How should we treat the worst prisoners?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by jmpet, Dec 16, 2010.

  1. jmpet Valued Senior Member

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    How should we treat the worst prisoners?

    A subject I have been interested in for a long time. Ultra Max prisons keep prisoners in isolation 23 hours a day, letting them out an hour a day to exercise in a slightly larger room. As a result of this, many prisoners go insane from the lack of human interaction. This may not be the best way to deal with troublesome prisoners but then again- everything else has failed to reform them.

    Are we locking people into closets and throwing away the key or is there a better way? I think there's gotta be.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Our first responsibility is to justice: We can almost never be 100% certain of a prisoner's guilt, so we must maintain him in a condition that would allow him to be released and rehabilitated into society to the extent practical, if his verdict is overturned.

    Our second responsibility is to society: Assuming that he is guilty, we must be certain that he has no opportunity to repeat his crimes, either by escaping or by orchestrating them from within the prison system. For criminal masterminds with loyal lieutenants willing to carry out their orders, this may be impossible, leaving us to contemplate execution. The same is true of terrorists, whose buddies will kidnap twenty of our people and promise to kill them if he is not released within a week. This presents a conflict of interest over what exactly is "justice," but hey life is complicated and so is death.

    Our third responsibility is to the other prisoners. If he's a threat to their life, their health, or their ability to be rehabilitated, he has to be separated from them.

    Our fourth responsibility is to the prisoner and his family. We should try to rehabilitate him and we should treat him with some basic level of humaneness. But if this is not practical because he's a threat to the other prisoners, or because he can continue plotting crimes behind bars, or because he's simply nuts, then we have to do whatever is necessary. When you commit a serious felony you automatically give up many of your rights, so you have to be pretty seriously mistreated before you have a right to complain about it.
     
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    So what would you suggest to do other than this? :shrug:
     
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  7. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    Since they're all individuals then they should be "treated" as such, but society has no means to execute such an extensive agenda, yet.

    Perhaps we could narrow down the discussion to specific crimes?
     
  8. Jozen-Bo The Wheel Spinning King!!! Registered Senior Member

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    tickle them!!! Sorta like clockwork orange style..tie them up and make them watch really bad comedies..and then strap them to a ticlking machine that tickles them until their head feels fuzzy...lol
     
  9. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    Hehe, I can be the machine (in the VIP section).

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  10. Psy Registered Senior Member

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    Personally, I'd say the death penalty. It may sound harsh, but if we're driving them to insanity anyway, or making them waste away in a prison for the rest of their lives, I say it'd be better to just kill them.
     
  11. Psy Registered Senior Member

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    This appears to be a better answer then mine. I guess I'm just crude.
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Thinking about this I would think to develop a way to place convicted people that are not "fitting in" to the jail house way of living be put into suspended animation whereby they are not moving but alive asleep. They would still be dying because their metabolism would be still operating and their bodies would be degenerating as well. That way if they should ever need to bring them back to life for a retrial or something they could. That way everyone would be satisfied for they are neither tortured nor put to death.
     
  13. jmpet Valued Senior Member

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    There's gotta be a better way is all I am saying.
     
  14. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Ha how many of these prisoners are in solertary to protect THEM. look at Carl Willams, in very restricted cirumstances with only his dad (also in jail) and 1 other person demed safe enough to be around him, that other prisoner beat him to death. But sure if the state had murdered him (for his own protection of course) the other prisoner wouldn't have to.

    Then there is David Hicks, in Max security to pllease the Yanks who couldn't even give him a fair trial after torturing him
     
  15. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    They should be killed.

    It's the only humane thing to do with people who need SHU-type incarceration.
     
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Euthanasia is sometimes the only rational, humane choice for people who are not convicted felons, so I suppose the same applies to them under rare conditions.
     
  17. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    So you say murder is the only solution, regardless of the crime?
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I'm not sure whose post you're responding to. I certainly didn't say that. I believe that we should make every effort to keep them alive, because:
    • They might be innocent and we'll need to release them.
    • Many of them can be rehabilitated.
    • Many of them pose no threat of recidivism (many murders are crimes of passion committed by ordinary citizens like you and me who were pushed too hard, and when someone like you or me spends the rest of his life walking around knowing what it feels like to have killed someone, he will never do it again).
    • And arguably most important of all, capital punishment is basically revenge, and revenge is the most irrational, angry and selfish of all human emotions left over from the tribal cultures of the Stone Age, and it must never be allowed to influence public policy.
    What I said was that there are unusual circumstances in which we must regrettably consider:
    • Execution (which is not at all the same thing as "murder," please consult your dictionary), such as the mob boss who can order assassinations from his prison cell, or the terrorist with six dozen buddies who can take hostages and demand his release,
    • Euthanasia, (which is also not at all the same thing as "murder") to spare the convict from pain or humiliation when he has special needs that cannot be accommodated due to his inability to behave in a civilized fashion.
     
  19. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Euthanasia has one important component your ignoring, the desire to end your OWN life because of incuable disease
     
  20. queengeek Registered Member

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    Honestly the thing to truly consider is stopping the acceleration that leads to the crimes that warrant life imprisonment to begin with. We live in a society that routinely pushes people to the extreme for their own survival. Children learn to steal and kill world wide and everyone looks at the parents shaking their heads saying what a poor job they are doing instead of trying to help. Most of these people are nothing more than victims of their own upbringing. No one wants to step in and take personal responsibility for the end outcome so instead we lock them away from sight so the general world population can feel more secure in the thought that they are innocent of any wrong doing.

    So my solution to this situation would be an enforcement of personal responsibility. Most parents know when something is not right with their children from an early age. If you know something is wrong then seek help before it gets worse. If you think something may be going on in your neighborhood then call the authorities. But when it all hits the fan and nobody has stepped forward to try to stop it then don't close your eyes and pretend it will all go away. Take personal responsibility and encourage others to do the same.

    I talk about this one from experience. A repeat offender in my past that if any one of his 27 past victims had come forward I would have been safe. And if I had not taken so long to come forward there would not have been the next 4.

    His mother had noticed behaviors in him when he was young. If she came forward then none of it may have ever happened.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2010
  21. jmpet Valued Senior Member

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    Are you guys saying that if you don't behave in prison, the only solution is to put them down??? If so then hell yeah- lock them in a cell and throw away the key I guess.

    Maybe I don't understand my own OP- I said the worst prisoners... I meant prisoners who beat other prisoners and guards, throw feces at guards, spit, make weapons in their cells... do everything they can to fight their incarceration and be as big a prick as they can. I didn't mean murderers who became prisoners- most murderers in prison behave.

    I am talking about someone convicted of, say, drug smuggling who got 8 years then got into several fights and the sentince turned into 20, 30 years or life from their actions behind bars. I don't think we should be ending these people's lives because they behave badly... maybe I am missing the point.
     
  22. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    Obviously, none of you are aware of what a person actually has to do to get SHU-type incarceration.

    If you were, my post would make a hell of a lot more sense.
     
  23. Gremmie "Happiness is a warm gun" Valued Senior Member

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    I used to work in corrections...I've worked in the worst prisons the American penal system has to offer...

    But, I'll bite..What behavior (in your opinion) would earn you entry to the SHU?
     

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