Prisoners Endure a Nightmare 'Gulag' in Lower Manhattan (2018)

In the US we know our prisons are used for punishment, so there's really no point in asking that question. A better question might be: should be transform them from punishment to rehab? (I think 'yes', but there are many here in the US who disagree because 'fuck them, they're criminals and they deserve it')

> Are they for punishment or rehabilitation?

Neither. They are for sequestration. They are a place to put people that society just doesn't want to deal with. Punishment is just a side-effect. This is the reason we put people awaiting trial in the same facilities as people who have been convicted of crimes.

Rehabilitation is not even on the radar.

This is a jail, not a prison, and has a clear purpose (holding people for trials and such).

Not defending the medieval “justice” system in the us, just being clear.

Among other things, it enriches private prison operators through exploitation of indentured labour, disproportionately incarcerates low-income / racialized people on non-violent drug offenses, costs the average US household nearly $1700/year, leads to high recidivism rates, and dovetails with the growing militarization of police forces. [1]

But hey, at least it feels good to some people on a visceral level! Those world-leading incarceration rates won't maintain themselves, you know.

As a non-American, I'll never understand the cultural cognitive dissonance in simultaneously trusting the government to be "tough on crime" - despite all evidence that this approach backfires strongly - and distrusting their intervention in just about anything else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

This is a subject that demands pragmatism. At risk of stating the obvious, the primary utility of incarceration is to prevent the convict from victimizing more innocents. It's a crude solution, but it is undeniably effective. It's very difficult to commit crimes against innocents in general society from a prison cell.

So, given that the pragmatic benefit of incarceration is protecting the innocent from being victimized, which presumably we all support, we should look if there are other less crude ways to achieve the same goal. I understand that Drug Court and similar programs have had some measurable success. But we can't forget there are very bad people who will treat diversion programs as a joke and an opportunity to continue to prey on others. Those individuals should be incarcerated, not to punish, but to prevent them from offending again. Rehabilitation would be wonderful and the opportunity should be offered, but some persons just don't want to be rehabilitated.

Who is that?

In a just system, guilt has to be proven before the accused are punished.

> It's extremely hard to feel any sort of sympathy for those people

It's very easy for me. Compassion is for all people, not just those you perceive to be nice. I think the inability or extreme difficulty to have compassion towards fellow humans, as you've described here, is a major problem in America today.

We must all work towards a better future by understanding why bad people were bad in the past. This would enable us to build a better future where fewer bad things happen. But you're not going to understand why Epstein was the way he was if you hate him so much you're not going to feel any compassion to someone presumably as tortured as him. By making him into a monster that everyone wanted to die in the first place, then we'll constantly be faced with Epsteins in the future.

> But on the other hand, no one should be sexually assaulted and beaten to death.

Obviously.

These are also people who have been accused of doing awful things, not convicted. It’s not a huge stretch to suggest that some of them are innocent.

I would argue that you can 1. assume all prisoners are guilty and 2. not care about their welfare (both assumptions that I disagree with) and still support prison reform on the grounds that it reduces criminality in society overall.

Look at the current state of American prisons. We crowd prisoners together and make them feel angry, scared, weak, and ignored by the law (except when it hammers them down) for years on end. That makes it much harder for them to integrate back into normal, law-abiding society.

We should be trying to make it as easy as possible for a convict to eventually leave criminal life behind. But our current system does the opposite.

When it's difficult to find any compassion for these people, keep in mind that many of them are still awaiting trial, and haven't actually been found guilty yet (a poor example, but Epstein's trial was scheduled for June 2020 - it blows my mind that you could spend a year in prison without being found guilty. Or that others may spend their year and yet be found not guilty).

Or cases like the 'Manhattan Five' (and innumerable others) where entire sentences could be spent before being ultimately exonerated.

I'm not saying it should operate like a day spa on the assumption that someone may be there improperly. But if you need to scrape up a shred of humanity, remember that the worst we have to offer may not be the only people in there.