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Comment by avazhi | Hacker News Reader

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There are several philosophical approaches to the purpose of prison. 1. Revenge 2. to keep society safe from dangerous/anti-social people 3. to provide a safe space for rehabilitating people for re-integration.

I tend to view (1) as the worst possible option, even discounting the fact that we are completely 100% aware of the existence of false convictions. You are entitled to believe that revenge is a valid society choice, but I will definitely judge you for believing that.

I don’t fully buy into rehabilitative Justice. I’ve not read an account of how to handle one off crimes. Things like manslaughter or negligence. Crimes with extremely low rates of recidivism. Should people who commit these crimes be let off without consequence? If the point is character building, do you simply keep people imprisoned until their character improves. I’m not saying you have these answers but I haven’t seen them elsewhere.

Does some people deserve a shitty life, in general that is not something we should strive for.

There are two things I feel about this, first is prisons as they are in many countries are really bad for the employees, lots of suicide etc. As a prisoner being put away for years with minimal contact with the outside world is a really heavy punishment even if you live a life without constant fear.

A society that mistreat people is not something to strive for, and making prisons as bad as they can get will affect society as a whole. Paying prisonguards a little extra to take the risk of suicide seems really rotten to me.

Edit: this extends to warcriminals.

If those people are extremely unlikely to commit a crime again, why should there be continuing consequences for them? What purpose does it serve beyond satisfying someone's feeling of revenge?

And if they are still dangerous, then, yes, you keep them locked up. But even then what's the point of making them suffer beyond the restrictions that are necessary to ensure the safety of the rest of society?

Rehabilitation can also fall under 'actions have consequences '.

This means removing your freedom to move and not necessarily turtoring you.

If only there were countries that handled incarceration differently from the US that we could learn from.

How do you think re-integration will go after being robbed of everything in prison? Does society gain from this as a whole?

Wtf?

No!

Prison should be either removing you from society because you don't fit (being and having act on liking to kill people for example) OR for forced education/correction of social behavior.

Prison in your sense is torture not justice

Communication with families on the outside are a critical part of avoiding recidivism once the inmate is released. This is a mechanism the prison industrial complex uses to ensure that the inmates are not rehabilitated and are highly likely to return.

Likewise, if you take someone as a prisoner, you take then into _your_ custody. You are responsible for that person. You are literally their custodian now. You have an obligation to ensure that their rights are being protected. How we expect for profit institutions to do this on behalf of the state is entirely beyond me.

You're expected to feel the limit. What is the sufficient punishment for a 2nd murder? Does it include being arbitrarily robbed of your work? What is the lightest transgression that deserves being treated with implicit promises about basic freedoms followed by taking them away without a warning?

> Does it include being arbitrarily robbed of your work?

I would even go so far as to call that cruel and unusual.

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