Prisons? Should long term prisons exist?

[knoppixusr 0]

From my point of view, keeping a human being incarcerated as punishment is counter productive both for society and for the offender.If we take a look at today's prisons, they are built and maintained with tax payers money. This is an unacceptable waste of time and resources.On top of that, there is also very little control of justice in prison. For instance a thief that ends up in prison, might get beaten and raped for several years whilst in prison, whereas if he had immediate swift justice, for example have his finger chopped off, he would be able to go on with his life immediately and will always be reminded not to steal and everyone else to not trust him. I do believe we need justice , but our current justice systems are cruel and does not even rehabilitate any significant percentage of offenders.All society is doing is sweeping the dirt under the carpet, and thus the phrase "out of site and out of mind" comes to light.Justice should be swift and immediate. No punishment should last several years of a persons life.For serious crimes, Murder, Rape, incest... There should be a trail and execution, The rape victim should also have the power to reduce this punishment to lashings if they wanted.For less serious crimes, theft, robbery... Chop a finger or even a hand off.For other minor laws such as speeding etc... There should be financial fines, if that fails, a public lashing.No more need for expensive long term prisons.Justice will be swift and everyone can go on with their lives. There will be less crime, as the public will fear the swift harsh law. Rehabilitation will happen not only because offenders wouldn't want to steal after losing a couple of fingers or even a hand. But rather rehabilitation will be allowed to take place, because a person will then have a second chance. Unless they committed murder. In which case they don't deserve a second chance as the victim didn't' have a second chance to live again.What are your views and feelings on this ?

Edited January 14, 2010 by knoppixusr (see edit history)

[shadowx 0]

I strongly disagree.Imagine the situation. In a court room you are played a video of a man in a hood with hands in his pockets walking down a street at night in a known trouble spot. He looks shifty, nervous, checking over his shoulders, looking around etc... he walks out of shot. Minutes later the same camera picks up the same man identified by clothing etc... carrying a large knife or gun or other weapon running back, in the opposite direction.It turns out that later on a man was found with injuries consistent with a fist fight and claims to be the victim of a mugging.The accused stands in the doc waiting for your verdict. Is he guilty or not? If he is guilty what should his punishment be? After all, he confronted a man with a weapon and demanded money or belongings and then savagely beat him up. Lashings? Amputation? Well, this man is innocent. HE is the victim. He looked shifty and nervous because he was scared of being alone at night. The man who was beaten was in fact the criminal who had the weapon and tried to mug our shifty man. It went wrong and our shifty man beat him into submission, stole the weapon and promptly sought out the police. Before he could find the police the true criminal invented the crime and called the emergency number. You would have condemned an innocent man to a life of misery and lt the true offender walk free. There is no way to re-attach a finger, or hand in this situation, however you CAN pardon him from jail.Recently in the UK a man was cleared of the murder of Jill Dando, under your plan that man is dead. Cold and dead. His children grew up not knowing a loving home, their mother turned to drugs, prostitution and suffered from extreme depression and guilt. These children face a life of misery, poverty illness and likely crime. Because of *you*. However, as has happened this man was released from jail. I do not know if he has a family, if he does atleast they can try to make up for those lost years and his children can hug him and tell him how much he means to them. Under your plans this man is in a box, in the ground. Who is the real criminal here?Just a thought....

[knoppixusr 0]

I strongly disagree.
Imagine the situation. In a court room you are played a video of a man in a hood with hands in his pockets walking down a street at night in a known trouble spot. He looks shifty, nervous, checking over his shoulders, looking around etc... he walks out of shot.

Minutes later the same camera picks up the same man identified by clothing etc... carrying a large knife or gun or other weapon running back, in the opposite direction.

It turns out that later on a man was found with injuries consistent with a fist fight and claims to be the victim of a mugging.

The accused stands in the doc waiting for your verdict. Is he guilty or not? If he is guilty what should his punishment be? After all, he confronted a man with a weapon and demanded money or belongings and then savagely beat him up. Lashings? Amputation?

Well, this man is innocent. HE is the victim. He looked shifty and nervous because he was scared of being alone at night. The man who was beaten was in fact the criminal who had the weapon and tried to mug our shifty man. It went wrong and our shifty man beat him into submission, stole the weapon and promptly sought out the police. Before he could find the police the true criminal invented the crime and called the emergency number.

You would have condemned an innocent man to a life of misery and lt the true offender walk free. There is no way to re-attach a finger, or hand in this situation, however you CAN pardon him from jail.

Recently in the UK a man was cleared of the murder of Jill Dando, under your plan that man is dead. Cold and dead. His children grew up not knowing a loving home, their mother turned to drugs, prostitution and suffered from extreme depression and guilt. These children face a life of misery, poverty illness and likely crime. Because of *you*.

However, as has happened this man was released from jail. I do not know if he has a family, if he does atleast they can try to make up for those lost years and his children can hug him and tell him how much he means to them. Under your plans this man is in a box, in the ground. Who is the real criminal here?



Just a thought....

Both of your examples are valid. However I believe they are isolated and far less frequent than the amount of men whom have committed suicide due to fear of harsh prisons. and murderers/rapists whom have been released to only commit murder and rape a second or third time. Personally i would rather be executed than to serve time in jail even if i was innocent.

I knew a young man (19) who committed suicide to avoid being arrested by the police. under my suggested law he would have had lashings, or a finger chopped off and been able to go on with his life. But today he is dead because in the current system a person only has to enter prison for a short time and your life is over. Liveing like an abused animal is not a life worth living.

Ever watch prison break ? That part where the young boy hangs himself after being raped in prison. I think In real life that type of situation occurs way more times than when innocent people get convicted. Not to mention HIV , so it is a cruel death sentence in anyway.

[shadowx 0]

Perhaps the prison system is not ideal, however it serves to keep a dangerous animal locked away. I do not say that with hate but simply as a way of equating it. If there was a wild lion killing people it would be much better to take it far away from humans than to put it to death. i agree that there are severe flaws in the system but i cant agree with culling innocent people while the true culprit walks on. You will also see that countries with the death penalty are no more secure than those without. The number of murders are higher, per 1000 population in the US, higher than in the UK and many other countries with the death penalty is in force actually have higher crime rates than those who dont. So it does not act as a deterrent to crime. It does of course stop repeat murder etc.. where it is imposed but i still cannot agree with it. The same applies to amputation and physical punishment. Personally if i were convicted and given lashings i would immediately hate the government and this would in turn spur me on to more crime almost as a way of saying "you cant stop me". Not that i intend on committing such crimes of course.

[eurobeat 0]

fingers and life is consider as one private property of one person if you remove it that makes you a theif. And when it comes to freedom perspective(prison) it let us help prevent them to do bad things..

[knoppixusr 0]

fingers and life is consider as one private property of one person if you remove it that makes you a theif. And when it comes to freedom perspective(prison) it let us help prevent them to do bad things..

What good is a finger if you have no time to put it in ? For example, would you rather have 9 fingers and 60 years or 10 fingers and 50 years. Imagine all of your twenties you can't do anything. locked away in a cell. Instead you could be getting married , having kids, being with real friends and family whom loves you for 10 years. I dont' know about you , but I'd trade a finger for those 10 years any day.

[shadowx 0]

But thats another point of prison. Punishment.I know it may be a bad experience but that just makes you not want to do it all over again. And thats the point.

[kobra500 1]

Prison is meant for two things, the punishment bit is just a side effect of what prison is about and the two things are: Segregation, the person is not fit to stay in society, as they have already proved to everyone that this is the case by committing a crime, when there sentence is over hopefully they will be fit to re-enter the world, but not everyone is, some never will be. The second is rehabilitation which ties in, prison is meant to rehabilitate criminals allowing them to exist in harmony with society not against it which I have already said. Prison offers drug rehabilitation, anger management and other help groups but the person has to want to change, some don't and some can't (socio-paths and psychopaths being key examples). The reason you get time off for good behaviour really is prisoners who behave in theory will behave in the real world, not always the case I know.Prison isn't punishment, although it is, its necessary. But what do you suppose? Think of a system that segregates people and can be done on mass which provides a minimum level of safety for employees that also rehabilitates as best it can despite the large cost. You'll struggle, and people can't just be rehabilitated because you want them to, they have to want it and this is key. The people are the broken ones, not the system.As the saying goes. "You don't want the time don't do the crime" and the other great one "you reap what you sow." yes they could have got married, had kids but they chose not to, they chose to lie, cheat, steal, kill or a mixture there of. Okay it might not be there fault, it could be that they were abused, or in other ways they have been led to think these things are acceptable but for everyone safety they have to be segregated. This is a utilitarian society. The majority outweigh the minority.

Edited January 14, 2010 by kobra500 (see edit history)

[knoppixusr 0]

In 1971 , Phil Zimbardo conducted an experiment to determine the psychological effects prison can have on a person when incarcerated. His experiment was originally intended to run for two weeks but after only six days it got totally our of hand and they called it off.

It is well worth the read on this website Standford Prison Experiment

 

One of the outcomes of this experiment was that they concluded that the prisoners in their prison was exposed to severe dehumanization. Thus the complete opposite of rehabilitation was taking place. In later years Phil wrote a book called "The Lucifer Effect" in which he explains how good people turn evil.

 

Here is a short quote from his website.

Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a cortical cataract that clouds one's thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and even annihilation.	Source lucifereffect.com/dehumanization.htm

 

Both of these are horrible but which one is more humane? Dehumanization for a long period of time or immediate mutilation?

Some people seem to think one breeds way more hate than the other.

 

I would love to hear the opinion of someone whom has lived in a country where immediate punishment is in effect. Such as lashings , severing of hands etc. I think somewhere in Asia there is public lashings I saw a video of one of those fairly recently.

[deadmad7 4]

Another interesting topic on the same string of prisons is the ultimate debate: Should there be death penalty or not?

 

This week, eleven Vietnamese were sentenced to death by firing squad for drug trafficking. In Japan, Yasuo Hayashi, received the same punishment for his part in the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. In 1999 at least 1,813 prisoners were executed in 31 countries and 3,857 people were sentenced to death in 64 countries. The true figures may be higher still. Nearly 85% of the known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the USA.

But a major study of capital punishment recently suggested that more than two-thirds of convictions in the US are so flawed that they are overturned on appeal.

In the UK the criminals get a much better deal than their victims do. A group of thugs who decide to kick somebody half to death can consider themselves "really unlucky" to get caught, "very surprised" that it gets to trial and "dumbfounded" if they are actually convicted. Perhaps we should give the criminals taxpayers money to try and persuade them not to commit crimes and give them luxury cars and houses to make them happier. All my life I have thought that certain crimes should carry the death sentence. However in the UK we have policemen that have knowingly withheld evidence, which had it been divulged to the Court would clearly cause the release of the alleged offender. In failing to give such evidence to the Courts, many innocent men have been convicted. Clearly it would be outrageous for the death penalty to be enforced in this country.

 

What do you think of the punishment system in your country? Is the death penalty an inhumane and cruel punishment or do you think it is a necessary crime deterrent? Are the risks of executing the innocent too great or do you have confidence in the capital punishment system?

[knoppixusr 0]

Another interesting topic on the same string of prisons is the ultimate debate: Should there be death penalty or not?

 

In the UK the criminals get a much better deal than their victims do. A group of thugs who decide to kick somebody half to death can consider themselves "really unlucky" to get caught, "very surprised" that it gets to trial and "dumbfounded" if they are actually convicted. Perhaps we should give the criminals taxpayers money to try and persuade them not to commit crimes and give them luxury cars and houses to make them happier. All my life I have thought that certain crimes should carry the death sentence. However in the UK we have policemen that have knowingly withheld evidence, which had it been divulged to the Court would clearly cause the release of the alleged offender. In failing to give such evidence to the Courts, many innocent men have been convicted. Clearly it would be outrageous for the death penalty to be enforced in this country.

Firstly, before i go on the rampage, thank you for the reply deadmad7 :-)

 

I would be be outraged knowing that my tax money is paying to keep someone alive who deserves to be dead, as dead as his or her victim. Instead my money could be spent to find an cures for life threating diseases such as cancer, hiv or even feeding the hungry who live in poverty.

 

What do you think of the punishment system in your country?

I think the punishment system in my country is weak and useless, because criminals take a person's life for as little as a cellphone or a few bucks in your wallet. There is really no fear for the law nor any respect for human life. 20 years for a murder in jail is considered a long sentence in my country. In fact we have a ongoing joke that goes like this. If the tv licence inspector comes around to your house to fine you, you should murder him because the bail would only be 500 , whereas the fine for the license would be a 1000.

 

Is the death penalty an inhumane and cruel punishment or do you think it is a necessary crime deterrent?

Part of being human is that one day all humans do die. So death is not inhumane but rather a natural thing that happens to everyone. It's somewhat hypocritical to hear how western country's are all "pro life" or abortion and go about killing thousands of pre born baby's for no good reason but would be against executing a murder. Somewhat screwy and perverted morals here eh?

In the end, if you can kill someone in self defense and be ok with it. It is basically the same thing you are defending society against a murderer.

 

Are the risks of executing the innocent too great or do you have confidence in the capital punishment system?

The problem is we will always have innocent people being put on trail. On the one extreme we'll have an innocent person be executed and on the other side we will have a murderer commit other murder because we didn't execute him. At the end of the day innocent people will die in anyway. Keeping that in mind, why should we allow a murderer the chance to commit murder again? Remember innocent people die either way.

[Ash-Bash 0]

Prison's now adays seem to be holiday homes. A while ago someone tried breaking into one to live. Most Prisions now have decent TV's, They have xbox's,PS3's you name it, it seems to be a fun house.The best prisions full of fun are in the UK. It seems the one in USA and abroad seem to be a lot more stricter.

[-Sky- 0]

Wow. PRISON do NOT have Xbox 360's, PS3s PCs etc. It's a Prison, not a fun house. Most of the time your either put in the yard, in your cells or on lockdown (cells). They don't have Consoles to play with...

[Tremayne 0]

Prison should exist for people who are killing and raping people and then short term for just hurting people, but other than that i think that people should be allowed to do whatever they want in terms of if they want to smoke marijuana or something because think about how much tax money is going into people arrested in long term prison for crimes that don't really affect other people. But anyways i do think that long term prisons should exist because if we didn't have prison we wouldn't necessarily feel safe, and this would cause more people to want to carry guns and then when everyone has a gun and they're all paranoid because there isn't any prison so accidents would be more likely to occur.