
Do We Still Need Prisons? - pepys
http://volteface.me/features/do-we-still-need-prisons/
======
onion2k
There's a very interesting thought experiment devised by the human rights
lawyer Clive Stafford Smitg and outlined at the end of the excellent book "So
You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson.

Quoting from the book;

 _“Let me ask you three questions,” he said. “And then you’ll see it my way.
Question One: What’s the worst thing that you have ever done to someone? It’s
okay. You don’t have to confess it out loud. Question Two: What’s the worst
criminal act that has ever been committed against you? Question Three: Which
of the two was the most damaging for the victim?”

The worst criminal act that has ever been committed against me was burglary.
How damaging was it? Hardly damaging at all. I felt theoretically violated at
the idea of a stranger wandering through my house. But I got the insurance
money. I was mugged one time. I was eighteen. The man who mugged me was an
alcoholic. He saw me coming out of a supermarket. “Give me your alcohol,” he
yelled. He punched me in the face, grabbed my groceries, and ran away. There
wasn’t any alcohol in my bag. I was upset for a few weeks, but it passed.

And what was the worst thing I had ever done to someone? It was a terrible
thing. It was devastating for them. It wasn’t against the law.

Clive’s point was that the criminal justice system is supposed to repair harm,
but most prisoners — young, black — have been incarcerated for acts far less
emotionally damaging than the injuries we noncriminals perpetrate upon one
another all the time — bad husbands, bad wives, ruthless bosses, bullies,
bankers."_

The point of it is that we punitively punish people for many crimes while
doing things far worse at the same time. Should we really be putting someone
in prison for burglary when there are people who rip millions of people off
with legal price gouging or break up a family by cheating?

We should think and question the legal system, and what effect it has on
people unfortunate enough to become embroiled in it. If the legal system is
there to punish behaviour that isn't in the interest of society or to protect
communities from those who'd harm them, are we actually punishing the right
people?

It's a very deep question. Not something that HN will answer in a thread. I
think it's worthwhile spending some time on though.

~~~
IsaacL
One of the most damaging things Clive Stafford Smith has done is to give
public support for Moazzem Begg, who was almost certainly a high-ranking
member of al Qaeda
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moazzam_Begg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moazzam_Begg)).
(Sure, Begg should have gotten a fair trial -- he would have gone to court had
the charges not been dropped, probably because the intelligence services
didn't want to reveal all the intel they had gathered on him and his
associates).

In every human society in history, there have been people who choose to rob,
rape and kill. There's no pleasant way to deal with such people, but it _is_
the role of the state to deal with them, or you have anarchy. It isn't the
role of the state to prevent "emotional damage", "bad wives" or "bankers".

Stafford Smith's position seems to be a twisted version of Christian morality
where all problems are caused by meanness. Since the justice system is an
institutionalised form of meanness, it must be wicked -- indeed, it's probably
responsible for crime and terrorism.

This is a really evil worldview.

~~~
onion2k
_In every human society in history, there have been people who choose to rob,
rape and kill. There 's no pleasant way to deal with such people, but it is
the role of the state to deal with them, or you have anarchy. It isn't the
role of the state to prevent "emotional damage", "bad wives" or "bankers"._

The point of the question (which is an interesting question regardless of who
asked it) is that we should challenge what the role of the state is. We
definitely shouldn't _blindly_ or _unquestioningly_ accept that the state is
there to do one thing or the other, to deal with robbers and not bankers,
because "that's the way it's always been" or something. That is how states
attain power over citizens and we end up with things like the scandalous
overreaching surveillance revealed by Snowden et al.

~~~
IsaacL
Who said that we should?

States have justified their actions by many different codes of ethics. I know
my answer to the legitimate role of the state: to protect individual rights.

------
digitalengineer
Before Napoleon there was such a thing as "restorative justice": "Restorative
justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and
the offenders, as well as the involved community. This contrasts to more
punitive approaches where the main aim is to punish the offender, or satisfy
abstract legal principles.

Victims take an active role in the process. Meanwhile, offenders are
encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm
they've done – by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community
service".[1] In addition, the restorative justice approach aims to help the
offender to avoid future offenses. The approach is based on a theory of
justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an
individual or community, rather than the State."

Of course this is not for the mentally ill and/or murders, rapists etc.
Surprised the author didn't mention it!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
How about sociopaths? They can become serial offenders, learning all the while
how to apologize more effectively each time they are apprehended. If a crime
has little downside, then crime will grow.

~~~
Grishnakh
Go re-read his post. Apologizing might be acceptable for some crimes and with
some victims, but not all. Others may demand compensation or more punitive
measures. There's nothing there about crime having little downside; if the
community requires you to repay a victim for everything you stole from him,
and wants you to do a bunch of hard labor (community service) in addition,
that sounds like a pretty big downside to me. The main idea isn't going soft
on crime, it's letting the victims decide on the punishment. It makes a lot of
sense: if someone steals my TV, gets caught, and the punishment is for him to
buy me a new TV and fix my door that he broke and another 100 hours of lawn
care on top of that, that's a lot cheaper and better for society than sticking
him a prison for several years. The system we have now is entirely punitive,
doesn't give victims much say in the process, and doesn't restore the victims
at all (they have to sue the criminal separately in civil court).

~~~
pink_dinner
"if someone steals my TV, gets caught, and the punishment is for him to buy me
a new TV and fix my door that he broke and another 100 hours of lawn care on
top of that, that's a lot cheaper and better for society than sticking him a
prison for several years."

If the the criminal is stealing your TV, do you actually think they will have
the money to pay it back? There are plenty of cases where a judge forces a
person to pay money back and the person just doesn't pay it back or doesn't
have the money.

Even the guy from "The Wolf of Wallstreet" hasn't paid the millions he owes. I
just don't think this will deter petty crime.

"The main idea isn't going soft on crime, it's letting the victims decide on
the punishment"

What if, as a victim, I decided that the person that stole my TV needed to
have his hands chopped off?

Your method seems to be more based on emotion and retribution than our current
system.

It may be more expensive, but I don't see a problem with our current system in
terms of deterring crime. I don't mind paying more for something that will
help society.

------
CM30
We're always going to need some prisons. Because as much as many people are
possible to rehabilitate, there's always going to be a (rather small)
percentage that are simply dangerous to just about everyone and everything
around them. See, some of the worst examples of serial killers. You don't
really want to risk the possibility of letting them near anyone else, and
house arrest (or a traditional psychiatric ward) might not be secure enough in
a few cases...

But we should be sending a far lower percentage of criminals to prison, yes.

On another note, could virtual reality potentially be an interesting
punishment here? There are a few articles online about the possibility of
having someone experience what feels like 10,000 years in 8 hours, and the
concept could potentially be used for literal imprisonment too (like say, in
The Matrix). You could give someone who's simply impossible to rehabitate a
virtual life that fits their own worldview...

~~~
Retric
That sounds more like we need insane asylums not prisons.

Politically we find it easier to deal with people that can't function in
society as criminal than sick and historically Insane Asylums have been really
nasty places. However, I don't see the advantage of keeping criminals in the
same place as the insane.

------
lossolo
I think author forget that prison ALSO means that we are isolating someone
dangerous, someone that is dangerous for society, that's why we lock him up.
There will be no other solution/place for murderers etc. Period.

I really would like that authors of that kind of articles go to areas where
there is a lot of gang activities and live there for couple of months. I am
sure they would change their mind.

~~~
maus42
Are most of people locked up murderous maniacs or other constant danger to
rest of us?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Most? No.

Enough that we still need prisons? Yes.

------
chillingeffect
Spoken like a truly out of touch academic.

Here's an incident that took place last week in a town near me:

A man with a beer and a condom approached a random couple on the sidewalk and
declared his intention to have sex with the woman. When she declined, two of
his brothers and a fourth man appeared from behind a bush, beat the man into
submission and dragged the woman back to their apartment. They barricaded the
door and raped her. The criminals had multiple previous charges including DUI
and were illegal immigrants AND they had sneaked into the U.S. a 2nd time.

But I suppose letting them "live with and be closely supervised by a family"
will straighten them out. /s

What the author doesn't acknowledge is that prison is the best thing we have
come up with so far. We all want something better, but we don't have it. And
his touchy-feely concepts are perhaps adequate for shoplifters and soft-drug
offenders, but not a family of gang rapists.

The true problems with the prison system are the overwhelming numbers of non-
violent offenders who are disproportionately ethnic minorities. It would also
be a good idea to improve rehabilitation efforts.

~~~
noir_lord
Not sure why you got downvoted, I'm pretty left wing but people who pull the
kind of shit in that story really do belong in prison, it doesn't have to be a
harsh american-style prison but it has to be secure, some people just
shouldn't be in society because of the threat they pose to the rights of
others.

It's not just about punishment it's about protecting law-abiding members of
society.

~~~
douche
There are still crimes where the punishment should be a short rope and a tall
tree. Forty years of a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, and three
squares a day is insane.

~~~
noir_lord
Yes and No, I'd sooner my taxes pay to keep someone away from society who
needs to be than pay to execute them even if it costs more, I'd sooner living
_that_ society even if it costs more.

Fortunately where I am the death penalty is a settled issue.

~~~
eunoia
Honest question, why is putting someone in a box for the rest of their life
more morally acceptable than killing them? I personally find life imprisonment
to be far more horrifying than death.

I understand the concerns around the death penalty, namely the possibility of
a wrongful conviction with the inability to appeal once the sentence is
carried out. But just comparing the punishments, why is one morally better
than the other?

~~~
Jach
My price-sensitive futurist perspective would rather we pay the one time $30k
price for a basic cryonics suspension than outright kill them _or_ keep them
locked up for life. (Caveats that it would then be seen as cruel not to
suspend terminally ill patients, old people, and so on, so the sudden increase
in cryonics demand would surely improve the methods and decrease the cost...)
But in the Current Year and Current World locking them up for life is strictly
better than just killing them, because I think that sometime within the next
50 years we have at bare minimum a decent shot at finding out how to
drastically expand lifetimes (perhaps de facto immortality) and additionally
alter a person's self in subtle ways that still constitutes a continuation of
identity, and then we can directly rehabilitate. (Somewhat like _Demolition
Man_ , except done right. ;)) I also think the major powers can squeeze by and
last that long, specifically no entering of a new dark age even if say the US
split up or even if the several social order crises currently underway made
some big dents. Without the possibility of living forever with a non-dangerous
mind, I actually don't see much reason to prefer life in prison over death, I
see a big reason (cost) to prefer death, and if I was sentenced any time prior
to the early 1900s I'd ask for the guillotine instead.

------
pitt1980
Seems like the cost-benefit analysis of caning looks pretty positive

------
clamprecht
Are you kidding? Think of all the prison guards with no skills who would be
unemployed if we closed prisons!

~~~
Forbo
As tongue-in-cheek as this is, it raises a valid point. Corrections industry
unions are large and powerful.

~~~
DanBC
Not in England, where this article is from.

------
rurban
Sure. The US needs to prolong their racist and anti-communist policies, that's
why they came with their current prison system afterall.

Nixon improved the system to ensure better voter turnout for his kind (20%
less democrates votes and get blacks from the streets), Clinton improved the
system for more cheap slave labour (which worked great for centuries to make
the US the greatest country of all) and helped private prison incentives.
Mandatory sentencing, war on drugs, reducing accountability on law enforcement
and justice.

Actually helping improving the crime rate is not the goal, the goal is
entirely business and political. The crime rate went down due to Roe v. Wade
btw, getting poor people access to birth control. That's why the right-wing
states are fighting that. It would diminish their advantages of the current
imprisonment system.

~~~
mbcrower
The right-wing states want higher crime?

~~~
rurban
They do profit from these policies.

------
winter_blue
I think only the individuals that pose a real and significant physical safety
threat should be put behind bars (i.e those that are likely to physically
attack others).

For everyone else (incl. white-collar criminals, non-violent drug offenders,
etc.), we need to figure out a more cost-efficient, recidivism-minimizing
corrections system.

~~~
levemi
White collar crime can be so much worse than violent crimes. If some desperate
person punches you in the face that should be punished, but someone who
destroys the lives of so many by engaging in fraud in the financial sector
leading to billions in public money spent to bail out companies, lives
destroyed has done far worse than punch a single person in the face.

------
eggestad
We actually don't send people to prison (impost sanction) to make them stop.
0.1% of any population will break laws no matter what.

The real reason for imposing sanctions is that 80% of law abiding people would
break any and all laws if there was not a threat of sanction.

------
worik
"...the Dutch are housing Belgian and Norwegian prisoners to fill their
prisons"

Exporting prison space! Wow!

------
TheGuyWhoCodes
Yes. Prisons should be first to rehabilitate the offender if it's possible, if
there is no punishment of being away from society people will be more willing
to commit crimes.

The main problem with prisons is that they seem like a waste of tax payer
funds.

Why should I sentence someone for pre-meditated murder for 20 years? Wouldn't
it be better to just off him? Same with rapists. If the crime was done to
intentionally harm another person that person is a danger to society. The
economics are also not in favor of keeping criminals like that.

For all other crimes the prison should help rehabilitate that person and if
possible pay for his incarceration to offload the burden on the tax payer.

------
cphuntington97
I'm not sure I believe punishment is even possible.

My personal view is that if someone needs to be separated from society for the
good of society or for themselves, it should be done in the most humane and
least restrictive way possible.

------
jasonjei
My question is why do we still punish people with computer or financial or
corruption crimes in prison for long terms? Yes, I understand some price
should be paid, but extremely long prison terms for non-violent crimes such as
hacking computer systems seem strange.

In fact, some of these wrongdoers actually are very intelligent, and having
them make amends with their intellect could be a just way to perform community
service. Anyone able to chime in? I'm not well informed on the different
views, so I'd like to gain some insight to this view.

~~~
beeboop
If you remove the risk of prison for nonviolent offenders, you're creating a
world where large businesses and their owners will no longer care whether they
do something illegal, they will only care about the risks of getting caught
versus the potential profit to be made. You turn the criminal justice system
into a risk analysis that happens in some board room. There will be no real
detriment to rich people for breaking the law - worse case scenario they lose
some money, the equivalent of you ruining the financial security of thousands
of people or causing billions in irreversible environmental damage and getting
a speeding ticket for it.

~~~
jasonjei
I understand there has to be some price to be paid. My question is the length.
Is the term deterministic or is it arbitrary? I have never really understood
why some non-violent crimes are sentenced with 10 years in prison versus 200
years in prison. For example, a self-victim crime of consuming drugs is
punished harshly in Singapore.

~~~
beeboop
At some point the length was arbitrary. As precedence is created, it becomes
more deterministic but only somewhat more so. Often times there are minimum
sentencing laws, the length of which is mostly arbitrary.

------
Glyptodon
All the talk about home incarceration type programs seems like it wouldn't
work out all that well with a population that (I assume) mostly rents and (I
assume) often has trouble keeping their finances in the black without any
punitive measures.

