If it were up to me, I'd make all prisons humane

[cali]

There's enough suffering in the world. Yes, some people need to be kept out of society, but I just can't endorse the concept of making people suffer- even if what they've done is heinous.

So no, I don't particularly want to see Tsarnaev or any other criminal made to suffer. I just want people kept safe from those who harm others.

[johnnysad]

1. Only way to make them safe is everyone

is in solitary confinement .

Prisons are filled with people who prey on the weaker

[F4lconF16]

3. See Sweden's system.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/26/prison-sweden-not-punishment-nils-oberg

[johnnysad]

8. This isn't Sweden

Our prisons are filled with gangs

[davidn3600]

18. Which is part of the problem...

You have people in prison for having 1 ounce too much marijuana in the same cell of gang bangers and murderers. How exactly is that effective?

[johnnysad]

23. It's not those people are called prey or they change to suit the environmet

they are put in.

Many come out worse not better to deal in a civilized society

[pipoman]

39. Exactly..

Nearly every first time inmate just wants to serve his time and be released. He doesn't want to rape anyone, or fight, or mule...keeping all offenders in a safe, working environment until/unless they earn a spot with those who want to do bad shit in jail, instead of throwing first time offenders in with 10 time losers who have nothing more to lose, and another murder only meaning time out of the cell for court.

[johnnysad]

45. One way is to completely segregate

offenders , we would have prisons for non violent offenders only built .

But again what we would be doing is building more prisons ?

[roguevalley]

37. since 95% of the incarcerated get out eventually it is in everyone's interest

to make the places humane and redemptive for rehabilitation. Unless of course you don't mind a person worse off when they leave then when they went in moving in next door to you and dating your daughter. I agree with the OP and always have. Our prisons are torturous camps by our choice that should shame us all.

[johnnysad]

43. I'm all ears

Cell block D has two people who raped a woman and poured bleach in her eyes and down her throat .
Next to them is a person who robbed a convenience store and shot the clerk in the back of the head
when he was lying face down behind the counter. Next one killed his wife due to anger issues.

Tell me in your opinion the best way to rehabilitate these men.

[roguevalley]

47. some cant be. assuming that applies across the board is a mistake.

Having conditions making bad people worse makes us like all the other banana. republics. You seem to forget the majority are addicted or young and stupid. Many are mentally ill because we dont care about them either. Fix that and a lot will go. Prisons used to be about rehab ... I remember that. Now its about revenge, a very repug concept.

[johnnysad]

51. Read my post #45

To do that we need to build more prisons

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I am glad to see that you endorse torture

Solitary Confinement is Torture

The devastating psychological and physical effects of prolonged solitary confinement are well documented by social scientists: prolonged solitary confinement causes prisoners significant mental harm and places them at grave risk of even more devastating future psychological harm.

Researchers have demonstrated that prolonged solitary confinement causes a persistent and heightened state of anxiety and nervousness, headaches, insomnia, lethargy or chronic tiredness, nightmares, heart palpitations, and fear of impending nervous breakdowns. Other documented effects include obsessive ruminations, confused thought processes, an oversensitivity to stimuli, irrational anger, social withdrawal, hallucinations, violent fantasies, emotional flatness, mood swings, chronic depression, feelings of overall deterioration, as well as suicidal ideation.

Exposure to such life-shattering conditions clearly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment – in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Further, the brutal use of solitary has been condemned as torture by the international community.

http://ccrjustice.org/solitary-factsheet

[Nuclear Unicorn]

22. It doesn't read as an endorsement of solitary so much as a statement,

"if X is desired then Y must be the policy." That's not an endorsement.

[johnnysad]

24. I deal in reality my friend

The OP said he wishes to keep everyone safe in an American prison

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Thankfully I am not "your friend."

In reality you are endorsing torture. And yes, I do cover police and prison issues, regularly, Yours is more of the kind of attitude that allows us to get to the point we are... they are in jail, so well...

Prison reform will come, and it will require imagination.

[johnnysad]

27. Get a clue

There's a reason why the chow hall , the yard and the inside rec areas are the most dangerous places in a prison.

They are all out and about .

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Have an excellent day

I am pretty much done with you. We have nothing more to "discuss." And no, I am not "your friend." Nor am I clueless.

[Katashi_itto]

30. nadinbrzezinski !!!! It's awesome to see you back!!!!!!!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. Don't know for how long

but right now listening to Sacramento, waiting on local legislator on her assembly bill

[Katashi_itto]

33. Hope its a long stay.

Was very rotten here without you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. I fear it could become a time sink

[Katashi_itto]

35. :)

[Comrade Grumpy]

42. Most human rights organization consider solitary confinement to be torture.

And you really don't have a clue who is in prison, do you?

About half are non-violent offenders.

Half of all federal prisoners are drug offenders, and about one-quarter of state prisoners.

I think we know who's preying on the weak, and it ain't non-violent drug offenders.

[F4lconF16]

2. Kick and rec.

Prison cannot be about punishment in a humane society. It has to be about rehabilitaion. Sweden is doing it right.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. I fully agree. K&R

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Friedrich Nietzsche

[NCTraveler]

5. Great mindset.

It is where we should all be.

Edit to add: There is one poster here who has posted thoughtfully on this subject. I have read a couple of their posts and always hoped they would elaborate more. Maybe they did and I missed it. The posts I read were short on words, yet big in concept and simplicity of thought. I don't remember their full name but it is zombie something and they had a zombie avatar.

[Rex]

6. If it were up to me, I would make 'pay for' prisons illegal. I would also make rehab mandatory

before release and a full psych eval on all those coming up before the parole board, all the people that work in the system for more than 2 years and free therapy to any state employee that feels they need it.

We approach incarceration the wrong way in some main areas of society that are in desperate need of change imo.

[randome]

7. Agreed. But it's debatable whether life in prison or death would mean more suffering for Tsarnaev.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[Rex]

9. He won't make it.

Unless they keep him in isolation for the rest of his life, he is a dead man. He already has a mark on his head.

[johnnysad]

10. He can make it

Some of the strongest gangs in prison are muslim

[randome]

11. Which might mean more gang violence in prison as different groups grapple.

It's going to be a mess, no matter what the sentencing.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[Rex]

15. The man is deadmeat, had this been an Iraqi prison I might give him some odds of survival.

Wrong country for his particular kind of infamy. IMO.

[Rex]

13. So that will just mean he is a higher value target. He is infamous in all the wrong ways.

He has no chance. They probably should have just given him the death penalty.

[johnnysad]

17. I think you might be wrong on this one

Someone like him will be approached to join a gang and he will have protection but nothing is offered for free.

How he reacts to this will determine his fate in prison.

[Rex]

21. He will be bartered and traded for some power and concessions.

Don't get me wrong, he will get protection all the way up to the point he no longer has any value. Given his age and a first time offender and where they will place him - I give him a year tops.

If this was another country, I would give him better odds. However you know huge groups like the hell's angels will pay any price just to get him alone in a laundry room etc..

Which really goes to a bigger point and problem...the need to revamp the entire system now that it is run by career gang members that work inside the prison system to corrupt as many people as they can working inside the system.

[johnnysad]

26. They try to isolate and get the leaders but it's hard

and even from solitary confinement they still run the gangs in prison.
Plus they have their 2nd or 3 rd in command out in general population .
On top of that throw in some corrupt guards and it's all in play.

How do you revamp a system where some of the most violent people in our society eat , sleep , play and all work together in an confined area ?

[Rex]

38. Good question. I doubt LEO ever thought gangs would run the prison system. nt

nt

[lapislzi]

12. So long as the focus is on punishment instead of justice, that idea is doomed.

You could argue that in many cases, true justice is impossible. The dead cannot be brought back to life, the burned building cannot be resurrected in any meaningful way, the despoiled cannot be unraped. That's a fact of life. So, what can we, as compassionate human beings, do for the cause of justice in an unjust world?

Meting out punishment in measure is a poor substitute. It solves nothing and does nothing to advance the cause of justice. You can only kill the murderer once, and it demoralizes society to do it at all. Is that who we want to be as a people? Punishers and vengeance-seekers? Does that ennoble anyone, or just put the judge and the jury on the same level with the miscreant?

I cannot get behind killing killers any more than I can get behind any other barbaric forms of revenge and punishment.

[NightWatcher]

14. But then there's this pesky thing called "reality"

Prisons are a mess. They are violent, depraved concentrations of the worst members of society.

I've spent time in everything from a minimum security federal pen (Club Fed, FCI Jesup) to Angola, louisiana (studying CJ and employed in fed law enforcement). There are no easy fixes, but the first should be to end the private prison industry.

[cali]

19. I know. You're right. Agree that the first thing is to end private prisons.

[RedCappedBandit]

20. Word.

[Yo_Mama]

29. They can be improved but they can not be made humane

There are a lot of prisoners that have to be segregated for their own and others' safety. No matter how this is done, it is not humane - but they are not people who can live with others well, either because they will be victimized or because they will victimize others.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. There are many who agree with you

but until prison corporation of America is put out of it's misery and prisons are no longer for profit...

At one point we were on the way to not building more prisons, early 1970s. We are in this hell due to the war on drugs, and how it is enforced and against whom. So not only are prisons for profit in need to go away, the war on drugs needs to come to an end. Or we could enforce it equally at college campuses. A few swat raids in the wealthy area of town and it would come to a screeching halt.

[BlueJazz]

36. And of course, besides all the good reasons to change the whole idea of punishment, there's....

....the sad and unnerving reality that so many individuals are not in prison because of money, power, who-you-know and just pure luck.

[Skidmore]

40. First we need to figure out who should be imprisoned and for what.

The justice system must be reformed. Too many people are literally rotting for nonviolent and inconsequential crimes that could be better dealt with by rehabilitation and changes in the law. And we need to make prisons humane and return them to the oversight of the state. They should not be private, for profit businesses. I read an article recently about a contractor to a prison for food services which was literally serving the prisoners garbage that it had retrieved from other places they held contracts with.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

41. If it were up to me, I'd make all prisons humane...

Especially when most of these these people are going to get out some day...

[Tom Ripley]

44. Yes

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

46. I thinks 365/solitary confinement is torture

and I'm against it for that reason.

If I ran prisons, everyone would be taking classes and getting an education, in addition to doing two or three hours of hard labor a day for prisoners who have committed heinous crimes. Yeah, I do believe in punishment - just not torture.

[NuclearDem]

48. This should every goddamn rec available from DU.

The fact it barely has more than a dozen makes me want to throw shit.

[beam me up scottie]

50. +1

sigh...

[spanone]

49. k&r... agreed.