I can confirm that generally there is a different viewpoint. In Germany prison is somewhat of the last resort mostly to be avoided, and even then the aspect of rehabilitation (and deterrence) is most important.
In the US I find there's often a notion of revenge, as in "This person must suffer for what for (s)he did!"; and more severe sentences usually to be considered as "more justice".
Edit: Some spelling for clarity
Prison in many EU countries is avoided for a lot of reasons, including statistics, which state that crime rate doesn't correlate with punishment as much as social/economy factors.
Similar to these Norway has a life-sentence limit of 20 years ( I think ).
The idea behind prison in continental legal systems is to serve 2 purposes :
1a. To educate the person that committed the crime that it's actually bad 1b. To frighten the same person before the crime is committed 1c. To prevent the same person to commit a crime before he's re-educated. 2. To educate other potential crime committers what will happen if they do the same.
1a,1b,1c are individual prevention and 2 is general prevention.
So ... If one of those can't be met by the punishment then punishment for that crime is not considered.
21, iirc, but also with a recently added clause that allows them to hold someone for longer (5 year increments) if deemed still a risk (i guess the stress test of that clause is behind bars right now).
US is puritans. Revenge is one of the cornerstones of the puritan moral.
The USA spans a huge continent which was settled by a huge number of very different groups all with different moral and philosophical foundations.
Yeah, but somehow it's only one group of people who seems to call the shots: Those with a disdain for the poor, the weak, the ill, the black and women.
It is also noticeable in social economical policies - the approach "you're poor because you're a lazy bum" can be seen as a form of punishment which is a natural view in the US (especially to the religious part of the society) while obviously less so for Germany. Note that such "punishment" is not explicitly inflicted by people, instead it viewed along the lines like "God loves hard working good people (and hates the opposite ones)".
The US also "encourages and fosters" the idea of personal responsibility. Everyone can become a billionaire. If you don't, that's your personal failure. If you commit a crime, that's your own fault and you should be punished for it. If you become unemployed and don't find another job, you're lazy and just don't put in enough effort. If you're poor, again, your fault and how dare you ask for hand-outs?
The US doesn't emphasize individualism, it's anti-social.
"The Paranoid Style In American Politics" is probably the the best explanation of the fundamental forces that shape most of our politics. Playing to paranoia about "the enemy" has always been a successful tactic, and the war on drugs is simply the latest in a long line of "enemies".
"The commies are hiding everywhere" changed into "Gangs are in your town/school/neighborhood trying to get you kids hook on drugs". In modern times, a reasonable number of people see this pattern happening again with the paranoia about anting that looks Arab or Muslim: "We have to keep fighting the terrorists - don't you know that ISIS is hiding everywhere?". Unfortunately, a lot more people are fooled by the rhetoric when a politician starts spreading fear and loathing suggesting that "Those welfare queens are getting rich! It a complete free ride! 99.6% even have refrigerators!".[1]
It's an obvious trope once you learn to see it.
[1] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/jfmt11/the-daily-show-with-jon...
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/u-s-grapples-rise-roll...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/03/us/mohammed-drawing-contest-sh...
You're twisting "Paranoid Style" to deny the existence of real things. "Paranoid Style" doesn't apply to real things. It applies to "Communists infiltrated our schools to brainwash our kids" and not "communists infiltrated government." It applies to "the crack epidemic was created by the CIA" and not "we have a serious problem with drugs and organized crime in America." It applies to "All Muslims are all practicing taqiya and are working together to invade and undermine the USA" and not "Muslim communities contain extremists that are lying in wait to attack Americans."
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occu...
> We are living in boom times for the private prison industry. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest owner of private prisons, has seen its revenue climb by more than 500 percent in the last two decades. And CCA wants to get much, much bigger: Last year, the company made an offer to 48 governors to buy and operate their state-funded prisons. But what made CCA's pitch to those governors so audacious and shocking was that it included a so-called occupancy requirement, a clause demanding the state keep those newly privatized prisons at least 90 percent full at all times, regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.
> Occupancy requirements, as it turns out, are common practice within the private prison industry. A new report by In the Public Interest, an anti-privatization group, reviewed 62 contracts for private prisons operating around the country at the local and state level. In the Public Interest found that 41 of those contracts included occupancy requirements mandating that local or state government keep those facilities between 80 and 100 percent full. In other words, whether crime is rising or falling, the state must keep those beds full.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-cohen/lockup-quotas-low...
> In 2012, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest for-profit prison company in the country, sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to buy their public prisons. CCA offered to buy and operate state prisons in exchange for a 20-year contract, which would include a 90 percent occupancy rate guarantee for the entire term. Essentially, the state would have to guarantee that its prison would be 90 percent filled for the next 20 years (a lockup quota), or pay the company for unused prison beds if the number of inmates dipped below 90 percent capacity at any point during the contract term (a "low-crime tax" that essentially penalizes taxpayers when prison incarceration rates fall).
I can't prove that this is related to the private prison industry. But I'm not buying for one second the sudden sharp rise was caused by suddenly increased vengefulness, either. So what gives?
It's more insidious than that. We just want people we're afraid of out of our daily reality, and we want it cheap. Once we throw someone in prison, our goal is accomplished. Very few people care what happens next, as long as they don't escape.
Incarceration is vengeful because the cheapest and most natural way to do it is to lock a bunch of violent people with nothing to lose in the same room and tell a small army to keep them under control. I'd argue we didn't design it to be brutal, we just don't care that it is.
As a German that seems incredibly fucked up.
Recidivism is the biggest problem especially when something like 75% of inmates will be arrested again within 5 years.