Re:Why America's prisons are an unconstitutional moral horro...
by ryandrake on Monday April 05, 2021 @09:29PM
(#26706988)
> And there's basically no support once you're out, which just leads to criminals going back to what they were doing before going in because they don't have any other options.
It’s even worse than that. If you weren’t a hardened criminal when you go in, chances are, you will have all the skills to be one when you get out. It’s like vocational training for your only option of criminality when you get out.
Someone who goes to prison for cheating on their taxes or having a baggie of coke comes out with the same scarlet letter of unemployability as someone who goes in for murder.
Prison is literally a factory that creates future crime.
How would it have worked? Prison isn't about reform in this country, it's about punishment. And there's basically no support once you're out, which just leads to criminals going back to what they were doing before going in because they don't have any other options.
For starters, how about a government infrastructure program that offers former convicts a reliable source of income? Society benefits from both their labor and in theory the fact they aren't committing crimes to feed themselves.