Comment by Joker_vD
2 years ago
Because not being able to freely communicate with the larger society is part of the punishment? I dunno, always seemed like an obvious thing.
2 years ago
Because not being able to freely communicate with the larger society is part of the punishment? I dunno, always seemed like an obvious thing.
Why should prisons be about punishment rather than rehabilitation?
You'll find lots of variations of the following:
The Purposes of Punishment:[^1]
- Incapacitation: prevents crime by removing a defendant from society.
- Rehabilitation: prevents crime by altering a defendant’s behavior.
- Retribution: prevents crime by giving victims or society a feeling of avengement.
- Restitution: prevents crime by punishing the defendant financially.
- Deterrence: Specific deterrence prevents crime by frightening an individual defendant with punishment. General deterrence prevents crime by frightening the public with the punishment of an individual defendant.
[^1]: https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purpose...
There's a difference between rehabilitation and giving people access to the internet when serving a sentence for killing your wife and tormenting her family for like, 2 years because you hid the body even though everyone knew you killed her. Also, why shouldn't it be a little bit of both?
I don't have strong feelings about general internet access, but right now, I am probably spending $200k / year in tax dollars to keep him locked up behind bars. I'd be getting my money's worth.
I would much rather he be contributing to free software from behind bars. That's true more generally too. A plumber behind bars should be allowed to plumb. A carpenter to carpent.
Why shouldn't people in prison contribute back, if willing and able?
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They should be about rehabilitation.
That said, I think at least part of it is related to risk to the outside population.
i.e. Inmates performing illegal activity or otherwise directing people on the outside to do so.
Yes, You can do that with phones and visits as well, however those are a bit easier to monitor.
I believe you'll find a lot of people here in the US that believe prison, at least for the worst crimes, isn't about punishment or rehabilitation, but "containment".
Because human beings feel it is appropriate and fair to punish people for wrongdoing, and without the state handling it individuals are more likely to take justice into their own hands. Making the criminal justice system sufficiently punishing is one of several checks against vigilantism.
It is some of both. Hans murdered his wife, tried to cover it up, and lied about it. His actions make him a danger to society, part of his incarceration relates to the danger he poses to society. While he is removed from society he should also be rehabilitated.
It’s supposed to be both. There’s three components actually: punitive, deterrence and rehabilitation
Aren't you forgetting the most important reason for locking people up: protecting the rest of society.
“Rehabilitation” means that a person is suffering from some condition, and they are not personally at fault for their crimes. While there is some partial truth in this point of view, taking it at 100% face value is unfair, to say the least. People can be actually guilty of something.
Hard disagree. Rehabilitation means you take something that wasn’t working and you fix it so it can be useful again. Most convicts will eventually be released. In an ideal world, each of them will have learned how to participate in decent society so that they can be a good neighbor, employee, boss, friend, or whatever.
I’m not saying that from a bleeding heart “prison should be a resort campout!” strawman perspective, but as someone who wishes people came out of prison kinder and more sociable than they went in.
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'Rehabilitation" means a few different things, depending on context. In the context of penology it means "giving a prisoner a way to integrate back into society and reduce their chances of recidivism". This is not only useful for the prisoner, but useful for society, since most prisoners are eventually released.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(penology)
Even if it did mean that, so what? Shouldn't the goal of public policy be to benefit society? What's more likely to benefit society: Sticking people in big expensive torture boxes or trying to cause people to not do things that convince a bunch of other people that they deserve to be stuck in big expensive torture boxes?
Okay, if someone cannot be "rehabilitated" where is the value to society or to that person in punishing them to make them suffer more on top of separating them from the public?
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