Comment on Always look on the bright side of life
huginn@feddit.it 8 months agospending time in most of the world’s prisons still break your mental health in ways that will only make reintegration back into society harder in the end.
True only in specific cases: mostly your statement is bullshit.
There are far, far too many innocent people in prison: far too many who never deserve to be there. Many who fit the description of harder to reintegrate after the experience.
But prison absolutely can be the right thing for some. There are criminals who will not reintegrate without reform, and the prison system serves that purpose in more enlightened countries. Look at recidivism rates outside of the US to see how some people can reform with time away from society.
We need prisons. I expect 90% of people in prison are worse off from the experience but that 10% is important to society.
Kase@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Could you clarify for me - are you agreeing that prison time in most cases is harmful? Or that it’s only bad in specific cases? Or maybe, are you saying that most prisons are good, but only for ~10% of the people who spend time in them? Please correct me if I’m way off lol
huginn@feddit.it 8 months ago
Prisons are a nuanced topic that cannot be boiled down to categorical statements, but I’ll do my best here to clarify.
You have 2 different cases for prisons: prisons as a concept and prisons in reality.
Conceptually prisons serve 2 important roles: separation and rehabilitation. Both roles are important for the continued functioning of society. You cannot have a functioning society with no separation of criminals from the population. Similarly without rehabilitation the separation needs to be permanent. In some cases there is no rehabilitating someone, so life sentences exist.
In reality: only a very small subset of prisons match the conceptual purpose because there is still a strong group of voters who think a prison should be a punishment.
To consider a specific case, let’s take the infamous US prison system. In the United States rehabilitation is the exception, not the norm. Beyond that the carceral system has perverse incentives to perform that role of societal separation on the maximum number of humans possible without concern for innocence. It’s not an accountable system and it is not democratic.
Even with those perverse incentives: you still have prisoners in prison who would need to be there even in the most perfect system. Plenty of people in prison need to be there. The system fails to rehabilitate them and only serves to separate them from society, but that role of separation is an important one.
I’d argue that the US prison system is overwhelmingly negative for the society but it still performs a core societal role. Despite that: I personally know excons who have had dramatic changes from time served and are better people for the experience. Some percentage of the population benefits.
I don’t buy into anarchist utopian handwaving that states that prisons aren’t necessary: people suck and would suck regardless of governmental style.
Does that help clarify?
Kase@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That did help, thank you!