5 Nov 2010

Prisons do more harm than good



Sunday Morning Live posed the question “Do prisons do more harm than good?". Popular author Benjamin Zephaniah, a former convict, is convinced that prisoners come out full of hatred, wanting revenge and having learnt to commit crime more efficiently from fellow inmates.

I fully agree with Mr. Zephaniah. Today, very little effort is put into getting to the root of the problem and working with prevention of continuous crimes after their release.

Three out of five sentenced to prison for less than 12 months, have returned to a life in criminality within a year from being released.

Naturally convicts that are a physical threat to the public will have to be locked up. But, these cases are a minority of the over 100,000 prisoners in the UK today.

Our prisoners range from drug addicts and people who have failed paying their utility bills to mentally sick people. Some are in serious need of mental or medical treatment. Others could provide fantastic services within the public sector through day jobs.

Not only would this make convicts an asset to society while serving the crime, but it would also keep them integrated in society, and even provide a job to go to once released. 

Not the least - they would be away from the “school of crime” other prisoners provide in jail. Surveillance could be solved by wearing an electronic shackle.


Training, treatment and prevention

People might argue that this solution would not offer justice for the victim. But serious offenders guilty of murder, rape or abuse would still be kept away from the public – whether locked up in prison or in mental institution.

We need to start thinking like the developed, civilised society we are. Instead of isolating prisoners, feeding into their feeling of bitterness, anger and quest for revenge we should strive for a constructive punishment with the relevant treatment, training and prevention.

Hopefully this would create more and more cases of former prisoners, when looking back at their sentence, being grateful for having been given a second chance.






8 comments:

  1. Hej! Been reading through your blog, interesting stuff! This particular post intrigued me.

    I wonder if you've completely skipped the 'nature nurture' argument here? If 3 out of 5 prisoners go on to re-offend within a year, could this be less to do with the failure of the prison/justice system and more of a reflection as the the kind of person they are? It's almost post hoc ergo propter hoc :)

    Out of interest, let's take a look at some of the different categories of crime that people are imprisoned for.

    1. Extreme violence (murder/rape/Sex crimes)
    2. Relative violence, (GBH, ABH)
    3. Non Violent but serious (robbery)
    4. White Collar crime (Tax evasion)
    5. Continual law breaking, minor (petty theft, vandalism)

    The first group is locked away from society. Of course, no question. We need to exclude these people from the topic as it's not really relevant to the rest of the discussion.

    The question I have is, can we rehabilitate those recommitting crimes or are they a) of a nature that precludes them from being turned into law abiding citizens or b) have been nurtured to such an extent that a life away from crime is impossible?

    In my opinion people are not born evil, I'm not a 'nature' kind of guy but I do believe in something and that is, we do not have free will, we are simply incapable of changing our responses to events on the basis of wanting to do so. We are programmed to act, behave and, dare I say it 'think' in a certain way and only an extreme reprogramming will alter this. Even that, according to people such as Pinker or Blackwell is debatable.

    Let's take an example of the boy that runs around smashing cars, stealing from shops, committing minor offences, very antisocial, threatening etc etc. How does one deal with such a criminal?

    What about the accountant that's been caught defrauding a client for millions of pounds?

    What about a bank robber?

    Do we treat each one differently? Use different techniques to hopefully turn them into decent citizens? How complicated does that make the justice system? Do we even know if it'll work? Take a look at the take up of religion in prison populations. One would think that the most religious inmates would leave prison and go on to lead a good life. But no, the exact opposite is the case!

    If I'm right and we have no free will then we are incapable of changing our tendencies, especially when it comes to relative morality no matter what system is used.

    So here's my suggestion. Let me start with an example. What does an organisation like Google do wen they find a talented hacker that's broken the law and hacked into their systems? Indeed hat do governments do when a hacker breaks into their defence systems? If the hacker is any good, yup, they hire them. They don't try to change what they are, they use them to do what they are best at. Hack for the government or help protect the organisation from other hackers.

    My way of dealing with the criminal problem is exactly the same. I say we don't bother getting into the prevention of crime, I say use people and utilise their skills! The bank robber? Use him as security for banks! He'll know all the tricks a robber might actually use. The accountant? Get him to work for the government in an economic unit, perhaps even looking out for fraud. The boy that's smashing things up and likes fighting? Put him in the army. (That's where you find most hardened criminals anyway). ;)

    Ah, maybe I ought to stop this internet rambling and do something more useful :)

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  2. IF A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED THEN THERE HAS TO BE A PUNISHMENT BUT LOCKING UP CHILDREN I BELIEVE IS WRONG IM NOT SURE WHAT THE ANSWER IS BUT AS A PARENT OF A CHILD WHO WAS LOCKED UP AT 13 IT WAS A TRAUMA FOR ME SO HOW MUST THE CHILD FEEL.YES HE WAS OUT OF MY CONTROL AND OFFENDING BUT LOCKING HIM UP DID NO GOOD HE IS NOW 22 YRS OLD AND PRISON IS ALL HE KNOWS HOW SAD !

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  4. I think people who are first offenders should do national service this way they would learn a trade and respect.

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  5. yes jail waste of money
    i have never been in police trouble but would now think prison could be an answer
    as i dont get 3 meals a day let alone 3 course meals
    i dont own a playstaition ware prisnors do
    games like gta in jail shootem ups
    might even learn a trade if i was to go
    so my thought is what crime can i do that wont upset any one else wont play in my mind but would get me the easyer life than i got liveing in a garage

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  6. I think it was very wrong of Susanna to mention the reporters previous convictions, these are spent convictions and no longer count, I hope she sought legal advice before doing so.

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  7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117

    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=crime+map+uk&view=detail&id=29A5759D8D2BDF68212F83897C0466B011343120&FORM=IDFRIR

    Hi
    here are two maps one is a map of high unemployment areas of the UK and the other is of high crime areas of the UK, they overlap, so the conclusion is that where there are high concentrations of unemployment there will be high crime rates, so the answer to crime is to treat the those 8 general areas like they are third world countries and send them some aid to build factories making the things that come into the country from abroad as companies have out sourced or offshored their production. The wages could then be subsidised by the government by reducing overseas aid which ends up in swiss bank accounts or goes on luxury jets for presidents, as the crime rates go down the 20 billion a year budget of the criminal justice system could be used to fund these industries.

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  8. Hi
    also we pay 42 billion a year on debt interest payments at the moment its usually around 30 billion, which is suspicious as the financial institutions that benefit from the UK being in debt and who recieve the constant interest payments are also powerful lobbyist of government, so if we get the debt down to zero then that's 30 billion a year to invest in factories and jobs to help bring crime down. we got the debt down in the 50s and 60s from 250% of GDP to around 30% of GDP so sould be able to get it down to zero, see chart.
    http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/national-debt-gdp00-2010.jpg

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