Should prison be about punishment or recidivism?

Curious as to what people think?

I think that while concentrating on punishing people sounds good I think I'd rather the prisoner come out of prison and not reoffend and as ironic as it may sound nicer prisons (you know, the ones where the prisoners get TVs, computers, day trips, etc) seem to have lower rates of recidivism than ones where the prisoners are made to do stuff like break rocks and spend most of their "free time" locked in their cells.

 

Personally i think jails are too soft, well here in Aus at least. There needs to be hasher treatment of people that prey on society.

 

I do agree that incarceration should be geared towards rehabilitation to the greatest extent possible. Though some sentences, and certain types of criminals are not a good investment, but reasonable effort should be made anyways.

In some cases, people shouldn't be arrested at all. I think people caught possessing small amounts of illicit substances should have to under go counseling and rehab rather than being incarcerated. If the person in question proves that they simply can't manage their addiction, it keeps getting them in trouble time and time again.... then a little time in the clink might be beneficial... for some more intensive treatment.

 

Are you ok if that results in higher rates of recidivism?

 

No. It should be about punishment and recidivism, along with a number of other inter-related things. The mistake most people make when considering this is treating any one factor independently. The fact is that whatever changes we choose to make in dealing with convicted criminals has potential to impact all those factors.

I suspect there is fundamental truth to this (though you should really support such a statement. I don't think the connection will be as simple or direct though. Give prisoners TVs isn't going to stop them reoffending but the kind of system where it is possible is also likely to be the kind of system that considers factors than are most likely to impact reoffending and has the resources to implement them.

 

^ Pretty much this.

 

We tried rehabilitation of criminals until the mid 80's when our population grew to large, too violent and too dangerous to even bother.

American society when it (*)(*)(*)(*)s up doesn't create a minor criminal, it creates an animal that can only be caged away from the rest of society. You cannot rehabilitate a rabid beast only kill it, or cage it away until it dies or another rabid animal kills it for you.

 

Putting people in cages has no positive effect. The state "justice" system doesn't take into account the victim of any given crime. Too much emphasis is placed on punishment, not enough on justice.

 

There IS NO POSITIVE EFFECT THAT CAN WORK. They are permanently lost. American society does not raise nice criminals, it raises the worst murderers, rapists and violent thugs in the world.

You cannot rehabilitate such an animal. They are not humans, they are animals and you cage an animal. A scorpion will sting you no matter how good care you take of it. A snake will still bite you no matter now how good care you take of it because such creatures, like our modern criminal element, have no emotions other than raw animal instinct which is a necessary survival skill in the particular environment most grew up.

You want to fix to prison problem? Force society to figure out a way to raise their children correctly under any and all social/economic circumstances.

 

I'd love to know what these pre-80s rehabilitation schemes were. I suggest that the US (like the UK) has never made any serious attempt at rehabilitation of criminals, which is a major reason for the high prison populations we're struggling with now. I think it suffers the classic problem of being a long term project and all our politicans have no more than 4-year attention spans.

Rubbish! The vast, vast majority of criminals are perfectly normal people who were in bad situations and/or made bad decisions. There should be absolutely no reason why such people can't be rehabilitated.

The "animals" you describe make up a tiny proportion of the prison population. Their existence is no reason not to have rehabilitation for the rest.

 

Are you sure there is a causal relationship there?

 

Any causal relationship there does probably not have to do with the number of computers, TVs or day trips, but a helpful environment which they can learn to respect.

Many seem to think that if you show yourself strong, people will obey you. That might be true when under surveillance, but when they come out to the real world, there will be no respect for the nasty prison guards, or, by extension, for the judicial system they represent to a mistreated inmate.

 

So you believe we can eliminate the luxuries and still achieve good recidivism rates?

 

Technically, but I believe that any institution that decides to do so for that particular reason failed their attempt even before they started.

Edit: And for most other reasons.

 

I'm unsure of your pronouns. Do what? For what reason?

 

If an institution focused on money more than the inmates to the extent that they would be willing to do what you said, then they didn't care enough about the inmates in the first place. It is that caring that can build a respect for a judicial system.

 

Prisons should be horrible, shackled when out of cells, and all sentences served full term. Good behaviour allows the inmate 10 hours of hard labor a day on roads, infrastructure etc, instead of 14.

It is the only way to fix all of the areas of crime, society, law, justice and fiscal responsibility.

 

Oh, I see. I wasn't thinking about money. I was thinking that prison shouldn't be vacation. People are in there supposedly because they did harm to society. Why should society pay for their cable tv?

 

Exactly how would that fix anything? What would you do with the physical and psychological wrecks it would create when they are released?

 

It should be about recividism.
The punishment mentality is, at the chemical level, pretty much the same thing as the violence of the criminal, and is often counterproductive in reducing crime or redeeming the individual.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't treat them nicely, they'll hate the legal system for it and they'll keep doing crime.

The word deserve is a complete construct, and most of its use today just means revenge anyway. A legal system I can get behind is not one of revenge, it's one of reducing crime.

 

For murderers, rapists and all violent offenders, prison is exactly where they need to stay at. People who smoke weed or crack or prostitute, need no prison but a rehab clinic where someone can actually help fix their problem(s).

 

Prostitution needs rehab? Here it's a legal job where taxes are paid, etc.

 

Evidence for that statement.

 

Not in 'Merica it is.