Debt to Society

Midna

I was thinking about this after an after hours thread.

Why do we lock people away in prison for x years, costing the taxpayer millions? Would sentancing someone to a monetary amount be unethical and violate human rights?

What if, for offences that merited prison time, people were sentanced in terms of an actual debt to society. In other words, instead of 5 years in prison, if you were sentanced to 150,000 euros worth of work earnings plus cost of imprisonment. Then have prison factories or services for the common good - making furniture or items for charities for instance.

Is it ethical? Is it too much like slavery? Shouldn't people forfeit some rights for their crimes?

jady88

I think it is a good idea and to balance things we could include training.

Clytus

Have to say OP...i like this thread.

I always figured that the primary reason we put people in prison is to remove them as a threat to our own peace and security. prison is not for thier benefit,but ours.

I dont feel the need for criminals to repay us ( the state) in any sort of financial manner for the crimes they commited....even the victims of crime are often compensated in some form or fashion.

Prison costs are well worth while and Id have no misgivings about the state spending even more money on the system. What we want is for these people to come out of prison rehabilitated,safe to rejoin society...not like what we have now,where young petty offenders go to prison and come out hardened criminals...and I think if we adopted a view like your suggesting OP it would make matters as they stand worse.

GuanYin

Clytus wrote: »

it would make matters as they stand worse.

Would it really though? I'd argue for the OP in that many of the "young thugs" you mention are that way because they have no sense of responsibility and never have.

Prisons, as they stand, are thought to be training camps for criminals and there are claims of luxury prison environments. If that was scrapped and the prisoners were given a responsibility - that is, they can no longer just sit our their prison term or aim for early release, they now have to work for their freedom, earn their freedom, they have to account for their actions - then maybe this would benefit them?

Riann

PSI: Las Vegas wrote: »

Would it really though? I'd argue for the OP in that many of the "young thugs" you mention are that way because they have no sense of responsibility and never have.

Prisons, as they stand, are thought to be training camps for criminals and there are claims of luxury prison environments. If that was scrapped and the prisoners were given a responsibility - that is, they can no longer just sit our their prison term or aim for early release, they now have to work for their freedom, earn their freedom, they have to account for their actions - then maybe this would benefit them?

I agree with this. Obviously they have no real appreciation for freedom to being with, otherwise they would take caution not to threaten their own or other's freedom, and thus by having it taken away and being required to earn it back they might just learn something.

merrionsq

Clytus wrote: »

like what we have now,where young petty offenders go to prison and come out hardened criminals...and I think if we adopted a view like your suggesting OP it would make matters as they stand worse.

The main reason people come out of prison hardened criminals is by associating with other criminals. How about putting badly behaved prisoners into very small solitary confinement cells. There's no criminality or drugs to be had there. It would also give them an incentive to behave better, in order to get back into the comparative luxury if a regular cell. And from there back into the real world. Similarly, if prison is so expensive to the taxpayer, can problem prisoners be put into cheaper facilities, with the option of going back to a normal cell for good behaviour?

The idea of tackling crime itself, but also the causes of crime sounds like a cliche, but is the right idea. However, the "cause" is a long-term project. In the short term we need prisons simply to protect society from dangerous people. Look at the kid in Drimnagh who had all the previous convictions...

LaVidaLoca

Using inmates to work in call centres, factiories etc.

The problem is , once you give somebody a job like this to do, they are creating things of value. Once they are creating things of value there is a financial incentive to put more people into this program, as somebody will want to profit from this pool of cheap (free) labour.

This will lead to a distortion of the justice system as it has in America, as there is now loads of private companies that have a vested interest in putting people in prison.

RedPlanet

i agree with LaVidaLoca.
But would like to add that it's also anti-competitive.
There are private companies already inexistence that provide these services and products. It would be unfair of the state to muscle-in to these markets using free labour.

Dades

RedPlanet wrote: »

There are private companies already inexistence that provide these services and products. It would be unfair of the state to muscle-in to these markets using free labour.

There's an obvious solution to that. Privatise the prisons!

That way a detainee's standard of living would be directly proportional to their contribution to the "employer" - just like in real life™.

seamus

RedPlanet wrote: »

i agree with LaVidaLoca.
But would like to add that it's also anti-competitive.
There are private companies already inexistence that provide these services and products. It would be unfair of the state to muscle-in to these markets using free labour.

Well this is the main problem. In the states, the stereotypical inmate work you see is stuff that doesn't necessarily generate any products of value - so cleaning roadsides, making licence plates and so forth.

There is a tonne of government-only work that if given to inmates, wouldn't kill the market for legitimate private companies. The main problem is that government-only work tends to give people access to privileged information.

It would definitely be possible and perfectly ethical (IMO) to have inmates perform cheap labour tasks, providing goods of worth to the market. However, sale of these goods would need to be tightly controlled. They would need to be sold at a comparable market price*, not advertised and destroyed when they are not selling or go past their marketable date.

Inmates would be "paid" for their work at least at minimum wage. A fixed cost of their accomodation would be deducted from this wage, based on the cost of renting a one-bed apartment in Dublin and paying for your own food, heat and light. Any savings would be placed into a Government-bonded account, and released to the inmate when they complete their full sentence (included any suspended time). They could also have the option to give all or a portion of their excess income to a spouse or child. Under no circumstances would they be allowed to spend their excess income.

On-the-job training would of course be given, with the ability to be "promoted" (at the same wage) to different departments, such as IT or Sales and so on.
Employees who underperform would have their wage reduced, employees who perform well would get perks such as an extra 15 minutes for lunch or a half-day on Fridays.

Assuming that the products sell well, then the cost to the Government should be minimal. It may even put money back into Government coffers.

*Depending on the product, there would be hesitance to buy stuff made by criminals, so you would probably need some form of discount to encourage sales

Midna

seamus wrote: »

Depending on the product, there would be hesitance to buy stuff made by criminals, so you would probably need some form of discount to encourage sales[/size]

When I J1'd the company I worked for bought all its office chairs from prison factories - chairs were pretty comfy I must say, although being about 1/4 the size of the average american I swam in them a bit.

What I'd really prefer to see is a deby to society paid. The inmates shouldn't be paid at all, I'd like to see them work gratis and the products of their work be aimed at charities. maybe have them launder or repair clothing for homeless/poor families or make furinture for shelters or orphanages or if they did sell some things, have the profits go to buying food to feed the homeless.

basically their work should be to better society.

Midna

Midna wrote: »

Would sentancing someone to a monetary amount be unethical and violate human rights?

Yes, this would be fundamentally contrary to the justice system. Requiring guilty parties to pay off their debts creates monumental inequalities within the system. For those who can pay up front it means they will ostensibly remove themselves from the rule of law, returning us to a wehrgeld system of law. For those too old or infirmed to work it will mean crimes could take on a life sentence. Those with skills which will aid them in gaining "promotions" (as Seamus suggests) will be at a distinct advantage.

Removal of liberty is the greatest punishment a person can undergo. Those people who are serial offenders do not become that person while in prison. The root of their problem comes from a disconnect with the society which imprisons them, a failure to feel like a stakeholder in a better society. The risk/reward ratio for them is too heavily stacked toward the latter side because within their social group the stigma of their actions will not be so immense as to act as a disincentive to the crime.

Prison is a Victorian answer to a problem which is social in nature. It requires an answer that comes far before the prison wall.

seamus

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, this would be fundamentally contrary to the justice system. Requiring guilty parties to pay off their debts creates monumental inequalities within the system. For those who can pay up front it means they will ostensibly remove themselves from the rule of law, returning us to a wehrgeld system of law. For those too old or infirmed to work it will mean crimes could take on a life sentence. Those with skills which will aid them in gaining "promotions" (as Seamus suggests) will be at a distinct advantage.

I agree completely. I would never support a system that puts a monetary value on a debt to society.
By "promotions" I mean that people get moved into different roles based on the skills they've learned. Those who are promoted would never be in a position of authority, nor receive more money than their colleagues. However, the different type of work would provide them with some necessary skills for life outside or prision (social and labour skills).

Prison is a Victorian answer to a problem which is social in nature. It requires an answer that comes far before the prison wall.

Ideally, yes. I don't think we'll ever be in a position however where we won't need prisons to segregate people who've commited more serious crimes.

What I suggest attempts to counteract the social problems, after the individual enters the prison.

That is, they're provided with training, routine and other social skills which they may have missed out on in normal life.
Their freedom is still curbed, which continues to press on them the graveness of their crime.
When they've served their sentence, they should have accumulated a decent sum of cash to get them started. Kicking someone out of prison after five years of having no training, only contact with other criminals and signed onto the dole can only end up one way.
You could also freeze/seize their accumulated cash if they end up in court again while on probation as an incentive against committing crimes when they leave.

seamus

seamus wrote: »

Ideally, yes. I don't think we'll ever be in a position however where we won't need prisons to segregate people who've commited more serious crimes.

I disike the use of the term "ideally" in any discussion as it serves to dismiss the other sides argument without addressing it.

Prison is a final resort. The problem is that it is currently also the only resort. I agree that prison would be the only real place for people who commit serious crimes, but a glance at the research on serious crimes shows a wide diversity of offenders. The prisons are not crowded with murderers and rapists. They are, however, crowded with drug dealers (petty ones mind) and drug takers who commit crimes such as theft, assault, etc to feed those habits. These crimes can be stopped at an earlier stage. They have root causes that can be dealt with much earlier than the intervention of the Gardai. Yes, ideally this is how things should be done, but surely we should all strive for the ideal?

Dades

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, ideally this is how things should be done, but surely we should all strive for the ideal?

Yes, but while people strive for the ideal, issues that exist in the pre-ideal world have to be dealt with.

Laying the foundations of a social center for underprivileged children isn't going to change the fact that we have a large number of current offenders within the system, and will have for the foreseeable future.

dr_manhattan

Heh... all I can think is that it can't have any worse effect than prison has ;-)

The reason prison labour is no longer used is because it's inhuman and as has already been pointed out it is vulnerable to massive abuse for profit.

Heh... kinda like private prisons...

However, community service - especially where criminals have to work with, associate with or redress damage done to victims of the kind of crimes they have committed, apparently produces huge results in terms of people not re-offending.

Obviously though, it depends on the crime. Violent crime is the problem: can you really manage to have rapists working near rape victims or violent people working in casualty?

Perhaps the thing to do is to establish large state parks dedicated to victims of violent crime, and filled with material relating to this. Violent criminals would have to work on these parks.... okay maybe that's a stupid idea.

But I don't think that criminals are the only ones that need to be re-educated about crime.

I saw a documentary once where victims were shown how criminals re-offend heavily after prison, but the re-offence rates drop off sharply if community service is applied in such a way as to educate them.

The question as put to them: this means that nobody else would have to suffer the crime that was committed on you. You could spare countless other people what you've been through.

Overwhelmingly, the victims chose prison anyway. Their reason? They wanted the perpetrator to suffer, and community service just seemed too easy, and too beneficial to them.

So in otherwords, most victims prefer revenge to justice.

You could argue that that's one of the root problems that causes violent crime in the first place. I know from criminals I've associated with, the more they receive the harder they get. I've never known or heard of anyone who didn't come out of prison a psychological mess, and then re-offend.

my 2 cents.