Should prison be abolished?

Maybe prison should be replaced by community service, agreed upon restitution to the victims, house arrest and/or forced entry into psychiatric institutions that don't segregate criminals from the general population. This would still involve coercion but the focus would be on deterrence and rehabilitation, not punishment. I don't think there's any evidence that prison does a good job in relieving violent or anti-social impulses. I don't know about the U.S but in the U.K and Canada, some prisons have recidivism rates as high as 70-100% (it's especially high for young offenders).

Prisons have three times more mentally ill persons than psychiatric hospitals do and the prison experience only exacerbates mental health problems (including post traumatic stress disorder due to living in such a chaotic, crowded environment). On a scale of 1-30, the general population scores an average of 5 for psychopathy, male prisoners score an average of 22 and female prisoners score an average of 19. Psychopathy is a MEDICAL condition (psychopathy is characterized by impulsivity, cortical under-arousal and fearlessness which leads to high risk taking and the inability to internalize social norms, 'sociopaths' are temperamentally normal). Poor people and people of color are disproportionally represented in the prison population which refutes the idea that a decision to behave criminally exists in a vacuum, is entirely independent of social and economic circumstances and is purely a matter of choice, even if you do take the idea of 'free will' seriously.

I posted this on another site. What do you think?

Good luck with that thinking. There are some very nasty people out there who think in ways you cant imagine. Hence prisons or worse. If no prisons why have police? The streets would certainly look differently within a week.

Definitely should not be abolished, but those non-violent offenders being locked up with the violent ones and doing more time than a proven murderer......that needs to cease.

Nope. I don't think they should be abolished. There are some people I would NOT want out on the streets. Two kids kidnapped and tortured a girl in a near-by community about a year ago. They were 16 and 17. Psychologists have said that the 16 year old is a sociopath with an extremely likelihood of re-offending and with no chance of rehabilitation. They murdered the girl not to cove their crimes but to act out a sexual fantasy. They then proceeded to continue raping her after they'd murdered her, before finally setting her on fire and dumping the body. Recommendations are that neither boy should be let out of prison for at least 30-35 years. They said the 16 year old is a sexual sadist but were unable to make a determination about the 17 year old as all he did was lie to the psychologists. Neither boy has shown any real remorse, just fake remorse to try and get a lesser sentence.

I think with minor offenders, restitution is a great way to go but there are plenty of criminals out there who belong behind bars, away from the public, esp. repeat offenders.

Yeah, I can go along with non-incarceration just so far. At some point the crime crosses a line and the criminal needs to be removed from society.

I honestly believe that 95% of people in US prisons are people that I think would be better off at home working and supporting their families, in a mental hospital, or in drug treatment.

The small percentage that are child molesters, rapists, and murderers need to be kept away from society at large though.

I believe that our prison system is completely screwed up. Prisons should not be a for profit industry and giant corporations should not be allowed to hire prisoners for pennies an hour. Not because I feel sorry for the prisoners doing the work, but because I don't believe that our government needs any more motivation for putting people in prison. I read that the three strikes laws have been lobbied for by large corporations that profit from prison labor. There shouldn't be outside demand for imprisoning people in a free society, imo.

No, prison should no be abolished-- it should be reformed.

The US prison system is said to be the third largest industry in the country. They will lock people up failing to yield before they abolish it.

For non-violent offenders and people who aren't embezzlers to the tune of more zeros than the cast of a reality TV show, I think they'd be better off in other places, like people have said, in rehabilitation centers, drug treatment, mental hospitals, halfway homes, house arrest, you name it.

The violent ones, the murderers and rapists, I say put in an express lane for execution for a lot of them, THE worst of the worst, THE ones that you know are NEVER going to be fit to be in society, THE ones you know nobody will ever be safe around. People go on about the death penalty isn't humane, I really can't see how keeping them in a cage for life can really be considered all that more humane than putting them out of their misery.

So, if you relocate the non-violent ones to appropriate places and execute all the Ted Bundys and Charles Mansons and Jeffrey Dahmers and Loebs and Leopolds of the world, the prison population would go down immensely and probably be affordable for the suitable programs and rehabiltation treatments the remaining prisoners need.

Unless you propose we kill all convicted felons who commit a crime above a certain level, I don't think there's a reasonable argument to abolish prisons.

Prisons are over run with people who committed a first offense by accident or out of intense fear. They feel true remorse for their actions and if given a chance will never do it again. Most of the reading I've done shows the truly hardened criminal is after they exit prison or they are already insane (meaning mass killers, continual rapists etc.) Insane people are simply that even if they are criminally insane. Doing harm to another person for no reason or pleasure falls into this category. Doing harm out of fear or environment is not great, but not insane. People in this later category should be put in a living situation and allowed to work to pay reparations for damages done. Community service and other methods. A large percentage of their pay check is taken for a set number of years equal to the debt owed. Repeat offenders need counseling and possibly examination of psychosis. Psychotic individuals should be stripped of all public protection and forced to live outside civilized areas (banished) (Deserts and other places where civilian populace does not want to live).

Absolutely not. There needs to be some serious reform but there are just some people community service can't fix & society needs to be protected from them.

In the USA anyway, start with abolishing the "war on drugs".

In many states there is a move to privatization of jails and prisons.
Instead of being run by the Government, they will be run by private
corporations for profit.

The labor of the prisoner belongs to the State, but when the State
transfers their interest to a private corporation, the labor of the
prisoner belongs to the corporation. A corporation will run the lives
of prisoners, and decide how they shall labor and what they shall labor
at. See any chance for profit here?

Under the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, slavery is not illegal. Slavery is illegal unless it is for conviction for a crime. In that case, slavery is perfectly legal.

The actual text of the Thirteenth Amendment (with some emphasis added) is as follows:


Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

(read entire essay at this link: http://home.earthlink.net/~ynot/slave2.html )

Screen shot from google finance (10 year linear):



814.17% since 2001. Nice return, eh?