Comments | notjenschiz: Finally: fixing the prison system

notjenschiz

Finally: fixing the prison system

Jan 24, 2009 14:51

Originally published at Jason's Fresh Produce. You can comment here or there.

The prison system sucks. It is a binary operation where you’re either in or you’re out, and the abrupt transition doesn’t do anyone any favors. I have finally figured out a solution.

1) Prison sentence will now be in the form of “points” instead of in years.
2) Each day a ( Read more... )

uncategorized, weneedthis, newer

Comments 7

rsheslin January 24 2009, 22:59:36 UTC

Okay, that's really cool. I like this idea. Habits are built day by day, and this provides continuous encouragement and feedback/re-training for positive behavior, thus should significantly reduce the rate of recidivism.

Now, how to implement....

reichart January 25 2009, 01:42:56 UTC

How is being good in a prison connected to the crimes.

For example, what is the chance a guy will rape a woman in prison?
Or rob a bank

Perfectly "nice" people commit horrible crimes from blue to white every day.
Some crimes are simply circumstance (many perhaps).

notjenschiz January 25 2009, 03:32:59 UTC

Once someone commits a crime, you have a few options:

1) forgive them
2) punish them
3) reform them
4) kill them

Our prison system purports to do (2), then (3), and maybe (1) at some point?

I believe perhaps there are some unreformables that can't fit into society and should maybe be killed. However, for the rest of the people, mere punishment, however deserved, seems to be unproductive. For the utilitarian purpose of maximizing use to society, it seems really wasteful to lock them up (at our expense) for some set period of time, then release them assuming that the punishment would change future behavior.

Extra points, in this system, would presumably be related to the crime in question. Not to mention that merely being properly socialized and given alternative behavioral options could reduce future occurrences of anti-social behavior.

reichart January 25 2009, 07:08:49 UTC

Item 3 - Does our system purport that? Or is it is hold over from one or two hundred years ago ( ... )

notjenschiz January 25 2009, 13:57:08 UTC

speaking of "before the crime," I can tell you that DARPA has put out a Broad Agency Announcement for "thought police."

Basically, the desire a system that can "detect and prevent imminent crimes," by reading body language and facial features. Scary shit, eh?

Thread 5

anonymous January 31 2009, 15:57:47 UTC

Never work. First: Where you gonna find the person to award the points who is honest, aboveboard and totally immune to ass-kissing and favoritism? Second: How ya gonna know the prisoner aint singing hymns to Jesus when you're watching and dancing with the devil whenever you aint? Third: Where's all the money gonna come from for additional work, therapy, education and charity programs??? People dont wanna spend money on "those kind of people" Fourth: The prison system already ranks prisoners by a point system that determines who they live with, and what priviledges they have. It's 1 to 5 with 1 being Honor Camp and 5 being SuperMax. You get points for having a GED and being incident free and stuff like that. If your state has a parole system all this is considered when determining early release. In Ohio where you serve exactly the number of years the judge sentences you with,it determines whether you get 2 family visits a month or three,one box of clothing per year or two, and how many hours you will be locked down per day ( ... )