Prison

[Undesired Walrus]

Do you agree with the Prison system in your country, or do you believe it needs massive/moderate reform?

To what extent should someone be punished for their crime, and to what extent should someone who spends their time there be rehabilitated? Should there even be any effort put into rehabilitation, with the focus mainly on punishment?

[Fishstick]

Institutionalized punishment is not an effective way to rehabilitate someone.

[Lothian]

To what extent should someone be punished for their crime, and to what extent should someone who spends their time there be rehabilitated? Depends if you are planning on releasing them.

[Cainkane1]

Institutionalized punishment is not an effective way to rehabilitate someone.
So what options does society have? You can't allow a career criminal to continue preying on honest hard working citizens nor can we allow sexual predators to prey on women, children and men. You have tow options. Let them stay in society or incarcerate them. I've been the victim of violent crime myself and its no picnic.

[Darth Rotor]

So what options does society have? You can't allow a career criminal to continue preying on honest hard working citizens nor can we allow sexual predators to prey on women, children and men. You have tow options. Let them stay in society or incarcerate them. I've been the victim of violent crime myself and its no picnic.

They used to hang thieves in England. Yes, it was a few centuries ago, but that solved some of the prison problem.

There was a time when horse thieves were hanged in our country.

DR

[Cainkane1]

Depends if you are planning on releasing them.
Some people can't be rehabilitated. Megans law came about as the result of a man who raped a little girl being released and then kiilling another little girl named Megan. Some criminals who have been released after thirty or more years pick up where they left off after being released and this includes murderers and rapist etc.

[Fishstick]

So what options does society have? You can't allow a career criminal to continue preying on honest hard working citizens nor can we allow sexual predators to prey on women, children and men. You have tow options. Let them stay in society or incarcerate them. I've been the victim of violent crime myself and its no picnic.

More emphasis on prison education and rehabilitation, shorter prison sentences all around to prevent people from becoming too detached from the outside world, at least decriminalization for marijuana, if not legalization for that and other drugs; it's not hard to come up with a dozen different things to improve the situation without resorting to locking someone in a 4x2 cage for the rest of their lives.

The reason it is untenable is because it is nigh impossible to convince the population at large that punishing or killing a murderer or rapist isn't the best course of action, and that maybe society would be safer in the long run if they were instead rehabilitated into people that don't break the law.

ETA:

Some people can't be rehabilitated. Megans law came about as the result of a man who raped a little girl being released and then kiilling another little girl named Megan. Some criminals who have been released after thirty or more years pick up where they left off after being released and this includes murderers and rapist etc.

There will always be exceptions to every method. It would certainly improve things if it was considered more of an option instead of just going "welp, can't rehabilitate everyone, let's just lock em up and throw away the key". Regarding Megan's law:

A December 2008 study by Kristen Zgoba Ph.D., Philip Witt Ph.D., Melissa Dalessandro M.S.W., and Bonita Veysey Ph.D. found that Megan’s Law has no effect on community tenure (i.e., time to first re-arrest), showed no demonstrable effect in reducing sexual re-offenses, has no effect on the type of sexual re-offense or first time sexual offense (still largely child molestation/incest), and has no effect on reducing the number of victims involved in sexual offenses. [...] Start up costs totaled $555,565 and current costs (in 2007) totaled approximately 3.9 million dollars for the 15 responding counties in New Jersey according to the study. The authors feel that given the lack of demonstrated effect of Megan’s Law on sexual offenses, the growing costs may not be justifiable. Philip Witt is a psychologist and the co-principal author of the study who helped implement Megan's Law in New Jersey.

[Bikewer]

I've written up several lengthy posts on my view of the penal system; easily the worst aspect of the criminal justice system in total.
In serious need of reform.

[Dale H]

The reason it is untenable is because it is nigh impossible to convince the population at large that punishing or killing a murderer or rapist isn't the best course of action, and that maybe society would be safer in the long run if they were instead rehabilitated into people that don't break the law.


The reason I consider it untenable is that it is impossible, AFAIK, to tell if some one is actually rehabilitated or not.

Dale H

[Fishstick]

The reason I consider it untenable is that it is impossible, AFAIK, to tell if some one is actually rehabilitated or not.

Dale H

If they don't break the law again, I would consider that rehabilitated. I can't tell if you're a criminal or not either, until you actuall commit a crime. Likewise I can't tell if a recidivist is one until he actually falls back in his old ways.

[Dancing David]

Do you agree with the Prison system in your country, or do you believe it needs massive/moderate reform?

To what extent should someone be punished for their crime, and to what extent should someone who spends their time there be rehabilitated? Should there even be any effort put into rehabilitation, with the focus mainly on punishment?

I believe that there is a certain beenfit to removing people from the general population.

However here is the US the system has many faults and flaws.

The largest that i see is the huge effect that money has in the ability to go through the legal system. If you can pay for a lawyer you get many, many benefits that someone who can't afford a private lawyer gets. The sentence will be lighter, the consequences will be lighter and overall you will get better treatment.


This is just the tip of ice berg, as the influence of poverty is not effected by prison.

[Sunray Breaker]

I honestly think that legalizing drugs (which would result in virtually no black market for them, would require the user to show ID to a licensed professional, doses would be regulated, drugs would be safer, street gangs would lose a ton of money and neo-conservatives would have a collective aneurysm) would help free up alot of the time, money and resources needed for better rehabilitation.

It would seem our inability to rehabilitate prisoners, lies (partially) with our lack of funding for decent rehabilititation programs. There's obviously many of those that are simply incurable, the biggest question is how to handle them. It seems the prison system itself is designed to perpetuate crime, to a certain degree.

Once a person has a felony on their record it makes it twice as hard to get work once they get out of prison and with the temptation of the easy money associated with crime (in stark, direct contrast with a low paying, high risk, factory job) it is quite understandable that there'd be a lot of repeat offenders under this circumstance. Lordy knows I'd choose the former over the ladder under the same circumstances!

They need job placement programs (if they don't have them already), they need compassionate and humane facilities. They need to train their guards to handle certain types of inmates differently...(Afterall, Tommy Chong should not be treated like Charlie Manson)

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship Prison Project has had some success...According to wikipedia, they:

work with prisoners and their families and other religious groups in an effort to address violence within the criminal justice system. They oppose the implementation of capital punishment and also offer prisons information on chaplaincy opportunities. The committee's founding director was Diana Lion, who also has served as associate director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

...the BPF Prison project...is attempting to transform the prison system through reforming the prison-industrial complex, abolishing the death penalty, and bringing the teachings of "dharma" to those persons confined in prisons and jails...
Now, although I am an Atheist, it does seem that there could be some benefits to prisoners who might be encouraged to read or discuss philosophies of this type. Plus they are nonsectarian. This would be a good example of how to approach the system. Granted this wouldn't work for every prisoner, but it's a great path for many.

A documentary about this project came out a while ago, I can't remember for the life of me what it was called. But I guess they had a pretty good success rate on previous repeat offenders.

Compassion is what's really missing I think. Many of the more extreme criminals get the shaft on the streets, from their parents, from their peers and society and they go into prison and get the same treatment. You can't break a vicious cycle by adding to it.

Great question, I was actually just thinking of this the other day, while watching a great Frontline documentary called The New Asylums...It's about how Mental Hospitals have been overflowing and as a result, many prisons have become defacto asylums.

So there's my two cents

[Mark6]

Somewhere between half and 3/4 of all US prison population are non-violent drug users who are in prison for nothing but using drugs. They should be in treatment at most, not in prison. I say "at most" because a lot of them, especially marijuana users, lead entirely functional productive lives, are not "slaves to a drug", and have no need of treatment. Let alone of jail.

[Mark6]

A long and contentious argument on this topic:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/08/merciless.html

Notice that the blog's author (SF writer Charlie Stross) has rather low opinion of United States, not just of its prison system. Some things may be hard to swallow, particularly specific example of Al Megrahi. But I very much agree with Stross on the topic of prisoner treatment in general, and particularly on (American) society's attitude to prison rape.

[dtugg]

Somewhere between half and 3/4 of all US prison population are non-violent drug users who are in prison for nothing but using drugs.

This is not true. According to the DOJ (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm), about 20% of inmates are in for drug offenses (and that includes all drug offenses not just simple possession). That said, I think that drugs should be legalized and all non-violent drug offenders released from prison/jail. Doing so would free up much needed space for those that belong in prison yet get paroled too often. As far as I am concerned, we should throw away the key after locking up murderers, rapists and child molesters.

[Suddenly]

This is not true. According to the DOJ (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm), about 20% of inmates are in for drug offenses (and that includes all drug offenses not just simple possession). That said, I think that drugs should be legalized and all non-violent drug offenders released from prison/jail. Doing so would free up much needed space for those that belong in prison yet get paroled too often. As far as I am concerned, we should throw away the key after locking up murderers, rapists and child molesters.

While those in for drug offenses is 20%, those "in prison for doing drugs" is quite a bit higher if we include people on probation for non-violent property offenses who wind up in prison because they can't stop using illegal drugs and repeatedly fail urine tests.

Absent the using drugs, those people would be free. The number of people in for drug\alcohol related probation violations in my state is staggering, in fact that is in some counties the only way you can parlay a property felony into a jail sentence.

I'm up to my eyeballs in this issue, and there are two basic reforms I would make:

1) Probation departments treat substance abuse problem relapses as a disease rather then a moral failing or show of contempt for the law. There is a program in north WVa right now that is more reward based (little things like gift certificates) than fear based that has shown absurdly positive results as to completion and recidivism.

2) More education opportunities for prisoners. Getting a college degree in jail reduces recidivism to near zero.

[MikeMangum]

Violent crime in America has been trending downward for at least 2 decades and has reached multi-decadal lows. This is in large part due to longer sentences for criminals. Keeping criminals off of the streets and out of the general population does indeed reduce crime. Rehabilitation just doesn't work. It may work in some individual cases, but recidivism rates are very high.

That being said, we as a society owe prison inmates certain things. They should be able to expect safety which includes the expectation that they will not be the victim of rape. One thing that disgusts me is the way prison rape is a subject of humor instead of horror and how some people view being raped in prison as part of the punishment. That seems to be a widespread outlook shared by much of society, including politicians.

The "war on drugs" has had terrible consequences. At the very least, marijuana should be legalised, and simple possession of a drug should not result in a prison sentence. At most, drug possession should be treated like traffic or parking tickets. Violent crimes as part of the drug trade are very different than simple possession or use.

[Skeptic]

More emphasis on prison education and rehabilitation, shorter prison sentences all around to prevent people from becoming too detached from the outside world

Isn't "detaching criminals from the outside world" rather the point of imprisonment, which makes sense, considering what they did when they were attached to the world?

That some (perhaps many) drug users don't belong in prison is another issue. But if they don't belong in prison, don't prosecute them. No reason to treat rapists and murderers leniently in compensation.

[BenBurch]

I would change major things;

1. Many fewer things would be felonies - I'd decriminalize drugs and prostitution (and the taxes would balance most state budgets.) So the prison population would be smaller.

2. All prisoners would have their own, unshared cell.

3. All sentences would be to solitary confinement.

4. All sentences barring life would be about half the duration they are now, but there will only be parole for unusual events like terminal illness or family tragedy, and that might be very limited parole.

5. No death penalty at all because the appeals cost the state a fortune, and I think life in solitary is actually more of a deterrent.

The major problem is that prison becomes a place for criminals to organize. And this actually brings crime INTO the prison. No contact with other prisoners means no chance to exchange notes, "hit" other gang members, or deal in contraband.

[Skeptic]

A long and contentious argument on this topic:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/08/merciless.html.

"Poor Al Meghari, all he did was murder a few hundred people, why should he die in prison? What a merciless system!"

[Achán hiNidráne]

2) More education opportunities for prisoners. Getting a college degree in jail reduces recidivism to near zero.

While I certainly agree with you in spirit, that's not going to help in a culture that that brands those who've spent time in prison as pariahs. What good is a BA going to do you when employers won't hire an ex-con? You might as well go back to robbing banks or stealing cars.

[Lothian]

I would change major things;

1. Many fewer things would be felonies - I'd decimalize drugs .....
So you would only imprison people who sold it in ounces?

[BenBurch]

So you would only imprison people who sold it in ounces?

LOL. Damned iPhone keyboard.

[Professor Yaffle]

A long and contentious argument on this topic:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/08/merciless.html

Notice that the blog's author (SF writer Charlie Stross) has rather low opinion of United States, not just of its prison system. Some things may be hard to swallow, particularly specific example of Al Megrahi. But I very much agree with Stross on the topic of prisoner treatment in general, and particularly on (American) society's attitude to prison rape.

I cant see what's hard to swallow about the al Megrahi example. Almost certainly a miscarriage of justice

On topic - pretty much what Fishstick said.

[Sunray Breaker]

I'm for complete legalization of all drugs...After all, there are way deadlier chemicals that are available to the public, that we're just sort of expected to use responsibly...Like drano, antifreeze, thermite (but only accessible with certified NWO identification) Robitussin, Tylenol PM, NyQuil and not to mention NEARLY ALL OF THE CHEMICALS NEEDED TO MAKE METH, are completely legal...

It's so silly when you really think about it.

I'm constantly dissapointed by the government being so far behind the times when it comes to drug legislation. I wish they'd take it more seriously. Instead of writing off Medical Marijuana advocates as just a bunch of hippies trying to have their cake and smoke it too.

[Fiona]

Violent crime in America has been trending downward for at least 2 decades and has reached multi-decadal lows. This is in large part due to longer sentences for criminals. Keeping criminals off of the streets and out of the general population does indeed reduce crime. Rehabilitation just doesn't work. It may work in some individual cases, but recidivism rates are very high.

Are you sure about this?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/lawnet/SENTENCE.PDF

The report concludes that the studies reviewed do not provide a basis for inferring that increasing the severity of sentences generally is capable of enhancing deterrent effects

<snip>

Such negative correlations between sentence severity and crime rates as were found to exist generally were not sufficient to achieve statistical significance.

[dtugg]

Are you sure about this?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/lawnet/SENTENCE.PDF

I don't think he was referring to deterrent effects. Just the undeniable fact that criminals in prison are not out on the street committing crimes.

[UNLoVedRebel]

I think A Clockwork Orange -type program should be experimented with. Trying to rehabilitate deviant behavior through classical conditioning and other forms of social engineering. I'm dead serious. I'm kind of a mad (social) scientist in that respect.

[Fiona]

Well he said violent crime has been trending downwards because of longer sentences: so that means the violent crime rate is related to longer sentences, does it not? I do not see the evidence for this

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:LdRjdUPnlyIJ:www.brooklaw.edu/students/journals/bjlp/jlp13i_darley.pdf+what+is+the+effect+of+longer+sen tences+in+reducing+crime+rates&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiX9CjYPY01NzGq5Smy1OiLpcsqKrg3qkI12qZu kJ-j_Ik9fl2QeG2HkYlKOAv_mn6mqONkMpVjDdBAlVk2wwiG4TPSo 6lg-rcMxxP0w0t6ky97aRWHh-xImV5CCS6CWBqJZXhD&sig=AFQjCNEo-KqYWMPSZ3MG1m4sH9nnSluDzA

The report asserts that we should accept the fact that there are no general demonstrations of crime rate reductions achieved by alterations in sentence severity
that are “within the [severity] limits that are plausible in [w]estern [s]ocieties.”9 Given the remarkable increases in sentence severity found “plausible” in the United States in the past decade, it is unlikely that the changes in severity have been too anemic to
produce rate reduction effects. Pending new studies that overturn this conclusion, it seems that increasing the severity of sentences is not reducing the rate of crimes.

http://www.safetyandjustice.org/story/1158

For most of the 1990s, the states with higher than average incarceration rates experienced smaller declines in crime than states with lower than average incarceration rates,

This is interesting too:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090518111726.htm.

The study itself is only reported and I see nothing which controls for the likelihood of being detected: which is presumably higher for those on such a programme. It appears to show that shorter time served with a higher penalty for future crime is deterrent: but not for "more serious crime", which I take to mean crimes of violence because they use the word "dangerous" in describing this group

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/weekinreview/ideas-trends-crime-punishment-sentences-are-too-long-too-short-rarely-just-right.html

This does seem to support the incapacitation argument, however: but it is not whole hearted, even so.

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:73dgj16sgXgJ:www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/managingoffenders.pdf+what+is+the+effect+of+longer +sentences+in+reducing+crime+rates&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgwazL0jmxRB5u1r8KcddDRkOir6KN7auCTbrTB 34SsZchWTqQiIh5YZnKdDNRevR91Y1wcQc4eSOw1GCTNfm5Haq _Q1ONsgulW2F9dUtaXiyHqE_vlGnGcz6v8xsKlLkuggvJn&sig=AFQjCNGvOLU3Vt5rPElZxuZEfajHrPS9VQ

That is quite interesting too.

Conducted in 2003 it says that the use of prison and probation had increased by 1/4 since 1996: though the number of serious offenders had not much changed

The number of offenders found guilty of more serious offences – indictable
offences – has remained broadly constant. In 1991, 338,000 were found guilty.This fell in 1996 to 300,000, but by 2001 had increased again to 324,000.

and

The proportion of offenders sentenced each year with no previous convictions
has increased over the last decade. In 1991, 34 per cent of offenders found
guilty had no previous convictions. By 2001, this had increased to 42 per cent.

Does not seem that locking people up more reduced the number of offences: looks like other folk just stepped into that niche.

[Undesired Walrus]

"Poor Al Meghari, all he did was murder a few hundred people, why should he die in prison?

Perhaps, remember.

[roger]

While I certainly agree with you in spirit, that's not going to help in a culture that that brands those who've spent time in prison as pariahs. What good is a BA going to do you when employers won't hire an ex-con? You might as well go back to robbing banks or stealing cars.He wasn't arguing opinion, he was stating a fact. Getting a college degree in prison nearly guarantees they don't come back. So, it does help.

I wonder how that is adjusted for correlation vs causation (one would expect somebody that wants to turn their life around to be more likely to pursue and achieve a degree, so perhaps they wouldn't have returned to prison anyway).

[Dragoonster]

That being said, we as a society owe prison inmates certain things. They should be able to expect safety which includes the expectation that they will not be the victim of rape. One thing that disgusts me is the way prison rape is a subject of humor instead of horror and how some people view being raped in prison as part of the punishment. That seems to be a widespread outlook shared by much of society, including politicians.

The "war on drugs" has had terrible consequences. At the very least, marijuana should be legalised, and simple possession of a drug should not result in a prison sentence. At most, drug possession should be treated like traffic or parking tickets. Violent crimes as part of the drug trade are very different than simple possession or use.

I agree with all of this. In order of reform (and the system strongly needs it), inmate safety from each other and guards is at the top of my list. The punishment for the crime is losing freedom to live in the outside world, but not freedom from rape, beatings, killings, etc. It's barbaric how many prisons are either full of corruption and/or full of violence.

The drug decriminalization is number two for me, because using/selling drugs is imo not a violent crime, and doesn't cause harm to anyone who doesn't willingly know it might. It's clogging up everything--prisons, courts, lawyers.

As far as rehabilitation, I'm in favor of it but imo the primary purpose of the justice system and prisons is to punish for offenses already committed. Rehab is a distant second to that, so I don't really favor lighter sentences, or time off for degrees gained in prison or any of that. I'm also not in favor of doing away with the death penalty, some people's crimes are so bad that they don't really deserve to live. I'm in favor of speeding up the appeals process so it doesn't cost so much and they're killed quicker.

[athon]

The problem with any penal system is you need to decide what its primary purpose is.

In my view, there are three reasons why a penal system exists:

Reprimand - By imposing a negative consequence on a behaviour, it makes those who don't committ such an offence feel better. Most of us don't resort to stealing to get what we want, so when somebody does, we want to feel that sense of compensation.

Removal - Taking an offender away from the community provides a sense of security. If a person has demonstrated a certain behaviour, we're inclined to believe there's a higher chance they'll committ it again. By excluding them from the social group, the social group is content that there is a reduced risk of harm being committed onto them.

Rehabilitation - Changing the behaviour of an offender so they are less likely to committ the same offence again.

Problems arise when a single system tries to be all three things. They conflict. If the population wants to see somebody punished, they won't be happy if they're let out after being deemed 'safe' after only a couple of months.

Removing somebody from society is all well and good, however while the population follows 'out of sight, out of mind', it conflicts with the punishment ideal if all sentences are the same - permanent exclusion. If it isn't permanent, then prisoners will need to be released.

If prisoners are released, what promise is there that they won't reoffend? Yet rehabilitation conflicts with the concept of punishment, as it requires focusing on providing the offender with resources rather than simply making them uncomfortable.

Personally, I think that as long as people want all three of these things in equal measures, there will be no such thing as a functional penal system.

Athon

[Fishstick]

Isn't "detaching criminals from the outside world" rather the point of imprisonment, which makes sense, considering what they did when they were attached to the world?



What's the point of giving someone shorter sentences if you make them unable to function in the outside world after they've paid their debt to society? That is how recidivism occurs, and that is what I mean by detachment. Give inmates options for an actual life in their post-prison future, instead of ensuring their only way of survival is back in crime.

As far as rehabilitation, I'm in favor of it but imo the primary purpose of the justice system and prisons is to punish for offenses already committed. Rehab is a distant second to that, so I don't really favor lighter sentences, or time off for degrees gained in prison or any of that.

When most children are growing up, they are brought up with the concept of being punished for doing bad things. This generally works well for parenting, as kids end up avoiding the bad things that would get punished and go on to lead normal lives. An unfortunate side effect of this is that the idea of retribution for misbehavior becomes an absolute positive. The reason prisons have evolved as they have in America is largely due to the idea that the way to correct behavior is punishment.

There is an enormous, albeit underappreciated, gap between punishment coming from a parent and punishment coming from the state. It should go without saying, but unfortunately this idea seems to be lost on those that have directed the justice and punishment systems into their current states. It is still based on the notion that negative reinforcement from the state will make people behave better, even though every statistic points in the opposite direction.

[Puppycow]

One guy with intersting thoughts on this is Mark Kleiman.
Author of When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (http://books.google.com/books?id=fMI41P7qBCoC&dq=When+Brute+Force+Fails:+How+to+Have+Less+Crime+ and+Less+Punishment&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=m7fCWUFX2y&sig=5Wsg7RpPiEdJgQ_To2CoEi763Wg&hl=en&ei=9iLgSp-3BsqCkQXzuoUb&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CAwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Also:
Against Excess (http://www.sppsr.ucla.edu/faculty/kleiman/book/)

He has also appeared several times on bloggingheads.tv (http://bloggingheads.tv/search/?participant1=Kleiman,%20Mark). The diavlog with Reihan Salam is a good way to get the gist of his argument.

[lionking]

If the population wants to see somebody punished, they won't be happy if they're let out after being deemed 'safe' after only a couple of months.



Bingo. How does anyone think a political party with a "rehabilitation/let prisoners out when cured" policy fare?

[KingofMadCows]

At least 20% of inmates in American prisons suffer from serious mental illnesses. Over 5% are psychotic. Punishment doesn't work on people who are disjointed from reality.

Prisons also use solitary confinement, which can cause perfectly healthy people to become depressed and even psychotic.

The prison system obviously needs some serious reforms.

[Fishstick]

Here's some excerpts from a HRW reports, detailing how rape is used as a disciplinary tool:

“I've been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat. I had fought and been beat so hard that I didn't ever think I'd see straight again. One time when I refused to enter a cell, I was brutally attacked by staff and taken to segragation though I had only wanted to prevent the same and worse by not locking up with my cell mate. There is no supervision after lockdown. I was given a conduct report. I explained to the hearing officer what the issue was. He told me that off the record, He suggests I find a man I would/could willingly have sex with to prevent these things from happening. I've requested protective custody only to be denied. It is not available here. He also said there was no where to run to, and it would be best for me to accept things . . . . I probably have AIDS now. I have great difficulty raising food to my mouth from shaking after nightmares or thinking to hard on all this. . . . I've laid down without physical fight to be sodomized. To prevent so much damage in struggles, ripping and tearing. Though in not fighting, it caused my heart and spirit to be raped as well. Something I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for.”
— A.H., Indiana, 8/30/96

“I had an officer tell me that "faggots like to suck dick, so why was I complaining." You and I realize that non-consensual sex is rape, regardless—a leap in thinking not possible for prison officials.”
— S.H., Texas, 9/10/96

“My celly tried to rape me with a knife for a weapon, we fought and I got the knife and stabbed him to fight him off, I was charged with attempted murder and felonious assault and taken to trial, found guilty and received 12 to 15 years. The system feels that justice was done.”
— L.L., Ohio, 9/14/96


On 10-21-96 Officer G. came to get me from rec. . . . He had the leash wrapped around my waist, then yanked on it spinning me around. Telling me "move fag." I asked him what the hell was his problem. He shoved me and then yanked on the leash several times in the course of escorting me to my cell. Then pulled out the mace as though he were to spray me. He continued calling me a faggot dick sucker throughout this process. Officer M. witnessed this. . . . I have suffered from a lot of abuse in this prison including my rape to this kind of abuse from staff. I am sick of this treatment.
— A.H., Indiana, 10/21/96 (grievance filed, denied with response: "WRONG FORM")

Getting angry? You should, this happens to at least 200 inmates every single day.

[Suddenly]

He wasn't arguing opinion, he was stating a fact. Getting a college degree in prison nearly guarantees they don't come back. So, it does help.

I wonder how that is adjusted for correlation vs causation (one would expect somebody that wants to turn their life around to be more likely to pursue and achieve a degree, so perhaps they wouldn't have returned to prison anyway).

There is something to the latter, but in my experience as someone who often teaches college courses in prison, it is more about a level of self respect and a sense of real world achievement than credentials. People are more willing to hire felons with degrees not only if those degrees include a useful skill (there is a decent market for good jailhouse lawyers who earn paralegal degrees) but also it is a sign of some level of discipline, work ethic, etc.

A certain class of prisoners wind up where they are largely as a reaction to being made to feel they have no stake or place in the everyday world. They grow up with poor educational opportunities, crappy parents, low social status, and so on. So they turn to crime, either as a career choice or out of unfocused rage at being marginalized. Not having a stake in society breeds disrespect for the rules of same.

This does not make what they did right, most people in that situation manage to not become felons. There is a sense of injustice that criminals are getting these opportunities, but I imagine if you ask a future victim of crime that wouldn't have been but for the degree program they will have a more pragmatic view of things...

[Praktik]

My man-crush on Jim Webb deepened when I read this speech (http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/FS_CrimJust_3-26-09.pdf)on the Senate floor:

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .

Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.

Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy - the whole area of drug policy in this country?

And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?More here @ The Atlantic (http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/a_push_for_prison_reform.php)

[foxholeatheist]

Here's some excerpts from a HRW reports, detailing how rape is used as a disciplinary tool:


<Crazy ****>


Getting angry? You should, this happens to at least 200 inmates every single day.

As Del Boy would say, Gordon Bennett!!!

Wow...

I spent a little time being locked up (long story, but it was for a 50$ parking ticket). 4 days to be exact. It certainly was not prison but it certainly was no picnic.

I wonder... What would happen if they suddenly made all drugs legal. Would they then let out all the folks that were arrested for drug crimes? What about drug-related violence or technicalities like having a gun in your grow room and getting time for that?

When prohibition (alcohol) was repealed did they let out all the drunks and gangsters?

[Suddenly]

As Del Boy would say, Gordon Bennett!!!

Wow...

I spent a little time being locked up (long story, but it was for a 50$ parking ticket). 4 days to be exact. It certainly was not prison but it certainly was no picnic.

I wonder... What would happen if they suddenly made all drugs legal. Would they then let out all the folks that were arrested for drug crimes? What about drug-related violence or technicalities like having a gun in your grow room and getting time for that?

When prohibition (alcohol) was repealed did they let out all the drunks and gangsters?

Legally speaking, those convicted under old statutes and subjected to now repealed/reduced sentences are out of luck absent some special provision or a fair minded governor not terrified of granting clemency.

For example, when New York recently moderated their previously absurdly draconian drug sentencing laws, they allowed for review of all drug cases and reduced sentences on a case by case basis. I could see something like that happening were there to be mass repealing of drug laws.