Prison reform

No actually I don’t believe in the almighty state. I believe the state has several explicit functions, one of which is the safety of its citizens including the punishment of criminals.

The us system has not been used in a manner you suggest and these punishments are only reserved for criminals. If you don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime. Does it incentivize for-profit prisons? Sure but they aren’t our problem and can be easily legislated out. Our problem is the grossly disproportionate rate of violent crime in the black community.

The problem is that they don’t mind going to prison. Why? Because you’re trying to rehabilitate them instead of punish them.

By the way, what good does trying to rehabilitate people with life sentences do?

 

And yet your retort "Don’t want to work. Don’t be a violent criminal." As if to say that your proposed system would only be applicable to violent criminals, despite the incentive structure you design it with, which incentivizes the expansion beyond violent criminals. It is why you see such systems expanded to any criminals in totalitarian states. You apparently trust the state to only apply your proposed system to your proposed offenders. I do not.

Ah, there it is. The real reason behind your tough on crime stance: punishment. Yet, you seem to conflate the safety of the citizenry with punishment. Are the citizens somehow more safe if a prisoner is incarcerated doing mandatory labor vs incarcerated not doing mandatory labor? They are after all still incarcerated either way.

It seems like the main difference between the two methods of incarceration is that one gives a financial incentive on the part of those who reap the benefits of that labor to encourage more of the same, whereas the other lacks that incentive structure.

I wasn't even talking about for-profit prisons. I was referring to whoever reaps the benefits of the labor. As another poster mentioned, this could be the highest bidder. Or as you have proposed, the state itself. The state is not opposed to free / cheap funds as traffic ticket quotas illustrate. Or as more overtly shown by more authoritarian regimes around the world - the direct labor of the incarcerated.

Is that really the problem now? Just looking at the reported instances of violent crime, it is a long downwards graph over the last 30 years, plateauing around 2011. Even if I agree that the black community still has a higher incidence of violent crime, your assertion as to why that is the case does not necessarily follow.

Could it be the higher poverty rates of the black community? Or maybe it's the "tough on crime" approach you are championing, which has netted the US the dubious recidivism rates of >70%. This is not a new phenomenon mind you, recidivism rates in the US have been very high for a long time. It has largely been unchanged, or gotten worse in the last 40 years.

Your "because you're trying to rehabilitate them" assertion is an incorrect assumption as to what the US prison system is like. The US prison system is punitive in nature far more than it is rehabilitative. It has been that way since the 70's. If you want an example of a rehabilitative system, Norway is one such example, where North Dakota is recently trying to emulate their model.

The effects are inconsequential to society at large without the possibility of parole. Rehabilitation is most important for those that will one day be released back into society.

 

On a phone so my apologies for not editing the post better.

Your first concern is somewhat valid given the historical tendency for governments to take advantage when given the opportunity. Legislation putting forth my ideas could easily be directed towards violent criminals and violent criminals alone.

Also to attempt to compare the petty criminals in Norway to the hardened convicts in the US is a bit of a stretch don’t you think? I guess we will see with ND.

You pointed out you think the difference is just an incentive structure which I disagree with. The real difference and the major problem with the rehabilitation model is the cold hard fact that you CANNOT rehabilitate someone who doesn’t want to be rehabilitated. Outside of severe, forced brainwashing, rehabilitating someone who doesn’t want to be rehabilitated is an impossibility.

The problem you have is that most prisoners have no desire to be rehabilitated. They want to do their time as quickly and as easily and comfortable as possible and do whatever they need to do and say whatever they need to say to get early release, so they can go back into society and do some more dirt. So you’re wasting millions of dollars of tax payer money to attempt to rehabilitate people who don’t want to be rehabilitated.

Furthermore to compound that problem, you’re either spending money “rehabilitating” people who will never get out of prison. Or at the VERY least you’re putting them inside of a system which is designed for rehabilitation and not punishment. Making the extremely violent or habitual offenders lives FAR easier and more comfortable than they should be. Which results in the consequence of having ZERO disincentive to committing a very violent crime other than losing your freedom.

I won’t say there’s no place for rehabilitation. In non-violent offenders or people with very short sentences, rehabilitation has its place. However there MUST be the disincentive that the hardened criminal fears from being sent back to prison. And sitting on his ass watching tv, doing drugs, socializing, playing video games and reading porn ain’t it. Hard long hours of manual physical labor will do the job.

 

Alright, I will table that concern since we are discussing a proposition of how things "should be done" and stick to just your idea as proposed.

Fair enough. If we're just talking about violent criminals in specific, then recidivism rates of violent offenders between two countries is what we would want, not overall rates among all offenders.

I was able to find some information for the US relatively easily. See the graphic from page 12: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/...cations/2019/20190124_Recidivism_Violence.pdf



So definitely a much higher recidivism rate among violent offenders vs non-violent, with a majority coming in the first couple years for both. The oft cited 20% figure from Norway is for both violent / non-violent, and over a period of 2 years. I have been unable to find details on violent offender recidivism rates in Norway, or for a longer period of time.

For the bolded, what evidence do you have for that?

That is not my impression of the US prison system at all. What evidence do you have that the US prison system is designed for rehabilitation and not punishment?

 

What "reformed" looks like will be highly subjective and could result in defacto life sentences

 

Thats why the evaluators are rotated. If they're different every time, the chances that the same bias will be applied over and over are extremely low.

 

Sure because Jim Crow went away every time a new sheriff was elected.