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Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation. The prison system should be structu

by jbob2000 8y ago

Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation. The prison system should be structured around reducing costs by getting people out of the system, not reducing costs by getting those in the system to do work.

lightbyte 8y ago
>Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation That would be nice, but our current justice system is not even remotely close to being anything like this. That will take generations of change. You're trying to say we should be at step Z when we haven't even gotten to A yet.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Well, for one, we can rename the "Department of Corrections" to reflect what it really is since 'corrections' is not part of their charter. Step A should be "stop lying to ourselves and face the truth".
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Well, for one, we can rename the "Department of Corrections" to reflect what it really is Well, we could, but no one wants to sponsor the bill to replace that name with “Department of Vengeance, Torture, Slavery, and Maintenance of th Permanent Underclass”.
- kiliantics 8y ago
  That kind of argument is used to justify a lack of action towards progress though. Similar arguments were made by many about slavery at the time: "It would be nice to abolish slavery but our current economic system isn't even remotely close to being anything like this. It would take generations of change..." So we should prefer generations more people be subjected to these horrors than take a risk and make an effort to do better?
  - lightbyte 8y ago
    You misunderstand. I'm not saying you can't try and change things, that's exactly what I am saying. You can't demand everything has to perfect right now, you need to actually start the change somewhere. >"It would be nice to abolish slavery but our current economic system isn't even remotely close to being anything like this. It would take generations of change..." This is more like you saying we need to have equal rights for everyone in 1800 before you start working on abolishing slavery in the first place.
    - fzeroracer 8y ago
      You should read up the history of Thaddeus Stevens if you haven't yet already. There comes to a point where you need to make strong demands if you want to make any progress at all for certain things. Demanding incremental progress for things like slavery in the 1800s leads to half-baked compromise that ultimately led to even more issues later down the line.
marcoperaza 8y ago
What business does the state have telling you how you should feel? How you think think? What you believe? Rehabilitation is much more totalitarian than just giving you what you deserve and letting you get on with your life. The true content of your character is your business and your business alone. The rest of us should just be concerned with what you intentionally do. If you think you were justified in your crime and can never be convinced otherwise, you don’t belong in jail for the rest of your life. You belong in jail for as long as you deserve and not a second longer.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  It's a real shame you are being down-voted. Before forming an opinion on the role that "Rehabilitation" should play in parole hearings, HN readers should talk with (or at least read about) someone who has been through that process. Even when the intent is sincere, the implementation in American prisons can be downright draconian. "Rehabilitation" means learning what you are supposed to say/do and saying/doing it in a convincing way. Including, e.g., believing in God [1]. Rehabilitation makes sense in the abstract, but its implementation often boils down to "learn how to lie convincingly about your true beliefs", sometimes even about beliefs that are explicitly enshrined in our constitution. Which is pretty much the opposite of what we should be going for. Now consider the case where the intent is not sincere; e.g., the case of a prison chaplain or guard who was rubbed the wrong way by a particular prisoner's personality. Rehabilitation is effusive and basically boils down to "anyone have anything negative to share with the parole board?" And all of this without considering civil disobedience. E.g., should MLK Jr. have stayed in jail until he publicly denounced his own Letter from a Birmingham Jail? Must drug offenders publicly profess their undying allegiance to status quo drug scheduling laws before earning their freedom? IMO we should always allow for the possibility that criminality and morality are not intrinsically linked. And the modern practice of considering rehabilitation in parole hearings too often runs counter to tht belief. -- [1] http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religious-rights-were-not-burdened-missouri-prison-system#stream/0 http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religio...
  - SahAssar 8y ago
throwawayjava 8y ago
> Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation. 1. "Rehabilitation" -- the actual implementation, not the abstract idea -- is insidious. How can anyone ever know for sure whether someone is truly rehabilitated? Especially given that prisons don't typically attract that best and brightest of the medical profession. If you've ever talked to someone who spent time in prison, you'll realize that "rehabilitation" in US prisons mostly means "parrot what they tell you to say and don't be stupid enough to seriously engage. Just. Repeat. Your. Lines." E.g., claiming you have no spiritual belief can result in denied parole [1]. Too often, "rehabilitation" is just short-hand for "brainwashing". In those cases, bodily punishment without the pretense of "rehabilitation" is actually a far kinder and just system. Far from truly fixing the underlying problem, modern rehabilitation often amounts to an exercise in honing one's inner psychopath: lie without remorse or guilt, and lie well enough that you don't get caught, or be denied parole on the basis of your lack of religious faith. 2. What do we do with people who cannot be rehabilitated, but whose crimes do not justify a lifetime prison sentence? 3. what do we do about criminals who are very unlikely to re-offend but are not rehabilitated? I.e., what is the purpose of rehabilitation? A common answer is "limiting future damage to society". But this justification fails to explain why we should jail a bank robber who managed to hide $1 billion on a remote island and who we honestly believe will be happy living off of that $1 billion on some remote island in peace for the rest of his life. 4. What about people who commit heinous crimes but are easy to rehabilitate (e.g., due to a treatable mental illness)? How do we deal with vindictive families of victims who might want to take justice into their own hands? Prison sentences serve many purposes: rehabilitation, protection of society, punishment, and a disincentive for criminal activity. Rehabilitation is certainly the most in-line with enlightenment values (but can become draconian in the case where the crime is relatively small but rehabilitation proves impossible, or in the case where rehabilitation means "learn how to lie about your inner self"). And I will certainly agree that the US prison system does not come even remotely close to striking a good balance between these multiple purposes. But the other roles are also important, and "rehabilitation" isn't always all it's cracked up to be. [1] http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religious-rights-were-not-burdened-missouri-prison-system#stream/0 http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religio...
Brockenstein 8y ago
Yes, unfortunately prison isn't about rehabilitation. It's about punishing people, it's about vengeance. And a lot of crimes are manufactured, laws created to hurt people we don't like. And for a lot of people when someone does something pretty awful or scummy, we kind of want them to be punished severely for their crimes and are outraged when they're not, because we've been conditioned to feel that way. We want some people to be punished and spend years or decades in prison. Maybe not you specifically, or maybe there isn't always agreement about who, but for a lot of people that's the deep seeded idea of justice. It's a tough row to hoe to change that at every level. People need to agree with more sensible ideas and vote that way. But it's clear that a lot of folks prefer the most draconian approaches because that's what makes them feel better.

lightbyte 8y ago

>Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation That would be nice, but our current justice system is not even remotely close to being anything like this. That will take generations of change. You're trying to say we should be at step Z when we haven't even gotten to A yet.

craftyguy 8y ago
Well, for one, we can rename the "Department of Corrections" to reflect what it really is since 'corrections' is not part of their charter. Step A should be "stop lying to ourselves and face the truth".
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Well, for one, we can rename the "Department of Corrections" to reflect what it really is Well, we could, but no one wants to sponsor the bill to replace that name with “Department of Vengeance, Torture, Slavery, and Maintenance of th Permanent Underclass”.
kiliantics 8y ago
That kind of argument is used to justify a lack of action towards progress though. Similar arguments were made by many about slavery at the time: "It would be nice to abolish slavery but our current economic system isn't even remotely close to being anything like this. It would take generations of change..." So we should prefer generations more people be subjected to these horrors than take a risk and make an effort to do better?
- lightbyte 8y ago
  You misunderstand. I'm not saying you can't try and change things, that's exactly what I am saying. You can't demand everything has to perfect right now, you need to actually start the change somewhere. >"It would be nice to abolish slavery but our current economic system isn't even remotely close to being anything like this. It would take generations of change..." This is more like you saying we need to have equal rights for everyone in 1800 before you start working on abolishing slavery in the first place.
  - fzeroracer 8y ago
    You should read up the history of Thaddeus Stevens if you haven't yet already. There comes to a point where you need to make strong demands if you want to make any progress at all for certain things. Demanding incremental progress for things like slavery in the 1800s leads to half-baked compromise that ultimately led to even more issues later down the line.

marcoperaza 8y ago

What business does the state have telling you how you should feel? How you think think? What you believe? Rehabilitation is much more totalitarian than just giving you what you deserve and letting you get on with your life. The true content of your character is your business and your business alone. The rest of us should just be concerned with what you intentionally do. If you think you were justified in your crime and can never be convinced otherwise, you don’t belong in jail for the rest of your life. You belong in jail for as long as you deserve and not a second longer.

throwawayjava 8y ago
It's a real shame you are being down-voted. Before forming an opinion on the role that "Rehabilitation" should play in parole hearings, HN readers should talk with (or at least read about) someone who has been through that process. Even when the intent is sincere, the implementation in American prisons can be downright draconian. "Rehabilitation" means learning what you are supposed to say/do and saying/doing it in a convincing way. Including, e.g., believing in God [1]. Rehabilitation makes sense in the abstract, but its implementation often boils down to "learn how to lie convincingly about your true beliefs", sometimes even about beliefs that are explicitly enshrined in our constitution. Which is pretty much the opposite of what we should be going for. Now consider the case where the intent is not sincere; e.g., the case of a prison chaplain or guard who was rubbed the wrong way by a particular prisoner's personality. Rehabilitation is effusive and basically boils down to "anyone have anything negative to share with the parole board?" And all of this without considering civil disobedience. E.g., should MLK Jr. have stayed in jail until he publicly denounced his own Letter from a Birmingham Jail? Must drug offenders publicly profess their undying allegiance to status quo drug scheduling laws before earning their freedom? IMO we should always allow for the possibility that criminality and morality are not intrinsically linked. And the modern practice of considering rehabilitation in parole hearings too often runs counter to tht belief. -- [1] http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religious-rights-were-not-burdened-missouri-prison-system#stream/0 http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religio...
- SahAssar 8y ago

throwawayjava 8y ago

> Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation. 1. "Rehabilitation" -- the actual implementation, not the abstract idea -- is insidious. How can anyone ever know for sure whether someone is truly rehabilitated? Especially given that prisons don't typically attract that best and brightest of the medical profession. If you've ever talked to someone who spent time in prison, you'll realize that "rehabilitation" in US prisons mostly means "parrot what they tell you to say and don't be stupid enough to seriously engage. Just. Repeat. Your. Lines." E.g., claiming you have no spiritual belief can result in denied parole [1]. Too often, "rehabilitation" is just short-hand for "brainwashing". In those cases, bodily punishment without the pretense of "rehabilitation" is actually a far kinder and just system. Far from truly fixing the underlying problem, modern rehabilitation often amounts to an exercise in honing one's inner psychopath: lie without remorse or guilt, and lie well enough that you don't get caught, or be denied parole on the basis of your lack of religious faith. 2. What do we do with people who cannot be rehabilitated, but whose crimes do not justify a lifetime prison sentence? 3. what do we do about criminals who are very unlikely to re-offend but are not rehabilitated? I.e., what is the purpose of rehabilitation? A common answer is "limiting future damage to society". But this justification fails to explain why we should jail a bank robber who managed to hide $1 billion on a remote island and who we honestly believe will be happy living off of that $1 billion on some remote island in peace for the rest of his life. 4. What about people who commit heinous crimes but are easy to rehabilitate (e.g., due to a treatable mental illness)? How do we deal with vindictive families of victims who might want to take justice into their own hands? Prison sentences serve many purposes: rehabilitation, protection of society, punishment, and a disincentive for criminal activity. Rehabilitation is certainly the most in-line with enlightenment values (but can become draconian in the case where the crime is relatively small but rehabilitation proves impossible, or in the case where rehabilitation means "learn how to lie about your inner self"). And I will certainly agree that the US prison system does not come even remotely close to striking a good balance between these multiple purposes. But the other roles are also important, and "rehabilitation" isn't always all it's cracked up to be. [1] http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religious-rights-were-not-burdened-missouri-prison-system#stream/0 http://www.kcur.org/post/court-says-atheist-inmate-s-religio...

Brockenstein 8y ago

Yes, unfortunately prison isn't about rehabilitation. It's about punishing people, it's about vengeance. And a lot of crimes are manufactured, laws created to hurt people we don't like. And for a lot of people when someone does something pretty awful or scummy, we kind of want them to be punished severely for their crimes and are outraged when they're not, because we've been conditioned to feel that way. We want some people to be punished and spend years or decades in prison. Maybe not you specifically, or maybe there isn't always agreement about who, but for a lot of people that's the deep seeded idea of justice. It's a tough row to hoe to change that at every level. People need to agree with more sensible ideas and vote that way. But it's clear that a lot of folks prefer the most draconian approaches because that's what makes them feel better.