On July 13 2013 21:36 Toadesstern wrote: good thing you're not running a prison I guess?
Depends. Are we concerned with rehabilitating prisoners, or are we concerned with making their lives comfortable?
It's the same thing, you can hardly rehab someone if they are not out of a shitty environment, it's like wanting to rehab an alcoholic but put em around alot of alcohol and alcoholics who's drunk.
No, it's like wanting to rehab an alcoholic and so you work him so goddamn hard every single day that he doesn't have the energy nor the time to even think about alcohol. Also, you remove anything resembling alcohol or anything that reminds him of alcohol (tattoo removal for all tattoos upon entering prison, uniform enforcement, no unauthorized association, etc.)
Also, rehabilitation is not my only concern, nor should it ever be the sole concern of anyone.
his point was that you can't expect someone to stop being violent by putting him in a situation that is being violent towards you on purpose. Maybe once to see what it's like from the other side but if you're being treated like an animal from a day to day basis, being tortured (which this thread is about) for the sake of getting your revenge there's really nothing you have to be suprised about if guy-in-question comes out of prison like an animal himself.
So you do agree that violence / torture should be avoided at all costs if possible after all? Because that's what you're trying to get people off of.
If a prisoner is refusing to follow the rules then something must be done to convince them that breaking the rules will lead to undesirable consequences. If you have a better, more effective way than solitary confinement than that should surely be used instead.
On July 13 2013 21:36 Toadesstern wrote: good thing you're not running a prison I guess?
Depends. Are we concerned with rehabilitating prisoners, or are we concerned with making their lives comfortable?
It's the same thing, you can hardly rehab someone if they are not out of a shitty environment, it's like wanting to rehab an alcoholic but put em around alot of alcohol and alcoholics who's drunk.
No, it's like wanting to rehab an alcoholic and so you work him so goddamn hard every single day that he doesn't have the energy nor the time to even think about alcohol. Also, you remove anything resembling alcohol or anything that reminds him of alcohol (tattoo removal for all tattoos upon entering prison, uniform enforcement, no unauthorized association, etc.)
Also, rehabilitation is not my only concern, nor should it ever be the sole concern of anyone.
What other concerns do you have?
The safety of law-abiding (and non law-abiding) citizens, the general peace and well-being of society itself, and as unpopular as it is: punishment. I think the idea that punishment is synonymous with revenge is nonsensical.
The first two are basically the same thing. Punishment, to my mind, is definitely only for revenge, but I'm interested to know what other function you think it has?
I think that punishment is enforced penance, and I think penance is absolutely necessary for the psychological well-being of both the criminal and the victim.
What is the point of penance if not rehabilitation?
I'm asking for a moral argument to show that X commits immoral action/crime implies X should be punished even if X could otherwise be (ethically) perfectly rehabilitated.
It seems to me that the goal of the U.S. prison system cannot be to rehabilitate and lower the amount of dangerous criminals in our society unless they are simply failing to accomplish that goal at an astronomical rate.
Solitary confinement is one symptom of a U.S. prison system that is more like a business that provides punishment and revenge as opposed to an institution that seeks to improve society.
It violates all emotional logic that treating a prisoner well might be the most productive option, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be considered. I wonder if this hunger strike will accomplish anything, I can imagine the backlash that would occur from many people if the prison system "gave in" to the prisoners even if it is for a good cause.
Not a single thing you've brought up here supports your contention that "rehabilitation should be our sole concern". Max security prisons have nothing to do with that contention and don't really belong in a debate about it.
If the purpose is to protect the public, you either need to hold the prisoners there for life, or to rehabilitate them. If you are gonna hold them for life, why not just kill them outright? Imprisoning someone with no chance of release is cruel if you ask me.
Harsher sentences and stricter treatment are completely meaningless terms unless we define them specifically. I won't argue for or against them as concepts until I am aware of what, specifically, those terms imply to you and others. Come up with a solid, accepted definition of the words and we can see if I disagree or not, or can find any evidence supporting their application.
I don't think that this is a meaningful thing to do. How would you even go about doing that? My point is that the US has very long sentences for pretty much all sorts of crime and there are people whom advocate more still. Obviously there is more to it than a direct comparison to other countries, but the length of the sentences do not seem to have any effect at all on the crime rates.
Just for reference, the maximum sentence for murder(1) in sweden is 18 years. Minimum is 10(can't find averages). Max in the US is death and average is over 20 years(according to random guy on internet). What a swedish inmate can expect is something like this:
I found a debate on a forum whether or not they would allow playstation 2&3 now or only ps1. Suffice to say, prisoners are not suffering.
I would call this objectively shorter and less severe a punishment than what the equivalent would be like in california. It also happens to produce a lower recidivism (40% ish, only source I found was in swedish).
Overall though, the bigger point I want to make is not that long sentences are bad, but rather that punishment on a whole is much less important than what happens before a crime is even commited. At least that is the only explanation I have as to why some countries are completely different to others in terms of crime rates.
What scientific evidence says that crime does not deserve punishment? The statement: "crime deserves punishment" is a philosophical/moral statement, which is in no way connected to science. (Or at best, only peripherally connected).
That is not how science works. We do not prove all the things that aren't, we prove the things that are. You are making the claim, you provide the evidence. I am claiming that punishment does not reduce crime nearly as linearly as you'd expect. http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/incarcrecid.pdf
While this is an old report, the things debated have not really changed. It clearly states with multiple refrences that longer sentences tend to increase recidivism, and never decrease it. I don't know what causes crime in the first place, but putting people behind bars does not really rehabilitate them, nor does it deter others from commiting crime. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=223148
Morals do not have high ground in an argument if you ask me. From my side, there is no discernable positive benefit from having punishment, at least not of this magnitude. Then it makes no sense to promote that kind of system. Even if I feel like we should.
On July 14 2013 00:37 sc2superfan101 wrote: I should elaborate:
The statement: "our only concern should be rehabilitation" is so patently absurd that it can be rejected almost out of hand. Obviously a respect of human rights and basic dignity of even the most horrific criminals should also be a primary concern, otherwise any and all efforts that could conceivably lead to "rehabilitation" up to and including invasive medical/psychological procedures would be morally justified until they are either deemed to be effective or non-effective at rehabilitation. Not to mention the necessary arguing over what "rehabilitated" truly means.
Granting that rehabilitation is not our sole concern, we then come to the question of what our concerns should be and to what degree of importance or weight do those concerns have in relation to each other.
No! They didn't have the primary concern themselves, when they destroyed lifes/families. When they killed/raped/did the horrific crime, it's like they signed a paper where it's written 'I'm not a human being. I'm a beast.'
They have not done any such thing. First, let us deal with the question of whether they have any rights whatsoever. It would be clear to most people that they do. Otherwise we could justify decades of constant physical torture and maiming for someone committing a murder/rape. Only the most disturbed and depraved mind would support removing a man's appendages and limbs one by one without anesthetic over an extended period of time, no matter what said man did or didn't do.
Now, are they no more than beasts? We don't torture beasts. So I suppose that grants them some rights. However, we do put beasts down quite often. I suppose you would support lethally injecting any convicted murderer once they've begun costing us too much money? And what if they are exonerated after we've done so? There have been cases of people being convicted of a crime and then revealed to be innocent. Respect for human rights should not be ignored just because the depraved showed no such respect. Otherwise we have become the very thing we're "fighting".
A society has to work on the wellness of the most people possible. So yes, there have been cases of innocent people getting executed, but it's a number game. Do you prefer an innocent to die or more than one innocent to die (if the guy comes out of prison and does bad stuff)? I think a society has to go by numbers. Also, I think that nowadays with all the technologies, trials are becoming quite accurate. Mistakes will always exist, but with DNA and other things it's WAY less than in the past.
Where does this utilitarian model stop? I know this is a bit of an extreme example, but let's say you have a population of 50 people. If we kill 5 of them to ensure that we get at least a certain number of the guilty, why not just kill 6? Why not 7? Why not 49? Oh, 1 guy that we drive crazy in solitary to serve as punishment for the rest of his cell? No biggie. I fundamentally disagree with that utilitarian model, but I also don't think it works logically.
To your second point, sure mistakes don't get made, but the other day, a judge was texting the prosecutor to feed information that would ensure a guilty charge. This happened in Texas. So a much purer, less mistaken-prone judicial system assumes that the "law-abiding" & law-enacting pieces of our society are also acting in a moral and ethical way.
If we accept that the legal system should be permitted to execute possibly innocent people, then the legal system loses all credibility in prosecuting actual murderers.
On July 14 2013 05:12 Shiori wrote: If we accept that the legal system should be permitted to execute possibly innocent people, then the legal system loses all credibility in prosecuting actual murderers.
thank you for saying that. That's a much better point actually.
On July 14 2013 05:12 Shiori wrote: If we accept that the legal system should be permitted to execute possibly innocent people, then the legal system loses all credibility in prosecuting actual murderers.
Why? What is it about execution that makes a system lose all credibility? Regardless of what punishment a penal/judicial system uses, it will have the same accuracy in valid convictions. No matter how good a judicial system that exists, there will always be false positives, and while it's certainly critical to minimize them, one has to nonetheless accept it.
That said, on the subject of death penalty, I think there should be little-to no extra judicial work involved in them but rather take into effect for repeat offenders, such as getting convicted of armed robbery or murder in 3 separate trials.
On July 14 2013 05:12 Shiori wrote: If we accept that the legal system should be permitted to execute possibly innocent people, then the legal system loses all credibility in prosecuting actual murderers.
Why? What is it about execution that makes a system lose all credibility? Regardless of what punishment a penal/judicial system uses, it will have the same accuracy in valid convictions. No matter how good a judicial system that exists, there will always be false positives, and while it's certainly critical to minimize them, one has to nonetheless accept it.
That said, on the subject of death penalty, I think there should be little-to no extra judicial work involved in them but rather take into effect for repeat offenders, such as getting convicted of armed robbery or murder in 3 separate trials.
Executions are dumb no matter how you argue them. There is no logical argument that can be made for them that does not center around vengeance for the harmed party, which is not what justice is about.
Executions: Have a national 2% error rate despite a massive and lengthy appeal process Cost more than life in prison due to the lengthy appeal process Have no effect on crime and have no evidence to support they deter any criminal activity.
The only reason anyone puts forward for executions is “closure for the victims and their families” which is not a good enough reason to execution 2 innocent people out of 100. There is no way to you can argue for the death penalty without arguing based on emotional reasons or retribution. There is no rational argument that can be made that says it benefits people in any way.
Must've missed this the first time around. Any updates on this story? The way that solitary confinement is done in these prisons in horrible in the sense that you lose most sensory input and start to lose it when you aren't interacting with many people. I can understand wanting to teach someone a lesson but if you plan to put them in solitary confinement, at least give them some stuff to pass the time and don't do it months on end but a week or so at best. Sadly, I don't think much will change :/
On July 14 2013 05:12 Shiori wrote: If we accept that the legal system should be permitted to execute possibly innocent people, then the legal system loses all credibility in prosecuting actual murderers.
Why? What is it about execution that makes a system lose all credibility? Regardless of what punishment a penal/judicial system uses, it will have the same accuracy in valid convictions. No matter how good a judicial system that exists, there will always be false positives, and while it's certainly critical to minimize them, one has to nonetheless accept it.
That said, on the subject of death penalty, I think there should be little-to no extra judicial work involved in them but rather take into effect for repeat offenders, such as getting convicted of armed robbery or murder in 3 separate trials.
Executions are dumb no matter how you argue them. There is no logical argument that can be made for them that does not center around vengeance for the harmed party, which is not what justice is about.
Executions: Have a national 2% error rate despite a massive and lengthy appeal process Cost more than life in prison due to the lengthy appeal process Have no effect on crime and have no evidence to support they deter any criminal activity.
The only reason anyone puts forward for executions is “closure for the victims and their families” which is not a good enough reason to execution 2 innocent people out of 100. There is no way to you can argue for the death penalty without arguing based on emotional reasons or retribution. There is no rational argument that can be made that says it benefits people in any way.
It makes absolutely no sense to take the flaws of the current system and use them as criticisms of proposed changes.
vengeance really can't be used as an excuse for execution? (guilty without doubt, though this may vary in the real world) not a in a legal sense, but in moral sense.
in my honest opinion to pass off execution as some immoral-nonjustice-useless-unnecessary, seems very pussy-hippy-treehugging-lovepreaching-bullshit. but hey, everyone is different.
Execution really doesn't make sense to me. Neither does house and feeding criminals though. It's like an adult time out. Go sit in the corner and thing about your actions. I'd rather have a 3 strikes your deported to china. Out of sight out of mind. Flawless system right there
Prison should be a place where people go after they get caught where they can be happy, eat well, and be treated like great citizens. I can't believe all their comforts aren't being met.
We should pay for them to have sleep # beds and 60 inch 1080p tv's with xbox's, that way they can regret their actions.
You stole from people and got caught? Here, go take a vacation for a year and think about what you did. rofl.....
On July 26 2013 07:32 MostGroce wrote: Prison should be a place where people go after they get caught where they can be happy, eat well, and be treated like great citizens. I can't believe all their comforts aren't being met.
We should pay for them to have sleep # beds and 60 inch 1080p tv's with xbox's, that way they can regret their actions.
You stole from people and got caught? Here, go take a vacation for a year and think about what you did. rofl.....
There's actually a middle way between xboxs and torture.
On July 26 2013 07:18 albis wrote: Execution really doesn't make sense to me. Neither does house and feeding criminals though. It's like an adult time out. Go sit in the corner and thing about your actions. I'd rather have a 3 strikes your deported to china. Out of sight out of mind. Flawless system right there
I don't think china wants all our criminals. This would not fly with international relations. But I kinda agree with the sentiment. I wish we had an australia we could send all the criminals to.
On July 26 2013 07:18 albis wrote: Execution really doesn't make sense to me. Neither does house and feeding criminals though. It's like an adult time out. Go sit in the corner and thing about your actions. I'd rather have a 3 strikes your deported to china. Out of sight out of mind. Flawless system right there
I don't think china wants all our criminals. This would not fly with international relations. But I kinda agree with the sentiment. I wish we had an australia we could send all the criminals to.
So you're kind of advertising artificially creating rogue states. Seems especially odd comming from someone from the US to be honest.
On July 26 2013 07:32 MostGroce wrote: Prison should be a place where people go after they get caught where they can be happy, eat well, and be treated like great citizens. I can't believe all their comforts aren't being met.
We should pay for them to have sleep # beds and 60 inch 1080p tv's with xbox's, that way they can regret their actions.
You stole from people and got caught? Here, go take a vacation for a year and think about what you did. rofl.....
There's actually a middle way between xboxs and torture.
Its just rare you see that middle way. Either the prisons are so filthy and dangerous its pretty much inhuman to sentence people to such a place. Carandiru prison was such a place before it got shut down.
Or, the "prisons" are so luxuries that you don't get a sense of punishement, or those close to the victim don't get a sense of justice. Its supposed to be a place where criminals don't want to come back to, but if they don't offer anything but nice beds, HD TV, access to internet etc., then why be afraid of 1-3 years in prison every time you get caught?
Its hard to make a prison where every need gets met, because we want to rehabilitate people, but at the same time, give out exact justice.
Prissoners have it way too easy they have developed there own society behind bars that indoctrinates each other to be worse then when they entered. there should be more solitary confinement and straight up brainwashing to reenter them into sosciety. also if i was in prison solitary and unlimited books sounds allot better then surprise butsex.
On July 14 2013 05:12 Shiori wrote: If we accept that the legal system should be permitted to execute possibly innocent people, then the legal system loses all credibility in prosecuting actual murderers.
Why? What is it about execution that makes a system lose all credibility? Regardless of what punishment a penal/judicial system uses, it will have the same accuracy in valid convictions. No matter how good a judicial system that exists, there will always be false positives, and while it's certainly critical to minimize them, one has to nonetheless accept it.
That said, on the subject of death penalty, I think there should be little-to no extra judicial work involved in them but rather take into effect for repeat offenders, such as getting convicted of armed robbery or murder in 3 separate trials.
Because if we come to accept false positives, say just one, why stop there? What would stop that society from then moving up to 5 or 6? It's slippery.
Also, would you still feel that way if it was a family member? That's not an argument, but I'm curious about how you'd feel.
EPT
