Prisoners have rights too, you know...

Like I said, put their asses to work even if they can't afford it. Hell the criminal can cut the victim's grass and fix his toilet and whatever else the victim needs done. Let a deal between the victim (it's important that this not be the state) and criminal be arranged and he can work off his debt. If you rob my house, why should the state determine how much you should be punished? Why shouldn't I determine that based on the damages incurred and your ability to work within reasonable guidelines? I think this is much more desirable than me paying for you to sit in prison. Not to mention the millions of people who couldn't care less about you robbing my house being forced to contribute.

 

Maybe someone else can better answer this, but I think the major problem with housing inmates is finding enough beds, not putting them with similar criminals.

That's the thing, most of these decisions about how to treat criminals are made with stupid logic or no logic at all. The system is grossly overcrowded. When administrators are faced with that problem, their priorities are effected. In many cases they don't have the luxury of strategically placing inmates, other than keeping the Hispanic gangs away from the white gangs. And politicians, with their super cool motives, get to make shitty decisions that put huge numbers of people into the prison system (insane mandatory sentences for drug users anyone?) while simultaneously underfunding the very system they're flooding. After all, we love our politicians to be tough on crime and hate to see criminals benefit from our taxes. And when your only option is to put criminals in prison, then the only way to get tougher on crime is to make the sentences longer.

If anyone is interested, Graeme Newman wrote an awesome book about this called Just and Painful. He basically says that punishment should go back to being painful. Isn't that really what we mean when we say that criminals are treated too nicely? And we can control that with the use of corporal punishment in a far more ethical way. The book is really interesting and has an airtight logic to it.

 

With prisoners, the punishment should fit the crime. I you are a rapist, then your victim should get to flip through the prison roster to pick out your cellmate.

There is only one guarantee with prison: go there and you are taking a brutalizing and unrelentingly paranoid voyage into Hell. They call it the "Animal Factory" for a reason: you may not be a maniac when you go in, but spend an extended stay in there and in one way or the other you WILL become one before you leave.

Yes, I think more money should be put into prisons: more guards, more security, and above all more fucking PRISONS (American prisons especially are disgustingly overcrowded), with a better sorting of convicted criminals. Sure, some hamfisted corner market robber is a fuck-up that belongs in jail, but do you think he should be sharing a cell with a guy who believes that the soul gift that God bestowed on him was killing people? A guy who got caught using hard drugs doesn't deserve to have head head stomped flatter than a cheap pizza by a guy who enjoys setting women on fire. I know they don't belong in the same place, but they are.

The scariest thing is, through documentaries we see what kind of horrors await those sent to San Quentin or Sing-Sing, but these places are Hedonism II compared to the unspeakable jails held across the world. Especially Russia, a place the anyone who knows will tell you that a painful death would be preferrable compared to doing time in Russia with the most dangerous sociopaths ever known to man.

 

Wait what? Really? How is that possible? If that is the case then we need to adopt more cost effective ways of killing people too. This shouldn't be hard at all. How about the guillotine?

 

It's all to do with the legal fee's. It's far more expensive to pursue the death sentence due to appeals and that.

 

Yes, it's the legal fees on all the appeals. I've seen numbers upwards of TWICE the cost for death penalty vs. life in prison.

Personally, I don't see the reasoning behind why the death penalty is necessary. It sounds too much like the "punishment fits the crime" motto of the Middle East and the Dark Ages. Steal bread, cut off your hand bullshit.

 

You can't possibly be serious. I refuse to believe that you can seriously suggest that a victim should be able to decide the punishment of a violent criminal. Have you considered that the violent criminal could, oh, I don't know, make threats to the victim if he decides on a harsh course of punishment? That the victim might decide on a disproportionately harsh course of action? On a disproportionately light course of action? If the state has no business deciding how much people who break the law should be punished, how can you possibly maintain that the state has any business making laws in the first place?

Unless I'm mistaken, aren't prisons a major source of recruits for particularly radical forms of Islam in this country?

 

Maybe I've watched too many movies on the subject, but to what degree does the "sadistic prison guard" play in how horrible it can be to be in prison? Or, more generally, how much of it is the way the prison administration views/treats its prisoners more broadly? I realize that they do not always have good options to choose from, but from what others have said, it seems a good staff would generally be able to keep harm away from you (even if that does mean segregated cell blocks or whathaveyou) and maybe even give you something like classes and privileges. On the other hand, it seems like a bad administration, or even a single asshole guard who decides he dislikes you, can make your life a living hell by either putting you in Bubba's cell or denying you even the most basic privileges (books, etc).

I guess what I'm ultimately asking is, how much is it a problem with the system as a whole, and how much can be dealt with on a per-prison or even an individual (guards or other inmates) level?

 

Actually I suggested the punishment the victim be allowed to negotiate (with the criminal and a disinterested third party) meet reasonable guidelines. Perhaps I was implying the state would be involved in determining those? Is it not now possible that the criminal may threaten the victim since you seem so worried about that? Have you ever heard of a mob trial? If the victim decides on a disproportionately light course of action what the hell business is it of yours? Since, you know, you had no involvement in crime whatsoever and were not affected by it.

To answer your last question, I'd be happy to take that to PMs, since it has little to do with this discussion. At least to my drunken mind at this moment.

 

The civil court system actually fulfills a lot of this function in redressing grievances that are person to person and not person against society. However, a crime is also a crime against society, it's not just against the person. There's a monetary cost to every crime that is not just suffered by the victim (cost of police, for example), as well as more intangible, but no less real, costs. If someone robs a house down the street from me, I feel less safe. If I'm a potential criminal in a high crime area I may consider it easier to get away with or not consider the moral issues as much. And so on and so forth. Third party mediated punishment is a lawsuit for damages, law enforcement is oneo f the core functions of government.

Now, none of this means that our current system is awesome, it just means that if someone robs your house, you can sue them for the money, but that they also have to face the criminal condemnation of society as a whole as well. It's not up to the victim to, for example, decide that it's no big deal and thus no enforcement action should take place. Which then leads to the criminal doing it again somewhere else. The four reasons we enforce these laws are rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution. Three of those reasons have a lot less to do with the harm suffered by the victim and far more to do with utility to society.

 

So should a rapist get punitively raped in jail?

So a domestic abuse convict should have the shut beat out of him?


There are a lot of crimes less serious than murder where the "eye for an eye" isn't used by our legal system. If our system isn't consistent, it isn't fair.
Logically speaking, if executions aren't cruel and unusual, than neither should rapes, assaults, etc.

 

Assuming I agree with that first statement (I disagree with it entirely actually), why should the taxpayers bear the cost of imprisoning the person? Why not instead have the criminal work to repay the costs to society (court, police, etc costs)? There's essentially an infinite amount of work to be done on earth so finding things for criminals to do to benefit the victims and public is not an issue.

I think trying to base punishments around the intangible "costs" you mentioned is arbitrary and a slippery slope. I don't think in a system of law and order feelings should be the same things as real costs.

That's not entirely true. It's up to the victim to press the charges. It's after the criminal charges are filed that the state takes over. Maybe murder is an exception, or if the police catch the criminal in the act.

And those 3 are big failures! I think it's time for a new way. Or an old way. A combination of restitution and retribution would be far more fulfilling for the victims and society as well as not creating the huge problems of the current prison system.

 

That's not actually correct, merely a common misconception because of what people see on TV. Once a crime has been reported it is the prosecutor's discretion as to whether or not to bring charges (along with what charges to bring). Sure, if the victim refuses to cooperate as a witness, it can lead to the prosecutor to drop charges, but victims do not decide whether to press charges or not.

 

I think the major problem is that no one with the power to do anything has the balls to bring this to light and talk about in a place that can actually do something to change it. The problems with the prison system in the United States, and for that matter the legal system are insane to even attempt to comprehend. But, we just accept that people who commit "crimes" should be subjected to incarceration. Crimes with no victim should not result in jail sentences. We have overcrowded prisons but we continue to criminalize marijuana possession. Things like DUIs should still result in jail because of the potential harm, but I don't remember causing harm to anyone by ripping a bong in the backyard.
In reality a complete overhaul to the system is necessary, and would probably save billions of dollars a year and have a five year ROI because of the amount of waste that goes into the system now, but that is way too optimistic of a view. Instead we just ignore it and put it in a corner so we can go about our daily lives and forget about the kid who grew up on the streets, got arrested for stealing a few dollars to get something to eat and in jail gets turned into a hardened criminal. (myself included)

 

I think the Romans had the right idea. Criminals should be treated in 1 of 3 ways:

> Heavily fined

> Sold into slavery (It gets shit done)

> Executed (in a manner that please the crowd)

Jails were only invented to hold criminals while one of the above punishments was allocated.

 

Actually, the endless appeals for years on end cost more than housing them for life. Killing them is actually really cheap.

The majority of the problems with the US Correctional system can be summed up in three quick points.


The first is that the recidivism rate completely trashes the prison system as a proper punishment or behavioral correction tool. I personally believe in public corporal punishment as an effective means, but that's just an opinion.

The second point is the extreme punishment of victimless crimes. I.E. How Marijuana possession can send people to jail, while DUI's are relatively underpunished (in my opinion).

The third point is how the justice segment of the criminal system doesn't seek the truth, but seeks a conviction. A man is not ultimately charged on if he's absolutely guilty or not, but if the evidence shows it, or can be manipulated to show it. I have no idea how to address this point.

 

Why can't the number of appeals those found guilty and sentenced be limited? Like a maximum of three appeals for those on Death Row before they get their day of drug cocktail / shock therapy in the chair / swinging from a rope? As a result, the lawyers would have to put together a very solid case before even proceeding and not just put out one bullshit motion after another as delay tactics? Now if THAT got passed in the Senate and Congress, the politicians would be seen to be taking a tougher stance on crime.

That would take some strain off the judicial system and public spending...

 

Something else about the prison system that many people don't think about is that it basically punishes people who didn't commit a crime. Locking the criminal up certainly punishes the criminal, but it also punishes his family. The inmate's wife, parents, children, etc. all go through a ton of shit through no fault of their own. Maybe the person who paid the bills is now in jail and unable to provide for his family. Maybe the child who just lost her father for the next 10 years doesn't grow up in a stable(er) home that can provide adequate parenting. Considering that most of these families are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder to begin with, taking a father out of that family unit is only going to make their chances of becoming productive members of society much much worse. At the very least, a completely unnecessary action of the state puts them at a disadvantage that they did nothing to deserve. I'm not sure that I'm explaining this as well as I should, but I guess the main point is that it's unethical to use the prison system to the extent that we do because it punishes far more people than just the criminal.

And again, corporeal punishment would would be a nice alternative since it only punishes the actual criminal. I think we can find more ethical ways of inflicting pain on someone other than whipping them, but that's a whole other discussion.