Prisons: Do we need them?

I'm not sure how being able to differentiate between the abstract ideas of "right" and "wrong" is a sufficient condition for having free action, and free action seems to be a necessary condition for having moral responsibility.

If the lack of judgement cannot be helped, per the addiction, then I still have trouble with considering the addict responsible.

I agree that insight is a necessary condition for responsiblity - ignorance is an excuse (in the case of moral responsibility, anyway).

Going back to the drug addict, imagine a crack addict who needs a fix. The addict knows stealing is wrong (he can differentiate between the abstract notions of "right" and "wrong"), therefore he has insight. However, given his addiction, he cannot help but to steal (or commit some other "wrong" act) to satisfy his addiction. Insight without moral responsibility.

My objection to prison, aside from drug addicts and moral responsibility, is their function. Currently, the only results I can see in our prison system are negative. Simply, I don't think the stick works. And I'm not sure any amount of carrot would help.

And again, I'm not sure how being a drug addict all of a sudden exonerates people from moral responsibility, especially when becoming a drug addict in itself was a choice at some point.

Free action is arbitrary without insight. And if you have both insight and agency, then you don't get a pass just because your judgement is poor.

There are many drug addicts who hold down jobs fairly effectively (and many who don't). So the mere phenomenon of drug addiction is not sufficient to mitigate responsibility for judgement.

Acute drug intoxication impairs people's judgement a lot more than their state of mind when they're temporarily sober. So whether it's a one time use or a chronic addict, the people with the worst judgement are the ones who are intoxicated -- not the ones who are sober and looking for a fix.

Ignorance is not an excuse under the law. You can still break a law and be held fully responsible (in this country) whether or not you knew about it. And imprisonment is about laws more than about morals.

No, he can help but steal. There is always a decision in front of him until he commits to a certain course of action. Furthermore, crack is not physically addictive, there is no appreciable withdrawal syndrome, and the situation is merely one of satisfying a craving.

Well, I agree that prisons are not the answer to the drug problem. But insofar as they are what we do about crime in general, then I do hold people responsible for their decisions whether or not they're using drugs. A couple years ago I had a patient that I got to quit crack cold turkey. If I can credit him with making the responsible and autonomous decision to quit, then I can also credit an addict with making the autonomous decision to commit a crime.

you have yet to show how being able to differentiate between the abstract ideas of "right" and "wrong" is a sufficient condition for having free action, nor have you shown how being able to differentiate between the abstract ideas of "right" and "wrong" is a sufficient condition is a sufficient condition for moral responsibility.

that addicts can, of their own free will, stop using drugs is beyond me.

I do not think anyone should get a pass for poor judgment; I do think people should 'get a pass' for not being able to act other than they did, even if they have insight and agency because if they could not act other than they did they lack free agency.

On this note, I will have to refine my claims to a degree - when the drug of choice is at stake, the drug addict (it seems to me) does not have the ability to act freely. Does this clear up some issues?

My objection is not related to judgment. The addict may have wonderful judgement, yet, if the addict is in need of a fix, it seems at least odd that the addict can simply decide not to pursue his addiction.

In the case of moral responsibility, I have agreed with you - "No authentic choice is possible without insight." And without choice, without free action, I'm not sure how we can ascribe moral responsibility. Perhaps you see room for such a thing.

It's not stealing necessarily, it's that the addict has no choice but to attempt to aquire his desired drug.

How was this patient's decision autonomous if you got him to quit?

What do you think? Do you think society needs prisons? Why or why not?

Basically, my contention is that society does not need prisons because we can release anyone who does not have a psychological defect making them so dangerous to others as to warrant putting them in a medical asylum.

What do you think? Do you think society needs prisons? Why or why not?

I've never quite been able to understand how a thing like prostitution can be outlawed...?

For public health reasons because of the inordinately higher rate of HIV and other STIs among prostitutes. And also because unlike consensual sex, the vast majority of prostitutes are NOT perfectly free agents to give consent when they are in desperate need of money such that they would put themselves at significant risk of harm.

In a setting like the legal brothols in Nevada, in which the women get some kind of labor protection, some security, and protection against STIs is mandated and (theoretically) enforced, that is the only situation in which legal prostitution makes ANY ethical sense.

You can't sell hamburgers on the street unless you meet certain business and food handling standards. And with prostitution, if you want it to be legal, then you need to establish standards that will protect both the woman and her clients.

Well, yes that's probably why it became illegal... but today when we have and can provide everything we need to make it as safe as "normal" sex, why should it still be illegal?
And I'm not saying that the majority of prostitutes are in it with their free will, but if there was legal government controlled brothols, shouldn't the number of forced prostitutes drop dramaticly? And not to mention the fact that there would be virutally no profit in "trafficing"....

It will only drop if the government can locate all (legal) brothels and check them from time to time, however there are always girl that work on the streets and take guys to rented rooms across the city. It's so hard to control.

If the government legalizes it, it will add tax to the price for sex, thus making it more expensive. Trafficking in this cases can be more profitable. It's a classic case of you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Of course you can stop this by only visiting the "legal" hookers, but there always those who don't care about the woman's position.

Other than that prostitution is still something no one dares to legalize because of the ethical questions it will raise. The only reason Thailand, South Korea, The Netherlands and many more have legalized prostitution is because it was already legal to begin with, and they never wanted, or saw the need to change it. It's an issue left untouched.

The US in this case is measuring with double standards; they allow pornography, which is filmed prostitution, but the don't allow "normal" prostitution.

Well, yes that's probably why it became illegal... but today when we have and can provide everything we need to make it as safe as "normal" sex, why should it still be illegal?

if there was legal government controlled brothols, shouldn't the number of forced prostitutes drop dramaticly?

Do you really think that that is possible? I mean needle exchange programs can clearly reduce the risk of HIV and viral hepatitis transmission among IV drug users, and yet this country is too damn right-wing to even let that happen on a wide scale. In fact the right wing in this country is even opposed to Gardasil, the human papilloma virus vaccine, which prevents the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. They say it will make girls promiscuous if they get that vaccine. (Of course they don't realize that with the hep B vaccine we've been vaccinating people against an STD for years already). But do you really think that the very conservative core in this country will ever support some system to legalize prostitution and make it safe? It's too low profile to be regulated, and the prostitutes for the most part are way too desperate.

Just like the smoking rates with legal tobacco? And the murder rates with legal guns?

Wizzy:

Would you vote for a government that has a monopoly on prostitution, and practically owns your (female) body? I think we are stumbling upon a highly ethical question here.

This monopoly of the government you are talking about is so highly unethical. Prostitution in my opinion is wrong, and i will never visit a brothel because it's against everything i stand for. However there are pornstars and even street prostitutes who like their job and would not change it for the world.

I don't think prostitution should be stopped and maybe even legalized to some degree, but i think the government should help and take every girl seriously that is forced into prostitution. This help is often done by non profit organizations and sometimes even without government support.

The government taking a monopoly on prostitution is so highly unethical and wrong. I understand your point and i understand that you want the best for these girls, however a monopoly is not the way to go. There still will be as Aedes said the other girls who will drop out of government regulated brothels and all will be exactly the same as before.

Prostitution cannot be regulated, it cannot be destroyed, but we can do the best we can by making sure kids get sex education, and helping them get proper education and maybe even a job.

If there were legal brothols, all that would change is that the underage / ugly / disease-carrying / drug-addicted / desperate girls and women would still be on the street -- but they'd be able to undersell the brothols, which would naturally cost more because of the overhead and the licensure (and the premium for being more respectable). It would just split the prostitutes into two societies. Furthermore, many neighborhoods would not want to have brothols, and many prostitutes would be living / working in neighborhoods without them.

This is the type of conversation that happens when ethics are debated from an armchair. This topic does not boil down to the simple question of whether prostitution should be legal, or if it's ethical. It is an extremely complex sociological issue that doesn't exist in isolation and cannot be solved with idealized scenarios.

If you're not from the US, you might be unaware that Las Vegas is in Nevada -- it's the largest city in that state. There ARE legal brothels. And yet Las Vegas, Carson City, Reno, and much of the state have dreadful street prostitution problems. And it's almost certainly because the brothels create a niche market for the women who don't work there. I'd bet the same phenomenon is true in other places with legal brothels, like Bangkok.

Why no brothels with men working there? Simple. There wouldn't be a market for it. The VAST majority of male prostitution caters to gay men, and this has been shown in some epidemiology studies looking at STDs and behaviors among male prostitutes.

Are you accusing me of beein a isolated man? Cause if you are, you're way off... I'm a nineteen year old college student who's going to graduate in a couple of months man...

What I don't know is how the law is formed, cause if it isn't government monopoly on it then the prostitutes are free to be and sell themselves where ever they want to which should lead to the prostitutes beeing able to overrun the streets, if there is a governmental monopoly, they will be arrested for selling and the johns for buying, why would anybody take that risk if the price is the same?

First of all, that's not the accusation I'm making. I'm accusing all of us of thinking we can solve a problem just by thinking about it but not by understanding it. And incidentally, I was once a nineteen year old college student, and I'm now a 33 year old physician, I've travelled to countries on 6 continents, I've lived for extended periods of time in Africa, South America, and New Zealand -- and I've actually had patients who were prostitutes; and I still am sufficiently isolated that I would never claim insight and wisdom about areas that I haven't studied in depth. I'm not saying that you're doing this outright -- but I think you underestimate how complicated this subject is.

It's not a government monopoly. It's private enterprise that has government regulations. But you're wrong -- it is illegal for them to be on the street -- and they can be arrested. But you'll never get rid of them because they cater to a cheaper clientelle than the legal brothels, they're everywhere, people can be much more discrete when they solicit a street prostitute, many of the prostitutes on the street are underage and wouldn't be employable at a brothel, there is a finite number of brothels and therefore jobs, and finally the prostitutes who are strung out on drugs or who are unattractive or unreliable or whatever simply aren't going to get jobs in brothels anyway.

You may not want to limit it to female prostitutes, but that's the bulk of the issue. But male prostitutes are also often teenage boys who aren't even necessarily gay, but will sell themselves to gay men out of desperation for money. They're also operating from an extremely vulnerable position.

Wizzy, i think before we start discussing again we must first define prostitution as it occurs. Some of them indeed can be regulated, other however are very hard to regulate. So first I'm going to define two types of prostitution:

#1 - Prostitution by force. Most woman or man for that matter who are caught up in this are victims of their situation and the people who take advantage of their situation. In some cases these woman are abused if they don't want to cooperate. Abuse by paying costumers is also likely. This is the kind of prostitution that should be punishable by law, we can all agree on that.

#2 - Prostitution by choice. Some of the woman, mostly porn actresses (or actors) have chosen their profession to be prostitution. Some of them succeed and will have a career in the regulated industry, others will not. This form of prostitution does not need to be forbidden, for it is done with both parties agreeing. What the terms of the agreement are does not matter for our discussion.

#1 - Always in the same spot makes it easy to regulate. The red light district in Amsterdam is known all over the world, and is fairly easy to find even for foreigners. This type of prostitution is fairly easy to regulate. It can be checked at all times and people know that it is there.

#2 - On the move. some females prostitute around the city, they are always on the move to not be caught. Often this type of prostitution is associated with either amateurs or the forced girls.

#3 - Order. Sadly you can even order "the love" of a woman these days. Some companies are legit and "deliver" woman who chose to prostitute themselves. Other less legit company's use forced girl and aren't that friendly.

Now we can see that prostitution by choice together with Always at the same spot and Order can be regulated by the government. However other combinations are harder to regulate. You've got a good point that we should try to make them less profitable, however how are we going to do that? We can hunt down the "pimps", but for every "pimp" that goes away two of them return. Illegal trafficking and illegal prostitution will always be profitable.

I think we can solve problems by acknowledging the problem and make sure our society tries to teach as many people about sexual deceases and all the other things that can prevent males and females from landing into prostitution. The people who are trafficking should be severely punished.

A government control like you have on Sweden on alcohol does not work in this case. Alcohol is something you buy in the store. There are factories and many other materials needed. Prostitution is a "service" and can be done wherever and whenever. The only thing you need is a condom, and in some cases not even that.

To end my statement i want to say that i don't think prostitution will ever be safe, we can however try to make it as safe as possible. It's sad that people still need sex so desperately and consider it a primary need.

Yes those are the two types I'll agree with that, however I don't agree that the first one should be punishable by law, not for the prostitute atleast, for the pimp it should end up somewhere around kindnaping... Now you might say "no the prostitute who are forced can't get punished by law!" but they can, I'd say that these are the most common hookers in prisons today because you don't have to be locked up to be forced to prostitution...

I'll give you that your first combination is easiest to controll and regulate, ofcourse.. But at the same time, isn't it possible to take away the business for the other combinations by strengethening and expanding that one? Making it easier to gain access to and as cheep as possible?

And ofcourse prostitution shouldn't be encoureaged, but at the same time it will never go away completley... So we have to do anything we can to make it as safe as possible, as you said. And the best way to do this is still to me, by legalizing it..

Alcohol isn't hard to make or smuggle... I've personally (note that I'm 19) have made homemade beer and wine without any difficulty as you can get portion packs at speciall stores and everything you need to make it.. And this isn't even needed when both are made with simple ingredients, only that it takes some time.. And for hard liqur, that's even easier.. I know how to make a moonshine "machine", how to operate it and how to make the acctuall liqur and what ingredients you need... It's not hard to do.. I know several people who have made moonshine of great quality, bought flasks and voila! You have vodka! But there's some work in all of this and it's easier to just buy it from a store and you'll get higher quality booze, thus to prevent people from making it you have to have acceptable prices, and that's where my government have screwed up...

And to end my statement I'd like to say that sex is a primary need.. It's the reason we want to make alot of money, why we want a nice apartment/house, why we want nice cloth and why we want to be the envy of others.. It's the drive that keeps our race going and we should be thankful for having that drive if anything... Also, I belive that alot of the Johns out there are just lonely or just wants unconditional sex without needing a relationship...