5 ms·

Prison has multiple purposes: retribution, incapacitance, deterrence, and rehabilitation. - retribution: gives victims and families of the victim retribution.

Prison has multiple purposes: retribution, incapacitance, deterrence, and rehabilitation. - retribution: gives victims and families of the victim retribution. This one doesn't seem important in the modern day, but if you ignore it you get vigilante revenge, blood feuds, honor culture etc. Having the state take on "revenge" kills these cycles. - incapacitance: straight up preventing dangerous people from being out and being dangerous. - deterrence: long prison sentences deter other people from committing crimes because they don't want to get a long prison sentence. Also deters the prisoners themselves from committing another crime (if their sentence is short enough) - rehabilitation: here's finally the "corrections" part, and honestly our system in the US isn't great at rehabilitating anyone. In principle this is a prudent idea, but we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything. That's politically pretty unappealing

ansible 3y ago
> rehabilitation ... That's politically pretty unappealing Here in the USA, yes. Some EU countries take this quite a bit more seriously, to good effect.
RheingoldRiver 3y ago
> but we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything. That's politically pretty unappealing I don't have a source for this but I thought the opposite was true? That the general consensus was we'd end up spending less because the recidivism rate would go down?
- lolinder 3y ago
  I think they mean more per prisoner per year, which is immediately measurable. It'd be done in the hope that total costs would go down over decades, but in our current political climate it's hard to sell improvements that take decades to manifest.
ceejayoz 3y ago
> we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything Not necessarily. Recidivism costs a lot, too. Norway spends over $100k/inmate, to the US's $25k/inmate (https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2022/10/25/what-can-we-learn-from-the-norwegian-prison-system/ https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2022/10/25/what-can-we-learn-from-t...), but only 20% reoffend versus 2/3 of American inmates. (Resulting in 70/100k incarcerated versus the US's 700/100k; that $100k/year starts to look like $10k/year now.) Here in NY, there was a big political fuss over free community college for prisoners a few years back (pre-pandemic); Cuomo wound up killing it. I suspect helping inmates get associates degrees to use when they got out would've wound up saving money, but that's not how it played in the PR realm.
- habitue 3y ago
  > recidivism costs a lot too Right, but it's all indirect costs, paid in diffuse ways by various entities (insurance companies, often), whereas a politician suggesting raising taxes to help prisoners is a direct cost that taxpayers are loathe to pay. Which isn't to say you're wrong, but it'd be a long campaign to change the cultural framing in a way that allowed these kinds of reforms to take place. Until then, people will be looking at that top-line Norway $100K per prisoner and shaking their heads.
- parineum 3y ago
  I'm not against spending more per prisoner on actual rehabilitation efforts but I am very skeptical the US would see anywhere near that improvement. The circumstances that lead to crime in the two countries are quite different and those US prisoners end up right back in those situations when they are released.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    I don't doubt that the Norwegian system has other aspects / safety nets that help here, but the article says they had a 70% rate as recently as the 1990s. It would be silly not to look at that 70% -> 20% drop and at least try and learn some of the lessons from it. "Officers are trained for 2 to 3 years before being sent to work" seems like a good one to start with, as does the skills building to prepare them for the outside.
greedo 3y ago
Deterrence? I don't think that long sentences deter any crime. If the ultimate sentence (DP) doesn't deter murder, then why would lesser sentences deter lesser crimes?
- dsego 3y ago
  It's always weird for me to hear arguments about death penalty not deterring crime, then in the same breath they favor life in prison over death penalty. Not even aware of their double standard.
  - greedo 3y ago
    My opposition to the DP is based on my distrust in our justice system and the fact that a wrongly applied DP is irrevocable. Life w/o Parole lets you amend failures in our legal system.
    - dsego 3y ago
      It's a common opinion. I find this stance a bit weak, since it doesn't hold the justice system to the highest standards and expectations. I know, death seems so immediate and there is no taking it back, but things aren't usually that trivial in reality, a life in prison can also mean the person dies in prison without reparation, or even if revoked, the person might spend most their life in prison and has a few years to live free. A person on death row might have many years to prove their innocence. I guess we could also apply a statistical analysis and determine if the error margin is tolerable, sort like how we handle hundreds of deaths in traffic.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    You'll find a wide spectrum of beliefs within that "same breath". Personally, I think life in prison is necessary in some cases - that there are people who will never be able to function safely in society - but that it is simultaneously overused (case in point: stealing four cookies; https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-19-me-12244-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-19-me-12244...). There's also the "you can release someone from life in prison" aspect if there was a mistake, malicious prosecution, or they've shown signs of genuine rehabilitation.
numpad0 3y ago
So where's the math in that? It makes absolutely no sense that entirely quantitative prison sentencing is at best qualitatively determined and completely devoid of metric tracking, everywhere on Earth. wtf is this.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ansible 3y ago

> rehabilitation ... That's politically pretty unappealing Here in the USA, yes. Some EU countries take this quite a bit more seriously, to good effect.

RheingoldRiver 3y ago

> but we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything. That's politically pretty unappealing I don't have a source for this but I thought the opposite was true? That the general consensus was we'd end up spending less because the recidivism rate would go down?

lolinder 3y ago
I think they mean more per prisoner per year, which is immediately measurable. It'd be done in the hope that total costs would go down over decades, but in our current political climate it's hard to sell improvements that take decades to manifest.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> we'd have to spend a lot more tax dollars on prisoners to actually rehabilitate anything Not necessarily. Recidivism costs a lot, too. Norway spends over $100k/inmate, to the US's $25k/inmate (https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2022/10/25/what-can-we-learn-from-the-norwegian-prison-system/ https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2022/10/25/what-can-we-learn-from-t...), but only 20% reoffend versus 2/3 of American inmates. (Resulting in 70/100k incarcerated versus the US's 700/100k; that $100k/year starts to look like $10k/year now.) Here in NY, there was a big political fuss over free community college for prisoners a few years back (pre-pandemic); Cuomo wound up killing it. I suspect helping inmates get associates degrees to use when they got out would've wound up saving money, but that's not how it played in the PR realm.

habitue 3y ago
> recidivism costs a lot too Right, but it's all indirect costs, paid in diffuse ways by various entities (insurance companies, often), whereas a politician suggesting raising taxes to help prisoners is a direct cost that taxpayers are loathe to pay. Which isn't to say you're wrong, but it'd be a long campaign to change the cultural framing in a way that allowed these kinds of reforms to take place. Until then, people will be looking at that top-line Norway $100K per prisoner and shaking their heads.
parineum 3y ago
I'm not against spending more per prisoner on actual rehabilitation efforts but I am very skeptical the US would see anywhere near that improvement. The circumstances that lead to crime in the two countries are quite different and those US prisoners end up right back in those situations when they are released.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  I don't doubt that the Norwegian system has other aspects / safety nets that help here, but the article says they had a 70% rate as recently as the 1990s. It would be silly not to look at that 70% -> 20% drop and at least try and learn some of the lessons from it. "Officers are trained for 2 to 3 years before being sent to work" seems like a good one to start with, as does the skills building to prepare them for the outside.

greedo 3y ago

Deterrence? I don't think that long sentences deter any crime. If the ultimate sentence (DP) doesn't deter murder, then why would lesser sentences deter lesser crimes?

dsego 3y ago
It's always weird for me to hear arguments about death penalty not deterring crime, then in the same breath they favor life in prison over death penalty. Not even aware of their double standard.
- greedo 3y ago
  My opposition to the DP is based on my distrust in our justice system and the fact that a wrongly applied DP is irrevocable. Life w/o Parole lets you amend failures in our legal system.
  - dsego 3y ago
    It's a common opinion. I find this stance a bit weak, since it doesn't hold the justice system to the highest standards and expectations. I know, death seems so immediate and there is no taking it back, but things aren't usually that trivial in reality, a life in prison can also mean the person dies in prison without reparation, or even if revoked, the person might spend most their life in prison and has a few years to live free. A person on death row might have many years to prove their innocence. I guess we could also apply a statistical analysis and determine if the error margin is tolerable, sort like how we handle hundreds of deaths in traffic.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  You'll find a wide spectrum of beliefs within that "same breath". Personally, I think life in prison is necessary in some cases - that there are people who will never be able to function safely in society - but that it is simultaneously overused (case in point: stealing four cookies; https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-19-me-12244-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-19-me-12244...). There's also the "you can release someone from life in prison" aspect if there was a mistake, malicious prosecution, or they've shown signs of genuine rehabilitation.

numpad0 3y ago

So where's the math in that? It makes absolutely no sense that entirely quantitative prison sentencing is at best qualitatively determined and completely devoid of metric tracking, everywhere on Earth. wtf is this.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]