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There is generally two types of prisons in the world, one is "Punish"/"Keep rest of the world safe" prisons, and the other is "Rehabilitation" prisons. The latt

There is generally two types of prisons in the world, one is "Punish"/"Keep rest of the world safe" prisons, and the other is "Rehabilitation" prisons. The latter tries to make people be able to re-integrate after finishing the sentence, while the first doesn't care as long as they are imprisoned and kept away from the rest of "normal folks". Convincing people that rehabilitation is possible is a huge job, and I don't see that happening in the US anytime soon.

diveandfight 4y ago
Rather than types, maybe those qualities are more like ends on a spectrum?
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  It's a very US thing to present issues as one side or the other, "Left or Right", "Capitalist or Socialist" with nothing between. In reality almost everything is on a (multi-dimensional) spectrum with a lot of nuance. This binary thinking is reinforced by TV and social media and is tearing the country apart.
- strken 4y ago
  Maybe even axes on a graph, where prisons strive to be on the Pareto front at different points.
quacked 4y ago
"Rehabilitation" is in many cases a misnomer. There's a difference between Rehabilitating someone who developed a problem and Habilitating someone who was never taught to think with a moral compass. People in the US could be convinced to get behind major prison reform if the reformers weren't so insistent on representing every felon as Jean Valjean.
- at_a_remove 4y ago
  I was watching an interesting video of a young woman who had just gotten a DUI. She didn't understand why it was a "thing" because she hadn't hit anyone. She managed to argue herself into two months in the county jail because she didn't understand and did not want to understand. She also tried, briefly, to make a case that she was too attractive for prison. Upon questioning, it was fairly clear that she would go on to reoffend. I saw another video of five teens who liked throwing heavy rocks over a busy overpass. They had done this more than once. Of course, they ended up killing someone, after which text messages were exchanged with much LOL and LFMOA and HAHAHA. Apparently, they had pre-planned some kind of defense where everyone would agree that the eldest of the bunch was the only one throwing the rocks, as well. The four youngest got a year of probation. The eldest got three and a quarter years in prison. He's out and the rest are long clear of their probation. I am unsure what could be done to rehabilitate these individuals rather than merely coercing lip service from them.
  - throwway120385 4y ago
    I am equally unsure. But I believe we have a responsibility to try to help the weakest members of our society become better people, and if that means locking them up for a while and trying to teach them a moral compass that's what we should try even if it's doomed to failure. It can't be any worse than what we're currently doing.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      Psychopathic individuals mainly use therapy as post-graduate training in how to simulate human emotion. Just ask some shrinks. They don't learn a moral compass; they learn how to pretend they have one. Of course, not all inmates are psychopathic, but 15-25% manifest those traits, according to https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/ce-corner-psychopathy https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/ce-corner-psychopathy.
      - strken 4y ago
        How meaningful is it to manifest psychopathic trait to a clinically significant degree? If you look at them, they include impulsivity, risk taking, and violence. Of course prisoners will be impulsive, take risks, and/or be violent! That's how a lot of them end up in prison! There is something of a jump from there to the pop science understanding of psychopathy. It's not clear that everyone who displays some of those traits is going to display all the others, that a pattern of risky violence means someone is automatically beyond help, that the stats on psychopaths aren't including lots of people with other underlying problems that fully explain their behaviour, or that anyone else who goes to a therapist is doing anything radically different from simulating normal human behaviour.
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  "People in the US could be convinced to get behind major prison reform if the reformers weren't so insistent on representing every felon as Jean Valjean." It's pretty crazy to blame the current situation on reformers. In reality it's the war on drugs and "tough on crime". I know a lot of normally reasonable people who think prisoners deserve to be raped in prison and don't deserve health care.
  - Paul-Craft 4y ago
    Right. It's well known that Nixon started the "War on Drugs" as a way to target hippies and black people. And "tough on crime" has just led to people spending more time in prison in spite of falling crime rates: https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/oct/1/new-study-shows-tough-crime-generation-spent-more-time-prison-despite-falling-crime-rate/ https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/oct/1/new-study-sh...
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      Gotta keep those private prisons full. We need more cheap and free labor!
  - quacked 4y ago
    I did not say that the current situation was created by the reformers, merely that the existing US prison reform movements lack the support they need to move the needle because they are controlled by people who are far too broadly optimistic and sympathetic to prisoners. I view prison reform as the most important--not among the most important, the most important--step in beginning to change modern US society for the better. I know many prison activists and was raised in a culture of people who volunteered in prisons and in legal efforts to reform prisons and assist prisoners. They are too sympathetic and the way they frame their cause reduces the amount of support they receive from the general public.
wefarrell 4y ago
Rehabilitation requires education and social services and once you start providing those resources to prisoners people question the logic of giving prisoners something for free that everyone else has to pay for. Why should a prisoner get access to college classes while a law abiding citizen has to pay tens of thousands of dollars? Of course it winds up saving the state money by decreasing recidivism, but it raises inconvenient questions.
- Ar-Curunir 4y ago
  The correct answer, of course, is that everyone should have access to basic educational and social services. This is unpopular with many in the US.
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    It's a great way for capital owners to keep workers fighting amongst themselves
1270018080 4y ago
A solid 30% of the country doesn't even want people to have healthcare. There are fundamental issues that make the populace irredeemable ideologically. Of course if you could reprogram that 30% we'd be okay, but, like you said, good luck with that.
Fezzik 4y ago
In law this is often couched as ‘retribution’ vs ‘rehabilitation’. I’ve been out of law school for over a decade, but about ten years ago pretty much all the evidence was the retributive prisons/legal systems were awful (created more recidivists, were more expensive, had more conflict between staff and inmates, etc…).
saithound 4y ago
As one of the people in the camp that firmly rejects rehabilitation: if you think that it's hard to convince me that rehabilitation is possible, I have bad news for you. Most of us don't care if it's possible or not: to get us on board, you'd have to convince us that rehabilitation is _just_, which is a much harder task. I think a good argument could change my mind, but it has to be a moral argument, not an economic one. "We rehabilitated your rapist and integrated them into our society" is considered by many to be an affront to the victims, and the very opposite of justice. If you were to convince me that it was 100% possible, and the rehabilitated criminals become productive members of our society, that would make me support it less, not more.
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- jon-wood 4y ago
  What if we reframe this from the extreme of a rapist, where I agree in many cases retribution needs to be an element of the sentence. How about someone who’s been sentenced for stealing, which they did in order to feed their kids? They dropped out of high school, and have never held down a steady job. Do you genuinely believe it’s better to further smack them down with a criminal justice system that will prevent them getting a job in the future, rather than having them leave prison qualified to do something productive?
  - saithound 4y ago
    > How about someone who’s been sentenced for stealing, which they did in order to feed their kids? Current valid defenses against a charge of larceny include amking an honest mistake, being mentally incapacitated, and having the intention to restore. If you believe that "immediate physical need even without an intention to restore" should be a valid defense against this criminal charge as well, I'm with you. I don't think we disagree on that. The law does, but it's much easier to convince people that certain specific acts should not be considered criminal than to convince them of the justness of rehabilitating actual criminals. So, as far as I can tell, such examples have no bearing on the question of rehabilitation at all: why would we need to rehabilitate somebody who's not guilty in the first place?! If somebody is guilty of a crime, however, how could eventually letting a perpetrator return to society, get a job and do something productive _not_ be a further unjust act against the victim? Almost everybody agrees that the state helping perpetrators of a crime to get revenge on their victims would be twisted and heinous. I'm sure you agree too. But living well is the best revenge, and that's exactly what rehabilitation is: preparing an incarcerated offender to live well (function as a law-abiding member of the society) after their release, and by that further torment their victims.

diveandfight 4y ago

Rather than types, maybe those qualities are more like ends on a spectrum?

rqtwteye 4y ago
It's a very US thing to present issues as one side or the other, "Left or Right", "Capitalist or Socialist" with nothing between. In reality almost everything is on a (multi-dimensional) spectrum with a lot of nuance. This binary thinking is reinforced by TV and social media and is tearing the country apart.
strken 4y ago
Maybe even axes on a graph, where prisons strive to be on the Pareto front at different points.

quacked 4y ago

"Rehabilitation" is in many cases a misnomer. There's a difference between Rehabilitating someone who developed a problem and Habilitating someone who was never taught to think with a moral compass. People in the US could be convinced to get behind major prison reform if the reformers weren't so insistent on representing every felon as Jean Valjean.

at_a_remove 4y ago
I was watching an interesting video of a young woman who had just gotten a DUI. She didn't understand why it was a "thing" because she hadn't hit anyone. She managed to argue herself into two months in the county jail because she didn't understand and did not want to understand. She also tried, briefly, to make a case that she was too attractive for prison. Upon questioning, it was fairly clear that she would go on to reoffend. I saw another video of five teens who liked throwing heavy rocks over a busy overpass. They had done this more than once. Of course, they ended up killing someone, after which text messages were exchanged with much LOL and LFMOA and HAHAHA. Apparently, they had pre-planned some kind of defense where everyone would agree that the eldest of the bunch was the only one throwing the rocks, as well. The four youngest got a year of probation. The eldest got three and a quarter years in prison. He's out and the rest are long clear of their probation. I am unsure what could be done to rehabilitate these individuals rather than merely coercing lip service from them.
- throwway120385 4y ago
  I am equally unsure. But I believe we have a responsibility to try to help the weakest members of our society become better people, and if that means locking them up for a while and trying to teach them a moral compass that's what we should try even if it's doomed to failure. It can't be any worse than what we're currently doing.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Psychopathic individuals mainly use therapy as post-graduate training in how to simulate human emotion. Just ask some shrinks. They don't learn a moral compass; they learn how to pretend they have one. Of course, not all inmates are psychopathic, but 15-25% manifest those traits, according to https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/ce-corner-psychopathy https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/ce-corner-psychopathy.
    - strken 4y ago
      How meaningful is it to manifest psychopathic trait to a clinically significant degree? If you look at them, they include impulsivity, risk taking, and violence. Of course prisoners will be impulsive, take risks, and/or be violent! That's how a lot of them end up in prison! There is something of a jump from there to the pop science understanding of psychopathy. It's not clear that everyone who displays some of those traits is going to display all the others, that a pattern of risky violence means someone is automatically beyond help, that the stats on psychopaths aren't including lots of people with other underlying problems that fully explain their behaviour, or that anyone else who goes to a therapist is doing anything radically different from simulating normal human behaviour.
rqtwteye 4y ago
"People in the US could be convinced to get behind major prison reform if the reformers weren't so insistent on representing every felon as Jean Valjean." It's pretty crazy to blame the current situation on reformers. In reality it's the war on drugs and "tough on crime". I know a lot of normally reasonable people who think prisoners deserve to be raped in prison and don't deserve health care.
- Paul-Craft 4y ago
  Right. It's well known that Nixon started the "War on Drugs" as a way to target hippies and black people. And "tough on crime" has just led to people spending more time in prison in spite of falling crime rates: https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/oct/1/new-study-shows-tough-crime-generation-spent-more-time-prison-despite-falling-crime-rate/ https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/oct/1/new-study-sh...
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    Gotta keep those private prisons full. We need more cheap and free labor!
- quacked 4y ago
  I did not say that the current situation was created by the reformers, merely that the existing US prison reform movements lack the support they need to move the needle because they are controlled by people who are far too broadly optimistic and sympathetic to prisoners. I view prison reform as the most important--not among the most important, the most important--step in beginning to change modern US society for the better. I know many prison activists and was raised in a culture of people who volunteered in prisons and in legal efforts to reform prisons and assist prisoners. They are too sympathetic and the way they frame their cause reduces the amount of support they receive from the general public.

wefarrell 4y ago

Rehabilitation requires education and social services and once you start providing those resources to prisoners people question the logic of giving prisoners something for free that everyone else has to pay for. Why should a prisoner get access to college classes while a law abiding citizen has to pay tens of thousands of dollars? Of course it winds up saving the state money by decreasing recidivism, but it raises inconvenient questions.

Ar-Curunir 4y ago
The correct answer, of course, is that everyone should have access to basic educational and social services. This is unpopular with many in the US.
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  It's a great way for capital owners to keep workers fighting amongst themselves

1270018080 4y ago

A solid 30% of the country doesn't even want people to have healthcare. There are fundamental issues that make the populace irredeemable ideologically. Of course if you could reprogram that 30% we'd be okay, but, like you said, good luck with that.

Fezzik 4y ago

In law this is often couched as ‘retribution’ vs ‘rehabilitation’. I’ve been out of law school for over a decade, but about ten years ago pretty much all the evidence was the retributive prisons/legal systems were awful (created more recidivists, were more expensive, had more conflict between staff and inmates, etc…).

saithound 4y ago

As one of the people in the camp that firmly rejects rehabilitation: if you think that it's hard to convince me that rehabilitation is possible, I have bad news for you. Most of us don't care if it's possible or not: to get us on board, you'd have to convince us that rehabilitation is _just_, which is a much harder task. I think a good argument could change my mind, but it has to be a moral argument, not an economic one. "We rehabilitated your rapist and integrated them into our society" is considered by many to be an affront to the victims, and the very opposite of justice. If you were to convince me that it was 100% possible, and the rehabilitated criminals become productive members of our society, that would make me support it less, not more.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jon-wood 4y ago
What if we reframe this from the extreme of a rapist, where I agree in many cases retribution needs to be an element of the sentence. How about someone who’s been sentenced for stealing, which they did in order to feed their kids? They dropped out of high school, and have never held down a steady job. Do you genuinely believe it’s better to further smack them down with a criminal justice system that will prevent them getting a job in the future, rather than having them leave prison qualified to do something productive?
- saithound 4y ago
  > How about someone who’s been sentenced for stealing, which they did in order to feed their kids? Current valid defenses against a charge of larceny include amking an honest mistake, being mentally incapacitated, and having the intention to restore. If you believe that "immediate physical need even without an intention to restore" should be a valid defense against this criminal charge as well, I'm with you. I don't think we disagree on that. The law does, but it's much easier to convince people that certain specific acts should not be considered criminal than to convince them of the justness of rehabilitating actual criminals. So, as far as I can tell, such examples have no bearing on the question of rehabilitation at all: why would we need to rehabilitate somebody who's not guilty in the first place?! If somebody is guilty of a crime, however, how could eventually letting a perpetrator return to society, get a job and do something productive _not_ be a further unjust act against the victim? Almost everybody agrees that the state helping perpetrators of a crime to get revenge on their victims would be twisted and heinous. I'm sure you agree too. But living well is the best revenge, and that's exactly what rehabilitation is: preparing an incarcerated offender to live well (function as a law-abiding member of the society) after their release, and by that further torment their victims.