Prison: Isolation or Punishment?

[Bachanomon92]

This is one question I ask my friends, and the responses are split.

Does society use prisons to punish wrong-doers?
OR
Does society use prisons to isolate wrong-doers from law-abiding citizens until they are rehabilitated?

The obvious answer is BOTH but which do you think us the PRIMARY purpose?

 

[meatloaf231]

Primarily isolation, I'd say. It just works as a form of standardized punishment as well.

 

[Beffudled Sheep]

Isolation definitely.

 

[Fightgarr]

Prisons use isolation to punish prisoners while they are simultaneously being assimilated and rehabilitated into the customs of capitalist society.

 

[RebelRising]

Is rehabilitation a valid factor in punishments?

I'd like to think that, with the more serious criminals, like serial killers and rapists, imprisonment is punishing them because they can't be rehabilitated.

 

[Bachanomon92]

Is rehabilitation a valid factor in punishments?

I'd like to think that, with the more serious criminals, like serial killers and rapists, imprisonment is punishing them because they can't be rehabilitated.

So the purpose of a prison varies based on the crime a prisoner committed?

I haven't had that answer yet....

 

[Marv21]

I think its more like to legally lock away people which are a menace to society with giving reasons/law that they did not abide by society's consented code. The government wants us to not realize that they wish they didn't have criminals in their mists.

....Where was I going with that ohhh yah!

Basic point, Government locking away criminals to isolate them primarily from society.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Is rehabilitation a valid factor in punishments?

I'd like to think that, with the more serious criminals, like serial killers and rapists, imprisonment is punishing them because they can't be rehabilitated.

I don't think so. You can't easily rehabilitate and punish at the same time. A two teir system would be better in my opinion, identify those people in there due to making a bad mistake but are never-the-less not criminally inclined, and seperate them from the true hard core. Try to help them get their lives back on track as quickly as possible. Education, training, and identifying and mental health or drug issues the offender has. The sooner the are back out and earning their own way the sooner nobody else is paying for them.

For that hard core element have a seperate system that does punish, particularly for dangerous offenders. Violent thugs and the like. I am completely unsure what form this punishment should take. Work is a very big no-no, as you take jobs off people who ordinary people who haven't committed crime.

Unless the person is serving life you are going to have to let them out at some stage though, so it pays not to brutalize them. Doing that will only make them even more dangerous upon release.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

I'd have to go with isolation, but to say one more so than the other is a little bit difficult -- the question seems to rely heavily on which prison one is put in.

If I would be so bold as to suggest that some prisoners (perhaps a thin minority, or a wide majority; I'm sure some research would be under way) find prison much less isolating than the real world, those prisoners would definitely be more punished. Other prisoners would find imprisonment much less of a milieu and more of a temporary isolation, hence isolation.

I'd like to believe society does it to punish them VIA the isolation from the real world. The primary cause for society to do it IS punishment. Whether rehabilitation or not makes little difference, since rehab is just a way for us to punish and try to fix at the same time. In the end, institutions are meant to punish, like taking a way candy from a child who has lost the privilege to have it.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

In theory it is the second one but in practice it is the first all the way.

Sadly because of the misuse of the prison system the first has become the only real reason for it. The clearest example of this is the fact we lock up non-violent offenders, many who have committed crimes that have no violated party at all, such as drug users. These offenders do not need to be isolated from society to be rehabilitated, most need medical help and many of these non-violent criminals come from the fact our societies are cold and uncaring towards those who suffer the most. Social programs to help the most needy go far further to lowering the crime rate then the prison system can ever boast, by eliminating the need for petty crimes to begin with.

Coupled with the fact we allow violent offences to go ramped through the prison system, ironically carried out by the violent inhabitants whom prison was designed for, and wield the mess that formed around as a 'big stick' to keep people in line says all that needs to be said about the prison industry. Most of the people who have come out of the prison system as it stands today are WORSE then when they went in. So many will willingly admit it too as all prison taught them was to 'harden up!' It does squat to address the issues that made them turn to crime in the first place, so very few people come out changed for the better. This means most of the released parties will still be impartial to crime, finding themselves in the same positions that started their criminal actions to begin with, but are now less caring about those around them.

It is nothing more then a big stick and a big business!

Never forget that, the prison industry is private owned and makes millions and billions a year. The people who profit from this system are invested to see their business grow. They are the ones that back, heavily, propositions that will criminalise more things, have longer sentences to even petty crimes and in many states have made it so a petty criminal will never be released. Criminals are the new slaves, forced to work for cents through a range of legal and semi legal punishments for non-compliance.

This is how they make massive fortunes!

There is a reason why the US is the worlds foremost country when it comes to people locked behind bars... it makes rich people even richer.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

Curse it, Jinx topped me.

 

[Iolair]

Some prisoners live better than people on the outside. Provided one sides with the right crowd and doesn't drop the soap too often, I don't know how it's either. They have social time, cable TV, weight rooms, guaranteed three meals a day ... There are pictures out there of some prisons that look nicer than my apartment.

I say hook them all up to shock collars (give the remote to any living victims) and make them live in the worst of poverty for the duration of their sentence. And then put it on TV.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Some prisoners live better than people on the outside. Provided one sides with the right crowd and doesn't drop the soap too often, I don't know how it's either. They have social time, cable TV, weight rooms, guaranteed three meals a day ... There are pictures out there of some prisons that look nicer than my apartment.

Ah yes, the minimal security prisons designed for the sort of criminal who would panic if they broke a nail...

Seriously, take a look at the offenders who tend to go to these prisons. You steal ten billion dollars, pushing thousands into bankruptcy, through a crooked and fraudulent financial system and THIS is where you will end up. Sure, I guess to billionaires these places would be prison, that bed surely doesn't have Egyptian cotton after all, but you and I both would consider then four star resorts at the least!

Yet if you smoke a little weed and can't afford a ten million dollar lawyer... well you're going to the dirtiest hole they can find for you.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I'm going to go with my gut and say that modern prisons are at least subliminally used for the same purpose that they have been throughout history, which was and is to punish prisons for wrong doings. We may want to think differently, but at the end of the day everybody wants to see a rapist rot in jail, not wait for him to be rehabilitated.

 

[Archereus]

This is one question I ask my friends, and the responses are split.

Does society use prisons to punish wrong-doers?
OR
Does society use prisons to isolate wrong-doers from law-abiding citizens until they are rehabilitated?

The obvious answer is BOTH but which do you think us the PRIMARY purpose?

Well if we are talking about isolation from the good law following citizens then I would go more for that. But in my honnest beleif the prison system should have some major changes

 

[Combined]

They have satellite television and free internet in their cells here. I Wish I was in prison.

As far as punishment goes... well... that doesn't happen. About isolation? Internet. I think that says it all.

 

[Demonic Panda]

Send them to gitmo while it's still here.