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Prison is fundamentally flawed from a conceptual basis. Is the idea to reform someone? To make them not repeat their crime? Is it to punish? It is to discourage

Prison is fundamentally flawed from a conceptual basis. Is the idea to reform someone? To make them not repeat their crime? Is it to punish? It is to discourage? It does none of these job as well as it could. Lets take for an example a semi successful drug dealer. Odds are the drug dealer choose that profession because the rewards were higher than the risks. So to discourage that you can 1) make prison so terrible he fears it more than the rewards from dealing 2) teach him something that is of comparable economic utility so he no longer wants to deal drugs. The problem is that option 2 is arguably a reward. If you create incentives to break rules ("I break the law and sell drugs, my punishment is that i get locked away from X years and be forced to learn a trade or get a degree") then why wouldnt you break rules? We seem to pretend we dont want 1. But I've seen plenty of comments from conservatives about how the criminals deserve what they get, and oddly enough I also hear "dont drop the soap" jokes from liberals when its people they dont like.... Then you have for example murderers. Quite a few murderers will probably never murder again. The man who kills his wife and her lover after catching them in bed, is probably not going to be killing anyone again. It was that set of situations that drove them to that. What more can the person do than classes on impulse control? And your going to get them to learn that by putting them in the place where the impulse stimulus is completely different than the regular world? What does life or a lengthy prison accomplish if punishment/deterrence is not the goal? Thats not even getting into the fact that prison is the main mental health provider for anyone with serious issues who cant get family to take care of them. (and even people who have family might not be able to afford their particular issues). A person with severe schizophrenia who attacks others can't really be reformed The only real fix is to be honest about what the goal of "prison" is. And break the concept out into reform, containment, and punishment. At least then you can optimize towards those goals.

the_jeremy 5y ago
Making prison worse is unlikely to help[0] in that harsher sentences already don't help reduce crime. [0]: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  The point of punishment is not to reduce crime. Revenge is the point. Im not saying you should make prisons harsher. Im saying if you want a societal revenge site. Just admit and optimize for that. Putting that right next to "reform this person" just hurts both endeavors. Some people could really use removal from their environment and a fresh start where they get discipline and learn a way to be successful.(prison doesnt do this, and a one size fits all discipline approach causes problems too) Other people are just dangers to themselves and others. Mixing the two just damns the people who could be saved.
quacked 5y ago
I think you're missing a huge part of the point of prison; prisons aren't designed for the prisoner's benefit, but for society's benefit. Somehow who shoots his wife and lover in bed, or someone who deals drugs, or someone who steals cars isn't someone I want to live near or around. I'll give you an example to pair with your drug dealer example. A small community store is run by an old couple. Everyone who enters is greeted with pleasure. Shoplifting increases, and the old couple sells to a young person, who is concerned about shoplifting and doesn't greet everyone with pleasure. Then there's an armed robbery. Now there's cameras, bulletproof glass, and the store clerks are openly suspicious of people who come into the store. Now society is worse to live in, and the only people who caused that are the ones who did the crimes. Crime causes poverty of spirit and weakens social bonds; prison is a place to keep prisoners so they don't disintegrate society.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  Am i? Punishing someone for a societys benefit sounds like detterence to me. Sounds like what you think should be done against that person is removal from society. The classic way (death penalty) is not in fashion in the western world. So it sounds like they should be put in a facility optimized towards containment and letting them live out their days in some semblance of peace. (Not wanting them in peace sounds alot like you want them punished) Not in a facility where they take a slot to learn a trade from someone else and get to influence people who reform is deemed appropriate.
  - quacked 5y ago
    Hmm, perhaps not. We may be agreeing with each other. I have no desire to punish people for their crimes, only to remove them from society. I thought your point was that the concept of prison as "a place where you are removed from society" is fundamentally flawed, and your rationale was that removal does not serve the person removed. It seems that your point is actually that the modern concept of prison as "a place where you go to be punished" is flawed, which I agree with. Prisoners should simply be outside society, not in pain or fear. If they can manage to live peacefully that ought to be allowed; if they cannot, they ought to be restricted further. I think there are only two real "punishments", which are death and exile. Corporal punishment is just partially-applied death, and prison is just partially-applied exile. All other punishments I'm aware of are just shades of either death or exile; even monetary fines are "a reduction of your ability to participate in society".

the_jeremy 5y ago

Making prison worse is unlikely to help[0] in that harsher sentences already don't help reduce crime. [0]: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf

namelessoracle 5y ago
The point of punishment is not to reduce crime. Revenge is the point. Im not saying you should make prisons harsher. Im saying if you want a societal revenge site. Just admit and optimize for that. Putting that right next to "reform this person" just hurts both endeavors. Some people could really use removal from their environment and a fresh start where they get discipline and learn a way to be successful.(prison doesnt do this, and a one size fits all discipline approach causes problems too) Other people are just dangers to themselves and others. Mixing the two just damns the people who could be saved.

quacked 5y ago

I think you're missing a huge part of the point of prison; prisons aren't designed for the prisoner's benefit, but for society's benefit. Somehow who shoots his wife and lover in bed, or someone who deals drugs, or someone who steals cars isn't someone I want to live near or around. I'll give you an example to pair with your drug dealer example. A small community store is run by an old couple. Everyone who enters is greeted with pleasure. Shoplifting increases, and the old couple sells to a young person, who is concerned about shoplifting and doesn't greet everyone with pleasure. Then there's an armed robbery. Now there's cameras, bulletproof glass, and the store clerks are openly suspicious of people who come into the store. Now society is worse to live in, and the only people who caused that are the ones who did the crimes. Crime causes poverty of spirit and weakens social bonds; prison is a place to keep prisoners so they don't disintegrate society.

namelessoracle 5y ago
Am i? Punishing someone for a societys benefit sounds like detterence to me. Sounds like what you think should be done against that person is removal from society. The classic way (death penalty) is not in fashion in the western world. So it sounds like they should be put in a facility optimized towards containment and letting them live out their days in some semblance of peace. (Not wanting them in peace sounds alot like you want them punished) Not in a facility where they take a slot to learn a trade from someone else and get to influence people who reform is deemed appropriate.
- quacked 5y ago
  Hmm, perhaps not. We may be agreeing with each other. I have no desire to punish people for their crimes, only to remove them from society. I thought your point was that the concept of prison as "a place where you are removed from society" is fundamentally flawed, and your rationale was that removal does not serve the person removed. It seems that your point is actually that the modern concept of prison as "a place where you go to be punished" is flawed, which I agree with. Prisoners should simply be outside society, not in pain or fear. If they can manage to live peacefully that ought to be allowed; if they cannot, they ought to be restricted further. I think there are only two real "punishments", which are death and exile. Corporal punishment is just partially-applied death, and prison is just partially-applied exile. All other punishments I'm aware of are just shades of either death or exile; even monetary fines are "a reduction of your ability to participate in society".