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Write him good letters as this situation is terrifying. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/

by rohern 14y ago

Write him good letters as this situation is terrifying. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...

TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
So, speaking as a citizen of Indiana, what do we do with these people? What is the ideal prison system?
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Locking people up should only be reserved for people who are a physical threat to other people around them. Once you apply this kind of rule, you would basically remove a large number of currently jailed people.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
    That's not quite where I was going with this discussion. We have a rather disgusting prison system, in which people are in a various forms of lockup for a multitude of crimes. Many of these prisons are for-profit corporations, which seek to lengthen prisoners' stay for added profit. How do we go from what we have now to an ideal prison system? Because of our countries' governance model, even free peoples have problems getting any sort of assistance. Many of these people have been in jail/prison for years and have no clue how to survive. We're not even covering the fact that in this country, a person imprisoned for a drug crime has all state and federal aid taken away from them. Thus ensuring that crime is almost the only route to live.
  - rorrr 14y ago
    And what would you do with thieves, people who destroy property, hunters who kill animals illegally, and a million other non-violent categories that get jailed?
    - vidarh 14y ago
      Community service. Fines. Putting them in prison only delays re-offending. Treatment outside prison is generally more likely to prevent them from committing further crimes. I might not want to go quite as far as ekianjo, but prison is in general horrible for rehabilitation. I'm Norwegian. The Norwegian prison system has a far better rehabilitation rate than most, and this to a large extent has followed a gradual softening up of the prison system from one that was every bit as inhumane as the US system, but is now regularly described as "holiday camp". Imprisonment is used far less, and the tendency is to reduce it further. For those who do end up in prison, sentences are generally far shorter, coupled with education and work (you can choose, but you need to do one or the other) in prison. Prisoners often get granted early limited parole (you can start getting weekends out of prison etc. long before a full parole, or monitored time outside the prison - e.g. a famous convicted murderer was recently interviewed at a cafe while she was out on parole, accompanied by a police officer...). The result is a system that fits far better with the reality of the psychological effects one would presumably want a criminal justice system that cares about rehabilitation to have on a prisoner. A large part of the problem with most prison systems is that they are based on emotions and demands for vengeance rather than an evidence based approach to actually minimizing harm to society. Sweden has similar success with rehabilitation, though Sweden and Norway also unfortunately shares similar flaws to Sweden when it comes to pre-conviction detention.
      - TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
        As I said before, I live in what we would call the "Bible Belt" within the USA: Indiana. I've read about, as well watched a few documentaries about Norway's penal system. It's humane and treats people as punished- but still people trying to do better. I remember discussion of a prison 'island' in which prisoners set up a village there. You had a job to learn a trade, and/or get schooling where they were lacking. You had people of all sorts of crimes around, many a time with heavy machinery. Yet one thing was certain: if you treat people like animals, they shall act like it. This 'experiment' proved the opposite: treat them like civilized humans who at one time erred, and they will act like civilized humans. But I live in Indiana. Even despite the restriction of making laws towards or against another religion, this state makes rules that are undoubtedly "Christian". This type of "Christian" however, is bloodthirsty, vindictive, bigoted, and hypocritical. Christians speak of forgiveness, yet are the first here to demand payback and retribution. We have scads of politicians who denounce decent sentencing, and instead attack other politicians for being "Soft on crime". I honestly cannot see when our state (let alone the country) will regain sanity about prison and rehabilitation. It really is that bad.

by rohern 14y ago

Write him good letters as this situation is terrifying. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...

TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago

So, speaking as a citizen of Indiana, what do we do with these people? What is the ideal prison system?

ekianjo 14y ago
Locking people up should only be reserved for people who are a physical threat to other people around them. Once you apply this kind of rule, you would basically remove a large number of currently jailed people.
- TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
  That's not quite where I was going with this discussion. We have a rather disgusting prison system, in which people are in a various forms of lockup for a multitude of crimes. Many of these prisons are for-profit corporations, which seek to lengthen prisoners' stay for added profit. How do we go from what we have now to an ideal prison system? Because of our countries' governance model, even free peoples have problems getting any sort of assistance. Many of these people have been in jail/prison for years and have no clue how to survive. We're not even covering the fact that in this country, a person imprisoned for a drug crime has all state and federal aid taken away from them. Thus ensuring that crime is almost the only route to live.
- rorrr 14y ago
  And what would you do with thieves, people who destroy property, hunters who kill animals illegally, and a million other non-violent categories that get jailed?
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Community service. Fines. Putting them in prison only delays re-offending. Treatment outside prison is generally more likely to prevent them from committing further crimes. I might not want to go quite as far as ekianjo, but prison is in general horrible for rehabilitation. I'm Norwegian. The Norwegian prison system has a far better rehabilitation rate than most, and this to a large extent has followed a gradual softening up of the prison system from one that was every bit as inhumane as the US system, but is now regularly described as "holiday camp". Imprisonment is used far less, and the tendency is to reduce it further. For those who do end up in prison, sentences are generally far shorter, coupled with education and work (you can choose, but you need to do one or the other) in prison. Prisoners often get granted early limited parole (you can start getting weekends out of prison etc. long before a full parole, or monitored time outside the prison - e.g. a famous convicted murderer was recently interviewed at a cafe while she was out on parole, accompanied by a police officer...). The result is a system that fits far better with the reality of the psychological effects one would presumably want a criminal justice system that cares about rehabilitation to have on a prisoner. A large part of the problem with most prison systems is that they are based on emotions and demands for vengeance rather than an evidence based approach to actually minimizing harm to society. Sweden has similar success with rehabilitation, though Sweden and Norway also unfortunately shares similar flaws to Sweden when it comes to pre-conviction detention.
    - TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
      As I said before, I live in what we would call the "Bible Belt" within the USA: Indiana. I've read about, as well watched a few documentaries about Norway's penal system. It's humane and treats people as punished- but still people trying to do better. I remember discussion of a prison 'island' in which prisoners set up a village there. You had a job to learn a trade, and/or get schooling where they were lacking. You had people of all sorts of crimes around, many a time with heavy machinery. Yet one thing was certain: if you treat people like animals, they shall act like it. This 'experiment' proved the opposite: treat them like civilized humans who at one time erred, and they will act like civilized humans. But I live in Indiana. Even despite the restriction of making laws towards or against another religion, this state makes rules that are undoubtedly "Christian". This type of "Christian" however, is bloodthirsty, vindictive, bigoted, and hypocritical. Christians speak of forgiveness, yet are the first here to demand payback and retribution. We have scads of politicians who denounce decent sentencing, and instead attack other politicians for being "Soft on crime". I honestly cannot see when our state (let alone the country) will regain sanity about prison and rehabilitation. It really is that bad.