The purpose of prisons

[Comrade B]

I think that everyone on this server will agree that prison should have a main focus on reform, but I was wondering if people thought that there should be any focus on punishment at all? I was thinking about this after reading the Stanley Tookie Williams thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stanley-tookie-williams-t131566/index.html).

While Tookie is clearly reformed, is that reason to have him released, or should he still have to serve time for the pain he has created through founding the crips?

For a different example, lets say we tried Dick Cheney for his crimes and found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison (personally, I feel the son***** and his fellow mass murderers are an exemption from my opposition to the death penalty). While he was in prison, he realized the horrible things he has created and started working for a leftist cause to undo the damage he has created. Should he have a second chance at life, or should we force him to continue serving his term?

[danyboy27]

I think that everyone on this server will agree that prison should have a main focus on reform, but I was wondering if people thought that there should be any focus on punishment at all? I was thinking about this after reading the Stanley Tookie Williams thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stanley-tookie-williams-t131566/index.html).

While Tookie is clearly reformed, is that reason to have him released, or should he still have to serve time for the pain he has created through founding the crips?

For a different example, lets say we tried Dick Cheney for his crimes and found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison (personally, I feel the son***** and his fellow mass murderers are an exemption from my opposition to the death penalty). While he was in prison, he realized the horrible things he has created and started working for a leftist cause to undo the damage he has created. Should he have a second chance at life, or should we force him to continue serving his term?
i think its something psychologists should decide.
We simply cant free people beccause they seem to be reformed, its up to the specialists to decide if the person is threat to society.

Crimes most of the time have a psychologic reasons linked to it, no sane person commit a crime, you can be lucid but be psychologicly affected.

Prison should not be used to punish people, but to protect the individuals outside from person that have their mind damaged beyond repair.

I really dont think nobody deserve to be incarcered to be punished.

If dick cheney represent a threat to society according to psychologists, he should be put it, otherwise, just let him go.

[FreeFocus]

Tookie reformed himself and was working towards a good cause. He denounced senseless gang violence. He probably should've been released, but it's hard to say something like that when he murdered innocent people. Still, he shouldn't have received the death penalty.

Dick Cheney and the like, however, are irredeemable. Those who are guilty of war crimes and genocidal acts never deserve a second chance. There's a difference between messing up and killing one or a few people (although it is still a terrible crime) and destroying and killing a nation. Cheney's involvement with capitalism generally and the invasion of Iraq in particular simply preclude him from any discussion of "reformed criminals."

[bcbm]

no sane person commit a crime

what?!

[Little Bobby Hutton]

The purpose of a prison is to accumalate wealth for the people who own and operate it, hence Immortals lyric Nigga learn to speak and behave, you wanna spend the rest of your life as a government slave, also US military clothing and such are made by prisoners who getb paid like 10 p an hour.

[danyboy27]

what?!

to commit a crime, you need to be subjected to some kind of psychological thrauma, even if its minor.

For exemple, you loose your job, you loose your appartement, you are left in psychological distress without help and you are hungry, chances are that you will commit a crime in order to feed.

[bricolage]

to commit a crime, you need to be subjected to some kind of psychological thrauma, even if its minor.

For exemple, you loose your job, you loose your appartement, you are left in psychological distress without help and you are hungry, chances are that you will commit a crime in order to feed.

That's not psychological distress, it's material conditions (although I accept in that situation it could be a bit of both).
Aside from the fact that who are you to say who is 'sane' or not, or what even 'sane' is (the history of what is madness, what is sanity, what is abnormal, what is normal is deeply bound up with a history of exclusion and domination), people commit 'crimes' for all kinds of reasons, I'm pretty sure revolution has always been a crime, was Lenin (to use a popular example) insane?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

to commit a crime, you need to be subjected to some kind of psychological thrauma, even if its minor.

For exemple, you loose your job, you loose your appartement, you are left in psychological distress without help and you are hungry, chances are that you will commit a crime in order to feed.

That's stupid.

I smoke weed. Am I 'psychologically traumatised'? Don't be ridiculous.

Your premise assumes the hegemony of a legal system which, in Capitalist society (and probably in any society, in fact, where the state is so ridiculously large), is flawed, biased and skewed towards a certain set of interests. The law is politicised. Some of the laws are shit. Breaking shit laws is not immoral, and thus it is not a consequence, really, of 'trauma'.

[Morgenstern]

Prisons that don't care about rehabilitation are just a holding cell until the person's time is up. Prisons don't care about the prisoner committing another offense, the whole goal of the regular prison system is to hide people away to give the illusion it's safe. The prison system itself is quite broken, legal deals cutting down the prison sentences of horrible criminals show the prison system is just meant to be an illusion to make us feel safe.