking tickets. Violent crimes as part of the drug trade are very different than simple possession or use.

I agree with all of this. In order of reform (and the system strongly needs it), inmate safety from each other and guards is at the top of my list. The punishment for the crime is losing freedom to live in the outside world, but not freedom from rape, beatings, killings, etc. It's barbaric how many prisons are either full of corruption and/or full of violence.

The drug decriminalization is number two for me, because using/selling drugs is imo not a violent crime, and doesn't cause harm to anyone who doesn't willingly know it might. It's clogging up everything--prisons, courts, lawyers.

As far as rehabilitation, I'm in favor of it but imo the primary purpose of the justice system and prisons is to punish for offenses already committed. Rehab is a distant second to that, so I don't really favor lighter sentences, or time off for degrees gained in prison or any of that. I'm also not in favor of doing away with the death penalty, some people's crimes are so bad that they don't really deserve to live. I'm in favor of speeding up the appeals process so it doesn't cost so much and they're killed quicker.

 

[athon]

The problem with any penal system is you need to decide what its primary purpose is.

In my view, there are three reasons why a penal system exists:

Reprimand - By imposing a negative consequence on a behaviour, it makes those who don't committ such an offence feel better. Most of us don't resort to stealing to get what we want, so when somebody does, we want to feel that sense of compensation.

Removal - Taking an offender away from the community provides a sense of security. If a person has demonstrated a certain behaviour, we're inclined to believe there's a higher chance they'll committ it again. By excluding them from the social group, the social group is content that there is a reduced risk of harm being committed onto them.

Rehabilitation - Changing the behaviour of an offender so they are less likely to committ the same offence again.

Problems arise when a single system tries to be all three things. They conflict. If the population wants to see somebody punished, they won't be happy if they're let out after being deemed 'safe' after only a couple of months.

Removing somebody from society is all well and good, however while the population follows 'out of sight, out of mind', it conflicts with the punishment ideal if all sentences are the same - permanent exclusion. If it isn't permanent, then prisoners will need to be released.

If prisoners are released, what promise is there that they won't reoffend? Yet rehabilitation conflicts with the concept of punishment, as it requires focusing on providing the offender with resources rather than simply making them uncomfortable.

Personally, I think that as long as people want all three of these things in equal measures, there will be no such thing as a functional penal system.

Athon

 

[Fishstick]

Isn't "detaching criminals from the outside world" rather the point of imprisonment, which makes sense, considering what they did when they were attached to the world?

What's the point of giving someone shorter sentences if you make them unable to function in the outside world after they've paid their debt to society? That is how recidivism occurs, and that is what I mean by detachment. Give inmates options for an actual life in their post-prison future, instead of ensuring their only way of survival is back in crime.

As far as rehabilitation, I'm in favor of it but imo the primary purpose of the justice system and prisons is to punish for offenses already committed. Rehab is a distant second to that, so I don't really favor lighter sentences, or time off for degrees gained in prison or any of that.

When most children are growing up, they are brought up with the concept of being punished for doing bad things. This generally works well for parenting, as kids end up avoiding the bad things that would get punished and go on to lead normal lives. An unfortunate side effect of this is that the idea of retribution for misbehavior becomes an absolute positive. The reason prisons have evolved as they have in America is largely due to the idea that the way to correct behavior is punishment.

There is an enormous, albeit underappreciated, gap between punishment coming from a parent and punishment coming from the state. It should go without saying, but unfortunately this idea seems to be lost on those that have directed the justice and punishment systems into their current states. It is still based on the notion that negative reinforcement from the state will make people behave better, even though every statistic points in the opposite direction.

 

[Puppycow]

One guy with intersting thoughts on this is Mark Kleiman.
Author of When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment

Also:
Against Excess

He has also appeared several times on bloggingheads.tv. The diavlog with Reihan Salam is a good way to get the gist of his argument.

 

[lionking]

If the population wants to see somebody punished, they won't be happy if they're let out after being deemed 'safe' after only a couple of months.

Bingo. How does anyone think a political party with a "rehabilitation/let prisoners out when cured" policy fare?

 

[KingofMadCows]

At least 20% of inmates in American prisons suffer from serious mental illnesses. Over 5% are psychotic. Punishment doesn't work on people who are disjointed from reality.

Prisons also use solitary confinement, which can cause perfectly healthy people to become depressed and even psychotic.

The prison system obviously needs some serious reforms.

 

[Fishstick]

Here's some excerpts from a HRW reports, detailing how rape is used as a disciplinary tool:

“I've been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat. I had fought and been beat so hard that I didn't ever think I'd see straight again. One time when I refused to enter a cell, I was brutally attacked by staff and taken to segragation though I had only wanted to prevent the same and worse by not locking up with my cell mate. There is no supervision after lockdown. I was given a conduct report. I explained to the hearing officer what the issue was. He told me that off the record, He suggests I find a man I would/could willingly have sex with to prevent these things from happening. I've requested protective custody only to be denied. It is not available here. He also said there was no where to run to, and it would be best for me to accept things . . . . I probably have AIDS now. I have great difficulty raising food to my mouth from shaking after nightmares or thinking to hard on all this. . . . I've laid down without physical fight to be sodomized. To prevent so much damage in struggles, ripping and tearing. Though in not fighting, it caused my heart and spirit to be raped as well. Something I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for.”
— A.H., Indiana, 8/30/96

“I had an officer tell me that "faggots like to suck dick, so why was I complaining." You and I realize that non-consensual sex is rape, regardless—a leap in thinking not possible for prison officials.”
— S.H., Texas, 9/10/96

“My celly tried to rape me with a knife for a weapon, we fought and I got the knife and stabbed him to fight him off, I was charged with attempted murder and felonious assault and taken to trial, found guilty and received 12 to 15 years. The system feels that justice was done.”
— L.L., Ohio, 9/14/96

On 10-21-96 Officer G. came to get me from rec. . . . He had the leash wrapped around my waist, then yanked on it spinning me around. Telling me "move fag." I asked him what the hell was his problem. He shoved me and then yanked on the leash several times in the course of escorting me to my cell. Then pulled out the mace as though he were to spray me. He continued calling me a faggot dick sucker throughout this process. Officer M. witnessed this. . . . I have suffered from a lot of abuse in this prison including my rape to this kind of abuse from staff. I am sick of this treatment.
— A.H., Indiana, 10/21/96 (grievance filed, denied with response: "WRONG FORM")

Getting angry? You should, this happens to at least 200 inmates every single day.

 

[Suddenly]

He wasn't arguing opinion, he was stating a fact. Getting a college degree in prison nearly guarantees they don't come back. So, it does help.

I wonder how that is adjusted for correlation vs causation (one would expect somebody that wants to turn their life around to be more likely to pursue and achieve a degree, so perhaps they wouldn't have returned to prison anyway).

There is something to the latter, but in my experience as someone who often teaches college courses in prison, it is more about a level of self respect and a sense of real world achievement than credentials. People are more willing to hire felons with degrees not only if those degrees include a useful skill (there is a decent market for good jailhouse lawyers who earn paralegal degrees) but also it is a sign of some level of discipline, work ethic, etc.

A certain class of prisoners wind up where they are largely as a reaction to being made to feel they have no stake or place in the everyday world. They grow up with poor educational opportunities, crappy parents, low social status, and so on. So they turn to crime, either as a career choice or out of unfocused rage at being marginalized. Not having a stake in society breeds disrespect for the rules of same.

This does not make what they did right, most people in that situation manage to not become felons. There is a sense of injustice that criminals are getting these opportunities, but I imagine if you ask a future victim of crime that wouldn't have been but for the degree program they will have a more pragmatic view of things...

 

[Praktik]

My man-crush on Jim Webb deepened when I read this speech on the Senate floor:

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .

Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.

Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy - the whole area of drug policy in this country?

And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?​

More here @ The Atlantic