What to do with Criminals?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_632898.html

What should a nation trying to find its way down the path of socialist revolution do to deal with criminals? Should we go the Angela Davis route and reject the prison system or the Anarchist route and reject crime as such? One problem for sure is that imprisonment traps criminals together, often in inhumane conditions, in such a manner that they (1) learn to be better criminals by being around other criminals, (2) fail to learn useful skills for the outside, and (3) sap resources from society as a whole in terms of money spent on imprisonment. On the other extreme altogether is a more authoritarian approach, which leaves prisoners either on death row or working in labour camps for many years like 30s-era Russia. Or can a "revolutionary society" find some kind of middle ground, whereby criminals can work a few hours a day to learn job skills and save a small amount of income for use outside, while remaining in some sort of confined housing?

Considering the high rate of violent crime, and some of the economic issues they are going through, wouldn't this be a better policy than throwing them in a seemingly quite traditional but particularly brutal and overcrowded prison system? Society benefits from the irrigation canals dug, the gravel made the bricks dried too.

[Queercommie Girl]

Criminals usually have social problems. The socialist state has the responsibility to genuinely re-educate them so that they can be reformed.

If there is no prison system at all, who can guarantee that the criminals won't harm even more innocent people? Also, criminals won't be reformed which objectively isn't good for them either.

But the "traditional" capitalist prison system is indeed brutal as well as generally ineffective. (Especially the notorious prison system in the United States)

Prisons should be seen as re-education centres, which has the criminals' own welfare in mind, not simply places of punishment.

[JerryBiscoTrey]

my question is what is there to do with criminals that cant be rehabilitated. For example i saw a study that showed 99% of child molesters cant be rehabilitated

[Queercommie Girl]

my question is what is there to do with criminals that cant be rehabilitated. For example i saw a study that showed 99% of child molesters cant be rehabilitated

I think the vast majority of criminals in principle can be rehabilitated. When people say they can't, it's often because they are not trying hard enough, like how in the capitalist system, very little public funding is actually given to the prison system for it to do a decent job.

[Rafiq]

Most crime is economic. Everything else can be treated with rehabilitation.

[Unclebananahead]

Convicted child molesters can either be confined, or closely monitored. No sure what else to do with them.

[RedSquare]

Fair labour and an extensive program of re-education which is to aid rehabilitation.

[MarxSchmarx]

It comes down to what you consider to be "crimes". Very often this discussion comes up with an idea that "crimes" are what our government happens to consider "crimes".

Thus in Iran it is a crime for a woman to not wear a hijab and for a Muslim to renounce their faith, while in France it is a crime for a female student to wear a hijab and for a state official to prey in their capacity as a state official. In Japan it is illegal for a driver to make a perpendicular turn in the direction of traffic on a red light while in America it is perfectly legal. In Nigeria it is a crime to possess a miniscule amount of marijuana for personal use whilst in Mexico it is not. In Taiwan it is very difficult to legally own a gun, while in Switzerland it is practically rare for a male to not own a gun. And I believe in Saudi Arabia it is legal for a man to kill the brother of his brother's murderer.

So I think the question of what you do with "criminals" is only meaningful within the scope of the existing laws of the state, which vary from year to year and place to place. It really means very little.

We need to respond to people who ask "what is to be done with criminals" by deligitimizing the discourse around "crime", which is socially contingent on the ruling class of a particular time and place, and focus the discourse on specific actions - "murder", "robbery", "drug possession", "assault", "no seat-belts", etc... That will go a long way in making our case.

[Amphictyonis]

Re education camps? LOL Society itself needs 'reeducation'. :) "Criminals" are largely a product of not having access to the means of production. The other portion of people in prisons right now are there for a lack of mental health facilities. Hierarchical society combined with no access to the means of production also breeds a feeling of powerlessness or worthlessness in many people- this can lead to violence and a need for 'respect' in the streets. Drugs are also another big reason so many Americans are in prisons. I'd say the prison population in America is largely due to capitalism itself and things such as crimes of passion, child molestation and cereal killing will still exist but on such a small scale any form of confinement from society would pale in comparison to what we see in America. Restorative justice is being facilitated on a small scale now which brings victims and 'perps' together for counseling sessions which has been (in some cases) giving violent offenders a sense of empathy. American prisons will one day be looked upon as mid-evil torture chambers are now. Especially the 24/7 solitary confinement sections of prisons but even the main lines arent about rehabilitation. American prisons are a sign of a sick system/ruling class.