RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide

RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid

Message

Zensee -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 11:57:40 AM)
While short periods of incarceration can nudge a small number of people back on to the right side of the law, it's use as punishment of chronic and violent offenders is inappropriate. Ditto as a means of reforming them. In Canada (and I imagine many other western democracies) there is no way to compel inmates to take the programs aimed at reforming them (putting questions of their efficacy aside for now). An chronic inmate merely has to "pay their debt to society", then get out and probably re-offend. For one thing this creates an economy of crime, a price list with which the criminal can make a risk / benefit analysis, when contemplating or committing their next offense. Also this mind set leads to the release of inmates (the majority of whom are clearly mentally ill) with little more realistic support than a parting "now I hope you have learned your lesson". The incarceration of chronic and violent offenders should be indefinite. Their release should be graduated (through levels of decreasing supervision) and dependent entirely on their successful completion of functional programs and of them clearly demonstrating their reliability. Making sure they can get and hold gainful employment and placing them in constructive and healthy support communities would go a long way to helping most of them avoid re-offending. Z.

aviinterra -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 11:58:28 AM)
quote: We should work towards a non-custodial penal system. Prison doesn't work. I agree. We should revert to prisons being a place where you await a speedy but fair trail, and that's it. Cutting off certain services and fines tend to work better at punishing people than sitting in prison for a few years. Even something as stupid as being forbidden from having cable or a cell phone for three years would make some think twice about committing crime. As for the hard core criminals, this might sound harsh, but bring back the hangings. If someone is sick enough to be killing or worse, they deserve nothing better.

LadyEllen -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 11:59:07 AM)
I feel its incredibly dangerous to release a child sex offender who clearly seems to have found his time in prison rather agreeable. I wonder if he'll be on a plane to Thailand or Vietnam in the near future? E

MissMorrigan -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:01:40 PM)
The sad fact is that there is so little support for offenders upon release, or even leading up to it. Do you think that offenders, generally speaking, should have to disclose their convictions to their employers unless the position they are interviewing for is in direct conflict with their conviction, such as those on the sex offenders' register for example? quote: ORIGINAL: LadyEllen What we must do is several fold 1) most importantly, stop locking up the "mad" as if they were "bad" 2) reserve prison principally for the most dangerous and serious and serial offenders; and keep them in there until we are sure they are no longer capable of repeating their offences. This is harsh, but if they truly are dangerous to have loose, then this is the only way to go to maintain public protection 3) make prison for non dangerous, non serious and non serial offenders a last resort; until that last resort is reached, try everything possible to ensure compliance with the law, recognising that prison will end any ability on their part to live compliantly ever again But it is what we as a society do upon the release of these people that is the most important element - but when we are unable to provide adequate employment, wages, housing and other resources for the law abiding, it is difficult to imagine how we might provide these to those released from prison such that they might be able to build a life, especially when they bear the mark of a criminal record and employers, landlord etc can be as choosy as they like.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:04:08 PM)
quote: LadyE make prison for non dangerous, non serious and non serial offenders a last resort; until that last resort is reached, try everything possible to ensure compliance with the law.... This has been the policy of the last 20/30 years....and it has failed. A burglar may not be dangerous ....I say lock 'em up. How can you detect a non serial offender ? If someone is caught are they likely to admit their criminal record ?

MissMorrigan -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:05:48 PM)
I seriously cannot see how such people CAN be released into the general public under a tagging system, there will always be a way for someone determined enough and we have many cases in recent years to see just how opportunistic/crafty criminals can be. quote: ORIGINAL: LadyEllen I feel its incredibly dangerous to release a child sex offender who clearly seems to have found his time in prison rather agreeable. I wonder if he'll be on a plane to Thailand or Vietnam in the near future?

RealityLicks -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:06:07 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Zensee The incarceration of chronic and violent offenders should be indefinite. Their release should be graduated (through levels of decreasing supervision) and dependent entirely on their successful completion of functional programs and of them clearly demonstrating their reliability. Making sure they can get and hold gainful employment and placing them in constructive and healthy support communities would go a long way to helping most of them avoid re-offending. Z. In effect, that's what we have. A tariff of five years means that that is the time after which a prisoner becomes eligible for parole. If he is considered sufficiently reformed, release can be swift. If not, theoretically they can be held for the maximum allowed by law for their offence.

LadyEllen -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:11:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MissMorrigan The sad fact is that there is so little support for offenders upon release, or even leading up to it. Do you think that offenders, generally speaking, should have to disclose their convictions to their employers unless the position they are interviewing for is in direct conflict with their conviction, such as those on the sex offenders' register for example? Yes, unfortunately they should definitely have to disclose in all cases. Making it about conflict with the position for which they are applying allows too much grey into things, (what is "relevant"?) and there's also considerations such as insurance cover, customer relations, supplier relations etc. The damage to my business from suddenly finding out our sales rep was a sex offender and this becoming common knowledge would be enormous. And most employers want to know where youve been over the last few years - you can lie of course and hope it isnt checked or found out later, but in the rule youre proposing it will be assumed by employers that any unaccounted periods will be prison time - to be on the safe side. The ultimate issue is, if we had sufficient adequate jobs that the law abiding could acquire them, we might be able to do something for those with less attractive CVs. This is utterly unfair of course because it removes any possibility for the majority of ex prisoners to do anything other than return to prison at some point, and effectively continues their sentence. E

LadyEllen -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:15:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave quote: LadyE make prison for non dangerous, non serious and non serial offenders a last resort; until that last resort is reached, try everything possible to ensure compliance with the law.... This has been the policy of the last 20/30 years....and it has failed. A burglar may not be dangerous ....I say lock 'em up. How can you detect a non serial offender ? If someone is caught are they likely to admit their criminal record ? Yes Seeks, it has failed - though perhaps not for the reasons you imagine. Of course we could go back to public hanging people for burglary on a Saturday afternoon - definite punishment, much greater deterrence, no need to rehabilitate and no reoffending. But when we know the law is an ass, do we really want to risk that for ourselves? "Late payment of car tax is theft from HM Government. The penalty for theft is death. You shall be taken from this place to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead! E

MissMorrigan -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:17:22 PM)
How do we get around employers discriminating against those with convictions, b/c while it will say on the application forms, "Disclosure does not exclude you from consideration", or words to that effect, it'll be a rare employer who will see past the conviction stated and welcome that person as a new member of staff. quote: ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

seeksfemslave -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:17:50 PM)
The mental health professionals seem to have bamboozeld you Liberal types into believing the they, the MH professionals, actually know what they are doing. They dont and there is ample evidence that that is true. eg the release of the Police Officer recently who a shrink thought was not dangerous.. What id he do? He murderered at least one person and then killed himself. Some diagnosis. Some shrink. The other "give away" about MH professionals is that they avoid at all costs making unequivocal predictions As do economists another bastard science. LadyE: I'm beginning to worry about you. Your arguments are getting ridiculous. Is there anything I can do...except shut up ?

LadyEllen -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:24:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MissMorrigan How do we get around employers discriminating against those with convictions, b/c while it will say on the application forms, "Disclosure does not exclude you from consideration", or words to that effect, it'll be a rare employer who will see past the conviction stated and welcome that person as a new member of staff. quote: Employers will always discriminate in the "buyer's market" we have for employment, and I agree, this will be regardless of the law and regardless of any PC phrasing they might use in their paperwork. Employers are under a duty to ensure the person is right for the position - which an ex prisoner might be, and also to ensure that the person is right for the team within which they will work and for dealing with their business contacts as appropriate. And of course, a duty of care to protect their other employees. And this is where it becomes important to know with whom one is dealing. And employers are running businesses or reliant on public funding - and this means that there is a duty also to protect their organisations. I'm not saying by the way that ex prisoners should be denied employment, but these are the practical difficulties I see. E

Alumbrado -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 12:29:02 PM)
The premise that prison is supposed to turn criminals into productive members of society went out with the abandonment of the term 'reformatory'....it didn't work when developed by idealistic armchair philosophers, it didn't work when embraced by megalomaniac politicians, and claiming that prison is a failure now because it didn't fulfill a magical fairy tale outcome is missing several points. Unicor and CCA are getting rich precisely because such fuzzy thinking gives permission to create (in the absence of an overt slave class) a dehumanized underclass that can be exploited for profit. And that underclass will be maintained, via flooding the prisons through the revolving door, or 'guest workers', or outsourcing. You want to get the prison population down to a small number of incorrigibles? Get rid of rich corrupt politicians and the Iron Triangle. (Good luck)

popeye1250 -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 1:16:27 PM)
I think one reason that there's so much recidivism is that they don't teach inmates how to make a living outside. Why not have a Nursing school and other trades like that taught in prisons? We are desperately short of Nurses and they'd make a good living while serving society better. We definately need to think outside the box!

Zensee -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 1:34:23 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RealityLicks quote: ORIGINAL: Zensee The incarceration of chronic and violent offenders should be indefinite. Their release should be graduated (through levels of decreasing supervision) and dependent entirely on their successful completion of functional programs and of them clearly demonstrating their reliability. Making sure they can get and hold gainful employment and placing them in constructive and healthy support communities would go a long way to helping most of them avoid re-offending. In effect, that's what we have. A tariff of five years means that that is the time after which a prisoner becomes eligible for parole. If he is considered sufficiently reformed, release can be swift. If not, theoretically they can be held for the maximum allowed by law for their offence. I'd disagree with your assessment of what I said. Presently the length of terms (in custody or under supervision) are limited by the allowable amounts for specific crimes. Inmates can elect to serve their entire incarceration without treatment, at which time their release is obligatory, regardless of their suitablilty. The difference in what I am saying is that once a crime of a certain seriousness has been committed or a pattern of chronic offending is established, inmates should be incarcerated indefinitely. This is not as punishment. It is firstly to protect the public and secondly to remove the present incentive for chronic offenders to calculate terms of incarceration as a cost of doing business. They get increased liberty, in stages, when they demonstrate the skills and mindset to accept the responsibility which goes with that liberty. There is no simply waiting for your time to be up. Z.

kittinSol -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 1:38:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 We are desperately short of Nurses and they'd make a good living while serving society better. Considering that nursing isn't a sinecure, I don't see how you work that one out. I mean, would you like to be taken care of by someone whose career choice was made for them by the prison authorities or the justice system?

popeye1250 -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 1:54:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 We are desperately short of Nurses and they'd make a good living while serving society better. Considering that nursing isn't a sinecure, I don't see how you work that one out. I mean, would you like to be taken care of by someone whose career choice was made for them by the prison authorities or the justice system? They'd have to "volunteer" for Nursing school or for another school. Obviously drug offenders wouldn't be eligable. And I never knew the backgrounds of most of the Drs and Dentists that have treated me over the years. They could have been any number of things. That didn't bother me.

kittinSol -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 2:01:02 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 And I never knew the backgrounds of most of the Drs and Dentists that have treated me over the years. They could have been any number of things. That didn't bother me. There are better ways to recruit nurses, popeye. Pay them more; give them the benefits they deserve for the sacrifices they make for their profession. I have another idea for you: how about you train prisonners to become cops? After all, there's always a shortage of cops. Like that, you'd have a reservoir of willing cops for very very cheap [8\|] .

popeye1250 -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 2:07:42 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol quote: ORIGINAL: popeye1250 And I never knew the backgrounds of most of the Drs and Dentists that have treated me over the years. They could have been any number of things. That didn't bother me. There are better ways to recruit nurses, popeye. Pay them more; give them the benefits they deserve for the sacrifices they make for their profession. I have another idea for you: how about you train prisonners to become cops? After all, there's always a shortage of cops. Like that, you'd have a reservoir of willing cops for very very cheap [8\|] . There's no shortage of cops. What would you do about recidivision? They have to be able to make a living when they get out of jail. Otherwise, it's back to crime.

kittinSol -> RE: Prison Reforms - You Decide (2/21/2008 2:12:14 PM)
I seeeee... so you're okay about recycling convicted criminals into nurses, but you don't think they're quite good enough for the police?

Page: << < prev 1 [2] 3 4 5 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.03125