What is the Primary purpose of prison, Punishment or Rehabilitation?

shephga · 21 Sep 2013 at 09:21

We should outsource our penal system to Russia, you do something wrong you get a flight to siberia and some time down the salt mines. Lets see them moan about not being able to smoke then and I'd bet the crime rate and reoffending rates would drop rapidly. Too soft as usual in this country.

Ultimately the punishment should match the crime, Scandinavian systems are ok until it's someone who's gone through one of these systems and still goes out and reoffends ruining the lives of potentially many people. I'd bet the majority of folks with a softer stance have not been the/or know victim of a serious crime to see the everlasting impact.

shephga · 21 Sep 2013 at 09:29

semi-pro waster said:
If you think it's impossible to commit further crime in prison then you'd be sorely mistaken. It's not crime that the majority of the general public will be affected by but that doesn't mean it ceases to be crime.

If you get put away and you're the victim of a nasty crime whilst serving your sentence then I guess that is karma. I just wish there was a way to g'tee that the person sent to prison was 100% guilty of the crime they we're accused of.

Devrij · 21 Sep 2013 at 09:32

shephga said:
We should outsource our penal system to Russia, you do something wrong you get a flight to siberia and some time down the salt mines. Lets see them moan about not being able to smoke then and I'd bet the crime rate and reoffending rates would drop rapidly. Too soft as usual in this country.

Ultimately the punishment should match the crime, Scandinavian systems are ok until it's someone who's gone through one of these systems and still goes out and reoffends ruining the lives of potentially many people. I'd bet the majority of folks with a softer stance have not been the victim of a serious crime.

Deterrence has been proven not to work. That's why America has over 1% of its population in prison. That's 1 person in every hundred, in jail.

The purpose of prison has, for the most part been control over the body by the state. Its purpose SHOULD be rehabilitation, but since everyone cries for blood and insists on punishment over education, those projects rarely get funded.

shephga · 21 Sep 2013 at 09:37

Devrij said:
Deterrence has been proven not to work. That's why America has over 1% of its population in prison. That's 1 person in every hundred, in jail.

The purpose of prison has, for the most part been control over the body by the state. Its purpose SHOULD be rehabilitation, but since everyone cries for blood and insists on punishment over education, those projects rarely get funded.

Could you sit in front of a victim of a serious physical crime and, look the in the eye and tell them that they were wrong for wanting the person who attacked them should be rehabilitated and not punished ?

^^^not having a pop at you and I've not nor have anyone I directly know been affected by a serious crime. It's just I'm a father of 3, I watch the news, read the papers, watch crimewatch and put myself in the position of the victims families.

Just did a search on the Russian reoffending rate and it's second only to USA, such a difficult subject.

Btone · 21 Sep 2013 at 10:05

Devrij said:
Deterrence has been proven not to work. That's why America has over 1% of its population in prison. That's 1 person in every hundred, in jail.

i have to disagree, a few years ago i was in Cuba, i had to go down in to the main town from the hotel to get, well lets just say somethings for the GF. that taxi i got was a new(ish) Lexus, when we got to the chemist the taxi driver said he come in with me as the shop staff would have a low level of English and he was sure i didn't want to use pigeon English to get what i need. so he got out of the, it still running, we spend 10 minutes in the shop and when we came out the car was still sitting there with people walking passed it. when i told him that in my own car that would have been stolen he said

who would steal a car on a island, WHEN they get caught they WILL go to prison and who want to go to one of our (Cuba) prison

that is Deterrence in action. our trouble is people know they have a low odd of the police catching them, and then even lower odds of going to prison, and if they do go to prison, it not a hard life.

Nitefly · 21 Sep 2013 at 10:11

Punishment.

Devrij · 21 Sep 2013 at 10:34

shephga said:
Could you sit in front of a victim of a serious physical crime and, look the in the eye and tell them that they were wrong for wanting the person who attacked them should be rehabilitated and not punished ?

^^^not having a pop at you and I've not nor have anyone I directly know been affected by a serious crime. It's just I'm a father of 3, I watch the news, read the papers, watch crimewatch and put myself in the position of the victims families.

Just did a search on the Russian reoffending rate and it's second only to USA, such a difficult subject.

I never said they couldn't feel that way. Imagining those feelings of hurt and anger even watching another victim suffer is normal too. Some people are not able to be rehabilitated, and prison is a good place for them.

I would suggest trying to identify with the aggressor is the harder thing to do because we don't share anything with them, but very often there are contributing factors that made that person act that way. Poverty, abuse, and the cultures that exist in areas they live can put that person on a different path than if they were born into a middle class educated family who could afford to live in a decent area and pay for a good education. If, then, these factors outside of their control have taught them how to live in a way that hurts society, why can we not teach them to live differently with the correct tools? It is injustice to be born into a crap life, and then have people cry out for your punishment when you are living the only way you know how. Unless you believe young black men are just innately bad and that poverty is an evil that cannot be cured, in which case the vast majority of American prisons' population are in the right place.

=XDC=FluphyBunny · 21 Sep 2013 at 10:56

Primary purpose has to be punishment as a deterrent. Without punishment why the hell would I be sat here at work on a Saturday when I could earn far more money illegally? As an example people have made millions conducting large scale insurance fraud which for many years was very easy to do.

Devrij · 21 Sep 2013 at 11:15

=XDC=FluphyBunny said:
Primary purpose has to be punishment as a deterrent. Without punishment why the hell would I be sat here at work on a Saturday when I could earn far more money illegally? As an example people have made millions conducting large scale insurance fraud which for many years was very easy to do.

So you're saying that prison is already a deterrent to crime for you? You have a job, presumably other things that would be important not to lose should you go to prison. What if you didn't have those things? If you had nothing to lose, would you be deterred by prison? Would you take greater risks?

If you want to deter crime, you have to increase the chances of getting caught. Visible police forces on the street etc. But then you get into a debate as to how much surveillance you are willing to tolerate to ensure your safety.

Castiel · 21 Sep 2013 at 11:19

Nitefly said:
Punishment.

That view concerns me being from a prospective Lawyer... :eek:

elmarko · 21 Sep 2013 at 11:24

Burnsy2023 said:
Points of prison:

Punishment

Protection of the public

Rehabilitation

How much weight you put on each point depends on your political viewpoint.

I'd say it should depend on what the individual wants as an end goal, as if you want a lower overall crime rate at a reasonable cost the 'value' or 'worth' of each of these three different purposes differs.

People should focus on what they want to achieve, then let facts & science determine the methodology to go with to do it.

The problem with the public & the criminal justice system (from my experience) is that people come at the problem with specific solutions to problems (many of which are not supported by evidence) without even defining any goals.

Nitefly said:
Punishment.

Really?...

Nitefly · 21 Sep 2013 at 11:48

Castiel said:
That view concerns me being from a prospective Lawyer...

elmarko said:
Really?...

Yes really, because it's true

There are 2 main limbs of rationale behind imprisonment: punishment and prevention. You can almost construct it into a chicken and an egg scenario, because it's the gravity of the punishment can dissuade those from acting in a certain way. But putting prevention as the core reasoning doesn't work for the most serious crimes. For example, nobody has ever killed anyone and thought 'hmm I could go to prison here' without discarding it. It's totally bogus to think that hefty sentences are anything but society demonstrating what it thinks of those that are morally objectionable. Of course, you could fairly say that criminality has more of a prevention element for relatively minor crimes, such as drug or motoring offences.

As for rehabilitation, that is overwhelmingly the bottom of the stack. There is almost no element of rehabilitation (and no need for it) for swathes of criminal activities. If anything, imprisonment only permits rehabilitation as it allows society to address social issues that it doesn't have the power to before the isolation, but that is all subsequent the punishment. Issues in society are not best address with retrospective action. Rehabilitation is relatively a footnote, nothing more.

Dolph · 21 Sep 2013 at 11:59

Talking about prison as a whole will create strange results. The purpose of the prison system is to punish, rehabilitate and protect society, but that doesn't mean that all criminals are in need of the same approach.

There are certainly some people who should never be released due to the danger they pose, there are others who need rehab of one form or another and some who need punishment, the problem is making the system work for all of these things, and we aren't very good at it.

RDM · 21 Sep 2013 at 13:51

shephga said:
If you get put away and you're the victim of a nasty crime whilst serving your sentence then I guess that is karma.

Don't really think karma is meant to work the way you think it works.

semi-pro waster · 21 Sep 2013 at 13:59

shephga said:
If you get put away and you're the victim of a nasty crime whilst serving your sentence then I guess that is karma. I just wish there was a way to g'tee that the person sent to prison was 100% guilty of the crime they we're accused of.

I'm not convinced that karma exists nor that even if it did the threat of having further crime done to you is really a fair trade off. The imprisonment is the punishment element, some form of additional crime occurring to harm you is really a separate thing. It's like punishment++.

Btone said:
i have to disagree, a few years ago i was in Cuba, i had to go down in to the main town from the hotel to get, well lets just say somethings for the GF. that taxi i got was a new(ish) Lexus, when we got to the chemist the taxi driver said he come in with me as the shop staff would have a low level of English and he was sure i didn't want to use pigeon English to get what i need. so he got out of the, it still running, we spend 10 minutes in the shop and when we came out the car was still sitting there with people walking passed it. when i told him that in my own car that would have been stolen he said

who would steal a car on a island, WHEN they get caught they WILL go to prison and who want to go to one of our (Cuba) prison

that is Deterrence in action. our trouble is people know they have a low odd of the police catching them, and then even lower odds of going to prison, and if they do go to prison, it not a hard life.

That's at best anecdotal evidence that deterrence works and that's assuming that the driver wasn't just rather fortunate on this occasion to have no one stealing his car while he was in the shop with you. Cuba is about half the land-mass of the UK with around 1/6 the population and a fundamentally different ethos in the form of communism (of sorts) so those factors may all influence criminal behaviour. If you can link to studies or research that shows harsher conditions reduces recidivism then that would be interesting to see.

shephga · 21 Sep 2013 at 15:20

RDM · 21 Sep 2013 at 16:10

shephga said:
I think it does...

Putting aside the number of nasty individuals that die peacefully in their sleep..

shephga said:
Isn't karma supposed to be about how your actions and deeds have a cause and effect ???

The point is if someone was put away for a violent crime and they're a victim of a violent crime then WIN. There's always someone bigger and nastier out there and hopefully they'd learn and understand their own actions ended up with them taking a shoe'ing or worse. Murderers killing murderers, muggers mugging muggers, burglars being burgled is poetic justice.

Not all people in prison are there for violent crime, so how is being a victim of violent crime a win in their cases? What about the person doing the violent crime, does karma not apply to them? How come they get away scott free? There is also plenty of evidence to show that a violent and brutal prison regime leads to more crime not less.

Pom Pom · 21 Sep 2013 at 16:26

Punishment.

Reform is up to the criminal. They have free will; no one can make them good.

shephga · 21 Sep 2013 at 16:30

RDM said:
Putting aside the number of nasty individuals that die peacefully in their sleep..

^^^ good point

Not all people in prison are there for violent crime, so how is being a victim of violent crime a win in their cases? What about the person doing the violent crime, does karma not apply to them? How come they get away scott free? There is also plenty of evidence to show that a violent and brutal prison regime leads to more crime not less.

^^^ simple, don't do any crime , don't go to prison. A non violent crime can still ruin peoples lives.

Only place this falls down is the poor folk who get sentenced when they're innocent.

Like I said earlier it's a really difficult subject, no rights or wrongs as there are so many different perspectives to look at from different peoples views.

mmj_uk · 21 Sep 2013 at 16:35

To get people back working, national GDP is all that really matters this day and age. Sentences are just a deterrent for in the future.