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This House would limit prison to violent offenders
This House would limit prison to violent offenders
This is a discussion on the Debatabase item titled: This House would limit prison to violent offenders .Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!
51 weeks 20 hours ago
How effective are the other options? Maybe we need to investigate the entire system rather than just the prison system. In society today young men in gangs are hardly deterred by having to wear electronic tags and curfews.
Turn that around, how effective is prison? The answer seems to be not very. If we take developed countries the USA imprisons most people and has most crime, Japan has one of the lowest incarceration rates and low crime.
When it comes to violent crime there is of course a need for prison to prevent those people harming others, for non violent crimes this justification is rather more tenious - is someone who has committed fraud likely to cause harm if out in the community and monitored?
We should be making sure that those who commit crimes cant harm others but does not mean we should simply decide prison is the answer for everything. This is an area where lex talionis does make sense for lesser crimes.
51 weeks 20 hours ago
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Absolutely agree with your question – “…how effective is prison?” Hence my original statement “Maybe we need to investigate the entire system rather than just the prison system.” We need to investigate all options and potential solutions to offer people a better chance of receiving the four objectives of the penal system stated in the original post. Again I think it comes down to money and governments not wanting to spend much of it on the rehabilitation of criminals. They, wrongly in my opinion, assume that increasing prison terms is the correct route.
50 weeks 6 days ago
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I obviously misinterpreted your initial post as I thought you were for sending more people to prision pretty much regardless of the crime; which did not seem nuaunced enough to me.
I dont think that politicians and money should really be brought into the issue as prison is really all about politics as it is a vote winner to appear to be tough on crime, and in any country without physical punishments tough on crime means longer and longer prison sentences. This inevitably costs more than alternatives. There should be much less political pressure on Judges so as to allow them to make the best decision on a case by case basis. They can decide how likely someone is to reoffend or to harm others and therefore whether prison is needed or whether other forms of punishment and rehabilitation would work better.
50 weeks 5 days ago
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There are too many degrees of violence to properly distinguish which would be worthy to remain part of society and which would be incarcerated. What an 80 year old woman considers violence I am sure some young adults may not. Who is right?
I think when it comes to physical violence it is pretty easy to define as using physical force with the intent to harm. Regardless of the definition used it would not be difficult to come to a common definition for all courts to use - the definition by different individuals really does not matter that much.
However I also think "There are too many degrees of violence" clashes with your initial statement "I think the idea of only putting 'violent' criminals in prison is madness." If you yourself think the definition of violence is flexible and open to interpretation then conceivably the definition could be set very broad indeed in order to catch many we consider to be 'non-violent crimes' today.
51 weeks 1 hour ago
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But if you alter the definition of violence to include potentially lesser 'non-violent crimes' is that right to then insist those criminals join the more dangerous criminals in prison?
50 weeks 6 days ago
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But if you alter the definition of violence to include potentially lesser 'non-violent crimes' is that right to then insist those criminals join the more dangerous criminals in prison?
There is no reason why they would have to occupy the same prisons, there are simply different levels of prisons as many states already employ. Violent criminals will obviously be much better monitored and confined than non-violent prisoners.
50 weeks 1 day ago
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A definition of violence is not something that is very well covered in the debatabase debate
violent criminals, who have committed offences such as murder, rape, assault or aggravated muggings. It is not certain that prison is the best environment in which to confront non-violent offenders, such as drug addicts, fraudsters and thieves.
That is hardly comperehensive but does show a dividing line between physical violence and things that are not physical. Notably however it does not mention the muddier cases of verbal forms of violence. It might however be the case that these kind of cases would be better covered in debates on hate speech rather than bogging down this debate in a question of what constitutes violent crime.
50 weeks 6 days ago
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I think the idea of only putting 'violent' criminals in prison is madness. Just because a criminal may have not used violence does not mean they should be spared prison.
There are too many degrees of violence to properly distinguish which would be worthy to remain part of society and which would be incarcerated. What an 80 year old woman considers violence I am sure some young adults may not. Who is right?
There are points in your argument that I do agree with. For example politicians who want to appear to be tackling the issue are too reliant on prison as a form of punishment. They think by enforcing longer sentences for lesser crimes is the best route. Politicians are salesmen and, in my opinion, most should be in prison themselves.
One observation is that you say despite the diversity of sentencing options available the judiciary relies on imprisonment. How effective are the other options? Maybe we need to investigate the entire system rather than just the prison system. In society today young men in gangs are hardly deterred by having to wear electronic tags and curfews.
I believe the crux of it is that it would cost too much money and take up too much time to offer criminals the appropriate facilities to serve the four objectives you mentioned (deter, rehabilitate, protection and punishment). Governments aren’t willing to invest such resources in the people who are unwilling to abide by societies laws. Let’s face it, large numbers of society today who follow the rules are struggling to survive and put food on the table.
It is easier for governments to put a positive spin on imprisonment as a form of punishment and just hand out lengthy sentences for lesser crimes. Their motives and tactics are arguably very wrong but I don’t believe society is in a position to offer any better solution.