I've been thinking about how odd it is that people are always debating whether or not the death penalty is right/wrong/moral/immoral/useful/pointless etc, but few are paying attention to the fact that the prison system is nearly worthless in itself.
Why do we send people to prison in the first place? I don't think I've ever really thought about it before. Sure, a person commits a crime and they get a prison sentence of, say, 15 years and ends up serving about 10 at the most. At that point, the person is released having "served their debt to society." Prison isn't a picnic by any standard, but what good does punishing someone for 15 years do?
What if it didn't do any good at all other than picking them up of the street?
What if it made them worse when they did come out? What got me thinking about this is something I read that was supposedly written by a prisoner. Check it out:
We want them to have Self‑worth...So, we destroy their, self‑worth. We want them to be responsible...So, we take away all responsibilities. We want them to be a part of our community...So, we isolate them from our community. We want them to be positive and constructive...So, we degrade them and make them useless. We want them to be trustworthy...So, we put them where there is no trust. We want them to be non‑violent...So, put them where there is violence all around them. We want them to be kind and loving people....So, we subject them to hatred and cruelty. We want them to quit being the tough guy...So, we put them where the tough guy is respected. We want them to quit hanging around losers....So, we put all the losers in one state under one roof. We want them to quit exploiting us...So, we put them where they exploit each other. We want them to take control of their lives, own up to their own problems, and quit being a parasite...So, we make them totally dependant on us.Instead of even trying to rehabilitate those who commit crimes, we punish them and essentially train them to behave worse than they ever have before. Is this true justice? What should be done, if anything, about the current state of the criminal justice system?
prison
