Why do you think the system is supposed to rehabilitate? I would argue that the system is supposed to separate people who cannot be trusted in society from the rest of us. I think the major failure of the justice system (apart from corruption and dishonesty) is the failure to keep prisoners safe from one another. Rehabilitation should happen on your own recognizance, the system should exist to keep you exiled from people who didn't commit your crime.
(I do believe that rehabilitation, or more accurately in the case of people who never were instilled with a moral compass, "habilitation", is often possible and always desirable, but I don't think the system itself can or should be entrusted with that responsibility. It should just make the conditions for habilitation possible, and then outside society can intervene as it will.)
No man is an island. If you separate someone from their community, their relationships, and the very things that cause us to change (people) -- you create monsters. Disenfranchised (more than already), rootless, without a reason or purpose to change. The only recognizance most prisoners will get is further down the "no one can be trusted or relied upon; I am the only person that must be taken care of" rabbit hole. You end up with either the fully antisocial, the terribly maladapted who can no longer build relations and integrate with others, or simply the dissociated.
Atleast in more sane countries, the corrections officers and prisons act as a form of community. A safe reprieve from the brutality of life, for one to be able to emulate a "normal" life, and "normal" interactions, and "normal" behavior. The brutality and isolation of an American prison only emulates a lawless society. The moral compass imparted within is simply might makes right. It takes Olympian acts of mental gymnastics to believe one is wholly responsible for one's own moral compass -- or that anyone but the most deluded can reject the reality they find themselves in, cast off all practical notions of operating oneself, and commit to abstract ideals. The only people who can do that are people who are so detached from any feedback loop on their survival, that it doesn't matter what they believe -- they have enough money and support that any insanity will never jeopardize them.
Crimes and morals are relative to the environments people find themselves in. Stuffing the spiritually ill into a crude box of suffering is on par with lobotomizing the "fussy and ill-tempered" housewives of the last century.
> If you separate someone from their community, their relationships, and the very things that cause us to change (people) -- you create monsters.
You and I agree that the current method of imprisoning criminals teaches them to be worse, and must change. However, I think you are either ignoring or not believing the fact that many people "in their community" are already monsters. (A "monster" in this case is someone who knowingly and purposefully spreads suffering, either for their own benefit or for fun.)
The behavioral patterns and beliefs that cause crimes that we jail for--duelling, honor killing, robbery, sexual aggression, petty theft, intimidation, etc.--are first learned from the families, friends, and neighbors that one grows up around. Removing the children of mafiosos from their environment isn't going to contribute to their learning of the culture of the Mafia any more than removing the children of rich WASPs would contribute to their learning of the stereotypically entitled behaviors and views on the lower classes. (It is a popular belief among progressives that it's the System in the first place that teaches them these behaviors, but this is a view that robs people of their agency. It implies that violence would be least in a more anarchist-adjacent society, when in fact the historical view shows that inter-group violence is staggeringly high in places with less strong governments.)
Apart from this, I don't think we disagree on the problem with modern prisons. My primary view of prison reform is that prison ought to be safe. We should, as a civilized society, guarantee people we imprison that when they are forcibly remanded under the care of the Department of Justice, they are no longer in danger from their fellow citizens, and answer only to their captors.
I think we can reduce our differences as to those of values. My definition of "monster" is not someone who "knowingly and purposefully spreads suffering, either for their own benefit for for fun." That is just a selfish person with no care for how their malicious acts affect others.
"Monsters," in my view, are those that are not and cannot ever be part of any cohesive human unit -- rather than those who cannot conform to a "global" moral or value system. The WASPs, mafiosos, inbred and insane aristocrats, mob-men, etc. are not what I consider monsters. They live and operate within a community. They almost always spread suffering, pain, violence, and other acts of villainy -- but that is an inescapable part of humanity. Locking them up away from the rest will not solve any long-term problems, aside from the career outlooks of politicians, district attorneys, and their ilk.
American Indians and other "primitive" tribes of people are another example (related to groups of people without strong government). All the war, bloodshed, acts of heinous despicably they commit against one another, is not something that can be whisked away by more subjugation. Brutality and suffering is a part of us. To think ourselves as civilized because we repress those urges into complete subjugation is foolhardy. Without active sublimation of these parts into socially-affirming activities, they will spill-over into other parts. We will not become "monsters," but we will do monstrous deeds unknowingly, within the comfort of our delusion of domestication.
Perhaps I lack the ability to "narrow in" on a certain issue. I miss the "trees for the forest," which makes it impossible for me to see a way to untangle this "ball of yarn" without methodically understanding the tangle of all the collective "strings". And for that, I do think your views are much more practical and applicable in the present.
That is a very insightful comment, thank you for making it. I think I understand your original point a little better than I did.
> To think ourselves as civilized because we repress those urges into complete subjugation is foolhardy.
Given your belief about the existence of inherent brutality in humanity (which I agree with) is a "civilized person" actually an achievable goal? I have gone this far believing that the definition of a "civilized" person is some with normal, inherent uncivilized urges that effectively controls ("subjugates") those urges enough to create civilization. (Peace and prosperity via collaboration and material surplus.)
Also, if exile to prison is not actually solving any long-term problems, what do you think is a possibile course of action that does address long-term problems?
If you let outsiders of the system to go at will intervene you create a perverse incentive for those outsiders to game ways to keep these people in prison, if they are too good at rehabilitation they'll lose potential cheap labour. An actor outside of the system will have access to labour that is cheap and in precarious conditions, usually a pretty good start for exploitation, without having any responsibility whatsoever for their rehabilitation.
If you decide that a condition for access from outsiders is to rehabilitate people (with whatever metrics you can come up) then you have just privatised the job of rehabilitation... For what gain? Society as a whole would benefit if prisoners are rehabilitated and find that criminality is not worth it, isn't the job of the State the betterment of society? Why should we create convoluted ways to privatise that?
> Isn't the job of the State the betterment of society?
We may have fundamentally opposing ideological views here, but I see what you're asking. I would actually say that the job of Society is the betterment of the state. Ultimately it is people in society that create and man their bureaucracies; the government is infused with the skills and morals of the people that form it, and will not exceed their abilities.
I don't think that you could ever form a wing of a government that was capable of rehabilitating people without that wing being fully made up of very intelligent people with good intentions; and if you were able to assemble that group of people, they'd do a better job as a private endeavor (maybe not for profit, perhaps as a non-profit that only pays their salaries, etc.) I do think you could make a form of a government that was capable of keeping prisons far safer than they are now, as that's a much more discrete and amoral task that ensuring that convicted citizens (often low-IQ, often sociopathic, often abused, often with PTSD) are rehabilitated.
> Rehabilitation should happen on your own recognizance
I agree. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. There is still legitimate debate on how much role society has to play in making sure it's as nice as possible for the horse to get to water.
Obviously in GP's uncle's case an injustice was done to him (by his father, it sounds like), but it is still up to him as an adult to become a productive member of society. I like the way some put it, when talking about people from troubled backgrounds (whether from abusive parents, mental issues, what have you): it wasn't your fault, but it's still your responsibility to deal with it, once you are an adult.
But what does telling them it is their responsibility get us? A warm, fuzzy feeling that we are better than those irresponsible people is the best I can come up with. Aside from that we shouldn't try to assign responsibility or blame, but instead look at what results our system has. If there are people who could be productive members of society, but who have fallen so far behind they can't take care of "their responsibilities", how does it help us if we don't help them?
Every policy choice has an opportunity cost and sets up an incentive. If we don't do something, that resource gets used elsewhere; if we make the imprisoned experience very nice and comfortable, it takes away a disincentive for committing crime. So you can never look at anything in a vacuum.
I'm sure you've had an experience where you had a friend or relative in hard circumstances who you kept on trying to help, but they seemingly fell on their same bad habits over and over again, leading you to be exhausted and unable to manage your own life.
> Every policy choice has an opportunity cost and sets up an incentive. If we don't do something, that resource gets used elsewhere; if we make the imprisoned experience very nice and comfortable, it takes away a disincentive for committing crime.
And yet the scandinavian justice system is much nicer to their prisoners compared to the american one, yet they have much lower rates of re-offenders. Why does this seemingly work for them? Why don't they have to treat their prisoners as bad as the US does to get a better outcome?
> So you can never look at anything in a vacuum.
But that's what you're doing. You're looking at something like "the prison experience is bad", and you decide that if it's improved, you take away disincentives for committing crime. But you don't consider the positive effect on rehabilitation and everything else. That's why I said: why don't we look at the effect of policies? You are randomly choosing aspects to focus on, because they support your thesis. I'm saying: let's throw away our theses and just accept what the data tells us.
> I'm sure you've had an experience where you had a friend or relative in hard circumstances who you kept on trying to help, but they seemingly fell on their same bad habits over and over again, leading you to be exhausted and unable to manage your own life.
Maybe the right thing to do isn't to ignore them, but to get them help that actually helps them? In your described situation I am not the right person to try and help them, but I can help them get there with much lower personal efforts.
Scandinavian countries are for the most part ethnically homogeneous with a monarchy and a state religion, all things that improve social cohesion. (The one Scandinavian country that became markedly less ethnically homogeneous recently is struggling with an unprecedented rise in violent crime.) America is just about the polar opposite of that, and recently so much more so -- now it's considered racist to ask an immigrant to assimilate themselves to the mainstream culture, for example.
And there are legal systems that go the other way to achieve the same result of low rates of crime and reoffense; countries like Saudi Arabia or the UAE treat criminals extremely harshly and have some of the lowest crime rates in the world. Singapore puts drug traffickers to death and have opiate abuse rates of 30 per 100k vs. 600 in the US.
America, for better or for worse, is a vast land with a diverse population and constitutionally guaranteed personal liberties; that is to say, it's set up in such a way that deterrence is a big part of the justice system. In less diverse countries with more social cohesion, a big chunk of that deterrence comes from social pressure of people around you, who look like you and with whom you share a common cultural heritage. In America, where the people around you have little say in your behavior (and increasingly less so), it's a part of the justice system's job to be menacing.
> let's throw away our theses and just accept what the data tells us
What the data tells about Scandinavia is not likely to work in America for the reasons above. And let me ask you a question: a third of all shoplifting arrests in NYC, a city of 8.5 million people, were from just 327 people, who were collectively arrested over 6000 times[0]. How will you rehabilitate those 327 people, given that you don't have unlimited resources and you have a duty to keep them from harming other innocent, law-abiding people? Saudi Arabia would probably cut their hands off and be done with it. Norway might commit them to a lengthy term at a psychiatric facility on the taxpayer's dime. Neither is an option in the US.
Do you have any proof that the "ethnic homogeneity" is the cause of the difference? It's paraded around for any issue where America is worse off than other countries, but it's always just put out as a statement of fact. Do you have any shred of evidence? Any studies?
If you don't, please take a second to reflect why you're pointing at this specific difference.
If you're looking for "proof" that any one thing is the "cause" of a complex social issue, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. There isn't a great deal of academic literature on the topic, but perhaps two key illustrations:
1. The 1954 "Toward an Understanding of Juvenile Delinquency" by Lander, which showed that the rate of "delinquency" rose for both whites and blacks as the ratio between the two reached 50%, and proportionally fell in areas where either whites or blacks held the majority.
2. The 1982 "Population Heterogeneity and the Sociogenesis of Homicide" by Hansmann and Quigley, which recognizes that though the issue is complex, their findings support the the idea that population heterogeneity is a "significant causal factor in homicide".
And of course, unacademically off the top of your head, it's likely that the lowest-crime places you can think of are generally ethnically homogeneous.
> If you don't, please take a second to reflect why you're pointing at this specific difference.
Hey, I'm not the one who held up Scandinavia (>90% white) as a model. I myself am neither white nor black and immigrated to the US, where I would much rather prefer to live, warts and all, than in Scandinavia.
I'm sure you're aware that research methods in general, but especially in sociology, have improved over the last decades. Do you have any source that is not literally 40 years old? Anything more current?
> Hey, I'm not the one who held up Scandinavia (>90% white) as a model.
(I do believe that rehabilitation, or more accurately in the case of people who never were instilled with a moral compass, "habilitation", is often possible and always desirable, but I don't think the system itself can or should be entrusted with that responsibility. It should just make the conditions for habilitation possible, and then outside society can intervene as it will.)