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It's not only shameful but counter productive. Some think that horrible conditions are a deterrent, but there are several problems: 1. Innocent people do get c

It's not only shameful but counter productive. Some think that horrible conditions are a deterrent, but there are several problems: 1. Innocent people do get convicted 2. Prisoner suicide 3. Inability to integrate back into a less violent community 4. A prisoner code that requires you to participate in violence or be subjected to it For a sobering account, check out Shaun Attwood on YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/derickatt https://youtube.com/user/derickatt He served in Maricopa County Jail under super Max and medium security. The stories of violence from medium security are just as violent as any fictional movie you've seen. Our prisons seem to be trying to fight fire (violence) with more fire. It's a horribly unethical game we're playing with people's lives that seems to provide little comfort to our society or the victims.

kbenson 8y ago
I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison, and doesn't put enough thought into it to realize how crazy that idea is. I'm fairly sure if you took anyone with this view and forced them to have a conversation with you where you presented various scenarios (such as some low-harm and impact crime prisoner ending up getting repeatedly raped), they might change their mind, but actually getting people to listen with an open mind to alternative points of view is amazingly hard in the current charged climate where every issue is a political one.
- abfan1127 8y ago
  Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. In Reality, Prison should be a place to isolate those who can't be trusted to be free. When trust can be established, they don't belong there anymore. When the concept of prison as isolation is adopted, fewer people go to prison, including innocent people.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    Prison as purely isolation is also a troubling concept to me. Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? If shoplifting isn't a big enough crime to deserve prison, is there any punishment to deter the crime? I see prison as obviously both punishment and isolation, to varying degrees for different crimes. Making it about just isolation doesn't solve the problem with prison, it just trades problems stemming from overbalancing punishment for ones overbalancing isolation.
    - exolymph 8y ago
      There are pretty clear tradeoffs in your example (if we stipulate that there's no way to get the compulsive, habitual shoplifter to reliably stop shoplifting). > Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? Two choices: 1) Accept the cost to society of letting a person run around stealing from various different businesses, probably over the course of years. Not only do those businesses lose money, but it makes their employees' work experience more unpleasant, and adds to a general low-trust atmosphere among strangers. 2) Accept the cost to the shoplifter of putting them in a miserable environment where they won't be able to thrive as a person. Either dispersed costs for lots of people who aren't responsible for the wrongdoing, or concentrated costs to the one person who is doing the objectionable actions. I loosely favor the former... but this is a constrained example, and the available options kinda suck. (Not dissimilar to real life in that way...) If you can actually get the shoplifter to stop their bad behavior, then the options and attendant tradeoffs change.
  - renholder 8y ago
    >Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. Aye, they view it from a purely punitive perspective, rather than a punishment + rehabilitative perspective. In other words, zero thought or care is given to what happens in prisons or how those prisoners will reintegrate into society. They're dehumanized down to that action: shoplifter, murderer, etc. If you remove the humanity from the person, you care less about anything to do with them.
    - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
      Just my opinion, but from watching prison documentaries from around the world, it's not that simple. American prisoners seem to have some narcissistic pride in how "bad" they are. Being the gangster type is glorified, and they're given a bit too much freedom in prison. In Russian prisons, any ego is quickly dealt with, there's more discipline, and prisoners are afraid to come back. I remember a prisoner interviewed in an American prison having a very blasé attitude and saying "yeah, I get out in a couple of weeks, and then I'll probably be on the streets for another week before I'm back in here. That's just the system maaaaaaan."
      - philonoist 8y ago
        That is also viewed from feminist perspective of toxic masculinity. The more you suffered, the more you should be getting respect because somehow, the more you have gained wisdom from such suffering or it must be a great thing you survived harsh conditions at-least! Mental, physical and emotional fortitude is one thing as a side effect to the ends, but to make it as an end is perverse, I think.
        yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
        Interestingly enough, in the specific interviews I'm thinking about the Russian was a man and the American was a woman.
      - renholder 8y ago
        No offence intended or inferred but it's a little disingenuous to say it's not that simple and then imply that a simple reason is quashing ego - not that the fact that Russia isn't known to be a humans right bastion of the world should really need to be addressed, here. You also seemed to have missed the recursive pattern in her statement. "I'll probably be on the streets," infers - to me at least - that she'll be homeless and/or without the prospect of any employability. This facet, right here, explains the recursive nature of repeat offenders. Approached another way: Was she originally in for theft, which could be a felony, and keeps landing in jail because she can't get a job with a felony on her record and, therefore, has to steal to survive? Disbarment from employment because of a criminal past is an example of how, even though the debt to society has been paid (e.g.: prison time, fines, etc.), the person is still - punitively punished - until they die. Now to finally address the Russia question: How do you think the quashing of the ego occurs in there, if - indeed - such action occurs there? Somehow, I highly doubt that discipline is the reductionary answer and that it includes far more unsavoury contributors than simple discipline. Put another way, a lot of military forces in the world have rigid discipline training but that doesn't mean that the ego is quashed. Now, having said all of that, the problem is manifestly far more complicated, I do admit, than my simple explanation. For example, when jails and prisons are run by for-profit corporations and they're only paid per head, then there's - likely - an unnecessary influence in the sense that the city, state, county, what-have-you will need to keep the prison population at a certain level to maintain the business' profit maintained, to continue to retain their services. The for-profit design, in this regard, is such that a reduction in crime (and, as a byproduct, criminals) doesn't bode well for the system. Is it any wonder, then, that the three-strikes law[s] aren't desinged around three gross offences but one gross offence (e.g.: felony shoplifting) and two minor (misdemeanor) offences? Then, there's the societal implications of the devaluation and dehumanisation of life in society. Reduction to a simple action is how a person is defined. So, if we do this, then we are implying that this is all the person is - forever. That's it. Paid your debt by serving 30 days for stealing a candy bar? Too bad, still a shoplifter. I agree that the issue isn't very simple but I think the majority of the corrosion that enters is far more societal-based than anything else.
- renholder 8y ago
  >I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison... One needn't look very hard, /r/ for example, to see examples of this. People lauding, revelling, and even rejoicing in the suffering of criminals is kind of par for the course there.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Did you mean to link a particular subreddit?
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      Probably referring to 4chan

kbenson 8y ago

I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison, and doesn't put enough thought into it to realize how crazy that idea is. I'm fairly sure if you took anyone with this view and forced them to have a conversation with you where you presented various scenarios (such as some low-harm and impact crime prisoner ending up getting repeatedly raped), they might change their mind, but actually getting people to listen with an open mind to alternative points of view is amazingly hard in the current charged climate where every issue is a political one.

abfan1127 8y ago
Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. In Reality, Prison should be a place to isolate those who can't be trusted to be free. When trust can be established, they don't belong there anymore. When the concept of prison as isolation is adopted, fewer people go to prison, including innocent people.
- kbenson 8y ago
  Prison as purely isolation is also a troubling concept to me. Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? If shoplifting isn't a big enough crime to deserve prison, is there any punishment to deter the crime? I see prison as obviously both punishment and isolation, to varying degrees for different crimes. Making it about just isolation doesn't solve the problem with prison, it just trades problems stemming from overbalancing punishment for ones overbalancing isolation.
  - exolymph 8y ago
    There are pretty clear tradeoffs in your example (if we stipulate that there's no way to get the compulsive, habitual shoplifter to reliably stop shoplifting). > Does the repeat shoplifter, which can't be trusted to stop, deserve life in prison then? Two choices: 1) Accept the cost to society of letting a person run around stealing from various different businesses, probably over the course of years. Not only do those businesses lose money, but it makes their employees' work experience more unpleasant, and adds to a general low-trust atmosphere among strangers. 2) Accept the cost to the shoplifter of putting them in a miserable environment where they won't be able to thrive as a person. Either dispersed costs for lots of people who aren't responsible for the wrongdoing, or concentrated costs to the one person who is doing the objectionable actions. I loosely favor the former... but this is a constrained example, and the available options kinda suck. (Not dissimilar to real life in that way...) If you can actually get the shoplifter to stop their bad behavior, then the options and attendant tradeoffs change.
- renholder 8y ago
  >Americans seem to think Prison is a punishment so the more miserable the better. Aye, they view it from a purely punitive perspective, rather than a punishment + rehabilitative perspective. In other words, zero thought or care is given to what happens in prisons or how those prisoners will reintegrate into society. They're dehumanized down to that action: shoplifter, murderer, etc. If you remove the humanity from the person, you care less about anything to do with them.
  - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
    Just my opinion, but from watching prison documentaries from around the world, it's not that simple. American prisoners seem to have some narcissistic pride in how "bad" they are. Being the gangster type is glorified, and they're given a bit too much freedom in prison. In Russian prisons, any ego is quickly dealt with, there's more discipline, and prisoners are afraid to come back. I remember a prisoner interviewed in an American prison having a very blasé attitude and saying "yeah, I get out in a couple of weeks, and then I'll probably be on the streets for another week before I'm back in here. That's just the system maaaaaaan."
    - philonoist 8y ago
      That is also viewed from feminist perspective of toxic masculinity. The more you suffered, the more you should be getting respect because somehow, the more you have gained wisdom from such suffering or it must be a great thing you survived harsh conditions at-least! Mental, physical and emotional fortitude is one thing as a side effect to the ends, but to make it as an end is perverse, I think.
      - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
        Interestingly enough, in the specific interviews I'm thinking about the Russian was a man and the American was a woman.
    - renholder 8y ago
      No offence intended or inferred but it's a little disingenuous to say it's not that simple and then imply that a simple reason is quashing ego - not that the fact that Russia isn't known to be a humans right bastion of the world should really need to be addressed, here. You also seemed to have missed the recursive pattern in her statement. "I'll probably be on the streets," infers - to me at least - that she'll be homeless and/or without the prospect of any employability. This facet, right here, explains the recursive nature of repeat offenders. Approached another way: Was she originally in for theft, which could be a felony, and keeps landing in jail because she can't get a job with a felony on her record and, therefore, has to steal to survive? Disbarment from employment because of a criminal past is an example of how, even though the debt to society has been paid (e.g.: prison time, fines, etc.), the person is still - punitively punished - until they die. Now to finally address the Russia question: How do you think the quashing of the ego occurs in there, if - indeed - such action occurs there? Somehow, I highly doubt that discipline is the reductionary answer and that it includes far more unsavoury contributors than simple discipline. Put another way, a lot of military forces in the world have rigid discipline training but that doesn't mean that the ego is quashed. Now, having said all of that, the problem is manifestly far more complicated, I do admit, than my simple explanation. For example, when jails and prisons are run by for-profit corporations and they're only paid per head, then there's - likely - an unnecessary influence in the sense that the city, state, county, what-have-you will need to keep the prison population at a certain level to maintain the business' profit maintained, to continue to retain their services. The for-profit design, in this regard, is such that a reduction in crime (and, as a byproduct, criminals) doesn't bode well for the system. Is it any wonder, then, that the three-strikes law[s] aren't desinged around three gross offences but one gross offence (e.g.: felony shoplifting) and two minor (misdemeanor) offences? Then, there's the societal implications of the devaluation and dehumanisation of life in society. Reduction to a simple action is how a person is defined. So, if we do this, then we are implying that this is all the person is - forever. That's it. Paid your debt by serving 30 days for stealing a candy bar? Too bad, still a shoplifter. I agree that the issue isn't very simple but I think the majority of the corrosion that enters is far more societal-based than anything else.
renholder 8y ago
>I think it's currently a losing battle in America, where much of the populace thinks "being a criminal" is a binary toggle that means you deserve anything that happens to you in prison... One needn't look very hard, /r/ for example, to see examples of this. People lauding, revelling, and even rejoicing in the suffering of criminals is kind of par for the course there.
- DennisP 8y ago
  Did you mean to link a particular subreddit?
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    Probably referring to 4chan