The ultimate goal of prison is to reintegrate people in the society. It fails at the moment miserably also because people consider the prison as a way to prevent people to come back to the society.

Your comment and the one to whom you respond show these two points of view. It is interesting that at the moment in the US you have more a "keep the criminals away from the society" point of view and in Europe "try to reintegrate them".

> The ultimate goal of prison is to reintegrate people in the society.

I don't understand that. If we're worried about criminals' integration with society then we shouldn't put them in prison. Prisons exist to separate people from society.

In America this is true. Prisons exist to punish criminals and to protect society from them. In more civilised countries, this is not the case. Prisons' ultimate goal is to rehabilitate the prisoners to the point where they can be reintegrated into society. Instead of focusing on making life unpleasant and treating people like animals, they have more of a focus on educating them and treating them so that they do not commit crimes again.

No, the ultimate goal of prison is to prevent crime.

Both by deterring would-be criminals, and by keeping future lawbreakers behind bars where they can't do harm.

the point is that the "european" view is that you prevent crime by trying to help people who committed a crime rather than by punishing them.

Too harsh a punishment often only succeeds in putting someone in a position where they are even more likely to break the law.

E.g. you catch someone for smoking pot, and they get civil service and have to visit social support/psychologist/whatever. This might not do any good but it might do some.

If you send them to jail for 5 years, they it's basically guaranteed that they will get out being in a much worse position than they were before, and more likely do commit crimes.

You left out perhaps the most important part: "...in the most cost-effective way possible," where cost includes repeat offenses, taxpayer money, the opportunity cost of lost productivity, destroyed families (multi-generational effects), etc.

I think this is an important point. These costs are amongst the many things a judge should (does?) weigh up in sentencing. If she gets it wrong a sentence may be reviewed (made more harsh or lenient as appropriate) on appeal. However when sentencing is politicised, such as with mandatory sentences the judge's "judgement" is taken out of the equation. It may be appropriate to give a guy life for stealing batteries when a bigger picture is taken into account but that should be for the professionals (i.e the judiciary) to decide rather than politicians looking to buzz frightened people into voting for them.

This can't be the correct way of thinking of the prison system. A person should not be sent to prison for the sole purpose of suffering for the crime which they committed. There is a reason people call a prison a correctional facility. The point is to correct the problems in their character that caused them to commit such a crime. If you isolate them from the world it's no wonder they would eventually commit a crime again. Because they have no idea how to fit into society. And then we just have another person to take care of while they don't do anything to contribute to society.

This is where I find the Norwegian prison system interesting. It seems their prisons are just pretty remote "villages" more like monasteries where the prisoners work together. ASFAIK they are much more successful in rehabilitating people back into society than countries with more traditional prisons.

Exactly, the tv show Oz by Tom Fontana covers the subject entirely. When Tim McManus tries to build a micro-society to prepare convicted fellows to live in a real society, it shows how it's very hard and that many disciplines such as psychology, sociology, philosophy... are very much needed.

By this logic, I can just murder anyone I like, and then demonstrate that I won't do it again.

After that, no reason to keep me in prison any more right? It's not like the dead person or their family count for anything - it's all about me and the government's budget. Yeah?

Serious question: what the fuck is wrong with you? This Puritan "let's murder and torture people for their sins" approach is not working. Criminals are humans.

Yes, it's not about the dead person. They're dead.

It's also not about the family of the dead person. They've already been harmed.

It's not about you, it's about preventing future crimes. If you've been turned into a productive member of society, great -- everyone's off better now. If you haven't, the system has failed society (not just you).

Heck, there's a good chance prison isn't even the best solution for you personally. Most likely you need actual counselling or you're facing social problems. Containment is the last resort.

You don't fix bugs by hiding them -- you fix them by figuring out why they happened in the first place and determining how to decrease the likelihood of them happening again.

EDIT: In response to the killed throwaway: if you kill someone "in the heat of the moment" and it's not self-defence or anything else we consider acceptable, of course there's still a problem in need of fixing: self control. If you kill a man because he sleeps with your wife, no matter how betrayed you might feel, it's still a problem with how you act on those feelings. But this is only visible if you stop thinking "what is an appropriate punishment" and start thinking "why did this happen" and "what could have prevented it".

If I could recommend an interesting film to watch, go see Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next. You don't have to watch the whole thing, but try to find the part where they talk about the Norwegian prison system. And then look for the part where a father who lost his son during a massacre of about 60 children explains his thoughts. It's absolutely heartbreaking to watch. He explains that he doesn't want the criminal to suffer and rot in prison. Instead, he want's the rehabilitation center to help the man so that he can ultimately become a benefit to society. I can't even begin to understand how difficult it would be to say that after such a loss, but I think he was correct in doing so.

My belief is that the society failed to correctly educate the man who eventually became a criminal. I don't think people are born with such desires.

Brevik attacked an event held by the youth movement of a far left political party in Norway so the father (who I assume is also far left) reacting/coping that way is unsurprising.

That's not something to lionize though. Pretty sad all around. There's no great wisdom there, just a leftist coping method employed by the father, similar to what a religious person would do.

The youth movement in question cannot really be considered far-left, except maybe by American standards. They're the youth wing of the establishment party in Norway, namely the Labour Party. We do have proper far-left parties, though.

Besides, I don't think you need to be particularly leftist or religious to cope this way. These ideas of forgiveness and rehabilitation permeate Norwegian (even Nordic) society, and are mostly secular these days. In fact, quite a few Norwegians will tell you that they consider harsh punishments «gamaltestamentleg», i.e. only fit for reactionaries who look to the Old Testament for prescriptions on how to handle things.

Good point, although I didn't mean to lionize the father.

I don't think it matters if the father was left, right or center. Whatever the basis, he made a decision that will ultimately benefit society (which is the main goal, right?). Whatever the political stance, we are a society. Meaning the basic idea, which is that everyone contributes so that the whole benefits, should be of utmost importance.

So jail them for life because -- you know -- they could maybe do something illegal?

What reasoning is this?

Why not have a only "for the rest of your life" punishments? You know, a thug being a thug, probably born like it. Won't ever change those people. Better lock them up, put them away. /s

Well, in most legal systems having a prior will very likely increase the sentence.