Prison serves many purposes other than punishment - one of which is rehabilitation. Making someone's life miserable for several years, purely to punish them, does nothing in the long-run - hence why re-offending rates can be so high.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-pri...
It's easy for those outside America to put the United States Criminal Justice System in a vacuum -- it's happening all over this thread and it's honestly ridiculous -- and try to explain to Americans that strategy A doesn't work because recidivism B, and country C actually tries strategy D so America should implement strategy E, but the fact is that the American justice system reflects a lot of other problems in the United States that need to be addressed. Key among those is a significantly substandard education compared to other parts of the world, especially the oft-cited Scandinavian countries for the purposes of this discussion.
It is my personal experience that rehabilitation in an incarceration setting only works in the majority if the criminal has some kind of education and desire for a better life. Those citing Norway's prisons, have you ever considered that education is better in Norway and most folks don't break bad by default? Norway has the 7th best education in the world. The United States is much further down the list.
Even in minimum, the majority of the people I was in with did not especially mind being there nor look at it as a serious event. "Oh, I got arrested for check fraud again, can't wait to get out and go back to selling meth, much less risky income." To most people I talked to, it was an inconvenience and mild disruption from their life of crime. The hardest of the hard criminals want to be in prison because they can actually have power in several systems run from prison, including an entire infrastructure of gangs.
To be quite honest, I think pointing at American prisons and saying "your job is to rehabilitate" is a nice, ivory tower sort of feel-good explainer for sending people to prison, but the fact is going to prison in the United States is a complete life-ender for "doing good" in almost every case. My felony just fell off my record and even in this industry, I was nearly unemployable -- my conviction wasn't even computer-related, but most people pull a report and see "felony" and discard the entire candidate. Prison is only a portion of the consequences for committing a crime.
Regardless of how you might feel criminal justice should happen, right now in the United States the policy is one of deterrence. Your life is pretty great until you pick up a felony, then you'll spend the rest of your life trying to undo the damage. And, to be honest, I can understand the logic there: your government has an implicit contract with you that the liberties offered and protected by the United States are yours as long as you don't do any of these hundreds of crimes, and once you do, the contract is void. I can understand the thinking that brought us there. I also don't think the failure thereof is necessarily the fault of the system, as criminal rehabilitation absolutely cannot exist in a vacuum of policy. Life isn't SimCity. You can't tweak a "prison life quality" slider and magically fix recidivism. There are other external inputs into that equation and any discussion thereof must include the whole picture.
Your tone, knowledge of the subject, and general skill at writing imply you're quite intelligent, so what did you do to get a felony conviction?
"Säkerhetsklass 1" would be a maximum security prison, class 3 is the lowest class and those don't even have walls meaning that a class 2 would essentially be a "vanilla" prison.[1]
[1]:http://www.kriminalvarden.se/fangelse-frivard-och-hakte/fang...
[2]:http://www.kriminalvarden.se/hitta-och-kontakta/verksamhet/a...
Very interesting show!
As a society it is of paramount importance how we define these three components and the fact that we adhere to those definitions. If it has to suck, it has to be defined apriori to what extent it sucks.
You can, of course, view any number of metrics to identify how well this is "working".
If somebody is locked in a cell, then they will be physically unable to rob the local liquor store. How well or poorly they are treated is irrelevant in that regard.
People should know a-priori the consequences of their actions. Otherwise it is very likely that there is will be manny shitty prisons and some VIP cool prisons.
Only if you allow for a highly variable definition of 'murder', at which point there isn't much value in comparison.
> If anything the law protects the murderer - without it, retaliation would be far more appealing.
...which contradicts what you just said.
Is treating someone inhumanely for years going to make them actually behave like humans when they are released? Is it actually better for society to do it? America has some extreme examples of bad conditions.
Obviously, this seems to go along with the assumption that the only thing stopping committing crimes is there fear of getting caught. I think that's probably much more true for hacking a bank for a million dollars than murder (which most people aren't just itching to get away with).
The rehabilitation assumption goes along with the idea that if person improves, if they are uplifted, they won't commit crimes. The punishment assumption goes with the idea that everyone is a criminal and the question is who can get away with it. And the "everyone is a criminal" assumption certainly makes with those presently at the top of society making out like bandits (aside from having made laws which make their actions legal).
So, perhaps what you say is true at the moment. But it's truth involves us being diminished.
Taking it to the absurd level, A. Breivik, a Norwegian killer of 77 people (mostly children), demanding better video games "to end his torture": http://www.euronews.com/2014/02/14/far-right-terrorist-breiv... and here's how his prison looks like: http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083_21...
I guess that only proves a point that crime prevention is not about the severity of the punishment, but the well being and education.
The forest is big and scary and honestly a bit abstract. I've heard about it from childhood; I don't know where it begins and where it ends. I'm supposed to stay away from it, so I do; it serves a useful function, or so I hear.
But a single tree I can see at once. I can walk up to it, look at exactly how tall it is, imagine getting trapped under it, fear just how dark its shade is.... and then I can understand just how dangerous the forest is, in a way that my parents could never convey to me from the safety of my home.
You've been lost in the forest, so this isn't new to you. But for me, appreciating the enormity of a single tree is one of the few ways I can actually begin to comprehend the terror of the forest.
Agree. It seemed obvious to me, an outside observer, that he was being disproportionately sentenced. Someone, whether influenced by the RIAA/MPAA cabal or not, decided that he should be made an example.
wouldn't serve its role, which is to deter crime
1. To remove a troublesome individual from society. 2. To rehabilitate an individual. 3. To disincentivize crime (as you say).
In our society they are often talked of as having a further role to "punish" an individual. I guess this may actually effect policy, which I guess is effectively revenge. This doesn't seem like a useful notion however.
I'm not sure that prisons being nicer would really make me consider crime as a more viable option. It sounds pretty bad even if I don't consider the culinary options.
I also like that you get on your soap box about being detained as if that justifies your shitty opinion.
Having been through the system as well, I am amazed that you'd come to that conclusion after experiencing it first hand.
How can you visit a place where rights and common sense don't matter and then turn around and justify how it operates?
How long were you detained? For what crime?
Hint: My opinion is elsewhere in the thread.
The fact that he went to high security holding and didn't have access to his normal diet are entirely related as part of the oppressive nature of prison that goes beyond just removing someone from society for a period of time.
The other half of his complaints are about boredom, which is equally non-exceptionnal in prison. And he's been there only 5 months, that's very moderate for someone who's been a fugitive.
So no, the 'point of prison' isn't 'to suck'. That's an overly simplistic view of the issue.
The entire point of prison is to suck, otherwise it wouldn't serve its role, which is to deter crime. Louis CK has a bit about this in one of his recent specials:
Debating the prison's respect for Sunde's vegan wishes misses the forest for the trees. Honestly, if that's your biggest concern from reading this article, you have really messed up priorities. How about the fact that he went to maximum at all?Anyway, just an oddly off-topic thread here, thought I'd point it out. It's even more fun because I've been detained, so reading some of the arguments makes it clear that I'm one of the only people with that experience here. Prison's not something you can just try, to see what it's like, so unless you've been there it's usually wise to assume the worst things are true rather than being optimistic about rights and common sense. If one thing is true about detention, it's that rights and common sense don't matter at all when the door's closed and nobody's looking.
Also, welcome back, Peter.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQUr2RkjykU