The concept of prison is that you are removed from society temporarily as a restitution as well as punishment. As much as scandinavian countries get shit on for the execution of "nice" prisons, they are fundamentally correct. Prison is not meant to be harsh, the day to day suffering is not the punishment, being removed from society is.
You don't need chains and bread to suffer, confinement is harsh enough punishment, just look at Australia's covid quarantine hotels. A gilded cage is still a cage.
Yeah the Scandinavians do seem to get results from their prisons. I think they do a lot of things right there, in that the prison is not designed to destroy one's life while they are confined there. It's almost like grounding a young kid, you're stuck here and can't really do anything you want, but you still have to go to school just like many in Scandinavian prisons still go to work. It's counterproductive to not send a kid to school as part of a punishment (politics of school aside) and it's the same to not send an imprisoned adult to work. I've spent time in that part of the world and I have a lot of respect for those countries myself. They tend to try things because they think it might make sense despite what everyone else does. A lot of their success is due to very homogeneous societies. Sweden is starting to struggle with things a lot more with their influx of muslims.
But yeah, American prisons? Totally broken. It's just what Heinlein says, you're locking them up with criminals to learn more criminal stuff. Totally counterproductive in that US prison leads to nothing but more crime and more prison in the majority of cases.
The concept of prison is that you are removed from society temporarily as a restitution as well as punishment. As much as scandinavian countries get shit on for the execution of "nice" prisons, they are fundamentally correct. Prison is not meant to be harsh, the day to day suffering is not the punishment, being removed from society is.
You don't need chains and bread to suffer, confinement is harsh enough punishment, just look at Australia's covid quarantine hotels. A gilded cage is still a cage.
I live in Australia, that's my daily existence "for my safety"
Yeah the Scandinavians do seem to get results from their prisons. I think they do a lot of things right there, in that the prison is not designed to destroy one's life while they are confined there. It's almost like grounding a young kid, you're stuck here and can't really do anything you want, but you still have to go to school just like many in Scandinavian prisons still go to work. It's counterproductive to not send a kid to school as part of a punishment (politics of school aside) and it's the same to not send an imprisoned adult to work. I've spent time in that part of the world and I have a lot of respect for those countries myself. They tend to try things because they think it might make sense despite what everyone else does. A lot of their success is due to very homogeneous societies. Sweden is starting to struggle with things a lot more with their influx of muslims.
But yeah, American prisons? Totally broken. It's just what Heinlein says, you're locking them up with criminals to learn more criminal stuff. Totally counterproductive in that US prison leads to nothing but more crime and more prison in the majority of cases.