Soldato
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prisoners earning qualifications whilst serving their sentence
- Thread starter cm1179
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Because your proposed solution doesn't actually work, it is less effective than the current situation. You have provided absolutely zero evidence in support of the effects of harsh prison sentences on reducing re-offending rates, and the above post shows that you don't actually understand the social causes of crime in any way.
If harsh prison sentences reduce re-offending, you should be able to provide a study to prove it, it isn't that difficult, studies clearly showing the opposite exist as they've already been cited.
Soldato
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Its not a proposed solution, its my opnion of what I think these scum should be doing in prison, if anything I am trying to discourage them from going to prison.
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Well in that case your opinion is countered by evidence that your opinion is wrong.
http://www.slate.com/id/2158317/
(Can't link direct to the paper as it is not available for free).
This is why I strongly believe opinion should be utterly irrelevant to lawmaking and crime/punishment regimes.
Soldato
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Weather my opinion is deemed right or wrong, it is still my own opinion.
By the way, like your Italian links. I don't live in the US either
Soldato
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Priveliges in a prison are to promote good behaviour, if you can't have anything, what incentive is there to abide with the rules? You can't just stick people breaking the rules into solitary, charlie bronson is living proof that solitary can turn a man insane.
Education is there as part of rehabilitation.
Public revenge or public gain, what do you want to have? Turn a negative into a positive for a little bit of taxpayers money.
It doesn't cost much to give a prisoner a trade or something positive he can go into the working world? Not when you think he'll cost more in benefits or maybe police/ court time when he gets caught dealing drugs again?
Education is there as part of rehabilitation.
Public revenge or public gain, what do you want to have? Turn a negative into a positive for a little bit of taxpayers money.
It doesn't cost much to give a prisoner a trade or something positive he can go into the working world? Not when you think he'll cost more in benefits or maybe police/ court time when he gets caught dealing drugs again?
Weather my opinion is deemed right or wrong, it is still my own opinion.
By the way, like your Italian links. I don't live in the US either
Of course, opinions don't have to make any sense or have any bearing on reality, unless you are proposing to impact others due to them.
I like the massive amount of evidence of any sort you've provided to try and demonstrate your opinion is in any way linked to reality...
This would probably be a good time to remind myself that you can't reason someone out of a position that was not arrived at through reason in the first place...
Soldato
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So it makes no sense to you that as the tax payers that are paying to keep these scum, with a roof under their heads and 3 meals a day. That they should't incur some of the costs themselves, by being put to real hard labour or menial work when serving their time.
I'll ignore the attempt to poison the well and invoke an emotional response, and ask an alternative question.
Do we want to have to keep people in prison/keep putting them back in prison, or do we want to be able to produce functioning members of society.
As a taxpayer, I want the best combination of punishment, protection and rehabilitation for those convicted of crimes. I want them punished, I want protection from them, but I also want to offer them the chance to change, and am happy to spend money to achieve that, because it is cheaper in the long run than keeping them in prison forever, and if they do change, they might actually pay back some of their costs through taxation.
I can fully accept that these three points are often at odds with each other, that is why a balance has to be struck, but hard labour/menial tasks works against the rehabilitation idea, so it makes no sense to demand it if you actually want prisons that reform (at least some) of the criminals that go into them.
I fundamentally disagree with the ideological principle that society is not to blame for the criminals within it. Well, I don't really like to say "blame" - it makes it seem like society is intentionally at fault. It is not intentionally creating criminals, but it is creating them. You are not born a criminal just the same as you are not born a Nobel prize winner or born a Christian. It is the environment and society that you live in, coupled with your innate human nature, that "builds" you in to what you become. Therefore, in my opinion, to hold up the criminal and call him an abomination, is an act tainted with irony. To someone who has turned to crime, the world is not the same place filled with the choices that you and I enjoy.
If you took a census of the prison population and were able to record whether they had a loving upbringing, a good education, lived in a nice and affluent area and whether they had a generally happy life, I suspect you would find mostly "No" answers. It is within society's power to address those issues. We can eradicate poverty, shrink the wealth gap, put an end to child abuse, create an intensely robust education system and significantly enhance the lives of not just those that are worst off, but everyone. Doing these will reduce crime more than any deterrent such has the death penalty or hard labour. A "deterrent" is admitting that we have a problem and, really, doing nothing to solve the root of it. A deterrent is the equivalent of running around trying to catch mice - your best bet is to do some cleaning, and putting the appropriate processes in place to ensure the place doesn't get dirty.
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Soldato
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What works for society from day one week one is locking offenders up, rehabilitation is all fine and well but imprisonment works. It work because it remove the effect of the offender from society, most offenders are by their nature a pain in the arse to sections of society. The UK's do gooder liberals tend to live in areas without high levels of offenders, they never see or feel the effects of their removel from society. Lock them up and forget about them, they should all leave jail broken men, if at all. If they reoffend lock them up again, if they offend in jail never let them out.
Soldato
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Do you know what the disease/s are?
The disease being "crime". We've had deterrents for a few thousand years and there appears to be no relation between the severity of punishment and the proliferation of criminal activity, so I'd argue that deterrents are doing very little.
you talk about some of them leaving jail at some point, broken. if they are not rehabilitated then how are they going to stay away from crime? if they cant say that they spent their time in prison studying and trying to make something of themselves how will they ever be employed? would you want to pay more tax in the long run when they all go back to prison again and again so the population is increased because there is a prison lifestyle. theres nothing liberal about rehabilitation its not only about helping a prisoner into free society its about having less prisoners and more productive members of society. it would be liberal if there was no punishment factor.
punishment is the start of rehabilitation. education and support is also rehabilitation. it happens to be a fact that sometimes what helps a prisoner helps society.
Caporegime
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but do we want more of a nanny state or less of a nanny state? its not the governments job to provide employment for all.. its for the market to provide, in a similar way that it is not the governments responsibility to ensure that the person stays away from crime, it is the individuals responsibility to stay away from crime. they clearly failed beforehand, otherwise chances are they would not have landed in jail anyway.
and these days it takes quite a lot to actually end up in jail at all..
so if you continually feed these people with free this, that and the education to go with it, how are you re-inforcing anything other than a state run monopoly on these peoples lives? if you hand everyuthing out for free, it becomes an expectation. suddenly they cant even think for themselves so they need the state to do it for them. how can that be right?
we have been claiming that there should be more personal responsibility.
its like i said before, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed people who do not turn to crime, why show them that they can get a job by rescinding personal responsibility - comitting crime under the impression that the state will find a job for them, or educate them up and fast track them? its too backward for comprehension really.
okay so the argument against this is almost like blackmail, i.e dont give them jobs and they will repeat offend..
i thought the point of rehab was to change their mode of thought, not just where they do their activity on a day to day basis#?
Soldato
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Tell me how your going to treat the psychopath? How are you going to fix them? There is a load of disorders that effect peoples actions, them disorders are the driving force behind a lot of crime. There is also the issue of greed which tends to drive more organized crime. Your of the thinking that they can be fixed were as I don't see the point in fixing them. IMO its not about deterrent or punishment, its all about removal. When they commit a crime it is an opportunity to get ride of them from society. Most people involved in crime are in general a pain to society by their every day action never mind the crime they commit.
With a long stint of.... death!
I defnatly dont agree with "giving" them a job or fasttracking them. Its just that most will be released into society at some point and if they are employed they are less likely to look at crime as a way of funding their lives. its hard to get employment without education. some prisoners may have never had a job and could be help with trianing and interview skills, thats what i was saying. They should be expected to be responcible for finding their own job. They might actually want to do this if they feel they have learned the skills and gained confidence instead of being locked up and forgotten. education might be provided but it takes responcibility to stick at it. that is part of rehabilitation and a change in their "mode of thought". I was thinking from the point of view of preventing people from being instatutionalised into prison and unable to stay out. I dont see that as a state run monopoly just a system that expects prisoners to leave prison succesfully when appropriate.