What do you think prison should be like for people? Painful, scary, simple incarceration, etc?

Looking at the Roeder threads I am left wondering what many thing prison should be like for folks there.

As a former LEO my view often was "It is a place where you are locked up and kept away from society until your time is served" but at times I have wished it to be much much more for some people.

When I was 15/16 I used to write to an inmate whose info I got from a Christian magazine in the pen pals section. No idea what his crime was, and may well have been one that would repulse me (vs someone in prison for smoking pot) but I saw him simply as a person serving their time for whatever they did. Did not want him tortured, raped, etc.

There are people in prison for smoking pot, financial issues (taxes/not able to pay child support), etc - do we want prison to be a place of untold suffering or is it simply a place for people to be kept away from us while they serve their time?

Is the sentence we want to impose that of suffering and pain or just incarceration and if the latter what are the rights of inmates and are we willing to stand up for said rights even if we don't like the inmate/crime?

And multiple times higher than it is in other industrialized democracies it seems clear that we are overusing prison as a means of punishment.

Also since no system devised by man is perfect it is clear that we will be incarcerating some percentage of innocent people, given the number of inmates that have been found to be innocent of major crimes thanks to DNA evidence I think it is certainly arguable that the percentage may well be higher than a lot of us would like to admit.

With these thoughts in mind it seems to me that all of us should think about what prison would be like were we ourselves to be unjustly incarcerated for a crime we did not in fact commit since there is a non zero chance that that very thing could indeed happen to us.

It's easy to think of incarceration as something that happens to "those" people, far less comforting to realize it could happen to us.

Edited for clarity..

Otherwise it's a waste of time and money and lives.

life in prison like this person?

make a useful life for themselves within the prison system they should be encouraged to do so. Presumably it could help reduce a sentence.

not a someone-needs-to-go-to-jail thread goes by on DU wherein a poster doesn't wish prison rape on the accused or convicted. rape is not part of the sentence.

prison should be mind-numbingly BORING, but physically safe for even the Jeffrey Dahmers of this country.

I didn't realize my post had to be about you.

Try watching almost any movie,TV Drama or Sit-Com for the past 20 years and if the issue of prison or jail comes up, there's a joke about "don't bend over for the soap, your cell mate 'Bruce,' or they're going to love that pretty face in jail."
Why don't people realize that the rapists are supposed to be getting punishment too?
It's like there's an under-current of sadism that just goes unnoticed.

should always fit the crime. If there is undeniable proof that the person did it (that is extremely important), maybe this would prevent people from killing each other. For the murderers, I feel it would be fitting to have a robotic device that is programed by what ever that person did to another person into it. Then put the murderer in the room, strap them down, turn the machine on, turn out the lights and shut the sound proof room door.

Since safety cannot be assured (and is in fact politically unpopular even here at DU), every incarcerated person should have access to a length of rope and a sturdy overhanging beam or pipe. It is quite simply the humanitarian thing to do.

Not very funny.

How is incarceration without that choice justifiable?

They are there to serve their time for a crime they commited.

ETA: I am not calling you Shirley. :P

A lot of people who fight for prison reform sure seem to forget all about it when someone commits a crime they abhor.

Be that just being away from freedom and society, but not carrying any ugly stigma (pot smoker) then so be it (though pot smokers shouldn't be in prison). But, if one is a rapist...child molester...wife beater...animal abuser...any sort of predator, then it should be having to look over your shoulder all the time, every day. Knowing that amongst criminals, you just suck at a whole new level. I don't wish prison rape, death, beatings, etc on anyone. The fear of it? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Does anyone fear little green men may come from Mars to kidnap them? Maybe a few people off meds, but most of us do not.
But I think a great number of people fear someone may break into their to steal their belongings or harm them.
The difference is the latter actually occurs. So the only way for them to fear being raped or beaten is for the rapes and beating to actually happen.

You missed the point. The idea is not to wish that those events happen. The idea is that the predator lives in fear of it happening.

That's punishment.

Try to keep up.

Sure this means SOME vile criminals are being punished by the threat of being beaten and raped by "tougher" criminals, but it also means that some of the very worst criminals are being "punished" by being more or less permitted to rape and otherwise assault people who can't avoid them.

Are you ok with that?

At what point did it appear that I was ok with it?

"A place for people to be kept away from us while they serve their time."

Without fear of beatings or rape. Non violent offenders should be housed in different facilities than hardcore predators.

Drug offenders should be in treatment, not in jail.

Pot offenders should be home doing bong rips. :smoke:

Edit to add: Every jail and prison in this country is the equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment!!

nt

in the company of other murderers.

This is for the greater good of society.

Programs that would give them the skills to function in society without breaking the law. But then, this country does not want to spend the money to properly educate our children so they are capable of doing what jobs might be available. Many are in prison because our system failed them in the first place.

Then there are the people who should never be let out again - serial killers, pedophiles, those who are incapable of restraining themselves from committing atrocious crimes. Those should simply be locked up for the rest of their lives. Treat them as humanely as possible but do not endanger the guards or take a chance on them getting out.

In either case, basic human rights should be respected.

Really, really, really, really boring.
There should be absolutely nothing to do.

EXCEPT - for educational opportunities.
That should be the only thing people in prison should be allowed to do.
You can sit there and do nothing, or you can study something and educate yourself.
Eat, shit, exercise, sleep and study.

they had Buddhist monks come in and teach some of the inmates mindfulness meditation. After their release NOT ONE of the former prisoners who completed the meditation program ever returned to prison. It seemed mostly to be about the fact they really learned impulse control for the first time in their lives.

The purpose of prison should be rehabilitation by helping offenders re-connect with their best nature.

that sounds absolutely fascinating.

Here's a link to the (AFAIK) most well-established such program.
http://www.prison.dhamma.org/prisonqa.htm

I used to work with persons with mental illness and with incarcerated folks, so this was of interest to me both professionally and personally.

B) The vast majority of criminal predators have no "best nature" with which to re-connect. That's just naive.

rehabilitating the sociopaths. But I tend to not be so Hobbesian in my thinking to believe that the vast majority of people in prison are not at all capable of being contributing members of society. I would imagine that the majority of the people in prison are not there for murder and are probably the people they are because of the environment they grew up in.

1. This was an anecdotal report by a participant and possibly only included his own students.
2. There was no established time period for judging when a case was successful. It could well be that the participating monk was told that after six months, for example, none had returned to prison. Yet.

Your skepticism is reasonable and justified. I'll see if I can find out any more about it.

It should be inconvenient and uncomfortable.

...as I have worked for a prison reform nonprofit and read 12,000 letters from prisoners, visited many prisons, taken part in boards of directors, professional associations, etc.

I can tell you honestly that nothing about the American system of punishment made any sense to me until I read a paper written by Michael Ignatieff, Canadian intellectual and now politician. He asked the question "Why don't prisons work?" and he answered it profoundly.

I'm going from memory here because I haven't read the piece for half a dozen years.

Very briefly, he said that punishment only works if the offender considers it legitimate. Legitimate punishment is proportional to the crime, free from physical punishment and psychological manipulations, free from backroom deals made with prosecutors for sentences, and so on. When the punishment is not considered legitimate, the offender becomes fixated on the wrong done TO him/her by the system, and cannot focus on his/her need for self examination and correction. The offender becomes the victim in his/her eyes.

When I understood that reality, I understood why American prisons largely don't work.

I would only add that in many instances, particularly with drug "crimes" the offender is indeed the victim and not just in his own eyes.

We have too many things that should not be crimes in the first place that carry heavy penalties, the upshot of this is a great many people walking around feeling as if they have been unjustly punished, which they actually have.

punishment to be excessive or unfair. If his own faulty thinking makes him a victim of "the System," or if he's convinced he's special and therefore exempt from normal rules, or if he requires constant excitement in his life, or if any of a number of other errors in thinking keep him from "buying in" to the appropriateness of his punishment and realizing that any "System," inside or outside prison, is flawed, then he's not going to participate.

Some people thrive on shit-stirring; just look at the Senate Republicans.

The selfishness of the criminal mind is self-evident.

...deprivation of liberty is punishment enough. Everything else should be geared toward education, work (with pay that is sent home to family), and self-improvement.

Too many of America's prisons are hellholes, still, with all manner of corruption and crime and mistreatment going on with knowledge and/or participation by administrators.

I think that ties to outside society should be enhanced and reinforced.

But then again, I'm an old fasioned liberal who believes in rehabilitation instead of biblical punishments.

1. To repair what is broken in a person.

2. To keep them from harming other people while we repair what is broken.

The End.

bring the judicial system down. That is if we let private companies run the penal system.

The loss of freedom should be punishment enough. The idea that they should also be harshly treated is a problem. It's similar to people who think shoving a dog's nose in urine and hitting him is teaching him not to pee on the carpet. That's what harsh punishment of prisoners is: a ridiculous, self defeating idea that doesn't achieve what we want: redirection of prisoners, to the extent possible.

The violent ones? They must be segregated from all others, and treated entirely differently because they are violent. Being violent means one loses more freedoms, because of a proved record of impulsive anger and violence.

The guards should play cruel mind games with the inmates, and turn them against each other. Inmates should only receive 1500 calories a day of basic nutrition (bread and water), be forced to work for third-world wages and be denied any opportunities for meaningful self-improvement.

Wait, you said how *should* prison be, not how *is* prison... Let me get back to you on that.

I can tell you honestly, the number one reason we have the criminal base we do is because of our overworked prison system. Sound silly?

OK, first off, you have to look at the gangs. Your average street gang may seem like a bunch of thugs, but many of them have organization that is national and international, and a network of intelligence gathering that would put many spy agencies to shame. If a new person comes to prison, chances are whatever gang is in his prison has already got that fellow's career PLANNED. This career traning includes indoctrination, both with pleasant things, and unpleasant. Simply put, imagine a cult that raped you as a form of brainwashing, threw in some drugs, and because the gangs outnumber guards, could have you killed and tortured at leisure, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Said person will have to learn many new skills, reach many new lows, because THAT is the cost of survival, period. Even if the overworked and underpaid gaurds tried to stop things, they cannot, because frankly, the gangs are too well supported and organized. It also helps that after a few years of working in an environment where you are actually less safe than most of the prisoners (because even enemies will get together to kill you) many gaurds simply snap and become psycho (thus the beatings) or stop giving a damn.

When/if said new fish gets out of prison, the state offers nothing but a bus ticket, no one wants to hire him, but the gang he was dragged into are all TOO willing to give that person a place to be. In other words, we just paid for the criminal socialization and education of someone; we might as well have run a four-year college program in crime, complete with a networking seminar!

Now, I do agree that some offenders need to be kept away from people, as they are a danger to others and themselves, such as child molesters, however, it is boggling that none wonder how someone who goes in on a Cannabis charge comes out with a new set of skills and psychosis.

I don't think it should be overly comfortable, but if you swing the pendulum to far the other way, then you lose some of your own humanity. I also think the comfort level should depend directly on how much of a risk the person is to staff and other inmates. Violent criminals should be of course have more restrictions on movement and access.

should be minimal unless earned as privilege for good behavior.

A safe cell, 3 hots, a cot, medical care, and proper hygiene are all that are required of the state. I know most of our prisons are not set up that way, but you asked what I think prison should be like.

As well as earned television time.

I think 1hr daily of exercise and sunshine isn't unreasonable either.

in a perfect world.

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Given the current state of life in our nation, however, you have to admit that to a guy living hungry in a cardboard box in an alley, maybe three squares a day and some heat from time to time sounds pretty damn attractive-- even IF you can't check out exactly when you want to. ANY access to medical care (and we all can acknowledge that our prison medical care leaves a lot to be desired) is gonna sound pretty good, too. Ditto for any access to dental care, or any access to education...

Our national state of affairs for a LOT of people is bad enough that prison might not exactly be a deterrent in all cases. When we change that, maybe we can begin to address fixing our prison system.



Laura

are incarcerated for drug-related crime. A very high percentage (more than 60% of all female inmates, just over half of males)were sexually abused as children and began using drugs at a very early age. Those who were abused are more likely to become abusers. Intervention can break the cycle for many.

If we provide mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment behind bars, we reduce the reincarceration rate so it is both a humane and fiscally responsible choice.

The vast majority of prisons have educational deficits. Offering GED courses and some trades training makes it more likely that released inmates will be employable.

Taxes are mentioned only once in the Declaration of Independance. But your average American believes the American Revolution was over taxation. In reality, it was caused by the new King taking a strict constructionist hard-line law and order stance. It was draconian law enforcement, not taxation, that led to the American Revolution.


I still hear people talk about how we should stop trying to rehabilitate criminals and just punish them. Rehab went the way of the 70s. Sure, there are voluntary programs. But for the most part, they aren't going to bother if it is voluntary. Rehab should be mandatory.

People have the weirdest notions of what prison life is like. They think it is all sitting back in a comfy cell, 24x7 cable TV, and plenty of food.

It's hard for me to wish anything good for him. Link...

In theory, and hopefully in practice, I believe that prison should be simple incarceration for the safety of the public and that the punishment aspect is accomplished by locking criminals up from the simple freedoms one enjoys on the outside. When I read about a waste of flesh like Brandon Brixey, though, it's hard to maintain that perspective.

They should be forced to listen to Sarah Palin speeches night and day.

for example, smoking pot should be legal, so no one should be going to jail for smoking or selling it. We shguld incarcerate only the worst elements of society imo and the punishment should fit the crime.

...that's what prison should be. We need to study this if we haven't already.
Whatever mix of punishment, therapy or simple incarceration leads to the most positive long term results for society as a whole.

1.) Long-term incarceration (with rehabilitation services offered) for violent/predatory offenders. Life in prison w/o possibility of parole for most serious offenses.
2.) Community supervision and/or treatment for non-violent and low-level offenders. Maybe short-term jail stays for repeat offenders or people who don't comply with their supervision/treatment (at the most).

To the extent that people are incarcerated, it should be focused on rehabilitation NOT body- and soul-crushing punishment. There are going to be people who will never be able to shed their old behaviors/personality and remain a perennial threat to society but we should still treat everybody in a humane and ethical manner.

I would also go further to suggest that laws disenfranchising people of their vote due to past criminal activity/convictions need to be challenged in court and/or repealed. I can understand how/why people whom are imprisoned aren't voting (although in some places, prisoners ARE still allowed) but once people have served their time and are released, they should have all of their constitutional rights fully restored the SECOND they are discharged from prison. Past criminal activity should NEVER IMHO be grounds for taking away voting rights and/or having to jump through hoops to get their rights *restored*. People should also not worry about not being able to find jobs, housing, etc. just because of their past behavior. There are obviously some situations where a certain person shouldn't be allowed to work certain jobs (i.e. child molesters working with children in any capacity) but our society has GOT to shed its punitive attitudes towards convicts. Once people serve their time, they should be allowed to start over again with a clean slate and not have to be perpetually punished for their past misdeeds, particularly if they have demonstrated that they have changed their old behaviors/attitudes.

criminal may face a punishment, i.e. reparations or incarceration, then they would also have an option of rehabilitation's. These would depend on the crime and needs of the individual, i.e. psychological treatment, job training, education, anger management, substance abuse, etc.

live in isolation for most of each day. I think those that need therapy should get it. I think those that are a danger to others should be isolated 24/7.

so I want to add something here. I agree with what seems to be the majority here that locking people up for smoking pot is ridiculous and counterproductive. First, I don't think it should even be a crime. Second, the poor people who are locked up are branded with a felony record for life and therefore face a great many obstacles to getting back into society, getting a job, etc.

I wish politicians would use a little common sense and think about all the things that we could do with the money we spend to lock up otherwise law-abiding pot smokers, or even most drug users in general.

BTW, let me make it plain that I am not advocating drug use by anyone, if for no other reason than that it can lead to a really deep hole for the users. As someone who needed some pretty serious pain meds before and after my surgery, though, I completely understand how drugs are necessary for many.