Those In Prison
We want them to be responsible, so we take away all responsibilities.
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 we put them where violence is 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 exploiting us, so we put them where they exploit each other.
We want them to take control of their lives, so we make them totally dependent on us.
We want them to be part of our community, so we isolate them from the community.
We want them to have self-worth, so we destroy their self worth.
I think Sheriff Arpaio is on the right track. Incarceration is punishment for a crime, and it should be punishment, to the extent that they don't want to come back. It should be a disincentive for the commission of another crime. That said, I met an inmate on my mission who got out of prison to find that he couldn't get a job, his wife had left him with their two children and there was no way for him to find them, his family had moved and he couldn't find them, so he tried to kill himself, which is where my companion and I found him (passed out in a dumpster with his wrists cut). We contacted the police and they took him to the hospital, he was rehabilitated and then showed up at church a few months later. We taught him, but he was unable to get baptised at the time due to the crime he had committed (murder). This really opened my eyes to the hopelessness of post imprisonment to people who already don't have a lot going for them. I certainly think efforts should be made to educate inmates and teach them to make opportunity for themselves rather than succumb to hopelessness. I also think the gov. could do a better job incentivising employers who hire felons.
ReplyDeleteThis is the most liberal I have heard you sound GWH ;)
ReplyDeleteYou say that the governor should offer more incentives for hiring felons, yet you critisize the Obama campaign for hiring tax evaders.
Why is there a difference to you?
It seems to me we need to rethink the entire process. Why do we put men and women in prison? The purpose, it seems to me, is twofold: 1) to protect society from criminals, and 2) to rehabilitate those criminals that can be changed so that when they return to society, they will not threaten others.
ReplyDeletePunishment does nothing other than satisfy the desire of the public and particularly the victims for revenge. With the exception of heinous violent crimes for which life without parole is the only responsible way to keep society safe, the individuals we send to prison are going to return some day. Rather than making their lives miserable for several years and turning them into even more violent and angry criminals, it would be a lot smarter to work on rehabilitation. Some cannot be rehabilitated of course, but most can and if we are going to meet them on the streets some day, it would be a lot better for us if they were more human and not less.
Charles D, your comment, "Punishment does nothing other than satisfy the desire of the public and particularly the victims for revenge" interested me. I think revenge is too strong. Justice requires that a restitution is made sufficient to demonstrate true sorrow for the crime committed. Jail time is part of how that is served. I have spent time with those coming off drug addictions and consider jail to be where they were saved.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, punishment does something, but it can be more efficient than it currently is. SImply put, if the public are the ones that have to pay for the enforcement of law with its accompanying punishments, then the public deserves some kind of sense of justice and a sense that something is in place to deter any future injustice from happening again. If there is no punishment, then there is no law or no need for law. So there must be some kind of punishment in place in a civilized society.
For me the issue comes back to accountability. The public did not commit the crime, but someone in the public was injured through the crime committed to some extent. The victim has experienced some suffering for the acts done against them by another. Why then does it seem unjust for the criminal to have some form of punishment or suffering as well?
Your comment, Charles, makes me think that you feel that instead of a person who commits a crime goes to prison, that person needs to go see a psychiatrist on the tax payer dime as part of his violation of law.
Sometimes people commit crimes because they are heartless, selfish pricks and have chosen to be such. A criminal is only a victim of their own choices. I do feel that there are somethings wrong with the system. But to punish, or to dissuade an individual to commit criminal acts, is a perfect principle. It is how God functions and is based on eternal law and order.
With that being said, God does provide a way for people to change, to make restitution and become better. However, eternal law states that when a violation of law takes place, justice still must make her claim. However, because justice/punishment takes place, that does not mean that the person is no longer within their abilities to become better. The goal is that through their punishment the individual is re-callibrated in their citizenship with a greater desire to be a law abiding citizen. The more we remove punishment, the more we remove the opportunity for individuals to feel the full weight of their actions.
I criticize the Obama hiring of tax evaders, because first and foremost I hate Obama. Secondly, there is a difference between a convicted felon who served their sentence, and an Obama tax evader who was discovered and never punished or payed any sort of restitution for their crime.
ReplyDeleteJames, whether for good or ill, the government is not God and should not play God. Whatever the judgments that a God might mete out are irrelevant, since they are by definition a matter of faith, not of facts.
ReplyDeleteThe question is not whether the public has 'some sense of justice being served' but whether the public is being made safer by the system and at what cost. The US has a higher proportion of its citizens incarcerated than any other nation, including police states. We are spending billions a day on prisons and can't even keep the prisoners safe behind bars. Instead of trying to gain revenge so that 'justice' might be served, we ought to work on trying to make our nation safer by rehabilitating prisoners, and reducing the rate of incarceration (particularly for drug offenses).
I'd be curious to know how many Americans see incarceration as "revenge" for the crime commited. I think a more pertinent motive for incarceration is to provide a societal form of restitution and disincentive to commiting crime.
ReplyDeleteGWH, you're probably right about public opinion, but then the American public is notoriously ill-informed and has dumb opinions about a lot of things.
ReplyDeleteIf the threat of incarceration and punishment would deter crime, we wouldn't have any crime because we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. Obviously that theory, regardless of its popularity, is wrong. Time to come up with some new theories.
Out of curiosity, I hear that statement a lot - that America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Can I have the source of that information?
ReplyDeleteOK GWH, I Googled it for you. I'd appreciate it if you would do your own research, but since it's Sunday - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html
ReplyDeleteBut Charles, you are the one making the claims. The reason GWH asked could have been that he is interested in where you got the stance you have. I am not sure why you would not take the chance to support your claims? Even not on a sunday :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, Charles, to me, God will always matter. God matters to this country as it is in God We Trust, we hold our rights in this land as given to us by God, not government. The way God is, is the way we should be.
ReplyDeleteSo the reason I bring God into the mix (aside from this being a spiritually paradigm'ed blog) is because I believe God governs in perfection. That means with both justice and mercy. It is the patterns that God has laid forth that can apply to our best good as a society. When speaking of punishment there is only one true and perfect judge, and that is God.
I am sure that we will disagree on this issue. But for the sake of being clear, God will always be relevant to me and my opinions on all matters both social, political or otherwise. And it is not that the government should or should not play God, the government should emulate His eternal principles in relationship to proper governance.
So your source is the NY times? I'm going to have to call the validity of that into question then, because the NY times is blatantly left leaning. They got their information from King's College, which is in socialist Britain, so I'm going to have to call the info invalid, or at the very least "doctored" to present a specific viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteGWH, you are a riot. If you don't agree with something regardless of whether it is a fact or not, you claim the source is biased and therefore invalid. I guess when you have so few facts at your disposal that back up your views, you have to find a way to justify ignoring the many that prove your views wrong.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! You fell for that hook, line, and sinker, and I think you still didn't get it. I pulled a tactic so blatantly obvious to those of us on the right, that you on the left engage in ad nauseum. How many times have our lefty libtarded commentors on this blog done this very same thing? Anyone, anyone? It is such a cop out, unless the source truly is invalid, to simply dismiss someones' perspective because you don't happen to like the source, even though it completely annhialates your argument. That being said.... and I will admit there are many (perhaps too many) people incarcerated in the United States, however, and please throw me a bone here Charles - please do admit that the New York Times leans left?
ReplyDeleteGWH, I admit that the NY Times is left of Fox News, but I don't consider them left-leaning per se. They take a liberal position on some issues and a centrist position on others, but since the rest of the mainstream media is at least a bit to their right, I can see why you think they are left-leaning.
ReplyDeleteI don't take responsibility for the actions of everyone left of center and I don't blame you for the actions of everyone on the extreme right. One of the problems you point out, whether intentionally or not, is that the plethora of news sources available these days and the fact that most mainstream sources are worthless means that we each get our news from largely biased sources. It is difficult to hold a conversation about any political topic when each side has a different set of "facts".