Do you feel prisons should be designed and maintained as facilities that serve to:

A) Rehabilitate criminal behavior in an effort to reform the convicted into productive members of society

B) Punish those who commit crimes against society, and harshly so (day labor, basic food, no luxuries or comforts..etc)

C) Remove harmful elements from society and for hopefully a long time (mandatory sentencing, but maybe somewhat decent accomidations)


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Out of anything, I would side with B.

Ideally, I would hope for all 3. If I had to choose only one, I'd probably go with B also.

So a stone library that serves wheat bread,veggies, and milk?

Me too, but it depends on the severity of the crime IMO.

Kenneth Lay.

B and C. Rehabilitation should be covered during a much stricter parole period. I could go shorter incarceration sentences for non-violent crimes if we had a stricter and more comprehensive parole structure.

Lemme 'splain. I believe rehab should be goal number one. However, I think some criminals aren't ever going to respond to rehab, no matter how much people try. That's where B & C come into play. Punish them to an extreme extent for their crimes, but I'd use C for those that can't fully be held accountable (mentally challenged, legally insane, etc.).

B.

Without punishment, there can be no justice.

Not that I don't believe they should try and rehabilitate criminals, and I definitely believe that a major function of prisons needs to be to keep society safe, but at a fundamental level, the overall purpose of a prison is to serve justice, at least to some degree.

After more thought I think Rehab has to be removed form the prsion sentence portion. I think it is impossible to offer rehab in the same facilities and at the same time as you are doling out punishment.

I agree with your assessment, if not necessarily your conclusion.

I'll come back to this when I can more fully think this through.

C.

Davo made a great argument on RM1 on how B is pretty much bullshit. I wish that was still around.

A is a noble cause, but I'm not sure if the gov't has the right or ability to get it done.

Plenty of people on this board have argued that B is full of shit too. Oh wait, you were talking about selection B.

Plenty of people have argued that Davo is full of shit too, but I generally like his politics. I'd be interested in reading that.

Ouch, that was a low blow.

It's funny, because I don't know if there's been a more political opposite to me on RM than Davo, which is why I recall that I felt he hit the nail on the head with that viewpoint.

I thought meatwad was my friend.

I really don't know how to answer this question. I mean, it depends a lot upon the crime and the criminal.

You know it was a joke you hoser.

Mostly B and C. But A if it's a white collar crime. Those don't hurt anybody.

The Enron fallout didn't hurt anybody? Hell, I thought stealing someon's entire retirement/pension would definitely be considered a setback for them.

Not to mention, I have a lot less faith in a 50 year-old white-collar crook's ability to be rehabilitated than I do in a 16 year-old inner city kid who shot someone in a robbery.

Those white collar (did you mean to say "white people"?) criminals need prison PURELY for punishment purposes, as A&C don't really apply to them.