Why Scandanavian prisons are superior

[makattak]

Our prison systems seem to be about as successful as the war on drugs.  Doubling down on the failed policies of the past - longer, tougher prison sentences, harsher prisons, and such DO NOT WORK.  Prisoners come out of them even more maladapted for life in public society than they did going in.  

That seriously depends on your definition of "work." They certainly fail at rehabilitation and also at punishment and deterrence.

They do one thing well, though: what's the crime rate today?

Unfortunately, like so many other institutions that are papering over significant problems, I'm unsure how long we can continue to pay for warehousing criminals.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Prison does deter. While locked up you are deterred . And lack,of desire to go back has worked pretty well for me


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[Firethorn]

Prison does deter. While locked up you are deterred . And lack,of desire to go back has worked pretty well for me

Is there a story behind your 'lack of desire to go back'?  Did you work there, or were you actually there as a prisoner?  Like I said earlier - prisons deter those already most likely to follow the law anyways.   It's getting the next x% that requires different methods.

Otherwise, does it deter ~$30k worth?  A little steep for much of the petty stuff.  Oh, and $30k is on the cheap end.

Finally, for national, even state policies, we have to play by the statistics - what method(s) ensure the fewest come back.

They do one thing well, though: what's the crime rate today?

Look up the effects of leaded gasoline - it's a much better fit.  Also, many other countries manage to have comparable or lower crime rates with far fewer people in prison. 

What's the one thing they do well?  Generate worse, 'hardened', crimianls.

Unfortunately, like so many other institutions that are papering over significant problems, I'm unsure how long we can continue to pay for warehousing criminals.

My point.  It's cheaper to reform them so they don't have to be locked up.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I did 2 bits of note 248 days county 184 state. And about a dozen short vacations in 6 or 7 states of under 10 days.

The best thing I ever saw was work release. I think it should be required. But that's part of the rub. You would have to force about 85 % of the guys to do it.

Our system is screwed. I got more good time by not going to work release than I did when I went to work.
We have a system that releases folks at 1 minute after midnite who have no job no place to live and no family and then throw up oipur hands when they are right back inside.
I was in a place with just under 1000 folks and 32 work release spots. And the wait to get one was under 2 weeks.
We had guys 50 that were functionally illiterate and had never done their own laundry or filled out a job application. And were annoyed at having to learn

Our problem is cultural and the solution is cultural. And it's not the prison culture I am talking about


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[MicroBalrog]

Prison should be made as expensive and costly to the taxpayer as humanly possible.

51% of Americans will vote to imprison their fellow man for all sorts of silly reasons, and will elect politicians who gut the 4th Amendment for them. If it cost nothing to imprison men - let us imagine a perfect prison that cost $0 a year, perfectly paying for itself - would not the government then imprison thousands more?

Here in this very thread you have people discussing literal Soviet Gulags. It is not, mind you, the "mechanistic" crowd advocating them in this thread.

If it is not possible to keep a man from voting to imprison his fellow man over nonsense reason by appeals to his morality, I suggest that it is dangerous to make imprisoning people cheaper.

As such I support any and all policy - Scandinavian and otherwise - that will raise the cost of imprisonment, simply on account that there are too many people in prisons, too many prisons, and too many prison guards.

Yes, I have worked in a high-crime area and have been a victim of crimes (two violent crimes in the past year). I still think this.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

When you worked in those areas you did run home after work right? And home was?.
I remember a post reporter going to seat pleasant md and asking a man on the street about the latest police outrage.
" it's tuff on those streets and they have a tuff job. Need to do what they gotta do."
Then the post guy got in his car and went back to Chevy chase. And he wouldn't go to those apts after dark to cover the second coming


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[cassandra and sara's daddy]

At one time this state raised livestock and crops as well as operated prison industries to make the system more self supporting. He'll they made 11 million one year on just the states cut of the inmate phone call system


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[MicroBalrog]

When you worked in those areas you did run home after work right? And home was?.
I remember a post reporter going to seat pleasant md and asking a man on the street about the latest police outrage.
" it's tuff on those streets and they have a tuff job. Need to do what they gotta do."
Then the post guy got in his car and went back to Chevy chase. And he wouldn't go to those apts after dark to cover the second coming

That's pleasant.

I worked security, during the night.

(In fact that was how I came to be held at knifepoint.)

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I am often amused by the different attitudes help by those who visit the hood and those who live there


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[HankB]

Prison should be made as expensive and costly to the taxpayer as humanly possible.

51% of Americans will vote to imprison their fellow man for all sorts of silly reasons, and will elect politicians who gut the 4th Amendment for them. If it cost nothing to imprison men - let us imagine a perfect prison that cost $0 a year, perfectly paying for itself - would not the government then imprison thousands more?

Here in this very thread you have people discussing literal Soviet Gulags. It is not, mind you, the "mechanistic" crowd advocating them in this thread.

If it is not possible to keep a man from voting to imprison his fellow man over nonsense reason by appeals to his morality, I suggest that it is dangerous to make imprisoning people cheaper.

As such I support any and all policy - Scandinavian and otherwise - that will raise the cost of imprisonment, simply on account that there are too many people in prisons, too many prisons, and too many prison guards.

Yes, I have worked in a high-crime area and have been a victim of crimes (two violent crimes in the past year). I still think this.

I believe I introduced gulags into this thread . . . note that in my original post, I explicitly directed my comments towards warehousing the worst offenders (rapists, murderers, etc.). If you're not going to put them down, then I believe warehousing them at the lowest cost is desirable.

Many other offenses ought not mean prison at all - as one example, Martha Stewart was jailed for allegedly lying to government officials when she wasn't under oath. Yet government officials lie like crazy to the citizenry, with NO legal consequences. Then add in a long, long list of victimless crimes that send folks to prison. Something's not right here.

[White Horseradish]

Many other offenses ought not mean prison at all

Many offenses ought not be offenses.

[Jamisjockey]

\

Our problem is cultural and the solution is cultural. And it's not the prison culture I am talking about

QFT.  The criminal subset is stuck in this cycle by cultural decisions and norms in thier communities.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

And enabled by a variety of well intentioned fools.
And exploited by not so well intentioned politicians


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[MillCreek]

I have done some reading on this, and I am struck by how the justice-prison complex is such Big Business: everything from the political power of the California corrections officers union to privately-run prisons.  We have a lot of vested political and corporate interests in keeping the US prison system as is or expanding it.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Some small towns would die without the prison industry


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[MillCreek]

Some small towns would die without the prison industry


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Just like a lot of other states, the Washington Department of Corrections has put a lot of facilities into small, economically-depressed towns.  The people there welcome the facility and the jobs and money it pumps into the local economy.  In recent years, we have built facilities in the former logging towns, since much of the timber has gone away and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed.

[vaskidmark]

Remember that a fair-sized chunck of the expense of operating a lockup/jail/prison is in making sure that the inmates are not subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.  Even when it's been documented that when they were not incarcerated they remained in conditions that would have been unconstitutional if the government had imposed them/failed to correct them.

I have no beef with the 8th Amendment.  My beef is with how "cruel and unusual" has come to be defined.

stay safe.

[brimic]

Shame and pain are universal and universally understood motivators.

FTW.
Liberals think that running prisons like public schools will make the prisoners become good productive members of society.

I think I'm starting to see a few patterns emerge here....

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

The prisons I see do good work?  Boot camps, work camps


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[vaskidmark]

The prisons I see do good work?  Boot camps, work camps


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Have you studied the recidivism rate for boot camps?  Not good news.

By work camp do you mean the minimum security facility where inmates are taken on a daily basis to do stuff like roadside maintenance and public works (when civillians are not present) or do you mean work release facilities?

stay safe.

[Firethorn]

The prisons I see do good work?  Boot camps, work camps

As vaskidmark said, their actual success rate is much worse than what most perceive, and there's an unfortunate history of abuse entering the realm of torture, including death.

Besides, selection bias.  One of the first things I assume is that different criminals will respond best to different treatments.  Ergo the 'assessment' part when they are first introduced to the system.  Do they need education?  Do they need anti-gang treatments?  Do they need to be taught practical skills?  Do they really need psychological support/drugs*?  Do we need to work on building ethics into them?

edit:  Boot camps should work well for certain types of inmates, not all.

Also, reading about your time you would have been in jail, not prison, correct?  A very limited amount of time to do things there.  With a prison you're supposed to have at least a year to work on them, so I was concentrating on that side of the institution.  As I understand it the equation tends to flip in prison - jobs are highly sought after.

But yes, prisoners, of whatever duration, should be encouraged to work.  The issue becomes complicated for those accused but not convicted, held in lieu of bond. 

*A lot of our prisoners are 'actually' clinically mentally ill, not just some vague 'born out of mental illness' thing like I said earlier.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Boot camps are loaded with young kids. If you correct form the recidivism rate amongst the young bucks they do better. For most of em it's the first experience with discipline.

And work release is best but any job is better than no job. A guy that has a job when he hits the street is way ahead of the game.


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[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/689/a-multi-state-analysis-of-correctional-boot-camp-outcomes-identifying-vocational-rehabilitation-as-a-complement-to-shock-incarceration


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[roo_ster]

I am always amused and saddened by the Butterfield Effect response to questions incarceration and crime.

Butterfield is the eponym for "The Butterfield Effect", used to refer to a person who "makes a statement that is ludicrous on its face, yet it reveals what the speaker truly believes", especially if expressing a supposed paradox when a causal relationship should be obvious.[6] The particular article that sparked this was titled "More Inmates, Despite Drop In Crime" by Butterfield in the New York Times on November 8, 2004.

Kevin Drum and some lefties pounded the, uh, drum for the "lead caused the spike in crime" thesis for a while, but it was found lacking.  Sure, there was statistical correlation, but the lead levels of those who actually committed property crimes and murder showed no increased levels of lead in their system.  Yes, when one looks at the effects of lead, increased criminality sounds plausible.  It just did not pan out in the sample data for either the most heinous of crimes or property crimes.  So, what are we to believe, statistical correlation or empirical data?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/337398/lead-and-crime-jim-manzi

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tl;dr version:

What has brought crime down has been incarcerating those who commit a disproportionate number of crimes.

==========

Rehab, punishment, all that jazz fades in significance to the effect of reducing the rate of criminal predation on the citizenry.  Also, though I might be against the criminalization of recreational drugs, I don't lose sleep over those spending time in jail due to such convictions.  They are mostly loser criminals who commit other crimes as well.  In for dope or assault or theft or whatever.  As long as they are incarcerated, they are not harming solid citizens.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I am always amused and saddened by the Butterfield Effect response to questions incarceration and crime.

Kevin Drum and some lefties pounded the, uh, drum for the "lead caused the spike in crime" thesis for a while, but it was found lacking.  Sure, there was statistical correlation, but the lead levels of those who actually committed property crimes and murder showed no increased levels of lead in their system.  Yes, when one looks at the effects of lead, increased criminality sounds plausible.  It just did not pan out in the sample data for either the most heinous of crimes or property crimes.  So, what are we to believe, statistical correlation or empirical data?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/337398/lead-and-crime-jim-manzi

===========

tl;dr version:

What has brought crime down has been incarcerating those who commit a disproportionate number of crimes.

==========

Rehab, punishment, all that jazz fades in significance to the effect of reducing the rate of criminal predation on the citizenry.  Also, though I might be against the criminalization of recreational drugs, I don't lose sleep over those spending time in jail due to such convictions.  They are mostly loser criminals who commit other crimes as well.  In for dope or assault or theft or whatever.  As long as they are incarcerated, they are not harming solid citizens.

I have a friend he and I upset the bleeding hearts with our line
Jail saves lives

It's true
It makes the bleeding hearts lil heads spin round. It saved mine it saved his. It definitively prevented us from committing crimes and was instrumental in both of us deciding to abandon a live dedicated to better living through modern chemistry.
Having to be accountable to a parole officer further reined in our behavior. I can't help but look funny rapt the folks who look at me and try to tell me it doesn't


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