How should we treat the worst prisoners?

I thank you for your kindness, sir.

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You're most welcome, sir...Very well thought out post.

 

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I have always believed cruelty does not stop cruelty.Two wrongs don't make a right.

To me,both death sentences and life-in-prison sentences are wrong and should be abolished.Not only that,any sentence that directly means permanent loss of something is also wrong and should be abolished.One such other example will be castration.In some ways,such permanent-consequence sentences such as castration or life-in-prison are even worse than death.

To me,the most extreme punishment for the worst kind,I mean for people as bad as it gets,should be 25 years in prison.And if necessary, 5 to 10 more years of GPS tracking to see if they are behaving themselves.They should not go into any publicly accesible registry(and definitely not for life) to protect them from vigilantism.

25 years is a hell of a long time and people change a lot during that time.We should not assume that people never change.I believe EVERY SINGLE PERSON deserves a second chance in life.

Also,people in prison should be treated as nicely as possible.They should be given more privacy and it should be ensured that they do not get bullied in prison.If possible,a separate room for every criminal (or every 2 criminals).They should be given a TV and should be allowed to read the books that they want.

The reason these criminals should not be hated is because we need to understand that often they become criminals because no one understands them and everyone hates them.If there were more people to love them,perhaps they would not have been criminals.There should be classes on morality for them.There should be job sessions to keep them busy and responsible.There should be meditation sessions.It is now proven that meditation can bring significant changes to brain.

One thing that should be noted here is that personal anger of the victims due to the prisoner should not be the sole criteria for punishment.That will result in biased judgements without seeing the full picture.We should at least try understand the criminals and try to think from their point of view,just as much as we try to think from the victim's point of view.

Also,crimes due to private feelings of anger should not be encouraged and should be punished badly.

And lastly, those people who are the victims of crimes should be economically given support by the government.This will also stop over-criminalisation.

 

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DNA's post has a lot of truth. I do not necessarily believe his 25 years maximum. Normally, by the time any criminal has received a serious sentence, he/she has proven himself/herself a major recidivist.

However, the concept of 'punishment' should be eliminated from dealings with criminals. That is an emotional concept and we should rise above it. In the same way, pandering to the emotions of victims is not the way to go, either. I am sympathetic to victims, but they are too emotionally wound up to be able to make dispassionate decisions about dealing with criminals.

Prison to me is not about punishment, rehabilitation (which normally fails), or even deterrence (research has shown the greatest deterrence comes from perceived high chance of getting caught rather than awful punishments). The main value of prison, as I see it, is simply to keep the arseholes off the street. If a rapist is in prison, women are safe.

Bearing this in mind, the problem is releasing them. So why release them? Any prisoner who stands to receive a 'life' sentence has already had many chances. Treat incarceration as a kind of quarantine, rather than punishment. If we do that, then there is no reason not to give these guys TV's, internet, books, computer games, decent recreation time etc.

The big problem to me has always been the release, not the prison time. If someone is so bad he/she gets a life sentence, then that person should never be released. Prison becomes his/her lifestyle rather than punishment. Society will be much better off with such people removed permanently.

 

yes it is much better to set them free so they can control the minds of the already broken youth. As most of the untouchable ones do anyway. You know the ones you never catch and never find a name to.

Make sure they get inside the childrens head, make them feel the power of breaking laws. If they get caught stealing robbing or murdering, well that just puts them into the jails where they can learn from the best stealers robbers and murders how to run their "business". Criminals have more time to think and execute plans than the normal man spends working under the same employer. We build training camps not prisons in our day and time. Teach "respect" as a golden rule of the downtrodden as it is all they have to live for. Ask a man with no dignity to give his last ounce of it to you, I'm sure he would decline with a fist. Yet ask a man with dignity to spare some for the broken, he will share none of his secret words of numbers and business.

Lets treat the worst prisoners as we treat the rest of our world. As a business run on money with pittence paid anually to the hopeless to cover our false sense of greed. Make them work hard labor in factories as a slave whos only benefit is the clothing they produce for another to pay for their time. To make them still feel powerful we will give them guns in case they decide to host their own executions.

Or you can join them and make training camps.

 

I think a society that thinks ANYONE deserves more than 25 years is a society of COWARDS and not only that, it is a society of selfish and cruel individuals who cannot forgive because they can't get over their own irrational fear.

No one can see the future and so we should not behave like hyprocrites and suggest that we can tell the future.If there is even 1% chance that a criminal is now a changed person and will not reoffend,then he deserves a second chance in life.I think protecting the innocents from punishment should get much higher priority than punishing an actual criminal.

Yes, some people do reoffend,but as far as I know,most people do not.And it is far more likely that someone will die of a car accident than he is going to be a victim of a reoffender.And in case someone does reoffend,25years + 25 years = 50 years and that's basically a life time in prison.How much more security does one need?Any one who thinks they have full control over life is deluded.

The only criminals that we should be REALLY careful of,are the violent murderers,especially those who have killed in more than one occasion.I mean if you lose your life,there is literally no hope left for you.Everything else has a hope.

 

DNA said :

"If there is even 1% chance that a criminal is now a changed person and will not reoffend,then he deserves a second chance in life."

The flaw in this logic is obvious. Most released prisoners reoffend.
The following relates to the UK, but the principle is pretty much universal.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article778681.ece

I quote :

"More than 60 per cent of young male thugs and muggers are convicted of another offence within two years of ending their sentence. Three quarters of young male burglars and thieves also reoffend, according to the Home Office figures placed unannounced on its departmental website.

A massive 90 per cent of offenders on the drug treatment and testing order, designed to tackle the link between drug use and prolific offending, go on to commit more crimes."

Each criminal who reoffends is carrying mass misery and pain to the public. A single rapist can destroy the lives of numerous women. He, and muggers, burglars, drug dealers and their ilk all belong behind bars. They should not be released until we know they will not reoffend, even if that means they die in prison.

 

Exactly the opposite ,they should be released untill we know that they will reoffend.

Anyone who thinks that people need to be locked up for eternity are nothing but cowards.Not only that ,they are selfish and don't even have basic human empathy.

Most crimes are first time crimes,rather than a reoffense.And I have already stated that people are far more likely to die of accidents than be a victim of a released criminal.

And what makes you think that YOU cannot ever commit a serious crime?Or that you couldn't have been one if the circumstances were different?How much do we even know about the lives of criminals?How much we know about their minds?Nothing.You cannot cure someone with fear and hatred,you need to give them support and love if you want to cure.The truth is that we don't even try to understand the criminals.

And Burglars and thieves?I will rebuild money if I lose some.Psychological Damage?They are invisible and unprovable.And even if they do exist,we should not encourage ourselves to become crybabies of hatred.The only crime that I find hard to forgive is a crime of hatred -like murder or torture.But I am sure even those guys can be cured somehow,someday may be.

If you think otherwise,why not issue a law "People should not ride cars untill we KNOW that they can't get into accident?"

 

DNA

This thread has been discussing the treatment of people who are sentenced to long terms in prison. This does not happen to first offenders. The people we are discussing are hardened and recidivist criminals.

Now, I have no problem with you feeling compassion for your fellow humans, but in this case, you appear to have applied it in a one sided way. What about compassion for the victims of those criminals?

I mentioned rapists. A single violent rape means a life sentence of emotional trauma for the victim. Any rapist who have reoffended enough to get a long prison sentence will rape again, and again, and again. We had a case here in New Zealand of a rapist who had raped over 100 women. Each of those women are now serving a life sentence of emotional trauma. If it were up to me, that guy would be locked up until the day he died, just to make damn sure he never traumatised another human.

The same logic applies to those convicted of repeated assaults, or murders, or even burglaries. A single burglar can cause millions of dollars of damage to innocent victims each year. The burglar also causes enormous emotional trauma to victims. How many burglary victims do you know? I know many, including myself and my wife. When we got burgled, it took her years to start to feel safe at home again.

Multiply that by thousands of people, and that is the harm burglars do. Release those burglars from prison and they will traumatise thousands more. Such people should be locked up till they die, out of compassion for the nasty bastards' victims.

Feeling compassion for recidivist and violent criminals is the opposite of compassion for humanity. Because what you are doing, without appreciating the fact, is being utterly callous towards the innocent people who will be traumatised by that character when he is released.

 

SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS THREAD

I think it's time for everyone to post once to present their argument on this topic to bring it to rest. I believe that threads that go on and of and on and trail off and become squabbles serve little purpose.

I will go first.

 

believe a prisoner is an individual who is convicted of a heinous crime and put into the penal system to have a "time out" for years in the hope that this time spent will reform him to the point of where he is reformed and a cog in the system again and not a problem. I believe we shouldn't release prisoners until they are rehabilitated... I believe this is the saving grace a prisoner has as a prisoner.

The system we have for the most part works. Prisoners who obey the reformatory system get the least sentence and the troublemakers end up spending the most time in jail. 25 to life becomes just that: either 25 years or the rest of your life. All depends upon your behavior.

However, there are some prisoners who defy the criminal system. They act out and actively fight other prisoners and guards- whether it be for respect, rage against the machine or rage against one's self for being there. A two year sentence can easily become a 12 year sentence which can easily become a life sentence and with each step, a degree of freedom is lost and a step away from humanity.

The inevitable result of this is a Supermax prison with the worst of the worst- kept in lockdown 23 hours a day with essentially no interaction with other humans, just an 8 X 12 cell and time. But studies have shown that keeping people isolated 23 hours a day for years fucks up their brains to where they revert to being animals.

I believe there is a cutoff point or intervention point before that prisoner is left hanging on the end his leash to where we can somehow reform him... I think we can do a better job than we're doing. I don't think ANYONE should be in 23 hour lockdown.

And once again, "25 to life" is just that: you should not be forced to undergo sterilization or lobotomies... you should be able to walk out the same person you walked in as, only older and wiser with the debt paid to society.

We are essentially the only nation that even has a supermax system- what are we doing wrong?

I suggest there is another way than to throw the worst into 23 hour lockdown for years on end- I believe even the worst of us can still perform a function to society. I will concede we should have a dozen supermax prisons- not the hundreds we currently have. And they should be filled with .001% of all prisoners.

 

Skeptic

I think you do not quite understand how terrible it is to get locked up even for a little while,let alone to serve a life-time in prison.Many have commited suicide simply after being accused ,and no solid evidence was ever found against them.
And also, I don't think you understand how easily people can get lifetime sentences for the simplest of crimes.Many do get lifetime sentences or effectively that after being caught the first time.Many of them have only offended once and some simply never victimized anyone,they are innocent.

I say this keeping in mind those who are not damaged,those who are more or less normal .The REAL worst of criminals -the sadistic serial killers,etc -are probably damaged in the brain and need a different approach .

I guess you can call myself one such victim.We went to a tour and when we returned we found that almost everything in our house was gone.All the money,all the jewellery and many other light objects.And guess what we didn't even have insurance back then.Did I feel sad?Yes.Do I want to get everything what I lost back?Yes,most definitely.But do I want to get these burglars to get a lifetime sentence?HELL NO!It will only make me feel more sad if I am responsible for taking someone's basic freedom away for eternity.
It certainly caused some pain.But I personally feel more pain when a beloved pet of mine dies.It certainly caused some fear.So whenever we go out,we now take extra
precautions.And a lot of our stuff is now insured.But someone who gets a life time of trauma because of one burglary,I think there is something wrong with them.I think there is
something selfish about them if they simply can't get over it.I think these people have a sense of entitlement that's hurting them more than the crime itself.

I also feel a bit sorry for these burglars.What made them this way, I wonder.Perhaps they really didn't have food to eat at one point and at that point nobody turned an eye at
them,they didn't have anyone willing to help them.So they learned a way to survive -stealing.Eventually it became a habbit and they now steal big.Perhaps that is what happened,altough I can't tell for sure.
Now,why can't we try and give a basic stable income to these people first?Everyone jumps up and down when it comes to giving harsher punishments,nobody is wiling to do anything to about the problem at the root.

Rape,you say.Yes,rape,if violent and forceful enough,has the potential to cause serious trauma.But I think people can get over it after a while if they really want to.The only
ones that can't get over it are the ones with too much of a sense of entitlement.But rape isn't the only thing that hurts.People often commit suicide when they fail an
important exam.People commit suicide when their dreams get shattered.And people often become suicidal when they lose a loved one.Hell,even simply giving birth can cause serious depression.Is being raped more horrible than losing a loved one?If it is to someone,then I think that person is too selfish to love anyone else.They have too much hatred in them and too little love for others.What I am tryig to say is thatlife is made up of good moments and horrible ones.

I want to understand a rapist.What makes him that way.I think it is possible that the reason they became such persons is because they wanted to be loved,loved without conditions and with selflessness but they never managed to find a young lady willing to love them that way.Perhaps they were repeatedly rejected and insulted and avoided.And so he couldn't forgive them and tried to hurt them.I may be wrong about the hypothesis,but something must have went wrong somewhere.That's very likely.So what's the diference between the rapists and his victims that are willing to give them death penalty?The rapist used physical power to take his personal revenge against the society and the victims use their social status and the power of law, which are much stronger to punish the rapist.The rapist has no one sympathize for them,the victims have a thousand that do.But in the end both these parties that want to hurt each other is because they are too self-important.Both the rapist and the vengeful victim have too much of a sense of entitlement.

And not all rapes are the same.I saw a documentary once and one guy was locked up for eternity even after he served his sentence.Why?Because of a date rape.I don't know the details, but basically as a teenager,he continued to have sex against his teenaged girlfriend, even after she said 'stop".Isn't there any difference between a date rape or husband rape and a real rape?If there isn't,then does love have any meaning at all?A good example of how unforgiving and cowardly the society is today.
Tolerance,forgiveness,adjustment,empathy these are the grand qualities and they are the first steps towards true peace.But we throw these away these qualities in the name of "zero tolerance",as if zero tolerance is a good thing.

Your accusation that I do not feel for the victims is wrong.I feel just as much for the victims,probably more.I just do not see how torturing the criminal helps the person who is already a victim.That's a lie.People who want the criminals off their sight are concerned about their own safety,rather than any way to help the victim.If they were really concerned about the victim,they will talking about the victim and not the criminal.

The only difference that I see is that when cruelty is done to the victim,the world sympathize,but when we do the same to the accused criminal,the world cheers for more cruelty.If a victim loses money,or even if he is traumatized,he has hope to earn it back and become normal in the future.A prisoner sentenced for life has no hope left.
The ultimate impact of any crime is not dependent not only on the crime itself,but it also depends a lot on the mentality of the victim.If the victim thinks it's nothing then it is nothing,if the victim thinks that it is the end of the world,then it is.And that is why everyone has a responsibility,not just the criminal.

When you give someone a lifetime sentence,it's a definite act of cruelty.On the other hand the security that you are talking about is largely hypothetical.Do you not see the difference?Yes,some studies do suggest that may be one half do reoffend.But we are missing a lot of details.How exactly were they treated?How much freedom did they get in the prison?How long was the sentence?All kinds of important factors are neglected.Unless we are willing to set them free,we will never know what makes them less likely to reoffend.And setting them free after a long sentence does not significantly change the life of the average person.There are all klinds of accidents,illness and misfortunes that might await a person.The probability of being a victim of a reoffender is insigficant compared to all the other threats that the world already offers.If we are so afraid to forgive someone,to give someone a second chance,then I think we are -as I have said - COWARDS and selfish and cruel.

Again,I say this keeping in mind those who are not damaged,those who are more or less normal .The REAL worst of criminals -the sadistic serial killers,etc -are probably damaged in the brain and need a different approach .

 

DNA

I do not suggest a lifetime sentence be cruel. In fact, if you read my earlier post, you will see that I suggested such sentences be regarded as quarantine, rather than punishment. In such cases, the criminal gets good food, good leisure time, TV, computer games etc.

But I still think you are being a bit naive in your views towards those guys. They are not misunderstood renegades. They are basically nasty arseholes who have earned every bit of their detention.

I read of a series of surveys, once, into human conscience. Turns out that about one person in ten, in every human society, in effect has no conscience. These people are willing to do anything, no matter how much it harms other people, if :
1. the results benefit them in a selfish way
2. they think that they can get away with it.
This one in ten conscienceless people explains why so many catholic priests offend, for example. The ratio is still correct even for the clergy.

That one in ten cannot be rehabilitated. Simply, they do not have a conscience. As long as they are at liberty, they will act selfishly, and harm others.

And I think you underestimate the harm even one of these guys can do. A burglar, for example, will raid perhaps ten homes per week. 500 odd homes a year. If the homes, on average, house 3 people, then that is 1500 people per year harmed by the activities of one person. In ten years they cause, not just economic loss, but at least stress, if not severe trauma to 15,000 people. And make no mistake. Some of those people are traumatised to an enormous degree. There will always be a fraction whose lives are utterly turned around, for the worst, by a single act of burglary.

Rapists are worse. Your comments on rape were naive to say the least. A few women can survive rape and carry on with apparently little harm, but most are emotionally harmed in a big way.

Rahabilitation in prisons has proved largely ineffective. I would certainly urge continued trials and research in this area, but we should accept that, until some system of rehabilitation is proven to work consistently, we operate under the assumption thart rehabilitation is pretty much a waste of time.

I cannot comment on your examples of people over-punished for first offenses. I am not urging that, and those examples are irelevent to my argument. That does not happen in my country (New Zealand) and, if anything, we are far too lenient. If a person has proven through repeat offending, that he/she is a hopeless case, then that person should go into quarantine detention for life. Good conditions and humane treatment, but never again permitted to re-enter society and continue to cause harm to the innocent.

 

Skeptic

I know you don't want to be cruel.You want to give them all the facilities in prison.But I think where you are making the mistake is that you think that simply locking them up for eternity is not cruel enough.I am sure that most of them ,if not all of them,will prefer to get gang raped or beaten up severely if that allows them to smell the fresh air again,if such an option is given.What does life even mean without freedom?

If you say to me that -no, 25 years is too little to be maximum.It should be 35or something like that,I can think about that.But for an eternity?That's like a life without any hope,any meaning.Sorry,but I cannot agree with that.I want people to forgive,and defeat their own fear.

As far as their conscience goes.We don't know ,right?We only hear about criminals when they do something horrible.We don't know what kind of experiences they go through and how exactly they become such monsters.All the more reasons to forgive them,after they have suffered enough.

Have you watched the Richard Dawkin's "Nice Guys Finish First"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6rgWzYRXiI
Tit for Tat algorithms have an adavantage over grudger algorithms like Friedman in our society.Tit for Tat punishes,but it also forgives quickly.Friedman ,on the other hand,permanently holds a grudge.Forgiving may have a social advantage.

And lastly,
May be you are correct about rape.May be I really don't understand how bad it is.I do feel though that many women cry rape far too easily for their own gain.But like I said,I am not a victim of rape,so I should not be commenting.

 

DNA

I agree that life in prison, even with privileges, is very unpleasant.

The thing is, though, that I am trying to work out the greatest good for the greatest number. As I have emphasized, a single nasty criminal at large can utterly destroy the lives of many others. Keeping one person in prison for life in order to save dozens of other people is the proper price to pay.

Again, I emphasize - I am suggesting this only for the worst criminals - the ones who do the most harm and keep repeating their crimes.

For non violent people (meaning men who will not physically attack other men) such as convicted recidivist rapists, burglars, pedophiles etc., then I would design a prison like an old prison camp. There would be a large enclosure - perhaps 100 acres. The outer limit of that enclosure would include walls, trenches, razor wire, enclosed runs with guard dogs, human guards etc. Inside the 100 acres the authorities would drop a large number of small cottages. Each inmate would have a cottage to live in with bed, lounge, ensuite and small kitchen, TV, computer etc. The key to the cottage would be held only by the occupier and the prison authorities. The inmates would have freedom to walk the entire 100 acres.

The cottages could be built assembly line fashion and trucked in, making them very cheap. Any inmate who got violent, or those who try to escape, would be 'promoted' to the next prison.

This would be a different kind of prison for more serious offenders, who cannot be trusted not to attack others. That would be more like a traditional high security prison, but with a large cell with en suite for each inmate, and with a barred and steel meshed window to each adjoining cell, so that the inmates could talk to each other with no risk of physical attack. Reasonable escorted time to leave the cell for exercise, and inside the cell, the same TV etc.

Living in such a prison would still not be pleasant, but that would prevent recidivists from doing more harm.

My suggestion is based on simple maths. Lock up one nasty person for life and save dozens of innocents from serious harm. With burglars, the ratio is one locked and tens of thousands saved from being burgled.

 

No Skeptic,I simply can't agree with you on this one.Punishment should match the crime,sentences should not be given on the basis of "possibility of repeat".We can't tell the future and we should not pretend to be fortune tellers.

Your vision of treating the prisoners is scary.

 

DNA

We have a difference in goals. My goal is to reduce the harm criminals do to the good people of our society. Once you realise that prison does not rehabilitate, and deterrence is a joke, you start to ask why we put people in prison at all. I looked at this question and realised that there is only one rational reason for putting anyone in prison. That is : when they are in prison, they cannot harm anyone.

This being the case, the question becomes : Why do we release them, when we know damn well that a large number of them will go back to criminal activities that cause immense harm to people?

The answer is : we release them because we are stupid!

The smart thing is not to dump society's murderers, muggers, burglars etc back into society. If a person has already proven he/she is not going to change, then putting them back into the community is a crime against that community.

My answer is quarantine. Not punishment. Simply keeping the people who do the most harm to those who are good and innocent, somewhere where they will do no more harm.

The reason we think differently, DNA, is because you are putting the rights of nasty buggers ahead of the rights of those who are good and innocent, and become victims to the evil bastards in our society.

 

Skeptical

I don't think we have different goals,but we have different assumptions.Your assumption is that bad guys are always bad,good guys are always good.And I think that is an oversimplification of reality.

The fact that some criminals stop reoffending after serving prison time means that at least some degree of rehabilitation is indeed occuring.


Fraggle
Yes,probability is important.But when you talk about permanent punishments,you are no longer talking about probability.Basically you
are talking about about a lack of trust that you can't get over.But unless you give someone a second chance how are they going to prove themselves and gain that trust?

Another thing is that simply classifying people as murderers,rapist or pedophiles doesn't look at the whole story.In fact,pedophiles are not criminals at all.It's the child molesters that are criminals.

P.S ->A petty thief is much more likely to reoffend than a murderer.Does that mean that a thief should serve more time or at least equal time as a murderer?Such arguments make no sense.

 

DNA

No, I do not think bad guys are always bad. I agree with Fraggle on this. We must base our decision making on statistics. If we have 100 muggers in prison, and release them when they serve their time, and find that 75 of them returned to mugging, then we should not have released them. In fact, this is usually what happens, plus or minus a realistic error factor. There are encyclopedia's of data to show reoffending rates like this.

And the fact that some guys (a very small number) stop offending does not mean prison rehabilitates. There are too many possible reasons for that, including simply the fact that some people grow out of it.

What you fail to realise is the balance of harm/benefit. Locking a criminal up for life, in a humane establishment such as I described, does a small amount of harm to one person. Releasing a recidivist criminal does vastly more harm - causing physical trauma, rape, burglaries galore, emotional trauma, or whatever that criminal is doing, to large numbers of people. On balance, it makes far more sense to keep one person incarcerated, and minimise the harm.

Remember, we are talking only of the nastier criminals, who cause great harm and keep reoffending. First offenders, and minor criminals, I am much more likely to feel charitable towards.

A petty thief reoffending?
That depends on the degree of recidivism. A petty thief who is given several chances, and keeps returning to crime should not always be released. It may sound excessive for a petty thief, but remember two things.
1. The incarceration of that thief will be in the more human and freer 'prison camp' establishment. There is no reason why that person could not have a good life there.
2. The petty thief still causes society immense harm. Each theft might be small, but over even a year, it adds up to enormous financial loss and human suffering to those who are the victims.