We have to leave aside two unanswered statements in your comment: how many people in prison actually deserve to be there, and how many of their rights prisoners surrender by being convicted of a crime. I'd argue that one's human rights don't ever get revoked, but that's just me.
What is the purpose of prison? I'd argue that it's a dual purpose: punishment and rehabilitation.
Being away from everyone you've ever loved or known is a terrible punishment. Once you walk out of a prison years after you went in the world will have changed out from under you. Your babies are grown and won't know you. Your parents might have died. Your friends' lives have moved on without you. The rhythms of daily life are now foreign to you. The particulars of any specific penitentiary system might make this easier (visitation, parole, etc.), but this is pretty horrible.
Why does someone commit a crime? Unless they are mentally unbalanced (which, in the US, is served by separate processes... e.g. pleading insanity), they have behaviors that are unacceptable outside of a set of social norms. Giving someone the opportunity to learn what society expects of them should be part of being in prison. Isn't education a great way to figure that out? Why should we be against someone trying to turn their life around after making some terrible choice? (Again, leaving aside questions of over-eager judicial systems e.g. the US' war on drugs)
I would say in regards to rehabilitation that we teach them exactly what they need to know about society in order to cope with coming back in, I do agree that if someone spent that long without freedom, and they served their time, then they should be free when they get out, with all rights given back.
I get that it's a terrible punishment to, sometimes worse then death for people that enjoy their freedom, I would argue that we continue to evolve what is the "correct" length of time for people to be in prison for one. And yeah we shouldn't be against someone turning their life around, but not to the extent that we waste resources on people getting a second chance, when there's a plethora of people still waiting for their first chance.
Jury nullification: Discrimination in some form or another plays such a large role in who goes to prison that we actually have a term in th U.S. for the process of trying to combat it with what amounts to legal civil disobedience.
When a regime falls: I have heard it said that when a regime falls, the first thing that gets done is to release all the prisoners. Why? Because being in prison isn't about being a bad person. It is about violating the rules.
I knew a man for a time who went to prison in his youth for his political activism. He was extremely idealistic. Like me, he was prone to being too honest for his own good. He was very clear that laws are written by humans and there is nothing inherently moral about them. They are, at best, only as wise and moral as the authors. Unfortunately, in most cases they are less wise and moral than that since getting passed at all may involve politicking and compromise. And in many case they are writen with no intent to be "fair" (such as Jim Crow laws).
Best of luck in coming to some meaningful, informed conclusions.
That a small minority of prisoners
"...and pounce on another's freedom to pursue happiness and such."
Although that may or may not catch many more in your definition.
I suppose in my mind we need to do it in an order like this, first change who is getting arrested, then decide if those people deserve minimum wage, etc.
As a woman, here is one example I am painfully aware of: A woman who defends herself with lethal force against a husband who has beaten her for years does more time on average than an abusive husband who finally goes too far and beats his wife to death. I can explain some of the reasons why that happens if you care to hear it. But the reasons do not change the fact that injustices happen daily in our legal system and many of our laws foster those injustices, to say nothing of the biases of judges and juries.
Peace.
Also, I would appreciate it a lot of you did go into details about the wife versus husband abuse. Seems to me that the only answer to that is sexism though. For many years it's been held in certain groups that women being the child bearing gender and men being the "bread winners" meant that men were somehow above women. In many area's of the world it's much worse then others but regardless you see that everywhere. It would seem to go without saying that that's wrong, but I'm speaking as a man who respects people equally, and leaves it to each individual to prove to me their merit. A whole ton of people think that their race is best, and that their gender is best, for reasons they all think are good. It makes me wonder how we might be able to change this, I feel it starts with leading by example.
The details:
You do more time if it is premeditated vs. a crime of passion. You do more time if you used a weapon vs. your bare hands. Most of the time, an abusive husband who kills his wife beats her to death with his bare hands. Most of the time, a woman who finally kills her husband to protect herself had to plan it and used a weapon to accomolish it. Men frequently have a size advantage and are also more likely to have served in the military, taken martial arts or otherwise be better prepared to do physical harm than a woman. The law currently does a poor job of accounting for such differences.
That is without getting into what happens if the judge or one of the lawyers is a wife beater. Edit: That is also without getting into other relevant factors, which don't get properly considered under the current system.
Peace.
That said...
If you premeditate kill someone then you did NOT do it to protect yourself from harm. At that moment you can and should leave and get help from whoever can help you. Restraining orders to start off with, and carry a weapon around for self defense, entirely different then premeditated murder.
That all said the current system is without a doubt messed up, our high crime rate is proof of that. What's scarier is how much crime goes un-caught.
I am not some man hating bitch. I'm quite fond of men. And I don't know how to fix this particular problem with the justice system. All I am saying is that doing time is not the ultimate proof that someone is depraved. It is more complicated than that.
Peace and carry on. I am not interested in being nailed to the wall with ugly insinuations and it looks to me like that is where this is going/has already gone to some degree.
I think we think we aren't agreeing, when in reality we agree much more then we realize, but I digress. Someone having been to prison doesn't mean they are depraved, BUT and this is a part I agree is complicated, we as a society need to be sending only the truly depraved to prison. Otherwise it's not about keeping the rest of us safe, it's about something like money, or some such.
Please accept my dearest apology, I don't mean to say that I'm sorry you were offended though, but to say that I'm sorry I said something offensive.
Fwiw: I think a better answer lies in providing more support for children and families. I typically focus more on providing parenting advice to people with really challenging children in hope of preventing the types of problems that lead to criminal charges rather than addressing what to do after everything has gone wrong. However I am currently homeless, which has me spending more time around very poor people, many of whom have done time. And this crowd references prison differently than the middle and upper middle class people I typically have been surrounded by.
Anyway, time to go eat. Have a great day.
When someone goes to prison it's generally for a good reason, after the jury and trial and all that, it's safe to say then that these people forfeit their rights. That's what happens when you go against the rules of a society you belong to. I think everyone can agree with that. The trick is balance, sure it's not fair to blanket treat inmates all the same, however they cost us money to not just capitol-punishment the lot of them (a bad idea for moral reasons.) So they need to pay off their debt. But to go as far as to say they should be treated as if being away from everyone is their only punishment and that's already bad enough is a bit naive. Many people in prison did really bad things, like rape and murder, try telling the victims family in those cases that the inmate that killed their kid gets to get an education, a job, some savings for his release, cable TV, food, etc, etc. Tell them that and see what reaction you get.
To be completely fair they did bad things, we need to keep that in mind, also the cheap labor could be used to help society. Cheap furniture/clothing/household items, etc for low income families comes to mind.
I think the real solution is to be transparent about how much things cost, and we need to keep in mind that we can't allow for slave labor of prisoners just for those profits to go into CEO's pockets. If we are to do that then it needs to go to the potential rehabilitation of the inmate, and in dropping the costs so lower income people can save money on essentials that are made by inmates hands.
PS: This is definitely one of the most thought provoking articles relating to inmates I've read in a long time.