Bad conditions in American prisons

Of course, they aren't. That's why we have different prisoners. Illinois politicians convicted of crimes don't go to the same prisons as murdering gangbangers, do they? The highpoint of a friends life was his time in a "country club" prison where he was surrounded by "high-class" prisoners. On the other hand, another acquaintance did 13 years in Huntville. That's hard time.

People like to classify all criminals as gangbangers or misunderstood youth. People like to think that everyone can be rehabilitated. People want desperately to believe that with a little welfare criminals will sit at home and not commit crimes--including welfare fraud.

I've known a lot of prisoners and most agree that the major variable in how your time goes is you. If you do your own time it passes. Committing crimes on the inside is as risky as committing crimes on the outside.

Oh, and movies and television shows don't really give you insight into prison problems.

 

What country would that be? It isn't the U.S.

 

All the prison have bad condition... And, because of that, after their exit of prison, they are more dangerous...

 

That doesn't ... You know that doesn't justify it. Did your mother never mention two wrongs don't make a right?

Maybe there could be choice involved for the prisoner. People like Gary Gilmore would chose to be executed.

Of course then you would have the "prison is for punishment" brigade and possibly families of the victims who might not see execution as justice. The families might be consulted and have to give permission if a prisoner chooses execution.

Of course, but as some of us don't respond to people who talk down, Google them yourself. Anyone else who wants to see them, feel free to pm.

I know they aren't. Why don't you reread the post for comprehension?

How like you to assume intervention = welfare. Intervention implies pre-the-need-for-rehabilitation. Some people, i.e. you, like to say because they once worked with less advantaged people they know all there is to know about those people. From what is written here, it's possible some key evidence has been missed.

Really.

And condescending to people you know nothing about doesn't really give you insight into what they have experience of.

 

The US prison system is an abominable and inhumane failure that wastes billions of dollars and destroys millions of lives unnecessarily. The moronic war on drugs is the main reason for this, but neither side is willing to do anything about it, and why would they? One side loves the idea of punishing "immoral" drug users and the other side is beholden to the police unions and lawyers who reap the financial benefits of cycling poor people in and out of the criminal "justice" system.

 

Or we could just legalize drugs and prostitution and destroy the black market that creates violent street gangs and overcrowded prisons and antisocial poor people.

 

I’d have to be consistent Viv. If my only opposition to execution is “wrong person” and there was a completely infallible means of proving beyond any doubt at all that someone committed a crime which warranted execution, then, since my objection isn’t on moral grounds, I’d have to concede execution as a punishment. Fortunately the criminal justice system anywhere is not infallible so I won’t be tested on this.

 

Regulating recreational drug use would certainly reduce the numbers of prisoners, both directly (users, traffickers etc) and indirectly (criminals who need the cash for a habit and commit crime to get it).

 

It is the only solution, short of being frozen in carbonite for all eternity (which would amount to cruel and unusual punishment).

Just the same, we routinely wrongfully exonerate the guilty or allow them to plea bargain to lesser charges, and then release them back into society to victimize more innocent people, or we lock them up for 40 years during which time they victimize other inmates or prison staff. Oddly, few people seem to recognize that this is just as much of a monumental moral blunder as executing the wrongfully convicted. Keep in mind that the mistakes go both ways, though with considerably more mistakes on the side of wrongful exoneration and unjust plea bargains.

In the end, the law must take decisive action. Otherwise, it is mere philosophy. Yes, innocent people will be wrongfully executed from time to time, just as innocent people are wrongfully victimized by criminals who were wrongfully exonerated or wrongfully allowed to plea bargain to lesser charges. However, neither condition is an excuse for hamstringing the pursuit of justice.

Technically, any felony should warrant the death penalty for the incorrigible offender, if sincere and repeated attempts to rehabilitate him have proved fruitless. However, the most violent and heinous felonies such as murder, aggravated sexual assault, intentional maiming and disfigurement, terrorism, kidnapping, etc. should warrant immediate consideration for the invocation of the death penalty, the operant question being: "Is the offense committed by the offender intolerable to the degree that it causes the victim or victims of the offense serious and irreparable physical or psychological injury, thus posing the the same degree of threat to any potential victims should the offender ever repeat such an offense?"

 

Or we could start executing dealers of heroin, crack cocaine, and PCP, thus encouraging those who insist on selling illegal narcotics to limit their wares to the kind which are less socially destructive.

Just so you know, while the legalization of prostitution is not necessarily a bad idea, our prisons are NOT overcrowded with prostitutes. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a single convict serving more than a year of incarceration for the mere crime of prostitution. In most instances, the offense is treated as a misdemeanor and only garners extended jail time when the convict fails to pay her fines and penalties, or is known to be infected with HIV.

 

Recidivism is quite high in the US. Countries where prisoners are treated with respect, have more freedom, have better things to play with (computers, play stations, tvs, etc) have quite low recidivism rates. It seems that making prisons "nice" makes people not come back.

But then again, prisons in the US are a business and they need their workers to come back, don't they?

 

All the time we need to bear in mind that the whole criminal justice system is merely a means to an end, or many ends and not an end in itself. Sure, failing to convict the guilty is bad but nowhere near as bad as convicting the innocent.

Blackstone said, "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".

On the other hand Bismarck said, "it is better that ten innocent men suffer than one guilty man escape". Pol Pot apparently said something similar.

Depends on what kind of society you want.

 

Everything's a business in the US, the latest is war. It's a bit of a worry.

 

I do not recall anyone of any noted intelligence ever saying that it is better that no one be wrongfully executed than a thousand innocent people be wrongfully murdered due to the wrongful exoneration or unjust plea bargains of dangerous criminals.

Yes, it does indeed depend upon what sort of society you want.

 

Wasting resources upon worthless, incorrigible criminals instead of using such resources to rehabilitate salvageable criminals makes no business sense whatsoever.

 

I saw something a few months ago on this.

Apparently pretty much all licence plates are made in prisons in the US, as are a lot of the equipment soldiers wear like ammo pouches and the like. A huge % of home appliances and furniture. It's basically a way that businesses compete with China, which is why they either own their own prisons or lobby the governments of the US to pass harsher and harsher laws.

 

Using inmates for slave labor is a very bad idea. The only thing worse is privately operated prisons that use inmates for slave labor.

 

Not to mention once released, many convicts cannot find jobs so what's the point?

 

Prisons as corrections are an invention of the christian Friends/Quaker movement. In practice, prisons are nothing more than storage "containers" for convicted people. Correctional employees refer to their work as "warehousing" people.

As for rape in prison, I think that the old fashioned rule of automatically castrating every male prisoner at booking would work rather well. It would be not only an effective preventive measure, but medieval literature says this reduces general violence too.

The fact is that the more survival resources are cornered away from the average people, the more prisoners we get. So the higher the country's technology, the higher its prison population is. The USA has only 5 % of the world's population, but it has 25 % of the world's prison population, to prove the point.

 

Prisoners rights can be also a very bad idea.

The view to give prisoners 'gym time' access to weights and heavy lifting. I read it is being phrased out in many USa prisons. As if a riot breaks out the prisoners with so much excerise will be bigger than the guards (even in body armour)

 

They should be given cable tv, lots of junk food and allowed to sit on their arses all day and watch soaps. Aside from keeping them unfit it would also enable them to move back into society.

 

Just as all "black people" are not "criminals", not all "criminals" are "bad people."

 

I would choose death over doing 20 years in prison. I don't know about you but I would rather die on my feet then live life on my knees. Prison is torture, what is more torturing then knowing that your life is wasted?
In America over 2 million human beings whose rights and freedoms have been taken away currently are in prison. They are modern day slaves.

 

A lot of people who have never been to prison can't get jobs so what's the point? And, I love statements about recidivism rates when the books are cooked. I read some rates that were amazingly good and then I read how they counted recidivism.

I was chatting with a man who'd admitted committing crimes in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahome. He had documents in his car showing he'd been to Texas and I asked if he'd been working there. "Oh, hell no, I was visiting my ex-wife. I'm a crook but I'm not crazy. Doing a couple of years in Colorado is okay but I'm not going to Huntsville. I'm too old to be out chopping cotton."

Makes you think.

 

Too bad...criminals very often cause tremendous psychological damage to multiple people behind their crimes.