Prison system

[Beeth]

I know, as leftists, we must be against the prison system. We must instead try and rehabilitate the criminals. But what of taliban and other psychopaths who aren't motivated by any logic - sadistic people who simply enjoy killing? Even if they have a reason, religious or otherwise, their actions may be so wicked that you wonder whether they can be rehabilitated at all. They may be so animal-like in their behavior that normal human approaches may not work with them.

How would you deal with this? Must we therefore have one system for these folks, and another for the mainstream?

[Rational Radical]

I know, as leftists, we must be against the prison system. We must instead try and rehabilitate the criminals. But what of taliban and other psychopaths who aren't motivated by any logic - sadistic people who simply enjoy killing? Even if they have a reason, religious or otherwise, their actions may be so wicked that you wonder whether they can be rehabilitated at all. They may be so animal-like in their behavior that normal human approaches may not work with them.

How would you deal with this? Must we therefore have one system for these folks, and another for the mainstream?
we eliminate the conditions that create them,which of the taliban is mostly a reaction to US foreign policy and religious fanaticism.

[#FF0000]

They may be so animal-like in their behavior that normal human approaches may not work with them.

Er, being a psychopath doesn't make one "animal-like".

I think it's pretty simple, though. Rehabilitate who you can, and simply separate people who you can't.

[Profunc]

This is a very simple answer, as the previous two comrades have said: eliminate the conditions that are causing people to be like that, and separate those at fault.

Don't treat them any less human if you take away more of their freedoms. That will only further destroy their concept of reality.

In some cases, once these conditions are gone, the prisoner-in-question would have no motivation to continue committing those "crimes". In other cases, the prisoners may have to spend the rest of their young life in prison, although they may eventually be ready to be transferred back to regular interment.

And hopefully, in the future, without the pre-existing conditions, nobody else would commit the type of crimes-in-question.

[Beeth]

Er, being a psychopath doesn't make one "animal-like".

I think it's pretty simple, though. Rehabilitate who you can, and simply separate people who you can't.

You're right. The taliban are angels.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

You're right. The taliban are angels.

Please explain how what #FF0000 said lead you to that conclusion.

[Beeth]

Please explain how what #FF0000 said lead you to that conclusion.

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.

[#FF0000]

You're right. The taliban are angels.

I mean, since I already know you're stupid I'm not really surprised that your scale runs from "Angel" to "Sub human bestial filth" with nothing in between.


If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities. You're framing them as people who do the things they do for literally no reason other than to do them, which is false no matter what you think of their silly ideas. They're people who act for a reason -- in this case being their ideology. Not saying this to be like "oh but they are misunderstood" or anything like that. They're wrong and the things they do that stem from that are wrong. That is just how they operate and to say otherwise is pretty foolish (par for the course for you but yeah)

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.

Beeth, you're not looking at the bigger picture here. The Taliban are, whether any of us like it or not, a part of the human race.
They are subject to the same emotions as everyone else, the same needs as everyone else and the same exploitation as everyone else.
At the end of the day, a complex system put them in that situation and we need to stop that system, because if we don't then we'll be stuck in a cycle of miserable exploitation forever more. Bleak isn't it?

Channel your energy into understanding the bigger picture, maybe doing that will help relieve you of your anger as you realise that the Taliban are a mere symptom of a larger disease. Then we can talk politically without emotionally derived false dichotomies.

On the subject of prisons, once you eradicate the issue that creates criminals then the number of prisons will be next to zero, not reaching zero until we can contain those who are unstable in order to let them live out their lives as peacefully as possible. Once the remnants have gone, the old mentality will have been swept away along with the bourgeoisie and what have you.

Also can I add that focussing on anything post-revolution isn't really productive because we can't predict when it will take place. What we can do however is look to the present and the near future because it is this period where what we say and do has the most effect.

[Red Enemy]

Is it Norway that has the more humane rehabilitation/prison idea. Where they help murders get educated, get jobs, etc. all with counseling? I remember seeing that somewhere, perhaps a Michael More documentary.

[#FF0000]

yeah that's Norway you're thinking of, with some of the lowest recidivism and crime rates in the world.

[LOLseph Stalin]

You're framing them as people who do the things they do for literally no reason other than to do them, which is false no matter what you think of their silly ideas. They're people who act for a reason -- in this case being their ideology. Not saying this to be like "oh but they are misunderstood" or anything like that. They're wrong and the things they do that stem from that are wrong. That is just how they operate and to say otherwise is pretty foolish (par for the course for you but yeah)

As has already been mentioned in this thread the Taliban are also a product of US imperialism. Eliminate that and I'm sure such groups would no longer pop up. So yea, nobody here was even suggesting the Taliban are angels. I think you're looking at this too black and white.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.

No doubt there are those among the Taliban who take advantage of the situation to satisfy their own sadistic lusts. But it would be a mistake to characterise the entire Taliban in this manner, since that would ignore the reasons why they came to being in the first place.

[#FF0000]

As has already been mentioned in this thread the Taliban are also a product of US imperialism. Eliminate that and I'm sure such groups would no longer pop up. So yea, nobody here was even suggesting the Taliban are angels. I think you're looking at this too black and white.

You sure you meant to quote me, here?


No doubt there are those among the Taliban who take advantage of the situation to satisfy their own sadistic lusts.

I think the majority of people who join the police or military or engage in violence for any reason are, at some level doing it for that reason as well. There's really nothing more human than unfathomable brutality and cruelty.

[MarxArchist]

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.
I didn't know the The US Department Of State was the Taliban. Oh wait- they kinda are:

kYvO3qAlyTg

[Althusser]

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.

They are human beings. They reflect their material conditions. They are a reaction to imperialism. They are a product of religious fundamentalism and idealism.

[Lowtech]

I know, as leftists, we must be against the prison system. We must instead try and rehabilitate the criminals. But what of taliban and other psychopaths who aren't motivated by any logic

their only tie to 9/11 is a video confession.

a web page attempting to debunk this fact is laughable.
http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Connecting_bin_Laden_to_9-11

releasing the video accomplished exactly what it needed to, creating racist bias against middle eastern groups so that the population would not oppose a war.

to qoute that above page:

"So, the FBI tell us that the "no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11" comment "does not accurately explain the situation", while Watson explained long ago that "The evidence linking al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable". We're still trying to get them to address the Haas account more definitively, but even now it's plain that the FBI do believe that the evidence clearly points to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as being responsible for 9/11."

apparently, choosing to take the FBI at their word is enough to satisfy all unanswered questions regarding 9/11 :laugh:...that page parodies itself.

EDIT: and more LMAOOOO

"In his original article Haas speculates that, if the FBI believe there's "no hard evidence" connecting bin Laden to 9/11, then that may cast doubt on the 2001 "confession tape".
This idea is significantly undermined by the fact that, as we've seen, the FBI have discredited the original "no hard evidence" comment by saying it "does not accurately explain the situation".
And notably even Ed Haas later came to believe that the tape was genuine (archive.org version). Presumably he either discarded the "no hard evidence" comment, or (more likely) simply decided this wasn't a substantial reason to believe the tape was faked, after all."

a comment discredits another comment LOL apparently, by default we are to assume the Taliban is behind 9/11 without any evidence. and out of patriotism, must assume all military actions by the US are legitimate because we are "the greatest country on earth and we can do no wrong." comical.

[MP5]

Well i don't think we can lump in Islamic-Fascists such as the Taliban with the general prison population to say the least. I know alot of people in prison and most of them are there because of crimes such as drug possession, drug trafficking or the violence that results from having to settle disputes in a unregulated industry where the only means of getting your money back or making sure know one else tries the same thing again on you is through violent retaliation. These are all crimes with Socio-economic based factors because when you live in a ghetto and are as poor as dirt and you see no viable way out dealing drugs sure looks like a much better option then killing yourself in some dead end job where you are treated like a slave. Anyone who says that dealing drugs is a easy job obviously knows nothing about it because i have heard that it is one of the most nerve racking, dangerous and exhausting ways of making money that there is. I don't believe in making money off of other peoples misery but until society finally advances enough to legalize drugs there will always be people desperate enough to meet the demand.

The Taliban on the other hand are driven by a Islamic-Fascist ideology to stone women to death for the awful crime of walking outside their house without their husband or male relative, think nothing of blowing up a school full of very young girls because they are infidels who have the nerve to want to learn how to read, beat people to death in the middle of the street for wearing western clothing or the heinous crime of cutting their beard or literally crucify people for praying to the wrong sect of their god.

Some people would say that the Taliban and groups like them are the sole result of Socio-economic factors but i would have to say that is a vast oversimplification of things. Even if these people had everything they needed to live they would still hold these outrageous fundamentalist backwards attitudes. They are essentially cogs in the machinery of evolution.

[Lowtech]

Well i don't think we can lump in Islamic-Fascists such as the Taliban with the general prison population to say the least. western prisons are inhumane. and advocating them above education and social restructuring is a barbaric and uneducated attitude. an attitude that says "with enough concrete walls, shock collars and guards, what else would society need?"
I know alot of people in prison and most of them are there because of crimes such as drug possession, drug trafficking or the violence that results from having to settle disputes in a unregulated industry where the only means of getting your money back or making sure know one else tries the same thing again on you is through violent retaliation. These are all crimes with Socio-economic based factors because when you live in a ghetto and are as poor as dirt and you see no viable way out dealing drugs sure looks like a much better option then killing yourself in some dead end job where you are treated like a slave.there is a lot of truth here. capitalism does give exchange value to all crime, drugs especially.
Anyone who says that dealing drugs is a easy job obviously knows nothing about it because i have heard that it is one of the most nerve racking, dangerous and exhausting ways of making money that there is. I don't believe in making money off of other peoples misery but until society finally advances enough to legalize drugs there will always be people desperate enough to meet the demand.i agree, but legalization isn't enough, abolishing capitalism is necessary as well.
The Taliban on the other hand are driven by a Islamic-Fascist ideology to stone women to death for the awful crime of walking outside their house without their husband or male relative, think nothing of blowing up a school full of very young girls because they are infidels who have the nerve to want to learn how to read, beat people to death in the middle of the street for wearing western clothing or the heinous crime of cutting their beard or literally crucify people for praying to the wrong sect of their god.they are not the only religious extremists. christianity is notorious for crimes just as heinous
Some people would say that the Taliban and groups like them are the sole result of Socio-economic factors but i would have to say that is a vast oversimplification of things.this forum is the wrong place to make such an uneducated comment, political economy underpins everything that goes on in our world. its surely not an excuse for such behavior, but capitalism causes enough of it that ignoring economics and shoving more people into prison won't ever fix anything.
Even if these people had everything they needed to live they would still hold these outrageous fundamentalist backwards attitudes. They are essentially cogs in the machinery of evolution.you're looking upon people after the effects of perverted economics and blowback from the US's heinous foreign policy. you can be racist if you wish, you don't need to fabricate a rationale.

[Riveraxis]

I know, as leftists, we must be against the prison system. We must instead try and rehabilitate the criminals. But what of taliban and other psychopaths who aren't motivated by any logic - sadistic people who simply enjoy killing? Even if they have a reason, religious or otherwise, their actions may be so wicked that you wonder whether they can be rehabilitated at all. They may be so animal-like in their behavior that normal human approaches may not work with them.

How would you deal with this? Must we therefore have one system for these folks, and another for the mainstream?


"One system for you, another system for me." Isn't socialism, no matter how efficient it is.
I believe in rehabilitating criminals but that's obviously not always a possibility. I think isolation is a good alternative. Just stop trading with them. What are they going to do? Grow their own food, make their own clothes, generate their own energy, and build their own house? I doubt it.

[Taters]

"One system for you, another system for me." Isn't socialism, no matter how efficient it is.
I believe in rehabilitating criminals but that's obviously not always a possibility. I think isolation is a good alternative. Just stop trading with them. What are they going to do? Grow their own food, make their own clothes, generate their own energy, and build their own house? I doubt it.

How would people know to "stop trading" with them? Couldn't they just relocate?

[Riveraxis]

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.

You're wrong. The Taliban do not just enjoy torturing and murdering people. They are reacting to millenniums of oppression. They will torture and kill westerners because they have no sympathy for them. But how can you expect them to?
Do you think they'd give a sh*t about any of us if our troops weren't torturing and killing them on a daily basis? I really don't.

[c0z]

Do you guys think Ted Bundy was a product of US imperialism? Andrei Chikatilo?

[#FF0000]

You're wrong. The Taliban do not just enjoy torturing and murdering people. They are reacting to millenniums of oppression. They will torture and kill westerners because they have no sympathy for them. But how can you expect them to?
Do you think they'd give a sh*t about any of us if our troops weren't torturing and killing them on a daily basis? I really don't.

This is wrong too.

1) the Taliban is more like, uh, 30 years old.
2) They're Islamic fundamentalists who got their start opposing the (nominally) communist government in Afghanistan
3) They got power in the first place because of American intervention in Afghanistan in the first place.

[Kindness]

Do you guys think Ted Bundy was a product of US imperialism? Andrei Chikatilo?

No, they were simply lone psychopaths. Such people, sadly, will always exist.

[BIXX]

One thing I have to ask is what you all feel we should do with rapists? I personally am on the fence about them, cause personally, it's the one area where I wouldn't see it being necessarily wrong for them to be executed, due to a deep rooted hatred of them (as we should all have, even if the reactions to them aren't the same) but politically I feel they should be rehabilitated. But then I get to the point where I realize that I know I could end up living near one and the meet thought of that disgusts me...

On the note of the small percentage of mentally ill individuals who are inclined toward homocide who somehow no one noticed was mentally ill so they couldn't get the help they needed, what do we do? I'm sure there'd be a few out there who couldn't be rehabilitated, but I don't feel it's right to punish them for something they couldn't help.

[slum]

One thing I have to ask is what you all feel we should do with rapists? I personally am on the fence about them, cause personally, it's the one area where I wouldn't see it being necessarily wrong for them to be executed, due to a deep rooted hatred of them (as we should all have, even if the reactions to them aren't the same) but politically I feel they should be rehabilitated. But then I get to the point where I realize that I know I could end up living near one and the meet thought of that disgusts me...

You probably already live near a rapist, or several. Rape is under-reported and rarely prosecuted, and even if a rapist gets jail time it is generally minimal. Many rapists don't consider their assaults to be rape, either.

As a survivor I also struggle with this problem because my gut reaction towards men who commit sexual assault is not logical. But if we view rape, and men's feeling of entitlement towards women's bodies, as a result of sexism, and if we believe sexism is an oppression born out of the invention of private, inheritable property (see Engels), then a communist society would lead to the dying out of misogyny and hopefully rape as well.

I am skeptical about this, but I won't (and can't) make an argument that men would victimize women outside of a patriarchal society- there's no way to prove or disprove that until such a society (re?)emerges.



On the note of the small percentage of mentally ill individuals who are inclined toward homocide who somehow no one noticed was mentally ill so they couldn't get the help they needed, what do we do? I'm sure there'd be a few out there who couldn't be rehabilitated, but I don't feel it's right to punish them for something they couldn't help.

As a rule people don't murder other people because they are 'mentally ill'- the mentally ill are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators. This question seems odd to me.

[Jimmie Higgins]

One thing I have to ask is what you all feel we should do with rapists? I personally am on the fence about them, cause personally, it's the one area where I wouldn't see it being necessarily wrong for them to be executed, due to a deep rooted hatred of them (as we should all have, even if the reactions to them aren't the same) but politically I feel they should be rehabilitated. But then I get to the point where I realize that I know I could end up living near one and the meet thought of that disgusts me...

On the note of the small percentage of mentally ill individuals who are inclined toward homocide who somehow no one noticed was mentally ill so they couldn't get the help they needed, what do we do? I'm sure there'd be a few out there who couldn't be rehabilitated, but I don't feel it's right to punish them for something they couldn't help.Rather than react to many of these social issues, I think people would want to try and prevent them. Most rapes are date-rapes or rape by someone they know, so changing cultural attitudes about sex would probably do a lot more than inprisonment, in fact a culture where people know what rape is and can shame rapists or people who have unhealthy sexual attitudes towards other people would probably go a long way. In a society where people support eachother and have solidarity rather than live autonomous lives between work and home, then if someon tried to force themself on you, they might fear that all the neighbors are going to kick their ass the next day.

But in general if someone really can't help themselves and is a danger to other people, some compulsion to murder or being severely disfunctional in some way, then they probably would have had care before it really became an issue. In a society where your worth isn't based on how fit for the market you are, then there would be less stigma about people with these sorts of rare but severe emotional or mental problems. People could be cared for in a safe environment and allowed given the ability to lead a regular life as much as they could. Capitalism creates a lot of the "disturbed" behavior we see on a daily basis and it's also not very good at dealing with it since it doesn't want to spend resources dealing with the problem much beyond making sure that society still functions.

[TomHPMc]

The prison system does nothing to aid society, they are over-flowing and convicts who go in for minor crimes often end up returning on much more serious charges. Without wishing to seem redundant (as most previous posts have already covered this), the conditions that create crinimality are what we should be targeting.

Also: try and hunt this down Emma Goldman's 'Anarchism and Other Essays'. Her essay on the fundamental flaws of the prison system hasn't dated at all and is one of the best I've read on the subject.

[MP5]

i agree, but legalization isn't enough, abolishing capitalism is necessary as well I kind of thought that went without saying really. You are right of course. If we legalized every drug tomorrow we would still be left with the major underlying cause of what drives people to drugs and drink in the first place which is the misery imposed upon us by Capitalist society.

.
they are not the only religious extremists. christianity is notorious for crimes just as heinousthisI certainly never claimed that they where. There have been just as many crimes committed in the name of Christianity as Islam. The Orange Order being a fairly recent example of a fanatical Christian organization that was more or less founded upon sectarianism and still fuels it to this day in Ireland, The UK and even some parts of Canada. Christian and Islamic fundamentalism are more or less of the same bullshit anyway.


forum is the wrong place to make such an uneducated comment, political economy underpins everything that goes on in our world. its surely not an excuse for such behavior, but capitalism causes enough of it that ignoring economics and shoving more people into prison won't ever fix anything Yes Capitalism drives alot of people into the arms of Islamic fundamentalism but i have a feeling that they along with other religious fundamentalists and your average Petite bourgeois reactionary would all be fighting us side by side with the bourgeois if a Communist revolution where to happen. The people who are Islamic-fascists just like the Clerical-Fascists would certainly not take too kindly to Socialists of any stripe telling them that stoning women to death and such was no longer acceptable behavior. While it may very well die out after a few years under Communism we would most likely have to kill off these nut jobs that are left in the mean time.


you're looking upon people after the effects of perverted economics and blowback from the US's heinous foreign policy. you can be racist if you wish, you don't need to fabricate a rationale. So if i don't agree that we should cut the atrocious behavior of Islamic fanatics some slack because they have suffered at the hands of imperialism then i am racist? These people are not the PLO or even Hamas or Hezbollah they are radicals driven by religion and nothing else. Islam is their ideology and if disagreeing with their right to stone women to death makes me a racist then by all means call me a racist as much as you want. Too bad most Arabs, Persians and other people Ive met from the middle east would disagree with you as well. I was always a PLO supporter and i still support the right of the Palestinian people to liberate themselves from the imperialist state of Israel. But there is certainly nothing liberating or anti-imperialist about the likes of the Taliban. What is imposing your religious beliefs on a population and enforcing them with brutal force if not imperialism? I certainly have absolutely nothing against anyones ethnic background but i dislike all religion equally especially fundamentalism.

[Rafiq]

If the taliban (and the like) are not beastly creatures, then what are they? We are not talking here of people who steal or commit some crime owing to material conditions. We are talking about people who literally enjoy torture and such diabolical activities.

and why do the taliban exist? what conditions necessiated or even opened up the social dimensional space for something like the taliban to come out into existence? 'free will'? out of your ass?

sadism is a mental condition. it is not a distinguishable or unique characteristic of the taliban, they are not distinguished because some 'enjoy inflicting pain on others' but because of their bizarre and extremely reactionary religious fundamentalism. please stop posting.

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