Dutch prisons are currently leasing space to Belgium because of low occupancy rates. This low occupancy is the result of various policies to cut costs. Prisons are not cheap so cutting sentences a bit and using alternative punishments for lighter offenses helps keep cost down. People still get caught doing stuff they are not supposed to. Locking them up is one of the punishments and it's used if needed. But it is used in moderation. Occasionally this is unpopular when high profile criminals end up back on the streets a bit sooner than people would like. Particularly when it involves e.g. sex offenders. But mostly this works out fine. This has not resulted in a massive crime wave and most people in prison are neither sex offenders nor psychopathic murderers.
The US is a great example of how prisons don't help prevent crime. It has the largest prison population per capita in the world and crime and murder rates to sustain that (i.e. notably much higher than other countries and also much more violent). Locking up people in the US apparently does not seem to lower crime rates. If anything, prisons actually help perpetuate this problem. The people who come out of them are likely to end up coming back. That's why it is important to keep young offenders out of prisons. Locking them up all but guarantees they come back for more. Locking them up for really minor offenses is simply counter productive and just locks them into a life of crime.
Part of the problem in the US is of course that prisons are big business. Big as in trading on Wall Street. E.g. CoreCivic is worth about 2.5B $: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CXW/
I used to regard movies from the eighties like Robocop as pure satire but you have to admit that this company, it's name, and it's sameless corporatism and hollow marketing makes it look like OCP quite a bit. Straight from their website: "CoreCivic's effective, high-quality reentry programs are at the center of our mission to reduce recidivism and help better the public good.". Yeah, right. Comes with a photo of a friendly smiling prisoner (black, naturally).
> Part of the problem in the US is of course that prisons are big business.
This is directly debunked in the article: "By now it has become almost conventional wisdom to think that private prisons are the 'real' problem with mass incarceration. But anyone seriously engaged with the subject knows that this is not the case. Even a cursory glance at numbers proves it: Ninety-two percent of people locked inside American prisons are held in publicly run, publicly funded facilities, and 99 percent of those in jail are in public jails."
For reference, I believe Germany has a prison population of about 75K (on a population of 80M).
Those publicly funded prisons provide plenty of cheap labor to corporations and they make use of contractors and suppliers. We're not talking about civil servants here. The bottom line is that there plenty of corporate interests in perpetuating the status quo.
This system indeed sucks up a lot of public funding as well. That's kind of the point: tax payers are funding this and corporations cream off the profits through contracting, prison labor, or indeed privately run prisons. Some of these are multi billion dollar companies even.
I spent about 6 years in federal prison, and at my last prison location, I made a really good friend, Jeff. He could play guitar as good as Slash (he ran the prison music room), he was funny, and could run a D&D game like the best DM's out there. I knew him about 19 months before I release d to the halfway house. He was supposed to release about a year after me.
He had gone into the Army when he was 18. Because he could play the guitar, he got into a band unit, and they would march in parades and such. He molested his first victim for which he was caught while in the Army, and they gave him a hard 20 (20 years with no parole or probation). They also never ordered him into sex offender treatment. He spent most of his prison time in the military brig, but was eventually transferred into the Federal Prison system for being a troublemaker (brewing alcohol, getting drunk and fighting). That's how I met him.
I always wanted to be his friend after we got out of prison. I never expected him to re-offend, after knowing him pretty closely for a year and a half. When I asked my Supervision Officer if I could write to him while he was still in prison, I was ordered to not have any contact with any former prison acquaintances while on probation. I though, "Okay, I'll just wait until I finish my probation. No problem."
A few years after my release, I thought I would at least check up on him without contacting him. When I found out what he had done after he got out of prison, it was like I had been punched in the gut. I was in a state of numb disbelief for days.
You can't draw conclusions from one case. Treatment could have helped him, but he was a menace in that state and shouldn't be released. So you can use this one case to argue either way. I'd sure not want him released. Most people aren't like this.
I don’t believe there is any evidence suggesting successful treatment for these kinds of offenders. Known recidivism is quite high, and combined with the underreporting of sexual crimes, meaning the reoffending rate is almost certainly way higher. We’re taking a massive risk releasing them.
I’m comfortable making the moral call that the freedom of a convicted child molester is worth less than the 25-99% risk that they will molest another child.
Careful, there's a slippery slope to drawing these conclusions about other classes of undesirables that start with your broad and unproven statement about sex offenders. Show us some studies about recidivism that prove sex offenders recommit sex crimes at a greater recidivism rate than, say, drunk drivers or drug users.
"Langan, Schmitt and Durose (2003), for example, found sexual recidivism rates that are four times higher for sex offenders compared to non-sex offenders"
According to this source, The recidivism rates among those who molest boys is 35% after 15 years. Rates of recidivism are based on arrests and other recorded information, so actual rates will be higher (probably considerably higher if you take into account the low rate of reporting sexual assault).
There are differential rates based on the situation of the crime - incestuous molesters are less likely to do it again, for example. But people who's motivation to offend is general attraction to children, and who's situational offence scenario is no more specific than living in a world with children, are way more dangerous.
The psychological effects of being sexually assaulted as a kid are _really_ bad (want sources for this?), so yeah, I'm not just making this up, or making snap moral judgements. I genuinely consider the risk too high.
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy by the way.
Actually, the slippery slope is real. DNA testing started with Sex Offenders, and is now close to becoming a requirement for any felon. Registry requirements and reach is expanding as well.
> The recidivism rates among those who molest boys is 35% after 15 years.
You cite a statistic that is drawn from a type of crime that is a very small percentage of the overall types of sexual offenses. Why not also cite the rate of incestuous molesters, who are a far larger number of offenders?
Because I was replying in a thread about a man how had kidnapped a five year old to make pornography. My understanding from the literature is that such an offender is very likely to offend again, and likely to escalate (which would be murder in this case).
I don't believe these things apply to so-called sex offenders in general, and I know some of the laws around sex offences are utterly ridiculous.
The slippery slope argument is still a logical fallacy, you're saying because some push things to unreasonable levels, that the reasonable ones can't be supported. So, using the slippery slope argument the other way, should we be releasing prolific serial killers because they might not kill again? Where would you draw the line? (Of course, as you'll no doubt realise, the slippery slope argument will apply no matter where you draw that line, which is why it's a logical fallacy).
The slippery slope goes in two directions, mainly:
First, if we as society are going to lock them up forever, why not just save ourselves the expense and execute them all.
Secondly, if we are going to do this to Sex Offenders, and it proves really useful and effective, let's start doing it to violent criminals. Then, say, bank robbers. Then, we should get rid of all the drug dealers. The repeat drug users gotta go now. While we're making society better, let's also clean up all the fraudsters and tax cheats.
An example that springs to mind is the way Nazi Germany dealt with the Jewish people. I believe they were morally okay with it, too.
> First, if we as society are going to lock them up forever, why not just save ourselves the expense and execute them all.
Because locking someone up is reversible.
Your slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy in any case. Not all crimes have equal rates of damage or recidivism. There are many good reasons to differentiate between types of crimes and their motivations.
Presumably you agree that we should probably lock up serial killers, right? According to your style of slippery-slope argument you have no way of distinguishing between that and executing children that won't go to bed on time, because it's all a continuum.
Yes, I pretty much agree with you. I was disagreeing with the blanket "lock'em all up forever" opinion expressed above. Emotional reactions I can understand to crimes like these but some sense needs to be exercised or we end up in another situation like Nazi Germany.
I've just clicked on your profile and see you have "ex-con" in your bio, and I wonder if that's where some of this disagreement is coming from. I just thought I'd make clear that am not in favour of generally harsher sentences (in many cases the opposite). I'm very skeptical of marking people for life for past mistakes.
What I am actually talking about a specific subset of criminals, who's motivations are reasonably well understood, and who's crimes are extremely damaging.
Another thought occurred to me regarding sex offender treatment. You might think that it's for the benefit of the criminal, but it's not, really. A properly run program "fingerprints" offender behavior, making it easier to solve crimes by helping eliminate suspected offenders who don't fit the pattern.
And, hey, if an offender is real serious about staying out of prison after release, he can learn good self management tools, too.
People do change, but people who sexually abuse children outside of their immediate family do so far more rarely than, well, most other socially unacceptable behaviors.
The degree of certainty that someone who has displayed that behavior remains a menace just based on that fact alone is fairly high.
People can change, but it requires a lot. Most of the time, people will just follow their patterns of thinking and behavior, mainly because they are not aware of the patterns and do not have correctives to change their behavior when they recognize old patterns. Sex offender treatment tries to train them in this.
If you think all those people in prison can be re-integrated you’ve never seen true evil.
Fantasies and wishful-thinking apart, most of the prison population are a real threat to society and a not-so-small percentage will stay that way forever. Others are made that way inside prisons.
Incarceration rates per 100K population: U.S. 693; Germany 76; Netherlands 69
Germany and the Netherlands both have lower violent crime rates. An extra 600 per 100K Americans deserve to be imprisoned and are a real threat to society or there's something wrong with the US approach.
If we follow your analogy, that these 2 things are similar. Then we should also accept the premise that pedophiles are probably born that way.
Which would make identifying them, before they commit a crime, hugely beneficial. Treating it as a disease, might lower the stigma, and allow these people to self identify themselves.
Consider the possibility that there are a set amount of pedophile's born in every generation. We as a society can decide how we treat people with that condition, and what might work best, reducing suffering, at a reasonable cost.
It's not a ridiculous statement to assume we haven't found the global optimum for that problem. Specially considering the huge risk of recidivism.
There are programs for enabling pedophiles to live with their kink without committing crimes. The public is generally not interested in funding them because they don't like to admit that pedophiles are humans, too.
The article largely mirrors how European countries deal with crime: low sentences and extensive re-integration programs.
The goal in Europe is integration and eliminating recidivism, whereas the goal in America is vengeance and isolation. You won't see any progress until that overarching goal changes.
IMO the biggest problem with American penal system is how crazy the punishments are for non-violent crimes. Get caught smoking crack a few times? You might be in prison for many years.
Another issue is how the government + private industry is allowed to punish you for life even though you've supposedly "done your time". Employers can and regularly do discriminate even for things that would have no affect on job performance. Oh also housing and loans. You're basically pushed to the fringes of society unless you manage to make it big with your own business.
Oh and if you commit a drug crime you're cut off from school financial aid for life. And if you have any felony the army probably won't even take you. Have fun trying to turn your life around when your own government slams the door.
I'm okay with long prison sentences for really nasty stuff like murder. Not such a big deal if an ex-con steals some shit again, pretty bad if he goes back to killing people.
>whereas the goal in America is vengeance and isolation
Given the way American politics runs on lobbying, I'm inclined to lean towards the goal actually being maximizing profits. This can appear in various ways:
Not all European countries: considering how French prison are overcrowded and the recidivism rate there. (also considering how most of the terrorists in France spent time in prison)
How are crime statistics relevant? If anything, you should look at recidivism. Crime statistics have more to do with other things in society than the 'philosophy' of prisons.
Violent crimes has been stable for about a decade. About 100 people are killed in Sweden per year[1], about 250 are killed in Detroit per year[2].
Comparing different crime statistics between countries is very dicey BTW. Sweden has the broadest definition of rape in the world and the most comprehensive support systems for the victims. Saudi Arabia officially has 0.3 rapes per 100 000 people, where the victims can get punishments worse than the perpetrators. [3]
The article doesn't propose any practical ways of reducing the number prisoners. Simply letting everyone out and hoping for the best doesn't seem to be a good plan.
One thing that could work for non-violent crimes, would be a bracelet that records all conversations and all movements of wearer, making recidivism very hard. Of course attempts to destroy the bracelet should be punished by real prison terms.
Maybe it’s just me but I couldn’t find an actual argument. Unless it’s that the murderer’s life is just as valuable so it’s bad to steal part of it from him by putting him in prison. I don’t think anyone outside academia values the lives of murderers very much, is there another argument in there somewhere?
Because Gilmore isn't trying to make an argument about specific approaches. She's trying to change the narrative--the way to reduce violence in society is to address the root causes of violence, not react to it after the fact as if both violence and violent people are inevitable.
Does she actually believe that prison would never be necessary for anyone if we could enact the ideal set of societal changes? It's not clear to me that she actually believes that.[1] I'm particularly doubtful that she thinks we can just turn loose existing violent offenders. If you read between the lines what she seems to believe is that the abolition movement as she understands it is more a process than a goal, and it's largely prospective. Note that she's quite critical of the motives of other reformists.
[1] In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she thought both the question and the answer irrelevant. We see an elephant in the room and she's saying, "there is no elephant". That is, if you presuppose an elephant you're going to end up creating one.
> It's not clear to me that she actually believes that.
It's unfortunate that a long, in-depth, sympathetic article titled "Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind" didn't make it clear to you whether Ruth Wilson Gilmore believes prison is necessary.
Personally I have taken prison abolitionists at their word, that they actually do want to abolish prisons. I have long been genuinely curious how they would handle serious crime in the complete absence of prisons. I expect this is the first thing most people would want to know about their program. It's surprising and disappointing that the article (and other articles I've read on this subject) fails to answer that question.
Does anybody believe that perfect equality (of wealth, of opportunity, of w'ever) is possible? Does that mean we as a society shouldn't bother establishing equality as goal?
In a large election a single vote doesn't matter. And yet if we permitted that fact to dissuade us from voting nobody would vote and democracy as we practice it would be impossible.
I haven't read Gilmore's writings, and I'm basing my interpretations off the article author's gloss--their selected quotations and elaborations--but applying the rule of lenity and in light of some of her very cogent points (that private prisons aren't a big problem, that the vast majority of prisoners are in fact violent offenders) it would seem that she's applying the same principles as Plato and MLK. Specifically, that society can only achieve and will only reap that which it orders itself around.
Whether irrepressibly violent people will always exist is beside the point. If we build a system directed toward the management of such people, then those are the people we're going to get, above and beyond whatever genetically predetermined base rate we might otherwise find in the population.
How does Gilmore translate her abolitionist position into specific policy prescriptions? I don't know. Maybe they're contentious; maybe I'd disagree with them altogether. But at least superficially I don't see abolitionism particularly inconsistent. I doubt you feel compelled to demand that a Get Out the Vote volunteer explain to you why voting matters, or demand that a "Why Voting Matters" article provide a concrete proof for why it matters. It's more intuitive that voting could only matter in so far as enough people have internalized the notion that it matters and act accordingly. Americans, I think, lack that intuition and suspension of disbelief when it comes to violence and crime. Some things are self-fulfilling prophecies--if we believe or don't believe, that's what we'll get. How societies manage to shift from one set of expectations to the polar opposite... that's still something of a mystery, but surely it involves being open to advocates like Gilmore.
I don’t follow your argument, are you saying that if we just “reorient” our society away from violence by not using violence to punish criminals, they will stop committing crimes?
Yes I agree we should strive for a society were fewer crimes are committed, , but I don’t see how that somehow implies that we should abolish prisons. We only imprison people who actually commit crimes.
Besides, prisons have many uses, apart from curing the criminal. The first is to stop blood feuds, if society does not punish crime then relatives of the victim will, and this leads to never ending spirals of violence. Crime victims generally are more concerned with justice than rehabilitation.
Another important reason is to keep criminals off the streets. No matter what happens once they get out, we can be sure that the streets are safe from them while they’re in prison. And since most violent criminals are young men, if we put them away until their testosterone has calmed down about in their thirties, they should be much safer to have around.
Then there’s of course the deterring effect of a potential prison sentence. I for one believe that if crime goes unpunished then we’d see more of it, not less.
I’m not saying that the american prison system isn’t terrible, but that is no reason not to have prisons at all.
Your last paragraph is pretty funny. YEs I do actually expect that a campaigner for closing prisons can actually present an argument for it, and the same goes for a lengthy article that purports to change my mind on the issue.
One good way to “change the narrative” is to come up with arguments.
I agree it would be nice to stop criminals from committing crimes in the first place, but until we achieve that we need prisons. And once we achieve it prisons are a moot point.
So it seems she should just focus on making criminals stop committing crimes, if she thinks that is possible. I don’t think she does believe that though, she’s probably not a complete fool
Re-read the paragraphs about Spain and the middle-schoolers. It wasn't easy for me to immediately grasp the argument, but I think it boils down to that the way to reduce violence is for society to model a less violent path. Specifically those few paragraphs seem to be saying,
1) Spain has light sentences for murder.
2) Spain has a low murder rate.
3) Leniency in criminal justice begets less violence.
4) Imagine the most lenient system possible--no incarceration whatsoever. That may result in the least amount of violent crime.[1]
Step #3 is I think the most contentious. Is leniency a cause or effect? In reality it's probably both. And I presume that Gilmore could provide much more sophisticated arguments that don't rely on there being a simple, unidirectional causal relationship. But my impression from the article is that the overarching emphasis is that there is some causal relationship and that by refusing to accept that it exists we perpetuate an inflated rate of violence. We can't productively get into the weeds of concrete prescriptions without first establishing the nature of the causal relationship.
[1] Nowhere does the article imply the claim that all violent crime could be prevented. At least conceptually, it may be better to have a few Ted Bundys roaming freely than to construct a criminal justice system that molds many more people into gladiators. In any event, this would be a quantitive question and not something that is categorically foreclosed. Establishing that Ted Bundys exist and would kill doesn't resolve anything, so why require Gilmore to answer how she would prevent Ted Bundys from killing?
The Vatican also has a low murder rate, and probably no prisons at all. If she can’t prove 3 then she has no argument at all, 3 is where the argument would be.
Of course she needs to provision for violent criminals. They are one of the main reasons we need prisons, so if she wants to get rid of prisons she needs to have an alternative plan. She can’t just wave her hand and say they will magically disappear. Only very gullible people seduced by ideology would fall for that.
If she can’t present an alternative, why would anyone care what she says?
That was the sense I was getting. I’ve been grappling with the implications. The whole concept of prison and policing in the US — I’ve just experienced as state sponsored violence against the communities that I’ve lived in. Releasing a violent predator just seems wrong, but US isn’t even trying to rehabilitate, there has to be an alternative.
Yes imprisonment is a form of violence, but it’s a form of violence that is almost universally recognized as just, when exercised against duly convicted criminals.
I think the real question is whether there are more effective ways than prisons to deal with criminals. Perhaps you can prevent people from becoming hardened violent criminals in the first place. It doesn't seem like prisons are very good at that job.
Some dude with tattoos all over his face, 6'5 and 320 pounds of muscle. <-- your view of a criminal paints a picture of the inside of your mind, and it's not pretty.
The US is a great example of how prisons don't help prevent crime. It has the largest prison population per capita in the world and crime and murder rates to sustain that (i.e. notably much higher than other countries and also much more violent). Locking up people in the US apparently does not seem to lower crime rates. If anything, prisons actually help perpetuate this problem. The people who come out of them are likely to end up coming back. That's why it is important to keep young offenders out of prisons. Locking them up all but guarantees they come back for more. Locking them up for really minor offenses is simply counter productive and just locks them into a life of crime.
Part of the problem in the US is of course that prisons are big business. Big as in trading on Wall Street. E.g. CoreCivic is worth about 2.5B $: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CXW/
I used to regard movies from the eighties like Robocop as pure satire but you have to admit that this company, it's name, and it's sameless corporatism and hollow marketing makes it look like OCP quite a bit. Straight from their website: "CoreCivic's effective, high-quality reentry programs are at the center of our mission to reduce recidivism and help better the public good.". Yeah, right. Comes with a photo of a friendly smiling prisoner (black, naturally).