[CptFribble]

It's a hard discussion, because the real issue is whether we as a society want prison to be about punishment or rehabilitation. Like many things, Americans generally seem to be split on the topic:

Some want prison to be a hard punishing experience and are fine with low quality of life and forced labor, because they believe that this sort of punishment will make criminals regret doing crime, and discourage future people from doing crime. This is the same logic that leads to supporting the death penalty (deterrence).

Others want more of a Nordic model, where prisoners are given essentially a basic but relatively-well-appointed studio apartment, good food, activities, etc - but also with a lot of mandatory therapy and "social rehab" classes and stuff like that, in order to reform prisoners back to model citizens.

Really what it comes down to is what we believe is the source of crime. Are criminals regular people who made a bad choice (and thus the source of the decision can be found and rectified)? Or are they a different kind of person more likely to do crimes (and thus must be locked away from society without bothering to try and "rehab" them)?

Like anything it is an incredibly complex and nuanced problem. But personally I think we should all agree that if the State is going to maintain the power to lock people up, we shouldn't allow doing so to become a profit center.

[nonrandomstring]

Let's remember that there are four (arguably more) pillars of a criminal justice system.

The two we are missing here are deterrence and incapacitation [0].

One of the reasons for putting people in jail is so that they won't be able to continue offending, in other words to "protect the public".

Another is to stop people offending in the first place.

A couple of modern problems come to mind. A society that lives in fear of crime and is low on forgiveness wants to lock 'em up forever and throw away the key. There is no concept of time having been served. This also goes against the grain of a "for profit" prison system by disincentivising rehabilitation.

In a society with rampant poverty and poor healthcare the deterrence part breaks down. People would rather get into prison than die of cold and hunger on the streets. In response, prisons must become ever more brutal to stop that.

Therefore a high trust, low poverty society has less incarcerated persons independent of "objective criminality".

[0] https://www.bsslawllc.com/blog/2021/12/the-four-pillars-of-s...

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It's probably some combination of both. There is a subset that can be reformed and made bad decisions, and there is a subset that are beyond help and just need to be kept from further damaging society.

(fwiw: I'm very much in the rehabilitation camp)

[slt2021]

Nordic model works in Nordic countries because there are Nordic people with a singular race and culture and it works for them.

One could argue that deterrence should be a major factor just because of demographics of US prison system. For example look at Singapore/Indonesia/Philippines and how they solved drug trafficking problem.

US for sure could learn a lot from Singapore

Rehabilitation already exists for minor crimes and first-time offenders, but the people who end up in actually prison are wayyy past any rehabilitation, its not their first rodeo

[mindslight]

No, doubling down on the already arbitrary and capricious criminalization of consciousness-affecting chemicals, especially with the death penalty, is not something the US should learn from.

I've never been big into hard drugs and I don't even really drink these days, but I still recognize that such laws are an affront to my own personal freedom and a blight on the goal of law and order.

[slt2021]

so 112,000 people died from fentanyl overdose, and it is affecting both poor, mid and high income people.

What will be court sentence for someone who stabbed 112,000 people? this is plain genocide, that US progressive liberals somehow allow to happen as "harm reduction" - while in fact it is harm increasing by spreading out everywhere

[mindslight]

I haven't heard any news regarding this incident where one person surreptitiously poisoned 112,000 people with fentanyl, which is what's implied by the responsibility in your narrative. Got a link?

Or if you're trying to imply that every person remotely related to the drug market is jointly and severely responsible for every person who dies using fentanyl, that is so far from the American conception of individual freedom and personal responsibility I don't know that there is common ground to be had.

Also as far as I can tell, very few people are setting out to deliberately do fentanyl itself. So that would point to the problem being the complete lack of otherwise standard product regulation, which also stems from prohibition.

[skulk]

Your maligned "US progressive liberals" were handed an impossible problem: millions of people addicted to 100% LEGAL prescription opioids (doctors ignored warnings and received kickbacks from the Sacklers[1]) and a lack of funds to cover those expenses due to decreased economic opportunities[2], thereby creating a huge market for fentanyl and other cheap opioids.

Maybe don't be so quick to assume you know where the harm is coming from and how it is spreading.

[1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/opioid-manufacturer-purdue-ph...

[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/men-wom...

[slt2021]

so progressive just continue to kick the can down the road by providing "safe opiods" only to watch them overdose time and time again.

and get hundreds of millions from state budget for their "nonprofits".

meanwhile Singapore, China, Philippines, Indonesia actually try to solve the problem, that include tackling the traffic and dealers + harsh sentences + they abolish the culture of drug usage

[kurikuri]

What are you going on about with your first and second sentences?

Do you believe that people with different cultures/races cannot agree on a system of fair laws?

[slt2021]

Singapore is diverse country of many cultures and they clearly figured out.

Problem is US - smart people dont go into politics, smart people self-select into high paying industries like tech or high frequency trading, and the local city/state politicians are mostly liberal arts types, who are not familiar with STEM or are plain ideologues with their own agenda.

what is lacking in the US is political will to solve problem and too many decentralized decision makers who are not on the same page.

District attorney may be prosecuting criminal, but then judge just lets him loose back on the streets - like what happens to hondos in San Fransicko

[currymj]

I think, frankly, the whole philosophical discussion about the purpose of the criminal justice system is a pointless abstraction and waste of time, because the US jail & prison system is a complete failure and as it currently exists, cannot achieve any just goal, whichever one you prefer.

Even if you believe 100% that the criminal justice system should be punitive, and the conditions should be unpleasant, the system still has to protect the physical safety of inmates from violence/harm that's outside the scope of the official punishment.

But it's manifestly unable to do that -- there's constant violence in jails and prisons, and medical care is often incompetent or denied even when badly needed.

Many other cases like this for whatever purported goal is supposed to be achieved. There's no way to rationalize the way the US system currently works, it just kind of shambles on.

I'm not a prison abolitionist in a philosophical sense either, I think there should be a state and that sometimes a state may have to incarcerate people. But as unreasonable and unrealistic as the prison abolitionist movement can be, their emotional orientation towards the US criminal justice system actually seems closer to reality.