74 Life Sentences

I'm talking about everyone. 23 hour a day confinement to quarters is not inhumane, it is punishment. The inmate should have use of on/off lights with the prisons ability to turn them on to monitor if needed. Monitored/censored internet use for their "education" whether it is for school of just enlightenment. TV, I am thinking a series of educational or non-criminal censored shows. Basically, they go to jail and have no contact with anyone but a guard or two. They get an hour of exercise if they want it. They have no deviant behavior exposure, and are able to feel safe during their stay. Their stay will be even more a reason to get out and hopefully rehabilitated, not just housed with "criminal school teachers." I don't mean solitary confinement as a dark lonely room, but as portion of their "safe" space. My biggest fear is being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting busted for something I didn't even know was going on. Only to go to jail because some judge or jury doesn't let me off easier because I couldn't afford the better attorney and getting shanked and never leaving a place I was only scheduled to be at for a few years or more. I would never trust my cell mate wasn't going to do things to me either. Prison is supposed to be punishment, and some may argue that you get what you deserve in prison (being shanked). Confinement is supposed to be a human animal's worst nightmare because of us being social beings, but that should be true confinement not wondering around with all the other bad animals.

wortmonger said:

I don't buy the argument that it makes you go insan

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Ever seen a dog that lived its entire life on the end of an 8 foot chain that was sane? I sure as hell haven't.

People are, ultimately, pack animals. Chain them up away from the pack and their mind will break.

It is occasionally possible for people to survive social isolation intact. This is a rarity and demonstrates that the subject was either atypically formed to begin with (an asocial animal) or was possessed of an exceptional mind (an exceptionally foreward thinking social animal).

Compelte isolation is a horrible fate for a human and long term this pretty much assures that this being will be disfunctional, particularly iof that person is subjected to it knowing the isolation was done on purpose (as opposed to being isolated by natural disaster or accident).

So, conversing with other via the internet in a room where you are safe from other inmates is the same as a dog being chained up?

How would you protect inmates and rehabilitate them while punishing them for the crimes they commited?

If you read the thread you'll see that I don't think prison should be about punishment. Punishment does not serve society's needs--- it makes people 'feel like something was done' on a visceral level without actually beneifiting the community. It's theatre--- makes people feel something that isn't real.

Punishment doesn't serve as an effective deterrent for most prisoners and manages only to make those we could save far worse off.

Isolation of prisoners is FAR more expensive than the medium/high securtiy 'genpop' systems. Do a search for some of the numbers surrounding Boscobel WI and their Supermax system. It was a lot more expensive to house them there than at a 'classic' high security facility. Trying to rehabilitate under isolation conditions would be prohibitively expensive.

Boscobel was also one of the more dangerous facilities but there is some debate if that is due to the high concentration of dangerous inmates or because the facility and conditions exaserbate an already bored and angry population.

Unfortunately every discussion about prisons ends up being about being hard on crime--- because attempts to actually rehabilitate offenders is always equated with 'coddling' them or blanket comments that presume that most or all offenders are unrecoverable.

You and I are not going to be able to have a discourse on this-- it will devolve into a nitpicking arguement. This is because your stated position is that prison should punish and my stated postion is that it should not punish. These 2 ideals are in direct and unresolveable conflict.

So, what do we do with people that can't be among us because they do crimes? What do we do to insure once in prison they don't get hurt by someone else?

Oh, and when your parents punished you for something, didn't it make you not want to do it anymore?

wortmonger - please stop picking at the scab. kornkob gave you a very well thought-out answer and wisely stated:

kornkob said:

You and I are not going to be able to have a discourse on this-- it will devolve into a nitpicking arguement. This is because your stated position is that prison should punish and my stated postion is that it should not punish. These 2 ideals are in direct and unresolveable conflict.

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That's enough to end the discussion, I think.

Agreed...................

My goodness, there is a ton of misinformation in this thread. Especially regarding the WI prison systems and the prison formerly known as supermax.

mr_stimey said:

Given I thought a life sentence was a life sentence, and don't know a damn thing about the justice system I understand this stuff a bit better now Tex, I was initially just taking the sentencing literally to have a little fun and a laugh . No harm, no foul.

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No problem here, man!


TL

I think the criminal should die in a painful way. Terry Nichols killed 4 innocent people in Atlanta. There in no doubt that he did it, even the judge who is now off the case said the whole world knows he's guilty. The state paid almost 2 million dollars for his defense, there is no defense. He did it! He should die a painful death because he deserves it. There's also a scumbag in a GA jail for killing a beautiful young lady as she was out hiking. He pled guilty and was promised there would be no death sentence for him. That is BULL****! He should be beaten to death with a police baton just like he did to that poor young lady after torturing her for 3 days. If it had been my daughter he killed I would make it my life's work to make sure he died painfully. There is nothing these two scumbags have to offer the world and we would all be better off without them sucking up our tax dollars. If there is no doubt about guilt a criminal should be put to death within days of being found guilty. Why bother with keeping them around? They are useless pieces of S*** flush em!

Keith

gaffrig24 said:

I think the criminal should die in a painful way. Terry Nichols killed 4 innocent people in Atlanta. There in no doubt that he did it, even the judge who is now off the case said the whole world knows he's guilty. The state paid almost 2 million dollars for his defense, there is no defense. He did it! He should die a painful death because he deserves it. There's also a scumbag in a GA jail for killing a beautiful young lady as she was out hiking. He pled guilty and was promised there would be no death sentence for him. That is BULL****! He should be beaten to death with a police baton just like he did to that poor young lady after torturing her for 3 days. If it had been my daughter he killed I would make it my life's work to make sure he died painfully. There is nothing these two scumbags have to offer the world and we would all be better off without them sucking up our tax dollars. If there is no doubt about guilt a criminal should be put to death within days of being found guilty. Why bother with keeping them around? They are useless pieces of S*** flush em!

Keith

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It is obvious you are outraged, as I am, of these murderers.

I am also outraged at one innocent person being put to death by the state. I am also outraged that when we say somebody is guilty, we kill them and then find out they did not commit the crime, that the real criminal has been free.

Useless pieces of S*** need to be flushed for life in the pen. This only to prevent us and the state from killing someone that also does not deserve to be killed.

kornkob said:

There is limited evidence that 'deterrent' works.

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I don't know, I don't want to go to prison, because prison sucks.

I also am deterred from building a still, doing drugs, or killing someone, because I don't want to go to prison.

So, I would say that deterrent might not work on the people that end up in prison, but for the rest of us, it's what has kept us from going there in the first place.

Jesse17 said:

I don't know, I don't want to go to prison, because prison sucks.

I also am deterred from building a still, doing drugs, or killing someone, because I don't want to go to prison.

So, I would say that deterrent might not work on the people that end up in prison, but for the rest of us, it's what has kept us from going there in the first place.

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I dunno....If I recall most murders are not those we think of being calculated, but rather, those that kind of happen during a bout of rage. Kind of unthinking that happen as a result of alcohol, drugs and sex.

Most murders are not thought of in advance. Most happen with rage and a handy thing to kill with.

Gammon N Beer said:

I dunno....If I recall most murders are not those we think of being calculated, but rather, those that kind of happen during a bout of rage. Kind of unthinking that happen as a result of alcohol, drugs and sex.

Most murders are not thought of in advance. Most happen with rage and a handy thing to kill with.

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Agreed, but you're singling out crimes of passion/rage, but I'm talking about all crime in general.

How can people say that prisons don't work as a deterrent? Granted it may not deter a first time offender from becoming a second time offender, but I think it is what has kept 90% of people who have never gone to jail out of jail.

There are plenty of things that I would do, knowing what the maximum fine is, and knowing that I could afford it (if I got caught), but I don't do those things because I don't want to take a chance at going to prison/jail. I'm not talking about robing or killing, because my morals/beliefs keep me from doing that. Rather I'm talking about things like building a still, doing drugs, owning guns that are illegal, vandalizing the car of the tenant that just skipped out while owing me $700 today (still pissed about that one), etc.

I would say that jail and prison DOES work very effectively as a deterrent, just not on the career criminals that are in them in the first place.

Jesse17 said:

Agreed, but you're singling out crimes of passion/rage, but I'm talking about all crime in general.

How can people say that prisons don't work as a deterrent? Granted it may not deter a first time offender from becoming a second time offender, but I think it is what has kept 90% of people who have never gone to jail out of jail.

There are plenty of things that I would do, knowing what the maximum fine is, and knowing that I could afford it (if I got caught), but I don't do those things because I don't want to take a chance at going to prison/jail. I'm not talking about robing or killing, because my morals/beliefs keep me from doing that. Rather I'm talking about things like building a still, doing drugs, owning guns that are illegal, vandalizing the car of the tenant that just skipped out while owing me $700 today (still pissed about that one), etc.

I would say that jail and prison DOES work very effectively as a deterrent, just not on the career criminals that are in them in the first place.

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You are correct....I was referring to murder as much of the previous conversations revolved around that.

Jail and prisons are a deterrent to crime IMHO. I aslo think good, well paying jobs, education, home ownership and above all hope for the future serve us well.