Originally Posted by Timber Loftis
I think prisons are for protection of the society first, punishment second, and rehabilitation third.
First, for those who are too dangerous to be about, we put them away to protect society from them.
Second, a price has to be paid for committing a crime. It's a social debt you owe.
Now, if we want to be fair to people being punished, I see nothing wrong with recognizing that many of them may have committed their crimes for reasons beyond their control. Being poor or falling into the wrong crowd or missing life's little opportunities -- these can all lead to crimes that the person believes are necessary for them to commit. Jean Val Jean stealing a loaf of bread, and all that.
For those people, it is not wrong to give them an opportunity while incarcerated to learn a trade, receive counseling, or otherwise get some assistance so that when their time of punishment ends they have some meaningful opportunity to reintegrate into society. In fact, if we don't give them this, then we are capitulating that they can never do better and that the end of their prison term will only result in an immediate return to crime. That's not defensible.
On the topic of subjectivity, I am all for more of it. It's one of the reasons that mandatory minimums are stupid. I have seen too many judges with their hands tied who have to send someone away on a ridiculous sentence due to a mandatory minimum law, such as 3-strikes, where the crime at hand does not relate to the punishment that is demanded by law.
Also, we use our criminal system in this country to beat down the poor and minorities. It's no secret, and it goes beyond the infamous and laughable "driving while black." If a cop is stopped in traffic in Chicago, there's a greater than 50% chance that he is running the license plate numbers of the cars around him looking for outstanding warrants -- of course he picks the cars being driven by blacks or Mexicans first. I know a black guy, mid-20's, in Iowa who is in for 70ish years for the crime of driving a buddy somewhere. The guy needed a ride to a house, and this guy gave it to him, unaware that he intended to rob it. All the guy did was drive a car there, wait for the guy to return, and take him home. Accomplice! And why was this poor black kid from the South Side of Chicago, who had a chance to go to college, in Iowa? White girlfriend, a nice plump corn-fed blonde thing who's daddy was influential in town (and in the sentencing, of course) and - you guessed it -- hated blacks. I could offer more examples, but one stands out: 1 in 4 black males in this country live in prison.
Inequalities will always abound, and you can never protect people from mistakes or stupid decisions. But, yes, our system could be a whole lot more fair. Hopefully never as "fair" as Europe's, where imo the criminals get off way too easy in many instances.
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