The Princinples of Authority and Incarceration

[Sadena Meti]

A bit of Anarchist musing I did while in prison the first time, mid 2008. (EDIT: My 666th post!)
http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=908&pictureid=7874

The Principle of Authority and Incarceration

Obey us, or we will take away your freedom.

But if I obey you, I will have no freedom for you to take away.

You will surrender your freedom voluntarily through obedience or it will be taken involuntarily through incarceration.

Either way, so long as you have power, I will have no freedom.

[Sadena Meti]

Apparently no one else in this forum has ever been locked up.

[Viet Minh]

Apparently no one else in this forum has ever been locked up.

Only in the cells a few times but not jail proper (thank fuck!)

[Tim Finnegan]

Apparently no one else in this forum has ever been locked up.
Because we don't rush to congratulate you for stating the obvious? :confused:

'Sides, imprisonment isn't always a heinous injustice. Some people genuinely are anti-social pricks who need locking away; not as many as are locked up right now, I'll grant you, but some. Just 'cos the bourgeois state is doing it for reasons of class interest doesn't mean that it doesn't occasionally need doing, and, at this point, there's really no alternative on offer.

[ComradeMan]

Apparently no one else in this forum has ever been locked up.

Or perhaps they don't feel the need to repeat it in practically every post?

Or perhaps they feel it's no one else's business?

I'm sure your posts would be fine as they are without your inserting the prison thing in everything.

My friend, you are out of prison but I think your mind is still behind bars... it's almost Pavlovian- for your own sake- move on.

(I mean this in a friendly and comradely way...)

[Sadena Meti]

My friend, you are out of prison but I think your mind is still behind bars...

Well my avatar is behind bars (on my profile page).

I was hoping to spark a useful discussion about the very concept of incarceration, when people should and should not be deprived of their liberty.

Take drug offenses (which seemed to be most of the people I met inside).

[Ele'ill]

Apparently no one else in this forum has ever been locked up.

I don't think that this matters within the purpose of the forum.

[Sadena Meti]

I don't think that this matters within the purpose of the forum.

The repressive actions and power of government and authority do not matter to the revolutionary left? OK

[Viet Minh]

Because we don't rush to congratulate you for stating the obvious? :confused:

'Sides, imprisonment isn't always a heinous injustice. Some people genuinely are anti-social pricks who need locking away; not as many as are locked up right now, I'll grant you, but some. Just 'cos the bourgeois state is doing it for reasons of class interest doesn't mean that it doesn't occasionally need doing, and, at this point, there's really no alternative on offer.

Ostracism is a viable alternative imo.

[Ele'ill]

The repressive actions and power of government and authority do not matter to the revolutionary left? OK

Clearly not what I said.


Apparently no one else in this forum has ever been locked up.


I don't think that this matters within the purpose of the forum.

[Sadena Meti]

Ostracism is a viable alternative imo.

This was much suggested by Carl Sagan, when discussing higher primate behavior. Aberrant or anti-social members were excluded, chased away, threatened with sticks and rocks (though never actually attacked in earnest). Those that could not function in the group were left to function on their own.

A similar concept is raised in the book The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin, which I highly recommend as it describes an entire planet (well, moon) being run on anarchist principles.

[Tim Finnegan]

Ostracism is a viable alternative imo.
For thieves and rapists? That's certainly optimistic.

[Viet Minh]

For thieves and rapists? That's certainly optimistic.

With rapists there are almost always mental health issues diagnosed so if they were redeemable they would be given the option of treatment much like they have already. In a socialist society there is no need to steal, but if someone did its possible they are kleptomaniac and can be treated to a certain degree. If not they are exiled, and don't have the opportunity to steal.

[Sadena Meti]

With rapists there are almost always mental health issues diagnosed so if they were redeemable they would be given the option of treatment much like they have already. In a socialist society there is no need to steal, but if someone did its possible they are kleptomaniac and can be treated to a certain degree. If not they are exiled, and don't have the opportunity to steal.
Again, in the book The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin (which I'm going to try like hell to find a PDF of) the anarchist planet had an island with an asylum on it where people went of their own free will for treatment of anti-social behavioral problems.

Here, I found the PDF and put it on my site.
http://www.sadena.com/Books-Texts/Ursula%20K.%20Leguin%20-%20The%20Dispossessed.pdf

[Bud Struggle]

Ostracism is a viable alternative imo.

No. There are very violent anti social people out there. I teach entrepreneaurship at the State Penn and I would say there are a fair number of truly problematic people in there. There are lots of idiots that got caught with some drugs but there are also lots more that did truly evil crimes against innocent people that deserver the sentence that they got--and if you ask me, when they getout they will just go back to what got them into prison in the first place.

Some people just don't care. And thet turn out to be hard core criminals or Bourgeois CEOs. Either way they will hurt you.

[Ele'ill]

No. There are very violent anti social people out there. I teach entrepreneaurship at the State Penn and I would say there are a fair number of truly problematic people in there. There are lots of idiots that got caught with some drugs but there are also lots more that did truly evil crimes against innocent people that deserver the sentence that they got--and if you ask me, when they getout they will just go back to what got them into prison in the first place.

Idiots? :rolleyes:

What is the percentage of people in on drug charges vs people in for 'truly evil crimes'?

What are the chances that wealth inequality is to blame for their 'problems'? What are the chances that the prison system has and is continuing to cause many of their 'problems'?

[Bud Struggle]

Idiots? :rolleyes:

What is the percentage of people in on drug charges vs people in for 'truly evil crimes'?
Yup. for the most part almost no one has to be caught with drugs. they were either standing on a street corner smoking something or stoped by cops in a traffic stop, etc. Almost all of them got caught because they didn't take even the minimalist precautions.

And then they do 5 years. State Pens are funny--you really don't know who or why people are in there so you don't trust anyone. Most are in on drug charges--but there are also RELATED drug charges (robbery to get money for drugs.)


What are the chances that wealth inequality is to blame for their 'problems'? What are the chances that the prison system has and is continuing to cause many of their 'problems'? Nope they are guilty. The rich may get off--but the poor are usually guilty of the crimes. The system may be unfair for letting the rich off--but not for convicting the poor.

[ComradeMan]

Look, people have been hanging, beheading and locking up criminals for thousands of years....

Still hasn't stopped crime.

[Tim Finnegan]

With rapists there are almost always mental health issues diagnosed so if they were redeemable they would be given the option of treatment much like they have already.
With the sort of creepy-man-waiting-in-the-bushes sort of rapist, perhaps, but they are very much the minority. Most rapists are just apparently regular, but in truth deeply misogynistic men, and most serial rapists are these same faux-regular men, with the additional twist of sociopathic tendencies and a predatory attitude. They can't be "treated", or at least not in the sense which you mean.


In a socialist society there is no need to steal, but if someone did its possible they are kleptomaniac and can be treated to a certain degree. If not they are exiled, and don't have the opportunity to steal.I'm not sure how "exile" is supposed to work in a modern industrial society.


Look, people have been hanging, beheading and locking up criminals for thousands of years....

Still hasn't stopped crime.
Would you care to elaborate? Observing a correlation doesn't say very much in itself.

[Sadena Meti]

I'm not sure how "exile" is supposed to work in a modern industrial society.

Subsistence farming. There's plenty of land to give an exile 2 acres.

[ComradeMan]

Would you care to elaborate? Observing a correlation doesn't say very much in itself.

Well- it's quite obvious. Prison is like a bandaid- not a cure. But worse, it's often a bandaid that causes the wound to fester.

If you want to combat crime, seriously, then prison is not the answer.

[Bud Struggle]

If you want to combat crime, seriously, then prison is not the answer.

But ifr you want to get Sociopaths off of the street it works miracles.

[ComradeMan]

But ifr you want to get Sociopaths off of the street it works miracles.

Sure- but the real issue is why the sociopaths are on the streets in the first place.

If a child grows to be bad- whose fault is it really?

[Tim Finnegan]

Well- it's quite obvious. Prison is like a bandaid- not a cure. But worse, it's often a bandaid that causes the wound to fester.
Fair enough. I myself wouldn't argue any different, beyond observing that band aids are not useless in themselves.


If you want to combat crime, seriously, then prison is not the answer.
But if you want to lock up dangerous and anti-social people right now, which we kind of have to, we don't really have any non-lethal alternatives.

[Sadena Meti]

But if you want to lock up dangerous and anti-social people right now, which we kind of have to, we don't really have any non-lethal alternatives.

OK, think of lions in a zoo. They are locked up. But are they being punished? No, they are locked up because you can't have lions running around town.

There is an argument for confinement for safety, but it need not be punishment.

[Tim Finnegan]

OK, think of lions in a zoo. They are locked up. But are they being punished? No, they are locked up because you can't have lions running around town.

There is an argument for confinement for safety, but it need not be punishment.
Certainly; in fact, I'd say that the whole notion of retributive justice is fundamentally flawed. Imprisonment is, as far as I am concerned, a means to an end, not an end in itself.

[danyboy27]

Well, Sadena, nobody is really ''free'' you know, and even in a communist or socialist society you would be bound by a certain number of laws and restriction.

Living in society mean giving away many of your natural rights like killing, stealing, hurting other etc etc.

My father did some jail time and told me that he was somehow more free inside than he was outside beccause there he could reclaim many of his natural rights, he could maim, hurt and start a fight with anyone he wanted to, break everything he wanted to with a minimum of intervention from the outside. Sure there was punishement but it was, according to him, verry light in comparaison with what he could get away with.

if you decide to live in society, you got a set or right and priviledges, and if you decide to reclaim your ''natural'' rights, you have another set of priviledges, but no more rights.

Personally, i despise many of the current laws, but i think the concept of getting together to protect eachother back by giving up some natural rights is fine by me.

what is even more sadistic in the current system is that, the verry structure of capitalism make it appealing to retake our natural rights and create more havoc in society in general.

[RGacky3]

But ifr you want to get Sociopaths off of the street it works miracles.

And if you want to MAKE twice as many sociopaths it also works wonders.

the US prison system is a crime against humanity.

[danyboy27]

And if you want to MAKE twice as many sociopaths it also works wonders.

the US prison system is a crime against humanity.

Incarceration dosnt work if the cause of crime isnt fixed in the first damn place indeed.

Some individual must be locked up, to protect the person against himself and to protect other, it shouldnt be a mean to punish an individual.

There are just so many crime that really dosnt deserve that many time in jail.
Sociopath, psychopath, compulsive rapist and other mentally ill peoples, those are the folks who need to be locked up and be given every care and ressources necessary to help them.

i really dont understand why we lock up a car thief 2 year in jail, i really dont get it. if anything the guy need a job, he need a lot of help beccause he is the result of our collective failures.

[Sadena Meti]

Sociopath, psychopath, compulsive rapist and other mentally ill peoples, those are the folks who need to be locked up and be given every care and ressources necessary to help them.
That is the point that should be taken from this debate. Rehabilitation and Treatment, not Punishment.

Replace prisons with asylums.

[Viet Minh]

That is the point that should be taken from this debate. Rehabilitation and Treatment, not Punishment.

Replace prisons with asylums.

Yes I strongly agree .. but that won't work until we have equality in society. Some people don't have a proper chance for education, I doubt anyone has been motivated to go to jail as a sort of free university (except to earn a phd in housebreaking) but there is that imbalance. Someone suggested to me recently that prisons have higher standards of living than care hoes for the elderly, whilst I doubt that for many reasons it brings up a good question.

[Sadena Meti]

The tale of prison being a University of Crime is a myth in my experience. In the three years I was inside all I learned was the proper ways to cut drugs. Then again I did teach a few people a few things about improvised explosives.

[danyboy27]

The tale of prison being a University of Crime is a myth in my experience. In the three years I was inside all I learned was the proper ways to cut drugs. Then again I did teach a few people a few things about improvised explosives.


too much information..

[Viet Minh]

too much information..

Truedat, FBI don't get sarcasm. :unsure:

[RGacky3]

The tale of prison being a University of Crime is a myth in my experience. In the three years I was inside all I learned was the proper ways to cut drugs. Then again I did teach a few people a few things about improvised explosives.


Depends on the prison.