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10 Comments
- lOvOl, on 10/24/2007, -0/+6This might be controversial, but I think we should revist the idea of penal colonies, or rather penal cities, as opposed to simply building more and more prisons.
Ask a typical person what the purpose of prison is and you will get many different answers ranging from "punishment" to "rehabilitation". I don't really believe it is the job of the state to function as a parent. Adults should be responsible on their own and if they victimize others, they should be removed from the general population and placed in an area with other criminals where they still need to get a job, still need to figure out how to make a living, and if they don't they suffer just as much as some homeless person who has victimized nobody yet has to scrounge around looking for food.
So what you do is take a large swath of land and basically create the basic infrastructure for running a city and then wall it off. People who are not criminals can come in at will, but people who are criminals are not allowed in. Create separate zones, or rings within the city to segregate people based upon the severity of their crimes, so for example you might have one for burglars, another for rapists, and another for murderers. If someone kills someone else within the "murderers" zone, then give them an automatic death sentence.
Of course to make this work and be supported by the public, sentences may need to be lengthened because someone living in a "penal city" will be able to do everything inside that city that they can in any other city, except move beyond those city walls. They will however, have to find meaningful employment unless they have family on the outside who are willing to fund their lack of industriousness. You could even have the police force run by people who live in the penal city themselves. Also, just like everyone else outside the penal city, those inside have to pay taxes as well. Of course, people may wonder who the hell is going to employ criminals, but the reality is that the criminals may have to work low-paying jobs, nevertheless, at least they are not getting three free meals a day, free medical care, and free housing like you do in prison.
The benefit of this system is that it can easily scale and you no longer have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on managing prisoners since they will be responsible for themselves. If they get out of line, then they will go to nastier zones with nastier people with less economic opportunity. The people who do reform themselves will learn to become productive people and so when their sentence to the penal city is over, they will be able to function in normal society a lot better than someone who rots in a cell for 10 years, learns next to nothing, and is used to a lifestyle of not having to think on their own since the prison system tells them what to do 24 hours a day.
To me, prison should not be about punishment or rehabilitation, but simply a matter of segregating the law abiding people from the non-law abiding. When people go hungry every day in this country, I find it disgusting that criminals never have to worry about their bellies going hungry, even if the food they receive is subpar. I have gone an entire winter without heating in my apartment before because of a lack of income at the time, yet criminals don't have to worry about ever being cold.
It is time we get rid of our adult babysitting service we call "prisons" and force criminals to deal with the same challenges us law-abiding folk have to face on a daily basis. - reeder, on 10/24/2007, -1/+5The powers that be want obedient workers, not critical thinking intellectuals.
- Richandler, on 10/24/2007, -1/+3This problem could easily be solved by legalization of Marijuana. Get the drug criminals out of prison and get some tax money to the schools.
- inactive, on 10/24/2007, -0/+1I agree with the majority of what you said, lOvOl, but I hope you know that even though prisoners TECHNICALLY get food and heating, prisons are still pretty *****, overall. I'm willing to bet "thankful" is not a word you can use to describe prisoners.
- inactive, on 10/24/2007, -1/+2You're exactly right, the modern prison creates most of its problems for itself by the way it treats inmates. Although we want our prisons to be as harsh as the ones we see in TV and movies, that harshness from the guards is really what makes the prisoners need such severe control in the first place (see the Stanford Prison Experiment et al if you don't believe me, even peaceful non-criminals will quickly display the worst behavior of hardened inmates after a few days of stereotypical treatment at the hands of prison guards).
People just can't accept that we could send a murderer or a robber off to some place where they are separated, but not treated particularly awfully, though, so I doubt we'll ever see penal colonies with less intense treatment of criminals. - inactive, on 10/24/2007, -0/+1why not send prisoners to Alaska, Australia style? let them be free, no tax dollars for prisons - all parties benefit.
- physphd, on 10/24/2007, -1/+2Amen. This was first driven home for me reading John Taylor Gatto's books. He was New York City's Teacher of the Year 3 times, and even New York State's Teacher of the the Year, before quitting in disgust at the state of American public education saying, he couldn't continue to "hurt kids to make a living." His decades of experience and success in some of the city's poorest schools and credential lend him a lot of credibility, and even though I've looked, there is not much in the way of rebuttal to his work. Powerful, powerful stuff.
http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto - Kookus, on 08/24/2009, -0/+0Alternatively, if sentenced to life w/o parole or the death penalty. Just grease the bastards. Reasonable appeals, OK. if not? you have 30 days to get your affairs in order, such as they are. Then just grease the bastards, and cheaply, bullets are cheap! What point is there to footing the bill for room and board when you've been effectively removed from society?
I agree with the legalize marijuana camp, and tax the bejesus out of it, growers license fees, etc. infractions on a 3 strikes basis, max penalty 15 years. Long enough to beat it into your head, short enough for you to have a life. - tastypickles, on 10/24/2007, -2/+2Sounds like a smrt plan to me.
- bremstrong, on 10/24/2007, -1/+1Surely there is some way to punish crime that costs less.
$10B is about $800 per CA taxpayer per year.
The USA has the highest rate of prisoners of all countries, more than 10 times many:
http://www.crookedtimber.org/2006/05/23/incarcerat ...
