TwistedMister wrote:
If cells were 5'x5'x5' stone with no window and solid doors with a slot for food, and once you went in [the cell] you didn't come out until your sentence was up there might be some incentive to not want to go back. As it is now, for many, it's a better life than they had on the outside.
It's a nice fantasy, but it doesn't work as a deterrent, I'm afraid. If it did, there would have been no crime in Tudor England when you could be hanged for theft and burned at the stake for heresy.
In modern times, the death penalty in places like Texas, Florida, and Georgia (just for example) does nothing to lower the murder rate. Either the death penalty is no deterrent or people think they're not going to get caught (in which case it's also no deterrent). In either case it simply doesn't work and far too often ends up with an innocent man being wrongly executed.
Being "tough on crime" is a great soundbite and a vote-winner but it doesn't improve society in the least. If it did, then I think we'd have noticed by now. The most civilised countries in the world are the Scandinavian countries where prisons are modern and humane and there's a big emphasis on rehabilitation and education (not surprisingly, they also have very low levels of religiosity, too).
Moreover, one is sent to prison
as punishment, not
for punishment, and without rehabilitation and education, that doesn't work well as a deterrent, either (and let's not forget a huge number of people are in prison for victimless crimes like possession of drugs).
As a libertarian, I think the sanest answer is to have prison as an absolute last resort, where you're sent only if you refuse to pay reparations. While you're in there you work for your keep. If you don't, then you either starve or live on the charity of other prisoners. The easy way to get out of prison is to pay your dues to your victim and wipe the slate clean.
It's no benefit to anyone to have the man who steals my car locked away in prison. It doesn't get me my car back, it costs everyone a fortune to keep him there, and it doesn't help him learn the error of his ways.
Obviously there are some people who have to be locked up because they're just to dangerous to the rest of us to have them walking around. But they are a very small minority of criminals.
Sarah xxx