[ POLL ] Are Prisons Obsolete?

Post Reply New Topic

First, a webtoon...

Existential Comics: Angela Davis vs the Liberal Reformers

NOTE: All of the liberal positions were taken direction from Joe Biden's justice reform platform.

A lot of the American issues with prisons would go away if they were taken out of the hands of private companies. A for-profit prison system does not incentivise reforming prisoners. It does the exact opposite. It's monumentally stupid.

Put prisons under the state, and then you can do far better work at reforming prisoners. The kind of work which might not make your prison profitable, but overall for the government and society it's worth the investment. And in programs to try and prevent people turning to crime in the first place. You can link your in-prison and out of prison strategies.

But you can never abolish prisons. Some people are just evil, and need to be removed from society until they die. Others will determine a life of crime is the life for them no matter what measures you take, because fast, rich money is available to a criminal in a way that just isn't in civilised society.

I feel there is already less emphasis on incarceration (at least in NY State), and more emphasis on “alternatives to incarceration.“ In NYC, the police will be “defunded” by $1 billion dollars in the very near future.

Still, I feel there are certain people who should be locked up.

I don’t believe prisons are “obsolete,” though I do believe prison is an “archaic” punishment for some offenders.

I just want to say having just looked I was under the mistaken impression America's prison system was dominated by private prisons. In fact, only 8.41% of American prisoners are in private prisons according to Wikipedia. Whenever I hear about private prisons, it's always to do with America. I thought it was a distinctly American thing, yet other Anglo countries have a greater proportion of prisoners in private prisons, Australia and the UK seemingly leading the World with 18.4% in Australia and almost as much in the UK (England and Wales 18.46%, Scotland 15.3%.) Even New Zealand is at 10%. I didn't know that any of these nations had private prisons. Though I suppose with the population of the US, even with the lower %, the US will have more people in private prisons than all three of these nations combined.

Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, not by the municipal police, so "defunding" of local police departments should have no bearing upon federal prisons.

Here in California, it is the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; again, not the municipal police, so "defunding" of local police departments is irrelevant here, too.

In parts of Europe prisons are a lot nicer and more hospital like.In other parts of the world prisons are much worse,very draconian.

Prisons will get nicer in the US but we're some time off from American prisons being hospital like.

There is still so much violence that tough prisons are needed.

Abolish prisons? No. But maybe dont turn them over to private interests and run them with an eye towards profit?

I guess, to borrow a phrase, I’m a gradualist abolitionist. I don’t think shutting prisons overnight is sensible and ultimately we’re probably always going to need to lock up people who commit serial acts of violence.

But meanwhile:

- we can and should look at alternatives to imprisonment

- prisons should be focused on rehabilitation, not retribution

- we could try using prison in more creative ways to allow prisoners to remain part of society - for example, only imprisoning people on weekends so that they can keep their jobs

- conditions in prisons should be improved

- lots of crimes, particularly on issues like drugs, guns, sex, and immigration, should just be abolished altogether

I think probably within 10-15 years we could have capacity with the more successful alternatives to prison that we could send almost no-one to traditional prisons.

“Defunding the police” is also “defunding” the criminal justice system.

They absolutely have much to do with each other.

You have to have a warehouse to put all of the worst felons, just to keep them off of the streets.

But it might be the prisons need to be..,"reimagined".

And in places like Germany in Europe prisons are run a lot differently, and nicer, and seem to be more effective at preventing recetivism than here in the states.

Also, I agree that privatization was a bad idea.

There will be an inevitable, if indirect, effect upon the whole criminal justice system if the police is “defunded.”

I might be asked to take “early retirement” from my job within the criminal justice system.

Absolutely not! Some prisons are run in ways that have no place in siviliced society and need to be changed, but as long as dangerous criminals exist, prisons are an absolute necessarity.

Kraftie makes a good point. If an organization loses money and has to cut costs, it will likely be the admin and support staff who are first to go. Prisons and police departments will be even less pleasant for those inside. Prisoners and remaining staff.

And don’t forget a large difference between the US and other western countries (except Australia and maybe New Zealand)- we are multicultural. We will always have a level if disagreement about societal rules and their enforcement because those things are cultural.