What are prisons for?

[DrZoidberg]

Prisons do deter crime, despite bullshit claims to the contrary.

The problem is that claims that prisons don't deter crime are only ever supported with data that has no bearing on whether the threat of prison deters most people from doing things that would land them in prison. Instead, the data offered is data on whether the kind of people that wind up in prison the first time are deterred by their prison experience from winding up back in prison. Those are completely separate questions with different answers.

Most criminal acts are never prosecuted, so most people that wind up in prison are chronic repeat offenders before they ever get arrested the first time.
IOW, they are non-representative sub-populations that are disproportionately prone towards the criminal acts that land one in prison. This proneness is for all sorts of reasons, including economic desperation, so don't interpret it as some sort of genetic criminality thesis. Also, they are aware of prison and its unpleasantness, and yet engaged in the crimes anyway. Thus, by definition, their proneness toward the criminal acts is so strong that it already overrode the known threat of something so awful and life ruining as prison. Thus, it is no wonder that this non-representative sub-population winds up back in prison so often, and that being in prison (like the threat of prison) is not a sufficient disincentive to avoid the criminal actions. But that tells us nothing about the impact of prisons on keeping people from doing things than land one in prison in the first place.

Is the threat of prisons is partly responsible for why the people that don't ever wind up there don't wind up there? The can be no direct evidence on this question, so we must look to the indirect evidence and to empirically established principles of human behavior and decision making. All of that evidence suggest an answer of a resounding "Yes, the threat of prison reduces behavior that would land people there."

Ultimately, it comes down to whether you accept that most people will try to avoid outcomes that they find unpleasant, and that most people find the perceived features of prison to be unpleasant. The notion that threat of prison does not deter crime requires the absurd position of rejecting one or both of these undeniable assumptions.

The indirect evidence comes in many forms. One is simply the mountain of experimental evidence that human beings (like all animals) modify their behavior to avoid unpleasant stimuli, combined with the evidence indicating that most people find the idea of being confined to a cage, separated from friends, and being under constant physical threat to be unpleasant. In addition, their is the evidence that humans transfer their negative emotional reactions between associated stimuli, such that this avoidance need not even be a deliberated pragmatic decision, but rather the action associated with prison will in itself automatically trigger negative feelings the prompt avoidance even without any conscious thoughts of consequences.

Other indirect evidence is in the form of looking at patterns of everyday behavior in which people clearly avoid actions associated with unpleasant consequences. These range from kids learning not to touch a hot stove or do other things likely to harm them to the basic process of socialization in which non-stop subtle rewards and punishments in social interactions shape behavior.

A third form of indirect evidence is looking at differences in the frequencies of behaviors that are similar in moral and direct consequences but differ mostly just in terms of whether they could land you in prison. A great example is the frequency of alcohol use versus marijuana use. IF anything alcohol has more negative direct consequences and more association with immoral actions under the influence. Yet, many times more people regularly use alcohol than marijuana, and that is largely because they fear the legal consequences, including prison. The doubling of occasional pot smoking adults in the past decade is most plausibly due to the changes in its legal status and its reduces (though sadly not eliminated) association with consequences like prison. The fact that we shouldn't put pot smokers in prison is irrelevant to the issue.

Tying this all back into the OP question: Prisons are a way of making the consequences of criminal acts so unpleasant that most people don't wind up in prison partly because they are avoiding prison by avoiding or at least limiting their criminal actions that would land them in prison. Ideally, we'd want a system of criminal consequences that simultaneously serves this function of deterring the majority, while also rehabilitating those that were so motivated toward the criminal action that the threat of the consequence was not enough and they wound up in prison. That is an unlikely ideal, since almost anything that would make prison more rehabilitative would either make it less of an unpleasant deterrent to the general population who currently avoids prison due to its unpleasantness.

That said, some modest changes could have a big impact. Non-violent criminals should be kept completely separate from violent criminals, and first-timers should be separate from repeat offenders. Cameras with audio should be in every crevice including showers and bathrooms and reviewed by outside parties. Claims of privacy violation are nonsense. Prisoners already have to shower and shit right in front of others, which is more emotionally invasive than someone screening the videos for criminal or even just threatening behavior, especially since modern tech can automatically blur all faces and only unblur them when a there is a need to identify someone.

We know prisons don't deter since we've been playing around with harshness of sentences. We know that the length of a prison sentence has zero impact on behaviour. No matter how we fiddle around with the number nothing happens to the crime rate. Super easy to study and has been. We also know that the unpleasantness of a prison stay also has zero on criminal behaviour. Doesn't that prove you wrong? The American three strikes and you're out hasn't worked according to plan, has it?

I think most people follow the law because the law is mostly designed around what most people do. Most people are decent. Anecdotally I don't know what punishments I can expect for any laws I break. I haven't the merest notion of how much I should feel deterred. I have broken the law on numerous occasions. Nothing serious. But it has happened. I did so even though I hadn't a clue what might happen if I got caught. I'm not saying everybody is like me. But it does make me question the efficacy of deterrence.

 

[ronburgundy]

Prisons do deter crime, despite bullshit claims to the contrary.

The problem is that claims that prisons don't deter crime are only ever supported with data that has no bearing on whether the threat of prison deters most people from doing things that would land them in prison. Instead, the data offered is data on whether the kind of people that wind up in prison the first time are deterred by their prison experience from winding up back in prison. Those are completely separate questions with different answers.

Most criminal acts are never prosecuted, so most people that wind up in prison are chronic repeat offenders before they ever get arrested the first time.
IOW, they are non-representative sub-populations that are disproportionately prone towards the criminal acts that land one in prison. This proneness is for all sorts of reasons, including economic desperation, so don't interpret it as some sort of genetic criminality thesis. Also, they are aware of prison and its unpleasantness, and yet engaged in the crimes anyway. Thus, by definition, their proneness toward the criminal acts is so strong that it already overrode the known threat of something so awful and life ruining as prison. Thus, it is no wonder that this non-representative sub-population winds up back in prison so often, and that being in prison (like the threat of prison) is not a sufficient disincentive to avoid the criminal actions. But that tells us nothing about the impact of prisons on keeping people from doing things than land one in prison in the first place.

Is the threat of prisons is partly responsible for why the people that don't ever wind up there don't wind up there? The can be no direct evidence on this question, so we must look to the indirect evidence and to empirically established principles of human behavior and decision making. All of that evidence suggest an answer of a resounding "Yes, the threat of prison reduces behavior that would land people there."

Ultimately, it comes down to whether you accept that most people will try to avoid outcomes that they find unpleasant, and that most people find the perceived features of prison to be unpleasant. The notion that threat of prison does not deter crime requires the absurd position of rejecting one or both of these undeniable assumptions.

The indirect evidence comes in many forms. One is simply the mountain of experimental evidence that human beings (like all animals) modify their behavior to avoid unpleasant stimuli, combined with the evidence indicating that most people find the idea of being confined to a cage, separated from friends, and being under constant physical threat to be unpleasant. In addition, their is the evidence that humans transfer their negative emotional reactions between associated stimuli, such that this avoidance need not even be a deliberated pragmatic decision, but rather the action associated with prison will in itself automatically trigger negative feelings the prompt avoidance even without any conscious thoughts of consequences.

Other indirect evidence is in the form of looking at patterns of everyday behavior in which people clearly avoid actions associated with unpleasant consequences. These range from kids learning not to touch a hot stove or do other things likely to harm them to the basic process of socialization in which non-stop subtle rewards and punishments in social interactions shape behavior.

A third form of indirect evidence is looking at differences in the frequencies of behaviors that are similar in moral and direct consequences but differ mostly just in terms of whether they could land you in prison. A great example is the frequency of alcohol use versus marijuana use. IF anything alcohol has more negative direct consequences and more association with immoral actions under the influence. Yet, many times more people regularly use alcohol than marijuana, and that is largely because they fear the legal consequences, including prison. The doubling of occasional pot smoking adults in the past decade is most plausibly due to the changes in its legal status and its reduces (though sadly not eliminated) association with consequences like prison. The fact that we shouldn't put pot smokers in prison is irrelevant to the issue.

Tying this all back into the OP question: Prisons are a way of making the consequences of criminal acts so unpleasant that most people don't wind up in prison partly because they are avoiding prison by avoiding or at least limiting their criminal actions that would land them in prison. Ideally, we'd want a system of criminal consequences that simultaneously serves this function of deterring the majority, while also rehabilitating those that were so motivated toward the criminal action that the threat of the consequence was not enough and they wound up in prison. That is an unlikely ideal, since almost anything that would make prison more rehabilitative would either make it less of an unpleasant deterrent to the general population who currently avoids prison due to its unpleasantness.

That said, some modest changes could have a big impact. Non-violent criminals should be kept completely separate from violent criminals, and first-timers should be separate from repeat offenders. Cameras with audio should be in every crevice including showers and bathrooms and reviewed by outside parties. Claims of privacy violation are nonsense. Prisoners already have to shower and shit right in front of others, which is more emotionally invasive than someone screening the videos for criminal or even just threatening behavior, especially since modern tech can automatically blur all faces and only unblur them when a there is a need to identify someone.

We know prisons don't deter since we've been playing around with harshness of sentences. We know that the length of a prison sentence has zero impact on behaviour. No matter how we fiddle around with the number nothing happens to the crime rate. Super easy to study and has been. We also know that the unpleasantness of a prison stay also has zero on criminal behavior. Doesn't that prove you wrong?

No, such data has no logical bearing on the question. You can point to no data that directly tests whether prison deters criminal acts among the majority of the population that doesn't wind up there.
The length and "harshness" of sentences have not been systematically varied independent from the countless confounding factors that impact crime rates. In fact, sentences are usually only increases as a response to crime rates increasing for a number of other reasons, thus nothing can be inferred from whether the rates decrease after the changes because those other factors are likely still operating to counter any impact of the change.

The American three strikes and you're out hasn't worked according to plan, has it?

Clearly, you didn't actually read or understand my full post and are just reacting to the first line. Three-strikes laws only apply to the kind of repeat chronic criminals who wind up in prison multiple times and thus are, by definition, abnormal and non-representative of the majority of the population who never wind up in prison once. Nothing about the impact of such a law informs us about the impact of the threat of prison on the majority population. What the effect of such a law tells us is that repeat criminals are abnormal in how they respond to the threat of prison (which we already know) and that the actual experience of prison may have net effects (such as induction into a criminal network) that override any deterrent effect on those who actually go there. Again, that is a completely separate issue from the deterrent effect on those who do not go there.

I think most people follow the law because the law is mostly designed around what most people do. Most people are decent.

Is drinking alcohol any more "decent" than smoking pot?

Is stealing an illegal online bootleg of a just released film any more "decent" than stealing the DVD from a Wallmart? (BTW: the answer by any defensible ethics is "no").

Is punching someone in an alley and more decent than punching them in the middle of a police station parking lot?

None of the former are any more "decent" than the latter, and yet people are many times less likely to do the latter, and the reason is almost entirely a fear of going to jail.

Anecdotally I don't know what punishments I can expect for any laws I break. I haven't the merest notion of how much I should feel deterred. I have broken the law on numerous occasions. Nothing serious. But it has happened. I did so even though I hadn't a clue what might happen if I got caught. I'm not saying everybody is like me. But it does make me question the efficacy of deterrence.

Odds are that like 99.99% of humans, you have some general sense of which law violations are more likely to land you in prison, and your frequency of which laws you break is highly predicted by that sense of punishment.

Like I said, your thesis that the threat of prison has no impact on whether most people commit various crimes requires either the presumption that most people's notion of prison is in no way unpleasant to them, or that most people's actions are in no way impacted by the unpleasantness of the things they associate with those actions. Both assumptions are falsified by far more valid evidence than any of the uninterpretable or irrelevant evidence you are referring to deny the deterrence effect.

 

[Trausti]

We know prisons don't deter since we've been playing around with harshness of sentences. We know that the length of a prison sentence has zero impact on behaviour.

Well, maybe. But it does have an appreciable affect on public safety.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/09/heres-what-happened-after-the-state-of-washington-accidentally-let-thousands-of-inmates-out-early/

Do you consider victims at all in your pursuit to invalidate prisons?

 

[skepticalbip]

We know prisons don't deter since we've been playing around with harshness of sentences. We know that the length of a prison sentence has zero impact on behaviour.

Well, maybe. But it does have an appreciable affect on public safety.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/09/heres-what-happened-after-the-state-of-washington-accidentally-let-thousands-of-inmates-out-early/

Do you consider victims at all in your pursuit to invalidate prisons?

He apparently does not consider what we call the victims important at all since he makes no mention of them at all or their protection and ignores anyone else's concern for them. As he has explained, it is the perpetrators who are the victims. They are the victims of a class system where the rich white males control society and force the "lower class" poor to commit such actions on others in the "lower class". They have no choice - rich white men make them do to. It would therefore be evil to punish them but maybe we should scold them and explain to them that they shouldn't assault, rob, rape, or kill others in the "lower class" then attach an ankle bracelet to remind them of the scolding. I suppose if or when they then repeat their abuse of others in the "lower class" they should get another scolding and maybe a second ankle bracelet as another reminder then send them back out into society to see if they remember the scolding. After this, we may have to consider adding wrist bracelets too if they continue their ways. But maybe not. After all ankle bracelets may become a stigma which could traumatize these poor victims of the rich white male control of society.

 

[ronburgundy]

We know prisons don't deter since we've been playing around with harshness of sentences. We know that the length of a prison sentence has zero impact on behaviour.

Well, maybe. But it does have an appreciable affect on public safety.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/09/heres-what-happened-after-the-state-of-washington-accidentally-let-thousands-of-inmates-out-early/

Do you consider victims at all in your pursuit to invalidate prisons?

To be fair, instances of released prisoners harming people does not speak either way to whether prisons reduce victims and make the public safer. Perhaps it was prison itself that made them more likely to harm those people once they got out. IOW, had they never gone to prison in the first place and gotten some other consequence, maybe their future victims would still be alive. Maybe if those prisoners had not been released early and spent more years in jail, an even higher % of them would have killed more people once they did get out. These are very plausible. We would need data on people who go to prison versus not, even though the committed the same crime, and then look at the long term additional crimes committed by these sub-populations. Obviously, there will be specific people who would have committed crimes if they weren't locked up. But there are also people who commit more crimes once they get out than they would have had they not gone to prison. What the aggregate net impact of prison is on the future actions of prisoners is an empirical question.

The larger point I made is that even if prison does not make the public safer in the long run from those people it sends to prison for less than life, it does make the public safer from people that never go to prison because they don't commit crimes that some would otherwise commit without the threat of prison.

 

[Trausti]

Well, maybe. But it does have an appreciable affect on public safety.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/09/heres-what-happened-after-the-state-of-washington-accidentally-let-thousands-of-inmates-out-early/

Do you consider victims at all in your pursuit to invalidate prisons?

To be fair, instances of released prisoners harming people does not speak either way to whether prisons reduce victims and make the public safer. Perhaps it was prison itself that made them more likely to harm those people once they got out. IOW, had they never gone to prison in the first place and gotten some other consequence, maybe their future victims would still be alive. Maybe if those prisoners had not been released early and spent more years in jail, an even higher % of them would have killed more people once they did get out. These are very plausible. We would need data on people who go to prison versus not, even though the committed the same crime, and then look at the long term additional crimes committed by these sub-populations. Obviously, there will be specific people who would have committed crimes if they weren't locked up. But there are also people who commit more crimes once they get out than they would have had they not gone to prison. What the aggregate net impact of prison is on the future actions of prisoners is an empirical question.

The larger point I made is that even if prison does not make the public safer in the long run from those people it sends to prison for less than life, it does make the public safer from people that never go to prison because they don't commit crimes that some would otherwise commit without the threat of prison.

Perhaps. Yet this shows that people expect the state to protect them from criminals. Prisons obviously meet that expectation. When the state shirks that expectation, the people get angry.

 

[ronburgundy]

To be fair, instances of released prisoners harming people does not speak either way to whether prisons reduce victims and make the public safer. Perhaps it was prison itself that made them more likely to harm those people once they got out. IOW, had they never gone to prison in the first place and gotten some other consequence, maybe their future victims would still be alive. Maybe if those prisoners had not been released early and spent more years in jail, an even higher % of them would have killed more people once they did get out. These are very plausible. We would need data on people who go to prison versus not, even though the committed the same crime, and then look at the long term additional crimes committed by these sub-populations. Obviously, there will be specific people who would have committed crimes if they weren't locked up. But there are also people who commit more crimes once they get out than they would have had they not gone to prison. What the aggregate net impact of prison is on the future actions of prisoners is an empirical question.

The larger point I made is that even if prison does not make the public safer in the long run from those people it sends to prison for less than life, it does make the public safer from people that never go to prison because they don't commit crimes that some would otherwise commit without the threat of prison.

Perhaps. Yet this shows that people expect the state to protect them from criminals. Prisons obviously meet that expectation. When the state shirks that expectation, the people get angry.

If prisons make those in them more likely to harm people when they get out, then they are not meeting at least part of that expectation. Making prisons a place most people fear to go doesn't require making them places where you get treated in ways that make you more rather than less likely to hurt others when you get out. There is a pragmatic, public-safety motive to want to modify our system in ways that strike a balance between prison being a negative consequence of crime while at the same time providing a context for prisoners that makes them more likely to avoid criminal acts when they get out. Its a tough balance requiring lots of unbiased analyses. Unfortunately the bleating from left and right extremists drown out the needed discussions, like on most issues.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Prisons aren't pointless. They make good money for prison management corporations. Those make good retirement nest eggs for corrupt judges.

Everybody wins. By everybody, I do of course mean rich white people.

I heard the prison population is up 700% since 1970 in the US.

Lots of money there.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Do you consider victims at all in your pursuit to invalidate prisons?

I honestly don't understand the question. It makes me wonder what you think I'm arguing for? Do you think that I want to let convicted criminals roam freely? Is that what it's about? I promise you that I don't. Whatever alternative punishment we chose has to be as secure as prisons. Of course victims is my prime concern. Obviously. Why wouldn't it be? What have I said to give you that impression?

 

[bilby]

Do you consider victims at all in your pursuit to invalidate prisons?

I honestly don't understand the question. It makes me wonder what you think I'm arguing for? Do you think that I want to let convicted criminals roam freely? Is that what it's about? I promise you that I don't. Whatever alternative punishment we chose has to be as secure as prisons. Of course victims is my prime concern. Obviously. Why wouldn't it be? What have I said to give you that impression?

The defining feature that makes something 'prison' rather than 'not prison' is security; a place where convicts are prevented from leaving is a prison, whether it is appointed like a five star hotel, or is a simple hole in the ground with an iron grill over the entrance.

By definition, alternatives to prison must include the freedom for convicts to move to places that are not prisons; otherwise they are not alternatives to prisons at all - they are just differently managed prisons.

"Letting [convicts] roam freely" is, by definition, the only possible alternative to imprisoning convicts.

That's not to say that it is always a bad idea. A person who is convicted of jaywalking or driving at 45km/h in a 40km/h school zone probably should face an alternative penalty, rather than imprisonment. A serial killer, probably not. But once society decides that a given crime warrants the limiting of a person's freedom to move outside an area set aside for convicts, that is synonymous with that crime warranting prison.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The length and "harshness" of sentences have not been systematically varied independent from the countless confounding factors that impact crime rates.

Of course it has. We have tonnes of data on it. This is exceedingly easy numbers to sift out.

In fact, sentences are usually only increases as a response to crime rates increasing for a number of other reasons, thus nothing can be inferred from whether the rates decrease after the changes because those other factors are likely still operating to counter any impact of the change.

In USA, how this research is done is that two counties with similar demographics but in different states are compared. And it's not just two such counties. All this data is already collected. All they have to do is go back through the numbers and check. This is not difficult research to do.

The American three strikes and you're out hasn't worked according to plan, has it?

Clearly, you didn't actually read or understand my full post and are just reacting to the first line. Three-strikes laws only apply to the kind of repeat chronic criminals who wind up in prison multiple times and thus are, by definition, abnormal and non-representative of the majority of the population who never wind up in prison once. Nothing about the impact of such a law informs us about the impact of the threat of prison on the majority population. What the effect of such a law tells us is that repeat criminals are abnormal in how they respond to the threat of prison (which we already know) and that the actual experience of prison may have net effects (such as induction into a criminal network) that override any deterrent effect on those who actually go there. Again, that is a completely separate issue from the deterrent effect on those who do not go there.

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. If people are repeat offenders then obviously the system isn't working. It's not deterring people. The three strikes is to keep doing what we know has failed twice and expect it to work the third time. Obviously it won't.

We can compare crime rates from before and after the three strikes law. We can compare crime rates of states with three strikes laws and those who don't. Of course we know exactly how well these deter would be criminals. The answer is not at all. All this law leads to is you having to fork up for years of an inmate hotel. It's a wasted life and wasted money. What's the point?

I think most people follow the law because the law is mostly designed around what most people do. Most people are decent.

Is drinking alcohol any more "decent" than smoking pot?

Is stealing an illegal online bootleg of a just released film any more "decent" than stealing the DVD from a Wallmart? (BTW: the answer by any defensible ethics is "no").

Is punching someone in an alley and more decent than punching them in the middle of a police station parking lot?

None of the former are any more "decent" than the latter, and yet people are many times less likely to do the latter, and the reason is almost entirely a fear of going to jail.

Now you're getting oddly specific. I think you understand me just fine in spite of this odd answer. Stealing is illegal because most people think it should be. Murder and rape is illegal for the same reason. It's not harder than that. We're not refraining from raping one another because it is illegal. We're refraining from doing it because it's morally reprehensible. Even if it would be legal I suspect rapists would be about as rare as today.

We know why smoking pot is illegal. The architect of the policy has come clean. It was a war on hippies and black people. They wanted to be able to arrest and clamp down on the people who were criticising Nixon's Vietnam policy. That's all it was. The mystery is why it still is and why the rest of the world joined in on this bullshit crusade.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nixon-drug-war-racist_us_56f16a0ae4b03a640a6bbda1

Whether or not punching somebody in the face is right or wrong is context dependent, regardless of where it's done. It is sometimes legal to punch somebody in the face. It isn't always illegal.

I don't follow you on the bootleg example, but I'll let that slide. This isn't a copyright debate thread.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I honestly don't understand the question. It makes me wonder what you think I'm arguing for? Do you think that I want to let convicted criminals roam freely? Is that what it's about? I promise you that I don't. Whatever alternative punishment we chose has to be as secure as prisons. Of course victims is my prime concern. Obviously. Why wouldn't it be? What have I said to give you that impression?

The defining feature that makes something 'prison' rather than 'not prison' is security; a place where convicts are prevented from leaving is a prison, whether it is appointed like a five star hotel, or is a simple hole in the ground with an iron grill over the entrance.

By definition, alternatives to prison must include the freedom for convicts to move to places that are not prisons; otherwise they are not alternatives to prisons at all - they are just differently managed prisons.

"Letting [convicts] roam freely" is, by definition, the only possible alternative to imprisoning convicts.

No, it isn't. That's an absurd conclusion of anything I've said. I haven't even remotely argued for that.

People who wear ankle monitors typically have to be at certain places at certain times. Usually at work during work hours and otherwise at home. They get frequent checks by a correctional officer. Where's the freedom in that? All I'm seeing is the freedom of the state to provide their meals.

The instant they remove their bracelet or deviate from their schedule they'll get picked up and then thrown in traditional jail. I only know how they are used in Sweden. But I'd be surprised if it's any different in other places? Also, people who wear ankle monitors have to be sober the entire time. They regularly get tested. People in jail aren't tested for drugs at all.

edit: About half of all the inmates are in jail for drug offences. Who exactly are you trying to protect? The only victim for their crime is themselves. Why are drug addicts in jail at all? What's the logic there? Jails are not optimised to keep drugs out. That's not the kind of building it is. We know all prisons are awash with drugs. Is that the environment you want to keep a person with addiction issues in? What's your thinking here?

 

[bilby]

The defining feature that makes something 'prison' rather than 'not prison' is security; a place where convicts are prevented from leaving is a prison, whether it is appointed like a five star hotel, or is a simple hole in the ground with an iron grill over the entrance.

By definition, alternatives to prison must include the freedom for convicts to move to places that are not prisons; otherwise they are not alternatives to prisons at all - they are just differently managed prisons.

"Letting [convicts] roam freely" is, by definition, the only possible alternative to imprisoning convicts.

No, it isn't. That's an absurd conclusion of anything I've said. I haven't even remotely argued for that.

I'm not saying that you have argued for (or against) anything. I'm telling you what English speakers understand the word 'prison' to mean, because it is clear that you are not using it in the same way as others do - leading people quite understandably confused as to what you are trying to say; and/or leaving you confused as to the nature of their counter-arguments.

People who wear ankle monitors typically have to be at certain places at certain times. Usually at work during work hours and otherwise at home. They get frequent checks by a correctional officer. Where's the freedom in that? All I'm seeing is the freedom of the state to provide their meals.

The instant they remove their bracelet or deviate from their schedule they'll get picked up and then thrown in traditional jail. I only know how they are used in Sweden. But I'd be surprised if it's any different in other places? Also, people who wear ankle monitors have to be sober the entire time. They regularly get tested. People in jail aren't tested for drugs at all.

Nonetheless, people wearing ankle bracelets are able to mix with the non-convict population. So it isn't prison. And it doesn't prevent convicts from coming into contact, accidentally or deliberately, with their victims.

Indeed, one important benefit of prison for the convict is that it provides him some measure of protection from vigilante and/or revenge attacks on him by victims or their supporters.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I think that ankle monitors are the way to go for the vast majority of minor and victimless crimes. It's counterproductive to put those guys in prison.

 

[bilby]

edit: About half of all the inmates are in jail for drug offences. Who exactly are you trying to protect? The only victim for their crime is themselves. Why are drug addicts in jail at all? What's the logic there? Jails are not optimised to keep drugs out. That's not the kind of building it is. We know all prisons are awash with drugs. Is that the environment you want to keep a person with addiction issues in? What's your thinking here?

I have made no attempt to even consider the specific question of drug addict imprisonment; it is not at all relevant to the point I am making.

You seem to be eqivocating between the general and the specific. In general terms, physically separating convicts from the rest of society is 'prison'. If, rather than discuss this general concept, you wish to talk about a specific instance of its implementation, then you need to define which prison (or at the very least, which jurisdiction) you are criticising - the Norwegian system is totally different from that in Nigeria; the US Federal prison system is notably different from the various state prison systems; and even in a single jurisdiction, there are often huge variations in the way prisons are run, based in categorisation of prisoners by the type of crime they committed, or by their perceived risk of escape, or both.

If (as the OP indicates), you are talking about the general concept of 'prison', then your attempt to introduce highly detailed specifics is a self-derail; if, on the other hand, you want to discuss specifics, then you need to define which specific instance(s) you are discussing, or it will be impossible for anyone else to contribute in a meaningful way.

 

[skepticalbip]

....snip....
People who wear ankle monitors typically have to be at certain places at certain times. Usually at work during work hours and otherwise at home. They get frequent checks by a correctional officer. Where's the freedom in that? All I'm seeing is the freedom of the state to provide their meals.

The instant they remove their bracelet or deviate from their schedule they'll get picked up and then thrown in traditional jail. I only know how they are used in Sweden. But I'd be surprised if it's any different in other places? Also, people who wear ankle monitors have to be sober the entire time. They regularly get tested. People in jail aren't tested for drugs at all.
.....snip....

Damn dude. This is completely different from the idea conveyed in the OP. So you are not opposed to prisons? You are only opposed to some specific crimes warranting prison as a punishment though I assume that you would still see serial murderers as warranting prison. The question now is did you change your mind since the OP, are just piss poor at expressing your thoughts in writing, or if the OP was offered as a strawman.

You should have been more clear in the OP and follow up posts. I don't think you will find anyone on this forum who would disagree that some minor crimes (especially victimless crimes) don't warrant a prison sentence.

This discussion should maybe be what crimes warrant a prison sentence and what crimes warrant other "punishment". Just for your information, the US justice system and the justice system in most other nations do exactly this.

 

[DrZoidberg]

No, it isn't. That's an absurd conclusion of anything I've said. I haven't even remotely argued for that.

I'm not saying that you have argued for (or against) anything. I'm telling you what English speakers understand the word 'prison' to mean, because it is clear that you are not using it in the same way as others do - leading people quite understandably confused as to what you are trying to say; and/or leaving you confused as to the nature of their counter-arguments.
With prisons I mean what we have now. What I'm arguing for is something different. Something that serves the same practical function but that is less expensive as well as also leading to rehabilitation.

You do know that genuinely dangerous psychotic axe wielding maniacs are not put in prisons? They go to psychiatric institutions. The people in prisons are less dangerous than that.

People who wear ankle monitors typically have to be at certain places at certain times. Usually at work during work hours and otherwise at home. They get frequent checks by a correctional officer. Where's the freedom in that? All I'm seeing is the freedom of the state to provide their meals.

The instant they remove their bracelet or deviate from their schedule they'll get picked up and then thrown in traditional jail. I only know how they are used in Sweden. But I'd be surprised if it's any different in other places? Also, people who wear ankle monitors have to be sober the entire time. They regularly get tested. People in jail aren't tested for drugs at all.

Nonetheless, people wearing ankle bracelets are able to mix with the non-convict population.

Yes. But why would that be a problem? Social contact with non-criminals is important for rehabilitation. A convicted criminal isn't some new species of human or somebody carrying the plague. Have we any reason to think that any social contact will inevitably lead to more crime? I'd say that's at best rare.

So it isn't prison. And it doesn't prevent convicts from coming into contact, accidentally or deliberately, with their victims.

I don't think they give ankle bracelets to violent offenders. So I don't think it's an issue. But even if they did the victim could be informed at all times where the perpetrator is. If the perpetrator is given a very limited area to move about on all the victim needs to do is avoid that small area. The world is a big place. Is it really so much of an inconvenience? As long as the victim is in control I don't see what the problem is?

Indeed, one important benefit of prison for the convict is that it provides him some measure of protection from vigilante and/or revenge attacks on him by victims or their supporters.

That is actually a huge problem in jail. In Sweden we have a separate paedophile prison. These guys cannot mix with the rest of the prison population. They're instantly pummelled to death. Jail on the inside are typically run by maffia organisations. They have very stringent rules regarding what inmates are allowed. That's another reason to limit prison time. They give maffia organisations more power.

 

[DBT]

''What are prisons for?''

A retirement home for Japanese pensioners, apparently. According to an ABC news story, the pension in Japan is 25% under minimum living cost, so in desperation many pensioners are deliberately committing crimes in order to go to jail where they are at least sheltered and fed.

On the other hand, there are people who are so bad that they cannot be allowed back into society. Those that are beyond rehabilitation should be isolated from the general population until they are no longer deemed to be a threat. Which may be for the term of their natural life.

 

[DrZoidberg]

On the other hand, there are people who are so bad that they cannot be allowed back into society. Those that are beyond rehabilitation should be isolated from the general population until they are no longer deemed to be a threat. Which may be for the term of their natural life.

I'd argue that those people also should be isolated away from less serious criminals. Which they are. We have different prisons for those types of criminals than we do for lighter crime.

In Sweden we have two types of prisons. Öppen (open) and sluten (closed). The "closed" variety resembles the typical image of prison. The "open" is just regular houses in an open area. At the most there's a low fence (to show where the prison property ends). But there's nothing physical preventing inmates to leave. They can at any time just walk out. They're typically sparsely staffed. Guards aren't armed. There's nobody actively trying to prevent the prisoners from leaving. These prisons also have fully equipped kitchens and the prisoners cook their own food. Knives and everything. They're free to organise the cooking in whatever way they wish. These aren't situated in remote locations. You could just stroll out the door and take a buss. Roll call is taken a couple of times a day. I don't know exactly how they do it, but this system works and has for decades. The reason it works is of course that if they misbehave they get sent to a "closed" prison. Nobody wants that. I don't know if you have similar set ups in other countries. But this is the Swedish system.

Here's my question, why are the people in the open prisons in prison at all? These are clearly adults capable of taking responsibility who have screwed up at some point. But they're obviously not dangerous people. As the system is now these people just sit and wait to be released. I'd rather be spending my tax money on something more constructive.

 

[DrZoidberg]

edit: About half of all the inmates are in jail for drug offences. Who exactly are you trying to protect? The only victim for their crime is themselves. Why are drug addicts in jail at all? What's the logic there? Jails are not optimised to keep drugs out. That's not the kind of building it is. We know all prisons are awash with drugs. Is that the environment you want to keep a person with addiction issues in? What's your thinking here?

I have made no attempt to even consider the specific question of drug addict imprisonment; it is not at all relevant to the point I am making.

You seem to be eqivocating between the general and the specific. In general terms, physically separating convicts from the rest of society is 'prison'. If, rather than discuss this general concept, you wish to talk about a specific instance of its implementation, then you need to define which prison (or at the very least, which jurisdiction) you are criticising - the Norwegian system is totally different from that in Nigeria; the US Federal prison system is notably different from the various state prison systems; and even in a single jurisdiction, there are often huge variations in the way prisons are run, based in categorisation of prisoners by the type of crime they committed, or by their perceived risk of escape, or both.

If (as the OP indicates), you are talking about the general concept of 'prison', then your attempt to introduce highly detailed specifics is a self-derail; if, on the other hand, you want to discuss specifics, then you need to define which specific instance(s) you are discussing, or it will be impossible for anyone else to contribute in a meaningful way.

It's hard to talk about it other than in general. Since we haven't experimented much with alternatives. We don't really know their efficacy. All we know is that prisons, in spite of being psychologically destructive environments, aren't deterring anybody and they have a terrible track record in keeping people on the straight and narrow once they're out. Recidivism rates today are about 50%. Which is very high. 50% of everybody in jail aren't career criminals. That number is a indicator of a failed system. They talk about it in the seminar. Today's prisons are perfect if our goal is to have as many criminals as possible. I don't want that.

In the seminar they only talked about prisons in the UK. That was it's focus. I only really know anything about prisons in Scandinavia (and now the UK from the siminar). My impression was that the Scandinavian prisons seemed similar to the UK one's. I don't know much about prisons in USA at all other than that USA has more prisoners per capita than any other country. Whatever we should be doing is clearly the opposite of what USA is doing. Whatever that is.