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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

What is the alternative to solitary confinement?

There are some people who are a persistent threat and menace to others. There are 3 ways that society has dealt with them:

Execution

Banishment

Imprisonment

We are trying to do away with execution, so that is not a real alternative. Banishment really doesn't work in the modern, connected world. That leaves imprisonment. However, within prison, you also have a society, and then the question becomes, how do you deal with people who are a threat and menace to other prisoners and guards. Again you end up with the 3 options. Following through, you eventually end up with either solitary confinement or execution as the solution to people who are a persistent threat and menace to others.

Is solitary confinement over used? Yes. But I have not heard a really good alternative.

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> But I have not heard a really good alternative.

Have not heard, or haven't given the issue a bit more thought? Why do people end up in prison and solitary confinement? And how can that be prevented?

The US has the highest incarceration rate of any country. Why is that? Are the people that bad? If so, why are they so bad? If not, why are they thrown into jail so much?

The issue I have with your comment is that you're tunnel visioned at the punishment part, without thinking of prevention and rehabilitation, or the systems in place (political, financial) that make it so that so many people end up in prison in the first place.

Have a closer look at subjects like the War on Drugs, the private prison system, and different ideologies behind punishment - rehabilitation vs retaliation. Look at other countries as well; how many people are in solitary confinement in Europe? How much violence is there between inmates there?

The problem is not solitary confinement.

Oddly enough, Western European countries don't have this problem, and have a significantly lower recidivism rate. Perhaps ask them how they do it?

I believe there are even documentaries now that explore justice systems in various countries.

This is not to attack you or anything, but rather to highlight a cultural divide. To European ears this kind of question feels like it's right up there with "What else can you do but behead a man who runs off with your daughter?" It's really jarring to hear, and makes one think that such a culture is incredibly backwards and barbaric...

American culture IS incredibly backward and barbaric. And that's really putting it mildly.

FWIW, I am not against the death penalty. It makes much more economic sense than life in prison (it costs ludicrous amounts of money to house prisoners per-annua) and as someone who has done prison time my personal opinion is I'd rather be killed than face the mental agony of living the rest of my days in there.

I'm not sure why so many people are against it or think it's inhumane. I think it's a bit silly considering most people who hold that opinion have never been to prison.

I'm not against the death penalty in principle; but in practice, at least the way our current system is set up, it just seems to lead to perverse problems. Since prosecutors are generally a political office, there's a strong incentive to be seen as "tough on crime" by getting lots of death penalty convictions. The result is innocent people convicted. If you're alive, there's always a chance your conviction will be overturned, even if 20 years down the road. But if you're dead, there's nothing you can do.

The argument, "Life in prison is a fate worse than death" is an argument to make prison more humane, not an argument to kill people instead.

A country that only allows 14 days to challenge the legality of a sentence (https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_35) is not responsible enough nor does it provide robust enough legal protections to have a death penalty. Rule 35 is the only way a judge can alter a sentence other than compassionate release (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3582) or a 2255 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2255) motion (that has a 1 year limit. Also note in 2255 you actually have to make your own 2255 or 2244 motion if your punishment has been found unconstitutional. Relief is not automatically granted in the US Justice system just because the Supreme Court finds your sentence or punishment unconstitutional) or a 2244 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2244 again with a 1 year limit). A convict that accepted a plea can not make a 2255 or 2244 challenge because part of the plea is an agreement to a legal bar from challenging your sentence under it (called an attack on your sentence). If you do not accept a plea and give up your right to challenge your sentence for being illegal or unconstitutional, you face the trial tax (https://www.nacdl.org/Document/TrialPenaltySixthAmendmentRig...). The trial tax not only requires you to give up your constitutional right to a trial but also your right to be free from an illegal (say by gathering evidence in an illegal way) or unconstitutional (say sentence to 30 years for a petty drug offense) sentence. This plea is normally jurisdictional meaning a court can not over rule it. Some Prosecutors will also argue that this waiver applies to compassionate release motions as well.

And this is the point where I no longer feel comfortable commenting on this thread because I am a happy and positive guy looking forward to redeeming myself in society and this is not a constructive use of my energy.

It's not a dichotomy between life in prison and death penalty though. Wouldn't you have preferred a better alternative to a prison sentence? I don't know what you did to end up there, but what if the societal circumstances were different and you never ended up in touch with the legal system in the first place?

Side note: the death penalty is more expensive than prison in the way it is currently being used (because of the legal expenses + prison time before the execution takes place), so unless it is done faster (more prone to errors) it does not make financial sense: https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Is_the_death_penalty_more...

The problems with the death penalty is the trade off between cost and accuracy in applying the death penalty.

Currently, the death penalty costs more than life in prison due to legal costs. We still have a significant non-zero number of innocent people who are executed.

If you want to make the death penalty cost effective, you will have to lower the appeal costs and this means more innocent people will be executed.

So the question really becomes: "how many innocent people are we willing to murder to reduce our costs?

Many people accept the number of innocent people we murder as justified to save other innocents via disincentive. It seems much harder to justify killing purely on the basis of cost reduction.

You are correct that we don't seem nearly as bothered by all of the innocent people who are serving life sentences rather than death penalties and don't have the same appeal rights as those on death row.

> I'm not sure why so many people are against it or think it's inhumane.

1) There are endless cases of it being implemented on innocent people:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/technical-errors-can-ki... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution

2) Ethical reasons believing its wrong to kill people

3) Its well documented the process of death penalty has regular mistakes causing slow and incredibly painful deaths.

E.g. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions

One huge problem is it isn't applied fairly. Money and race shouldn't factor into sentencing, but they absolutely do.

"Economic sense" is a non-argument. Think how much money society would save if we tore down all the prisons and simply shot everyone found guilty of a crime.

Another argument in support of the death penalty is that is "brings closure" to the victims or the family of the victims. That is appalling to me. I completely understand why the victim('s family) would want to see the criminal die, but why stop there? What if the father of a rape/murder victim asked the court to allow him to strap down the criminal and let the father torture him for an afternoon. It would bring a lot of closure to the father, perhaps, but it doesn't mean society should allow it.

>" But I have not heard a really good alternative."

The solution is to enforce your own fucking laws when those are broken by prison stuff and higher ups

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