7 ms·

I don't really understand the logic behind preventing inmates from accessing internet. It seems to me that if the aim of prison is rehabilitate inmates and redu

by song 12y ago

I don't really understand the logic behind preventing inmates from accessing internet. It seems to me that if the aim of prison is rehabilitate inmates and reduce crime then giving them access to internet would be beneficial. I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority.

draugadrotten 12y ago
> I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority. First, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. Second, giving internet access some some inmates would expose them to threats and blackmail from their less rehabilitated counterparts. "Send this threatening email to my enemy, or you'll drop the soap." And it would expose them to threats from the outside: "I know you're in prison with my enemy. Kill him, or your daughter will suffer." Third, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. The rehabilitation is a noble goal but what these guys needs are psychologists, drug therapy and social workers, not internet addiction.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Inmates can already make (and receive?) phone calls and letters, not to mention visits. I fail to see how are those situations not already possible, even without Internet access. It's not like we can't monitor online conversations.
  - draugadrotten 12y ago
    The situation may not be perfect today, but communication to/from prisons are heavily guarded to prevent these situations and others. Inmates in most countries can make phone calls only to phone numbers which have been approved, usually only family. You can't make random phone calls. All phone calls are monitored and recorded to prevent abuse. You can't call an inmate afaik, that would be a very low security facility, which I am not aware of. Visitors are only by request and undergo security checks before, during and after visits. And yes, visitors are a huge security issue in prisons, but if you deny all visitors to prisoners, you're in Guantanamo, not a normal prison anymore. There are different levels of security in prisons. Internet access is much harder to control. Encryption is, as you as a HN reader know, very easy to do on a computer, but hard using your voice. Hiding information on a computer is easy, but very hard on a voice phone. There have been prisons in the world that allowed internet access to inmates and there are problems with that, much as with visitors or phone calls. It's a balancing act to weigh those problems to the benefits. You just have to go into the discussion with open eyes about the problems that internet access would bring. Imagine a pedophile convicted for sexually harassing children online, and giving him/her internet access in prison. What an outrage. Someone in a low sec jail for DUI could be given internet access, no problems. It happends, I've even seen a CEO run his company from within the jail. He was given supervised internet access to his companys financial system once a month, one guard watching pover his shoulder at all times. Not a very scalable solution though. It all depends, doesn't it.
    - vinceguidry 12y ago
      > The situation may not be perfect today, but communication to/from prisons are heavily guarded to prevent these situations and others. That's pretty funny. Contraband cell phones are ridiculously common in prison. I had a buddy of mine in prison, was there for four years. At one point he started calling me from jail, from a contraband phone. He called me often enough and we chatted long enough on these calls that I got the feeling that there wasn't any sort of real scarcity when it comes to communications in prison. The phones had Internet access, he would update his Facebook page from prison. At one point he even asked me for money so that he could buy his own contraband cell phone. (I said no)
    - jakobsen 12y ago
      As for scalability... I was thinking that for sure free access to internet would be very hard to monitor, but say you limit it to email: That would be certainly much, much easier (hence cheaper) to monitor than what we currently have. Every written letter must be opened and read, possibly with an horrible script which takes time to "decipher". Besides, I don't know if they keep copies of all the mail in case something happens, but it would be orders of magnitude harder to index and search than email anyway. Phone calls are even worse, since you need at least as much time to monitor the conversation as the conversation lasts. Maybe introducing email would shift some of the friends and family to use this cheaper means of communication, reducing costs. Or maybe Jevons paradox applies here and the number of emails would go up to such an extent that the improved efficiency would not make up for the increased traffic. P.S.: just to make it clear, I'm not advocating for the inmates to have their phone calls replaced for emails.
  - sabarn01 12y ago
    prisoners can make collect calls at 4 to 5 $ a minute. The cannot receive phone calls.
- song 12y ago
  In this case, it could make sense to give internet access in lower security prison where they are unlikely to be exposed to threats and blackmail? I agree that psychologists, social workers and drug therapy are needed but I do think that access to internet and the information it contains is a huge help for people to better be prepared to the world as it as evolved. But you're right I'm rather naive about the conditions of prison, the little I know I know it by having read articles by Michael Santos through HN which while interesting do not provide a complete view of how prison really is. The thing is from what I've read of reconviction rates in US, France and other countries, the prison system isn't working. It's expensive and doesn't rehabilitate prisoners very well and from the percentage of the population who is convicted in the US, I'm not sure it even works well as a deterrent.
  - draugadrotten 12y ago
    > The thing is from what I've read of reconviction rates in US, France and other countries, the prison system isn't working. It's expensive and doesn't rehabilitate prisoners very well and from the percentage of the population who is convicted in the US, I'm not sure it even works well as a deterrent. I agree completely with you here. Prisons do not rehabilitate, and they are a poor deterrent. Especially longer stints in prison tends to damage the inmate rather than improve. There's a enormous difference between what "prison" is in France, US, Sweden, Russia or Thailand. I wish the world would at least move towards the "best practice" of prisons, because there are such things. Prisons are terrible but honestly does anyone believe the world would be better without them.
    - song 12y ago
      > Prisons are terrible but honestly does anyone believe the world would be better without them. I completely agree that they're a necessary evil and that there's a need for a type of prison. I think rehabilitation is really what the focus should be since this is what will bring the biggest benefits to society. There's also an argument to be made (and made by a lot of people) that there are too many people incarcerated in the US when it's not necessarily in the country's best interest for those people to go to prison (war on drug, ...). It was interesting discussing with you and if you have any good references on "best practices" I'd be interested in reading them.
jobigoud 12y ago
> It seems to me that if the aim of prison is rehabilitate inmates and reduce crime Some people think the aim of prison is primarily to punish wrongdoers. (Are you European by some chance ? No offense intended to anyone.)
- song 12y ago
  I'm French but from what I've seen and read about French prisons they are not much better. I know that people see it as being only punishment but it's rather self defeating as proven by the high reconviction rates across countries. In france, 38% are reconvicted [1] and in US, 51.8% [2] (in 1994) I feel that the way prisons work now is a waste for society in term of money used and results. [1] http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/justice/justice-les-chiffres-de-la-recidive-en-france_1299565.html http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/justice/justice-les... [2] http://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm http://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm
pessimizer 12y ago
Those are not really goals of US prisons. We're more into both institutionalizing revenge in order to prevent vigilantism and family feuds, and also protecting upper middle class neighborhoods and tourist areas from robberies and property crimes. Also locking up racial minorities for victimless crimes is a priority.
yodsanklai 12y ago
Some prisoners don't even have access to books... [1] It reminds of an inmate diary I read some time ago (he was in a French prison). Not only he didn't have access to books. But even clean underwear or blankets were luxury items. I think he could only shower once or twice a week. I can't find the link anymore. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-prisoners-england-wales-authors http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-pri...

by song 12y ago

draugadrotten 12y ago

> I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority. First, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. Second, giving internet access some some inmates would expose them to threats and blackmail from their less rehabilitated counterparts. "Send this threatening email to my enemy, or you'll drop the soap." And it would expose them to threats from the outside: "I know you're in prison with my enemy. Kill him, or your daughter will suffer." Third, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. The rehabilitation is a noble goal but what these guys needs are psychologists, drug therapy and social workers, not internet addiction.

icebraining 12y ago
Inmates can already make (and receive?) phone calls and letters, not to mention visits. I fail to see how are those situations not already possible, even without Internet access. It's not like we can't monitor online conversations.
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  The situation may not be perfect today, but communication to/from prisons are heavily guarded to prevent these situations and others. Inmates in most countries can make phone calls only to phone numbers which have been approved, usually only family. You can't make random phone calls. All phone calls are monitored and recorded to prevent abuse. You can't call an inmate afaik, that would be a very low security facility, which I am not aware of. Visitors are only by request and undergo security checks before, during and after visits. And yes, visitors are a huge security issue in prisons, but if you deny all visitors to prisoners, you're in Guantanamo, not a normal prison anymore. There are different levels of security in prisons. Internet access is much harder to control. Encryption is, as you as a HN reader know, very easy to do on a computer, but hard using your voice. Hiding information on a computer is easy, but very hard on a voice phone. There have been prisons in the world that allowed internet access to inmates and there are problems with that, much as with visitors or phone calls. It's a balancing act to weigh those problems to the benefits. You just have to go into the discussion with open eyes about the problems that internet access would bring. Imagine a pedophile convicted for sexually harassing children online, and giving him/her internet access in prison. What an outrage. Someone in a low sec jail for DUI could be given internet access, no problems. It happends, I've even seen a CEO run his company from within the jail. He was given supervised internet access to his companys financial system once a month, one guard watching pover his shoulder at all times. Not a very scalable solution though. It all depends, doesn't it.
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    > The situation may not be perfect today, but communication to/from prisons are heavily guarded to prevent these situations and others. That's pretty funny. Contraband cell phones are ridiculously common in prison. I had a buddy of mine in prison, was there for four years. At one point he started calling me from jail, from a contraband phone. He called me often enough and we chatted long enough on these calls that I got the feeling that there wasn't any sort of real scarcity when it comes to communications in prison. The phones had Internet access, he would update his Facebook page from prison. At one point he even asked me for money so that he could buy his own contraband cell phone. (I said no)
  - jakobsen 12y ago
    As for scalability... I was thinking that for sure free access to internet would be very hard to monitor, but say you limit it to email: That would be certainly much, much easier (hence cheaper) to monitor than what we currently have. Every written letter must be opened and read, possibly with an horrible script which takes time to "decipher". Besides, I don't know if they keep copies of all the mail in case something happens, but it would be orders of magnitude harder to index and search than email anyway. Phone calls are even worse, since you need at least as much time to monitor the conversation as the conversation lasts. Maybe introducing email would shift some of the friends and family to use this cheaper means of communication, reducing costs. Or maybe Jevons paradox applies here and the number of emails would go up to such an extent that the improved efficiency would not make up for the increased traffic. P.S.: just to make it clear, I'm not advocating for the inmates to have their phone calls replaced for emails.
- sabarn01 12y ago
  prisoners can make collect calls at 4 to 5 $ a minute. The cannot receive phone calls.
song 12y ago
In this case, it could make sense to give internet access in lower security prison where they are unlikely to be exposed to threats and blackmail? I agree that psychologists, social workers and drug therapy are needed but I do think that access to internet and the information it contains is a huge help for people to better be prepared to the world as it as evolved. But you're right I'm rather naive about the conditions of prison, the little I know I know it by having read articles by Michael Santos through HN which while interesting do not provide a complete view of how prison really is. The thing is from what I've read of reconviction rates in US, France and other countries, the prison system isn't working. It's expensive and doesn't rehabilitate prisoners very well and from the percentage of the population who is convicted in the US, I'm not sure it even works well as a deterrent.
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  > The thing is from what I've read of reconviction rates in US, France and other countries, the prison system isn't working. It's expensive and doesn't rehabilitate prisoners very well and from the percentage of the population who is convicted in the US, I'm not sure it even works well as a deterrent. I agree completely with you here. Prisons do not rehabilitate, and they are a poor deterrent. Especially longer stints in prison tends to damage the inmate rather than improve. There's a enormous difference between what "prison" is in France, US, Sweden, Russia or Thailand. I wish the world would at least move towards the "best practice" of prisons, because there are such things. Prisons are terrible but honestly does anyone believe the world would be better without them.
  - song 12y ago
    > Prisons are terrible but honestly does anyone believe the world would be better without them. I completely agree that they're a necessary evil and that there's a need for a type of prison. I think rehabilitation is really what the focus should be since this is what will bring the biggest benefits to society. There's also an argument to be made (and made by a lot of people) that there are too many people incarcerated in the US when it's not necessarily in the country's best interest for those people to go to prison (war on drug, ...). It was interesting discussing with you and if you have any good references on "best practices" I'd be interested in reading them.

jobigoud 12y ago

> It seems to me that if the aim of prison is rehabilitate inmates and reduce crime Some people think the aim of prison is primarily to punish wrongdoers. (Are you European by some chance ? No offense intended to anyone.)

song 12y ago
I'm French but from what I've seen and read about French prisons they are not much better. I know that people see it as being only punishment but it's rather self defeating as proven by the high reconviction rates across countries. In france, 38% are reconvicted [1] and in US, 51.8% [2] (in 1994) I feel that the way prisons work now is a waste for society in term of money used and results. [1] http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/justice/justice-les-chiffres-de-la-recidive-en-france_1299565.html http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/justice/justice-les... [2] http://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm http://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm

pessimizer 12y ago

Those are not really goals of US prisons. We're more into both institutionalizing revenge in order to prevent vigilantism and family feuds, and also protecting upper middle class neighborhoods and tourist areas from robberies and property crimes. Also locking up racial minorities for victimless crimes is a priority.

yodsanklai 12y ago

Some prisoners don't even have access to books... [1] It reminds of an inmate diary I read some time ago (he was in a French prison). Not only he didn't have access to books. But even clean underwear or blankets were luxury items. I think he could only shower once or twice a week. I can't find the link anymore. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-prisoners-england-wales-authors http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-pri...