Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Crime & Punishment Crime and Punishment

I was thinking on the penchant for gov to throw everybody into prison at, I think, something like 75 grand a year per prisoner. This seems kinda expensive and I have some alternatives.

The first is for the dedicated recidivist. We should fence off a place, in the middle of a desert and surround said place with gun emplacements. Then we take those determined to live by their own rules, sterilize them, male and female, and deliver them to their new home. We could drop lumber and food on them and just leave them alone. No guards, no nothing. If they stick their heads out they get said heads blowed off. They want to live by their own rules and we should let them!

My second thought is for white collar criminals (we seem to have a LOT of them). In their case the length of their punishment would depend of the severity of their crime. The punishment itself would be 'pauperization'. They lose EVERYTHING and will be forced to live off the kindness of strangers or starve. If they make any economic headway then gov will swoop down and take that too. In other words they would be forced to live just like those who have nothing (homeless, mentally ill, lazy, etc). If they get caught trying to escape then appropriate action would be taken (stalks come to mind).

I, for one, am really tired of hearing how much we are forced to spend to house criminals. The MUST be a better way!

Ever see the movie No Escape?

I definitely like your idea for White Collar criminals.

I like the desert idea, I always said we should put decommissioned military ships 5 miles offshore, air drop the supplies needed, and let the bad guys either learn to work together, or kill each other, I don't much care which.

And I really like the white collar solution, I'd up it one step further, and require all candidates for office to live for 6 months on less than 50K a year, that means paying the mortgage, the utilities, and feeding the family. Might give them a new perspective on 'real world' economics, and how their policies actually affect the average working stiff

We went through this once in detail many years ago, and if I have time I'll try to recall the proposal I came up with then.

However - before you can really come up with an effective prison, you really need to know what you want to achieve with incarceration. Is it punishment? Is it rehabilitation? Is it the protection of society from the criminal (and, on occasion perhaps, vice versa?)

The suggestions above seem to be primarily punitive. I'm not saying that's wrong; I'm just wondering if that's the only objective of the prison system.

I have a proposal for the white collar prisoners mentioned above.
1) Sentences should be tied directly (not necessarily solely) to the amount stolen, embezzled, redirected, etc.
2) Personal wealth should be seized as follows:
a) an amount equal to the average income in an American family should be reserved for family members, if any.
b) an amount equal to four years of state univerity tuition per child should be placed in a trust.
c) any remaining assets should be liquidated and split between restitution for the victims and payment of legal costs.

The prison should consist of one-room huts - warm and clean, but not much more. Food should be relatively bland, but should meet minimal calorie and nutritional requirements. A small garden plot should be provided should the prisoner choose to supplement his/her diet.

Prison uniforms should be simple but distinctive, to minimize maintenance costs and complicate any possible escape. Access to unlimited one-way incoming information (internet, news, etc.) should be provided, along with access to online classes, etc. Private communications should be carefully monitored and all outgoing communications should be examined before they leave the prison (includes written and electronic.)

Prisoners who choose to grow food, improve their knowledge or the knowledge of others, or practice a craft should be able to either improve their standard of living or reduce their sentence.

After a set period, "good" prisoners should be allowed to assist in the education of others via the internet. This could take any number of forms - assisting teachers in grading or in preparing lectures in the prisoner's area of expertise; writing lectures or presentations on the cost of failed business ethics for high school and college level courses - or even working in completely different areas like literacy, math, etc. (without ever having direct contact with a student, or knowing/being known by name.)

Prisoners should be physically isolated (by fencing, for example) but should be able to see and hear other people.

Costs are fairly minimal. Isolation of prisoners from each other reduces the number of guards required and increases prisoner safety. Food and clothing costs are minimal, as are housing. The extremity of prison life is up to the prisoner him-or-herself, as is the opportunity to change life for the better by contributing to others.

That's what I can come up with in 15 minutes or so. The plan includes punishment and rehabilitation, and protects the public for the duration of the sentence.

Kind of harsh. Some of the "bad guys" aren't really bad but made a bad decision, one of them could be your brother or sister. Do you care if they live or die? Why not just kill them all. If you honestly don't care one way or another can you simply agree that it would be cheaper to kill everyone who breaks the law? Which Laws? Why all of them of course. Break the speed limit you get shot. Your child steals some gum. Off with his little head. It really doesn't matter to me, I don't break any laws.

I'm not being serious of course but apparently you are. Mellow has some pretty good ideas about making the punishment fit the crime, to punish, to rejuvenate, and to protect society from the truly dangerous.

That idea was tested 350 years ago in Van Diemen's Land and now everyone wants to live there.

Beyond that, a healthy number of people in prison are non-violent people who are more guilty of drug abuse than anything else. Study after study clearly indicates that drug rehab is more effective than prison where drug addiction is concerned.


"Pauperization"! Great word. As far as I understand it judges possess the power to make pauperization happen - but they don't do it. Fining a man who is worth over 1/2 billion dollars the piddling sum of 19 million, as recently happened, is no punishment at all. The judicial system has the power to pauperize and judges get that power, not from the people, but from political and corporate players. Steal someone's watch you go to prison, steal someone's investments you get fined and a couple of years in a federal country club.

I can only really talk about the Texas judicial system.

About 85% of the court cases today are civil. Over time, our civil judicial system has turned into cattle herding exposé, which features real life dramas of people who come face-to-face with the realization that who ever has the most money and lies the best wins.

In Texas...there is no legal penality for perjury in a civil trial...well, with the exception of "failing to appear, lying about it, and getting caught. So, many of our civil trial attorneys can safely build their cases around ...the untruths.

In criminal court, if you are wealthy, then kick back, relax, expect the minimum consequence to no consequence. If you are a minority person who lives pay check to pay check...woe on your ass. If you are a white person who lives pay check to pay check, then it's a toss of the coin. In the course of a day's worth of trial, you could fry...or you could be playing chef at your own backyard BBQ celebrating your case dismissal. Depends on whether or not the prosecutor had a good night sleep.

The State of Texas is well noted for killing people. We use to hang people, then we took to electrocution...now we O.D. them on some very fine pharmacutical grade drugs. I don't think all of the executions have made any difference, but whatever rocks, I guess.

We've gone from labor farming and seperation lockdown of our prisoners... to constructing schools, vocational training for everything from bookkeeping to computer programming.

We have antiquated laws, corrupt courts, attorneys who are self-will-run-riot, correctional facilities that are ran based on the political power base of the day... either controlled by "Bible Belters"...or "Save Our Humanity Grassroots Organizations", or "Let's Kill All The Bastard Criminals" politicians who get elected by promising to "clean up crime".

Our prisons are overflowing. Our streets are running wild with violence. Our businesses are full of brainiacs who are scam predators trying to figure out new means of technology to steal using a computer and a digital feed floating in space that beams in and out of homes, banks, and governments.

I have only one solution that I can think of for all of our immoral woes...and two words say it all: "hydrogen bomb". Let evolution start all over again. What the hell, it has at least four times before. And each time, well, it seems that the next generation of lifeforms seem to do better than the previous.

Gregg
Thanks for sharing this.

I am increasingly amazed that so many Americans reflexivel assume that everything about this country is better than any other system elsewhere in the world... our medical care system is better, our justice system is better, and our benighted "free press"... guardians of our liberty, god help us.

Why not "off-shore" them? It would be cheaper and we wouldn't really have to worry.

For the hard-core violent bad-ass, confinement to a Siberian labor camp for the duration of the sentence. The Russians would probably accept $12K/head/year.

For the white-collar criminal, a Chinese "reeducation" camp, with rigorous discipline, daily chores and lots of lectures on responsibility. Say $8K/head/year?