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Comment by summerdown2 | Hacker News Reader

Uk point of view here. I have no understanding what Americans want out of the prison system. This was brought home to me when I watched (ex UK minister) Micheal Portillo's programme on Death Row.

He is a believer in the death penalty, but went through the programme appalled by the torment suffered by prisoners. During the programme he researched, and found, a humane way of killing a prisoner. Then, he took it to a leading advocate of capital punishment in America, only to be told it wasn't painful enough.

Like I say, I have no understanding of this attitude, but I suspect the prison rape issue in the US won't change until the majority of people get past the idea that the prime thing to do to criminals is punishment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9YgWXKAwNY

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If the point of prison for criminals isn't punishment, then what is it?

To keep them out of general society. Possibly to put them in a situation where they can be reformed to rejoin society. Setting aside ethics entirely, prisons cost resources and also take human resources out of society. It's in society's best interest to reform a prisoner and release them ASAP, provided the reform works and they are no longer a danger to society.

Obviously there's a lot of vague terms and wiggle room in that paragraph, but there's certainly a purpose to prisons aside from punishment.

I agree that keeping criminals out of the streets is the first reason. But also to make an example, so future crimes are prevented. Then, while we're at it, rehabilitation.

Punishment is a barbaric way to look at it. Revenge doesn't mix very well with a legal system. (emotions vs objetive POV)

One goal for prisons could be rehabilitation?

Well, in the US, one would think so given that they are called "Federal Correctional Institutions":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Instituti...

Protecting the rest of the population from those incarcerated.

Rehabilitation, fighting injustice with injustice will just create an endless loop.

I believe it is Norway or Sweden that has prisons dedicated to protecting society and rehabilitating the offender. As a result, the prison community looks remarkably like an ordinary society, the primary difference being that the prisoners are not allowed to leave. Reading about it was eye opening.

If you want to punish them, torture them. That is what torture is actually good at.

I can't tell if you're serious.

Are you condoning torture, saying it has a function we should put to good use?

Torture is effective at hurting people, just not at getting truthful information from people. If your goal for a justice system is to hurt people, there's no reason to exclude torture other than squeamishness and the desire to create a faux-clinical atmosphere.

In a pure theoretical sense, yes torture is very effective at hurting people. But only for watchers or executioners who have a need of seeing the person being tortured suffer. I really doubt if traumatizing (torture > just hurting/punishing) a criminal is going to change his behaviour for the better.

The question then would be if the goal of a justice system should be to hurt people in the most effective way imaginable.

I don't know what you mean by creating a "faux-clinical atmosphere".

Isn't the reason for punishing criminals that they broke some aspect of acceptable social interaction (not hurting others a major one of those aspects) ? Even in the context of the state having the monopoly on the use violence, they should not use violence to the fullest extent possible, if only to prove that some actions are really unacceptable and there is never a reason to sink to the same level of what the criminal did. Criminals may be one-time-offenders or life-long-monsters, they are still humans.

You may call that squeamish, but i don't think torture should have any place in a modern society.

The goal of a criminal justice system is to apply justice, not to exact revenge.

Using torture as a punishment will result in making those convicted of crimes even more dehumanized and depraved. Furthermore, if torture is employed it is a guarantee that wrongfully convicted people will be tortured as well.

Cruelty should not be a tool of a system that is truly just. That is why 'cruel and unusual punishment' is specifically prohibited in the Constitution.

Well, there's punishment and there's "punishment". I think if you ask most sane minded fair persons they'd say that punishment would entail having your freedoms curtailed, being removed from society, having access to friends/family/associates controlled and restricted - i.e. loss of liberty.

However during this period of incarceration, prisoners have a right not to be physically and mentally abused by their fellow inmates and jailers. Incarceration is the punishment, not beatings and rapes.

As to the killing of death row prisoners, their punishment involves not just the loss of their liberty, but also their loss of the right to live the remainder of their natural lives. But it does not give the state the right to make participant endure several minutes of deliberate and avoidable excruciating pain whilst being put to death. I'm fairly certain your justice system doesn't codify that kind of barbarism as part of the death sentence.

If The Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland can provide pain free assisted suicides then surely it's possible to kill death row prisoners just as humanely in the US.

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