American Corrections System

>>2961766
>ITT: we brainstorm our own corrections systems
Hard to determine what's "too hypothetical/rose tinted" and what's not given the relatively pressing human element in the problem. What's the highest conceivable goal of a corrections system? 100% of prisoners being fully "rehabilitated"? Is that attainable? How much do you need to shave off of that percentage before it is?

>>2961766
Ex Public defender here, but also drinking, so coherence may be down real low.

At least in my experience, primary cases that involve incarceration are drug ones. Users outnumber dealers by over an order of magnitude; but the penalty system is such that dealers face the predominance of penalties.

That might seem fair (hell, it might be fair, I'm hardly the one to decide equities), but from a pure crime deterrence aspect, it's a terrible idea. Bounce dealers out of the system, prices spike, which attracts more people into the life of drug dealing. Meanwhile, the primary consumers stay on the market, because they get parole or slap on the wrist sentences, so the drug market stays active. And nobody wants to see the sort of surveillance to stop the problem from the other end.

Also, we really need to come up with a coherent theory of punishment. Is this to deter others? To rehabilitate criminals? Simply to express community outrage over an act? I've seen all three, but nobody really goes through and says what we do in regard to one (or all) of these theories, and as a result, we have a haphazard system that doesn't actually accomplish any of its stated goals.

>>2961766
Make the law much more strict, make people fear to broke the law, punishment should be made more severe
To save money, drug crimes got instant death penalty
Asian style

File: 1494363502778.jpg (72KB, 720x792px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 720x792px

All felons are sterilized. They have the option to keep sperm/eggs on file in case they're ever exonerated or have their rights legally reinstated.

People with low levels of education or income are offered one-time cash bonuses for voluntary sterilization.

Almost all non-violent felonies are punished by a decade or so of probation, during which time the offender has no legal protections from arrest, search, seizure, or surveillance.

If they commit another crime, the ankle bracelet tells you exactly where they went.

Legalize pot, introduce aggressive maintenance treatment for heroin, and put cocaine users in mental institutions.

Introduce a "Violent Criminal Organizations Act" by which people can be convicted and sentenced for belonging to a violent criminal organization regardless of their own personal culpability for any crime. Put anyone who admits to being in a street gang through the decade long ankle bracelet procedure.

Make prisons more like this documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBd5WhTi_CI

>>2961792
>>2961823
Won't work out in the west
It'll be called racist here

>>2961792
t. Ahmed al Saladin bin Muhammad Allahu Akbar al-Assad Abu al-Aladdin

>>2961823

in the longrun youd end up knocking some realy valuble traits out of the population, and the system youre conditioning for wont last forever, and then one day youd get fully domesticated and thenyoud be proper fucked, and there wouldnt be enough robots and biotech in the world to save you

look at the siberian fox experiment

>>2961766
Interesting thread

I would change many things, but of course they would never be accepted At the end of the day it all comes down to money anyways. That's why there's prison is offered instead of rehab, more money.

But just supposing I could make changes, they wouldn't be like this guys >>2961823

It would be more like

>Hard drugs are punishable by forced rehab at clinics actually trained for rehab. Not for getting you hooked on methadone. Jobs at this clinic are highly paid and sought after to keep smuggling down.

>Soft drugs like pot are not punishable, so long as it is not done in a public area.

>Max sentence for any crime is death or 25 years, no more draconian life sentences. It's stupid and a waste of tax money. If someone clearly fucked up bad enough to deserve life sentence, then they should be killed. If there's not enough evidence for a death sentence, then there isn't for life either. 25 years max.

>Prisons become more about rehab then punishment.

>Prisons are no longer contracted. They're run on a federal level with highly sought jobs. Any time caught smuggling or sleeping with a prisoner, you lose your job and barred from working prisons.

>Prosecutors are no longer protected. A big one here. Prosecutors are literally free to do whatever to convict someone and often have competitions with friends to see how many they can put away. Even when knowing the accused is innocent.

>Now any prosecutor who falsely imprisons someone (who later gets exonerated) will be punished the same amount of years as the prisoner and be barred from law.

>Introduce Common Sense Law - Which basically states use fucking common sense. Dont follow every law to the exact wording, use common sentence. There's no point in putting an 18 year old away for 20 years for banging his 17 year old consenting girlfriend.

>In any death case, if theres video evidence, DNA evidence, and two witnesses to the murder; execution is swift. No delays.

>>2963697
>>2961790

Only good posts in this thread.

My problem with the corrections system stems from the philosophy of the system which our public defender noted.

What is the purpose of our system? What it has evolved from was merely a system created to punish deeds that society or religion found to be inappropriate. Things like missing church on Sunday and kissing in public were punishable at times.

So our ultimate goal in law enforcement and corrections is to reduce the crime rate and ultimately make society safer for all. Well then it follows (in my eyes, using established philosophy) that rehabilitating criminals so that they do not re-offend is the way to do this. The other side of the same coin is to somehow homogenize the education of the people so that they do not become offenders.

This is kind of hard because everyone is different and has different motivations for the crimes they commit, so we'll stick with rehabilitating current prisoners.

The system in place in a mash up of rehab and punishment. My favorite examples are Sex Offenders (which many people will say to kill or castrate, etc) and Drug Offenses.

These offenses are so vilified because of our long standing tradition of intolerance, conservatism, and religion based morality.

Many sex offenders are not dangerous or violent, yet they are lumped together with those that are. The social repercussions of this are pretty visible. Incredibly high suicide rates, social stigma, inability to date/marry, and high unemployment rates. Why should somebody who mooned someone or a person who urinated in public be subjected to the same social punishment as someone who rapes and murders a 6yo girl?

As for drugs, I believe they should be decriminalized Portugal style. People use drugs to self medicate in general. Treat the underlying social problems and not the drug use and you may see a decline in drug issues.


We love to say we hate drugs, but we have the highest demand. We create our own problems