People behave more sadistically when they’re bored
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If you pay them the market rate and this activity improves their well-being compared to being sedentary, I think it’s a win for all involved.
Put them in education, give them food and shelter, and they'll be better able to contribute to society when they get out.
It would be better to give them daily education, therapy, recreation, etc. They have piloted such programs in the US with a lot of success at preventing recidivism.
All of this can save costs in the long run. Paying for prison security, medical costs, maintenance, turnover, and recidivism is extremely expensive.
I think prisoners should have the option to work and that they should be subject to all of the normal worker protection laws. Wages can go toward some combination of restitution and improving quality of life in prisons: food, lodging, entertainment in off hours, etc.
Restitution should be limited to a fixed percentage of monthly income (as it is in the civilian world). Why? Because removing positive reinforcement from the act of labor has perverse psychological effects. These effects persist after incarceration and contribute to recidivism.
This sort of system is insufficiently punitive for some, so the politics of these reforms are tricky.
(Should mention they just got a new director and she is really awesome. Came from the women’s bean project. Hope she can make some positive change but she’ll have to fight a lot of bureaucracy.)
I've seen outrage over the idea that prisoners have access to TVs, or gaming consoles, or similar, stories of wardens confiscating books and pen and paper and such. I understand there are some other concerns that may warrant keeping usage of some of those under surveillance or similar (keep a pencil from being used as a shiv say), but other countries don't try and make prisons as miserable an experience as possible, and they have far, far lower rates of recidivism and violence and such.
I won't argue that there aren't some people who have such a vindictive need, but in most cases where I've had conversations with folks about things like this, it's more that they oppose someone having a similar (or maybe "better") quality of life to what they have, without working to pay for it, and rather being paid for by them. The opposition to these things in prisons seem similar to the arguments I hear from people against social safety net things generally. Not to say these arguments are reasonable, but I don't think vindictiveness is the primary driving factor.
It makes me laugh at myself because I wasn't going to do any of it either way.
This is very akin to vindictiveness, though. It's one of the most corrosive forces in American political life. *Someone* might get something they don't *deserve*. Bonus points if that someone is the "other" (Jewish, brown skin, Mexican, whatever). The right wing used this as a wedge issue in the 80's ("welfare queens") to make life miserable for the poor and it's the driving force behind a lot of anti-immigration rhetoric here and abroad.
That's even worse. But maybe the term should be different; maybe it isn't vindictiveness.
The US is the most incarcerated country in the world. We have the most prisoners, the most prisoners per capita, the highest spending on prisoners, and one of the worst recidivism rates (76% after 5 years).
What we're doing is -clearly- not working. The idea that we'd rather spend -more- than other countries, on a system that works worse, begs the question of 'why'. Why would we want to keep doing the same thing, that isn't working, -and- costs us more? Because we think prisoners don't deserve better.
Maybe that isn't "vindictiveness", but it's damned close.
It certainly isn't "I want to make sure my tax dollars being used effectively", or "I want the best outcomes from prisons", or even "I want to make sure they're only getting what they need to serve their time and then be able to come out and rejoin society".
It very much is "Damn the consequences, and how much it costs, I want them to have the worst possible experience".
To be clear, I am not agreeing with the position I am describing. Rather, I am trying to very specifically say that it is NOT "very much... I want them to have the worst possible experience."
If anything, I think the attitude I described may be more reflective of the overall poor quality of life (relative to the possibilities) that the majority of Americans enjoy in their day-to-day lives due to the widening wealthy inequality. For many people, who can't even afford access to entertainment like "gaming consoles", providing such to prisoners out of the taxpayer's till makes them question why their life is so hard and what they're working for if they could just become anti-social and get enjoyment beyond "three hots and a cot". Granted, perhaps it would be useful if more people questioned their lot in life and how we got here, but the result of that questioning for many is not high-minded ideals and calls for more equality.
You seem to be reiterating the idea of vindictiveness in your conclusion, while acknowledging that something akin to spite might be more causative earlier on in your response. I am not sure I'd classify exactly what I'm describing as either spite or vindictiveness, but it's certainly a dark feeling. What I'm observing is that many people are uncomfortable with the idea of prisoners having an enjoyable enough quality of life such that their own non-prison life seems worse by comparison, it creates feelings of futility towards life and engenders a certain type of nihilism. I think considering that people are merely vindictive or spiteful is an oversimplification that does not fully encompass the complexity of the human experience. You should also consider that many people who are in the bottom half of American society /know/ someone who's been in prison, or may have been in prison themselves, so it is not as if the realities of the prison experience have escaped these people. As you rightly point out, the US has the highest incarceration and recidivism rates in the world, and it's predominantly people who are "lower class" ending up there, mostly from a demographic standpoint the same folks who hold the viewpoint I'm trying to point out.
And it acts as an anti-deterrent if someone sees that they would improve their material conditions by doing harmful things and going to prison. There's nothing wrong with ensuring good prison conditions, but it has to go hand in hand with ensuring equally good non-prison conditions for poor people.
Deb Alderson's Global Tel*Link is replacing libraries with locked down tablets that have e-reader apps. Inmates are charged a couple bucks an hour for access to the tablet and are limited to 90 minutes of reading time.
E.g.,
https://www.jurist.org/news/2020/11/allegheny-county-jail-li...
https://moguldom.com/241982/exploiting-prisoners-w-virginia-...
For extra credit: assume the offender has no money.
Some countries essentially do this (e.g. caning in Singapore).
[1] https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/what-is-a-beyo...
Non-violent offenders will be housed in a different prison than violent offenders, and the worst of the worst (usually lifers) will be put into one or two very secure prisons.
This castle is the max security prison in Czechia. Used as a prison since 1760 (back then for offending clergy). You won't get there for child support debt.
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C4%9Bznice_M%C3%ADrov
(Though as a former kid whose father was deliberately neglecting child support payments - it can work pretty long if he lives in another country that has a corrupt judicial system - I believe withholding child support should be punished by more than just a slap on the wrist. Lack of support makes life really hard for the kids.)
Even in the age of drawing and quartering, penal colonies were used primarily as an alternative to capital punishment. In the age of gruesome physical torture, exile was used primarily an alternative to execution.
There are tons of serious pragmatic issues with your suggestions, as well as serious political questions about how to convince people to implement them.
I've been convicted of an assault charge before, do I qualify?
So, IMO, resources would be much better spent improving what we have (a lot), making sure justice & sentencing is fair and consistent, and certainly doing a much better job of post-incarceration support, community, and monitoring. I would wager that many, many more people can be helped out of their circumstances than are currently, but prisoners are almost dropped entirely once they're released.
It sounds great on paper but the second real people get involved, it becomes a humans rights disaster.
I recently realised this while watching Gordon Ramsay’s Bad Boy Bakery. The sentiment (I assume often portrayed intentionally by the show) about prisoners really both shocked and confused me. It’s as if people want prisoners to do absolutely nothing, somehow still act according to their rules and then somehow flourish in society after release.
imo, prison systems should be more focused on learning crafts and education in general. I feel like the vast majority are in for minor crimes and somehow their life should be ruined for it. Doesn’t seem just.
There’s definitely some people who pose a permanent danger to society, and some prison sentences will seem just. But there’s no reason they should be bored out of their minds
I very much agree re: focus on education. I spent some time in a new facility and they had good classrooms and programs for it and I saw a lot of interest in them. That said, I think boredom is often seen by many as a desirable part of the punishment.
When they got out, they didn’t even know how to drive because it started from teenage years (abusive father).
I was shocked that the state didn’t spend an ounce of energy to at least teach these people basic skills.
Now they are forced to live in cities where they are more likely to interact with bad influences.
Anyway, I wonder if driving could be part of reform. E.g. let them be a part of the driving economy to build skills and support the nation.
So I'd ask: What prevents us from using house arrest as an alternative to imprisonment more often? How can those problems be addressed? Can we "build a better house arrest" -- maybe even from within the private sector?
Lets take for an example a semi successful drug dealer. Odds are the drug dealer choose that profession because the rewards were higher than the risks. So to discourage that you can 1) make prison so terrible he fears it more than the rewards from dealing 2) teach him something that is of comparable economic utility so he no longer wants to deal drugs.
The problem is that option 2 is arguably a reward. If you create incentives to break rules ("I break the law and sell drugs, my punishment is that i get locked away from X years and be forced to learn a trade or get a degree") then why wouldnt you break rules? We seem to pretend we dont want 1. But I've seen plenty of comments from conservatives about how the criminals deserve what they get, and oddly enough I also hear "dont drop the soap" jokes from liberals when its people they dont like....
Then you have for example murderers. Quite a few murderers will probably never murder again. The man who kills his wife and her lover after catching them in bed, is probably not going to be killing anyone again. It was that set of situations that drove them to that. What more can the person do than classes on impulse control? And your going to get them to learn that by putting them in the place where the impulse stimulus is completely different than the regular world? What does life or a lengthy prison accomplish if punishment/deterrence is not the goal?
Thats not even getting into the fact that prison is the main mental health provider for anyone with serious issues who cant get family to take care of them. (and even people who have family might not be able to afford their particular issues). A person with severe schizophrenia who attacks others can't really be reformed
The only real fix is to be honest about what the goal of "prison" is. And break the concept out into reform, containment, and punishment. At least then you can optimize towards those goals.
Some people could really use removal from their environment and a fresh start where they get discipline and learn a way to be successful.(prison doesnt do this, and a one size fits all discipline approach causes problems too) Other people are just dangers to themselves and others. Mixing the two just damns the people who could be saved.
I'll give you an example to pair with your drug dealer example. A small community store is run by an old couple. Everyone who enters is greeted with pleasure. Shoplifting increases, and the old couple sells to a young person, who is concerned about shoplifting and doesn't greet everyone with pleasure. Then there's an armed robbery. Now there's cameras, bulletproof glass, and the store clerks are openly suspicious of people who come into the store. Now society is worse to live in, and the only people who caused that are the ones who did the crimes.
Crime causes poverty of spirit and weakens social bonds; prison is a place to keep prisoners so they don't disintegrate society.
So it sounds like they should be put in a facility optimized towards containment and letting them live out their days in some semblance of peace. (Not wanting them in peace sounds alot like you want them punished) Not in a facility where they take a slot to learn a trade from someone else and get to influence people who reform is deemed appropriate.
I thought your point was that the concept of prison as "a place where you are removed from society" is fundamentally flawed, and your rationale was that removal does not serve the person removed. It seems that your point is actually that the modern concept of prison as "a place where you go to be punished" is flawed, which I agree with. Prisoners should simply be outside society, not in pain or fear. If they can manage to live peacefully that ought to be allowed; if they cannot, they ought to be restricted further.
I think there are only two real "punishments", which are death and exile. Corporal punishment is just partially-applied death, and prison is just partially-applied exile. All other punishments I'm aware of are just shades of either death or exile; even monetary fines are "a reduction of your ability to participate in society".
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
From the standpoint of genes, in small settlements, there would tend to be some inter-relatedness, so this would be a way for genes to distribute copies of themselves geographically.
This could even have memetic (in the academic/generic Richard Dawkins sense) survival implications. In the same way that established villages could send out dissidents like "seeds" to start new settlements, perhaps internet forums do something analogous?
(I have another horrible sounding idea: Perhaps the penchant for little children to grab things to put into their mouths is a way for 1) the most expendable members of the community to act as inadvertent food tasters/poison detectors for the group and 2) a late filter to knock inattentive parents out of the gene pool. I know it's all evolutionary "just so stories," but it's fun to speculate.)
(economic/influence based status here, of course all people should be given the same amount of default respect regardless of occupation or income level, but real life seldom plays out that way)
Edit: not in a religious sort-of-way
But there's a lot of bullshit, too.
The bible contains a lot of good advice packaged in the form of religious parables. They're not unique to religious people.
E.g. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is the same as "what goes around comes around"
My thought is usually something like, "Yes, and how did this 'wisdom' help earlier Christian leaders control their followers?"
The beauty in Christianity is co-opted and stolen from the beauty of the universe in an effort to control others. Very little about Christianity is uniquely beautiful, in my opinion.
That's masochism, not sadism.
When I get incensed on the internet it is due to overt display of -isms, and not a desire to hurt someone (or get hurt), but more of: your attitude and behavior is hurtful to others and here is why. However, trying to change someone's attitude in non-troll way when they are entrenched in their belief system leads to a flame-wars 98% of the time. I'm always hoping for that 2%.
"After a period of total boredom, especially on Sunday afternoons, he decided to insult everyone in the entire universe in alphabetical order." (A quote from the fandom wiki)
Bored people playing the only titillating game available to them.
It’s not lost on me these folks are generally of the age to have lacked the variety of multimedia we have now. Raised on tales grounded in literal global conquest and missionaries of their culture, chasing “forever life” through family tree taxonomy, enlisting their kids as “skins” in the battle to maintain order as they see it.
Of course ideas that challenge their poetic vision are illiberal nonsense.
Maybe they need a career change. Depending on someones age and commitments, the idea of changing careers can be very difficult. How do you keep paying bills and working in a job you hate, taking care of family, but learn something new that will become fruitful. I can relate to feeling like you want to lash out at people, unfortunately often these can be people that just seem like easier targets.
At least for me my lashing out is more about just being honest with people that normally I'd normally ignore, but have decided that I should just tell them the cold hard truths.
The first one will go nuts and scream his head off all night and has been arrested so many times they know him by name. The next just bought a rolling chair and likes to roll around his apartment, the next wakes up all hours during the night and is constantly moving his milk crates and lawn furniture and dropping things that roll (these two live above me) and the last stomps around the building and can be heard at 0400 in the morning whining about her life and talking $#!t about everything and everyone.
Fracking Miserable people who spread misery.
I mentioned to the people above me and the one denies he rides the chair and then uses his medical condition as an excuse. The other said flatly, “too bad”.
I mean... is his medical condition related to his ability to walk and sleep well? E.g., does he:
1. have trouble walking
2. can't afford a wheelchair
3. has continence issues?
That would explain rolling around at all hours of the night. And sourcing him some cheap/free mats/carpets to cover the floor between his bed and bathroom could help you sleep better.
In any case... sorry you have to put up with that. Having noisy upstairs neighbors sucks.
But that said, you’re right. A friend commented I should have bought the hobo a pair of slippers as a house warming gift. I will totally do this next time someone moves in above.
Confiscating one of their most important holds on reality, their smarthphones, stealing their time and making them watch boring 20-minute videos about waterfalls on the other hand...
There I sense a really sneaky kind of evil. A bit like that Milgram stage drama.
Yeah, I know, I'm such a bore.
I suspect that people who have experience dealing with a maggot infestation -- or any infestation -- will have a very different relationship to grinding maggots.
I wouldn't think twice about grinding maggots, but to do so voluntarily I'd have to have nothing better to do because it's not pleasant work.
I don't think grinding maggots is particularly violent. This is probably because I had to deal with a very serious and persistent maggot infestation. There's really no way to deal with a maggot infestation except to kill them en masse using methods that appear sadistic (e.g., boiling water or chemical treatment).
An alternative title might be "Dealing with a maggot infestation is necessary but unpleasant work... you have to be pretty bored before you decide to do this work voluntarily."
I do, albeit just a small one.
My wife used to feed our American Staffordshire with raw offal, especially beef stomach, tripe, whatever. Absolutely disgusting. But he loved it.He seemed to inhale about two pounds of it in what I perceived as nanoseconds. He was such a charming beast, absolutely adorable. But disgusting nontheless. May he rest in peace.
Anyway, one friday morning we forgot to take out the trash with a handfull of leftovers from that stuff before setting off for a little trip over the weekend.
I tell you, sunday evening was hell on earth. The lord of the flies himself had infested our kitchen. Thankfully its door was closed during the infestation and they weren't fully awake and they all sat sluggish and fat on the windows. I annihilated most of them with the vacuum cleaner and started a search and destroy mission that lasted half of the night. A few hundred sleepy flies and some leftover maggots had to die. No remorse. Thought about nuking the place from orbit.
I don't have to mention, we never ever feed our AmStaff with offal again.
That means any kind of stimulation is preferred over no stimulation. If sadism is the only kind of stimulation one can get, they'll take it for the sake of survival.
Create a boring livestream of you doing nothing, where people can pay money and then you experience pain.
Make it a SaaS, sell an IOT pain inducer to your streamers and collect a percentage.
The common response to my bored honesty is typically a positive mix of bewilderment and curiosity. People tend to find the unexpected hyper criticality a bit entertaining.
They didn't turn into creative utopias, quite to the contrary.
Inevitably the search for pleasure will require variety and inevitably that variety brings you to inflicting pain on others.
We do it publicly. The romans fed people to the lions. We have lots of violent sports. Nascar isn't about driving left. It's about the crashes. Hockey is about the fights and checking. Lets not even evaluate violent videogames.
The real trick is understanding what's happening in your brain and controlling this before it gets to the need to inflict pain.
Hockey is similar. The fights are the surface.
It's way easier to find videos of car crashes than it is to watch hours of cars driving in circles. I don't understand the appeal of NASCAR, but it's clearly not about the crashes.
> Lets not even evaluate violent videogames.
Why not? You might find that long-term players of games are more interested in good gameplay than bloody effects or the violence itself. I've noticed that games in general are tending toward less violence and blood than a decade or so ago.
I think you are being unfairly judgemental about things that you don't understand.
To be fair I havent watched in quite some time but as the saying goes... I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out!
This is very simple to evaluate. What would happen to the NHL is fighting and checking was banned. Any physical violence is an immediate contract break and players thrown out of the league? Dont get another $.
Obviously violence would go away but how'd the sport work out? I'm thinking hockey would suck pretty hardcore. NHL viewership would be at all-time lows without question.
Also yes, street fighting videos are ridiculously popular but also why they were banned on so many platforms.
>It's way easier to find videos of car crashes than it is to watch hours of cars driving in circles. I don't understand the appeal of NASCAR, but it's clearly not about the crashes.
I mean no offence against nascar. F1 has nothing but crashes as well. Every highlight reel is about the crashes. So it is about nascar. Nascar highlights are all about crashes.
>Why not? You might find that long-term players of games are more interested in good gameplay than bloody effects or the violence itself. I've noticed that games in general are tending toward less violence and blood than a decade or so ago.
The violence is the point being made. Pleasure is fleeting. Violent video games are fantastic because it lets you chop someone's head off when you cant do it in person. When you have gone so far as to needing that level of pleasure, the next step in solving boredom will be more extreme.
>I think you are being unfairly judgemental about things that you don't understand.
Not judgmental at all. I've got my TF2 and skyrim installed. I watch violent sports. Im not judging people who do these things. I can see that's how people took my post by the heavy downvotes.
The point being made isnt about NHL being bad or good or that fights are or arent part of it. Its that this pleasure seeking constantly increases.
> Every highlight reel is about the crashes. So it is about nascar. Nascar highlights are all about crashes.
Looking up "Nascar highlights" on YouTube, I can see that it's not all about crashes, it seems to be all about turnarounds, where somebody suddenly overtakes somebody else, or somebody loses their position quickly, so crashes are a part of that, but it doesn't seem to be "about crashes", but rather about changes in the standings of a race in progress.
no, not prime focus yet. If hockey is a fresh pleasure, the fighting or violence isn't important. The end goal however is that you must have this violence or the pleasure seeker moves to the next thing which will have it.
>Violence might be a part of it, but it's clearly not the main part of any of it, otherwise violence would be increasing rather than decreasing in every single one of those, and more people would just turn to the simpler sources of violence.
That's my point and why i picked my choices. Violence isn't the prime focus. Afterall go watch boxing or MMA. Which some people have gotten their pleasure seek onto this for sure.
>Why would anybody watch Hockey for the fights when many games don't have any fights at all? Nobody who really just wants to see car crashes is going to sit through hours of cars driving in circles for the chance to occasionally see a car hit a wall and spin out.
Fighting is but 1 violence. Checking is another. Elbowing and slashing are others.
>Looking up "Nascar highlights" on YouTube, I can see that it's not all about crashes, it seems to be all about turnarounds, where somebody suddenly overtakes somebody else, or somebody loses their position quickly, so crashes are a part of that, but it doesn't seem to be "about crashes", but rather about changes in the standings of a race in progress.
Lets not even go into derbies where the goal is to literally crash into each other until you're the last working car.
Or monster trucks which crush other cars.
This is all about pleasure seeking and constantly need to increase which leads into sadism.