What do you think about it?



I'm for it but I'm not in the mood to go into detail why. The only real argument for the prison system, I think, is a utilitarian one that fails to take seriously the interests of the prisoners themselves and the humiliation and degradation they have to endure. Prison is modern day slavery and if we could do so without injuring anyone, we would be morally justified in bombing/blowing up every prison in the world. All the money spent on prisons and militaries could be spent on hospitals and schools instead.



http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/instead_of_prisons/



-Instead of Prisons : A Handbook for Abolitionists

can you try and not post a new thread in the heap everyday?



it's exhausting.

Trust me, the people in prison are not all innocent victims who have been wronged by the system and would be glad to better themselves if only society didn't didn't insist on keeping them locked up in modern day concentration camps. There are reasons for locking these people up: as a punishment, as a method of correction and to protect ordinary people from them. No, it isn't ideal, but few things are and I've yet to see someone propose a decent alternative.




If you're going to express support for an idea like this I think it would be nice if you could at least state your reasons.

Ignore them then!!!



Interesting thread (yet again ) Im not so sure we can drop prisons straight away, society would need to drastically change first.

I do however think that prisons dont work as there really is no rehabilitation. Prisoners are treated like crap and that really wont help any chance of "change".

I think he implied that he will, just not in that post

I eagerly await what african prince has to say.

I think the prison system needs to be changed, but I don't think it is feasible to abolish it completely, unless people stop doing the things that get them put away. Something needs to be done with people who commit crimes, and prison is certainly better than execution and more cost-effective than something like house arrest, which wouldn't even be possible in a lot of situations.

I think people need to not be put in prison for marijuana and petty crimes. More people need to be in prison for white collar crime.



The fact is that poor people crimes are considered more dangerous and criminal than rich people crimes.



I think that there are bad people out there that we need in prison. I'm mostly thinking of child molesters and rapists. They need to go there and just stay there for everyone's safety.



Prison, as it is in the US, is a problem, but I'm not sure what the best method is to fix it besides basically ending the war on drugs, and thus not putting poor Black men in jail.

So you're posting argumentative threads now before you even have a position or have even thought about the subject in any way, shape or form? Uh huh. Get back to when you've done some googling and have some cut and paste opinions, I guess.

Pretty darn inefficient form of slavery, then. We should be turning more of a profit.

They might not be 'innocent' but they are victims and they are being wronged.








Compassion doesn't require that they be willing to better themselves or that they reciprocate the same respect we give them, it only requires that they can suffer.






Punishment is based on the idea that a) we have legitimate authority in 'disciplining' our equals and b) it is more important to give people what they 'deserve' than it is to relieve their suffering.






You cannot correct (do you mean rehabilitate?) someone against their will. Prison does not moralize people, it demoralizes them. It makes little sense to inhibit aggression and anti-social feelings in others by behaving anti-socially and aggressively towards them yourself.








Prisoners are 'ordinary' people and their interests should be given equal consideration as are everyone else's.








Irrespective of whether or not prison deters crime (it does not, if at all, deter crime to the extent that most people think it does), it is still morally inappropriate because it disregards the feelings and interests of the prisoner. Individuals should not be degraded and mistreated to the extent that prisoners are even if doing so has desirable, utilitarian consequences.








"Current scientific opinion on an international basis is that punishment through imprisonment does not reduce crime rates and, in some instances, even worsens crime rates."



http://www.cis.org.au/policy/winter03/polwin03-9.pdf



I admit, I haven't read the article but I think the prison system violates the non-aggression principle. It is not self-defense, it's preemptive slavery.






Maybe we can start with a moratorium on any further building of prisons and the release of all non-violent offenders (I would hope, at least, that everyone can agree that drug users/dealers, prostitutes, tax mitigators etc. should not be in prison). We can also work on mending the socio-economic factors involved in a person's likeliness to commit crime.






One good, temporary alternative would be to put prisoners in general psychiatric hospitals not targeted towards 'criminals' alone.

There's a substantial profit already being earned by the private prison industry in the U.S.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html



Corrections Corp., the largest private-prison operator in the U.S., with 64 facilities, has built two prisons this year and expanded nine facilities, and it plans to finish two more in 2009. The Nashville, Tenn., company put 1,680 new prison beds into service in its third quarter, helping boost net income 14% to $37.9 million. "There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future," said Damon Hininger, Corrections Corp.'s president and chief operations officer, in a recent interview.

This is pretty much it. Reduce people's violent and antisocial tendencies, reduce's greed, competition, poverty, hatred, etc., and the talk about abolishing prisons will start to sound like a thought out political position instead of the results of a good acid trip.

African_Prince, I'm curious, what do you think should happen to non-violent criminals whose crimes do have victims (e.g. thieves as opposed to marijuana users)? If someone breaks into my home while I'm out and steals all of my possessions, what should happen to that person? The crime is certainly non-violent if I wasn't home when it happened, but the person still stole from me. What if he or she is caught and my possessions nowhere to be found, and the criminal doesn't have the money to pay me back? What if a judge orders the criminal to perform work to pay off the debt, but the criminal refuses to do any work? Should I be sh*t out of luck?

^ I think AF would not really consider that a crime, per se, maybe because it is based on property.



Another example that I might want to hear an answer to is violent criminals -- how do you think we should treat them? I think that they have broken a social contract, and as such, do not have the same societal privileges as anyone else. They do not treat others as equals, so why should they be given the same freedoms?



I do appreciate the argument for prison abolition, but it strikes me as remarkably naive. Even as a libertarian, you would say, as long as they aren't hurting me, they can do what they like. In the case of violent criminals and thievery of all sorts, but especially violence, they are wronging someone else, and that cannot be allowed. Perhaps prison does not alleviate crime, but it does punish. People should be punished when they wrong others.



As a society, we have somewhat agreed on a moral code, as exemplified in law. And when someone breaks the law, they break the moral code of society. As such, we have the right to punish them.

If we're going to argue for punishment irrespective of any consequentialist justification, then how do we determine the appropriate punishment*, and is anything else than death the appropriate punishment for someone causing multiple deaths?



I personally give no value to "the moral code of society". That moral code protects extreme immorality, such as factory farming, and at any rate I don't think moral norms become justified by the number of their supporters. Nor do I believe in any social contract.



*from a purely consequentialist standpoint, a non-arbitrary standard could be generated by balancing the interests of the prisoners (both the guilty and non-guilty) with the benefits of deterrence.

^ fair enough. you have a point.



I just don't think that people who commit crimes should not be punished because, as AF, asserts, people shouldn't have any rights over others. While I do believe that law is historically and socially located, or even relative, I do not think it is meaningless. I do believer that many laws are productive.

But we're not making profit off of the prisoners. That's what we need to turn around.

I agree with you that people having no rights over others is not a great argument against punishment -- for one because the threat of punishment is sometimes, though most certainly not always, used precisely to prevent some people from using power over others.



I think the law as such has no moral dimension, but the existence of laws has a consequentialist justification. I also believe there is no really important moral distinction between laws, on the one hand, and the kind of social rules and norms present even in anarchist groups, on the other. It's all control.

It's late and I don't have the energy to go through the whole thing, but this really struck me:




Give me a single sensible idea on how to do this. There has been crime in all societies since the beginning of time (hunter gatherer bands have the highest murder rates in the world) and there have always been mechanisms for dealing with it. Yes it probably is possible to achieve a society where people don't commit crimes, and yes, we could theoretically change the socio-economic situation to create such a society, but how? Simply saying things need to change is not only naive and simplistic but also counter-productive. I'm no big sociologist but I reckon the answer is going to be a lot more complex than just "abolish prisons"

I saw this episode of the Twilight Zone (not the original) where instead of going to prison, people had a brand on their forehead. If you saw someone with a brand on his forehead you were not allowed to talk to him. So basically the criminal is free in society but shunned. A little flying probe would appear out of nowhere and give a warning if anyone dared to talk to the shunned person. This one criminal went into a diner and he sat down by a raggedy old blind man because he was so desperate to talk to someone. Then someone came up to the blind man and whispered in his ear and he became livid and he got up and left. That is one of the episodes that kind of sticks in my mind. This method of punishment would not work on a lot of people because some people are introverts and not talking to anyone for years on end would be okay with that person.



The episode was "To See the Invisible Man"



Synopsis

For the crime of emotional coldness, Mitchell Chaplin is sentenced to social invisibility for a year.

Full Recap

Mitchell Chaplin is strapped into a chair. His offense against society is read by an unseen judge: emotional coldness. For that, he is sentenced to a year of invisibility. He is unrepentant and even scornful of the sentence. They place a dab of gel in the center of his forehead then a mask like applicator. Seconds later, it's removed to reveal a scar-like mound on his forehead. Even as Mitchell scoffs, the guards no longer respond to his heckling.



Outside, a man bumps into him. As he begins to apologize, he sees the mark on Mitchell's forehead as well as airborne surveillance drones. He quickly leaves. Mitchell goes to his workplace, but his co-workers ignore him completely. At the cafeteria, the server only serves others, so Mitchell goes behind the counter and serves himself. He sits across from a young boy, who quickly goes silent when his grandmother gestures at her forehead.



On day 41, a drunken Mitchell exits a liquor store carrying bottles he brazenly stole. He bumps into another man with the same mark. Again, with drones watching, the man quickly leaves. Mitchell sees a women's spa, so he walks in. In the sauna and whirlpool, none of the women would meet his eyes. He backs out. In his apartment, Mitchell tries to cover the mark with a hat, but it quickly burns a hole through.



On day 106, Mitchell is sitting in a cafeteria when a blind man sits down. The lonely Mitchell makes small talk, grateful for the attention. The man finds Mitchell very kind, especially when Mitchell gives him a bowl of soup, but a waitress sees the situation and whispers "Invisible" into the man's hear. He's outraged at Mitchell's deception and leaves in a huff.



On day 182, a dressed-up Mitchell goes to a black tie club with a stand up comic. He sits at a table, but the comic sees his mark and moves to put the spotlight directly in Mitchell's eyes. Mitchell leaves, not wanting to be disruptive. Outside, he sees an "invisible" woman and begs her to talk. She's fearful despite all his pleas.



On day 229, Mitchell walks down the street when he sees two punks breaking into a car. They hide until they see the mark. Once they break into the car, they drive down the street, then turn around and chase Mitchell. They hit him, leaving him writhing and screaming in pain. In his apartment, Mitchell calls for medical help, but the nurse insists that he has to show his face for faceprint identification. When he does, she instantly hangs up, leaving Mitchell sobbing. He spends the night in agony.



A year after the sentence was passed, Mitchell sees two guards walk into his apartment. He's surprised and happy. The speechless guards reapply the "mask" and remove the mark. The moment they're finished, they begin a friendly chat with Mitchell, offering to take him out for a drink. He starts to decline then realizes his error.



Four months later, Mitchell is a warm, friendly, caring person. Suddenly, the "invisible" woman confronts him and pleads him to at least acknowledge her existence. He tries to ignore her as she begs for pity and accuses him of coldness. He relents and embraces her, telling her she's not invisible as the drones descend and place him under arrest.

That's just crazy talk. Good for who?



Let's get specific, what would you have done with this monster if you could have decided his fate? What would your alternative to the death penalty have been? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIxrS3PkMug

don't you know? prison was MADE for poor black men. the whole system has been so successful that black men are now an endangered species. i think the whole experiment has gone beautifully.



now, we just need to move from black men to hispanic men, and America will once again be the great and powerful christian nation it once was.

That person should return your possessions to you. If (s)he does not, it doesn't matter whether or not (s)he goes to prison, you still don't have your possessions and I would think that would be your main concern. Punishing people does not help their victims (beyond the satisfaction of revenge), it's pointless.






I don't think that's necessarily true, about hunter-gatherers having the highest murder rates in the world.



Food storage would run counter to the !Kung's habit of sharing food, particularly meat. Perhaps because it is a relatively rare commodity, meat is highly prized by the !Kung, as it is among most hunter-gatherers. When an animal is killed, the hunter (or rather the person whose arrow struck the prey- and that is not always the same person as he who shot the arrow) initiates an elaborate process of sharing the raw meat. The sharing runs along lines of kinship, alliances and obligations. Lorna Marshall, a pioneer in !Kung studies, once witnessed the butchering of an eland, the largest of te African antelopes, and she counted sixty acts of meat distribution within a short time of the initial sharing. The network of sharig nd obligation is very important among the !Kung. Richard Lee emphasizes the point strongly : 'Sharing deeply pervades the behaviour and values of !Kung foragers, within the family and between families, and it is extended to the boundaries of the social universe. Just as the principle of profit and rationality is central to the capitalist ethic, so is sharing central to the conduct of social life in foraging societies'.







This ethic is not confined to the !Kung : it is a feature of hunter-gatherers in general. Such behaviour, however, is not automatic; like most of human behaviour, it has to be taught from childhood. 'Every human infant is born with the capacity to share and the capacity to be selfish,' Richard Lee says. That which is nurtured and developed is that which each individual society regards as most valuable.







In the same vein as the sharing ethic comes a surprising degree of egalitarianism. The !Kung have no chiefs and no leaders. Problems in their society are mostly solved long befire they mature into anything that threatens social harmony. Although the !Kung are very thinly distributed overall - occupying on average about 4 square kilometres (1.5 square miles) per person - their camps, by contrast, are an intense compression of humanity. People's conversations are common property, and disputes are readily disfused through common bantering. No one gives orders or takes them. Richard Lee once asked /Twi !gum whether the !Kung have headmen. 'Of course we have headmen,' he replied, much to Richard lee's surprise. 'In fact, we are all headmen; each of us is headman over himself!' /Twi !gum considered the question and his witty answer to be a great joke.







The stress on equality demands that certain rituals are observed when a successful hunter returns to camp. The object of these rituals is to play down the event so as to discourage arrogance nd conceit. 'The correct demeanour for the successful hunter,' explains Richard Lee, 'is modesty and undertatement.' A !Kung man, /Gaugo, described it this way : 'Say that a man has been hunting. He must not come home andannounce like a braggart, "I have killed a big one in the bush!" He must first sit down in silence until I or someone else comes up to his fire and asks, "What did you see today?" He replies quietly, "Ah, I'm no good for hunting. I saw nothing at all..maybe just a tiny one." Then I smile to myself because I know he has killed something big.' The bigger the kill, the more it is played down.







The theme of modesty is continued when the butchering and carrying party goes to fetch the kill the following day,' Richard Lee explains. The helpers joke, complaining that surely a hunter did not need so many people to carry such a punky kill. And the hunter will agree, suggesting that they just cut out the liver and go look for something more worthwhile. The jesting and understatement is strictly followed, again not just by the !Kung but by many foraging people, and the result is that although some men are undoubtedly more proficient hunters than others, no one accrues unusual prestige or status because of his talents.







-Excerpt from The Making of Mankind, 1981, Richard E. Leakey



Workers should seize control of capital and communities should organize themselves through direct democracy. As society (*blushes*, you know what I mean) becomes more politically, economically and socially egalitarian, crime will become less and less common, I believe. I don't have the clearest vision as to how a stateless, egalitarian society can be brought about, I'm sure that a lot of experimentation will be required as well as many failures but it has been done (see excerpt), even in industrial settings (ie. Catalonia during the Spanish civil war). To some extent, my position on prison abolition is a deontological one. Prisoners are not 'safe' in jail and their safety is just as important as the safety of 'innocent' people. I admit, I may not have developed this stance if it weren't for my determinist world view but if you are a materialist like me, you have to accept that incarcerating 'bad' people for the good of society as a whole is no more justifiable than incarcerating the 'innocent', since nobody chooses to respect or violate the rights of other people.



A means of dealing with crime in an anarchist society is community organized self-defense militias that would patrol the neighborhood and prevent individuals from infringing upon the rights of other individuals without giving themselves the authority to punish wrong-doers or place them in captivity.



I would like to see that episode, Kelley. I loved the Twillight Zone (new, not old).

Had it been up to me, I would have, under stringent security guidelines, placed him in a treatment program.

I'm sorry, are you mocking me? It's difficult to read tone on the internet.



Is it not a fact that minority men are disproportionately incarcerated? And that they are often unfairly treated by police when arrested, law courts, and in sentencing? And that the majority of these crimes are minor drug arrests?

I think your major fallacy is that somehow direct democracy will result in a more egalitarian society (whether or not that will lead to less crime is a different matter). In fact this is virtually never the case. Direct democracy tends to be a way to bypass the rule of law (theoretically 51% of the people can decide to kill the other 49% for no good reason). In fact the mot illiberal and anti-democratic policies are often the result of huge public support (Hitler enjoyed huge public support, as does Putin or the Palestinian administration, in ancient Athens arguing with challenging "democratic" decisions outside of the regular voting process could be punishable by death, as Socrates learned). In fact the reason prisoners in most western are even alive is because of laws enacted by legislatures who are at least partially independent from direct public opinion, which is usually "hang the *******!"




While most of your points are at least worthy of debate, here is one that I can quite confidently say is nuts. It's only a small step from militia law enforcement to pogroms and lynchings.

I agree that the drug users/ dealers and prostitutes should be released as I don't think these activities should be considered crimes anymore.



I think the prison system should be reformed definitely and the situation in America does seem completely biased towards locking away black men. I don't know if the stats are the same for UK prisons.






Some people feel completely violated when their houses have been robbed and their personal possessions which may have emotional value have been stolen. It is a form of violence sometimes I think.



I think violent offenders should be locked away to protect others and to have some type of punishment. I read an article yesterday about a man who attacked another man and left him with injuries which meant he would have to be in a wheelchair and need medical care for the rest of his life. I read that the attacker received a two and a half year sentence for this crime. That makes me angry. I think too many criminals get very lenient sentences.

no i don't mean to be mocking. i am just as upset about the prison system as you are - white collar crime? go to some sort of half way house, we can't have white criminals mixing with black ones. the prison system has really really ruined things with my 'race'. i feel there is no way to change this, however, and that in my life time, there will be more black men behind bars than there are on the outside. (if this isn't true already.) black men have just become fodder for police. it's awful.

not even talking about the laws that disproportionally favor whites - the 500:1 ratio for crack sentencing verses cocaine, you know. to get the same amount of time in prison for cocaine, you'd need something like 500 grams to the 5 grams of crack.



the world does not treat black men nicely, i'm afraid.

^ gotcha! we agree completely.