[tadbit]

> If only we knew how to do that.

We'll never figure out how to do it until we actually start trying to rehabilitate people.

> There are places in this country where attitudes develop for many years, decades even, before that person is ever incarcerated.

This is text book bigotry.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> We'll never figure out how to do it until we actually start trying to rehabilitate people.

We'll never figure out how to do it because it's unethical to experiment on humans. But even more damning than that, we don't have a good theory of mind that explains criminality. It's all half-assed woowoo nonsense meant to bolster this or that political ideology.

[tadbit]

> We'll never figure out how to do it because it's unethical to experiment on humans.

Ah, yes, we never do that. All of our advancements in medical and psychological sciences just pop into existence out of no where!

> It's all half-assed woowoo nonsense meant to bolster this or that political ideology

Right. And your comments here aren't pushing an agenda at all. Definitely not a bigoted, inhumane agenda.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

My only agenda is that it's irritating to listen to non-scientific and pseudo-scientific nonsense bandied about by people who plainly should know better.

What do you propose? That if we can't rehabilitate, we don't bother to deter criminals, or to sequester them from society so they can do less harm, or even that we refuse to punish them thereby encouraging private vengeance? Is that why you irrationally hold onto the clearly mythical rehabilitation, because if we can't have that then we must also abandon the others but subconsciously you know what that shitshow would look like?

The world needs more thinking, not less, and it needs less feeling/empathy, not more.

[timschmidt]

> What do you propose? That if we can't rehabilitate, we don't bother to deter criminals

There's no conclusive proof that even the death penalty deters crime: https://crim.sas.upenn.edu/fact-check/does-death-penalty-det...

> or to sequester them from society so they can do less harm

Sequestration with counseling and education would be useful. Unfortunately, we concentrate the convicted instead, which results in prisons functioning as colleges for criminality: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2014/10/20/prison-c...

[hn_go_brrrrr]

> We'll never figure out how to do it because it's unethical to experiment on humans.

I don't think jails have to go through an IRB before they make changes.

[mlyle]

The answer is somewhere in-between:

A researcher would have a hard time getting an IRB to let them build a study at a jail where the jail treats a random half of the inmates in a different way. And judicial oversight might not allow that, either. Further, it's hard to control adequately.

We're going to be stuck with time series and case control studies of changes made haphazardly. It doesn't mean we can't get better, but it's a tougher hill to climb.