"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"....?

Well, JP, honey. I don't speed cause it lessens my chance of getting killed in a car crash. As for the deterrent factor, we need to be careful that we don't cross the line of "cruel and unusual punishment" in our eagerness to make the penal system work as it is supposed to work. It's all a balancing act, I'm afraid.

I say scrap jail, replace it with lashes.

Not only would I rather have 100 lashes than spend ten years in jail (and yes, I am fully aware of the degree of pain and medical trauma.) and yet paradoxically though I would prefer it my chances of reoffense would be significantly less.

Not to mention it's like 100 times cheaper.

er, anti. Would you rephrase that? I think I have something in my eye.

In what way would you like me to rephrase it for you?

This part:

paradoxically though I would prefer it my chances of reoffense would be significantly less.

It is somewhat paradoxical that the punishment I would prefer would also be one that would deter me from reoffending the most.

Placing somewhat in jail is putting them in an environment in which they are forced to obey a different cultural standard. They adapt to it. They are surrounded by noone but criminals and thus get a criminal culture indoctrinated within them. They are then after a set interval of time removed from this environment that they have completely adapted to and then returned into regular society.

Regular society which now no longer accepts them and prevents them from gaining meaningful work. People treat them with suspicion and agression for their past record. Is it any wonder some of them reoffend, if only to return to jail (to which they have now accustomed themselves).

Whereas you hit someone many times with a large heavy object. They get very hurt. Go to hospital for a while to recover. They may still be stigmatized as criminals but they haven't adapted to a criminal culture. They're still surrounded by non-criminals. They also have the threat of a very real physical pain which is not as appealing to the criminal as prison would be, post-release.

I would rather be whipped many many times, than go to jail for years. I would also be less likely to reoffend from the whipping than I would the jail. This is somewhat paradoxical.

Wow! When you rephrase, you rephrase, Anti.

If I recall, Charles Manson was released from prison and begged to return. He knew that he did NOT belong on the outside. How different things MIGHT have been were his wish granted.

Yeah, last time someone asked me to rephrase a sentence I wrote a novel.



Yep... I think our society needs voluntary isolation facilities.

Anti, it wouldn't work for psychopaths/sociopaths. Also, the punishment would not stay long as fear for those who are likely to reoffend.

BTW, I think your take on justice is well taken, but I think you're stating the extreme view on justice.

This is why our society handles the criminally insane differently to criminals.



Does Jail?

Also for -ANY- justice system to be effective we must ask the question. Why are they likely to reoffend?

Jail does not, but it's unnecessary to cause physical pain.

Antibuddha

I don't agree that jail creates a criminal culture. It creates a different culture, of course, but in jail, in most cases, there are no crimes. In fact, jails offer environments less violents than our societies - I am talking about jails in western Europe or US, because I think that Latin America is different.
The principal problem with jails, like society, is that they don't prepare criminals to a new kind of life. When a man leaves jail he returns to his former environment and quickly, to the kind of life that, sooner or later, will lead him to crime.
Jail doesn't provide real education. So, a criminal,when he leaves, has the same moral standards he had before.

jpin

You say the solution is to make jail more of a deterant.
But, how? With regular spankings, or torture? Hunger, bestiality?
Then, why jails? Why not to cut the hands of burglars, castrate rapists, burn alive killers?
Such laws would be a good deterant. But then, law is terror, nothing else.

I agree with you, that Cyracuz position is unnacceptable. But your solution seems to me even worst. A society that fights crime with terror becomes a society of monsters.

Val. While I personally have never been in jail my best friend David spent 13 months in Yattala (a high security prison). While I'm a skeptical person, his description of events within prison remained self-consistant and he never gave me any reason to suspect he exaggerated or invented these events.

My father, (a psychologist), was briefly employed within a prison and also described a highly disturbing environment. I certainly do not expect that he exaggerated or invented these events either.

If for a moment I were to go outside of my personal experience, then magazine interviews, movies, books (fiction and non) all paint a similar picture of violent cultures existing within prisons.

In fact in my ENTIRE life EVERY account of prison that I've seen has painted an image of them that is depressing, grim, violent and aggressive.
This leads me to wonder where you get your information about the situation and how your experience could so radically differ from my own.

Could you let me know what your basis for this information is? The difference has me quite intrigued.

If criminals matriculate in the field of crime through the comission of said crime, then prison can be said to be graduate sschool where their skills are refined. There is no ecidence whatever that 'doing time' ats as a deterrent. If it did, the recidivism rate would not be what it is. This doesn't mean that felons should not be put away. It means we should give some serious thought to what it is that we are trying to accomplish by simply imprisoning wrong-doers. Prison safe? That's a laugh. There is more violence inside prisons, including murder, than outside.

Offtopic I know...

Merry, my latin's a bit rusty, but is that quote translated "I think I am, therefore I am... I think."?

antibuddha

Yes. Depression and even agressivity, but different from the outside. Agressivity is due to a group of males confined in little spaces and monotonous activities.
My knowledge becomes from the fact I am a judge and, years ago, I directed a prison.

Really? While I'll consede that unlawful use of a automobile without owner's consent (our mouthful of a name, version of grand theft auto) is unlikely to occur within a prison assault, rape and to some degree theft (though from what I hear there is very little theft in prison) all occur and are all officially crimes.



I'm quite confident that a statistical comparison between violent acts within a prison and the general community at large, particularly if focused on high security prisons would.... <grinds to a halt>

Hang on.

You're american.

I keep forgetting how many damn prisons you guys have and how easily you're sent there. Almost 1% of your population is locked up. We have nearly 0.15% of our population.

We have like 3 prisons in my state. It takes a lot to get sent to a prison as well. Perhaps that accounts for a certain distortion.

<begins again>... Never the less, in the heavier security prisons for dangerous criminals I strongly suspect you guys have a great deal more violence than exists in the community at large.... maybe... Then again you americans have a really violent society as well.

...Stuff it... I can't really discuss circumstances as they relate over there.

All I can tell you is that here in Australia, prisons are REALLY F***ING HARSH.

Good morning all. Anti, you're Australian? Well that does give a different slant on things.

And Val was a judge. I am continually amazed at the credentials of folks we find on this site.

As for the "eye for an eye" concept, I suspect if we were the victims of harsh and violent crime, we would view this topic a little differently.

Well, Ray, I really enjoy exploring ideas, and your thread has created a wide range of discussions. Thank you for that.

As for Letty, I have only sat on a jury, and it was one of the most difficult jobs that I have ever experienced.