Prison Born
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
End the culture of punishment that festers in the traditional American Puritan psyche. That people ought to "pay for what they did." Focus on rehabilitation, and make prisons conducive to that end.
The Bastoy prison island in Norway is the quintessential example: it's basically structured like a small town, with jobs, houses with roommates, bicycles and other personal items the prisoners can own, and even a small supermarket. And with all that, the recidivism rate is 16%, the lowest in Europe.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-pri...
Coming from Scandinavia, where the focus is on rehabilitation, I agree that is a better goal. At the same time, I think it important to recognize all the purposes of prison: Protecting others from further crimes, revenge for the victims, scaring other potential criminals and rehabilitation of the inmate. These goals are all good. It's just that the US of A have got the balance all messed up. There is no justice in the system anymore.
The Scandinavian system have a positive view of humans - that even a murderer can be rehabilitated. That the deed is different from the human. There is a decent balance - someone like Breivik is kept locked up for decades but a teenager caught up in the wrong gang is rehabilitated and released in a year or two.
The American way of prison is a disgrace, seen from the outside. It is a nearly medieval way of punishment. Even animals gets psychologically damaged when locked up in cells like those. How can anyone expect humans to come out better.
How about applying A/B testing to prisons? Compare a US prison sentence to a Scandinavian prison sentence. Then choose the better one. Rinse, repeat.
It's simply about punishment/vengeance that's all and that's enough.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/california-prison-g...
Yes, what you wrote isn't true. Read the sister posts in this thread for citations and proof.
Was the link you posted supposed to be some sort of proof? It wasn't.
You are simply repeating and believing conspiracy theories. And the problem with false beliefs about a cause of a problem is they block you from realizing the real problem. So if you try to solve the problem you solve the wrong problem and get nowhere at all.
To try and deal with the prison population, and inhumane sentencing laws, by not starting with that as a first principle is to abandon the fight altogether.
This relationship can be subtle - For example - if politicians did not benefit financially from their roles as governors/sheriffs, etc... they would not have an incentive to do anything they could to hold onto their job (and therefore pandering to the masses to have ridiculously strict sentencing), but instead focus on doing the right thing for the people - focussing on rehabilitation and protection of society.
And, I am almost certain, that their is a lot of literature showing the California law enforcement unions strongly opposing marijuana legalization, in part because it makes a significant part of their (useless in this case) services no longer needed.
I am not arguing that these entrenched money powers aren't pandering to the masses desire for punishment, revenge, blood, fear, etc... But what I'm saying, is that wiser heads that would normally prevail, are being overpowered by the wealthy forces that seek to benefit from the ignorance of the masses.
If you still doubt me - just think about something like tobacco - the production, distribution, and merchandising of something that is without a doubt poisonous, kills people, and harms their health - but continues because there is a lot of money behind it.
Sorry - this feels like a rant, but it just frustrates me to no end the illogical nature of the US laws and sentencing.
The cause is very very simple, and I have already said it.
And speaking as the victim of theft (unlocked car door, items stolen) I would very very much like the thief to serve a life sentence for that crime because of just how much trouble it caused me.
Thinking logically I know that's too much, yet, I don't care. I want a life sentence for him. Which thought will win? It's irrelevant, I don't write laws.
But those who do write laws have the same thoughts, and they have victims agitating for long sentences. And it's as simple as that.
If you actually cared to take action on this topic, then you would push for first offenders to get treatment, while not bothering with second offenders. You will be able to convince others to go along with you for first offenders, you will not for second.
Do both, pick one depending on the crime and past history of the offender.
Crimes are already very carefully categorized by type and degree.
[0]http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offens...
edit: As pointed out below it was the federal prison pop. Also, made it more obvious that I didn't mean 50% of America's total population.
I think people too readily accept the narrative that crime in the U.S. can be traced back to the drug war.
Here is drug war spending: http://cdn.thewire.com/media/old_wire/img/upload/2012/10/12/...
Here is violent crime rate: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/...
Violent crime started trending up in 1963, about 8 years before Nixon declared the war on drugs. By the time the drug war really got going in 1982-86, violent crime rates had already tripled.
The Drug War and school-to-prison pipleline are real, too. We farm black people to keep no-neck white men in "good jobs at good wages." If anything, the Drug War is preventing a further drop in crime as lead gets flushed out of the environment.
There is no conclusive proof or even extensive evidence in favor of any of those theories. But I think the drug war theory is one of the less compelling explanations given the evidence we have.
They are pretty compelling. Lead wasn't just about crime. Tetraethyl lead was almost a global disaster that might have cost humanity dearly in some very general ways. The hypothesis is very strong, too. Refinery workers went violently insane. There was no question what the effect would be if there was enough cause to cause it.
Stop and ask yourself: is there anyone who regularly writes on HN who thinks the drug war is a good thing? If you took a poll of HN commenters, full legalization would come out, where, 98%?
Clearly, when we discuss prison and the drug war, we're all talking about something more subtle than whether we should imprison people for doing drugs.
Unfortunately, while the libertarians might make HN look wise about the Drug War, there are way too many people, even on HN, who are happy with, and who have various justifications for, prisons filled with black and latino prisoners.
The US puts a larger percentage of its population behind bars than any other country.
Commonly acknowledged, but wrongly. Look at the inflection points in the U.S. incarceration rate: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/U.S._inc...
Growth started in 1972-73. The growth rate kneed around 2000. Compare with the prison prison population: http://static.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/graphs/privatepri.... They were pretty much insignificant until the 1990's. By then, the growth trend in incarceration rates was firmly established, and indeed, was closer to the knee in 2000 than to the initial upswing in the 1970's.
What happened in the 1980's and 1990's? Privatization of many other government services: http://www.kevingunn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/TotalFed....
The most reasonable conclusion from the data is that private prisons are not creating the demand for prisoners, but rather reacting to the demand for privatizing government services generally. I fully agree that private prisons should be illegal, but they didn't create the problem.
We created the problem, with three strikes laws and cracking down on probation. E.g. http://www.dc.state.fl.us/secretary/press/2001/timeserved.ht.... In 1991, Florida prisoners served about 35% of their sentences. Due to a state law, by 2001 it was 83%.
We really need to figure out who is truly dangerous and needs to be kept off of the streets versus who we're mad at as a society (and funnel those people to probation, treatment, and community-based correctional programs).
Not to say that it sounds like vacation, but it seems like the best solution to a bad situation, and a gives women a good chance to get a new start.
The thought that my baby could be removed from me for falling asleep with her on my chest is terrifying though.