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[Classic]

So I made offhand comments about how the penal system is fucked up and it's come up a few times across several threads.
Aggregating such stories might be worthwhile.

Anyway, here's a video about cruel and unusual punishment in LA county Jails.
What Do Our Jails Say About Us?
The poster's handle is "LiberalViewer" and from October 2011.

[Bongo Bill]

Some philosophical background. The purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect the innocent. Incarcerating the guilty is considered an effective way to accomplish that because a criminal (someone who's demonstrated a willingness to harm the innocent) can't commit crimes from inside a prison. This approach is just one of several alternatives, with their own advantages and drawbacks, and unique complications introduced by the notions of political and victimless crimes.

Punishments of various sorts, ranging from simple fines to torture, have been used in the past, with the expectation that would-be criminals would fear the punishment. Incarceration can be treated as a punishment in addition to being simply a means of separating criminals from society; inhumane conditions in prisons have this effect, whether implemented as a matter of universal policy or simple negligence. Execution might be considered the most extreme form of punishment.

Rehabilitation is considered ideal, as it's preferable in a peaceful society that criminals should give up their willingness to transgress rather than their ability. However, it seems that many criminals cannot be induced to change their habits by any means, let alone by means necessarily overseen by a bureaucracy. If nothing else it is demonstrably insufficient by itself.

If execution is the most extreme form of punishment, then banishment is the most extreme form of incarceration. Highly cost-effective and without the moral complications of having to get one's own hands dirty, it nevertheless has the obvious drawback of requiring somebody to willingly receive criminals, which is increasingly uncommon; it also means addressing your problems by making them somebody else's problem, which is wholly inadequate as a solution.

In small societies, it can be possible to declare a criminal outlawed; an individual could do anything to an outlaw and it would be acceptable. There's a certain poetry to the notion of depriving them of the protection of the law they transgressed, and allowing the victims to be the one to decide the punishment, but beyond the social implications of the practice, it only works in environments where identifying criminals is not a major difficulty, which is simply not the case in most urban environments.

It seems to me that the controversy specifically at issue in this thread is: To what extent should prison be a punishment itself rather than simply a removal from society, and what should be done in the case of prisons that routinely exceed that level?

[Brentai]

That, and at what point does imprisonment outlive its usefulness as a form of protection and only really serve as a punitive measure?

[Thad]

There's obviously a fuck of a lot to mine here.

For a bit of recent news that I think is pertinent to the subject, BoingBoing has Russell Brand's testimony to Parliament about drug policy.

Being arrested isn't a lesson, it's just an administrative blip.

And again, he's talking specifically about drug use, but it generalizes.

Certainly most people who have been to prison do not want to go back (and most who have not been to prison do not want to go there in the first place).  Whether the desire to stay out of trouble actually acts as a deterrent to committing crimes is rather another matter, particularly when you're dealing with cases of addiction or other mental health problems.

[Büge]

Certainly most people who have been to prison do not want to go back (and most who have not been to prison do not want to go there in the first place).  Whether the desire to stay out of trouble actually acts as a deterrent to committing crimes is rather another matter, particularly when you're dealing with cases of addiction or other mental health problems.

There's also the issue of having a criminal record. That tends to limit one's ability to travel, find meaningful employment, or find a decent place to live. Subsequently, it can also lead to repeat offense due to one or more of those factors.

[Brentai]

There's a lot of evidence to the idea that the way we treat minor criminals in this country more often than not turns them into major criminals.  Jail is, in fact, one of major suspects here, since you're limiting a person's social interactions to other criminals (and impressing the idea that the law is their adversary) for an extended period of time.

[Royal☭]

That's also the result you get for sending someone to a brutal, torturous place to be. The biggest part was the change from the northern-US rehabilitation model to the southern punishment model. That combined with privatization - which itself has encouraged the passing of more laws and the harsher prosecuting of said laws - has created a penal system that abuses and spits out prisoners, regardless of the actual outcome. And then when you consider that most ex-cons also face a life outside of prison where they are legally second-class citizens, and you have a system that does way more harm than good.

[McDohl]

Yeah, I was about to say that the privatization of prisons is the dumbest thing that could possibly happen.

Let's put the rehabilitation of criminals in the hands of a person with the mindset of wringing as much money out of the affair as possible.  The result is abysmal living conditions and the motivation to keep criminals committing crimes so they can be returned to the facility for returning profits.

GREAT IDEA.

[Thad]

Not to mention that the Invisible Hand of the Free Market does not have the best record when it comes to preventing murderers escaping and murdering more people.

My position on private prisons can best be summed up this way:

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office does not have the worst detention facilities in this state.

[Brentai]

Dramatic Chipmunk

[Thad]

Not to mention that the Invisible Hand of the Free Market does not have the best record when it comes to preventing murderers escaping and murdering more people.

My position on private prisons can best be summed up this way:

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office does not have the worst detention facilities in this state.

...fuck's sake.  I DID NOT MEAN THAT STATEMENT TO START A COMPETITION, GUYS.

Rocky Marquez Walked Out of an MCSO Jail Yesterday (He Was Not Supposed to Do That)

I'd make a joke that the MCSO is reading my posts here, but (1) this happened two days ago and (2) they haven't arrested me and set my house on fire.

Anyway, the private prison still wins; MCSO may have let a perjuring, witness-tampering, gun-waving, drunk-driving forger escape, but to my knowledge he's not a cousin-marrying murderer.

(Oh also did I mention the part where the company that owns the prisons wrote SB1070?  That's kind of germane to the discussion.)

[Brentai]

In all fairness, it seems like that guy played a pretty pro con to get out of there.  They certainly fucked up on the details but I wouldn't call it a case of gross negligence.  Not a level of incompetence I wouldn't expect from a random prison around here, anyway.

It is a problem that these guys can't tell the people they're supposed to be watching apart, but again, I don't think that problem is limited to any single region.

[Thad]

Oh good: Scores in N.C. are legally 'innocent,' yet still imprisoned

A USA TODAY investigation, based on court records and interviews with government officials and attorneys, found more than 60 men who went to prison for violating federal gun possession laws, even though courts have since determined that it was not a federal crime for them to have a gun.

Many of them don't even know they're innocent.

The legal issues underlying their situation are complicated, and are unique to North Carolina. But the bottom line is that each of them went to prison for breaking a law that makes it a federal crime for convicted felons to possess a gun. The problem is that none of them had criminal records serious enough to make them felons under federal law.

Still, the Justice Department has not attempted to identify the men, has made no effort to notify them, and, in a few cases in which the men have come forward on their own, has argued in court that they should not be released.

Justice Department officials said it is not their job to notify prisoners that they might be incarcerated for something that they now concede is not a crime. And although they have agreed in court filings that the men are innocent, they said they must still comply with federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people can challenge their convictions in court.

via

[Shinra]

I think I would like to know what % of those prisoners are in privately managed prisons.

[Büge]

Gotta keep them populations up.